Intel And Yahoo Unites Internet With Television

Intel Corporation and Yahoo! Inc. previewed plans for the Widget Channel, a television (TV) application framework optimized for TV and related consumer electronics (CE) devices that use the Intel Architecture. The Widget Channel will allow consumers to enjoy rich Internet applications designed for the TV while watching their favorite TV programs. The Widget Channel will be powered by the Yahoo! Widget Engine, a fifth-generation applications platform that will enable TV watchers to interact with and enjoy a rich set of “TV Widgets,” or small Internet applications designed to complement and enhance the traditional TV watching experience and bring content, information and community features available on the Internet within easy reach of the remote control. The Widget Channel will also allow developers to use JAVASCRIPT, XML, HTML and Adobe® Flash® technology to write TV applications for the platform, extending the power and compatibility of PC application developer programs to TV and related CE devices. In addition to supporting the Yahoo! Widget Engine, Yahoo! will also provide consumers Yahoo!-branded TV Widgets that are customized based on its category-leading Internet services.

TV Widgets will enable consumers to engage in a variety of experiences, such as watching videos, tracking their favorite stocks or sports teams, interacting with friends, or staying current on news and information. Viewers will be able to use TV Widgets to deepen their enjoyment of the programming they are watching, discover new content and services, or share their favorites with friends and family. TV Widgets can be personalized because they will be based upon popular Internet services such as Yahoo! Finance, Yahoo! Sports, Blockbuster® and eBay® that viewers have customized for use in their daily lives.

"TV will fundamentally change how we talk about, imagine and experience the Internet," said Eric Kim, Intel senior vice president and general manager of the company's Digital Home Group. "No longer just a passive experience unless the viewer wants it that way, Intel and Yahoo! are proposing a way where the TV and Internet are as interactive, and seamless, as possible. Our close work has produced an exciting application framework upon which the industry can collaborate, innovate and differentiate. This effort is one of what we believe will be many exciting new ways to bring the Internet to the TV, and it really shows the potential of what consumers can look forward to."

"On the PC and mobile devices, Yahoo! is a leading starting point for millions of consumers around the world," said Marco Boerries, executive vice president, Connected Life, Yahoo! Inc. "Yahoo! aims to extend this leadership to the emerging world of Internet-connected TV, which we call the Cinematic Internet™. By partnering with leaders like Intel, we plan to combine the Internet benefits of open user choice, community, and personalization with the performance and scale embodied in the Intel Architecture to transform traditional TV into something bigger, better and more exciting than ever before. By using the popular Yahoo! Widget Engine to power the Widget Channel, we intend to provide an opportunity for all developers and publishers to create new experiences that can reach millions of TV viewers globally. Yahoo! plans to enable the Cinematic Internet™ ecosystem, which will benefit consumers, device makers, advertisers and publishers."

Widget Channel Framework and TV Widget Developers

Underlying the Widget Channel will be a powerful set of platform technologies, including the Yahoo! Widget Engine and core libraries that expose the powerful functions enabled by the Intel Architecture. The Widget Channel framework will use established Internet technologies to dramatically lower the barrier of entry for developing applications optimized for TV. To help create new TV Widgets for the Widget Channel, Intel and Yahoo! plan to make a development kit available to developers, including TV and other CE device makers, advertisers and publishers. The Widget Channel will also include a Widget Gallery, to which developers can publish their TV Widgets across multiple TV and related CE devices and through which consumers can view and select the TV Widgets they would like to use.

Intel and Yahoo! are working with a range of industry-leading companies that are planning on developing and deploying TV Widgets, including Blockbuster*, CBS Interactive*, CinemaNow*, Cinequest*, Comcast*, Disney-ABC Television Group*, eBay*, GE*, Group M*, Joost*, MTV*, Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.*, Schematic*, Showtime*, Toshiba* and Twitter*. These and other companies and individuals will be able to innovate, differentiate and deploy TV Widgets across multiple TV and related CE devices using the Widget Channel framework. Additional information on the Widget Channel framework and the Yahoo! Widget Engine can be found at www.intel.com/go/celink and connectedtv.yahoo.com/newsroom.

Intel Architecture

Intel Architecture (IA) is at the heart of millions of PC-, MID- and server-based Internet clients, which has helped enable the proliferation of Internet-based content and services while providing users with an uncompromised Internet experience. Accelerating the delivery of the Internet to the TV, Intel today extended performance, headroom and connectivity of IA into a new family of "purpose built" system-on-chip (SoC) media processors for Internet-connected CE devices, including optical media players, U.S. cable set-top-boxes, digital TVs and other connected audio visual products.

Intel's first CE IA-based SoC, the Intel® Media Processor CE 3100 (formerly "Canmore"), is a highly integrated chip which includes a high-performance IA core and other functional I/O blocks to enable high definition video decode and viewing, home-theater-quality audio, 3-D graphics, and the fusion of the Internet and TV experiences. The Widget Channel software framework is designed to work with a new generation of Internet-connected CE devices based on Intel's purpose built SoC. The hardware and software compatibility of IA also provides support for broadcast and Internet content.

Intel also plans to release the Intel Media Processor CE 3100-based hardware development system called the "Innovation Platform" which will provide the initial development and validation environment for developers of TV Widgets on the Widget Channel.

An Open Framework

Finally, Intel and Yahoo! are working with industry members to promote the development of open and consistent standards necessary to grow the TV Widget ecosystem. As part of their efforts, the companies are sharing an early version of a development kit for the Widget Channel with selected TV Widget developers now.

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The 103 inch Plasma Display Screen Is The Largest In The World

Peter Griffin

The Amagasaki plasma TV screen production plant in Osaka has the air of a very efficient hospital. The corridors are spotless as dust and dirt are the enemy of the plasma screen which is two pieces of glass glued together with some circuitry, baked then filled with gas.

The few workers visible on the plant's 300m-long production floors look like doctors in their masks and white cover-alls. Automated Guided Vehicles do most of the work, shifting around what's called "mother glass", large chunks of glass substrate that are polished and cut to size. Today it's 42 inch screens.

Later the equipment will be reconfigured to handle production of Panasonic's most exclusive product, the world's largest plasma screen. Around 600 of the 103 inch behemoths are made each month. They're apparently very popular in Dubai and Las Vegas. Bill Gates and Tiger Woods own them. At around US$50,000, the screens are among the most expensive TVs available.

A laser-guided, GPS-like navigation system steers the robots around the facility. As clinical and precise as the process is, Panasonic's plants still experience on average a 10 per cent failure rate in plasma screens. The faulty ones are picked up in testing and recycled.

The multi-billion dollar facility is vast but it overlooks a site where the foundations for an even bigger factory are being laid. When the plant comes online in 2009, it will bring Panasonic's plasma screen TV panels capacity up to nearly 2 million a month, giving the company more than half the world market share.

If it looks like LCD TVs have trounced their plasma rivals as prices have tumbled and LCDs have become bigger, Panasonic is determined to keep alive its plasma technology, which it believes is better for TVs 42 inches and above.

Currently, LCDs out-sell plasmas by a rate of more than two to one and while plasma TV makers like Panasonic, Hitachi and Pioneer don't see that slice of the pie increasing greatly, there's plenty of business to go around. Global demand for flat-screen TVs in 2010 is expected to reach 200 million screens. Some 30 per cent of that demand will be for TV screens 30 inches and above.

Driving demand is the digitisation of TV broadcasts around the world as is happening in New Zealand with the launch of the Freeview platform. Broadcasts in high-definition are also pushing consumers to upgrade to screens capable of displaying HD images to take advantage of the better picture quality. When it comes to high-definition playback for TV broadcast, internet content or the emerging Blu-ray or HD-DVD formats, there's no difference between LCD and plasma as they can deliver the same screen resolution.

Still, there's hot debate over what technology is better and as Consumer Reports, the equivalent of New Zealand's Consumers' Institute, notes in its annual electronics issue published this month in the US,

Inch for inch, plasma offers more bang for buck than an LCD TV, so the same budget can buy a bigger screen, noted Consumer Reports.

The deeper black levels in plasma screens and a wider viewing angle still weigh in plasma's favour according to the group.

But it also found that LCD was a compelling option as the screens generally use less power and are more suitable for use with video games or PC monitors as there is no chance a static image will burn in.

LCD screens are also less reflective than their plasma rivals.

For very bright rooms, LCDs are generally brighter than plasma TVs and their screens are less reflective. That makes them better for daytime viewing in rooms with lots of windows or for night-time use in rooms with bright lights, Consumer Reports found.

But of the numerous TVs tested by Consumer Reports this year it was a US$2900 full high-definition 42 inch plasma screen that came out on top.

The engineers putting in time under the orange glare of the strip lights at Amagasaki will be pleased it was a Panasonic TV that took the number one spot.

* Peter Griffin attended Ceatec as a guest of Panasonic.

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iPod To Replace TV And Newspapers In The Near Future

One of the internet's founding fathers, Vint Cerf, is predicting the end of TV as we know it as convergence between the internet and other forms of media continues.

Cerf was a founding member of the Internet Society and is Google's chief internet evangelist. He made his prediction when speaking at the MediaGuardian Edinburgh International Television Festival last weekend.
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He expects the television industry to change rapidly as it enters its "iPod moment". He warned television executives that television is approaching the same kind of tipping point the music industry has struggled with following the arrival of the iPod.

"85 per cent of all video we watch is pre-recorded, so you can set your system to download it all the time," he said, according to The Guardian's Bobbie Johnson. "You're still going to need live television for certain things - like news, sporting events and emergencies - but increasingly it is going to be almost like the iPod, where you download content to look at later," he added.

He warned television media moguls that they should approach this as an opportunity that needs to be exploited, rather than as a threat to their future.

His predictions emerge as UK broadcasters move to offer their programming online through such systems as the BBC's heavily-criticised Windows-only iPlayer service.
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Cerf expects that most television will in future be broadcast over the internet, noting that this will lead to an explosion in new interactive broadcast media.

Cerf also dismissed ISP's concerns that the existing infrastructure wouldn't be able to support such uses as "scaremongering", observing that this argument was also raised when the internet first appeared.

"We're far from exhausting capacity," he said.

Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger issued a similar warning at the event, observing that the newspaper industry could also face its own iPod moment, when future devices read text so effectively that print could be threatened, the Press Gazette reports.

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Panasonic maker Matsushita Launches 37-inch LCD TVs in September

Panasonic maker Matsushita , the world's largest plasma TV supplier, said it will launch 37-inch LCD TVs in September, modifying its policy of covering demand for 37-inch and larger flat TVs with plasma models.

Matsushita has been offering LCD TVs for the market of 32-inch and smaller flat televisions, while catering to demand for larger flat TVs mainly with plasma models, missing out on strong growth in large-sized LCD TV demand.

The 37-inch full high-definition LCD TV will go on sale in Japan on September 1 for an estimated price of 300,000 yen ($2,508). Osaka-based Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. aims to offer the model in overseas markets by the end of the year.

Plasma TVs once dominated the large-sized flat TV market with cheaper price tags and a more natural picture quality. They have lost ground as LCD TV makers have been able to roll out bigger models at cheaper prices by introducing larger and more cost-efficient production lines.

Global LCD TV sales grew 54 percent from a year ago to $13.6 billion in January-March, while plasma TV sales fell 9 percent to $3.6 billion, according to data from DisplaySearch.

But Matsushita, which competes with Samsung Electronics Co. and Sony Corp. in the $82 billion global flat TV market, said on Thursday it has no plan to abandon its basic strategy of covering demand for big-screen TVs with plasma.

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