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The WAVE Report on Digital Media
3D --- Media Creation --- Shared Space ---Published by 4th Wave, Inc.--- Issue #0715------------------12/05/07 |
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0715.1 Sony Shows Stunning OLED Product
0715.2 Mitsubishi Highlights the Commercial Potential of Surface
0715.3 Sharp Shows an Imaging Sensor in every Pixel of an LCD Panel
0715.4 Finger gesture will be the next wave of UI.
0715.5 JVC Promotes Home Network
0715.6 Panasonic
0715.7 Fujisoft
0715.8 Mitsubishi
0715.9 Victor JVC
0715.10 Pioneer
0715.11 Toshiba
0715.12 Omron
0715.13 Microvision
0715.14 NTT DoCoMo
0715.15 Toshiba - SpursEngine
0715.16 NEC
0715.17 Fujitsu
0715.18 HD-PLC
0715.19 WAVE Comments
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0715 CEATEC 2007
By John Latta
Tokyo, Japan
October 2-5, 2007
With the fall of WPC, CEATEC is seeking to be a broader venue. At least CEATEC attracted Microsoft as an exhibitor, the first time the WAVE has seen them here. The other major change is that halls 9 – 11 have been opened, which now house just the CE exhibition. At a time when the major exhibitions are contracting it is a pleasant surprise to see one on an upslope. But let there be no doubt this is not an international event but one for Japanese companies and the Japanese public. It is still ranks with IFA and CES as one of the three top CE events in the world. The major value of CEATEC is that it allows one to get a 6 – 9 month lead on what is new in CE.
0715.1 Sony Shows Stunning OLED Product
Sony used CEATEC as the venue to announce the XEL-1, OLED television, in an 11” diagonal. Due to ship in Japan on 1 December for 200,000¥ and projected production of 2,000/month. The WAVE spoke with a knowledgeable Sony individual. (Sony rules forbid the passing of cards at the event. Seems culturally insulting in Japan.) Here are the points made:
Sony is demonstrating the best image quality in television.
The XEL-1 is also a design statement and it is a television focused on personal use – more desktop than
living room.
The panel lifetime is 30,000 hours. A person watching television for 8 hours/day could watch continuously for 10
years. (And be brain dead before the television died.)
OLED is now possible in a product for the mass market.
The literature indicates support for both HDMI and dlna.
In booth demo there was a running video of a flexible OLED display. This appeared to be showing what Sony is capable of in its display technology rather than the XEL-1 display itself.
On the left side of the booth was a 27” OLED television as a technology demonstrator.
Sony would not comment if the product would be shown at CES. Daaaa.
In a response directly to the Sony announcement, Toshiba stated it would have OLED televisions in 2009 “as soon as panels are ready.” (Translated: We do not make panels, will not concede market share to Sony, would someone help us?)
Update to Location Free television is shown. The product is LF-W1HD. There are two components: transmitter and receiver. The transmitter has 2 HDMI jacks and the receiver has one. On the transmit side inputs can be had from a PC, DVD and Blu-ray players. On the receive side output goes to the display. Support is for HDMI 1.2. The wireless frequencies used are 2.4GHz and 5Ghz. The down side is that 1080i is not supported and only downsampled.
Not clear why Sony, who is the strongest supporter for Blu-ray, would have a transport product which does not support it.
0715.2 Rolly – What is this?
Now that the Sony AIBO has died, robotics has morphed into a music player. In the booth was a robot like device called Rolly. It is cylinder shaped devices which rolls around on a table, plays music and pops open side doors.
This should win the silliest product of the show award. But this would never happen in Japan.
0715.2 Mitsubishi Highlights the Commercial Potential of Surface
Bringing the long developed surface computing platform to market, based on MERL research, Mitsubishi had a compelling demonstration of object manipulation in the booth. There were multiple individuals each using multiple fingers handling objects on the surface. The striking aspect was the fluidity of the operations – they seemed natural. The usual three motions of size, rotate and move were accomplished with ease.
Mitsubishi is making a pitch that this technology is ready for commercial applications. Now happening in Japan, and the potential to go world-wide, are the deployment of systems. Two illustrations in the booth were of a command and control room and a teaching environment. Mitsubishi recognizes that the integration of this technology requires understanding of what it will do and they see the initial market where Mitsubishi is the system integrator.
When asked about Microsoft’s Surface the response was quick:
Microsoft is only multi-touch single person – this is a significant limitation based on our work.
Yes, our surface is created from above with a projector but the Microsoft surface is subject to spills and surface
damage from dropped objects and the like. Mitsubishi is not.
Mitsubishi was also showing a “DLP Gate.” This is a threshold of displays which individuals could walk through. Some 10’ high and with surrounding displays on the side it forms the frame of a large electronic door. As one walks to the gate there is facial recognition software running. When you are recognized the display panels which make up the gate display signage tailored to you. Creative.
0715.3 Sharp Shows an Imaging Sensor in every Pixel of an LCD Panel
The WAVE saw indications at SID that LCD panels with integrated imaging sensors were coming but here at CEATEC is was real. Sharp was showing a 4” panel which has an imaging sensor in every display pixel. This was used to image a business card and then show it. Impressive. But the best was next with an implementation of a multi-touch display. There was three finger touch and manipulation shown. As Sharp proudly stated, this sampled in September and multiple companies are evaluating it.
Oh the power of Apple. It makes logical sense to begin to integrate multiple functions into the LCD panel. With the success of the iPhone the industry will be pushing multi-touch and Sharp has responded with a panel which is superb.
0715.4 Finger gesture will be the next wave of UI.
Sharp was showing its Internet Aquos line of displays. It was quite simple but very effective. To show the Internet there are two elements: DVI display connector and the remote controller. The television can be plugged into many signal sources and one is the PC with the DVI connector. When one wants to watch the Internet one button is pressed on the controller. It is that simple.
0715.5 JVC Promotes Home Network
Certainly one of the most complete networks was in the Sharp booth. It includes TCP IP security and dlna 1.5. Both server and client functions are supported. Only down side – it was just a demo.
0715.6 Panasonic
HD-PLC is being promoted as a home networking option. The data rate is 190Mb/s and it is dlna compatible. The HD in the name is to imply support for HD content distribution in the home. Up to 15 adapters may operate off of one master. The BL-PA204 adapter, for example, plugs into the wall outlet and has 4 Ethernet jacks.
An illuminated trackball is only 5.5mm in diameter. Using a world map to illustrate its navigation capability this tiny track ball was very effective. By pressing the trackball it was possible to zoom and then moving the trackball the image moved. The complete assembly is only 10.9mm X 10.9mm X 6mm.
Diga is a product name for HD players which support both HD DVD and Bluray. There are two units shown with this capability: BW900 and XW300.
0715.7 Fujisoft
Fujisoft has a large booth promoting is FSD TV Middleware. Based on Java this software supports: DVB-T, DTMB, ARIB, ATSC and SBTVD-T. The middleware provides support for secure cards, sound, AV decode management, reception control and purchase control for PPV, to name only a few. Coming up is support for OCAP, ISDB-T and SDTV-T. Applications which can reside on top of the middleware include: EPG, captions; downloads and channel selection. In the case, of ARIB this allows applications, i.e., DTV content, to run on car navigation systems, mobile phones and recording devices.
0715.8 Mitsubishi
Mitsubishi has a chip which uses SDR for better cell phone functionality. It is claimed that this will allow phones to work in the following frequencies: 3G (800MHz, 2GHz) and Wireless LAN (2GHz and 5GHz).
0715.9 Victor JVC
It is interesting to see the continual technology effort to make LCD quality life like. This is, in part, to make LCD better than PDP and the other is to gain an advantage over other television companies in Japan. At the Victor JVC booth a 180Hz LCD display was being show to illustrate that motion blur is no longer an issue. Another variation on LED black lighting showed stunning colors. A sign in the JVC booth describes the objective of the displays “As if being there.”
JVC is also promoting the ability to edit video captured with its Everio cameras on both the Mac and Windows. It was also showing a demo of HD distribution on the Internet.
In another technology demonstration there was a camera which shot video at 4K X 2K and being shown at the same resolution with a projector. JVC calls this the 4K world.
0715.10 Pioneer
A 3D display technology for driving applications called 3D floating vision was being demonstrated in a simulated car buck. This is obviously autostereoscopic but The WAVE Report had a hard time assessing the value.
0715.11 Toshiba
Promoting SOG: System on Glass, for LCD panels Toshiba was able to integrate the panel drivers onto the glass substrate. It was also showing the technology demonstrated at SID: Finger Sensing input on an LCD screen. Active matrix OLED’s were being demonstrated in a cell phone application.
Toshiba has developed at LAN LSI chip for dlna. This is for baseband wireless communications and supports 802.11 a/b/g and 802.11e.
In a small stand was a 60GHz receiver IC.
A 3D structure is being proposed for a new type of NAND memory.
0715.11 ALPS
A creative use of capacitive sensing is being called Sensoring. This is basically a distributed capacitive sensor on four sides of a square which detects the relative orientation of the hand. The demonstration was to use the orientation of the hand to fly a helicopter. The hand orientation was mirrored in the helicopter orientation. Very good.
0715.12 Omron
Touting that it has taken 5 million facial images over 10 years, Omron was showing its Okao Vision technology to detect smiles. The booth demo was a visual rating system for the % of smile, But the technology can support: face detection, face recognition, facial property estimation. Other technology with this technology can support human body tracking, facial parts localization, pose and gaze estimation, blink detection, and facial image enhancer.
0715.13 Microvision
Using a MEMS scanning mirror and laser diodes Microvision was showing its projector based on an IPM (Integrated Optics Module). This is claimed to be suitable for a cell phone and a automotive heads up display. A relationship with Motorola in the cell phone space was mentioned. The WAVE Report watched the projected color display and found the saturation poor and blue appeared washed out.
0715.14 NTT DoCoMo
Rolling out in most major Japanese cities on October 22, 2007 will be 3.6Mb/s fixed price data service at 10,000¥ per month. The pricing is actually variable. If the usage is less than 500,000 packets the price is 4,000¥ and with step to from 500,000 to 1,000,000 packets the pricing is variable up to 10,000¥. It reaches 10,000¥ when the packet use is above 1,000,000. There are 3 data cards which support the service to notebook computers.
0715.15 Toshiba - SpursEngine
Using a Qosmio laptop computer Toshiba was showing its SpursEngine – Facemation. They call the concept “Magic Mirror” which is based on 3D face recognition technology. This engine can estimate a face position, the look direction and expression in real time. The engine works in conjunction with the GPU to create an application which allows the individual to modify their facial look. This includes virtual make-up, hair styles and alteration of face parts. There were two demo stands running. An individual set in a chair in front of a camera and the backdrop was white, One system had a difficult time with the individual in the booth and failed to make a template of the face. Finally the system was rebooted. Overall, as we observed the system, it seemed trite. Maybe entertaining for children but hardly a mainstream as an application.
The SpursEngine implemented in silicon uses 4 SPEs in the Toshiba Cell Broadband Engine. It is basically an application with other silicon functions which runs on the cell processor. When coupled with an MPEG2 and H.264 decoders it is possible to have a video engine capable of image recognition and processing. Show in the booth was a board reference design and a chip for the engine.
0715.16 NEC
Another facial recognition application by NEC is called FieldAnalyst. This is used to classify individuals by age and gender. It is targeted for use in retail environments such as shopping malls. One application is to assess the effectiveness of promotions at entrance, POS and in retail shops. It is claimed that privacy is preserved because there is no recording of individual images.
0715.17 Fujitsu
Fujitsu has now taken its vein biometrics technology and put it into a mouse. By holding one’s registered palm over the sensor, some 3” to 4”, on the top of the mouse it is possible to authenticate. An example of Windows log in was shown.
A color ebook was demonstrated in the booth – called FLEOa2. There were multiple sizes up to a full sheet of paper. Also shown was the flexibility of the display which was formed around a curved surface. We found the color quality less than desirable with low contrast and saturation.
0715.18 HD-PLC
There is a booth for just this implementation of PLC. The WAVE was able to harvest the following.
PLC as defined here, has achieved significant penetration in Japan but virtually nothing outside. The current
version HD-PLC has a data rate of 190Mb/s but the effective data rate is 70 -80Mb/s.
The solution is expensive, with a pair of master and slave controllers costing $180 and additional slaves at $60.
To be effective many products need to support it. This was implied in the HD PLC booth. Examples of products include:
DigiOn with a Digital Media Adapter, DiXiM, which is dlna certified and supports DTCP-IP.
Audiovox speakers which play streaming digital audio. SPDIF input and output with HD-PLC transport.
Icron USB/IP which is a USB adapter for transport over HD-PLC. This allows for the transport of any USB
device throughout the home. A keyboard and mouse can be placed anywhere, for example.
Given that HD-PLC is not TCP-IP means that all devices connected to it must be HD-PLC complaint and not Ethernet,
for example.
HD-PLC is but another example of a home networking technology which is seeking to address the need to connect all devices but is only partially successful technically and geographically.
0715.19 WAVE Comments
CEATEC is in marked contrast with IFA. The role of the PC in the home as part of the suite of CE products is accepted here in Japan. Toshiba’s Qosmio computer has staked out a strong position as a merged product. The WAVE saw considerably more dlna products this year than last but we would hardly call it mainstream. However, HD PLC showed mainstream presence on the show floor. The level of compatible products is impressive. Sony was showing a new version of its Location Free television but this is a Sony only product. Sharp’s Internet television is an example of product simplicity, in terms of PC integration. Yet, all of this is still about an early market. Distribution of HD content around the home has not been fully addressed. The home network solutions are still too expensive. All of this puts Japan at the edge of learning of integrating home networking of CE and PC products. It remains to be seen how well this migrates outside of Japan.
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Copyright 2007 4th WAVE, Inc.
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