VR Experimentation, Storytelling in 2016
I’ve heard it said from the mouths of many a speaker and exhibitor here at CES this week: 2016 will be a big year for virtual reality–in journalism, in film, in gaming, for high technology fiends down to the average smartphone user. A panel of pioneers experimenting with groundbreaking VR experiences convened on Thursday morning and shed some more light on how VR technology is changing the course of how people follow and engage with this type of entertainment and emerging storytelling platform. What particularly stood out to me was the account from the leaders at the New York Times who just
Are Better Wi-Fi Routers the Trick to 4k Streaming?
They sit dusty, untouched, crammed behind bookcases, slid under couches, forgotten in hallway closets. They don’t have screens, they don’t make sounds, and they don’t have apps. They’re Wi-Fi routers and they’re the unsung heroes, the silent workhorses, of broadband and they deserve a little attention – a little love. Without a good Wi-Fi router that’s not only properly rated for the amount of data it’s being asked to handle, but capable of working smoothly with multiple devices, you could be missing out on the full potential of your speedy Internet connection. Considering how quickly speeds
New Technology Has Family at the Heart of It
My first experience on the CES show floor has had me fazed, what with the myriad of toys and gadgets that the Internet of Things has to offer, but amid the chaos one curious theme stood out to me. In our world of new media and television that’s often geared toward customizing experiences for the individual, and toward creating the on-the-go connectivity and entertainment most of us demand, the sense of family and community still remains strong, and innovators are managing to embed this key element into the devices and home appliances of the future. Take Alcatel‘s new OneTouch tablet, Xess
The IoT: Turning Things On. And Off. And Then On Again.
With more than 170,000 attendees streaming through 3,631 exhibiting company booths that cover over 2.2 million net square feet of exhibit space at CES, you’ll have to forgive me if my brain (not to mention my feet) turn to mush within a few hours of wandering the show floor. Booths, devices, ideas all seem to blend together. Endless buzzwords and tech specs meld into indecipherable globs of marketing speech that flow in one ear and out the other. One way I keep everything straight is to play little games with myself. Today I was playing, “Can I find a booth that doesn’t feature something that
The Secret to Great TV is Pretend the TV Doesn’t Exist
Though CES and it’s expansive show floor didn’t technically open until this morning, the Las Vegas Convention Center was busy yesterday with a series of panels on ways to develop and support entertainment on novel platforms via unique partnerships. A surprising theme emerged out of a series of seemingly disparate panels: The secret to creating a great multi-platform premium TV-style content experience is to pretend TV never existed. That’s right – just work as if linear television had never been invented. This concept came up in a panel on multi-screen content strategies, on Hollywood-brand
CES 2016: What We’re Looking Forward To
Buckle up. We’re about to hit four straight days of serious tech. Tomorrow morning, CES, the Consumer Electronics Show, kicks off in a strangely drizzly Las Vegas, Nevada. For those who don’t live and breathe in the digital biome, CES is an enormous technology convention delivering previews and deep dives into the gadgets and ideas that will define 2016. Now in it’s 49th year, CES has come to be an annual pilgrimage. Nearly 200,000 visitors descend on Vegas, ready to buy, sell, and generally geek out over everything from TVs to drones, routers to VR goggles. At that size, CES is big enough to
Hitting the Accelerator: FCC Report Shows American Broadband Speeds Continue To Rise
At this very moment, millions of consumers across the U.S. are using the Internet to keep up with the news, connect with others, stream live video, shop online and live life as we know it in our global connected society. But the Internet wouldn’t be so prevalent in our lives if our connections stuttered, delayed or didn’t deliver the performance that consumers paid for. That’s why the FCC five years ago began collecting data about network performance by monitoring the experience of thousands of Internet users throughout America. Last week, the FCC released the results of its fifth annual
Happy Holidays from NCTA
What Happened in Streaming Media in 2015?
Sources: http://www.emarketer.com/Article/US-Adults-Spend-55-Hours-with-Video-Co… http://www.statista.com/chart/3852/us-music-industry-revenues/ http://www.statista.com/chartoftheday/Streaming/ https://www.sandvine.com/trends/global-internet-phenomena/ http://www.leichtmanresearch.com/press/120315release.html http://www.statista.com/chartoftheday/Streaming/ https://www.ncta.com/positions/future-of-TV https://www.stateoftheinternet.com/downloads/pdfs/2015-q3-state-of-the-…
How to Ensure a Tax-Free Internet
This coming January, Congress will have the opportunity to ensure America’s Internet users never see taxes go up on their Internet access. They can accomplish this by passing a permanent extension of the Internet Tax Freedom Act (ITFA), which prevents states and local governments from taxing Internet access. Keeping Internet access free from burdensome state and local taxes has been an overwhelming bipartisan priority since 1998. After all, if you take a look at your phone or cable bill, you will see how states and municipalities have loaded up a bunch of different fees that can increase the