Wireless Home Digital Interface (WHDI) technology consortium

AMIMON, along with Motorola, Hitachi, Sharp, Samsung and Sony have formed a consortium to develop a new standard for streaming multimedia content wirelessly across multiple rooms. The new standard will be based on AMIMON’s Wireless Home Digital Interface (WHDI) technology, and is expected to be embedded in products at retail in 2009. This is far sooner than many folks expected to have an effective wireless HD solution.

Because Motorola’s been an AMIMON investor since early in 2007, Motorola engineers have been studying the WHDI technology from the inside. Moroney says he and others were convinced that what AMIMON claimed it could do was too good to be true. In very basic terms, WHDI prioritizes video components according to their importance. There are the most significant bits (MSBs) and the least significant bits (LSBs) in a video pixel. The MSBs get more error protection when they are encoded than the LSBs, and they are also transmitted on frequency bands with less noise.

AMIMON’s method, called Joint Source-Channel Coding (JSCC), allows WHDI to do something no other technology on the market today does: wirelessly deliver uncompressed HD video. And according to Moroney, it works incredibly well.

Here are a few key specs on AMIMON’s WHDI solution:

Designed for uncompressed HDTV video up to 1080p
Operates on the unlicensed 5Ghz frequency band
Uses four transmit antennas and 20-40MHz bandwidth
The WHDI standard is expected to be completed this year.

connectedhome2go.com

WHDI™ - Wireless High Definition Interface sets a new standard for wireless high-definition video connectivity. It provides a high-quality, uncompressed wireless link which can support delivery of equivalent video data rates of up to 3Gbps (including uncompressed 1080p) in a 40MHz channel in the 5GHz unlicensed band, conforming to FCC regulations. Equivalent video data rates of up to 1.5Gbps (including uncompressed 1080i and 720p) can be delivered on a single 20MHz channel in the 5GHz unlicensed band, conforming to worldwide 5GHz spectrum regulations. Range is beyond 100 feet, through walls, and latency is less than one millisecond.

WHDI™ enables a wireless video link that offers the same functionality, cost and quality as a wired link. Practically all of the hundreds of millions of wired connections between video sources and displays today are based on delivery of uncompressed video. In order to replace these wired links, the wireless interface needs to be uncompressed as well.

Solutions that are based on delivery of compressed video do not solve the problem of providing a universal wireless video link that can connect between any source and any display. Although most of the digital sources are distributed to the home in compressed format, compressed video is rarely provided at the output of most video sources such as DVD players and set-top-boxes. One reason for this is copy-protection: Compressed outputs are more susceptible and more sensitive to theft. Another reason is that interoperability on the compressed level is extremely challenging as there are so many video codecs, and displays can not be expected to support all of them. Moreover, there are many sources that are generated uncompressed, such as gaming consoles and PCs.

Previous solutions tried to overcome this constraint by applying real-time compression to the uncompressed outputs of sources. However, this significantly reduces quality, adds latency, and is expensive. (For a more detailed analysis of uncompressed vs. compressed, please refer to the White Paper on this topic – link provided at the end of this page)

Enabling the wireless delivery of such high video rates is a radically different approach to transmission. WHDI™ is based on AMIMON’s revolutionary video-modem technology in which the video coding and modulation are jointly optimized to enable capabilities far beyond those of traditional wireless modems that have been optimized for data.

Traditional wireless video approaches have failed to provide an adequate solution to the problem of wireless HDTV connectivity because they treat the problem as a special case of data delivery. In a wireless data modem (e.g. 802.11n, MBOA-UWB) all bits are treated equally ― they all get the same level of protection from channel impairments. However, in video, different bits have different level of importance and the effect of an error greatly depends on which bit was corrupted.

For example: A typical uncompressed stream is represented by a stream of 8 or 10 bit numbers, each representing the primary color value of a given pixel. Clearly, the most significant bit (MSB) of each of these numbers has greater visual importance than the least significant bit (LSB). If an error occurs on the MSB, that pixel gets an entirely different (and unwanted) value. However, an error in the LSB will result in a minor change in the pixel’s value. Wireless data-modems ignore this characteristic of video. They provide the same level of protection to the MSB and LSB, which means they either protect the LSB too much, resulting in inefficient use of channel capacity, or protect the MSB too little, resulting is a low quality video link; or a combination of both. WHDI™ provides a different level of protection to the different bits, enabling the delivery of very high video rates with very high quality.

WHDI™ takes the uncompressed HD video stream and breaks it into elements of importance. The various elements are then mapped onto the wireless channel in a way that give elements with more visual importance a greater share of the channel resources, i.e. they are transmitted in a more robust manner. Elements that have less visual importance are allocated fewer channel resources, and therefore are transmitted in a much less robust way. Allocation of channel resources can include, for example, setting power levels, spectrum allocation and coding parameters.

The result of this unique video-modem approach is that any errors in the wireless channel are not noticed as they only affect the less important bits. Very high rates of video information can be transmitted because the human eye can tolerate the errors that fall on the less important bits.

amimon.com/technology

Wireless HDTV – Compressed or Uncompressed? That is the question... (pdf)

The short answer: an uncompressed interface is the only way to provide a universal video interface which can support all video sources: legacy, new and future sources.

Enabling wireless uncompressed HDTV connectivity with a unique video-modem approach: A technical overview

Meir Feder, Chief Technology Officer, AMIMON Ltd.

Uncompressed and uncompromised HD video quality, using AMIMON's chipsets

AMIMON's wireless modules use AMIMON's baseband transmitter and receiver with standard 802.11a/n RFIC chipsets to deliver uncompressed HD video and audio up to 30 meters through walls, while maintaining superb, wire equivalent quality and robustness with no latency.

AMIMON's wireless modules use AMIMON's RFIC and baseband chipsets to introduce the best cost-optimized wireless HD audio/video modem.

All AMIMON modules are available with on-board PCB antennas or with external antennas for extended range.

AMIMON also offers a Development Kit to enable self- implementation of AMIMON's wireless video modules and chipsets for quick development of a wireless HD system.

Benefits

• Based on AMN2110/AMN2210 - WHDI™ Baseband Transmitter and Receiver chipset
• Uncompressed HD audio/video wireless transmission at wire-equivalent quality
• Easily integrates into any HD application
• Minimal system overhead
• Enable wireless transmission of HDMI, Component, S-video or PC (VGA/DVI) around the home
• Supports most video resolutions including 720p,1080i and 1080p (24fps/30fps)
• Scalable for 1080p 60fps
• Coexists with 802.11a/n & 5GHz cordless phones
• 30 meter range indoors, through walls, no line of sight required
• Less than 1 millisecond latency
• 10mW typical transmission power
• Strong 256-bit AES based encryption

---

AMIMON’s wireless modules use AMIMON’s RFIC and baseband chipsets to introduce the best cost-optimized wireless HD audio/video modem.

AMN11310 transmitter module

Designed to be integrated into HD-DVD/Blu-ray players, STBs, game consoles, PCs and cameras, enabling wireless transmission from these devices to TVs, monitors and projectors.

AMN12310 receiver module

Designed to be integrated into TVs, monitors and projectors, enabling these devices to display uncompressed, wireless HD audio and video from WHDI enabled HD-DVD/Blu-ray players, STBs, game consoles, PCs and cameras.

amimon.com/video-modules

Verizon Stops Reporting Video Subscriber Counts

via ipdemocracy.com

Verizon issued its Q2 08 earnings earning results this morning and although the company's wireless business helped propel Verizon to strong net income growth, its customer wireline business -- including video and broadband, heretofore growth stalwarts -- seems to be, um, in the toilet.

One clear sign that something is wrong with a product line at any given company is when the company ceases to report statistics on that particular product. Starting with Q2 08, Verizon is no longer reporting total video subscribers -- nada, zip, zilch. At the end of Q1 08, Verizon served a total of 2.154 million video subscribers, but we don't know how many total video customers Verizon served at the end of Q2 08 because the number is nowhere to be found in its investor reports.

Verizon investor spokesoman Ron Lataille confirmed for me that the company no longer gives out this number. That's a good indication that Verizon lost a boatload of DBS customers under its pact with DirecTV during the quarter. At the end of Q1 08, Verizon had nearly a million, or 948,000, DirecTV customers.

Verizon did report its FiOS TV subscriber count, and here again the news wasn't good. During the quarter, Verizon added 176,000 net new FiOS TV customers to reach a total of 1.382 million subscribers by quarter's end. But the 176,000 net adds represents a steep drop from the 263,000 net adds during Q1 08 and is the first time the telco hasn't posted accelerating growth in this service category.

During the earnings call, Verizon President Denny Strigl defended the weak FiOS TV growth numbers saying that they "were about what we had expected." He said FiOS TV growth is already picking up in the third quarter and should continue to make gains throughout the year, thanks in large part to its launch of service today in New York City.

Surprisingly, not one analyst on the call asked Verizon about its DBS service subscriber count. Verizon, like fellow telco AT&T, is banking on video growth from its own network-based services and has viewed its DBS partnership as a stop-gap measure to gain market share as cable makes inroads into the voice business. Still, it's likely that Verizon posted a net loss in video subscribers during the quarter, with the loss in DBS customers outweighing the tepid gain in FiOS TV customers.

Verizon's broadband business didn't fare that much better. During the quarter, Verizon added only 54,000 net new broadband customers, just one-fifth of the broadband net gains added during the previous quarter and the year-ago quarter.

Although Verizon's FiOS high-speed service added a net 187,000 new customers during the quarter, Verizon lost 133,000 DSL customers -- presumably many of these switched over to the superior FiOS broadband option. By quarter's end, Verizon served 8.33 million broadband customers.

Combined with a loss of 92,000 access lines, these losses paint a pretty grim picture for the company's wireline business. During the earnings call, Strigl said that despite these weak results, the recession didn't seem to be causing problems for Verizon, at least not in terms of the bottom-line. "Although we are seeing some softening in the volumes, we do not expect any significant impact on our financial results for the rest of the year," he said.

The still-booming wireless business is the pole holding up Verizon's tent. During the quarter, Verizon added 1.5 million net new customers, up from the 1.3 million added during Q2 07 and on par with Q1 08 levels, even in the face of stiff competition with AT&T's iPhone. By quarter's end, Verizon served 68.68 million wireless customers.

Net income rose to $1.88 billion for the quarter, up from $1.68 billion during the year-ago quarter, as revenues ticked up from $23.27 billion to $24.12 billion.

ipdemocracy.com

Federal government and network management

There’s a very amusing picture painted of NCTA on Ars Technica, literally Shakespearean in nature.

“Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more,” cried William Shakespeare’s Henry V in the play so titled. “Or close the wall up with our English dead!” Perhaps in said spirit did the National Cable and Television [sic] Association (NCTA) veep Michael Schooler and Insight CEO Michael Willner march up to the eighth floor of the Federal Communications Commission on the ninth of July to plead the cause of ISP “network management”…

Taken in conjunction with yesterday’s post on DSL Reports, it sounds like we painted a portrait of Biblical apocalypse. NCTA’s own Michael Schooler and Insight’s Michael Willner supposedly warned of “the impending destruction of the Internet by P2P users.” Or else we said “that the Internet would all but collapse.”

Wow! That sure sounds scary. But since neither Karl Bode nor Matthew Lasar was actually at that meeting, they instead apparently based their accounts on a letter we filed. If you read it for yourself, you find that four points were made.

• Network management is necessary to prevent serious congestion.
• Service for customers would be degraded without such management.
• Network upgrades alone won’t solve problem.
• The government should not pre-determine the tools and technology to be used for network management.

So I ask: Which of these four points are in contention? The DSL Reports post even says “Most techs don’t oppose reasonable network management (booting extreme gluttons, some QOS and prioritization)…” So, we can start by agreeing that reasonable network management is a good thing. Without some kind of management, problems will arise.

Let’s look at service degradation. Was complete congestion claimed? The phrase used is “can cause substantial (and sometimes complete) congestion of the system’s upload capacity.” Let’s emphasize three key words: can, sometimes and upload. This is critical, because peer-to-peer applications are the focus of attention.

This goes to the point about simply upgrading a network. A peer-to-peer application looks for users with the best upload connection. Building a bigger pipe does not eliminate the necessity of network management.

Finally, is the federal government really the best body to judge what network management tools are appropriate? I’m not convinced it is. Nor am I convinced that the answer is a big dumb pipe that treats all bits equally, whether it’s a phone call, streaming video, a P2P download, an e-mail, or a Web page request. And anybody who actually understands how networks work wouldn’t either.

Both of these posts claim that we are crying “Armageddon!” for nefarious reasons. But should nothing be done at all? We want to give our customers the best Internet experience possible, now and in the future, and we need network management to accomplish that goal.

cabletechtalk.com

Cable Modem Patent Hoarder Accused Of Pretending To Enter The Market

From the Techdirt Blog

from the sneaky,-sneaky,-sneaky dept

Rembrandt IP is a patent hoarding firm that we've written about a few times before. It buys up patents and then sues companies to get them to pay licensing fees. However, one thing that's been really interesting about Rembrandt is how it's been figuring out new and creative ways to skirt recent Supreme Court rulings that seek to lessen the impact of such non-practicing entities. Two years ago, in the landmark MercExchange case, the Supreme Court ruled that courts shouldn't automatically grant injunctions preventing the sale of products, even if they're found to have violated a patent.

This didn't get rid of injunctions entirely, but basically (reasonably) noted that the courts should take into account whether or not the product on the market was actually harming the market for the patent holder's products. Thus, if you were a non-practicing entity (patent hoarding firm), it didn't make sense to ban another company's products from being in the market -- it just made sense to fine them. After all, since the patent holder didn't have a product on the market, what harm was being done to the patent holding firm's market? Patent hoarding companies flipped out, because the threat of an injunction barring the sale of products was one of the biggest weapons they had (it's part of what made RIM pay $612 million to NTP, even though the USPTO had said that NTP's patents were invalid).

So, how is Rembrandt getting around this ruling that takes away the threat of injunction as a weapon? Well, earlier this year, we noted a sneaky trick where it sued two companies in a single market over the same patent, but gave each of them a choice: whoever settled first, would get to join the lawsuit against the other one. Then, since the side that joined was a practicing entity, it could push for an injunction against the other. Sneaky, right?

Well, now it gets better. Rembrandt also happens to hold some patents on cable modem technology. In this case, Rembrandt bought the patents from a former AT&T subsidiary that had an agreement with the cable companies to license the patents under reasonable terms. Rembrandt is now claiming that since it bought the patents, it no longer needs to abide by that earlier agreement (despite the fact that the FTC has already slammed other patent holders for claiming similar things). Rembrandt, however, is pushing ahead and has sued a ton of cable companies, broadcasters and cable modem makers over this patent -- but how can it get an injunction since it's not a practicing entity?

Well, how about pretending to be a practicing entity?

Broadband Reports points us to the news that Rembrandt has convinced a small Taiwanese cable modem manufacturer to make a batch of cable modems with Rembrandt's name on them, which have now been sold to a tiny ISP in Seattle Tacoma. So, now, Rembrandt can try to claim that it's really "in the market" (even though it has admitted publicly to being a non-practicing entity) and can push for an injunction against all the companies it's suing. Those companies are calling out this practice as a "sham," and it will be interesting to see how the court rules. If the court rules that this practice allows Rembrandt to ask for injunctions, we may start seeing other patent hoarding firms quickly finding "partners" who can white label a few products just for the sake of appearing to be a "practicing" entity rather than a non-practicing one.

via Techdirt Blog

Cisco IOS DNS, Arris Cadant C3 CMTS

Multiple Cisco products are vulnerable to DNS cache poisoning attacks due to their use of insufficiently randomized DNS transaction IDs and UDP source ports in the DNS queries that they produce, which may allow an attacker to more easily forge DNS answers that can poison DNS caches. To exploit this vulnerability an attacker must be able to cause a vulnerable DNS server to perform recursive DNS queries. Therefore, DNS servers that are only authoritative, or servers where recursion is not allowed, are not affected.

Cisco has released free software updates that address these vulnerabilities.

Impact

Successful exploitation of the vulnerability described in this document may result in invalid hostname-to-IP address mappings in the cache of an affected DNS server. This may lead users of this DNS server to contact the wrong provider of network services. The ultimate impact varies greatly, ranging from a simple denial of service (for example, making www.example.com resolve to 127.0.0.1) to phishing and financial fraud.

Details

The Domain Name System is an integral part of networks that are based on TCP/IP such as the Internet. Simply stated, the Domain Name System is a hierarchical database that contains mappings of hostnames and IP addresses. The DNS protocol is part of the TCP/IP protocol suite and allows DNS clients to query the DNS database to resolve hostnames to IP addresses. A DNS server is an application that implements the DNS protocol and that has the ability to respond to queries made by DNS clients. When handling a query from a DNS client, a DNS server can look into its portion of the global DNS database (if the query is for a portion of the DNS database for which the DNS server is authoritative), or it can relay the query to other DNS servers (if it is configured to do so and if the query is for a portion of the DNS database for which the DNS server is not authoritative.) Because of the processing time and bandwidth that is associated with handling a DNS query, most DNS servers locally store responses that are received from other DNS servers. The area where these responses are stored locally is called a "cache." Once a response is stored in a cache, the DNS server can use the locally stored response for a certain time (called the "time to live") before having to query DNS servers again to refresh the local (cached) copy of the response. A DNS cache poisoning attack is an attack in which an entry in the DNS cache of a DNS server is changed so the IP address associated with a hostname in the cache does not point to the correct place. For example, if www.example.com is mapped to the IP address 192.168.0.1 and this mapping is present in the cache of a DNS server, an attacker who succeeds in poisoning the DNS cache of this server may be able to map www.example.com to 10.0.0.1 instead. If this happens, a user who is trying to visit www.example.com may end up contacting the wrong web server. Although DNS cache poisoning attacks are not new, a security researcher recently presented a technique that allows an attacker to mount successful DNS cache poisoning attacks with low complexity tools and low traffic requirements. This technique exploits a weakness in most implementations of the DNS protocol. The fundamental implementation weakness is that the DNS transaction ID and source port number used to validate DNS responses are not sufficiently randomized and can easily be predicted, which allows an attacker to create forged responses to DNS queries that will match the expected values. The DNS server will consider such responses to be valid. The following Cisco products that offer DNS server functionality have been found to

• Cisco IOS Software: The vulnerability documented in Cisco bug ID CSCso81854 ( registered customers only) .
• Cisco Network Registrar: The vulnerability documented in Cisco bug ID CSCsq01298 ( registered customers only) .
• Cisco Application and Content Networking System (ACNS): The vulnerability documented in Cisco bug ID CSCsq21930 ( registered customers only) .

This advisory is posted at http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/707/cisco-sa-20080708-dns.shtml.

Fix Available: Yes Vendor Confirmed: Yes
Advisory: Cisco Security Advisory
Description: A vulnerability was reported in Cisco IOS and other Cisco products that provide DNS services. A remote user can spoof the system.

The domain name system (DNS) service does not use sufficiently random DNS transaction ID values and/or random UDP sockets to process queries. A remote user can send specially crafted DNS queries and responses to the target service to spoof responses and insert records into the DNS cache. This may cause traffic on the target system to be redirected to arbitrary IP addresses specified by the remote user.

Cisco IOS devices that are configured as a DNS server are affected.

Cisco has assigned Cisco Bug ID CSCso81854 to this vulnerability.

Cisco Network Registrar, Cisco Application and Content Networking System (ACNS), and the Cisco Global Site Selector (GSS) products are also affected.
Impact: A remote user can spoof the DNS service, causing traffic to be redirected to arbitrary hosts.
Solution: The vendor has issued a fix.

A patch matrix is available in the vendor's advisory.

securitytracker.com

see also:

Jul 8 2008 Cisco IOS DNS Query Port Entropy Weakness Lets Remote Users Spoof the System

Jun 10 2008 (Cisco Issues Fix for IOS) Net-snmp SNMPv3 Authentication Bug Lets Remote Users Bypass Authentication

May 21 2008 Cisco IOS SSH Service Bug Lets Remote Users Deny Service

Mar 26 2008 Cisco IOS OSPF/MPLS VPN Bug Lets Remote Users Deny Service

Mar 26 2008 Cisco IOS Multicast Virtual Private Network (MVPN) Data Leak Lets Remote Users Obtain VPN Traffic

Mar 26 2008 Cisco IOS Bugs in Virtual Private Dial-up Network PPTP Connection Termination Let Remote Users Deny Service

Mar 26 2008 Cisco IOS UDP Router Services Bug on IPv4/IPv6 Devices Lets Remote Users Deny Service

Mar 26 2008 Cisco IOS Data-link Switching Bug Lets Remote Users Deny Service



Arris Cadant C3 CMTS Remote DoS Vulnerability

ZDI-07-036: June 11th, 2007
CVE-2007-2796
Affected Vendors: Arris
Affected Products: Cadant C3 CMTS

Vulnerability Details

This vulnerability allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service on vulnerable Arris Cadant C3 CMTS systems. Authentication is not required to exploit this vulnerability.

The flaw exists due to mishandling of IP options. When an unknown or bad option is specified, the C3 will terminate disabling all service that is handled by that CMTS. The vulnerability can be triggered with a single malformed IP packet.

Vendor Response

Arris has issued an update to correct this vulnerability. More details can be found at:

http://www.arrisi.com/contact_us/support/

Disclosure Timeline

2007-02-23 - Vulnerability reported to vendor
2007-06-11 - Coordinated public release of advisory

Minerva Ten New North American IPTV

Minerva added ten more IPTV wins in North America, including Mt. Horeb Telephone in Wisconsin, Tullahoma Utilities in Tennessee, and GTA TeleGuam in Guam. With IPTV platforms delivering a superior user experience, HD/PVR set-top boxes now readily available from multiple vendors, and early adopters enjoying rapid subscriber penetration, more network operators are entering the market and preparing to launch triple-play initiatives. Minerva is taking advantage of this market momentum by providing a proven middleware platform that allows operators to launch television services very quickly and compete effectively against incumbents while minimizing infrastructure and operating costs.

Minerva iTVManager is a comprehensive software platform for the delivery and management of a broad set of television services, including HDTV, PVR, VOD, music, games, and communication applications.

iTVManager is the best choice for deploying IPTV services.

iTVManager is a field proven solution for launching, operating and growing a profitable IPTV service. The TV user interface has all the latest HD and PVR features and runs on a variety of leading set-top boxes from ADB, Amino, Cisco/SA, Entone and Motorola. The iTVManager operations and management module offers a complete suite of applications and tools that minimizes the cost of running an IPTV service.

iTVManager

iTVManager is an open, standards-based solution that provides everything needed to build, operate and grow a sustainable, differentiated, profitable IPTV service. A carrier-grade platform deployed by more than 110 operators, iTVManager was the first to support HD, PVR, and Subscription Video-On-Demand (SVOD). The BackOffice framework, built on an Oracle database, provides all the services management and provisioning capabilities necessary to run a complete, highly scalable IPTV service “out of the box”.

iTVManager represents the most open system on the market today with support for set-top boxes from five different vendors, three conditional access systems and four VOD server vendors. In addition, a robust set of APIs allows easy integration with existing OSS/BSS systems. Third-party developers can use XML and Javascript APIs to write advanced TV applications for communications, guided on-demand viewing, polling, personalized advertising, and general information services (e.g., RSS).

iTVManager offers substantial advantages over satellite and cable television and other IPTV offerings. Its advanced region and channel management features allow you to segment your service area, providing customized, superior offerings to any geography or group you desire.

The open platform allows you to extend subscribers’ experiences beyond their current concept of television, by integrating communications and Internet information services. iTVManager’s architecture makes it infrastructure-friendly. Extensive use of multicast technology lowers overall network bandwidth utilization. In addition, embedded STB applications intelligently cache frequently-used data to create a fast, responsive user experience while reducing server load. Intelligent bandwidth management controls let the operator fine-tune services within each subscriber location, so each subscriber can enjoy the maximum level of services the last-mile bandwidth can allow. The small footprint of iTVManager makes it easier to extend capabilities and maximize subscriber growth and retention.

iTVManager empowers users by providing the ability to personalize their own experiences, giving them options to select different user interface designs, set parental control limits and other viewing options. Empowering users makes them more engaged and loyal. Today’s consumers expect more control over their entertainment sources. iTVManager gives subscribers control over what they want, and you control over what you need.

Extensive controls over configuration and business rules simplify setup and management of the system and let you adapt the service to meet your specific requirements – all without programming. Get to market quickly by taking advantage of the “out of the box” functionality of iTVManager. From branding of the user interface to defining the channel line up, service packages, pricing and EPG and VOD ingest. iTVManager gives you simple and full control over the setup and management of the system.

Download the iTVManager Data Sheet

Search engine barometer June 2008 French-speaking Web sites

Methodology:
* Study conducted from June 1 to 30, 2008
* Perimeter of 92,728 websites
This search engine barometer concerns French-speaking Web sites.

This barometer is published every month to follow the main evolution of search engine visit share. Below is the indicator of June 2008.

Among the 4 main competitors, only Orange managed to resist in June 2008
After April and May, Google once again recorded the best progress in June 2008: +0.28 points, representing 90.61% of share of visits. It is the only search engine in the top 10 to make progress this month.

Yahoo!, which comes second (2.85%), Live Search, 3rd (2.35%), and AOL, 4th (1.54%), are all losing speed.

Only Orange, 5th, has managed to keep up in relation to last month, with a share of visits of 1.35% in June 2008.

Positions 6 to 10 are respectively held by Free, Alice, Ask, Altavista and Exalead, and all have less than 1% of visits.


xitimonitor.com

Gartner Says Worldwide PC Market Grew 16 Percent in Second Quarter of 2008

2008
STAMFORD, Conn., Jul 16, 2008

Worldwide PC shipments reached 71.9 million units in the second quarter of 2008, a 16 percent increase from the second quarter of 2007, according to preliminary results by Gartner, Inc.

"Mobile PCs continued to lead unit growth across all regions as the average selling price (ASP) of mobile PCs declined sharply relative to desk-based PC ASPs," said Mika Kitagawa, principal analyst for Gartner's Client Computing Markets group. "Economic uncertainties have hit PC revenues, resulting in steep ASP declines, especially in markets such as the United States and the Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) region. The industry could ultimately see a significant wave of consolidation if stronger vendors continue to press their pricing advantage."

HP continued to maintain the No. 1 position with its worldwide PC shipment market share totaling 18.1 percent in the second quarter of 2008 (see Table 1). HP's growth rate exceeded the industry average in the worldwide market, and its growth rate was little above the industry average in the U.S.

Dell had another strong quarter with worldwide PC shipments increasing 21.9 percent in the second quarter of 2008 and its market share reaching 15.6 percent. The company's growth was fueled by its expansion into retail and other indirect channels. Preliminary results show Dell achieved over 40 percent year-over-year growth in mobile shipments for two consecutive quarters.

Table 1
Preliminary Worldwide PC Vendor Unit Shipment Estimates for 2Q08
(Thousands of Units)
                 2Q08  2Q08 Market      2Q07  2Q07 Market  2Q08-2Q07
Company      Shipments   Share (%)  Shipments    Share (%) Growth (%)
------------ ---------- ----------- ---------- ------------ ----------
HP               13,028        18.1     11,129         18.0       17.1
Dell             11,204        15.6      9,190         14.8       21.9
Acer              6,749         9.4      5,676          9.2       18.9
Lenovo            5,580         7.8      4,888          7.9       14.2
Toshiba           3,137         4.4      2,428          3.9       29.2
Others           32,157        44.8     28,647         46.2       12.3
Total            71,855       100.0     61,957        100.0       16.0
------------ ---------- ----------- ---------- ------------ ----------
Note: Data includes desk-based PCs, mobile PCs and X86 servers.
Source: Gartner (July 2008)

PC shipments in the United States reached 16.5 million units in the second quarter of 2008, a 4.2 percent increase from the same period last year. U.S. PC shipments actually accelerated during the quarter, despite continuing U.S. economic woes. However, this acceleration appears to have been achieved at the expense of revenues as vendors appear to have cut prices in response to those woes.

"Home mobile PCs continue to have momentum in the U.S. market. However, ASP declines were greater here than in other segments. The retail space was a harsh pricing environment during the quarter," Ms. Kitagawa said. "U.S. professional units look to have been affected by tightening IT budgets as U.S. business responded to growing economic uncertainty. Desk-based PCs gained traction among some professional users. Because desk-based PC deployment costs are still lower than that of mobile PCs, desk-based PCs provide a less expensive option for these buyers with tighter budgets."

Several mini-notebook PCs were introduced in the U.S. market during the second quarter. However, this platform is still emerging and did not significantly contribute to overall shipment growth. Preliminary data shows the mini-notebook segment accounted for less than 3 percent of U.S. mobile PC shipments.

In the U.S. PC market, Dell continued to be the market leader with PC shipments accounting for 31.9 percent of the U.S. market in the second quarter of 2008 (see Table 2). HP's growth rate was slightly ahead of the U.S. average, and it appears HP's issues around inventory were resolved in the quarter. Apple's PC shipments grew 38.1 percent in the quarter. The home PC segment continued to be the strongest driver for Apple, as well as sales into the education segment.

Table 2
Preliminary U.S. PC Vendor Unit Shipment Estimates for 2Q08 (Thousands
of Units)
                2Q08  2Q08 Market       2Q07  2Q07 Market  2Q08-2Q07
Company     Shipments    Share (%)  Shipments    Share (%) Growth (%)
----------- ---------- ------------ ---------- ------------ ----------
Dell             5,254         31.9      4,697         29.7       11.9
HP               4,166         25.3      3,944         24.9        5.6
Apple            1,397          8.5      1,011          6.4       38.1
Acer             1,331          8.1      1,680         10.6      -20.8
Toshiba            907          5.5        882          5.6        2.8
Others           3,437         20.8      3,607         22.8       -4.7
Total           16,491        100.0     15,821        100.0        4.2
----------- ---------- ------------ ---------- ------------ ----------
Note: Data includes desk-based PCs, mobile PCs and X86 servers. Acer
data includes Gateway's consumer shipments and Packard Bell
shipments.
Source: Gartner (July 2008)

PC shipments in EMEA reached 23.1 million units in the second quarter of 2008, a 23.5 percent increase from the same period last year. The strong shipment growth was linked to the decline in ASPs, especially in consumer mobile PCs. Some of the ASP declines are also an attempt by vendors to shift increasing inventory levels in retail channels. Shipment growth was strong across all countries, with the emerging markets of Eastern Europe and the Middle East and Africa still exhibiting the strongest increases. The strength of the mobile market continued; demand for notebooks remained very strong with growth over 40 percent.

In Asia/Pacific, PC shipments totaled 20.1 million units, up 18.1 percent from the second quarter of last year. In the professional market, there was not a significant slowdown in PC purchases as replacements and capital investments continued, benefiting multinational vendors such as HP, Dell and Lenovo. Mobile PC shipments grew 45.6 percent in the quarter.

PC shipments in Latin America grew 23.2 percent in the second quarter of 2008, as shipments in the region reached 7 million units. White boxes are gaining new momentum with support by AMD, Intel and Microsoft. Notebook PCs posted 55 percent growth in the quarter, while desk-based systems grew at an estimated 10 percent.

In Japan, PC shipments reached 3.6 million units, an 8.2 percent increase from the same period last year. Mobile PCs grew at a high single-digit to a low teen-digit rate, while desk-based PCs showed low single-digit growth. Replacement demand for commercial mobile PCs in large enterprises and sales of $500 mini-notebooks were two of the growth accelerators for the second quarter of 2008.

These results are preliminary. Final statistics will be available soon to clients of Gartner's PC Quarterly Statistics Worldwide by Region program. This program offers a comprehensive and timely picture of the worldwide PC market, allowing product planning, distribution, marketing and sales organizations to keep abreast of key issues and their future implications around the globe. Additional research can be found on Gartner's Computing Hardware section on Gartner's Web site at http://www.gartner.com/it/products/research/asset_129157_2395.jsp.

and 2004

World PC shipments in 2004 increased 11.8% from 2003 as consumer-PC driven seasonality remained pronounced (Chart 7). Dell gained substantial market share (Chart 8).

Preliminary Worldwide PC Vendor Unit Shipment Estimates for 2004 (Thousands of Units)

Company	2004 Shipments	2004 Market Share %	2003 Shipments	2003 Market Share %	2003-2004 Growth %
Dell	30,995	16.4	25,169	14.9	23.1
Hewlett-Packard	27,567	14.6	24,624	14.6	12.0
IBM	10,381	5.5	8.929	5.3	16.3
Fujitsu/Fujitsu Siemens	7,134	3.8	6,275	3.7	13.7
Acer	6,399	3.4	4,937	2.9	29.6
Others	106,502	56.4	99,125	58.6	7.4
Total	188,978	100.0	169,058	100.0	11.8

Source: Gartner Dataquest (January 2005)

custerconsulting.com GlobalSMT

HORROR: Broadband over Powerline In the Shadows of the Windy City © Motorola

In the Shadows of the Windy City...... O.o

Landmark Hotel Improves Guest Services with wi4 Indoor Solutions

The Hilton Oak Lawn is housed in a landmark 13-story-round-tower with 184 guest rooms and more than 20,000 square feet of conference facilities.
Hilton requirements dictate that broadband service must be available to 100 percent of guest rooms in the hotel. Built in the early 1970s, the hotel is constructed principally of steel reinforced concrete. These building materials present unique challenges when trying to retrofit the building to support traditional broadband services. Installing new coax or Ethernet cables for wired connections proved cost prohibitive. The hotel turned to wireless solutions, in particular 802.11, but was hindered by the building’s construction and layout. As a result, approximately 10 percent of the guest rooms could not receive broadband service. Wireless signals have an extremely difficult time in penetrating materials such as concrete and steel. Since the building’s wiring system is over 40-years-old, there is a significant amount of voltage loss. Therefore, it was necessary to inject the BPL signal onto breakers at every electrical panel in order to reach the guest rooms with sufficient signal strength. How did you do that?read pdf

Powerline MU enables service providers, building owners and businesses to transform a building's internal electrical system into a powerful communications network.

Bring multi-unit business and residential customers up to speed

The Powerline MU Gateway injects a broadband signal from a backhaul source directly into the electrical lines. For broadband access, subscribers simply plug their computer or router into the Powerline MU Modem.

The MDU Gateway can serve approximately 50 subscribers and delivers an average of 8-12 Mbps effective bandwidth. An individual subscriber's bandwidth will depend on the number of subscribers online, the building's wiring, the subscriber's household wiring and computer, and distance from the BPL injection point. One MU Gateway will typically serve up to 300 feet within a location. A licensed electrician is required for gateway installation, although coordination with the electric utility is not typically needed.

This reliable, plug-and-play solution is part of the MOTOwi4 portfolio, delivering high-performance in a cost-effective way to take your network beyond what you thought possible.

Broadband over Powerline Accessories

Powerline MU Hybrid Adapter
The Powerline MU Adapter is an optional device which serves as a converter between telephone wiring and Ethernet.

Powerline MU Inductive Coupler
Powerline MU Inductive Couplers are non-conductive ferrite rings that wrap around electric cables.

Powerline MU Panel Extender
The Powerline MU Panel Extender can be used if multiple electrical panels in an distribution room or multiple rooms need to be connected.

Case studies:

Profiting from the Power of Broadband Wireless (152Kb pdf)

wi4 Indoor Solutions Enable High-Speed Access for College Dorms (81Kb pdf)

FAQs:

Powerline MU FAQ (23Kb pdf)

Specifications:

Motorola's Powerline MU Solution (228Kb pdf)

System Diagram (243Kb pdf)

User guides and manuals:

Powerline MU Troubleshooting Guide (611Kb pdf)

Powerline MU User Guide 4.0 (9Mb pdf)

Powerline MU Modem

Bringing broadband access to multi-unit locations — such as apartments, condominiums, office buildings, dormitories, hotels, shopping malls and more has been difficult. Until now. Multi-unit users previously beyond the reach of existing broadband technologies can now be brought up to speed quickly without the investment of a new wireline infrastructure.

• Case studies
• Hilton Hotel Case Study (306Kb pdf)

Neptuny to launch ContentWise 2.0 at IBC

Italian firm Neptuny will be launching ContentWise 2.0, the second release of its content recommendation engine for IPTV, interactive cable and WebTV at this year's IBC event, to be held in Amsterdam this September. Enhancements added to the new release include the ability for users to receive real-tme recommendations on live TV shows based on what others are watching, support for content and product up/cross selling by operators, offering users recommendations according to what the user is watching, and enhanced reporting and APIs, offering new predefined reports such as customer purchase likelihood estimations based on recommendations.

ContentWise uses two different mechanisms for providing recommendations - collaborative filtering, where all user recommendations and experiences are used to recommend content that has been chosen by users with simiar tastes, and content-based filtering, using content meta-data to suggest recommendations based on discovered user preferences. Business rules can also be added by the operator to promote specific content according to strategic marketing or revenue objectives.

OVERVIEW

ContentWise SaaS provides the benefits of the ContentWise product in an easy and convenient way. Interactive television operators (e.g. providers, web site owners, content owners, etc.) can now add recommendations to and personalize their WebTV or IPTV in a straightforward manner, leveraging on a remote recommendation engine accessible via Web Service API over secure internet connections.

ContentWise SaaS also enables small operators to benefit from the same powerful personalization features already used by larger operators without having to invest in additional hardware, thereby lowering the total cost of the solution.

ContentWise SaaS relies on a high-availability platform hosted and managed by Neptuny. Connectivity is provided by Fastweb (Swisscom).

KEY FEATURES

* Same functional feature set as Contentwise
* Hosted in a reliable datacenter enviroment
* Deployed on a Cluster-Grid platform
* Operated and maintained entirely by Neptuny
* Security of transaction ensured by HTTPS SOAP or Secure VPN tunnel

BUSINESS BENEFITS

* Easy-to-deploy, powerful recommendation engine
* Enables small operators to provide same advanced features as big ones
* Lower solution costs (avoid hardware, licenses, maintainance)
* Easy transition to an insourced model according to volumes growth
* Flexible service model

HOW IT WORKS

With ContentWise SaaS Edition, the provider has an interface connected to his private instance of the predictive recommendation engine; the interface provides about 150 well-documented APIs to securely store in and retrieve information from ContentWise.

The provider uses the ContentWise interface to store information needed to generate personalized recommendations (user IDs, content metadata, ratings/viewing/purchases). Data are stored securely and can be retrieved using the same interface.

Benefits for providers / operators

* Increases customer spontaneous purchases (up-sell, cross-sell)
* Increases customer satisfaction by personalizing user experience
* Supports marketing of strategic decisions

Benefits for users

* Improves the overall quality of experience
- Facilitates content browsing (personal EPG, VOD selection)
- Reduces time taken to find the "right" content in catalogs
- Lowers user "frustration"

* Personalizes the TV experience
- Recommendations tailored to user preferences
- Suggests "unheard of" content fitting customer taste

ContentWise is a predictive content recommendation system for digital TV operators designed to help viewers select the right content to suit their tastes and requirements.

ContentWise generates recommendations for media content tailored to individuals' preferences, enabling users to quickly find suitable content. Recommendation are based on user ratings and content metadata.

ContentWise is the real answer to the challenge of making customers aware of the full potential of the digital TV offering, by proposing what they like, when they want it. The result is an extraordinary IPTV experience that brings benefits to both providers and final users, increasing revenue opportunities and customer loyalty.

Neptuny, a pioneer of the IPTV sector, will be launching ContentWise 2.0, the second release of the revolutionary Content Recommendation Engine for IPTV, Interactive-Cable TV and WebTV at the next IBC 2008 conference to be held in Amsterdam from 12-16 September 2008. The system will be demonstrated in Neptuny's pod #222 in the IPTV Zone.

Neptuny_ContentWise_2.0_IBC08.pdf (72 Kb)