photo courtesy of Martin (& Alex)

From the article –

“When the first transatlantic telegraph link was established in 1858, one of the first messages sent from America was “PRAY GIVE US SOME NEWS FOR NEW YORK, THEY ARE MAD FOR NEWS.” The quicker the news could be delivered, and the more distant the events it described, the better. “To the press the electric telegraph is an invention of immense value,” one journalist observed in 1868. “It gives you the news before the circumstances have had time to alter. The press is enabled to lay it fresh before the reader like a steak hot from the gridiron, instead of being cooled and rendered flavourless by a slow journey from a distant kitchen.”

See the article here

“Mobile video consumption grew 53 percent versus last year, with 15.7 million Americans watching video on their handsets in the third quarter of 2009. But teen mobile subscribers who watch video on a mobile phone spent seven hours and thirteen minutes doing so in the third quarter of 2009.”

American watch on average 129 hours and 16 minutes of television/month.  See the article.

Smart books, etablets, ebooks….here comes another device that we must have……another small fidelity device.

Newspapers are falling everywhere while online viewership continues to grow.  In the US newspaper circulation is down 7 million over the past 25 years.  In the last 5 years, unique readers of online newspapers are up 30 million.

I remember delivering newspapers when I was a kid.  I used to deliver 55 newspapers between 6 am and 7 am in weather as cold as -40 degrees C.  I remember having ink all over my winter gear, gloves, and hands.  The paper was heavy, dense, and cold.   It was filled with flyers, ads, and was thick.  I hated delivering papers in the bitter cold.  Fast forward 25 years and now we may not need paperboys.

On a recent trip home, the paper was pretty thin.  Most of the content came from AP or CP articles….with only a few original articles coming from local journalists.  In Toronto, I heard that the Toronto Star (local daily) is outsourcing some it’s writing to a centre in Bangalore.  Can you imagine your local content being written in South India?  Does this seem right?  Will the quality and context remain in tact?  Is this the right way to cut costs in the newspaper business?  What about all of that paper, ink, gas burned delivering the papers – aren’t there other inefficiencies in the model?

Do we really need another device just to read the newspaper?  Can’t this happen via software and news readers?

We are witnessing a revolution as the message is being lifted from the medium.

I guess we’ll have to wait and see how this unfolds…..

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This is an excellent demo of how the iPhone is going to change the rules of the game for set top box search.  For a very long time video engineers have been struggling with how to make the set top box/tv experience more and more like a pc/monitor experience.  The iPhone or any app phone can now revolutionize how we interact with our digital video experience.

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from the article — “These initiatives fit within the Liberty Global Climate Challenge program, a company- wide environmental program designed to reduce carbon emissions. They are also helping UPC customers to reduce their carbon footprint and to reduce energy bills. The next generation of UPC’s set-top boxes will use less than 1 Watt in stand-by, while the average  consumption levels (powered and stand-by time) can amount to around 5.5 Watt, which is about the same level as a typical clockradio.”

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small fidelity has experience with cable set top boxes, user interfaces, and interactive programming guides (IPG/EPG)

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