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Observations on
technology trends from the
latest conferences and
seminars.
In This Edition:
• Welcome to A View From The
Road
• What the IMCCA can do for
you
• CES – the long look ahead
• Coming-up
Welcome to the first edition
of A View From The Road.
This newsletter will provide
the IMCCA membership with
some of the highlights,
trends and general buzz from
industry conferences,
seminars and events. Our
hope is to pass along the
useful insights one can
obtain at these unique
opportunities.
Your membership in the
Interactive Multimedia and
Collaborative Conferencing
Alliance makes this much
more than a typical
newsletter. Please contact
the IMCCA (or email me) with
any questions you may have
on the topics covered. Your
fellow members are a great
resource to access when you
need to research an
application or decide how to
roll-out a new technology.
The first conference of the
calendar year (and the
largest) is the Consumer
Electronics Show, held the
first week of January in Las
Vegas. This year the
conference celebrated its
40th anniversary. With each
passing year the importance
of CES to the multimedia and
conferencing world has
grown. Consumer demand
drives a great deal of the
change and improvement in
the items manufactured for
industry. For example, we
would not have HD
conferencing if there
weren’t 16x9 HD displays
proliferating the consumer
market. CES provides an
invaluable 12 to 18 month
“look ahead” at technology
that we will all be using,
including both new devices
and new technologies that
can be incorporated into
existing devices.
This year’s show had some
very interesting items to
keep an eye on that did not
necessarily show up in the
media coverage:
• Most of the large LCD
display manufacturers showed
technology to double the
refresh rate of their panels
from 60Hz to 120Hz. The
blurry images that fast
moving objects caused are a
thing of the past. LG called
it “true motion”, Sharp
called it “double refresh
rate”, Sony called it
“motion enhancer”, etc.
Whatever the terminology the
results were remarkable. If
you’re planning a large,
flat display purchase you
should hold-out until you
can get this feature, and if
you are still considering
plasma technology, this is
just another reason not to
go that way.
• Sirius satellite showed
their prototype “Back Seat”
system of delivering video
programming via their radio
satellites. This would be
real-time delivery of video
programming using an antenna
about the size of a 9 volt
battery – quite a
breakthrough in VSAT
concepts if they pull it
off.
• Inexpensive IP
“videophones” are on the
horizon. D-Link was among
the companies that showed a
model coming out later in
the year. The folks at Ojo
now have a portable model
(still requiring
subscription services).
• We began to witness the
likely death of the hard
drive at this show, as
SanDisk introduced a 32G
solid state flash based
drive for PCs. With no more
spinning disks or mechanical
parts this results in faster
PC boot times, longer MTBF
and less power consumption.
• “Wireless power” was also
introduced this year – in
two different flavors. A few
new companies are developing
universal recharging contact
pads where mobile phones,
Blackberries, Ipods and all
our fancy portable devices
can be placed to recharge.
These firms envision these
pads in cars, at hotels, at
airports and wherever
carrying a separate charger
for each unit is a hassle.
One manufacturer though was
going in a completely
different direction, using
magnetic induction to charge
your device when it is in
proximity with a peer
charger. Think bringing your
mobile phone into your car,
sitting it in its spot and
wirelessly charging and
communicating with it
without having to dock or
plug. Both systems will
require third party add-ons
or new battery designs to
work.
In the coming months look
for reports from the
National Association of
Broadcasters conference,
Interop, Telepresence World,
Infocomm, CEDIA, and a few
others we hope you’ll find
very valuable.
A View From The Road is
written by David Danto.
David has spent 29 years in
the audio visual and
broadcasting industries. He
has designed facilities for
firms such as AT&T,
Bloomberg LP, FNN, Morgan
Stanley and NYU. He is
currently the Director of
Global Multimedia
Engineering for Lehman
Brothers and the MCCA’s
Director of Emerging
Technology. Email David at
David.Danto.IMCCA@Danto.com
About IMCCA
The Interactive Multimedia &
Collaborative Communications
Alliance (IMCCA) is a
not-for-profit user
application and industry
focused association with
membership comprised of
service and product
providers, consultants, and
users. Members benefit from
the understanding and the
use of various interactive
and collaborative
communications technologies
in their professional and
everyday lives.
For further information
please contact Carol Zelkin,
IMCCA Executive Director, at
516-818- 8184 or czelkin@imcca.org.
Visit the IMCCA web site at
www.imcca.org
Carol Zelkin
Executive Director
Email czelkin@imcca.org
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