Researcher MultiMedia Intelligence thinks that content identification technologies like digital watermarking and fingerprinting will grow rapidly and will reach $500 million worldwide by 2012. Key applications should be Internet content monitoring, copyright control, and interactive advertising.
Ensequence, an interactive TV specialist revealed this week a survey it carried out which shows that TV viewers would like to use their remote control to drive advanced interactive TV functions. Around 72% want to interact with Reality TV shows, 65% want to interact with TV sports, 66% even want to interact with advertising.
GoldSpot Media, a start up focused on mobile advertising, says it is ready with a dynamic ad-insertion system for mobile broadcast TV, and as a result has closed a $3 million Series A funding deal led by Exa Ventures. GoldSpot Media offers mobile advertising solution dynamically inserted into broadcast and streamed video on mobile handsets.
Comcast has waited a long time, almost three years, but is finally releasing the TiVo service on its Motorola set tops, initially trying it out in the Boston area. The deployment also uses the Tru2way technology (previously called OCAP), which allows greater interoperability between consumer electronics and cable systems. The offering will not include some TiVo offerings, such as access to media on PCs, or the transfer of recorded shows to laptops or mobile devices. If the trial is successful it will be rolled out later this year.
Nokia said last week that its N95 8GB was the first mobile phone to receive Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) certification. The DLNA is an influential body of major corporations that test specific implementations of standards and ensure they work together, and has already certified over 1800 products in the personal computer and consumer electronic categories, but no phones.
Pirates in the Middle East and Africa actually outnumber genuine TV viewers in a ratio of ten to one, says an article in Emirates Business, citing leading Pay TV service, Showtime, which claims around 30% of the Pay TV market there. Just 2 million pay for is service, while 22 million are thought to have access to it.
The German Federal Network Agency says it will now allow UltraWideBand communications from 30 MHz all the way up to 10.6 GHz. It has issued a free of charge license as long as suppliers do not break its non-interference provisions, which are a strict list of power limitations in certain bands and detect and avoid active non-interference. Europe has a directive to gradually align on the use of UWB behind a UK proposal from its Ofcom regulator for short distance, high bandwidth applications like wireless HDMI.
While most commentary about Comcast appears to suggest that it is invulnerable and has a bright future, we have often questioned its long term technology hold and how little it would take to turn the company’s growth negative. Now an investor group Chieftain Capital Management which owns 2% of the company, has called for CEO Brian Roberts to step down, due to poor financial performance. Comcast will consider a rebuttal, but its underlying technology continually needs tweaking and when it announced plans to upgrade to DOCSIS 3.0 recently, Wall Street lost its long term patience with the stock, because it always has such a high capex spend.
US researcher Forrester says that Instant Messaging on a handset will grow from an 8% penetration now to 24%, representing 80 million subscribers, by 2013. Forrester’s mobile IM forecast is based on a survey of 22,000 consumers across France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, and the UK. The report says mobile IM’s growth is inevitable and operators’ fears of SMS revenue erosion are greatly overstated.
Nokia this week unveiled two handsets, the Nokia 2600 and 1209, aimed at the emerging markets, which will retail for €65 ($94) and €35 ($50) respectively. Of course that means that Nokia is delivering these devices from the factory quite a bit under those prices. The 2600 is shipping now, and the 1209 next quarter. The 2600 features an FM radio and a VGA camera and the 1209, comes with cost management features and multiple phonebooks, to encourage phone sharing.
US online video enabler Brightcove has announced its first major media customer in Germany, Gruner + Jahr, Europe’s largest magazine publisher. Brightcove’s services will give the media businesses the ability to publish and distribute advertising supported video throughout its websites.
Google has reported that the Apple iPhone is generating far more web activity on its sites than any other handset, despite it being relatively new and only a tiny percentage of the handset market. Google measured the traffic over Christmas and told the New York Times that people who own an iPhone use it far more for accessing the internet than other devices.
A report on music on handsets from M:Metrics says that while 20% of mobile owners use the device to listen to music, 83% of them actually get that music by sideloading it from a PC or another device and almost nobody downloads mobile music from a mobile service.
The Center for American Progress says that America’s failure to bring broadband Internet services to over 50% of Americans is a public policy failure and that the US government has to get involved subsidizing services, in particular for US schools and libraries. It bemoans the lack of a US broadband policy and accused the current administration of neglect, industry intransigence, and calls the FCC incompetent. The US has fallen behind Canada, France and Japan and a dozen other industrial countries in broadband deployment, the Center said in a statement.
Verizon Wireless is to buy the wireless assets of SureWest Communications in Northern California, for $69 million. The unit has 50,000 customers, but its network reaches 3.8 million potential customers, and overlaps with areas currently served by Verizon Wireless. Verizon says the deal will expand its capacity in those areas.