Technology360

Mesh Networks: Wireless, but Reliable

... a new kind of network—the mesh network—is promising both ease of installation and reliability. A wireless mesh network builds itself—you put the nodes in place, and they form a network and start sending data. If some nodes fail for any reason, the network can even "heal" itself and keep working. Some real-world applications of wireless mesh networks have taken only hours to install and have operated with a reliability of essentially 100%. ... Link: TechOnLine. Thanks to Ralph Hogan for the tip. -- Dennis

Radio Recording For The PC

I've posted on this before, but Arik Hesseldahl's review of the RadioShark is interesting.  Summary: Not there yet. --Dennis. "I've always loved radio. I guess I should qualify that. I've always loved listening to public radio. ¶ I was 11 years old when National Public Radio aired a serialized version of George Lucas's Star Wars adapted as a radio play. Star Wars gave way to The Hitchiker's Guide To The Galaxy which took over the same time slot... ¶ Perhaps this was part of some programming executive's devious plan, but that half-hour every Saturday morning in the early 1980s made me a public radio listener for life. ¶ And each week, I was not only listening, but recording, using the tape deck in my first stereo. A gift I received over the holidays triggered these memories: The RadioShark from Griffin Technology. ..." Link: Forbes.com.

Consumer electronics giants agree on digital rights management

The world's four giants in consumer electronics have agreed to adopt a common method of digital rights management (DRM). The deal opens the way for copy protected music and video to play across devices from any manufacturer. ¶ The companies - Sony, Matsushita (Panasonic), Samsung and Philips - have formed the Marlin Joint Development Association (Marlin JDA) in order to establish a common standard for playing 'appropriately licensed video and music on any device'. ... Link: PC Pro.

Podcasting: update on one broadcaster's experience

Among other things, I'm general manager of the Northwest Public Radio group owned by Washington State University. We have two programmed networks, one with eight stations, the other with five. We were an early broadcast podcaster. Today, I was interviewed about podcasting by two different national newspapers so I took the opportunity to look at our webstats for the first time since Thanksgiving. When last I checked, we'd been podcasting [RSS] local news stories produced by two reporters here and by several others in the Northwest News Network consortium for about three weeks. When last I checked, the RSS page was already in third place among our site's pages, though a distant one. Since we'd done zero on-air promotion of it (do not know if any was done by our partner stations), I was pleased.

Today (that is, for 1/20/05), it was still in third place but it was a close third and over the past week it wsa actually in first place -- the three top page requests being for our home page, our live streaming page, and the RSS page. So RSS is definitely a "phenom" and since we've done nothing to promote it among our core listeners, it must be expanding our listeners.

Overall, if "page requests" is in any way analogous to "cume" (I suspect it measures counts multiple visits in the time period by the same person multiple times; cume doesn't), it's still a small number -- about 4% of our weekly cumulative audience -- but the trendline is amazing.  Another caution about these webstats is that it counts news reader bots and doesn't count people who use only the RSS feed but don't visit the web site. --Dennis

Internet Accessible Device Annual Shipments Headed Past 1 Billion

With Internet access being a feature of more and more consumer products such as cellphones and TV set-top boxes, the market for Internet access devices will continue to grow strongly over the next several years, reports In-Stat. Shipments of these devices, which include desktop and notebook PCs, PDAs, and numerous other devices, are expected to rise from about 791 million units in 2004 to over 1 billion units in 2008. In-Stat also believes that in the coming years, some of these product segments will face increased competition from each other, as device functionality converges. Some of these products may evolve into something else as technology advances. ¶ A recent report by the high-tech market research firm found the following: • The market for Internet access devices is forecasted to grow at an overall annual rate of 11.3 %, in terms of units. • In the personal computing segment: Notebook growth will be nearly twice that of the desktop PC market. • Internet-capable set top boxes (those with integrated modems), especially PVRs, are experiencing high growth. This year, growth will surpass 130% for PVRs. • Internet-capable mobile phones (which include smartphones) are being offered in a variety of forms and will reach about 591 million this year. Wi-Fi, hard drives and VoIP represent significant opportunities in this segment in the coming years. ... In-Stat press release.

The Coming DVD Format War

... The advent of Blu-ray and HD DVD may give rise to a format war reminiscent of the Betamax-VHS contest in the early days of videocassette recorders. At stake are potentially billions of dollars in hardware and discs as the demand for high-definition content grows. ...¶... In the midst of the battle, for which the two sides mounted elaborate floor displays this month at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Mr. Greenhall is asking, Why wait for the giants to sort it all out? There's a little guy, he said, with a high-definition solution right now: his own company's DivX 6 software.  ¶  "We're just going straight to market," said Mr. Greenhall, the 33-year-old co-founder and chief executive of DivXNetworks. "It's cheap. It's great, and it's going to be in the DVD players." ...  Link:  New York Times.

Review: TiVoToGo Could Offer Much More

Frank Bajak: "...And we've been waiting it seems like forever for a TiVo service that has finally arrived. Called TiVoToGo, it unfetters your video recordings from the hard drive-based box that pioneered television time-shifting. ¶ In other words, you can take your shows on the road. ¶ The good news: The service doesn't add a penny to TiVo Inc.'s $13 monthly subscription charge. The bad news: It's only about half of what I'd hoped for. ..." Link: AP via Lycos.

Online Music Stores Break Into Mainstream

Online music stores broke into the mainstream in 2004, with more than 200 million tracks sold in the United States and Europe, a tenfold increase from the previous year, according to data released on Wednesday. ¶ Among well-known brands like iTunes and Napster, the number of online music stores quadrupled to more than 230 in 2004, according to the report from the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) trade group. The number of songs available online has doubled to about 1 million songs. ... Link: washingtonpost.com.

Copyright and Digital Media in a Post-Napster World

The objective of this White Paper [pdf], initially released in August 2003 and updated in January 2005, is to provide a foundation for evaluating key questions facing the different stakeholders in the contentious debate over the future of digital media. It explores issues surrounding the current digital media ecosystem, including: • The legal and regulatory developments regarding copyright and related intellectual property issues. • Business models upset or enabled by digital media distribution. • Technological developments driving change across the value chain. • Shifts in consumer attitudes and behavior. ¶ Focusing on these topics, the Berkman Center’s Digital Media Team identifies five scenarios that flow from developments in law, technology and society. The five scenarios are outlined at the end of the White Paper. They have provided an analytical structure for a series of conferences and recently published papers as well as research in progress. Link: Berkman Center Digital Media Project.

Mark's Monday Memo, 1/17/2005

Mark Schubin's Monday Memo for this week has been posted at digitaltelevision.com.  I've been posting these memos to this weblog since it began, but I'm running up against bandwidth limits on my account.  These memos contain long lists of television set prices which, for complicated reasons, provide a substantial contribution to the weblog's bandwidth requirements, so from now on I'll just be posting a link to the archive.  These memos provide an excellent overview of digital television writ large and I hope readers of this weblog will continue to read his work on the other site.  --Dennis