2012
Latest
Study confirms that wireless HD is still far from mainstream
A lot of things in the high-def world are going down in 2012, so it's not shocking at all to hear that we've got yet another thing to look forward to during that fateful year. ABI Research has just loosed a new report that tags wireless HD as being in its "incubation" stage, with fewer than 100,000 devices in the sector scheduled to ship in 2008. Furthermore, analysts are suggesting that 2012 would be the earliest point in which one million wireless HDTV installations occurred worldwide -- and that's an "optimistic forecast." We posed the question a few months back wondering just how long it would take for this stuff to take off. 'Spose we have our answer, huh?[Via Connected Home News]
HD programming to reach 44 million homes worldwide by year's end
Just in case you haven't been schooled enough by HD research articles of late, here comes another to toss around inside that skull of yours. Based on a forecast by Informa Telecoms & Media, around 4-percent of worldwide households (read: not just homes with HDTVs) will "actively watch HD programming" before 2009 dawns. Just to put that into perspective, only 2-percent of homes globally were tuning into HDTV at the end of 2007. According to Simon Murray, principal media analyst at the company, a "major contributing factor is that set and set-top box prices have fallen substantially in the last two years," and it should come as no surprise that HD adoption has been highest in North America. Per usual, an HD study couldn't conclude without some reference to 2012, and sure enough, Informa is expecting around 179 million worldwide abodes (16-percent, give or take) to have HD programming in less than four years.[Image courtesy of AT&T]
Format war's end to propel Blu-ray into 29 million homes this year
There's no doubt that many movie lovers were waiting until the format war came to some sort of conclusion before choosing a side, and now that Blu-ray has emerged victorious, it seems as if some analysts are fairly bullish on adoption rates. According to new research from Strategy Analytics, the end of the war will "propel [BD] into 29.4 million homes worldwide by the end of 2008." Also of note, it reckons that Sony's PS3 will "drive the Blu-ray market until 2009, after which standalone players will become the dominant segment." Of course, a study couldn't come out without some mention of 2012, so you can reportedly look forward to seeing 132 million BD-equipped homes in just four years. Now, the only question is when will BD players overtake DVD?
Worldwide IPTV subscriptions to hit 65 million in 2012
At the end of 2007, just 13 million households worldwide were subscribed to an IPTV service. Reportedly, that number will inflate to 65 million in the year -- wait for it -- 2012. According to new data from IMS Research, IPTV consumption is expected to grow 52-percent annually from now until 2012, which should also drive shipments of IPTV set-top-boxes from 4.7 million in '06 to 21 million in '12. Interestingly enough, the research also notes that hybrid IP STBs, which "combine internet protocol features with traditional TV delivery," will also shoot up substantially, making Intel and its latest partners look awfully smart.
More news from 2012: 100 million US households to pay for HD programming
Alright, so it was mildly humorous at first -- now it's just downright freaky. For the fourth time in just a few months, a report is emerging that forecasts numbers for 2012. Not 2011, not 2013, just 2012. Nevertheless, the latest research doled out by Pike & Fischer asserts that "up to 103 million households will be paying their multichannel video provider for some form of HD service or rental equipment" by 2012. As it stands, around 47 million US homes will be coughing up for HD programming by the end of 2008, which should be a 17 million domicile increase from 2007 if everything goes as predicted. Needless to say, we've no doubts that HD consumption has nowhere to go but up, but even we are taken aback by the $2.6 billion in annual revenue that content providers are expected to garner in just four short years.
Fan-made LotRO map guesses at expansion details: Mordor in 2012!
This has been out there for a while now, but if you haven't already seen it then it's definitely worth a look. Visions of the Ring has a player-made map that speculates a time line for Lord of the Rings Online expansions. It is flash-based, and you can scroll by months or years and see when the map creator Hayoo expects different content will be added, and what the overall game map will look like at any particular time.Before you go thinking, "What a nutjob!", and dismiss the whole thing, Hayoo has a lot of reasoning behind the map's dates and the order in which things will come.
Cable's bandwidth quagmire
Most people think going digital means going HD, but we know all too well that this couldn't be further from the truth. One thing that going digital does mean is more efficient use of the limited resource, bandwidth. Big cable looks forward to digital for many reasons, but most of all so they can drop all those bandwidth sucking analog channels and shift the throughput to additional revenue streams. We learned last month that this wasn't going to happen untill at least 2012, but cable has a few options -- none of them are good. They have the option to deploy STBs, but thanks to another FCC mandates these boxes are no longer cheap and can cost about $150 because they have to support CableCARDs and the hardware for OCAP. The most interesting option is from a company called Broadlogic that produces a chip that can decode 80 MPEG-2 streams at the same time, which would convert the signal from digital to analog at the house and eliminate the need for STBs while saving the bandwidth of the analog channels. It could be worse however, if the FCC had forced them to provide an analog and multiple digital versions of a channel.[Via ConnectedHome2Go]
Stuck with the auto-unstuck cooldown
In the 2.0.12 patch notes, there was a little surreptitious note that seemed pretty tame: "Using the customer support 'Auto-Unstuck' will now trigger the one-hour cooldown on the player's hearthstone." Whenever your character model gets stuck in the world, you can enter the help menu, and choose an "Auto-Unstuck" option that was placed there early in the game's life (so that GMs wouldn't have to come along every time a player got stuck to fix the issue).What "Auto-Unstuck" actually does is (after a little tweaking to try and get you out close to where you are) port you back to your hearthstone city. I think I've used it once the whole time I've been playing the game. But apparently there was no cooldown on it at all, so what lots of players were doing is using it as a second hearthstone. I knew the possibility was there, but apparently I underestimated players' usage of it-- tons of people were "exploiting" the feature, and now lots of people, both here in America and in Europe, are angry that the hearthstone cooldown is tied to Auto-Unstuck.If you ask me, it's nothing to get angry about-- the Auto-Unstuck, as Drysc says, is a support feature, and any constant use of it to cut down on travel time indeed "bordered on exploitative use." Players reply that a second hearthstone helped them save travel time (well of course it did), but Drysc says that the devs want the world to feel like a world-- though they've made steps (like Meeting Stones) to cut down on travel, they never wanted players to move around "without any thought to the distance they have to travel."I gotta side with Blizzard on this one-- they gave you one hearthstone, and using Auto-Unstuck as a second one is against the rules. Some players say that the common cooldown means that if they get stuck twice in the same hour, they're screwed, but that's not necessarily true. A nice warlock could always summon you away, or you could do what one of my groups did to a guy who got stuck in Underbog-- we let him die and then rezzed him back out in the open.
Ford demos new airbag-based seatbelt design
It's not every day that auto technology moves from the speedway to the driveway. The Detroit News reports that Ford is working on a new style of seatbelts, inspired by race car driver seatbelts, which have mini-airbags embedded inside. When the airbag is deployed, the bag tears through the seam of the seatbelt and inflates cylindrically. The seatbelt orientation has also totally changed -- a hip strap and two shoulder straps creates a four-point restraint system, centered at the rider's belt buckle. Ford officials said that this new design cuts down on pressure to the chest during impacts. However, the company does acknkowledge that this design, which may takes years to reach the market, may be uncomfortable for some people, particularly pregnant women and large-bellied folks. So make sure you drop 20 pounds by the time you buy your 2012 model Ford, ok? The countdown begins... now.[Via Autopia]
