Lenovo's Horizon Does Double Duty: Table PC or Huge Tablet

Lenovo is jumping into the tabletop PC segment with the Horizon Tabel PC, introduced Monday at the 2013 CES. The unit's price -- nearly $1,700 and battery life are concerns, but "the horizontal mode is really a working mode for a lot of people," said Andrew Eisner, director of community and content at Retrevo. "People read and play games on a horizontal surface."

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Lenovo on Monday announced a 27-inch table PC that doubles as a monster tablet and a desktop at the 2013 CES in Las Vegas.

Lenovo IdeaCenter Horizon

 

The IdeaCenter Horizon Table PC has a two-legged kickstand in the back that, when extended, props the device up for vertical use. It has a 10-point multitouch screen that's optimized for Windows 8.
The Horizon Table PC will retail at close to US$1,700, and will be released in early summer through Lenovo's business partners. It will also be available for purchase directly from Lenovo's website.
"We believe families, particularly moms between the ages of 35 and 45, will choose this as a replacement to their home PC," Nick Reynolds, executive director of worldwide consumer marketing at Lenovo, told TechNewsWorld. "It's a quite capable all-in-one desktop that adds a lot of new value in its ability to become a flat, immersive "edutainment" experience for the family."

The Particulars

The Horizon Table PC has a 2-inch backlit full HD 1920 x 1080 multitouch display. This can be used simultaneously by two or more people.
It will have up to a third-generation Intel Core i7 processor and up to an Nvidia GeForce GT 620 graphics processing unit with DirectX 11.
The Horizon Table PC will have stereo speakers with Dolby Home Theater v4 certification. Standard storage is a 1 TB hard drive; or purchasers can opt for a 64 GB solid-state drive.
The device has an integrated 720p HD webcam and comes with a joystick, striker and E-dice. It has a USB 3.0 port, a 6-in-1 card reader and an HDMI port. It is about one inch thick, has an integrated battery with up to two hours' life, and reportedly weighs about 10 lbs.

Let's Get Phygital

The joysticks, strikers and e-dice offer on-screen gaming combined with a physical experience, which Lenovo dubs "phygital."
The Horizon Table PC also comes with either exclusive access to, or preloaded, gaming and educational apps from vendors that include Electronic Arts, FableVision, Open Labs, Ubisoft, FilmOn TV and BlueStacks.

Looking at the Horizon

Reaction to the news of the Horizon Table PC was mixed.
"It's too expensive at $1,700," Julien Blin, a directing analyst at Infonetics Research, told TechNewsWorld. "I think it's only going to work if they focus on verticals like retail and fast food chains. You can get a desktop PC with a big screen for around $500, and 27 inches is too big for a tablet."
The two-hour battery life will also be a problem, Blin pointed out. "You'll probably have to plug it into a wall socket most of the time."
On the other hand, price is not an issue, contends Andrew Eisner, director of community and content at Retrevo. "It doesn't cost much more than a Surface Pro or an iPad."
The Horizon Table PC might fit into the world of ubiquitous computing, Eisner told TechNewsWorld. "You'll see computers attached to walls as a fixture, on kitchen counters and coffee tables," he elaborated.
Further, "the horizontal mode is really a working mode for a lot of people," Eisner said. "People read and play games on a horizontal surface."

The Horizon Table PC comes preloaded with Lenovo App Shop, a dedicated app store offering more than 5,000 multi-user entertainment apps. While the Horizon Table PC is "an interesting and clever product in the new world of touch and gesture devices, it will be one of those devices that people may want more than they need," Eisner opined. Still, "Lenovo is not afraid to bring out new products, and this is another indication that they're trying to introduce new products and create new market segments."
Perhaps this might work. Consumers are more likely to purchase multi-function devices than single-function ones this year, according to a survey conducted in September by Accenture.
"As described, the Lenovo Horizon Table PC appears to perform multiple functions from gaming to productivity applications," Accenture spokesperson Charles Hartley told TechNewsWorld. Further, its price "is still within range of the high-end PCs available in the market today."

Where's My Autonomous Car?

Self-driving cars have been a technological brass ring for decades, and with Google demonstrating its version recently, it looks as if they might become a reality soon. However, there are some obstacles to overcome, mostly safety-related. No one wants to flood the streets with cars that drive themselves if they also can't figure out what to do if something goes wrong.

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The world cheered -- well, at least the nerds cheered -- when Google's autonomous cars drove 1,000 miles with no human intervention and another 140,000 miles with occasional human intervention in 2010.

Since then, the cars are still tooling about in a series of tests as early fans watch them in action on YouTube and Vimeo. The tests are going so well that Nevada, Florida and California have already deemed them street-legal. Surely other states will soon follow. Other than a few glimpses of the tests and an occasional new prototype by GM, Audi and BMW, however, there's no sign that driverless cars will soon hit dealership showrooms.

Death by Glitch

For the most part, we obviously have the technology we need to make driverless cars a reality or else we would not see them tootling down the road. So what's the hold-up with production?
"Semi-autonomous and autonomous vehicles will both run primarily on electronics, which can and sometimes do fail," Davide Santo, safety and chassis business MCU operation manager at Freescale Semiconductor told TechNewsWorld. "Fail-safes must be in place to ensure that if any systems, particularly safety-critical systems, such as steering or braking, fail or malfunction, other systems are in place to ensure an accident doesn't occur."
Obviously, safety is important, but it's a bit dismaying that we've had this same obstacle to driverless cars for decades.
"The self-driving car concept is not new," John Murdoch, director of technology at Energy Tracking told TechNewsWorld. "General Motors demonstrated self-driving cars at highway speeds in the 1950s. My stepfather, a traffic engineer, studied the subject, and demonstrated its viability, for the U.S. Department of Transportation in the 1960s, and again in the 1970s."
Back then, highways had embedded guide wires that the driverless cars would follow. The cars used radio and radar to gauge and adjust distances between cars and to maintain highway speeds.
"Everything worked," says Murdoch. "The concept was proven. With just one, teensy-tiny little wrinkle: the same wrinkle that will effectively prevent Google's self-driving car from ever achieving scale."
"The whole thing works perfectly -- you can have 10,000 cars an hour going down the Dan Ryan Expressway in Chicago, at highway speeds," he says. "Right up 'till the moment when somebody blows a tire, breaks a tie rod, or runs out of gas. Then everybody dies."

Rewriting a Happy Ending

So, while we have ditched the idea of embedded wire, radio and radar in favor of sophisticated electronics, we haven't changed the story's ending wherein "everybody dies."
But if that's the case, why are the test cars not on a killing spree like the car in Stephen King's story "Christine?" Sure, Google autonomous cars have had two reported fender-benders, but nothing deadly. Besides, Google says driverless cars are more prone to accidents when humans decide to "help" them drive. Hands off the wheel, dude, and you'll get there accident-free? No, not exactly.
"It is simple to engineer an automated solution that responds to all the normal events you can predict," says Murdoch. "It is extremely hard to engineer an automated solution that responds to all the events you failed to imagine. And when that surprise event occurs -- with automated vehicles -- it'll look just like the Sorcerer's Apprentice: automated vehicle after automated vehicle after automated vehicle, until they all figure out that they have to stop."
Technology companies are fully aware of this and are hard at work in solving the safety issues. That's why Intel CTO Justin Rattner said we'll have driverless cars "within 10 years" but didn't say they'll be in showrooms next year.
Intel is working on equipping autonomous cars with low-wattage Intel Atom chips and high-powered Core processors. But they're not the only ones working on powering the vehicles and solving the safety issues. Obviously Google is, but so is Freescale Semiconductors in its work on sensors, electronic control units, and microcontrollers. Since driverless cars are the hottest thing lately in the auto market, nearly all the players are focused on making the cars work safely.
"Safety, dependability and performance are key considerations, as is the issue of liability," explains Freescale's Santo. "Even semi-autonomous vehicles will require huge numbers of sensors with sensor fusion units to ensure the most accurate data possible. There must also be fail-safes in place."

Merry Mores and GPS Wranglers

Many of the technical issues have to do with car-to-car communications. The more cars the merrier -- with or without drivers -- because more cars communicating with others means more data can be collected in real time that can help resolve safety and rerouting issues.
"I believe that we won't see even semi-autonomous driving before 2020, if not even later," says Santo. "There will need to be a large investment in infrastructure to support the car-to-car communications."
Essentially, this means that each driverless car will not have to figure out obstacles by itself; instead, other vehicles will relay the information in advance allowing time for the car to make the necessary calculations and adjustments.
"Once we have the infrastructure, inter-car messaging will redirect the driverless car around accidents and road work," Azim Eskandarian, director of IEEE's Center for Intelligent Research Systems and professor of applied sciences at George Washington University told TechNewsWorld.
"Until then, the driverless car does much the same as a human driver," he added. "It senses the situation and calculates the appropriate reaction such as stop, go around, or reroute."

Under the Hood

Obviously driverless cars use GPS to route or reroute trips to the desired destination. And we all have tales of how GPS can go wrong. More than one sorrowful soul has found himself by a tree in the woods instead of in front of his true destination, for example. Not to mention the fiasco that is Apple Maps. Then there's the whole "no signal" thing to contend with, too. Poor driverless cars are likely to be just as confused as we humans in trying to find the way. Well, maybe not.
"If an autonomous car loses its GPS signal, say because it drives into a tunnel, the sensors understand the GPS has failed and adjusts by using local maps to follow on its general, pre-programmed route," says Eskandarian. "Once it has the GPS signal again, it re-computes and adjusts as needed."
And what will all this whiz-bang technology look like to the human passenger? Not much different than cars look today.
"The interface will look like the interface you use now with GPS. You type or tell it where you want to go, and the car plans the trip and sets off," says Eskandarian.
In other words, the technology will be pretty much hidden from view just as it is in cars now. Nevertheless, car geeks will spout off their car's specs with the same pride as they do now when speaking of their computers and gadgets. And there probably will be an "Intel Inside" sticker or something similar affixed to the glass.
What you will not see are stop signs and traffic lights when a critical mass of driverless cars is met. There'll be no need as the cars will automatically adjust to maximize traffic flow. Say good-bye to traffic jams, too.
But will the autonomous car really become anything more than geek toys? Oh, yes, indeed.
"It is not sustainable to use a 2,000- to 5,000- pound vehicle just to move a 200-pound or so human," says Eskandarian. "That's far too inefficient a use of energy."

Genius Inventor Kurzweil Gets Keys to Google Playground

What happens when "the ultimate thinking machine" gains access to the deep pockets of Google? We'll soon find out, as controversial futurist Ray Kurzweil has signed on as the company's director of engineering. Areas of his deep interest include nanotechnology, which he believes could solve many of the Earth's problems, and immortality, which Kurzweil maintains all humans eventually will attain.

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Google has a lot of star power in its executive ranks and certainly a wealth of intellectual horsepower among its rank-and-file engineers and technologists. However, the search engine giant is getting a twofer with its latest hire: Ray Kurzweil, a brilliant engineer who also has name recognition.

A famed inventor, entrepreneur, author and futurist, Kurzweil announced last week that he's been hired by Google as director of engineering. His focus will be on machine learning and language processing.
Kurzweil has been interested in technology -- and machine learning, in particular -- for years.
His accomplishments have been recognized by three U.S. presidents, including Bill Clinton, who awarded him the National Medal of Technology -- the U.S.' highest honor in the field -- in a White House ceremony in 1999. In 2002, he was inducted into the National Inventor's Hall of Fame, established by the U.S. Patent Office.
"I've always worked to create practical systems that will make a difference in people's lives, which is what excites me as an inventor," he said.
Kurzweil has received 19 honorary doctorates and is the author of seven books, five of which have been national bestsellers. The Age of Spiritual Machines has been translated into nine languages and was the No. 1 best-selling book on Amazon in science.
The Singularity Is Near was a New York Times bestseller, and has been the No. 1 book on Amazon in both science and philosophy. His latest bestseller is How to Create a Mind: The Secret of Human Thought Revealed.

Of Self-driving Cars and Talking Phones

Kurzweil is not shy about highlighting his bona fides -- he pointed out his prediction, circa 1999, that technologies such as self-driving cars and mobile phones that could answer questions were forthcoming. Fast-forward to today, and guess which company has figured prominently in developing them?
"It's easy to shrug our collective shoulders as if these technologies have always been around, but we're really on a remarkable trajectory of quickening innovation, and Google is at the forefront of much of this development," he said.
Kurzweil is also well known for embracing the concept of a technological singularity -- which, roughly described, is a point at which human consciousness and digital technology begin to overlap, eventually leading to a kind of immortality.

'Bright and Quirky'

"He's an incredibly bright and quirky and interesting guy," said Charles King, principal of Pund-IT.
Kurzweil's focus in commercial computing science dovetails well with where Google is heading, King told TechNewsWorld. "Machine learning, for instance, is something that will go hand in hand with ongoing developments in Big Data and cloud computing."
Machine learning technology also underpins Google's advances in search and ad ranking activities, not to projects such as its augmented-reality eyewear.
Machine learning is also driving advances in voice search at Google, software engineer Jakob Uszkoreit said in a blog post earlier this year.
At Google I/O 2012, the company announced a version of voice actions that supports much more natural commands, he wrote.
"This makes even previously existing functionality, such as sending a text message or calling someone, more discoverable on the device -- that is, if you express a voice command in whatever way feels natural to you, whether it be 'let David know I'll be late via text' or 'make sure I buy milk by 3 p.m.,' there is now a good chance that your device will respond how you anticipated it to."
This seemingly effortless functionality relies heavily on machine learning.

Disney Takes Video Games to 'Infinity' - and Beyond?

Players may not yet be able to jump into video game worlds themselves, but they can send their cute little collectibles there with "Disney Infinity." The new interactive console game platform uses NFC technology to beam the figurines into game settings where they can mosey around worlds recognizable from their film adventures and cross borders into others as well.

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Disney caught the attention of the console video gaming universe on Tuesday with the launch of "Disney Infinity." The new initiative combines collectible real-world action figures with onscreen gaming, following the lead of Activision's cross-platform "Skylanders" franchise.

By leveraging the company's popular movie characters and legendary marketing prowess, "Disney Infinity" has the potential for becoming a serious competitor -- as long as the games themselves score points with players.

 

"Disney Infinity" is an all-new gaming experience that gives players unprecedented freedom and endless opportunities to create stories starring beloved characters from Disney and Pixar's most popular franchises.

Many Disney characters have long been staples on the big screen, but now some of Disney's most recent stars will be battling and exploring a virtual world in the cross-platform game.
During game play, users can transport collectible character figurines into onscreen games. The characters, which hail from hit Disney and Pixar franchises like Pirates of the Caribbean, The Incredibles and Monsters University, are plugged into an Infinity Base portal. They then come alive in the system's virtual world through the magic of near field communication (NFC) technology.
The characters are transported into a variety of iconic Disney settings where they can solve puzzles and fight battles, using skills or resources suited to their corresponding film personas.

The improvisational Toy Box mode lets users collect gadgets and characters to construct their own fantasy worlds in settings such as Jack Sparrow's pirate ship. Users can connect to other gamers worldwide to share those creations.
"Disney Infinity" will kick off in June with the release of 40 characters for the Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, Wii U and 3DS platforms. The company will roll out the system to mobile and PC platforms throughout 2013.
Disney did not respond to TechNewsWorld's request for further details.

Taking on 'Skylanders'

"Disney Infinity's" similarity to Activision's "Skylanders" series hasn't gone unnoticed. "Skylanders" allows users to plug figurines of giants, monsters, robots and other characters into a physical base that transports them into an onscreen virtual world.
It's not a bad model to emulate, said Michael Pachter, managing director of equity research at Wedbush Securities. The concept of figurine-to-screen took flight after "Skylanders" launched.
If its product is just as good, Disney can use its established consumer base and marketing platform to deeply penetrate the market, Pachter pointed out.
"It should have similar success, with around four-to-five million units sold annually," he told TechNewsWorld.
"Disney's edge is its brands and characters, and I think they have better marketing than most of the competition. Plus, they own their own kids' networks with Disney Channel and ABC Family. I think they can position the product well, and sales should be great if the product is good," Pachter added.
Disney's emulation of 'Skylanders' shows the brilliance of Activision's investment, Ted Pollak, senior gaming analyst at Jon Peddie Research, told TechNewsWorld.
"I think 'Infinity' will be well received in the market, but a question surrounds Disney's ability to continually mint new characters and keep their old ones relevant for children," he observed.

Making It Fun

That could be a taller order than it might seem.
Disney probably recognizes that its first priority should be creating a system that gamers will be fighting to get their hands on -- but that hasn't been the company's strength in the past, said Raphael van Lierop, founder and creative director of Helm.
"If the games aren't any good, or the unified virtual environment they are supposed to play within isn't an enjoyable experience, then this initiative could be a disaster," he told TechNewsWorld.
"Ultimately, you can put toys and platforms into people's hands, and their success always comes down to how good the experience is. That remains to be seen. The fact is, Disney is an IP and media company, but not a games-centric one, and historically their games initiatives have failed to find success in the market. It's hard to know if this will be any different," van Lierop said.
In order to tell a new Disney gaming story, the company must realize it is trying to compete in a new and slightly unfamiliar space, he added.
"Hire the best games people you can to run that side of the business, and don't try to run your games studios like you do your film studios, because it just won't work," advised van Lierop.
"If they can do that," he concluded, "then maybe they have a chance."
Even if Disney's new system doesn't immediately skyrocket, it's only the beginning for "Disney Infinity"- and "Skylanders"-style games.
Transporting figurines into a gaming system is a relatively new idea. With success from Disney and Activision, as well as continuing advances in NFC technology, gamers have a lot to look forward to if other companies jump on board with the concept, noted Jon Peddie's Pollak.
"All in all, this product completely validates the toy/video game connection," he said. "I would expect other companies to get involved, and the resulting competition should push innovation and create better experiences for the consumer."

Facebook Gets Serious About Discovery With Graph Search

Facebook has rolled out a search feature that helps users locate information in the depths of its vast archives of posts. The technology is designed to help people find relevant information based on their friends' posts, but it is more limited in scope than Google. "It's not going to tell you the score of a baseball game," said Ovum analyst Jan Dawson. "It's not going to help you with your homework."

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Finding anything on Facebook has been a difficult exercise for years, but that's about to change.

(click image to enlarge)

After a year of intense, secret development, the social network on Tuesday rolled out its new search technology called "Graph Search."
The technology is designed to make it easier for Facebook members to find information about their friends and others. It takes advantage of the vast amount of information Facebook has stored and tagged about the billion or so people who use its service.
All those pieces of information are like dots on a graph, and Graph Search permits Facebook users to connect those dots in unlimited ways.

Not Web Search

Lest it goad the ire of Google, Facebook made a careful distinction between Search Graph and Web search.
"Web search is designed to take a set of keywords (for example: "hip hop") and provide the best possible results that match those keywords," the company explained. "With Graph Search, you combine phrases (for example: 'my friends in New York who like Jay-Z') to get that set of people, places, photos or other content that's been shared on Facebook."
Distinctions aside, there are those that see Graph Search as a threat to Google's search hegemony.

Leapfrogging Google

Graph Search gives Facebook the potential to create targeted advertising with greater depth and relevance than Google, according to Michael A. Cusumano, a management professor at MIT's Sloan School of Management.
"Facebook has the potential to go deeper than Google does because [Facebook] has a lot of information on friends and friends of friends," he told TechNewsWorld. "Google really doesn't have that kind of information from people who use search."
The use of that type of granular information can give Facebook, in the future, a leg up on Google in the highly competitive Internet advertising market, according to Venkat N. Venkatraman, chairman of the information systems department at the Boston University School of Management.
If the ads on Graph Search pages receive more clicks because they're very relevant to a search, he told TechNewsWorld, "Facebook has a basis to leapfrog Google."
A Google search for the best hotels in San Francisco, for example, will display results based on links, Venkatraman noted. It's a kind of universal opinion. The same query posted to Facebook will display hotels your friends think are the best, which may be more relevant to you.
Facebook did not respond to our request to comment for this story.

Won't Help With Homework

Graph Search, though, won't be appropriate for the vast number searches people conduct on the Web, according to Jan Dawson, chief telecom analyst with Ovum. "It's not going to tell you the score of a baseball game," he told TechNewsWorld. "It's not going to help you with your homework."
"It's only appropriate for finding recommendations about things connected to your friends," he observed. "It's a very narrow set of search results delivered to you."
Whenever Facebook debuts a new feature, the first thing that enters the mind of many people is, how is it going to violate my privacy now? This time, though, Facebook was ready for the privacy crowd.
"We've built Graph Search from the start with privacy in mind, and it respects the privacy and audience of each piece of content on Facebook," the company said. "It makes finding new things much easier, but you can only see what you could already view elsewhere on Facebook."

Perpetual Embarrassment

While Graph Search may be dredging up information that was already available to searchers if they dug for it, the technology may still shock users concerned about their privacy, argued Adi Kamdar, an activist with the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
"What people once thought was shared only to their Facebook audience -- whether that's their friends, networks, or the whole public -- but figured was too hard to find is now readily available," he told TechNewsWorld.
Years ago, for example, you may have "liked" a Samsung Mobile page, Kamdar noted. Now, if you work for Apple and every time someone searches for "People who work at Apple who like Samsung Mobile," your name pops up. "That could lead to a heavy dose of awkward."

All Things Appy: 5 Best Chrome Business Apps

Among the mind-boggling array of apps available for businesses there are five gems offered at the Chrome Web Store that are well worthy of consideration: TweetDeck and HootSuite for social media management; Zoho CRM for customer relationship management; Wave Accounting for small business finanacial management; and IssueBurner for help desk management. All of these stellar apps are free.

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Just which are the best apps out there enabling us to make the most of our phones, tablets and computers? Over the last few weeks, TechNewsWorld's All Things Appy has been taking a hard look at these newfangled software program disrupters.

This week, All Things Appy looks at must-have, 21st century business-oriented tools in the Chrome Web browser environment.

About the Environment
Chrome apps are found in Google's Chrome Web Store. Download Google's Chrome browser, and click on a new tab within the browser.
Then choose the Chrome Web Store link in the lower right corner of the page. Use the Search text box to find the required app.
Here's a look at five of the best free business-oriented tools.

No. 1: TweetDeck

TweetDeck is a social media management app that claims 1,380.291 users and has a Chrome Web Store rating of 4 stars out of a possible 5 from 5,083 reviewers.

Marketers can engage with Twitter conversations in real time with this app. An included Timeline provides the same classic feed seen in the standard Twitter client.
However, the app also provides at-a-glance standard and optional alternative views that include Interactions, Mentions, Messages and Activity, among others -- and it's all on the same schedule-capable, dashboard-like screen, creating a Twitter command center. Simple.

No. 2: HootSuite

HootSuite is a social media management app that claims 287,287 users and has a Chrome Web Store rating of 4 stars out of a possible 5 from 674 reviewers.

Not purely Twitter-focused like TweetDeck -- and a bit more complicated, with more analytics -- HootSuite lets marketers manage campaigns across social media platforms. Streams include Facebook and LinkedIn, among others.
Add-ons include the HootSuite Hootlet extension that lets you automatically capture Web content, and schedule and publish across social networks.

No: 3: Zoho CRM

Zoho CRM is a customer relationship management app that claims 37,905 users and has a Chrome Web Store rating of 4 stars out of a possible 5 from 27 reviewers.

Zoho CRM, with free options for up to three users, has the most Chrome Web users for a free CRM app.
Zoho features lead management, account and contacts, sales opportunities, social CRM and reports. Import functions are included so you don't have to re-enter data. Paid add- ons include an email product, QuickBooks accounting, and telephony integration.

No 4: Wave Accounting
Wave Accounting is a small-business finance and accounting app that claims 105,423 users and has a Chrome Web Store rating of 4 out of a possible 5 from 212 reviewers.

This app includes expenses tracking, plus double-entry accounting reports. It's geared toward entrepreneurs and freelancers.
Accountant-friendly balance sheets and ledgers can be created, as can invoicing and insightful graphical snapshots. Online bank accounts can be synchronized.
This is an advertising-sponsored free app -- and at that price, it's a boon to small businesses.

No. 5: IssueBurner
IssueBurner is a help desk and issue tracking app that claims 8,845 users and has a Chrome Web Store rating of 4.5 out of a possible 5 from 51 reviewers.

This app provides a Web-based interface to track customer issues until they're closed. Free for a couple of users, it cuts out the email inbox tracking that often has to take place at the small-business customer help desk level, when more expensive dedicated software isn't available.
It earned a runner-up position because once you've completed the sign-up process, the app amusingly continues in your default browser, which may be something other than Chrome, defeating the app-concept purpose somewhat.
However, TechNewsWorld likes the small business management functions of this app, and how it provides free, big-organization help desk capability to smaller outfits.

Want to Suggest an Apps Collection?
Is there a batch of apps you'd like to suggest for review? Remember, they must all be for the same platform, and they must all be geared toward the same general purpose. Please send the names of five or more apps to me, and I'll consider them for a future All Things Appy column.
And use the Talkback feature below to add your comments!

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Patrick Nelson has been a professional writer since 1992. He was editor and publisher of the music industry trade publication Producer Report and has written for a number of technology blogs. Nelson studied design at Hornsey Art School and wrote the cult-classic novel Sprawlism. His introduction to technology was as a nomadic talent scout in the eighties, where regular scrabbling around under hotel room beds was necessary to connect modems with alligator clips to hotel telephone wiring to get a fax out. He tasted down and dirty technology, and never looked back.

The new UHDTV.....

Here Comes UHDTV - You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet

 Last year's 4K hoopla at CES was about proof of concept, but at the 2013 International CES, it's about showing that the technology is ready for living rooms. Numerous manufacturers are introducing sets, and unlike some competing technologies -- including OLED -- 4K/UHDTV will be in retail stores this year.

The original analog NTSC TV standard for sets that graced living rooms for decades was only phased out in 2009 after years of delays, extensions and efforts to reach a standard for digital TV, but already TV manufacturers are looking to the next big thing.

Westinghouse UHDTV

 

At this year's International CES (formerly the Consumer Electronics Show) in Las Vegas, all the buzz is about "4K" TV sets that offer four times the resolution of current-generation HDTV sets. Also known as "UHDTV," these utilize more than eight million pixels, compared to the two million or so pixels in today's sets.
HDTV we hardly knew you.
However, a number of barriers are keeping consumers from running out to get one at their local big box retailer, with the biggest being price. Four times the resolution can cost far more than four times the price.

Big Sets for Big Dollars

Sony and LG have introduced 84-inch UHDTV sets priced at US$25,000 and $20,000 respectively, while Sharp has a current generation 80-inch HDTV on the market now for less than $4,000. The truth is that the manufacturers are at present just looking to create more buzz than sales.
"The reality is that the manufacturers need to have a good coming-out party for this technology," said Scott Steinberg, principal analyst at TechSavvy Global.
"The manufacturers are really just looking to create a premium category," he told TechNewsWorld, "especially as the market has been filled with low-cost models that are barely covering the margins."

More Sets on the Show Floor

Last year's hoopla at CES was about proof of concept, but at the 2013 International CES, it's about showing that the technology is ready for living rooms. Numerous manufacturers are introducing sets, and unlike some competing technologies -- including OLED -- 4K/UHDTV will be in retail stores this year.
Moreover, those sky-high prices that put the sets in the fantasy realm could fall to reality rather fast as more manufacturers get production rolling.
"Westinghouse Digital is bullish on UHDTV, and we expect to drive consumer adoption more so than other brands by maintaining more rational and affordable multiples relative to 1080p," said Rey Roque, senior vice president of marketing at Westinghouse Digital.
"We believe that once consumers see the amazing clarity of our 4K displays, that they will rank resolution highly in their purchase consideration," he told TechNewsWorld.

Early Adopters

However, it isn't clear if those prices can fall enough to get beyond the early adopter and cinephile audience and into the mass stream.
"The sets are currently around $24K but that could come down to $10,000," said Ben Arnold, director of industry analysis at the NPD Group.
"That is localized to an enthusiast type of consumer, but as we go forward it could be setting the stage for wider adoption," he told TechNewsWorld.
"In three or four years it could be closer to the market," Arnold added, "and by then there could be enough familiarity with the format that it will escape confusion."
One problem is that consumers have been confused before by competing home theater technologies -- notably the showdown between Blu-ray and HD-DVD. The fact that some manufacturers continue to use the "4K" moniker while others are on board with the Consumer Electronic Association's "UHDTV" branding doesn't help matters.
"There is a great potential to confuse consumers," Arnold noted. "It doesn't end with buying the set, as people could find content that is branded differently."

Content Is Key

Of course, just finding something to watch is going to be an issue.
"There is currently little to no content for it," said Chris Boylan, editor of Big Picture Big Sound.
"Blu-ray Disc cannot deliver a 4K movie at home without a major change to the format specifications -- not just to the codecs, but to the physical storage characteristics of the disc," he told TechNewsWorld.
"A 50 GB Blu-ray Disc simply can't hold a two-hour plus movie in 4K resolution," Boylan stressed. "And 4K streaming? Better have a T1 line into your home for that."
In other words, before 4K/UHDTV content can get to the point of streaming, the entire broadband system would need a major overhaul -- and that isn't likely to happen anytime soon. Nor are the networks likely to see an update to the current digital TV standard -- something that took years to get to in the first place.
That limits the options, including packaged media, something consumers have been slowly weaned from with the promise of cloud-based services. Would those who have adopted the view-now delivery model of Netflix, Hulu and Amazon go back? Perhaps -- but with reservations.
"The only delivery mechanism for 4K that would make sense, given current network bandwidth limits, would be a digital delivery system that downloads the 4K movies to a home server in advance of the street date, and enables viewing on the street date," Boylan suggested.
"This would allow the actual download of these large files to begin days or weeks before they are needed," he explained. "Vudu used to have a dedicated box with its own on-board storage, but they have since moved to the cloud-based, streaming based model like everyone else."

Bigger Screens

Aside from whether content becomes more readily available, there is still one reason that 4K/UHDTV could see gradual adoption: It could provide a means of increasing screen size. At present, Full HD 1080p can't really be fully appreciated except in screen sizes over 50 inches -- but beyond 65-inches, even this resolution begins to show its limitations. Thus greater resolution would be required for larger screens.
"It seems that's the direction we're going to go," said Arnold. "That is part of the trend towards having the movie theater experience in the home. It is future-proofing the move to bigger and bigger screens."
The technology inside the sets could also make today's Full HD content look better on those larger screen sizes.
"Content is readily available today through relatively low-cost 4K upconverting BD players and AV receivers," noted Westinghouse's Roque.
"The advantages of the pixel density include closer viewing distances; viewing of high megapixel digital photo images; multiple 1080p content, computer-generated content or computer upconverted content; and future-proofing the TV purchase," he said.
The question remains whether this upconversion is going to be enough to draw in the true cinephiles and movie buffs. Even if it does as a technology, it might not translate to flat panel TVs.
"4K is currently a niche market which makes more sense for projectors rather than for flat panel TVs," said Boylan. "A 65-inch 1080p HDTV looks good enough -- and is big enough -- for most consumers. The 60-inch plus TV market is growing significantly year over year, but how many people really have the room -- or budget -- for an 80-inch or 90-inch TV in their homes?"
Those advantages of 4K over 1080p become clear only at these larger screen sizes. Therefore, the deciding factor is going to be whether consumers top out at 60- to 65-inch screens, or opt to go to wall- sized sets.

Greater Resolution

It's quite possible that TV viewers may not be drawn in by the promise of four times the resolution. While it does indeed look better, HDTV doesn't look bad in the least. Consumers were slow to move from DVD to Blu-ray, and it could be a serious battle trying to convince them that the added resolution brings enough to the viewing experience.
There is, after all, only so much the human eye can take in.
"Compared to standard defintion TV, HDTV was a revelation -- a huge increase in quality," said Boylan.
"The improvement from HD to 4K is more subtle, particularly at reasonable screen sizes. 4K will make its way into the highest end ultra-large flat panel TVs as a way to justify higher costs, but it will not be a driving force for consumers to buy new TVs in the next few years," he predicted.
"For now, it is a niche market for videophiles," Boylan said, "but it has more application in the home theater/projection market, where screen sizes are 100 inches or more and the added detail is really useful."
Even more useful could be those just announced 8K TVs. Technology doesn't stop in the world of TV.

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