Advantages of a Wireless Media Player – Many people in today’s multimedia world have music recordings, movies and photos scattered thruout their homes in many different forms. Some are old-fashioned physical media such as discs and printed photos or slides; with many today most will be audio and video computer files stored in various formats and places. Many users are listening to their favorite music or watching their favorite videos most of the time on small computer screens with terrible sound from tiny built-in speakers. If you want to find a particular piece, photo or movie you may waste a great deal of time tracking it down.
The solution might be a wireless media player for your home. They look like a DVD player, fit under your HDTV, and have all the expected connection possibilities to hook up to your home cables. Most also now have built-in Ethernet LAN ports and Wi-Fi connectivity, though you will usually get the best video quality and reliability using wired Ethernet connections. The media player can automatically scan your digital collection of music, photos and videos no matter where located, and list and sort them in an intelligent way. If you have a broadband router, you can watch HD videos streamed from the Internet on your HDTV in the comfort of your living room or home theater, with a much bigger screen and greatly improved sound over watching on your computer. You can plug in thumb drives, external hard drives, digital cameras, mobile phones and iPods. The digital files can be stored on the media player’s built-in hard drive instead of on your computer. Be warned, though, that if any of your music files are protected with DRM (digital rights management), they may not play, and aside from YouTube, some video sources also may not play everywhere.
Broadcom Home Networking Platform Receives Certification – One of the prominent chip vendors in the home networking market has received MoCA (multimedia over coax alliance) certification for their reference design platform for set-top boxes and broadband access products from the Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA). The technology allows subscribers to securely access, store and share multiple types of digital media content – including HDTV, video-on-demand, digital video recordings, Internet content, video, music, photos and voice over Internet Protocol (IP). The certification is expected to accelerate deployment of the MoCA standard and move toward achieving worldwide adoption.
Women and Consumer Electronics – According to the NPD Group, women now account for 40% of all consumer electronics spending. Suzanne Kantra, the technology editor for Martha Stewart’s magazine, says “women either make the purchase or influence it in more than half of consumer electronics items. It’s important to create an environment where women can be comfortable with technology.” She has started a web site – www.techlicious.com – featuring technology made simple. It favors practical advice and instruction over product reviews. It has videos on how to hook up a HDTV, making your photos E-mail friendly, and cleaning an HDTV screen.
Consumer Reports Index – Consumer Reports magazine has published their latest Index, based on over 1000 phone interviews completed between July 30 and August 2. There are five key indices in the survey, which tries to quantify what consumers are personally experiencing from forces of the economy and how it affects their buying decisions. The Sentiment Index asks if respondents are feeling better or worse about their financial situation than a year ago. Over 50 would mean more consumers are feeling positive. The figure was 41.1. The Trouble Tracker Index looks at the number negative events faced, such as penalty fees, home foreclosure, inability to pay medical bills etc. The 61.7 index was the highest it’s been this year. The Stress Index is self-explanatory; above 50 means consumers feel more stress. The figure was 63.5. The Retail Index looks at consumer purchases during the past month plus planned purchases in the next month. In July this index was 13; this past month it was 9.5, with only 7.5 for the next 30 days.
