Consumer Electronics Daily News

How Online Communication Connects Generations

AARP and Microsoft Corp. today released "Connecting Generations," a new research report that examines how people of all ages are using online communication and social networking to enhance their family relationships. The report reveals three key pieces of evidence showing that online communication is bridging the generation gap:

• 83 percent of those surveyed (ranging in age from 13 to 75 years old) consider going online to be a "helpful" form of communication among family members.
• 30 percent of grandparents of teens/young adults agree that connecting online has helped them better understand their teen/young adult grandchildren, and 29 percent of teens/young adults say the same about their grandparents.
• Teens agree that the computer increases both the quantity (70 percent) and quality (67 percent) of their communication with family members living far away.

"For decades, baby boomers and other older Americans have valued computers and mobile devices as tools for work, but technology is now playing an increasingly vital role in helping the 50+ population communicate and stay connected to their children, aging parents and other family members," said Jody Holtzman, Senior Vice President, AARP Thought Leadership. "By enhancing communication across all generations, technology is improving the quality of life for people of all ages."

Released in conjunction with Safer Internet Day 2012,an annual event organized by InSafe to promote safer and more responsible use of online technology and mobile devices among people worldwide, this "Connecting Generations" report also confirms the need for educating all consumers, from teenagers to grandparents, about Internet safety and the steps they can take to help protect themselves online.

While most respondents — teens, parents and grandparents — wish they knew more about how to keep personal information private (58 percent), and how to safeguard their devices (50 percent), the younger generation wants more information than older respondents about using social networks more safely (38 percent compared to 27 percent).

There is also a disconnect between how teens deal with online content that makes them feel uncomfortable and their parents' perception of how they are dealing with such images and information.  Nearly half of parents (49 percent) say their teens know to come to them when they see something online that makes them uncomfortable, yet less than a third of teens (29 percent) say they actually would know to go to their parents to talk about it. And while 49 percent of parents say the lines of communication between them and their teenage children remain open, only 37 percent of teens agree.

"Teenagers and young adults are very knowledgeable about technology, but their parents and grandparents often have better judgment and greater wisdom born of experience," said Jacqueline Beauchere, Director, Trustworthy Computing for Microsoft. "Together, AARP and Microsoft are helping generations of Americans stay connected, and are providing the tools and guidance they need to help each other have safer online experiences."

Tips Can Help Families Stay Safer Online

AARP and Microsoft offer these tips to help families connect the generations when it comes to online safety: 

1) Use social networks more safely

• Look for Settings or Options in services like Facebook and Twitter to manage who can see your profile or photos tagged with your name, how people can search for you and make comments, and how to block people.
• Don't post anything you wouldn't want to see on a billboard.
• Be selective about accepting friends; regularly reassess who has access to your pages, and review what they post about you.

2) Help protect sensitive personal information

• Before you enter sensitive data, look for signs that a webpage is secure — a web address with "https" and a closed padlock beside it.
• Never give sensitive info (like an account number or password) or call a number in response to a request in email or IM or on a social network.
• Think carefully before you respond to pleas for money from "family members," deals that sound too good to be true, or other scams.

3) Parents and grandparents should have regular conversations with kids, keeping communications open:

• Negotiate clear guidelines for web, mobile and online game use that fit your children's maturity level and your family values.
• Watch your kids for signs of online bullying, such as being upset when they are online or a reluctance to go to school.
• Be the administrator of your home computer; use age-appropriate family safety settings to help you keep track of what your kids are doing online. For example, in all editions of the Windows 7 operating system, you can create separate accounts for each family member. Using Parental Controls (found in Control Panel), you can:
  • Specify the exact days and times when children can use the computer.
  • Prevent kids from playing certain games, based on title, content, or age-rating.
  • Block access to certain programs — for example, those that store sensitive financial data.
  • To keep communications open, the Parental Controls icon is always visible so children know when the feature is in use.
• Pay attention to what kids do and whom they meet online. Revisit regularly.

For those who truly want to make online safety a family affair, Beauchere recommends that they teach themselves and their family about computer security, data privacy, and online safety by using Microsoft's interactive Digital Citizenship in Action Toolkit.

CES: It's Still the One

This is Part One of a two-part story that looks at whether a show that's been around since 1967 is still relevant in today's consumer electronics marketplace.

By Lorrie Baumann

Round trip airline ticket to Las Vegas, $400 on Southwest Airlines.

Four nights at Las Vegas hotel at International CES discounted rates, $1,200.

The chance to see every important buyer and every hot electronic product that will matter in the market during 2012, priceless.

With a bow to Joyce King Thomas, who created the iconic MasterCard campaign, there is no better word than “priceless” to describe the International CES' importance in the consumer electronics marketplace. Between January 10 and 13, 2012, about 3,235 exhibiting manufacturers will ring up somewhere around half a billion dollars in sales, according to Consumer Electronics Association Senior Director of Communications Tara Dunion. That's billion, with a B. And that doesn't count the multitude of intangible and unquantifiable benefits of being part of the show, exhibitors say.

Those benefits fall into four categories, according to Dave Dickinson, President and Chief Executive Officer of Zeo, Inc., who is coming to CES to be part of a whole new growth area in digital health. “CES is still a great way to showcase new categories and market opportunities,” he said. Those four categories of benefits include the public relations value associated with the opportunity to get a lot of press for a great new idea, the exposure to retailers other than the ones who are already familiar with the product category, the chance for exposure to international distributors and retailers, and the chance to build awareness of new products among early adopters and enthusiasts who attend CES not only as industry professionals but as consumers themselves. “If you have product news in the CE space, it's a great way to get the word out to all kinds of stakeholders,” Dickinson says.

Kim Stowe, Spokesperson for Analogix Semiconductor, is also counting on CES as a venue to reach other manufacturers. “We're introducing a technology that allows the smart phone and the tablet to connect to big-screen displays,” she says. This technology will allow someone who needs to make a presentation to his company to upload his presentation to the cloud, travel to the meeting, access the presentation from his smart phone, and then present it on a big screen in the conference room, with theater-quality audio and video, Stowe says. She wants to introduce that technology to the television manufacturers and the people who build other devices that could incorporate the technology, and, “Everyone that matters is at CES.”

It's that “everyone” that matters to Laura Taylor, Senior Manager of Marketing for Ethertronics. Ethertronics is the leading developer of high performance embedded antennas for wireless devices, and she's looking for those companies that need wireless to help them get their products to market. CES is a particularly valuable trade show to her because it attracts a wide spectrum of industries that have only their dependence on electronics technology in common. Many of them are potential customers for Ethertronics. “I don't think there's a show out there that has such a diverse group of technologies all at the same time,” she says. “It makes it easy for us to meet our customers from all around the world over a couple of days in one location.”

Part Two of this story will be posted tomorrow.

BCI receives award nomination

BCI’s Mini-HDMI-WP Wall Plate Miniature Multimode Fiber Optic HDMI Extender with white Decora faceplate was nominated for “Best of InfoComm Award” at the recent InfoComm 2011 trade show. The award is bestowed by public voting to the best product or service at the show.

 The Decora® designer faceplate is extremely popular for its sleek, smooth contemporary styling and is widely used in conference and media rooms with Leviton’s electrical devices and lighting controls. BCI had received multiple requests from end users for this aesthetic touch to go with its robust DVI extender and is the first in market with this option.

 The Mini-DVI-DWP Series is a high performance, low cost, miniature, Fiber Optic DVI extender system designed specifically for wall plate installation. It carries one (1) unidirectional DVI video, together with true HDCP/ DDC content, through one (1) multimode fiber.

 This unique fiber optic transmission system lets your digital flat panel display extend up to 400m at WUXGA (1920x1200 @ 60Hz) resolution.

 No user adjustment is required for the Mini-DVI-DWP system due to the use of advanced digital fiber optic transmission system technology with zero compression and zero bit reduction. This allows for a quick and easy setup, offering trouble-free operation.

 Under BCI's former identity, it operated as the Applied Technology Division of Physical Optics Corporation (POC). In September of 2000, it was spun-off as a separate entity in order to react quickly to market opportunities that included targeting the multimedia transmission and network infrastructure segment, which is a recognized fast-growing and emerging marketplace.

Many of BCI's clients are world leaders in their industry, which span a wide variety of industry segments including entertainment, broadcast, medical, professional audio/ video, house of worship, education, aerospace, government, military, and transportation

For more information about Light Bridge Technology, email dcress@broadatacom.com

Apple iCloud pricing starts at $20 a year

Apple has launched a beta version of its iCloud website for developers, and announced pricing for those who want to store more than 5 gigabytes of data. For those who use up to that amount, the service — expected to launch for real in September — is free.

If you want more than 5 GB, this is what it will cost:

• 10 GB for $20 a year
• 20 GB for $40 a year
• 50 GB for $100 a year

How do those prices compare to well-known current cloud services such as Drop Box and SugarSync?

Dropbox gives users up to 2 GB of storage for free; if you want 50 GB, it's $99 a year. SugarSync gives users up to 5 GB of storage at no cost; for 30 GB, it's $49.99; 60 GB, $99.99.

"It should be noted that Dropbox is the only truly cross-platform service," said 9 to5 Mac, which compared the services. "Dropbox provides a desktop client for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux and utilizes a clever file handling mechanism which takes care of translating file and meta data differences among platforms."

For those who want to take a peek at what iCloud apps — including email, contacts and calendar and productivity suite iWork  — will look like, both 9 to 5 Mac and AppleInsider have published some screenshots.

The iCloud service will take the place of Apple's MobileMe, which will be shuttered at the end of next June. It has cost $99 a year for 20 GB of storage.

Blurb creates books from Instagram iPhone photos

 

The iPhone app Instagram is great for turning average photos into lo-fi masterpieces. It seems a shame to keep them trapped on your iPhone or online, and that's where Blurb steps in, letting you quickly create and publish photobooks with just a couple clicks.

The site's Bookify online bookmaking tool simply connects to your online Instagram collection and autoflows your most recent photos into a book; the one with most "likes" ends up on the cover. Blurb optimizes the images so they look their best when printed.

From there you can edit and preview the results before purchase, share, or sell your book from the Blurb.com bookstore. You get a choice of three cover types and five paper choices. A 7x7-inch book starts at $10.95 for a softcover 20-page book and goes up from there depending on paper, cover type, and page count.

For those of you who don't use Instagram, you can still use Bookify to pull photos from Flickr, SmugMug, Zenfolio, and Picasa, or upload directly from you computer.

 

Netflix streamers downgrade PayTV services

According to The Diffusion Group’s (TDG’s) latest analysis of Netflix Streamers—those that stream Netflix content to their net-connected devices—the inclination to downgrade PayTV services has doubled in just the last 12 months.

In March 2011, TDG queried a random sample of adult broadband users that subscribe to cable, satellite, or telcoTV service as to the likelihood they would downgrade their PayTV service in the next six months—that is, “…move from a higher service tier to a lower one, or cancel a premium service of some kind.” In general, the percentage of Netflix Streamers to varying degrees likely to downgrade their PayTV service increased from 16% in 2010 to 32% in 2011.

Though Netflix has gone to great lengths to reassure PayTV operators that its offerings are additive to regular TV viewing and thus not a competitive threat, research now suggests that the ‘Netflix Effect’—that is, growing use of Netflix will lead to PayTV service downgrades and even cancellation—is gaining momentum.

“Despite its rhetorical positioning, both Netflix and PayTV operators have long been aware that there will come a point at which its services are not only dilutive to regular TV viewing, but antithetical to PayTV subscription levels,” notes Michael Greeson, TDG founding partner and director of research. “The question for realistic observers has been not if this will occur but when. According to our latest research, that time is upon us.”

While research continues to suggest that such tendencies are due primarily to economic belt tightening, TDG discovered that the primary rationale varies by frequency of Netflix streaming. For example, close to half of all Netflix Streamers likely to downgrade their PayTV service in the next six months cite “cost of service” and “the need to save money” as the primary reason for this disposition. Conversely, 34% cite their growing use of online video as the culprit, two-thirds of which cite Netflix in particular as the primary perpetrator.

 Among moderate and heavy Netflix Streamers likely to downgrade, however, 61% cite growing use of online video as the primary reason for likely downgrade (two-thirds of which cite Netflix use in particular). Only 24% of moderate and heavy Netflix Streamers cite economic concerns as their primary motivation for downgrade

Barnes & Noble Announces March “More In Store” Offers on the NOOK

Barnes & Noble, Inc. today announced the March line-up for the “More In Store™” program for the NOOK™ family of eBook Readers. Available only in Barnes & Noble stores and only on NOOK, the free “More In Store” program offers NOOK customers new, exclusive content from bestselling and new authors, special offers and savings, and weekly bestseller and new release lists.

Barnes & Noble’s free in-store Wi-Fi® service makes access to "More In Store" content easy. With just a simple tap of the NOOK “shop” button, customers can explore content from authors and in-store promotions including special savings and free café offers. "More In Store" is updated weekly and each new feature is available for four weeks on a rolling basis. Once a customer downloads the content to their NOOK, it is saved to their digital locker and can be accessed at any time.

Lockerz Announces Photo Sharing that Rewards Members

Lockerz today announced its first-ever photo sharing experience where members can now post, share, “Like” and comment on photos. Lockerz members earn PTZ® that can be turned into discounts on great brands when they upload photos. In the second phase of this feature launching soon, members will also earn PTZ when friends “Like” and comment on their photos. The second phase will also enable photos posted on Lockerz to be shared with virtually all other major social networks.

Lockerz is also hosting a series of Lockerz Photo Challenges in which members submit photos of their favorite outfit, best Ninja move, best friend, etc. Lockerz editors select three finalists for each challenge, and one grand prize winner will be chosen by Lockerz members. Each winner receives 5,000 PTZ, enough to drive discounts of up to 40 percent in Lockerz SHOP.

 

Don't Miss Engadget's Next Reader Meetup

The Engadget crew is hosting its annual reader meetup in San Francisco, Calif., on Feb. 25 at City View at The Metreon. The popular technology weblog is partnering with Sprint, as well as Sony PlayStation, Motorola, HP, Roku, Samsung, VUDU, RIM, Sling, Sonos, HTC, Corning, Sphero, OnLive, Plantronics, Snapstick and more to “bring you a night of gadget geeking, giveaways, delicious foodstuffs, and some awesome music ...”

Doors open at 6:30 p.m. and capacity is limmited to 1,200 people. For more information, visit www.engadget.com.

IPgallery to Demonstrate "Click to Anything" at CableLabs Winter Conference

IPgallery announced today that it will be demonstrating its integrated social communications platform with “Click to Anything,” for a truly personalize experience of watching, sharing and transferring multi-media content with an integrated communications experience.

At the CableLabs Winter Conference in Atlanta, Ga., IPgallery will show how to leverage Cloud Computing, the MSO’s digital network, and core assets for delivering, voice, messaging and content. The demonstration will show the MSO’s how to create a personalized environment for the consumer to take control over how they talk, chat, watch, share and transfer multi-media communications over any broadband device.