CEATEC 2006
By John Latta, WAVE
0627 11/06/06
Tokyo, Japan
October 3 - 7, 2006
CEATEC remains the best CE show. Yes, it is very different
from CES but it is here where the big trends stand out. Japan remains
the major supplier of CE and the competition drives to unseat it. We
find the level of innovation in products unmatched. One of the reasons
is that there are cute products such as the iPod but only in Japan is
there the depth of product and competition which brings choice. The Japanese
are fierce competitors in their own markets and it is here where this
competition is evident. The Japanese set the standards for what is CE
and here at CEATEC we see it first.
Intel – Does VIIV Have Legs?
Eric Kim, Senior VP and GM, Digital Home Group, Intel gave
a keynote on Enabling a Converged World. It was about how Intel is enabling
the PC to converge with CE. Points made during the presentation included.
Intel has conducted ethnographic research in 13 countries,
86 households and done 400 interviews. One of the presentation graphics
had the title “Exploring the Social Lives of Television” and
it stated 4 countries, 32 homes, 125 people. This research was used
to justify the need for simplicity and the need for a few “converged” devices.
The three key conclusions from this research is that:
People like compelling content
Sharing of content is important
Do not focus on the technology per se, it is called by
Intel “healthy” technology – like a health care
system.
Video is the “killer app” today. YouTube
has 100m users a day.
Considering that there is competition between the PC
or TV is the wrong way to look at the market challenge today. Consumers
love both.
The Media PC is the fastest growing PC category today.
Japan is the leading market for the Media PC.
VIIV is the best Media PC platform.
DLNA is the means by which connectivity is accomplished
between CE devices.
One of the best examples of a Media PC is the STB being
release by DirectTV.
VIIV is bridging the gap between the 2’ and 10’ experience.
VIIV is not just a product or device but an ecosystem
and platform.
The ecosystem enables the consumer to pick brand or products
of choice among CE products.
For all this to be possible there must be an open platform.
The CE industry now has the opportunity to have reusable
software similar to what has happened in the PC.
The new CE products must have Internet compatibility.
All of this is essential for the future converged environments.
A demo was shown of the comparison between a Core 2 Extreme
and Core 2 Quad. It was a 3D rendering example.
Intel has shipped 40m units at 65nm process technology – no
other companies have done this. We are working on 45nm products.
There is great synergy between Intel and the Japanese
CE companies.
VIIV and dlna
There are two different pictures painted for VIIV and dlna.
VIIV was hardly to be found at CEATEC. We could only find one VIIV logo
and that was in the dlna booth. Given that Intel seems to exhibit everywhere
we are left wondering why not a booth at CEATEC? If it was here we could
have found more VIIV logos.
There is a different picture for dlna. The key here seems
to be middleware that makes it easy for Japanese companies to get to
market. Two examples were noted in the dlna booth.
At CEATEC Mediabolic announced that it provided the software
for Yahoo JAPAN to develop the Yahoo! Digital Home Engine. This software
can be embedded in consumer electronics devices so that media can be
accessed from the Yahoo! Japan web site with or without a PC. As per
the announcement:
The Yahoo! Digital Home Engine is a software module that
can be added to a device on the home network, such as a PC or a network-attached
storage (NAS) product. The Yahoo! Digital Home Engine-enabled device
can then provide access to Internet media from the Yahoo! JAPAN Web
servers directly to any number of DLNA CERTIFIED media players on the
home network. Content appears on the television screen as a separate
content directory, providing consumers access to Yahoo! JAPAN services
such as Search, Auctions, Photos, and more (plans for the rollout of
this service are to be determined). Once selected via a remote control,
the content is delivered directly to the television.
Buffalo is already working to implement Yahoo! Digital
Home Engine on its LinkStation Home Servers.
KestrelMedia provides middleware that runs on traditional
CE devices but will make then networkable. This essentially will make
most DVD players, for example, dlna capable with little impact on the
CE companies. Output can be over CAT 5 or WiFi. Resolutions supported
are up to 1080i.
Toshiba had a home demonstration of dlna technologies.
Innovation from the Floor (Alphabetically)
Avtrex
Shown in the dlna booth they had a design for the Avtrex
Media Center which is a complete software solution for TV and TV connected
products. It will support media players, media servers and media renderers.
Citizen
Citizen is showing i:VIRT a Bluetooth connected watch.
This is claimed as the first watch that permits communications between
the phone and the watch. Can be used to control the phone including
alerts on incoming calls. Notification when the phone is too far away
from the watch – alert that the phone is being left behind.
The Citizen i:VIRT Bluetooth connected watch runs 5 days
on a battery charge. It has its own docking station that is very well
done. The display only operates like an aux display to show the number
of the caller. Overall well integrated.
Limiswitch is a tiny switch technology with embedded
LED. Impressive.
Super Slim LCD is an LCD panel only 1.1mm thick. Approximately
2” diagonal.
Fujitsu
Showing as a potential future product Turn Table PC.
This is a AV notebook which supports 5.1 channel sound. The playback
of music, including editing, can be done without booting the PC. Uses
a back illuminated touch sensor LEDs for the keyboard.
In the corner of the booth,, which was always packed
Fujitsu was showing “color electronic paper.” Like e-ink
this was a paper thin display but in color. However, the colors were
not saturated. Still there were crowds waiting in line to see these
displays.
There is the Media Tank product which stores media content
on a HDD. It will also automatically back up a PC.
Hitachi
Hitachi was showing a plasma display panel with a HDD
embedded in the panel for PVR recording.
There was also a pluggable HDD meeting the iVDR requirements
which plugs into a slot on a plasma panel
IO Data
Also in the dlna booth was its LAN connection HDD. This
is a box with multiple disk drives that are hot swappable. It was termed
a Digital Media Server.
Materials Magic – Hitachi Metals
Shown was a miniature 3-axis digital accelerometer. The
application was for digital video cameras to protect the hard drives
in the event of being dropped.
The booth test was very interesting.
Maxell
iVDR-Secure is a removable hard drive that can be carried
easily. It allows media to be taken from a television and inserted
into other devices such as a PC. Information exchange is also possible
from office to home. The secure version shown in the booth allows for
the copyright protection of broadcast contents. The particular form
disk drive had 160GB.
Also in the booth was a hydrogen fuel cell created by
the reaction of aluminum and water. Very good looking design but not
clear how it will integrate with products – too large.
Maxell was still trying to show and promote the Anoto
digital pen.
NEC
Built around its LaVie L notebook products NEC was showing
how this could be the media center of the home.
Valuestar X is a desktop PC with a Blu-ray disk. This
is the first production PC we have seen which is water cooled.
The Valuestar S (Media Garage) is a dlna based product
for holding and moving media files in the home.
NTT DoCoMo
Shown were phones which support 3.6Mb/s using HSDPA.
The coverage area is most of Tokyo.
OKI
OKI was showing and claiming it had a one stop shop for
complete ZigBee solution with its LSI chips. A home media application
was shown with remote controls.
Panasonic
The PZ600 is a 103” plasma display panel. Impressive.
Words Gear hand held ebook reader. Well done ID.
T-navi television designed to allow for the display of
Internet content on a television.
Renesas
Renesas was showing its design for a 802.15.4 MAC. There
was also a ZigBee Standard conformity Module on display. They represented
a complete ZigBee solution with reference cards on
display.
Rolm
OLEDs have nearly disappeared from CEATEC. Rolm was showing
a 1.7” and 2.0” full color OLEDs. The application was in
a digital audio player and a portable multimedia recorder.
There was also a sheet of LEDs for potential sign applications.
These were full color LEDs including color correction.
Sanyo
There were 3 camera lens modules. The 2.6 zoom pan focus
module was claimed to be the first with built in pan focus – no
focus is required. Pan is 330 deg and tilt 0 to 90 deg. There was also
a 30X zoom camera module from f = 3.5 to 100mm. Resolution is CATV
with 530 TVL (horizontal resolution) and it is monochrome. The last
camera is a 22X zoom camera. This is a color camera which operates
at day and night.
SMK
In one of the most unique products was a large display,
about 4”, handheld device which looks like a remote control.
But it was actually a Vista Sideshow device intended for all the functions
of the aux display in Vista. In the booth they cited its use for off
PC reading of e-mail.
SMC was also showing its line of remote controls for
Window Vista PCs – which are based on its Media Center PC products.
Sony
Using approximately the same form factor, palm held,
there were three recording media video cameras: DV, DVD and HDD. The
HDR-SR1, HDD version, was the most impressive.
The Multi-Channel Video Recorder Server “X Video
Station” can record 3 weeks of channel programming with no recording
setting. It will serve content to any dlna certified device. Described
as the perfect shift in place and time media device.
Where is Playstation 3? No one could touch the product.
The only demos appeared to be video loops. With only about 4 weeks
before launch in Japan one would have expected more.
Toshiba
The gigashot 830 is a HDD video camera which fits in
the palm of ones hand. It uses either a 30GB or 60GB drive. The display
is a 2.5” 2Mp LCD. There is 10X optical zoom.
The SD-L902A is the first slim HD DVD writable drive.
Small enough to fit into a notebook.
Regza HDD LAN was showing how a single remote could
be used to control the recording of HD programs to a HDD by simply
connecting a LAN cable. The HDD boxes where simple CE boxes which stood
vertically. Impressive.
Showing the Qosmio G30, AV Notebook PC, with an indoor
television antenna. This notebook can watch both digital and analog
video signals at the same time and record both at the same time.
From the research the LCD 3D displays have been improved.
Combining panel sensing a device was placed on the display and the
display responded in real time to the changes. Used in a simple game
and the results were quite good. Display is autostereographic.
A section of the Toshiba components booth showed the
degree of vertical integration the Japanese companies are seeking in
the home market. There is a WLAN chip for an audio video network. Multiple
antennas are supported but not MIMO – just signal amplitude diversity.
Next to it was a digital home solution based on a home
server reference design using Linux and wireless LAN. It showed how
far a Japanese company can go to integrate the home environment. One
box was a NetFont browser and Macromedia Flash Player and another a
CD/DVD player with DLNA connectivity throughout the home. The processor
used is the Toshiba TX RISC processor.
Also in the booth were many cell processor reference
boxes. One was interesting which had cooling based on 3m Novec HFE-7100.
The coolant assembly can in direct contact with the chip. The various
advantages of the cell processor was being highlighted in the booth,
which was much smaller andgenerated far less excitement than last year.
One of the smallest applications for a Methanol Fuel
Cell was shown with two designs of a digital audio player and apocket
television. The fuel cell integration was the best we have seen.
Toshiba was also showing a 3.5” and 2.2”QVGA
OLED displays.
Tyco
Tyco had a section of its large booth showing innovative
antenna designs. One was a 3D multi-mode antenna on a cell phone. There
were many of these antennas on a plastic form and each one tuned to
the particular application.
Another set of antennas was included in the display panel
of a notebook. This had 2 antennas: W-WAN and W-LAN. It was stated
that increasing numbers of notebooks will have W-WAN, i.e., multimode
cellular, antennas in them. It was stated that this could only be done
with the permission of the government regulatory agencies. This has
been obtained in Europe and the US where many more such notebooks will
be shipped. Many companies will be integrating UWB into notebooks.
Also shown was a Canon digital camera with a W-LAN antenna.
It was implied that the next radio to be integrated is UWB. This will
allow images to be sent to a printer and on the television from the
camera.
tzero
The TZ7000 Evaluation system shows how it is possible
to have flat panel televisions everywhere in the home. Uses UWB with
WiMedia MBOA compliant hardware over the frequency band 3.1 to 4.8GHz.
Data rates 53.3 to 480Mb/s. MIMO 2X and television resolutions to 1080p.
ubiquitous
This company was claiming a digital media server in only
259KB, total code size. In their words “The most compactHome
Network solution ever.”
Universal Electronics
Highlighted its Kameleon product line. Using a softpanel
the ID is impressive. This is represented as One Remote to replace
them all. Wireless upgrade via phone or Internet. Also controls lighting.
Displays on the keys required to control a device. Three versions which
can support from 5 devices up to 11 devices.
The Kameleon product line is a second generation intelligent
controller. It is in part a Universal response to the Logitech Harmony.
The product has been introduced in Germany and the price varies by
model from 69 euros to 99 euros. It is claimed it is much easier to
set up than Logitech Harmony. The product is likely to come to the
US but firm plans have not been made.
Victor - JVC
Shown was a 3CCD HiVision palm held Everio video camera.
The resolution is (1920 X 1080).
WAVE Comment
CEATEC is a mirror of the CE industry as the Japanese see
it. The event is controlled by the Japanese CE industry. What is on the
floor is what the companies want to sell which is new. It is also fiercely
competitive. We know of no event where the competitive intelligence collection
is so rampant.
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