Emerging Technologies: CONNECTIVITY
Latest Connectivity News From Around The Web
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December 15, 2011
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Smart Homes: Coming to a Neighborhood Near You
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Smart Homes | Connected Home | Smart Grid | Smart Appliances | Connectvity Domains
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The smart home of the future is here. Rooms detect your presence and change lighting, temperature, and airflow according to personalized settings. Smart thermostats learn our behaviors and appropriately adjust for heating and cooling. Appliances respond to signals from utilities that turn off when prices and demand are at their daily peak, saving the homeowner money. Sound like science fiction?
Smart homes are now possible because of the smart grid, a digitally updated energy grid that allows for multiple technologies and networks to operate and communicate with one another to better manage electricity. This is a big project, one that may cost a total of $476 billion. For the average homeowner, the smart grid – and how it fits in with homeownership – can be difficult to understand because most people hardly think about where their energy comes from. With smart grid upgrades happening across the country, like Con Edison’s smart grid pilot in Queens, New York, homeowners now have the potential to save money and energy by upgrading their homes to smart homes. But what exactly makes a smart home so smart and what does it mean for the average homeowner?
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December 6, 2011
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CSA calls for connected TV regulation
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Connected Television | Smart TV | Connected Regulations | Connectvity Domain Names
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Michel Boyon, president of the French media authority CSA, has outlined the regulator’s view on the development of connected television services.
He said the new platforms need regulation in line with broadcasting.
Speaking at a symposium organised by the HD Forum and the HbbTV consortium, he said it is still too early to foresee all consequences of this phenomenon but also emphasised there are risks that could jeopardise the economics of the broadcasters and have its impact on the audio visual industry and French cinema production. The development could also have an influence on the freedom of choice of the TV viewer, he added.
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December 4, 2011
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Can Microsoft own the living room w/ Xbox, Kinect & Bing?
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Connected Entertainment | Microsoft | Kinect | Gesture | Connectvity Domains
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Microsoft will begin to roll out the next version of the Xbox experience, featuring a new dashboard that combines your living room TV with the Xbox 360. With voice and motion control powered by Kinect, and search powered by Bing, Microsoft hopes to begin a takeover of the living room and the family TV, one of the “3 screens” that along with a cloud are set to take us into the future of consumer software and engineering.
We’ve told you about the new dashboard before, and news is all over the web today as Microsoft has issued a press release on the upcoming free upgrade, so we’ll spare you the details. Instead, let’s take a bit of a look at what this announcement means, and could mean, to the future of the living room.
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December 2, 2011
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Intellect predicts £3bn 'Connected home' market
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Connected Home | Smart Home | Intellect | Connectivity | Connectivity Domains
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Intellect, the trade association for the UK's technology sector, has released a report that claims the market for 'connected home' technologies could grow to £3bn a year within the next five years.
In its report, dubbed Connected Homes - a Reality, Intellect claims that within half a decade homeowners will be demanding in-house networking capabilities in order to control energy use, use public services - including education and healthcare - and access new media and entertainment services via internet-connected TVs, tablets and smartphones.
The group claims that the UK's technology industry and the government need to work together if its vision is to come true, however: it claims that technical and security standards, training and certification for retailers and installers and an overall increase in average broadband speeds to at least 6Mbit/s is required for the market to be realised.
The connected home has been talked about for some time, but it is now potentially the next big technology revolution," Intellect's head of internet and media Colin Batten confidently predicts. "Most homes already have islands of technology, but the truly connected home will be more than just an aggregation of different services and devices. Everything will be linked through one network giving people access to exciting new services.
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December 1, 2011
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HCI Introduces New Android Powered Televisions for Healthcare
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HCI | Android Television | Roomate | Connected Healthcare | Connectivity Domains
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HCI has released the next generation of their RoomMate televisions designed specifically for use in hospitals and other healthcare facilities. The new connected television runs apps on an Android™ platform, much like a smartphone would, to entertain and educate patients, visitors, and staff. Imagine transferring the technology from your phone to a TV, connecting the web, education, games, hospital information, and entertainment – the possibilities are limitless!
The Android™-powered televisions operate on an open platform and will run Android apps written for TV. Developers, including healthcare facilities, can write their own Android applications to run on the televisions. Healthcare facilities can also download Android™ apps for patients and visitors to use to provide education, entertainment and information.
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November 30, 2011
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Internet Television– The Next Global Marketing Frontier
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Internet Television | Connected Television | CVTMA | Smart TV | Connectivity Domains
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Leaders of the advertising, media and entertainment sector have converged in North America for the inauguration of the Connected TV Marketing Association.
The growth and potential of internet connected televisions has led advertising, marketing and entertainment executives to form a new global industry organization – the Connected Television Marketing Association (CTVMA) – with the goal of educating the industry on the commercial opportunities of connected TV platforms.
Noting that Internet connected televisions, from brands such as Samsung, Sony and LG, are predicted to make up to 90% of the global TV market by 2014, with sales reaching 123 million, the CTVMA believes that Connected TV marketing initiatives will follow.
“Connected TV’s will enable marketers around the world to align their spending on video-based advertising across channels and to leverage the highly targeted opportunities that will become more available,” said Doug Scott, Honorary U.S. Chair of the CTVMA, President of Ogilvy Entertainment. "Ogilvy is committed to the development of advertising and original brand funded programming on Connected TV platforms to enable a direct dialog between consumers and brands."
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November 28, 2011
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5 Challenges to Make Connected Cars Mainstream |
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Connected Cars | Connected Car Solutions | Telematics | Telematics Solutions | Telematics Domains
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The American driver spends countless hours every day sitting in front of his car radio, a device that first appeared in the 1930s. While car infotainment systems, as they are called today, now have features like navigation and multichannel audio, the entertainment content hasn’t fundamentally changed in these past 80 years. It is still focused on playing content that is either broadcast (via AM, FM, satellite or HD) or brought in (via 8-track, cassette, CD, or now MP3). The current generation of digerati will expect more from their in-car content.
Back at the 2007 Consumer Electronics Show, Ford and Microsoft took the stage and announced Ford SYNC, which forced the entire industry to get serious about mobile phone integration for drivers. Now five years later, CES is expecting record participation from automakers with the “connected car” as a major theme. Once again there is a lot of anticipation about the car joining people’s connected lives, and automakers are racing to safely deliver web content to the driver’s seat.
Some auto manufacturers will demonstrate the use of online data to augment onboard tech — an evolutionary approach if there ever was one. Others have experimented with copying mobile interfaces by creating app springboards in their vehicles, but you can’t take a two-foot mobile phone interface, put new lipstick on it and expect people to use it at 65 mph. (Imagine a scenario where “all” you have to do to change content is close a podcast app, slide over two screens, find and open a music service app, navigate through its interface, and select “play” to hear a station you like. Oh, and you have to drive in traffic at the same time.)
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November 26, 2011
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Ford Evos Concept: Cloud-connected Car
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Cloud Cars | Telematics | Connected Cars | Telematics Domains | Connectivity Domains
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The stunning Ford Evos Concept car will make its first appearance in North America as the centerpiece of Ford's display at the 2012 International CES in Las Vegas , Jan. 10-13, 2012 . The Evos Concept made its global debut at the 2011 Frankfurt Motor Show in September.
The Ford Evos Concept embodies the company's new global design language while providing a glimpse at Ford's technology future highlighted by the use of cloud computing to enhance the driving experience.
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November 24, 2011
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Hawaii & Japan confirm $37 million smart grid experiment |
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Smart Grid | Smart Appliances | Solar Panels | Car Charging Stations| Connectivity Domains
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The governor of Hawaii and the president of Japan's leading industrial development center signed an agreement on Tuesday to officially make a joint smart grid project to be built in the island of Maui.
The state will partner with Japan's New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization, or NEDO, to install technologies like smart meters, with the end in view of having Maui residents use smart appliances, solar panels and electric car charging stations in the future.
The project has a budget of $37 million.
The project aims to verify how well smart grid technologies work in an area already using large amounts of renewable energy. On Maui, 15 percent of the island's electricity supply already comes from renewable energy, with plans to raise this further.
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November 22, 2011
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Internet TV to cover 60 percent of households by 2014
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Connected Television | Internet Conneceted TV | Smart TV | Connectivity Domains
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Internet-connected TV is steadily evolving from a luxury product to being mainstream in households globally.
Internet-connected television is expected to surge in the next three years as interest in connected devices grow, according to global consulting firm Bain & Company.
Specifically, at least 60 percent of households will have Internet TV by 2014 — at least in the countries where the survey was conducted. Results are based upon the responses of more than 3,000 consumers in the United States, the United Kingdom, France, China and India.
While the survey does cover video games and even online options for cultural activities, the real focus and shift will occur around connected video content.
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November 21, 2011
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Internet comes to TV
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Internet TV | IPTV | Connected Television | Connectivity Domains
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Major communication innovation is historically driven by the distribution mechanism; the first transatlantic cable was laid nearly a hundred years ago and has enabled the great leaps in communications for the last century that we're only just capitalising on.
The television business is on the threshold of another great innovation leap- connected television.
Not since the introduction of cable and satellite television has such a radical transformation occurred that looks set to effect consumer behaviour & the value chain supporting current broadcast offerings.
By comparison, video recorders, flatscreen TV's, High Definition TV, 3D television represents incremental innovation. So what's driving the change?
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November 2011
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Connected Car Solutions for 2012
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Connected Cars | Connected Car Solutions | Telematics | Telematics Solutions | Telematics Domains
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The Vehicle of the Future is Connected
• Clear Focus on the Automotive OEMs for Connected Speech
– Use speech to reduce consumer expectation from intent to action
– Ongoing demand for global language portfolio in ASR and TTS
– Industry trending to hybrid and thin client MMHUs with cloud services defining the future of automotive applications
• Nuance Role is to Deliver a Superior Driving Experience
– Hybrid architectures for superior performance and flexibility
– Best in Class automotive grade UI designs for task completion while minimizing driver distraction
• Auto Companies Demand Something New and Unique
– A user interface where everything is available at the “top” menu
– Seamless client speech applications that deliver embedded and connected services at the right price
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October 28, 2011
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Intel Preparing To Ditch Google Smart TV Business
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Connectivity News | Intel | Smart Tv | Connected Television | Google TV | Connectivity Domains
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A new report released by market research firm IHS indicates that Intel has lost interest in building processors for smart TVs and especially for Google TVs. Intel held less than 2% of the TV Soc market in the first half of the year.
According to IHS, Intel is “quietly reshuffling resources away from the connected television semiconductor space” and is focusing much more on mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets.
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October 24, 2011
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Apple is already building prototype TV sets
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Connectivity News | Smart TV | Apple TV | Connected Television | Apple Television | Connectivity Domains
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The solution Steve Jobs said he "finally cracked" could be a $6 billion business by 2014
In a note to clients released Monday, Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster seizes on remarks attributed to Steve Jobs in the biography published overnight as "another data point" to support a thesis he's been championing since 2009.
"I'd like to create an integrated television set," Jobs told Walter Isaacson, his authorized biographer. "It would be seamlessly synced with all of your devices and with iCloud... It will have the simplest user interface you could imagine. I finally cracked it." (-Steve Jobs)
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October 19, 2011
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Smart Appliances for Desperate Households
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Connectivity News | Smart Appliances | Smart Home | GE Nucleus | LG Hom-Bot | Connectivity Domains
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Imagine a kitchen where your refrigerator suggests recipes, or a vacuum that doubles as home security. What used to seem impossible many years ago could soon be installed in your own household. Experts are introducing these products as “Smart Appliances”. In fact, some appliances might even be smarter than the person using it.
A new type of refrigerator made by Samsung has an 8-inch, LCD, touch screen that allows you to use a variety of applications.
“It can actually give you your calendar, your weather report, the latest news. It can play music, and you can even leave little notes, or send a tweet,” Wood explained.
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October 13, 2011
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Small Danish island could help launch smart-grid revolution
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Connectivity News | Smart Grid | Smart Homes | Renewable Energy | EcoGrid | Connectivity Domains
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A small Danish island in the Baltic Sea is becoming a living laboratory for technologies that could dramatically transform the energy world.
Having already developed a substantial supply of renewable energy, Bornholm is now embarking on a test of smart-grid technologies designed to give residents greater insights into how they use electricity at home. The idea behind that is that knowledge is power: that people who understand how much energy they use and how much they pay for it are likely to use less to save money. The experiment getting under way will also tap into a variety of automated tools to make cutting energy use even easier.
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October 11, 2011
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The Mother of All EV-Solar-Smart Grid Integrations
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Connectivity News | Electronic Vehicles | Solar Grid | Solar Homes | Plug In Cars | Connectivity Domains
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Austin’s Pecan Street Project wants to get plug-in vehicles, home energy management, solar panels and household batteries to talk to one another.
The Mother of All EV-Solar-Smart Grid Integrations
It’s a job that would make working as a United Nations switchboard operator seem simple. Out in Austin, Texas, the federally funded Pecan Street smart grid test bed is asking plug-in cars, rooftop solar panels, smart appliances and household batteries to talk to each other -- and to the grid at large -- in a way that allows them to shape peak loads, cut household power bills and keep the grid humming smoothly...
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January 6, 2011
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LG announces phones to control vacuum cleaners |
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Smart Appliances | LG Smart Appliances | Connected Home | Connectivity Domains
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New vacuum cleaners, washing machines and dishwashers will be controlled from users’ mobile phones and automatically use cheaper electricity, electronics firm LG has announced.
Mobile phones and tablet computers will control dishwashers, vacuum cleaners, ovens and washing machines, electronics firm LG has announced at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES).
The company demonstrated a new range of ‘Smart Appliances’, branded ‘Thinq’ which it said would be able to remotely download new recipes, monitor power or even, using the firm’s vacuum cleaner, feed pets.
Screens showed, for instance, a read out of an oven’s temperature of a map of a home in which the company’s vacuum cleaner was being used. The technology is also able to switch on automatically at times which take advantage of cheaper electricity tariffs.
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