Archive for September, 2009

Wi-Fi Enabled Televisions Among Highest Growth of New Product Introduction

SOAWorld Magazine has posted a fascinating article about the “1H09 Wi-Fi Products Tracker Database” directory:

Research and Markets has announced the addition of the “1H09 Wi-Fi Products Tracker Database” directory to their offering.

The Wi-Fi Products Tracker Database provides summary data of branded WLAN end-products by product name, vendor, 802.11 technology, category, and subcategory in pivot-tables for quick analysis of trends. Detailed data is provided for in-depth analysis of product releases from 2007 to 1H09

Wi-Fi Connectivity Becoming Pervasive on Devices. Over 1000 New Wi-Fi Products Are Launched in 2008

Wi-Fi enabled products continue to proliferate across nearly all categories, including computing, networking, consumer electronics and mobile devices. Over 1,000 new products were launched with Wi-Fi in 2008; 2009 promises to surpass that mark, reports this latest report.

Among the key growth areas is stationary consumer electronics (CE) devices with Wi-Fi. Stationary CE devices include products that require access to a power source, such as televisions and digital photo frames. In 2008, manufacturers introduced nearly 100 new Wi-Fi enabled stationary CE products, up from 22 in 2007. Introductions are increasing in 2009, with over 55 in the first half of 2009.

Digital photo frames and digital audio players with Wi-Fi were among the key device types to see a surge in product introductions in 2008 compared to 2007. In 2009, Wi-Fi enabled digital televisions are among the highest growth of new product introductions for stationary CE devices. Philips consumer electronics was among the most aggressive competitors, pushing an array of new Wi-Fi-equipped digital audio players and digital TVs. In the digital photo frame category, adoption of Wi-Fi in 2008 new product introductions was broad-based across 17 different competitors

Recent research found the following:

Hewlett Packard had the most Wi-Fi enabled new product introductions of any manufacturer in 2008, and nearly tripled their new product introductions in 2008 compared to 2007.
Cisco leads the market in first half of 2009 with 802.11n-enabled product introductions overall. Samsung electronics leads market in 802.11n consumer electronics.
802.11 b/g solutions are still the dominant Wi-Fi technology in new product introductions in 2008. However, 802.11 Draft n 2.0 solutions are gaining rapidly, and are expected to become the most popular Wi-Fi technology across most product categories by the end of 2009.
Philips, looking to grab a market leadership position in Internet-enabled television sets, released more Wi-Fi enabled television sets than the rest of the market combined.

Recent research, 1H09 Wi-Fi Products Database is part of the new “Wi-Fi Product Database”. The database provides detailed tracking of the progression of Wi-Fi adoption in computing, consumer electronics, mobile phones and other electronic devices that are announced.

The database includes a detailed log of branded WLAN end-products by product name, vendor, 802.11 technology, product category, and subcategory. The data is provided in formatted pivot-tables for analysis of technology and product trends, as well as competitors.

DreamScreen VS. Toshiba: FrameChannel Wins!

David Pogue, of the New York Times, has written an article comparing HP’s DreamScreen with Toshiba’s DMF82XKU and DMF102XKU. Guess which one comes out smelling like a rose?

. . . a case study of two companies’ approaches to the same problem.

In this corner, the DreamScreen from Hewlett-Packard. It’s available in 10- and 13-inch versions for $250 and $300. In that corner, Toshiba’s less attractively named DMF82XKU (8 inches, $180) and DMF102XKU (10 inches, $230). Each can play music, display photos and present widgets — radio, scores, headlines and other Web goodies — wirelessly grabbed from the Internet.

Both are sleek wide-screen displays with a one-inch margin of glossy black; the Toshiba, with its fine transparent acrylic border, looks slightly classier. Each comes with a tiny, cheap plastic remote control whose buttons require considerable force, but you can also summon hidden illuminated touch controls by tapping on either frame. They come in handy when you lose the remote.

Each frame is meant to sit on a desk, but the H.P. can also hang on a wall.

You can load up either frame with photos, videos and unprotected music files by inserting a memory card, a U.S.B. flash drive or a U.S.B. cable connected to a Mac or PC.

Photos look terrific; both frames easily fulfill the primary mission of a digital photo frame, gracefully changing the image once every few seconds, every few hours or every day. (You can even rotate the Toshiba 90 degrees; the image rotates to match.)

But that’s where the similarities end.

Toshiba’s frame lets you subscribe to any of 1,000 widgets at Framechannel.com. It’s a fantastic variety: BBC. Facebook updates. Twitter posts. Favorite sports teams. Concert info. Cartoons. Trivia. Horoscopes. Local traffic. Channel after channel of gorgeous photography. Both the Toshiba frame and the Framechannel.com site, where you load it up, are challenging to figure out. (Incidentally, many other companies sell Framechannel-enabled frames, but the new Toshiba is a good representative of the genre.)

The Toshiba’s software design over all, in fact, is somewhat baffling. It consists of simple lists of text commands, but at least it’s quick and efficient.

The DreamScreen from H.P., on the other hand, has a lush, colorful, icon-driven software design. The company thinks it’s really onto something; a public relations person calls it “a breakthrough new platform.”

Well, that might be pushing it.

The widgets are far more limited than the Toshiba’s; each represents an individual deal made by H.P. (as opposed to Framechannel’s public-bazaar approach). They include Clock, Facebook, Weather and, for Web photos, Snapfish. (Snapfish? Not Flickr?) You can’t add any new ones, although H.P. says that it will, through software updates.

Some of them are handy — especially the Pandora radio widget, which tailors its music selections according to your tastes (you rate each song as it plays). The clock options are beautiful: analog or digital, clock with photo, clock with calendar, clock with foreign-city time and so on.

Others are less impressive. The Calendar, for example, shows a handsome month-view — with nothing on it, and no way to add anything to it. Guess it’s useful if you want to know what day of the week the 23rd falls on.

The speakers are stereo and sound better and richer than the Toshiba’s. The H.P. has a slot on top for the remote; the Toshiba does not. There’s a jack for a wired network, which the Toshiba lacks.

Unfortunately, in terms of polish and design finesse, the DreamScreen might better be called the NightmareScreen.

Over and over again, the software gets in your way. You can’t hear the different alarm sounds as you scroll through them. There’s no indication on the frame that the alarm has been set. The audio and video get out of sync during the frame’s tutorial videos.

On options screens, like the one where you set up your clock, the settings appear in a tall column. If you want to adjust only one of them — Clock Style, the first option — you would think that pressing O.K. on the remote would mean “I’m finished, take me back.” But no. You have to walk all the way down the screen, using the remote’s arrow buttons, past all of the other options, to highlight the O.K. button on the screen, and then press the O.K. button on the remote to “click” that. It’s exhausting.

There’s a dedicated Slideshow button on the remote, so that when a guest drops by, you can get those pictures flowing with one button press, no matter what you’re doing. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work if what you were doing is the Calendar, the Settings screen, the Clock, and certain other random places.

Meanwhile, there’s no Home button. You either have to hit Back-Back-Back, or stumble upon the tip, in the tutorial videos, that pressing-and-holding the Back button takes you Home. H.P. agrees, in retrospect, that a button for the most frequently visited screen might have been useful.

My favorite bug: you can choose Internet radio stations either by nation of origin or by genre. But the two lists have gotten mixed up in the software. So your choices of music genre are Algeria, Alternative, Ambient, American Samoa and so on.

The frame is dog slow, too. Ten seconds to start up the Clock. Eleven seconds to open Settings. Five seconds every time you want to change widgets, which requires going to the Home screen.

(“We’ve learned that we’ve taxed the processor too much,” says the product manager, Ameerd Karim. He says the company is readying a software patch that may help.)

According to the company, those big, bright, elegant onscreen graphics are what bogs the thing down. Frames like the Toshiba, with its straight-ahead, boring all-text menus, don’t have the speed problem.

But in the end, I finally realized what bugged me most about the DreamScreen. You’re standing directly in front of a beautiful glass screen with a Home screen, inch-tall icons, and finger-size buttons — and then you’re supposed to operate it all using a remote six inches away? It just feels wrong.

H.P. won’t confirm or deny it, but I’ll bet a hundred bucks that the DreamScreen was originally intended to have a touch screen. That theory would also explain those bizarre software designs, like having to walk down a screen full of options to reach the O.K. button. In the touch-screen conception, of course, you’d just tap O.K. with your finger, one step instead of seven.

Somewhere along the line — maybe when the economy crashed? — I’ll bet those plans got shelved to keep the price down. But if the DreamScreen truly is a “platform,” as H.P. says, then maybe there’s hope yet for the Touch DreamScreen.

So there it is: a study in contrasts. One frame where almost no thought was put into the software design, resulting in an infinitely flexible, crude but less expensive machine. And another frame where, in fact, the software design was overthought — resulting in a more limited, sluggish machine with glitches.

Maybe someone should get those two sets of designers together for coffee someday. Yeah — coffee and widgets.

Consumer Education Means More Wireless/Digital Picture Frames Purchased!

BusinessWire.com has posted an article about “The Fourth Screen” market, which includes wireless/digital picture frames:

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–According to a new connected home devices study from ABI Research, “fourth screen” devices – some new, some variants on ideas that have been around for several years – promise novel experiences for users and new revenue streams for operators.

These devices include digital photo frames, media phones, and Internet appliances, Media phones will be among the fastest-growing device types, and will generate a market value above $5 billion by 2014.

ABI Research industry analyst Michael Inouye says, “While the first media phone models only appeared late last year in the US (earlier in Asia), more than 30 million units will be shipped in 2014. These devices, which feature video playback, Internet connectivity, and some form of voice functionality, will be among the strongest performers among Fourth Screen products.”

Digital photo frames have been in the market for some years, and currently ship in numbers that dwarf the other categories in this segment. Recently market growth has slowed somewhat, but a new Wi-Fi equipped variant is expected to show strong growth over the next few years before leveling off around 2013.

All these devices share one market obstacle. “Fourth screen devices in general are competing against more multifunction devices such as smartphones,” says Inouye. But for consumers who want more permanent, dedicated control, they can be a compelling proposition. One key to success for all these devices is definitely greater consumer education. Vendors and retailers are pinning many hopes on the holiday gift-giving seasons of the next few years.”

A new ABI Research study, “Connected Home Devices (Fourth Screen)” (http://www.abiresearch.com/research/1004309 ) examines the dynamics and potential of the nascent fourth screen market. It includes forecasts for digital photo frames, media phones, and desktop Internet Appliances within the North American, Asia Pacific, European, and RoW markets for the years 2009 to 2014.

It is part of the firm’s Home Networking Research Service (http://www.abiresearch.com/products/service/Home_Networking_Research_Service ), and the Connected Home Devices Research Service (http://www.abiresearch.com/products/service/Connected_Home_Devices_Research_Service ) which also includes other Research Reports, Research Briefs, Market Data, ABI Insights, and analyst inquiry support.

ABI Research provides in-depth analysis and quantitative forecasting of emerging trends in global connectivity. From offices in North America, Europe and Asia, ABI Research’s worldwide team of experts advise thousands of decision makers through 25 research and advisory services. Est. 1990. For more information visit www.abiresearch.com, or call +1.516…..

ABI Research
Christine Gallen, +1-516-624-2542
pr@abiresearch.com

Rollip Turns Any Photo Into A Polaroid Look-Alike!

Rollip.com has developed a new site that lets you give any digital picture the classic look and feel of a vintage or Polaroid picture, and I am having a blast with it!

This actually is MY Christmas tree, by the way, from one of the “experiments” I was doing as I played around on the Rollip website.  It’s so easy – the website guides you through each simple step -  and such fun!

Rollip’s website gives people many more options than most similar sites, I’ve discovered.  There are many options for customization, as well as better quality effects of various kinds.  Rollip’s format – online – makes it much easier to share pictures across the social web.

Rollip is also addictive: I’ve been playing with it all evening!

You can also share your newly-made “vintage” pictures via email, as well as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and almost every other social media outlet.

Go on, click on Rollip.com and give it a try.  You’ll be hooked, too.  And just think how cool your wireless/digital picture frame will be, with all those “Polaroids” slideshowing across it!