BT rolling out real-standard broadband to Wales and Shropshire communities

17/01/2011 Next-generation broadband service, Rural Broadband Access No Comments

Articles

BBC News – BT rolls out broadband to two Valleys towns

BBC News – Broadband for two rural market towns

My comments

I have previously covered efforts by companies like Rutland Telecom to have villages and small towns in the UK covered with proper-standard broadband. Examples of this include Rutland Telecom “lighting up” Lyddington in Leicestershire and Hambleton in Rutland as well as Vtesse lighting up Hatt and Higher Pill in Cornwall. Now, British Telecom, the UK equivalent of Telstra, have stepped up to the plate and started rolling out next-generation broadband in to various rural communities in the UK.

Examples of these include Pontcymmer and Baenganw near Bridgend in Wales as well as Oswestry in Shropshire and Stourport in Worcestershire. Infact, they are wanting to “wire up” properly more of the market towns in rural Wales like the whole of Bridgend,  Chepstow in Monmouthshire, Hengoed in Caerphilly, Llantrisant and Llantwit Fardre in Rondda Cynon Taf.

One of the aims stated by BT Openreach who manage the infrastructure and provide the service to retail providers was to reduce the numbers of people that left out of the broadband loop when they were talking of the Midlands deployments. Other quotes included the fact that this was not a rural issue but areas of some of the towns wore not receiving Internet service that wasn’t of proper expectations. This was also going to affect the use of broadband Internet service as a business tool.

What I had observed was that even in the tough economic times, broadband Internet service was being pushed to the same level of expectation as mains electricity or a telephone service. This can then allow for ideals like improved business knowledge as well as the ability to provide your goods  and services in a competitive manner.

Happy 10th Birthday, Wikipedia

15/01/2011 Milestones to the Connected Lifestyle No Comments

Articles

At 10, highlighting Wikipedia’s past and future | CNET News

Web site

http://en.wikipedia.org

My comments

Previously, an encyclopaedia was simply a multi-volume set of books which consolidated information on many different topics. The typical examples were the common 50-volume Encyclopaedia Britannica or even the more common twenty-volume sets like World Book Encyclopaedia that exist on many bookshelves. One main disadvantage with these sets was that they dated the moment they were printed and some of the publishes tried to get around this by publishing “yearbooks” which hand newer information in them every year.

In the 90s when “multimedia computing” started to take off, there were some so-called “multimedia encyclopaedias” like Microsoft Encarta. These were an electronic encyclopaedia which were issued on a CD-ROM and had various forms of rich media like animations, sound or video. Examples of this included various “how-it-works” animations; sounds of various animals; audio recordings of classic speeches or even news footage of historic events.

Now the Internet has enabled the existence of “Wikipedia” which is a free open-source user-revised encyclopaedia that is presented using a “wiki” content management system. This has allowed for always up-to-date content that can even stay fresh no matter what happens.

The user-revised model has advantages with extra facts being added or facts being revised as required. But it had its fair share of problems with poor-quality trivial matter, defaced articles and editing that was driven by personal, commercial or political agenda.  This reduced the quality and veracity of Wikipedia’s content and had people place doubts on it as a valid information resource.

There have been recent steps to improve the quality and veracity of content. These steps have been augmented by editors who have “teeth” and are ready to identify the content that goes against the standards. A common example of these steps included the requirement for facts to be cited to a real source.

Now there are smartphone apps and plug-in modules for browsers and other programs that integrate searching the whole of Wikipedia  These have become a way to take Wikipedia further as one of the main core electronic encyclopaedias.

But now Wikipedia has become a valuable resource for most people, whether for study or even the pub trivia nights. As well, this site is one of the top few Websites to be accessed from most home and small business networks when one is stuck for an answer to a question.

So here it is from HomeNetworking01.info —

Happy 10th Birthday Wikipedia!

Consumer Electronics Show 2011–Part 3

12/01/2011 Consumer Electronics Show (January - Las Vegas USA), HomePlug powerline networking, Network hardware design, Network Management, Operating Systems, Systèmes d'exploitation, Wireless Networking No Comments

Now we come to the issue of network-infrastructure equipment that will need to support the increasing demands placed on the home network by the previously-mentioned smartphones, tablet computers and Internet-enabled TVs.

Network Infrastructure

Network Connectivity

Some newer chipsets have appeared which will increase network bandwidth for the 802.11n Wi-Fi segment and the HomePlug AV segment. The current implementations may use manufacturer-specific implementations which won’t bode well with the standards.

The first new “call” is the 450Mbps 802.11n WPA2 WPS Wi-Fi segment which is being provided by most network makes for their midrange routers and access points. Access points and routers that work with this specification use three 802.11n radio streams to maintain the high throughput. The full bandwidth may be achieved if the client device is equipped with an 802.11n wireless network adaptor that supports the three streams but your existing devices may benefit due to reduced contention for the wireless bandwidth due to the access point / router offering three streams.

Most of the routers shown at the Consumer Electronics Show this year that support the 3-stream 450Mbps level for the 802.11n wireless network functionality also offered dual-band dual-radio operation to the same specification. Here, these devices could work on both the 2.4GHz band and the 5GHz band at this level of performance.

Some manufacturers were trying out the idea of a 60GHz high-bandwidth media network which may be based on a Wi-Fi (802.11 technology) or other proprietary scheme. This could lead to three-band multimedia routers and access points that use 2.4GHz and 5GHz for regular whole-home wireless networking and 60GHz for same-room wireless networking.

The second new “call” is the 500Mbps throughput being made available on high-end HomePlug AV devices. These powerline network devices may only achieve the high bandwidth on a segment consisting of the high-bandwidth devices that are based on the same chipset. Here, I would wait for the HomePlug AV2 standard to be fully ratified before you chase the 500Mbps bandwidth on your HomePlug segment. Of course, these devices can work with HomePlug AV segments.

The third new call is for midrange high-throughput routers to have Gigabit on the WAN (Internet) port as well as the LAN ports. This is more relevant nowadays as fibre-based next-generation broadband services are rolled out in most countries.

Everyone who exhibited network-infrastructure equipment offered at least one 450Mbps dual-band dual-radio router with Gigabit Ethernet on the WAN (Internet) connection as well as the wired-LAN connection. As well, most of these routers are equipped with circuitry that supports QoS when streaming media and some of them have a USB file-server function which can also provide media files to the DLNA Home Media Network.

Trendnet also offered an access point and a wireless client bridge that worked to this new level of 802.11n performance. They also demonstrated power-saving circuitry for Wi-Fi client devices which throttles back transmission power if the device is in the presence of a strong access point signal for their network. This was ostensibly to be “green” when it comes to AC-powered devices but would yield more real benefit for devices that have to run on battery power.

They also ran with the TPL-410AP which is a HomePlug AV Wireless-N multi-function access point. Another of those HomePlug access points that can “fill in the gap” on a wireless network or extend the Wi-Fi network out to the garage, barn or old caravan.

They also issued the TEW-656BRG 3G Mobile Wireless N Router, which is an 802.11n “MiFi router” that is powered by USB and works with most 3G / 4G modem sticks available in the USA. It is of a small design that allows it to be clipped on to a laptop’s lid or a small LCD monitor.

TP-Link had their 450Mbps three-stream dual-band dual-radio router with Gigabit on bot WAN and LAN Ethernet connections. As well they fielded a single-stream 150Mbps USB stick as the TL-WNT23N.

They also tried their hand with IP surveillance with the TL-SC4171G camera . This camera can do remote pan-tilt, and 10x digital zoom. It connects to the network via Ethernet or 802.11g Wi-Fi (not that much chop nowadays) and is equipped with an IR ring for night capture, as well as a microphone and speaker.

Netgear were more active with the 450Mbps three-stream routers with Gigabit LAN. Two of the models are broadband routers with Gigabit WAN, while one is an ADSL2 modem router which I think would serve the European and Australian markets more easily. The top-end model of the series has a USB file server function which works with the DLNA Home Media Network and also with Tivo “personal-TV devices”.

They also released the XAV5004 HomePlug AV switch which is the 500Mbps version of the their earlier “home-theatre” four-port HomePlug switch. Of course, they released the XAV2001 which is a compact “homeplug” adaptor which connects to the regular standards-based HomePlug AV segment.

They also have released the MBR1000 Mobile Broadband Router which works with 3G/4G wireless broadband or  Ethernet broadband. This unit is being provided “tuNrnkey” for Verizon’s new 4G LTE service.

Netgear have also fielded the VEVG3700 VDSL2/Gigabit Ethernet dual-WAN router with Gigabit Ethernet LAN, Cat-IQ DECT VoIP phone base station. This device, which is pitched at triple-play service providers also supports DLNA server functionality. As well, they also had a DECT VoIP kit available for these providers

As well, Netgear have tried their footsteps in to IP-surveillance for home and small business with a camera and an Android-driven screen for this purpose.

D-Link’s network hardware range include the three-stream 450Mbps routers with Gigabit WAN/LAN, a multifunction access point / repeater for the 802.11n network as well as a new DLNA-enabled network-attached storage range

As far as the MoCA TV-coaxial-cable network is concerned, Channel Master is the only company to release any network hardware for this “no-new-wires” network. It is in the form of a MoCA-Ethernet 4-port switch for the home theatre.

“Mi-Fi” wireless-broadband routers

Every one of the US cellular-telecommunications carriers are catching on to the 4G bandwagon not just with the smartphones and tablets but with the wireless-broadband routers.

Sprint have a unit for their WiMAX service while Verizon are fielding a Samsung LTE “Mi-Fi” as well as the aforementioned Netgear MBR1000 router.

Computer hardware and software

Monitors

Some of the companies who manufacture monitors are looking at the idea of “Internet-connected” monitors which have a basic Web browser in them so you don’t have to fire up a computer to view the Web.

CPU/GPU combo chips

These new processor chips combine a CPU which is a computer’s “brain” as well as the graphics processor which “draws” the user interface on to the screen. AMD and Intel were premiering the “Accelerated Processor Units” and the Core “Sandy Bridge” prcessors respectively at the CES this year.

Intel were trumpeting the fact that this technology could make it harder to pirate movie content but this is more about mainstream computing and small-form-factor hardware being behind this space and power saving processor hardware.

Sony had lodged a commitment to AMD to use the Zacate “Accelerated Processor Unit” in some of their VAIO laptops.

Other hardware

AMD haven’t forgotten the “performance computing” segment when it comes to processor chips and released the quad-core and 6-core “Phenom” desktop and gaming-rig CPUs.

Seagate have also made the “GoFlex” removable / dockable hard disks a standard by building alliances with third-parties to make hardware that works to this standard. Could this be another “VHS-style” alliance for dockable hard disks?

Microsoft also used this show to premiere their Touch Mouse which uses that same touch operation method as Apple’s Magic Mouse. Do I see an attempt for them to “snap at” Apple when it comes to “cool hardware” as well as software?

The Microsoft Platform

There has been some activity with the Microsoft Windows platforms now that set-top boxes and tablet computers are becoming the “order of the day”

One direction Microsoft is taking is to port the Windows Platform, which was primarily written for Intel-Architecture processors, to the Acorn ARM-architecture processors. The reason that this port is taking place is due to these energy-efficient RISC processors being commonly used in battery-driven applications like tablet computers. They are also popular with other dedicated multimedia devices like set-top boxes and TV applications.

As well, Microsoft will be working on a lightweight Windows build for TV applications like set-top boxes. This is although they have previously written Windows-CE builds for this class of device.

Microsoft also want to make a variant of the Windows Phone 7 for tablet computers and are starting work on the Windows 8 project.

Similarly, Somsung has demonstrated the second incarnation of the Microsoft Surface platform This one comes in a slimmer table-based form rather than a unit that is as thick as the 1980s-style “cocktail-table” arcade game machine.

Conclusion

The Consumer Electronics Show 2011 has certainly put the connected home on the map. This is due to affordable smartphones and tablet computers becoming more ubiquitous and Internet-provided video services becoming an increasing part of American home life.

It will be interesting to see what will happen for the other “pillar” of the consumer-electronics trade fair cycle – the Internationaler Funkaustellung; and how more prevalent the Internet TV, smartphone and tablet computer lifestyle will be in Europe and Asia.

A fully-fledged Skype client for the iOS at last

10/01/2011 Mobile Computing, Video-conferencing, Voice Over IP No Comments

Articles

Skype adds video calls to iPhone app | The Register (UK)

Skype offers iPhone video calls over 3G | The Register (UK)

Skype: Update bietet Videotelefonie via iPhone und iPod touch | Computer Bild (Germany – German language)

My comments

There have been previous versions of Skype released for the iPhone but these have been limited in functionality compared to the desktop Skype clients. In some situations, you couldn’t use Skype with the 3G wireless-broadband connection and you didn’t have video calling.

Now Skype have delivered Skype 3.0 for Apple iOS which yields a client that does what is expected of the service. Unlike Apple’s FaceTime videophone client which only works with Apple’s platforms, this client can communicate with an established universe of Skype desktop, mobile and dedicated communications clients as well as make and take calls to and from regular telephone services using the paid SkypeOut and SkypeIn services. The software also allows the iOS user to join in or create a video-conference between multiple participants.

You can use this client in a Wi-Fi network or with 3G but you will need either an “all-you-can-eat” data plan or a data plan with a generous data allowance to gain best value when using 3G.

There are some other caveats that can affect user experience. If you run this program on an iPad or older iPod Touch devices, you will be able to see your correspondent’s video but they won’t be able to see you. This is because these devices don’t have an integrated camera. As well, if you use the ubiquitous iPhone 3GS, the experience won’t be as good because of its slow processor and the absence of a front-facing camera.

As well, I would recommend using the phone on “speaker phone” or using a wired or Bluetooth headset when engaging in a videocall so you can see the other party on the display.

Consumer Electronics Show 2011–Part 2

10/01/2011 Consumer Electronics Show (January - Las Vegas USA), IP-based broadcasting, UPnP AV / DLNA, Video-conferencing No Comments

The Android technology doesn’t stop at handsets or tablets anymore at this year’s CES.

In the car

Parrot are premiering the “Asteroid” which is an Android-powered car radio / multimedia player. It has USB for connectivity to iOS devices, USB flash memory, wireless-broadband modems and GPS pucks at the moment as well as line input for regular audio devices. I am not sure what Bluetooth or hands-free calling abilities it has at the moment but this could change by the time it is released. Of course it has FM radio and, through the 3G connectivity and an Android app, could support Internet radio in the car as well as being a media player and GPS navigation device. It has a power output of 55W x 4 but also has three preamplifier outputs (front, rear, subwoofer) so it can be the head unit for the most tricked-out sound system on the street. Oh yeah, boys!

Similarly, Fujitsu Ten are previewing an satellite-navigation unit which is powered by the Android operating system. The main issue with these Android systems at the moment is that the Google “Android Marketplace” doesn’t support them because they use an interface that is dissimilar to the handset or tablet devices. Here, Parrot or Fujitsu Ten will either have to contract with an Android app store to supply applications to these devices and this app store would have to support the user interfaces provided by automotive Android devices.

In other car-tech news, Ford have developed an AppLink system so that specific iOS apps can be operated from the car’s dashboard. As well, General Motors have developed an IOS link to their OnStar vehicle telematics system but the main problem with these systems is that they necessitate an extra app on the smartphone for each marque. This is compared to Terminal Mode which the European vehicle builders are implementing, which allows one piece of software on the smartphone for many different vehicles and suits the reality that most of us will drive different vehicle marques through our driving life and even have regular access to two or more different vehicles.

As well, GM are intending to implement the PowerMat wireless-charging system in the  American-market vehicles from model-year 2011 onwards. This allows devices with Powermat charging circuitry, whether integrated or as an add-on module to be charged or powered on a special mat wirelessly. I have wondered whether this announcement will then apply to GM nameplates other than Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet or GMC or other markets.

Networked Home Entertainment

Video Entertainment and the Home Theatre

As far as video-based home entertainment goes, 3D video still rules the roost with every one of the major camera names from Japan with a 3D camera or camcorder in their model lineup. As well, every major TV brand that serves the US market is selling a 3D flatscreen TV in their model lineup. Most of the manufacturers are working on 3D viewing technologies that either don’t need glasses or can work with lightweight glasses. This also includes some manufacturers establishing design partnerships with glasses-frame designers to make attractive 3D-viewing glasses.

But there is a lot more action when it comes to network-enabled TVs and video peripherals This is again driven by the supply of  “over-the-top” Internet video services like Netflix and Hulu Plus. It is also being helped along by manufacturers building up “app platforms” which allow the user to download apps to the TV as if it was like one of the smartphones. It can capture the reality of interactive TV as well as use of common Internet services like Twitter, YouTube and Facebook from the comfort of your couch. As well, programs like Skype are being implemented on these TVs in order to make them become large-screen video-conferencing units for the home or small business.

LG have supplied the ST600 Smart TV kit, which is an add-on kit for selected (or all?) LG TVs to link them to the Internet and the DLNA Home Media Network. As well, one of their pico-projectors that they had on show is equipped with an digital-TV tuner and can stream content from a DLNA Media Server.

Sony now has it that all of their new Blu-Ray players are all DLNA and Gracenote enabled/ They all can quickly start a Blu-Ray movie and have support for the “Media Remote” RF link with Wi-Fi-enabled iOS or Android device running a specific app. These same features are also available to their Blu-Ray home theatre systems.

As well, most of the Sony BRAVIA TV range released this year will be network-enabled with DLNA, Internet TV, Skype large-screen videophone and similar functionality. Some models will have integral 802.11n Wi-Fi functionality while the lower-cost models will require a dongle to connect to the Wi-Fi network. This really shouldn’t worry most users because they could use direct Ethernet or HomePlug AV links to connect the TV to the home network.

The Skype videophone function will work with an optional USB webcam / microphone kit that will be available from Sony.

As well, most of the TVs and home-theatre systems honour the full HDMI 1.4 expectation with Audio Return Channel. This means that the sound from the TV’s integrated sources like the digital TV tuner travel back to the home theatre amplifier using the same HDMI cable used to connect the TV to that amplifier. There is no need to use extra digital cable runs to have properly-decoded surround sound from TV broadcasts received via the TV’s tuner.

As well, Sony has released a network-audio product that makes Apple squirm when it comes to their Airport Express and AirPlay subsystem. This product which comes in the form of the HomeShare speakers connects to a Wi-Fi home network and can play out audio content under the control of a UPnP AV (DLNA) Control Point like Windows 7 or TwonkyMedia Manager. This same control functionality is also available in Sony’s latest Blu-Ray Players as well as the NAS-SV20 and NAS-SV10i iPhone docks.

Samsung have come around with a Blu-Ray player that is the thinnest such player ever. This Wi-Fi-enabled player can be wall-mounted and, in my honest opinion, is cutting in on Bang & Olufsen’s “design AV” territory.

They also are releasing the D6000 TVs  which work with RVU compliant pay-TV gateways. This standard, which is a superset of DLNA for pay TV applications). enables access to the full pay-TV feature suite like pay-per-view or video-on-demand without the TV being connected to the pay-TV operator’s set-top box/ This concept has been proven to works with an RVU server box that links to DirecTV’s satellite pay-TV service.

Iomega have also released a Boxee TV set-top box which is similar to D-Link’s unit. But the similarity stops here because it has integrated NAS functionality with DLNA Media Server. It is capable of working with Ethernet wired or 802.11n Wi-Fi networks and uses a double-side remote with QWERTY keyboard. It is available as an enclosue or with a 1Tb or 2Tb hard disk.

Vizio, a low-cost TV brand in the US similar to Kogan, is to implement Via Plus (Google TV) in their Internet-enabled TVs. They will be providing apps that link to Hulu Plus, Blockbuster On Demand, and other popular “over-the-top” TV services. These sets will also have Skype functionality when used with a USB webcam. Vizio will also be implementing glasses-free 3DTV and are dabbling in 21:9 ultra-widescreen TV

Cisco have been focusing on the interactive TV front but in a different way. They sell  the Scientific Atlanta set-top boxes on contract to cable and satellite providers and are implementing an app platform on their newer boxes. This also means that they are providing a “VideoScape” content-selection experience so that users can find the content they are after or look for related content easily.

JVC have released the first “soundbar” speaker system which implements the HDMI 1.4 Audio Return Channel. Here, this technology comes in to its own with these speakers because the sound from the TV emerges through the easy-to-set-up soundbar unit.

Internet radios

Grace Digital have released three Internet radios that have a similar user interface to the Grundig TrioTouch stereo Internet radio or the Revo IKON stereo Internet radio. Here, these sets use as their primary user interface a colour LCD display with icons laid out in a grid not dissimilar to a smartphone or tablet. The Mondo is designed to be a full-on clock radio for the bedside and has a 3.5” display, Ethernet and line-out connectivity and a remote. The Solo Touch is a tuner that connects to one’s favourite music system and has a large 4/3” touchscreen. It connects to the home network via Ethernet. The Bravado X is a stereo table radio with line in / out and has a 2.7” display. These units can also be controllable via a smartphone app which is available for the iOS only at the moment.

As well, Vizio have jumped on the Android bandwagon by providing a stereo table radio which operates on the Android platform. This one is controlled by a colour LCD touchscreen like the typical smartphone. It would most likely would have an Internet-radio app and also pull in music from a DLNA Media Server device.

The next article in the series will focus on network-infrastructure technologies for the small network and what is being offered here.

Consumer Electronics Show 2011–Part 1

10/01/2011 Consumer Electronics Show (January - Las Vegas USA), Mobile Computing, Smartphones, Tablet Computers No Comments

I am reporting on the Consumer Electronics Show 2011 which is currently running in Las Vegas. This year, the show is focused around the connected home and lifestyle and I am intending to run the report as a series due to the many trends occurring at this show.

Mobile Handsets and tablets

Most of the activity this year is centred around the smartphone and the tablet-based multifunction internet device (a.k.a. a tablet computer or “fondle-pad”). Here, the main operating system of choice is Google Android. There are two major versions being promoted at this show – Version 2.3 for the smartphones (and other devices) and Version 3.0 for the tablet devices.

This is also augmented by the fact that the US mobile-phone carriers are rolling out 4G wireless-broadband networks. These are either based on LTE technology or WiMAX technology and offer greater bandwidth than the current 3G technology used to serve the typical smartphone user with Facebook data. This leads to quicker content loading for the phone and access to IP-based multimedia.

Infact the “big call” that is being run by these carriers when promoting their devices is the “4G Android smartphone” as being the preferred device to start a mobile service contract on. This is more noticeable with Sprint who are using the “4G Android Smartphone” in their graphics for their online ads.

The Android handsets are coming thick and fast, especially from Samsung, HTC (Evo Shift 4G / Thunderbolt 4G) and Motorola (Cliq 2). The Motorola is also intended to support “call-via-WiFi” so as to offload call traffic via Wi-Fi networks including T-Mobile’s hotspots. This is achieved through the use of the “Kineto” app.

The HTC Evo Shift and Thunderbolt phones are also known to implement a slider design similar to some Nokia phones and use this design to expose a hard keyboard for text entry.

Samsung are going “tit for tat” with Apple by issuing an Android smartphone, MID or tablet device in response to Apple releasing an iOS device. Their answer to the iPod Touch was a Galaxy Player which is Android powered and uses a Super Clear LCD for its display.

Sony have also come up with the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc mobile phone which has a display and experience as good is the iPhone 4 – the phone to be “seen” with.

As far as phones go, there hasn’t been any Windows Phone 7 action through this CES, but there have been some general innovations happening. One is to design a multi-core processor for handsets, tablets and similar devices. This design would have to be focused around power conservation in order to gain longer battery runtime for these devices. This has manifested in three “dual-core” smartphones being released by Motorola.

Similarly, there have been 40-80 of the tablet computer models being launched. This number may not account for different memory sizes for particular models or whether some models will come with wireless broadband or not. This is also the time that Google are putting the “Honeycomb” version of the Android operating system on the map. This version, Android 3.0, is optimised for the tablet user interface and uses more impressive user interfaces than what was used for Android 2.x in the tablet context. It therefore now sets the cat amongst the pigeons when it comes to a showdown concerning the iPad versus the Android 3.0 tablets.

Stay tuned to HomeNetworking01.info for more posts about the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

A digital camera that can be controlled by a smartphone

07/01/2011 Consumer Electronics Show (January - Las Vegas USA), Digital Photography, UPnP AV / DLNA media-server hardware 1 Comment

Article

CES: Samsung SH100 camera wants to be BFF with your smartphone – CES 2011 CNET Blogs

My Comments

At this year’s Consumer Electronics Show, Samsung had demonstrated a compact digital camera which has integrated 802.11n Wi-Fi functionality. It would have the usual benefits like uploading pictures to a computer or cloud-based storage service; and exhibiting pictures on a DLNA-compliant video-display device.

But this camera has a feature that has impressed me very much. It is to use the Samsung Galaxy S smartphone as an external viewfinder and control surface. This has been a function that I have been wishing for with digital photography and cinematography.

Here, this would work well with a photography situation that most of us encounter. When we are at a party or nightclub, we may want to take a picture of everyone on that dance floor dancing to that dance hit thumping through the speakers. Similarly, we may want to get a picture of the live band playing at that pub gig which is packed out. When we are outdoors, we may want to grab a picture of the floats that are part of the parade for example.

In these situations, you may need to lift the camera over your head but you won’t get a fair idea of what you are to photograph due to a small screen size or viewing the screen at an “off angle”. Here, you just end up taking a large number of “rough shots” that you will end up editing out for example.

Similarly, if you use your camera for wildlife photography for example, you will find it hard to take the right shot because the moment you get near the camera, you spoil the shot.

Here, Samsung has established a wireless link which uses the phone’s screen as a viewfinder and control surface for the camera. The user would have to download an app to the phone in order to achieve the functionality. This link is also set up so that pictures can be sent to the phone for sharing via the phone using MMS, email or Web-based services.

There have been further questions about other smartphones, whether based on Android, iOS or other platforms being able to have this functionality. What actually needs to happen is for device classes to be defined or existing device classes reused and amended for photographic / cinematographic applications. This is to provide remote viewfinder and status display as well as remote control of the shutter / recording start-stop and other aspects of the exposure. Similarly, the device classes also have to provide control of flashguns and other lighting in order to synchronise them with the exposure.

Here, the device classes should work with USB wired connections as well as wireless Bluetooth or Wi-Fi connections.

Similarly, cameras could implement USB “On-The-Go”, Bluetooth “Object Push Profile” or similar technologies to allow a user to upload a picture to the phone. As well, the phone could provide dynamic scale-down of high-resolution images when sending pictures by MMS or email. This would avoid me having to take pictures with the phone rather than my digital camera if I intend to use the picture for a picture message for example and I can still use the good-quality imaging attributes of the camera to yield a good quality photo.

At least Samsung has taken a step in the right direction by enabling a digital camera to work with a smartphone for improved photography.

FCC to set the first yardstick for Net Neutrality

04/01/2011 Industry Comments, Internet Access And Service, Net Neutrality No Comments

News articles

HP Blogs – FCC does define rules on net neutrality – The HP Blog Hub

FCC Approves First Net Neutrality Rules | Datamation

From the horse’s mouth

FCC Website

Report and Order concerning Net Neutrality (PDF) – FCC

Press Release (PDF) – FCC

My comments

Through this action. the FCC have become the first national-government telecommunications department in a major English-speaking country to use their executive power to  “set in stone” a minimum standard for “Net Neutrality”.

Basically, their standard requires wireline services (cable Internet, ADSL, optical-fibre) to pass all lawful Internet content and allow users to connect non-harmful devices to their Internet services. This would therefor prohibit limiting of access to “over-the-top” Internet video, VoIP and similar services. Similarly it requires wireless services (3G, WiMAX, etc) not to blocking sites that compete with their business offerings like VoIP services.

There is still a problem with the wireless services in that they could block access to competing app stores on platforms that permit such stores, set up “walled gardens” when it comes to mobile content or provide “preferential tariffs” for particular services. This can be of concern to those of us who, for example, use client-side applications and commonly-known URLs to gain access to the Social Web rather than the carrier’s preferred “entry point” bookmarks or URLs. Similarly, the carrier could gouge people who go to favourite media Websites rather than the ones that the carrier has a partnership with. This last point may be of concern when mass-media outlets and wireless-broadband carriers see the “mobile screen” as another point of influence over the populace and establish partnerships or mergers based on this premise.

Net Neutrality will also have to be considered an important issue as part of defining the basic Internet service standard for the country so that service providers or gavernments can’t provide it just to people who purchase upper-tier service for example.

A good issue would be for other national-government or trading-bloc communications authorities to tune this definition further so that if there is the goal of Net Neutrality, it becomes harder to avoid the standard.

A DLNA-driven electronic-picture-frame and NAS system concept – what could it offer

03/01/2011 UPnP AV / DLNA 5 Comments

The current situation with electronic picture frames (digital picture frames)

I have been to a friend’s home and had seen an electronic picture frame that they received for a previous Christmas sitting on their sideboard, turned off and hidden behind other framed pictures on that same sideboard. This picture frame has some old pictures that the close friend doesn’t really want and their granddaughter has to come up from the country with a memory key full of images in order to update the picture frame’s collection. Similarly, I have noticed that our household and another household are becoming the two households that are involved with updating an electronic picture frame belonging to a close friend.

This usually sees most households in situations where managing the typical sub-$100 electronic picture frame becoming very tenuous and ends up being a serious task if one has to update many of these frames that are spread across the households that make up an extended family. This situation would typically be in response to a family event like a wedding, the arrival of a new baby or a family reunion.

If the event happens overseas, the family members will need to email the pictures or send them using Flickr, Facebook or similar online services to nominated family members in other countries. Then it’s the job of these family members to push the pictures to optical disks, SD cards or USB memory keys for uploading to relatives’ picture frames.

There are some online picture frames on the market but these are tied to particular services which may require the user to take out a subscription. Similarly, some of the frames also require the user to run special manufacturer-supplied software to deliver pictures over the network to the frame. As well, a lot of Wi-Fi-enabled picture frames on the market are not DLNA-compliant thus wouldn’t work with most network-attached storage devices or storage-enabled routers on the market.

Infact one close friend of mine who had taken me shopping for my birthday present had noticed me looking at network-attached storage devices and looking carefully for the UPnP and DLNA logos on the NAS device’s box before I offered it as a possible idea for a group gift. I had later explained that this kind of functionality was to be a step in the right direction to an easily-manageable digital-image-storage system once connected to DLNA-compliant Wi-Fi picture frames.

How could the DLNA-based system be built

The components

The digital picture frames

There would be one or more DLNA-capable electronic picture frames or similar devices connecting to the home network by 802.11n Wi-Fi, HomePlug AV or other similar means. These devices would be DMR devices which permit other devices on the network like network-enabled remote controls to determine what is shown on the devices.

The media server

A DLNA-enabled network-attached-storage which works with a unique POP3/IMAP email inbox or established cloud-driven image-delivery service can work as the picture storage centre. Pictures can be uploaded locally via a USB port or SD card slot(“quick drop”), via the network using CIFS or NFS (common network file-handling protocols) or the unit can allow FTP/HTTP “block upload” for remote uploading or simply allow the user to email photos to it.

Other devices such as another of the picture frames or the network’s Internet-gateway device could work as an alternative primary or secondary media server. This may be achieved through the devices using flash-memory technology or a small hard disk; and may be applicable for receiving emailed images or images from online services. They could even work with a NAS by “offloading” images to that device when new images come in.

Metadata

The server device would make use of established metadata tag families like what is used with Windows Live Photo Gallery and iPhoto for indexing the collection and allowing various search and browse options. It is alongside use of file-system and date/time hierarchies that would be typically used by these devices. These include keyword-browsing with support for user-created “keyword trees” as well as multidimensional searching. The DLNA server software should support the newer person-tagging and  place-tagging functionality that newer image-management software offers as well.

Sydney Harbour Bridge

Do we tag a picture of the Sydney Harbour Bridge as simply "Sydney" or as "Sydney Harbour Bridge", even as a sub-tag of Sydney?

An issue that may be of concern with place-tagging is how one tags places in a town. One may tag “general” or “landmark” pictures with the name of the town or establish a hierarchy based on the town’s name and a tag list for the landmarks. They may not use this tagging system when it comes to pictures of particular locations that they have visited like homes, offices or similar places.

Another metadata form that could be supported for people who make the time to work with metadata is the creation of horizontal or vertical “pan lines” in a picture. These lines would determine how a picture frame pans across a picture that is too wide or tall for it and can avoid us seeing the bodies of the subjects that are in a group photo for example.  These “pan lines” can also have “home points” in the picture to allow for the photographer to have control over default static presentation on horizontal or vertical displays. 

Control

The picture frames or the controller need to be able to select multiple UPnP collections and show the pictures in these collections in a sequential or random manner. It can also include whether to play the videos with sound or not at certain times of the day in order to avoid the sound track being of nuisance value.

Advanced playback control options

Frame groups

One or more of the picture frames which have controller capability or a separate controller device / application the ability to “push” pictures from one collection or set of collections to one group of frames such as frames installed in the lounge room. This function would require that random pictures from the collection or set of collections are shown on each frame in the same group.

A frame could be a member of many groups rather than just one group. An example of this could be frames that are placed on the mantlepiece being their own group but being part of a super-group encompassing all of the frames that are in the lounge room for example.

Event-driven playback

The controller could support timed playback so that particular collections of images and content are shown to particular frames or frame groups at certain times or in response to certain events. An example of this could be to exhibit Christmas family pictures from Advent through to Epiphany; or show pictures of a city that you intend to travel to for two weeks before the journey. Another example would be to immediately show newly-arrived pictures on certain frames as soon as they come in or be “slaved” to an intruder-alarm / access-control system that is configured for individual household members and show favourite pictures to particular household members when they come in.

Picture Sources

Most pictures will be imported from digital cameras via one or more networked computers. Here, the pictures may be edited and tagged with appropriate metadata, then they will be synchronised to the network-attached storage drives for availability across the network.

Images delivered by email

A key question that will be raised is which device checks for new pictures that have come in by email? Is it the network-attached-storage unit, the Internet-gateway-device (broadband router) at the “edge” of the network or one of the electronic picture frames?

  • If the network-attached-storage checks for the pictures, it will have to check a known email address then copy pictures to a particular directory. This may be easier for a multi-frame system because it is a device that is suited to being kept available all the time.
  • If the Internet-gateway-device is to do the job, it will have to check the email address and store incoming pictures to a particular directory on integrated or attached mass-storage like an SDXC card, solid-state drive or hard disk. Then it will upload the pictures to the network-attached-storage at regular intervals. As well, it will also be required to be a DLNA server in order to share this directory with the picture frames so the newest photos of the new grandchild are highly available.. This may be OK if the only device you want to keep available when you are out is the Internet-gateway-device. It may also be OK if the intention is to make the Internet-gateway-device become a central storage server for the photos, which is something that may be desired of by manufacturers who want to provide a “one-device-does-all” solution for the network-Internet “edge”.
  • The electronic picture frame solution will be similar to the Internet-gateway-device solution but this will again  require a third device to be highly available to share or upload the pictures. This device may be able to display the pictures as soon as they arrive then upload them on a regular basis. It will also be required to have a large-capacity rewriteable mass-storage system like an SDXC card on board.

Device manufacturers and Internet providers may prefer that their device is the one that collects emailed pictures and this could lead to some confusion when you add a device to this ecosystem.

When picture arrives by email, the router, picture frame or network-attached-storage device would copy the pictures to a “new pictures” directory. This directory would be  distinctly selectable on UPnP AV clients and contain these new pictures. Pictures older than a user-determined time would be pushed in to the main photo collection so they can be available for viewing. As well, users can move the pictures to the main collection and add appropriate metadata to the pictures using a regular computer connected to the network.

Integration with online services

A lot of us do work with online photo albums, whether as dedicated sites like Flickr, Photobucket or Picasa Web Albums; or as part of a social-network setup like Facebook. There will then be the desire from both the service providers and their users to integrate the photo collections with the DLNA Home Media Network.

The device that works as the “hub” may have to regularly visit these sites and cache the pictures from the albums to the local mass-storage in order to provide constant availability of these pictures. One issue with this is whether to allow the device to cache every album that its associated account has access to or allow the user to nominate albums or “peers” (friends, Pages, etc) for caching. This is important with users who have a large number of “peers” that they subscribe to from these services.

As well, there would be the issue of establishing a UPnP Content Directory tree which works in this order: Service (Facebook, Flickr, etc) – Account (own account, each “peer” account (Facebook Friend, Page, Picasa Friend, etc)) – Album / Photostream (including images in account’s “root” album).

Support for and integration with premium content

An option that is being encouraged with some networked picture frames is the delivery of commercial content such as clip-art / stock-photo images, news-photo images (useful if you are associated with a news article) and comic strips / cartoons. Similarly there could be such content as “information screens” (news, weather, etc) being delivered to these frames.

Here, it may be worth considering where this kind of premium content should be held and how new providers are added. This could be driven by an “app” model where customers can add content sources in a similar manner to what is being done with the iOS and Android platforms.

Conclusion

Once these ideas are looked at and the concept of DLNA-driven digital picture frame management is achieved, this could increase the utility of the digital picture frame and other image-display devices as a way of showing the increasingly-large library of digital images.

Smartphones and tablets now working with sensors and controllers

29/12/2010 Current and Future Trends, Home / building automation and security, Mobile Computing, Smartphones No Comments

Introduction

A trend that we may be seeing with smartphones and similar devices is that they work with various third-party sensor or controlled devices through the use of various apps written by the sensor’s or controlled-device’s vendor. A main driver for this trend has been the “There’s an App for that” mentality that has been established around the Apple iPhone with that smartphone becoming the centrepiece of most people’s lives.

Examples of this include the recently-launched Parrot “ARDrone” remote-control helicopter that uses a dedicated Wi-Fi link to an iOS device running a special app that is its controller; a barbecue thermometer being launched at the Consumer Electronics Show 2011 that uses a Bluetooth link to an iOS device that acts as a remote temperature display. There were even other examples like the Nike running-shoe pedometer that uses a dedicated wireless link to an iPod Nano running an exercise-tracking application.

These applications may be novelty ideas of implementing an iOS or Android smartphone as a SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) device but there will be more applications that will become more real in our lives.

Examples application fields will include:

  • Food safety (thermometers that measure temperature for areas where perishable food is stored)
  • Personnel health and wellbeing (blood pressure and heart-rate monitors)
  • Building automation and security (dashboard apps that work with HVAC, security systems, smart meters and the like; garage door openers that work with a touchscreen smartphone)
  • Automotive and marine instrumentation (engine monitoring and diagnostics)

The current situation

The main problem is that whenever an application that works with an outbourd sensor or controlled device is developed, a lot of code is added to the program to work with the sensor or controlled device. This extra “bulk” is written by the app writer usually because the writer is the one who designs the device. The communications between these device and the host smartphone or tablet is typically using USB for wired connections; Bluetooth, dedicated or network-integrated Wi-Fi for wireless connections and the application developer has to work with the link that is appropriate to the device.

If the device designer wants to build a lively application-programming environment around the device, they have to either prepare a software development kit which usually requires the distribution of a runtime module with the application. This can take up memory and can put a strain on the battery life of the device.

What can be done

An improvement to this situation that would improve the lot for device designers and application developers who write SCADA for smartphones and tablets would be to establish a “driver” model for sensor and controlled devices.

Here, the operating system could run a “driver” for the application in a similar vein to how peripherals are managed by desktop operating systems. Here, the operating system can do things like manage the polling cycle for sensors or transmission of events to controlled devices, including responding to sensors that are set to trigger software events for the device class.

This can help with conserving battery power by disconnectiong from a sensor or controlled device if the destination apps aren’t run; or sharing data between two or more apps benefiting from the same sensor data. This could benefit some platforms, most notably Android, where one can write lightweight indicator applications like “widgets”, notification-area icons or active wallpapers which just benefit from sensor data or respond to certain conditions.

The problem is that the smartphone operating systems such as iOS and Android don’t support the same kind of programmatic modularity that desktop computing has permitted due to limitations placed on them by battery-operated handheld device designs with constrained memory and storage size. This issue may have to be examined whenever a subsequent major revision of the smartphone operating system is being worked on; and could include whether a separate “driver store” is maintained at the platform’s “app store” or that drivers are supplied as “apps”. This can then allow the manufacturers to update drivers as necessary, for example to add new functionality.

Conclusion

The idea of controlling or monitoring devices from computers or mobile devices is going to becoming something more mainstream rather than just a novelty and the operating system designers may have to factor this in to their designs.