Zune HD TV Interface Makes It a Media Center For Your Pocket

You've already seen the player hands-on; the final reveal for the Zune HD was how well it handled when docked on a high-def TV. As you can see in this video, it blows away anything else in its class.
I was trying to figure out what it was about the Zune HD's TV interface that I was enjoying so much, and then I realized: Unlike every other device of its size and capacity, this thing is a true portable media center. It's not as fast as a fully fledged PC running Windows Media Center, but it is zippy as hell for a pocketable, portable player.
Zune HD goes dark when it's docked, like you see in the gallery. This isn't like an iPod—once docked, it's invisible, the power behind what you watch or listen to. The remote is the key. I bopped around, browsing music, scanning for radio stations (that HD has a few meanings, including an HD radio receiver, so you can see the "what's playing" data and everything) and even watching a short full-screen video on this 60-inch Samsung. The demo Zune only had the one video—I can't wait to see what it's like to fill a 32GB one with great movies and TV episodes.
The only noticeable thing missing from the interface was any online connectivity—you can't download movies to a Zune without a PC anyway, but docked, I am not even sure you can stream music (as you can when carrying a Zune in a Wi-Fi environment). More on that when we review it, naturally.
As we showed you months ago, the player itself takes the PMP user interface to a new level. When you select something, all the screen elements move at different vectors, creating at times a 3D effect, as you can catch up close in the video below. (Pardon the glare, but that's one hazard—for better or worse, it's a shiny shiny screen.)
I don't want to say more—this is not a review, and I won't be the reviewer when we do pass judgment—but let me say that, as someone who's never been terribly excited by past Zunes, this one took me pleasantly by surprise.

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See? The Media Doesn’t Hate ALL of You!

An American English teacher — with lifeguard training back in Migukland — saved two drowning Korean university students in Mokpo, reports Newsis.

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Sprint Stakes Smart Grid Claim

Sprint already has about 100 utility customers using its iDEN and CDMA networks for linking smart grid devices. Now it’s announcing that it has broader ambitions in the space – including a push for WiMax in smart grid.

Smart grid – it's where every major telecommunications provider wants to be nowadays, and Sprint is no exception.
AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile and many other carriers are increasingly announcing partnerships and projects using their networks to link utilities to the floods of data coming from devices like smart meters, distribution monitors and grid control systems.
Sprint has a lot of smart grid projects and partnerships underway as well, but has so far stayed relatively quiet about them all. But that changed this week, as the company laid out its broad ambitions for expanding its already prominent line of business with utilities – not only on its well-used iDEN and CDMA networks, but for its next generation of wireless communications, WiMax.
That's according to Robert Gustin, Sprint's national program manager for utilities. About 20 percent of Sprint's hundreds of existing utility customers are now involved with the company in some form of machine-to-machine smart grid project, he said Wednesday.
It can include things like serving as the backhaul, or wide area, network for smart meters or distribution automation equipment, he said – something wireless carriers like AT&T and Verizon are doing as well (see Green Light posts here and here).
Sprint's network will serve that purpose at utility smart grid deployments including a $200 million smart meter project planned by Florida Power & Light, Gustin said (see A Million Smart Meters for Miami).
Sprint's smart grid work can also involve partnerships with top smart meter manufacturers and grid sensor and control device makers, he added. Companies developing devices to work on Sprint's network include top smart meter makers GE, Elster, Landis+Gyr and Itron, he said.
It's all part of the growing "machine-to-machine" business for wireless carriers, that is, linking devices that can "talk" to one another directly. While utilities aren't the biggest customer for such products and services, they're growing fast, Gustin said – after all, there are roughly 320 million electric, gas and water meters in the United States.
Beyond meters, one of Sprint's utility clients – Gustin wouldn't say which one – recently told him they're expecting to install about 12 million smart grid devices over the coming decade that will need a communications network of some kind.
Of course, utilities have a broad array of options to link up those devices, from proprietary and open wireless or power line communications for local area networks to cellular, fiber optic or satellite communications for wide area, backhaul networks.
And while cellular remains a prevalent option for wide area networks, North American utilities have so far shied away from using it for the localized linking of smart meters and other devices.
One reason is that these utilities have tended to seek to own their own communications systems, partly because they get to charge customers for the costs of capital projects through increased electricity rates signed off on by state utility regulatory bodies, analysts say (see RF Mesh, ZigBee Top North American Utilities' Wish Lists).
But the comparatively high cost of going cellular, compared to lower-cost wireless mesh or power line carrier technologies, has also played a role, Gustin said – particularly when it comes to high-volume, low-cost items like residential smart meters, which need to stay in place for decades, rather than the few years more typical of consumer electronics.
Certainly there are moves underway to buck that trend – most notably in a partnership between AT&T and smart meter networking provider SmartSynch to link residential smart meters via AT&T's networks, something the two have done for some time with for commercial and industrial meters (see Your Electrical Meter Becomes a Cellphone).
T-Mobile USA has a partnership with smart meter maker Echelon to offer similar functionality (see Echelon, T-Mobile Team on Smart Meter Contracts). And Verizon Wireless recently announced a joint venture with Qualcomm that could expand both companies' roles in smart grid communications (see Qualcomm's Machine-to-Machine Smart Grid Moves).
But Gustin believes that the real breakthrough will come when a new, standardized communications technology comes along to open the door to manufacturers to make hundreds of millions of chipsets to serve it – perhaps first for consumer electronics devices, but then for smart grid applications as mass manufacturing drives down costs.
Not surprisingly, Sprint believes that WiMax – the high-bandwidth, open standards-based technology it has placed a big bet on with its joint venture with WiMax network developer Clearwire – will be that next technology.
WiMax is being deployed in smart grid projects already, as with Texas utility CenterPoint Energy, which is using utility-owned WiMax radios from General Electric for smart meter backhaul communications (see GE Offers WiMax Smart Meter Solution). Sprint has been working with both GE and CenterPoint, Gustin said.
GE is also backing startup Grid Net, which makes WiMax communications modules that go into GE smart meters now being tested by Australian utilities SP AusNet and Energy Australia. Sprint has worked with Grid Net as well, Gustin said.
But Australia already has a broadly deployed WiMax network to support those devices – and in North America, WiMax's spread is far more limited, though growing.
Clearwire launched its first major citywide WiMax network in Baltimore, Md. In the fall of 2008, and has since added Las Vegas, Atlanta and Portland, Ore. Earlier this month it announced it set Sept. 1 for the launch of WiMax service in 10 markets in Texas and Washington.
It hopes to add Chicago, Dallas, Honolulu, Philadelphia, Seattle and Charlotte, N.C. to the list by the end of 2009, then New York, Boston, Washington D.C. and the San Francisco Bay Area by 2010 – part of a broader goal to be in 80 markets with 120 million potential customers by the end of next year.
Of course, even utilities that include those cities won't necessarily be able to expect that WiMax will reach the entirety of their service territories.
But then, utilities are used to having to use multiple technologies to cover territories that range from sparsely populated rural areas to densely packed city neighborhoods, Gustin noted – and WiMax could become a cheap and effective option for some of them as its coverage expands.
In the meantime, Sprint isn't standing still – Gustin said the company expected to announce a raft of new smart grid-related projects and partnerships in the coming weeks and months.
Those could include projects that are seeking some of the $3.9 billion in smart grid stimulus grants that the Department of Energy expects to start giving out later this year, he said (see Smart Grid Stimulus Applications at $2.85B and Counting).

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Commentary: Tired of Social Media?

Everywhere you turn, whether if its on the six o’clock news or at sporting events, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn advertisements are posted. “Join us”, “Follow Us”, “Hit Us Up”, “Make Us Your Friend”, “Connect With Us” on the Internet is the message we continually hear from companies. Are we starting to reach the breaking point with all the inundation of the social media fad? Honestly, how many more times can we hear about that party that happened last night? How many more times can we hear the story about your goldfish that came back to life after a food coma?
In the next few months, more and more people will begin to delete their profiles and go offline. More viruses will be hitting our Twitter accounts. More scams will be encroaching on our lifestyles via social media (SM). Advertising will be coming soon to Twitter and every other Tweet will be slammed with ad words and search related noise. The culmination of all of these threats will turn off many users, but will we truly lose them? Will it be too late to get back all those millions of users that got turned off by the social media bandwagon? I say, “no”.
Human nature is to be curious. Eventually another secure form of micro-blogging communication will emerge. We can’t get rid of social media phenomenon because our “friends” want to know what we are doing at all times.
So how will the world adjust to SM? Simple. New tools are appearing that will automate responses. Professional writing teams are being assembled to represent corporations in social media. The question is, how will the average person keep up with SM? Sure mobile applications give us the ability to update over lives on the go, but we tend to add even more to our schedules when something becomes faster. Eventually will we all just pay someone to do our social media for us, like someone mowing our lawns.
Are you tired of Social Media?

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6 Easy Ways To Update Your Facebook Status

Facebook, undoubtedly, is one of the places to be in right now. A lot of people are using it to connect to old friends, make new ones, and to pass time. Also, many businesses are using it as a platform for marketing their products.
You can pretty much do anything in Facebook nowadays – share status, play games – anything. But for some people, they’re limited by the fact that they have to log in to the site to do that. What if you’re not in front of the computer or have limited Internet time?


Not a lot of people are aware that there are lots of other ways to update their Facebook status message. To let you in on how you can do that, here are some examples:
1. Via SMS.
Everybody uses their mobile phones to send text messages and stuff, right? You simply have to activate the SMS update function in your account settings to be able to use it. The only downside I see from this status-update channel is that it depends on whether or not your mobile service provider carries that service. Also, you’ve got SMS costs to worry about. It isn’t really much, but it’s still an extra charge (At least for some networks). The beauty of this is that you can update anywhere and everywhere you want. Saves you the hassle of finding a computer to log on to.
2. Via Firefox.
You know how there are hundreds, if not thousands, of plugins available for Firefox, right? Well, now there’s one that’ll let you update your status on Firefox (and other social media sites like Twitter, FriendFeed, etc.). You simply install it onto your Firefox and a collapsible tray for the function gets added to your browser.
3. Via email.
Some computers have relatively low specs that running multiple tabs can make your browser run extremely slow. I’m not saying that your computer is like that, but other people’s PCs might be. Using your already opened email account, you can send photos, videos, and update your status. Just go to the Facebook Mobile Page to get your personal upload email, compose a message with the photo or video as an attachment, and the subject as the caption or status message, send it to your upload email, and you’re done.
4. Via Instant Messengers (IM).
For this, you’ll need to add Facebook’s chat bot to your friends list. Once it’s added to your contacts, you can simply send instant messages to it and it’ll appear on your site as a status update. However, not all IM providers are included. You can only use it on Yahoo, Gtalk, AOL, and MSN.
5. Via 3rd party websites.
Some websites like Plurk or Twitter have means to instantly post the same updates on Facebook. You simply have to link your respective Plurk or Twitter accounts to Facebook and all your status updates on the 2 sites will automatically appear as updates on Facebook.
6. Via status update services.
A good example of such websites is Hellotxt. Hellotxt offers simultaneous status updates on all your social media sites. You simply post on their site and they will relay the update to all your enrolled accounts.
These are just some of the things that I’ve tried out. If you do know of other ways to update Facebook statuses, please do share.

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Beyond books and electronic media – magazines for all at the Sedona Library

Pat Whitfield, Member of the Board of the Sedona Library
SEDONA, AZ (August 14, 2009) - How well I remember as a young child the many magazines that came to our house. As an only child for my first seven years, I was a reader from a young age and, basically, learned to read by perusing the pages of Life magazine. I can still recall the stunning pictures in Life, the cartoons and Norman Rockwell covers of the Saturday Evening Post, the slightly “naughty” images in Esquire, the intimidating pages of Kiplinger’s, and the varied contents of Readers Digest, from the amusing to the poignant.
As a grownup, I still subscribe to a number of magazines, many quite different from those of my childhood. But as a consumer of magazines, I’m a relative newcomer since magazines have a long and interesting history.
Magazine history dates from the 17th century when in 1665 the French Journal des Scavans was published. It printed accounts of important European books and original articles on literature, science, and art. Before long, imitators arose throughout Europe. In 1704, there was a clear line of demarcation between newspapers and magazines when Daniel Defoe expanded the content of his Review to address not only news, but also politics, literature, manners, and morals. The first English periodical to actually identify itself as a “magazine” was The Gentleman’s Magazine, published in 1731.

The first American magazines appeared in Philadelphia in 1741. Although the original idea for an American magazine was Benjamin Franklin’s, Andrew Bradford’s American Magazine predated Franklin’s General Magazine by a few short days. Early magazines were primarily devoted to text only.
In 1842 the Illustrated London became the first periodical in which illustrations predominated over text. It was followed a year later by a similar magazine in France and in 1850 Harper’s New Monthly Magazine introduced the reading public to woodcut illustrations in its pages.
Specialized publications also emerged in the 19th century such as the first and possibly most famous American women’s magazine, Godey’s Lady’s Book and the first magazine for young girls, the Young Misses Magazine. The best known children’s magazine was St. Nicholas. Women’s magazines from that era that are still read today are Ladies Home Journal, Harper’s Bazaar, and Good Housekeeping.
Between 1830 and 1910, illustrations proliferated in magazines, moving from hand-printed illustrations through woodcuts to photography. The combination of photography, new styles of journalism, and the advances in printing enabled the emergence of advertising. By the early 20th century advertisers realized the advantage of magazines to reach the public and the most successful magazine designers were often former ad agency artists. They introduced full-color advertising. Interestingly, not until advertising became prevalent did stories continue at the back of the magazine instead of being published beginning to end in sequence.
The most influential American magazine in the 1930s was Fortune, created by Henry Luce who also founded Time in the 1920s and started the corporation that would later produce Life, Sports Illustrated, Money and People.
Today’s magazines are numerous and address virtually any subject matter. With the proliferation of the Internet, magazines today are publishing their works online as well as in printed form. But, if you still like to relax with a magazine of interest, hold it in your hands, and read, you have at your fingertips a large and varied collection at the Sedona Public Library, far more than each of our homes could hold. Currently on SPL shelves there are 156 titles, appealing to myriad tastes.
Interested in home and garden? You’ll find the classics Better Homes and Gardens, Family Circle, and House Beautiful. Newcomers are Martha Stewart Living, Phoenix Home and Garden, and Organic Gardening, among others.
What about finance? SPL has The Economist, Forbes Investment Guide, Money, Consumer Reports, and Smart Money, to name a few.
Like to travel? Scout out new locations and plan your trips with Budget Travel, Conde Nast Traveler, and Travel & Leisure. And don’t forget National Geographic!
Are health and fitness your things? Fine tune your health with articles from Prevention, Natural Solutions, and Vegetarian Times. Tone your body and rev your cardio with Runners World, Outside, and Yoga Journal.
Fashion and beauty information can be found in Elle, Glamour, O! The Oprah Magazine, and Vogue, for starters.
Do you speak Spanish, or want to learn ? SPL subscribes to Hispanic, Latina, Padres e Hijos, TV y Novelas, and Selecciones, the Spanish version of Reader’s Digest.
Like to read outside the mainstream? Check out Light Consciousness, Mother Jones, Ode, and Rolling Stone.
Further, there are magazines for all kinds of special interests – gardening, stamp collecting, archaeology, art, needlecrafts, woodworking, golf, genealogy, history, astrology, beading, astronomy, computer technology – and the list goes on.
The point is, you can expand your world and extend your knowledge in a variety of fields by simply coming to the cool, welcoming comfort of your Sedona Public Library without spending a penny on the inviting magazines gracing its shelves. So, pull up a chair, get comfortable, and read away!

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Big media, including ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, Time Warner and Viacom challenge Nielsen

According to a report in Financial Times, some big media companies, fed up with Nielsen reporting, are forming a consortium aimed at challenging Nielsen. Participants in the consortium include the neworks owned by NBC Universal, CBS, Viacom, News Corp and Disney. They expect the consortium, which also includes big advertisers Proctor & Gamble, Unilever and AT&T to be operational by September.
Neither the networks or advertisers are happy with current reporting for viewing across multiple media platforms.
Audience measurement is considered the lifeblood of the media industry. The $70bn spent on US TV advertising each year is allocated according to viewer numbers. The explosion of online viewing has made the measuring of total audiences across all media platforms more difficult.
“The most deficient thing is there’s no single source measurement [for TV and digital video],” Sam Armando, senior vice-president of audience analysis at Starcom Mediavest, told the Financial Times.
It was not a case of “let’s go out to replace Nielsen”, he said, but the consortium’s plan did not require a “leap of faith”.
The story says the consortium expects contracts to be awarded for set-top box data and measuring online viewing as early as the fourth quarter.
The story notes that Nielsen itself has its own “convergence” panel that measures both television and online viewing, but that is not currently part of any of the reported ratings and Nielsen doesn’t expect to roll it out fully until 2011.
I’m not optimistic that this will pose much of a challenge, though I’d be delighted to see it result in one. There’s a lot of bluster from both networks and advertisers over measurement and it seems to be:
We want good measurement but we don’t want to pay a ton of money to achieve it.
It’s a pretty tricky proposition. Set-top box data provides a lot of information, but there are issues with it that range from “we don’t know who is watching!” (to give the advertisers the demographic data they so crave) to “it counts everything as long as the set top box is on.” Speaking for myself since the installation of my first TiVo ten years ago now, I haven’t turned off my set top box in a almost a decade. I’d be counted as watching ESPN about 19 hours a day…
Those are solvable problems, but solving them will cost money. A lot of money. The networks and advertisers never seem to want to fund such things. There is always clamoring for out of home measurement from the networks, but, the advertisers don’t want to pay for those eyeballs, and the networks don’t want to fund the measurement. The challenges here seem much bigger to me.
TV advertising is a huge business – $70 billion — and it is driven based on ratings. They are the equivalent of stock quotes for TV advertising and though both advertisers and networks kvetch about Nielsen, the Nielsen numbers are the agreed upon standard. Coming up with another standard both sides will agree on is far, far easier said than done, and again, an expensive proposition.
I’d love nothing more than two ratings sources, it would create some contrasts that would be a lot of fun, both for us as a web site that focuses on ratings, and for the fans. But even if successful it will also seemingly result in problems like this:
When the new ratings data says Mad Men has 2.5 million viewers and Nielsen says it has 1.8 million, the advertisers will want to pay based on Nielsen data, but AMC will want to charge based on the new data! If the next week Nielsen says Mad Men has 2.5 million and the new data says it has 1.8 million it will be exactly reversed.
What would Don Draper do?

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