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System Integration for the Connected Home

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NAB: First Glimpse of High Dynamic Range (HDR) Video

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HDR VideoThe University of Warwick spinout goHDR unveils a world first in television technology at NAB.

goHDR provided the world with its first glimpse of High Dynamic Range (HDR) video, screened on a commercial HDR display, enabling viewers to see images with exceptional lighting detail.

Alan Chalmers, Professor of Visualisation at WMG, University of Warwick and Innovation Director at goHDR, explains: “High Dynamic Range video is the next big step in TV imaging – similar to the change from black and white to colour TV. For the first time, viewers will be able to see scenes on TV just as they would in real life, without losing detail in the glare of bright sunlight or in deep shadow.”

goHDR, in partnership with WMG at the University of Warwick, is one of only a handful of companies invited to demonstrate its technology at the International Research Park of the world’s largest media show, the NAB Show in Las Vegas.

The company develops compression technology to enable the huge data streams produced by HDR video cameras to be displayed on a TV screen.

As part of its demonstration at the show, goHDR has just announced it will be teaming up with the innovative Italian company, SIM2, to enable the HDR content produced by goHDR to be screened on SIM2’s first commercial HDR display, the HDR47E monitor.

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Five Millennial Myths

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Jennifer J. Deal’s Five Millennial Myths is subtitled: Forget what you think you know about your Gen Y employees.

That part was easy: I didn’t know much.

The conventional wisdom, apparently, is that “…everyone under the age of 30 is needy and narcissistic. They want the corner office and a company car, but they aren’t truly committed to their organization. They don’t take kindly to criticism, but can be easily won over with the next hot gadget.”

Deal asks: “Can companies afford to put their trust in these types of characterizations?”

For the past 12 years, she studied the so-called generation gap through empirical research, and found the stereotypes of millennials in the workplace asinconsistent at best and destructive at worst. With data collected from more than 13,000 participants in for-profit, nonprofit, and government organizations, Deal dentifies five key myths that companies believe about their younger employees.

Myth #1: Millennials don’t want to be told what to do.

The reality: Wrong! Their research shows (unexpectedly, she admits) that millennials currently in the workforce are more willing to defer to authority than either baby boomers or Gen Xers.

Millennials are more likely to thrive if they know the ingredients for success in the workplace, starting with the basics. For example, although it may seem obvious to an older manager, millennials may appreciate being told what time they are expected to arrive at the office, and precisely how quickly they should turn around a project (beyond just “ASAP”).

Millennials

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The Samsung Tech Theft Story

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Here is a rare story of industrial espionage from South Korea-- the Yonhap News Agency reports 11 people were arrested for allegedly stealing and selling AMOLED technology secrets from Samsung Display.

Samsung HQThe arrests include employees and researchers from both Samsung and an unnamed "rival company"-- including a former Samsung researcher suspected of receiving 190 million won ($168544) on November 2011 for stealing data on the "small mask scanning" technology used in the construction of TV-size AMOLED displays.

Apparently bearing a grudge at Samsung after failing to get a promotion, the researcher-spy even accepted a job at the rival company... before trying to sell the same information to a Chinese manufacturer after getting disgruntled with his new employer.

Who was the "rival company" buying industrial secrets from Samsung? Until the Korean police release more details, we can play the speculation game... maybe it was LG Display, who is also working on the technology?

Currently in use in mobile device displays, AMOLED is growing bigger-- both Samsung and LG revealed AMOLED TVs at CES 2012 earlier this year.

Go 11 Arrested Over Suspected Leak of Cutting-Edge Display Technology (Yonhap News Agency)

Mobile Devices Distracting from TVs

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According to Nielsen, the use of tablets and smartphones while watching TV is becoming increasingly common, especially among viewers based in the UK.

tv tablet smartphoneNielsen held a Q4 2011 survey tracking behavior patterns in the UK, Germany, Italy and the US.

The analyst says 80% of tablet and 78% of smartphone owners in the UK use their devices while watching TV at least once during a 30-day testing period-- with 24% using their devices several times a day.

On the other hand German and Italian TV viewing is more serious business-- 29% of participants in both countries never dual-view tablets and TVs together. The same goes for 35% of Germans and 34% of Italians when it comes to smartphones.

The final revelation on viewers in the USA being easily distracted might not be too much of a surprise... 88% of American tablet and 86% of smartphone owners prefer to multi-task (at least once during the 30-day period).

In all participant countries, the most frequent mobile device activity is checking emails during either advert breaks or shows. Nielsen says device users also "engage with content relate to the TV," checking show- or advert-related information.

Either way, it is heartening to know Europeans have (relatively) longer attention spans than Americans do, right?

Go Double-Vision: Global Trends in Tablet and Smartphone Use While Watching TV (Nielsen)

From the Hospital to the Networked Home

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Stu LipoffCommunications consultant and IEEE fellow Stu Lipoff speaks with us about the rise of network-based home health care devices, as part of a talk on the growth in home networking.

Recently pushing the growth in broadband connectivity is the increasing demand for multiple video streams to be moved around the home-- from multiple connected HDTVs to the recording of HD streams on DVRs, smartphones and tablet devices. One has to keep in mind each HD stream requires around 20 Mbps of data, which can easily bring data demands to the 100s of megabits.

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Seeing is Believing: rAVe NOW Videos

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CoptermotionWhat did you miss at ISE 2012? Our friends at rAVe NOW captured nearly 900 videos and you can search for what you’d like to see…or use these links to categories below to zero on companies or products.

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The ECI 11 for 2011

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2011There are no doubts-- it has been quite a full year. From natural disasters to protests and ousted dictators, there was truly something for everyone on the headlines. And as for our business, well, we're about to take a look at what went on during past 12 months, with a Top 11 for 2011...

1. Farewell, Steve Jobs: The biggest story this year was certainly the untimely demise of Steve Jobs at age 56, following a 7 year struggle with cancer. During those years, Apple brought us the iPhone and the iPad. Jobs had already stepped down as Apple CEO on Aug. 24th 2011... and most of us knew the only only reason he would walk away from the company would be his ultimate demise.

One cannot understimate Jobs' effect on the industry-- his return to Apple in 1997 turned a company Jobs himself described as weeks away from bankruptcy into one of the the biggest in the world (and the biggest for a few weeks), fuelling customers' lusts for technology in the process.

2. Motorola Mobility goes Google: Is Google planning to duplicate Apple's success in hardware, or simply hoarding patents (of which Motorola Mobility owns 24500?). Either way, Google will now be able to make a whole variety of devices-- not only smartphones and tablets, but also Bluetooth-based accessories and, more importantly STBs. Google insists Motorola Mobility will be run as a separate entity and Android will remain open source-- but one has to read between the lines...

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