Tag Archives: chumby

CES summary: E-Readers, 3D TV and internet-connected TVs

by Serge Jespers on 11. Jan, 2010 in Industry

E-Readers, 3D TV and internet-connected TVs, Blu-ray players and set-top boxes. That pretty much sums up CES 2010.

E-Readers
I have a Kindle and I absolutely love it. But I love it because it is so easy to use and even easier to buy books straight from the device. The same goes for the Nook, which directly taps in to the Barnes & Noble store. At CES, there were dozens of companies introducing their E-Reader… But I wonder if they can survive. None of them are connected to a certain store, which is both positive and negative. Like I said, I really like the fact that my Kindle makes it so easy to buy new books straight from the device. I don’t have to be near a computer to do so. All these other E-Readers don’t have that advantage.

The Entourage Edge E-Reader did jump out though. With its two screens (one e-ink and one color LCD) it definitely stands out.

3D TV
This was all over the place… All the big manufacturers were showing their versions of 3D TVs both with and without the awkward glasses. The ones I saw that didn’t need glasses failed to impress me though. I found it very hard to find the sweet spot to get the best picture and it wasn’t anywhere near the picture you get with the glasses. Panasonic showed a 3D version of the Avatar trailer on one of their new TVs. While you did need to put on the 3D glasses, the image quality was really amazing. I can see this technology working for movies but I’m not sure about “regular” TV shows and I’m not even sure this would work with sports. DirecTV is teaming up with Panasonic to offer a 24/7 3D pay per view channel focused on movies, documentaries, music and sports.

Internet-connected TVs, Blu-ray players and set-top boxes
These were everywhere… And I can really see this working. I wouldn’t mind having a news widget on my TV that pops up whenever there is breaking news. Or how about a Twitter widget that shows relevant Tweets of whatever you are watching? How about a weather widget that pops up when you switch on your TV/set-top box? Or maybe even live stock quotes while watching your favorite TV shows? Or how about making it even easier to watch YouTube or Hulu videos on your TV? This is exactly what interactive TV platforms have been promising for years. Sadly, the interactive TV platforms have failed to bring this type of interactivity and/or information to my TV. I believe this is partly due to the fact that these platforms are closed. With Internet-connected TVs, set-top boxes and Blu-ray players, you as a developer would be able to build your own widgets or applications and distribute them via the application stores or catalogs available on those devices. By allowing you to build those applications with web technology like HTML, JavaScript and yes even Flash, it’s a lot easier to build these types of apps and we may finally see interactive TV taking off!

Personal highlights
Boxee Box
I’ve been a user and fan of Boxee for quite some time and was really excited to see the Boxee Box in real life. It’s amazingly small and the new interface has made a giant leap forward. I’ve used a DLink MediaLounge and Apple TV before but they don’t even come close to what Boxee has to offer. The hardware specs look amazing and it even runs Flash Player 10.1 with hardware acceleration so it has no problem playing HD Flash Video. I’m not sure about the Boxee Box form factor though. While it may look great as a standalone device, it certainly would not do well in a rack setup.

Sony Dash
The Sony Dash is basically a Sony branded Chumby. The screen is a lot bigger though and it certainly is more polished than the Chumby but the idea is exactly the same. It even runs all the Chumby apps. I’d love to see this running Flash Player 10.1 in the future though.

Intel Infoscape HD wall
This was very impressive. These 2 meter tall multi-touch high resolution screens were displaying hundreds of Tweets, photos and other information with 3D graphics. According to Engadget, “The entire installation was powered by a single Core i7-based machine with Intel’s own graphics, and it was seen rendering 576 links of live information.”

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“Flash City” follow up

by Serge Jespers on 02. Apr, 2009 in Flash Player, devices

flashcity2.jpgI promised to give you an update on the “Flash City” stores. APRIL FOOLS!

While most of you got that immediately, it was funny to see that some people did fall for it. I won’t go in to too much detail because I don’t want to embarrass anyone ;-) but there was “this email” that really cracked me up this morning. Someone actually asked a team in our HQ in San Jose to get a briefing on the “Flash City” stores. So this post really is to just set the record straight. I guess no one really noticed the tag under which this article was filed.

However, when I was writing the story, I did realize that this may not be far off. Not that we are thinking about opening up Adobe branded retail stores but consumer electronics running Flash is already a reality. We already have mobile phones and set-top boxes. And with Broadcom, Intel and Texas Instruments putting Flash and AIR on their chipsets, how long do you think it will take before you see a refrigerator or a microwave with a Flash based UI? These chipsets make it very easy to add this functionality in a small form factor.

beagleboard.jpgThe Beagle Board is a great example of that. It uses Texas Instruments’ OMAP chipset which will soon get Flash and AIR capabilities. With this board being just 3″ x 3″ (7.6cm x 7.6cm), it wouldn’t be hard to put this in to a microwave or a fridge. There already are microwaves out there that can read barcodes and tell you the preferred cooking time. Put a Beagleboard in it with a nice display and you get a machine that can even give you tips from other users, play a video while you wait and give you recipes based on the product you are currently microwaving all with a nice and engaging user interface.

chumby.jpgThe Chumby is another great example. This hackable internet radio/digital picture frame/alarm clock has a touch screen, runs Linux in the back and has Flash Player as a front end. Basically, you can have the Chumby do anything you want and people have already built applications for it ranging from recipe to photo applications. You can even completely take it apart and build it in to oh… just about anything. Now if only Chumby would be available in Europe. I really want a new one. The pre-release model I got a few years back is sadly not up to date… hint hint ;-)

So… While I was kidding yesterday (April 1st), this may not be that far off. I would love to see Flash everywhere and slowly but surely we are getting there. Flash on!

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