Consumer Electronics Daily News

GE Breakthrough Validates Holographic, 500-GB Disc Storage Solutions

GE Global Research, the technology development arm of the General Electric Company, today announced a major breakthrough in the development of next generation optical storage technology. GE researchers have successfully demonstrated a threshold micro-holographic storage material that can support 500 gigabytes of storage capacity in a standard DVD-size disc. This is equal to the capacity of 20 single-layer Blu-ray discs, 100 DVDs or the hard drive for a large desktop computer.

According to GE, the micro-holographic discs will be able to be read and recorded on systems very similar to a typical Blu-ray or DVD player. The holographic storage solution is different from today’s optical storage formats and uses the entire volume of the disc material. Holograms, or three-dimensional patterns that represent bits of information, are written into the disc and can then be read out. Although GE’s holographic storage technology represents a breakthrough in capacity, the hardware and formats are so similar to current optical storage technology that the micro-holographic players will enable consumers to play back their CDs, DVDs and BDs, the company said.

“GE’s breakthrough is a huge step toward bringing our next generation holographic storage technology to the everyday consumer,” said Brian Lawrence, who leads GE’s Holographic Storage program. “Because GE’s micro-holographic discs could essentially be read and played using similar optics to those found in standard Blu-ray players, our technology will pave the way for cost-effective, robust and reliable holographic drives that could be in every home. The day when you can store your entire high definition movie collection on one disc and support high resolution formats like 3-D television is closer than you think.”

Audio Authority Adds Its First U.S. Distributor

Audio Authority Corporation has named DBL Distributing as its first national U.S. distributor for its Custom Integration product line. DBL is now carrying a wide selection of Audio Authority’s CI products in its Jonestown, Pa., and Mira Loma, Calif., distribution centers.

“DBL’s policies are very friendly to our core custom integrator customer.  We expect the ability to order a whole project worth of gear from one distributor will save our dealers time and money, and will simplify the process of including Audio Authority’s products in their installations,” said Trent Davis, Audio Authority’s Product Manager.

Dealers will still have the option of buying direct, and Audio Authority’s direct dealers were notified of the new distributor relationship last week by email. DBL and Audio Authority have worked together to develop pricing programs that maintain dealer margins through the distribution channel, helping integrators offset the continued margin shrinkage on televisions and other key categories. 

DBL’s April catalog is its first to feature Audio Authority products, and is now arriving in dealer mailboxes. For more information, visit www.audioauthority.com.

ABI: 285 Million Mobile Handsets Shipped in Q1 2009

Despite tough corporate and unemployment news making the headlines, the mobile handset-buying public did not head to the hills during the first quarter of 2009. Handset vendors had shipped 258 million handsets by the end of the quarter. Although that represents an 11 percent year-over-year decline, the result significantly exceeded the previous forecast of 253.5 million.

Distributors reduced their inventories in 4Q-2008 and 1Q-2009 as they prepared for economic Armageddon but the market did not take another “leg down” in 1Q-2009. ABI Research has introduced a note of mild optimism in its handset forecasts for YE-2009, revising them from -8.4 to -8 percent.

“As always there are winners and losers,” says ABI's Kevin Burden. “Samsung and LG demonstrated healthy gains to take their market shares to 17.8 and 8.8 percent respectively. Another star performer was RIM which raised its share to three percent due largely to the success of its Blackberry Bold. It is a little curious that Apple’s market share is just 1.5 percent given the success of its AppStore. As popular as the iPhone3G has been, increased competition in the touchscreen segment and a lack of product differentiation may be dampening demand. ABI Research expects that by 2H-2009 the iPhone3G will have one or more siblings. That will allow Apple to accelerate growth."

Despite the positive signs, says ABI Research, the industry should be cautious. The IMF has issued another sharp downgrade to its global outlook. Unemployment figures are also likely to continue creeping up. Buyers in the developed world are still concerned about debt and job security. Developing economies are expected to take a hit on the credit side which could have knock-on consequences on credit lines for purchases and stock levels.

For more information, visit www.abiresearch.com.

Chief Ships Automated Projector Lifts

Chief Manufacturing is now shipping the SL151 Automated Smart-Lift Projector Mount, now UL listed and resized to drop directly into 2'x2' tiles. The SL151 is an automated projector lift for finished ceilings in homes and corporate offices. The mount automatically lowers the projector from the ceiling so you can reveal or conceal at the press of a button.

The Smart-Lift offers precise positioning including vertical projector cradle adjustments and fore/aft projector positioning. Quick disconnect provides convenient lamp and filter access on most projectors, and the SL151 maintains registration even when disconnected. The low-profile design requires minimal clearance above the ceiling.

For more information, visit www.chiefmfg.com.

CEA Talks Trade, DTV & Tech Policy at Washington Forum

The Consumer Electronics Association's annual Washington Forum concluded this week, with a focus on technology policy in the new administration, free trade and the final countdown to the digital television as major themes. The event also featured the fifth annual Digital Patriots Awards Dinner, which recognized Representative Roy Blunt (R-MO) and Representative Gregory Meeks (D-NY), for their support in advancing technology innovation. 

"We honor Rep. Blunt for reaching across the aisle to build bi-partisan support for the Columbia Free Trade Agreement and for his leadership on DTV," said CEA President and CEO Gary Shapiro.

While accepting his award, Rep. Blunt recognized his colleague, Rep. Meeks for his tireless fight for free trade. Acknowledging the importance of a strong competitive marketplace, Rep. Blunt remarked, “America is the most competitive market in the world. American businesses focus on results, government focuses on spending priorities. The government should take a lesson from businesses in this regard."

Other events at the Washington Forum included a luncheon keynote address from David Plouffe, campaign manager, Obama for America. Plouffe, as well as the session, “The DTV Transition - The Final Countdown (And This Time We Mean It), highlighting the opportunities and challenges of the upcoming June 12 DTV transition.

For more information on the CEA Washington Forum, visit www.ce.org.

Arrow Electronics Launches New Features to Online Search Engine

Arrow Electronics, Inc. today announced new online features providing greater access to product data and simplifying the search and ordering process within its expansive electronic components database. Building on the strength of FAST (Microsoft), Arrow’s new parts search engine, the enhancements represent the next step to provide greater tools and information via Arrow’s online resources.

The new features, now live at http://components.arrow.com, include online access to manufacturer part change notifications (PCNs), which provide critical, up-to-the-minute information such as end-of-life notifications and updates on environmental compliance data. When searching parts, customers can now download the most current PCN in a .pdf format across Arrow’s broad portfolio of parts. With Arrow’s PCN database updated daily, customers can be assured they are receiving the most current, up-to-date product data.

Additionally, Arrow now offers enhanced guided navigation enabling customers to search for parts based on supplier or product categories. In addition to keyword searching, customers can narrow their search requirements quicker and more effectively with guided navigation.

CEA Names 2009 CE Hall of Fame Class

The Consumer Electronics Association today announced the 2009 class of inductees into the Consumer Electronics Hall of Fame. The announcement came during CEA’s Washington Forum, a two-day technology policy conference held at the JW Marriott in Washington, DC. The CE Hall of Fame, created in 2000, honors consumer electronics industry leaders who made vital contributions to the products and services that consumers value and are a vital part of our nation and its economy.

Gary Shapiro, President and CEO of CEA, praised the new members for their efforts to improve the lifestyles of consumers all over the world. “These individuals have contributed enormously to the growth of the consumer electronics industry. They are truly deserving of this honor,” he said.

These leaders will be inducted into the CE Hall of Fame at a special dinner and ceremony during CEA’s Industry Forum to be held in Phoenix, Arizona October 18-21, 2009. More information about registering for CEA’s Industry Forum and attending the Hall of Fame Dinner are available at www.CE.org.

Following are the new members of the 2009 CE Hall of Fame in the categories in which they were inducted:

Founders/Inventors

• Dr. Irwin M. Jacobs, co-founder of Qualcomm who led the commercialization of CDMA technology.
• The team of Karl Hassel and Ralph Mathews, founders of the Chicago Radio Laboratory, which later became Zenith Radio.

Sales/Marketing

• Steve Jobs, co-founder and CEO of Apple Inc. who helped to create one of the first commercially successful PCs, the Macintosh (Mac).
• John Shalam founded Audiovox Corp. and helped establish the aftermarket car audio business, the aftermarket security business and the mobile video business. He also has served as CEA Chairman.
• The late Neil Terk, founder of Terk Technologies, introduced the Pi antenna in 1987. The Pi was selected to be sold through the Museum of Modern Art.

Retailers

• Walton Stinson is president and co-founder of the Denver-based Listen Up audio/video specialty chain and also co-founded the Professional Audio Video Retailer's Association (PARA) in 1979.
• The Cohen brothers: Norman, Maurice and Philip, grew their father's Cambridge tire store in Boston into the discount retail giant Lechmere Sales that specialized in CE products.

Miscellaneous

• Richard E. Wiley, past Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), played a pivotal role in the development of HDTV, serving as Chairman of the FCC’s Advisory Committee on Advanced Television Service for nine years.
• Dr. Joseph Flaherty demonstrated HDTV to the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers in 1981 and also gave demonstrations to FCC and other officials, who established the Advisory Committee on Advanced Television Systems, leading to the ATSC standard.

Journalist

• Aaron Neretin is a consumer electronics journalist who wrote for Merchandising Week.

For more information, visit www.ce.org.

Samsung Announces New Mini Notebooks

N110 and N120 Mini Notebooks Offer Portable Computing Capabilities for Personal and Business Users

Samsung Electronics America, a subsidiary of Samsung Electronics Corporation, debuted the N110 and N120 this morning, the newest additions to their mini notebook lineup. The N110 and N120 are both currently available through Samsung.com and online retailers with an MSRP of $469 and $459, respectively.

“Our mini notebooks represent Samsung’s desire to offer high quality, mobile focused solutions that create user value with important features such as design, ergonomics and battery life,” says J.H. Kim, President of Samsung Electronics America’s Information Technology Division. “With the addition of the N110 and N120, we have expanded our lineup with enhanced battery life, multi-media speakers and a larger keyboard and touchpad. These key features will satisfy the needs of users looking for audio video capabilities, while also supporting the road warriors needing extended battery life.”

The N110 mini notebook’s compact design, 10.27'' (W) x 1.19'' (H) x 7.3'' (D), is lightweight, only 2.78 lbs, and capable of being stowed in a briefcase or travel bag. Despite its size, the N110’s keyboard has an ergonomic-friendly 93% full-size keyboard and a 10” LED SuperBright© Glossy Backlit Display, along with a 6-cell (5900mAh) lithium battery providing battery life up to 9 hours of continuous use. With a 1.6GHz processor, 1GB of RAM and 160GB hard drive, this mini notebook is functional for browsing the internet and software applications.

The N120 mini notebook caters to those looking for a richer multimedia experience. While also compact, 10.71'' (W) x 1.71'' (H) x 7.4'' (D), and weighing only 2.8 lbs, the N120 features the convenience of a 97% full-size keyboard with trackpad, along with a 6-cell (5200mAh) lithium battery providing battery life up to 6 hours of continuous use. Its SRS 2.1 channel system, featuring two 1.5 watt stereo speakers and a dedicated subwoofer offers a high quality sound and integrated 1.3 megapixel digital motion camera provides video-conferencing capabilities.

CellSell Is True Cellular Retail ERP For A Truly Integrated Solution

Our sister publication, Wireless World, interviews CEO Ron Moss of Worthware Systems International, regarding the CellSell.

WW: What’s your main line of business?

RM: Worthware is a Canadian software development company that designs, markets and implements integrated accounting and retail ERP systems for cellular phone retailers under the CellSell® accounting systems brand. We launched the CellSell brand in 1991 to eliminate the need for cellular phone retailers to rely upon general purpose accounting software to run their businesses.

Our company is unique because we provide an affordable easy to implement and use, integrated accounting and true retail ERP platform, designed specifically for cellular phone retailers. CellSell accounting systems provide end-to-end business integration. This enables our customers to eliminate standalone, point-of-sale cellular software, retail management software and mass market general purpose accounting software, and the double-entry and issues of data inconsistency and lack of audit trial associated with their ongoing use and maintenance. CellSell accounting systems bind together all aspects of retail front office and back office operations, to create an unalterable audit trail in the general ledger and as a result, our customers can obtain timely and accurate financial reporting.

WW: What was your marketing program last year?

RM: Our program was to raise CellSell brand awareness and to encourage cellular phone retailers to recognize the importance of integrated accounting and true retail ERP to their business. We brought our value proposition to business owners and their financial people, and it was very well received.  In fact the program is ongoing and we have never, been busier with new systems implementations.

WW: What were the most significant events affecting your company in the past year or this year?

RM: We received our certification from Global Payments for our electronic partner payment processing integration. This was a significant event for us, particularly in light of the strict PCI compliance requirements in Canada alone. We received our TELUS Sales Channel Notification Service Certification, so were now even more tightly integrated with internal TELUS POS activation work flows, than ever before. We’re very proud to be certified by Global Payments and TELUS, and these events are certainly milestones, but I would have to say that the single most significant event affecting our company last year was our full production roll-out of our own CellSell thin client connection software. This technology took us almost two years to perfect, we are extremely proud of it because it eliminates the need for installation or maintenance of sever side printer drivers, or use of any third-party universal printer drivers, or third-party thin client server connection software licensing. Everything we need to connect to a CellSell server and print to any local printer is built into each edition of  CellSell. Our customers use this technology to connect electronic cash drawers, slip printers, biometric readers and signature capture devices and they get to keep their older PC’s in service in the role of dumb terminals, extending their life span and reducing IT costs. The CellSell thin client has been one of the most well received pieces of technology we’ve ever developed. It really simplifies our implementations. It’s exciting technology built for low bandwidth connections, so our customers can actually do full point-of-sale transactions including activations from anywhere.

WW: Did your marketing strategy in the past year provide you the overall position you had projected?

RM: Honestly, you set out with your game plan and you do your level best to execute, but you never really have any guarantee where you’ll end up. We feel very fortunate to have executed well and are extremely pleased with the results. Aside from raising CellSell brand awareness as I mentioned before, our marketing strategy was to demystify integrated accounting and cellular retail ERP. We wanted to get our breed of systems up on the radar screens of owners, and let them know, that we’ve made integrated accounting and cellular retail ERP simple, and affordable to implement, and we accomplished that. Where one year ago cellular retail owners we spoke with seemed unaware or ill informed about the benefits of integrated accounting or general concept of even traditional ERP, today we are now seeing in our business, those same cellular phone retailers recognizing that there is a better way to run their businesses, and they are coming to us, their coming to our platform. So yes, we are happy with our position, and we are looking forward to another great year for CellSell.

WW: Describe your current marketing strategy. 

RM: Well first of all, we’re not marketing a commodity. We haven’t forgotten that we are still in the solutions business. We stay focused on our one vertical market and we concentrate on keeping our platform in step with needs of that market alone. While it’s true that we have our *out of the box* offerings, one of our greatest strengths of our company is our willingness and ability to custom fit some editions of CellSell to our customer’s precise specifications. We’ve designed CellSell to be a very flexible platform. This is a big part of our marketing strategy and key contributing factor to our market longevity and our success.

WW: Are you introducing any new products?

RM: Yes,we’ve actually introduced the next generation 2009 editions of CellSell as well as CellSell Reportlets, our user-customizable business intelligence reporting product at CTIA. CellSell Reportlets allows authorized users to quickly design and deploy customized business intelligence dashboards custom-built for individual users, throughout the enterprise without the need for any custom coding. We’ve built CellSell BI Reportlets a new XML-based design file reporting engine so the technology is designed to be future proof.

WW: What distinguishes your products from the competition?

RM: It’s important to understand that CellSell is the wireless retailer equivalent of the 'traditional ERP system.' People may not know or may forget, but most traditional ERP systems were originally developed many years ago, as either general purpose financial management systems, or as integrated modules for manufacturers not retailers, and definitely not cellular phone retailers. CellSell accounting systems on the other hand, were originally contemplated and developed as fully integrated financial accounting and POS systems, with an ERP operational framework and workflows, specifically designed for retailers of cellular phones. Today after 18 years of ongoing development, real-world testing and constant evolution, our now very mature CellSell, has emerged as an enterprise-wide information technology platform designed to integrate, consolidate and coordinate all the resources, information and activities needed to complete back office and front office cellular retailer business processes, such as, financial accounting, POS, carrier activations, customer relationship management, sales force automation, commission management, supply chain management, human resources, and business intelligence reporting. CellSell delivers every one of these elements, to our customers without the need for separate or standalone systems. That’s what we mean at Worthware, when we say, 'CellSell is true Cellular Retail ERP' or  'rue Retail ERP for wireless.' This is truly unprecedented.

WW: How do you compare the position of your products and their technology against the current market.

RM: The current market is made up of made up of standalone, POS cellular software or standalone cellular retail management systems that may or may not, be loosely interfaced with some other mass market, generic accounting software. The CellSell platform, our platform, is different. We implement an entirely different variety of fully integrated systems. For example if you’re running standalone software and your double-keying, or your exporting and importing your financial data, from one system to the other, this requires resources and oversight, in order to validate numbers, you need to do a lot of back and forth reconciliation between systems to arrive at accurate financial reporting. It's costly and modern retailers of cellular phones recognize that there is too much risk associated with running financials in this way, so they look to us for an integrated solution.

For more information, visit www.cellsell.com.

DiiVA Spec Makes Waves at NAB

Aimed squarely at making the TV a simple, interactive hub of the digital home media network, the Digital Interactive Interface for Video & Audio™ (DiiVA™) consortium today announced availability of the DiiVA 1.0 specification. Demonstrating the growing momentum and commitment to the consumer electronics and home-networking standard, global CE leadersLG Electronics, Panasonic, Samsung Electronics, Sharp, Wanlida (Malata), XOCECO (PRIMA), Agilent, MediaTek, Tektronix, Foxconn and JAE, have joined the effort as contributors to deliver on DiiVA’s promise.

Addressing the need for a worldwide standard for consumer electronics and home networking, the DiiVA interface enables a simple and interactive experience by providing a single, low-cost cable (such as a CAT6 LAN cable) to handle both the transmission of uncompressed video and audio plus bi-directional high-speed data and audio.

Led by Chinese CE manufacturers Changhong, Haier, Hisense, Konka, Panda, Skyworth, SVA, TCL and chip developer, Synerchip, the DiiVA consortium has the support of the Chinese national, regional and local governments. Nearly 70 percent of the world’s televisions are manufactured in China. With its commitment to the DiiVA standard, China is solidifying its role as an advanced technology innovator and enabling the delivery of consumer-friendly digital features in its own market and around the globe.

The DiiVA specification is open to companies developing CE products such as TVs, set-top boxes, DVD and Blu-ray players, AV receivers, PCs, game consoles and mobile devices and enabling technology. The standard would allow for:

• Easy access to internet-based content from the TV
• Content discovery and device control from any DiiVA-enabled TV
• Reduction in cabling by carrying video, audio, Ethernet and USB over a single DiiVA cable
• Playing a game console from any TV in the house

DiiVA supports 13.5Gbps of bandwidth dedicated to video and over 2Gbps aggregate bandwidth in the Hybrid Channel for bi-directional data and audio. DiiVA will also simultaneously support HDCP 2.0 and DTCP-IP content protection systems for uncompressed and compressed video streams, respectively, and may also additionally use other CP systems developed in China.  Data types that are simultaneously streamed include current and future uncompressed high-definition video and audio formats, USB, Ethernet, and device control commands.  The DiiVA specification includes transport and network layers that enable video streams, audio, and data packets to be securely routed from any source to any display on the DiiVA home network. Additionally, the DiiVA specification will provide connectivity and charging power to portable devices.  

For more information, visit www.diiva.org.