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Netflix adds 3-D, Super HD movies to push ISPs towards its own CDN

Janko Roettgers — Tue, 08 Jan 2013 16:21:22 +0000

Updated. Netflix added a limited number of 3-D titles to its library Tuesday, and also introduced a new, higher-quality 1080p HD format dubbed Super HD that promises an even better picture quality than the service’s regular 1080p HD streams. The catch: Both 3-D and Super HD are only available to customers whose ISPs are using Netflix’s own Open Connect CDN.

The company has even built a page that allows you to check whether your ISP is already using Open Connect, and suggests that you should give the ISP a ring if they don’t. In other words: It’s enlisting its customers in its push to replace third-party CDNs with its own delivery network, effectively turning a complex peering war that has been largely happening behind the curtains into a catchy consumer issue.

3-D and Super HD: device support and bandwidth requirements

Some Netflix titles will start to be available in Super HD – provided your ISP uses Open Connect.

But first things first: It’s worth pointing out than Netflix isn’t betting its future on 3-D. The company added a few dozen titles this week, which include a few Red Bull action sports flicks as well as nature series from 3net. It also made a ~~small~~ number of titles available in Super HD, which can be played on the PS3, Roku devices, the Wii U, Windows 8 devices as well as some Blu-ray players and Smart TVs. Update: A spokesperson contacted us to clarify that the number of Super HD titles is already substantial, and that the goal is to have pretty much every HD title available in Super HD.

Super HD comes in two different encoding qualities, and Netflix recommends that consumers have at least 7 Mbps of bandwidth available for the higher-quality version, with 5 Mbps being enough to sustain a less demanding Super HD stream. 3-D streams need at least 6 Mbps of bandwidth, with the best quality topping out at around 12 Mbps.

Suddenly, peering is all about 3-D

That’s a lot of bandwidth, and it makes economic sense for Netflix to deliver these bits through its own CDN as opposed through networks run by the likes of Akamai and Limelight. A Netflix spokesperson also pointed out Monday that Open Connect was specifically built for Netflix streaming, which gives the company confidence that it will support those more taxing streams.

But there’s something else at play here as well: Netflix has become a major source of traffic. The company is now responsible for about one-third of all residential downstream traffic during peak times. And the question of who has to pay for that traffic has become a source of contention.

The issue blew up in 2010, when Level 3 accused Comcast of violating net neutrality by asking them to pay for delivering Netflix traffic to Comcast consumers. Comcast argued at the time that this was a simple peering disagreement. What actually happened is to this day a bit of a mystery, but Netflix may just have figured out a way to sidestep all of these business and policy issues: By enlisting the consumer, it may have found an effective weapon to pressure ISPs to get in line and sign up for Open Connect.

Not that all ISPs object the idea of a Netflix CDN to begin with: Also on Tuesday, Netflix announced that the majority of its international traffic is now delivered via Open Connect, with major international ISPs like Virgin Media and British Telecom already getting their Netflix bits through the network. In the U.S., it counts Cablevision as one of its Open Connect-using ISPs – but CEO Reed Hastings made it clear that he wants to win over others as well. “Our goal is to have all of our members served by Open Connect as soon as possible,” he said.

Image courtesy of Flickr user bark.

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Too many options: Which 3-D is for you?

Stacey Higginbotham — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 14:00:43 +0000

Like to watch 3-D movies? Well get ready to research like mad trying to figure out a home system that will work best for you. There are seven types of display decoder technologies that deliver stereographic 3-D on at least 13 platforms, including common ones such as TVs and cinemas, making for 91 possible combinations, according to a study out Monday from Jon Peddie Research.

The analyst firm notes that because not every platform can use every decoder there are actually only 29 practical combinations, which is slightly less daunting. It delivered a handy chart to indicate what those options are (see below). Surprisingly, despite all the options and confusion different technologies can create, the firm believes there is a real opportunity in 3-D, although much of that is outside of movies.

The biggest growth in 3-D may well come from mobile handsets using technology such as augmented reality for games or even mapping. The report notes that the development of new 3-D sensors for mobile handsets could propel growth of 190 percent over the next five years. Industries where 3-D may gain ground are manufacturing and in medicine. And yes, the movies will see 3-D growth as well, although the report is quick to caution that the days of using 3-D as a gimmick are gone.

S3D is a component, not an industry. Like color, sound, motion sensing, it is a feature that augments content and makes it richer, but if the content isn’t good in the first place, S3D is not going to help. The industry is well past the stage of novelty and it’s time to start exploring the potential of S3D.

Maybe the entertainment industry will take those words to heart and avoid any Smurf movie sequels.

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Beam me up: Kinect powers 3-D human holograms!

Kevin C. Tofel — Tue, 08 May 2012 15:21:38 +0000

Just as the older members of my family are finally getting used to Skype and FaceTime, along comes a 3-D hologram concept project! Dubbed the TeleHuman and developed by the Human Research Lab at Queens University in Ontario, the system uses six Microsoft Kinect sensors and a 3-D projector inside a 1.8 meter tall acrylic cylinder.

The end result? You can walk around a real-time visual representation of the person at the other end of the conversation. Watch the video demo that I found through the Digital Trends site:

The technology isn’t limited to video conferencing though. By applying the technology to a different application, the Human Research Lab has also shown off the BodiPod; a 3-D visualization of the human body. Viewers can walk around the body and even have different body layers appear based on how close they’re standing to the BodiPod.

The camera resolution in Microsoft’s Kinect isn’t stellar — just 640 x 480 for both the RGB and infrared sensors — so video imaging isn’t the highest quality. Still, the concept is sound and as improved sensors at lower costs appear, we could see vastly better pictures from a future Kinect or other similar sensors. We’re not yet at the point of using 3-D holograms in everyday communications, but as this concept shows, the future isn’t that far off.

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Intel’s 3-D transistors are now in production!

Stacey Higginbotham — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 16:43:26 +0000

Intel has introduced its latest generation of processor cores at 22 nanometers, which hit the market today. The new chips are up to 20 percent faster and consume 20 percent less energy, but the biggest news for Intel is that these chips are the first that will use its new 3-D transistor technology. Last May Intel announced that it would implement a new type of transistor that is built by layering features in a vertical rather than horizontal fashion as a way to keep Moore’s Law moving forward.

So, as part of the launch of 13 chips (part of the Ivy Bridge line) Intel’s PC business chief, Kirk Skaugen, is showing off this new way to manufacture chips that was 11 years in the making. Intel isn’t the only firm out there to keep pushing the boundaries of performance on chips without sacrificing power, but it’s the first out of the gate by putting its 3-D transistors into production. Startup SuVolta, and an industry consortium pushing a different type of 3-D transistor are also working to giver devices more performance and a longer battery life.

Intel plans to incorporate 14nm transistors by 2013 and 10nm by 2015. So as Intel’s race with ARM-based chipmakers in the mobile space heats up, it’s not lying down. It is both boosting the manufacturing chops it needs to keep up with performance and power demands and continuing to create chips for a wide variety of products ranging from servers to mobile phones. As the computing worlds gets more heterogeneous, Intel’s trying to capitalize on the skills it learned building chips designed for the x86 ecosystem and taking the x86 cores as far as they will go. Who knows if it will be far enough, but the deep research required here is pretty impressive.

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How mobility is stressing the chip industry

Stacey Higginbotham — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 23:30:25 +0000

Qualcomm last week said it was having problems finding enough capacity to manufacture chips designed for mobile phones, something that’s likely to become more common as the physics that govern how we make semiconductors buckles under the demands of our increasingly mobile lives. But this isn’t just about Moore’s Law; this is a story of how the demands for more performance, less power and smaller sizes are all combining to force changes in the chip industry.

Traditionally, chips are made using a process that involves layering materials on top of a silicon wafer. Those materials are built up into the transistors, gates and other formations that allow a computer program to read the ones and zeros of digital language and turn them into a Netflix video on your tablet or a Tweet from your phone. For decades engineers have managed to push more transistors onto a chip by shrinking the amount of space between them, something called moving down the process node.

For example, Qualcomm’s 28 nanometer chips only had 28 nanometer-channels between transistors on the chip. That’s roughly ~~two-thirds~~ a thousand times smaller than the width of a human hair. Historically, shrinking the distance between transistors led to greater performance for a lower power consumption. It’s how Moore’s Law–the axiom coined by Intel’s co-founder Gordon Moore that the number of transistors on a chip will roughly double every 18 months –kept progressing. But the tinier those channels get, the more challenging it is to make them. The cost of the tools used to build smaller chips rises as does the number of defective chips. Many in the industry think we can’t go much further, or if we do so, we’ll add far more costs compared to what we gain.

The industry hit a wall. Now what?

Intel's new 3-D transistors at 22nm.

The chip industry is well aware that it’s about to hit a wall and everyone from Intel to startups have been working on solutions. That’s why last year Intel made a big deal of its 3-D transistors. This is a new way of making transistors that helps address some of the problems that arise from smaller channel widths — a breakthrough that Intel has been working on for 10 years. Other big players in the chip industry, including IBM, ARM and many of the major foundries that make chips for third-parties, have a different design.

Those companies have been working with a different type of 3-D transistor called a FinFET (read all about FinFETs here if you are so inclined) but the process of building up a 3-D multigate transistor is hard, and chips made with this design have more defects. A French wafer provider called Soitec last week said it had designed a special wafer that will help prevent defects in FinFETs. The wafers will cost a bit more, but Steve Longoria, SVP of global strategic business development at Soitec explains that it will save chipmakers money by requiring fewer adaptations in the manufacturing process and will improve the number of usable chips coming off the manufacturing line.

There’s more than 3-D transistors here.

The increasing challenges of making mobile chips is leading to boom times for chip equipment makers like Applied Materials.

But the road to FinFETs is long, so to bridge the gap between the current manufacturing technology Siotec is also offering a wafer that can help make the traditional flat transistors at smaller sizes. ST-Ericsson’s combo Thor modem and application processor is one of the first to use the wafers. A case study from ST Ericsson notes that it has boosted performance by 40 percent while also allowing for 40 percent lower power consumption. This is the sort of technology Qualcomm could take advantage of as well.

Another solution for the challenges associated with moving down the process node are to change the process itself. Startup SuVolta is attempting this with a new way of manufacturing chips as well as IP related to how chips are designed. The SuVolta method works best for systems on a chip, which cram multiple functions and cores onto a single piece of silicon.

So Intel is redesigning the transistor. IBM and multiple foundries are also redesigning the transistor. Siotec is building a new wafer for IBM and its partners. And SuVolta is trying to remake the process used to make chips. There are plenty of other efforts by the chip equipment industry (ask Applied Materials about the big change in the how it plans to stack chips to reduce connecting wires) and by startups that are rethinking the overall design of chips from Lyric Semiconductor to Adapteva.

The chip industry must adapt to deliver the performance we need in lower power envelopes, and the solutions to that problem range from “rip and replace” options like quantum computing to the efforts described above. All of these will help bridge the demand our mobile devices are placing on chips. In the meantime, the increasing complexity is helping chip manufacturing equipment makers like Applied and startups that are seeking a new way.

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LG: LTE, 3D, HD and quad-core chips will restore our phone brand

Kevin C. Tofel — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 20:31:44 +0000

“I think LTE, high-definition and quad-core will be the key words this year. With fine-tuned technology and strategies, LG will recover our once-lost brand awareness,’’

That’s the plan for 2012, according to Park Jong-seok, head of LG’s handset division, in a comment to The Korea Times. Park said the company plans to sell 80 million handsets this year; 35 million of which will be smartphones and 8 million of those to have LTE capabilities.

The company’s smartphone division has undergone some challenges over the past two years. In 2010, LG’s CEO resigned mainly due to poor performance in the smartphone division. And midway through last year, Park cut smartphone sales estimates to 24 million sales in 2011, down from 30 million.

Unfortunately, adding hardware features alone isn’t a magical formula to smartphone success and I hope that LG realizes that. It was among the first to use a dual-core smartphone chip in 2011 with the Optimus 2X, but the phone didn’t impress the market. And it continues to bank on glasses-free 3-D phones, even though consumers don’t seem to be clamoring for such a function.

Trying to stand out from the crowded Android field is a challenge; perhaps the company should reconsider its move towards Android and invest more in Windows Phone where there is less competition.

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Games for the weekend: Mini Motor Racing

Geoffrey Goetz — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 20:12:49 +0000

Games for the Weekend is a weekly feature aimed at helping you avoid doing something constructive with your downtime. Each Friday we’ll be recommending a game for Mac, iPhone or iPad that we think is awesome enough to keep you busy until Monday, at least.

Mini Motor Racing and Mini Motor Racing HD ($0.99 iPhone, $1.99 iPad) are excellent top-down racing games from The Binary Mill. A good racing game requires three main features to come together: vehicle control, a variety of challenging courses and a heart-thumping soundtrack. Mini Motor Racing excels at all three. But the real kicker is the game’s head-to-head multiplayer action.

Mini Motor Racing supports four styles of steering and an optional auto acceleration feature to accommodate your prefered style of gameplay. “Wheel” mode uses a virtual steering wheel on the left side of the screen very similar to the iconic d-pad. “Toggle” provides a left and right button on the left side of the screen, whereas “Tank” places the left and right on separately on either side. “Slider” allows the user to control the car by moving a slide bar to the left and right.

Each style of play will cater to different drivers. Some prefer the Wheel, but I found Tank mode to be the easiest to control. The final control in all modes is a button that gives the car a boost of nitro during the race. Thanks to the way that the car navigates the track, as well as careful camera placement, you will never find the controls getting in the way of the game regardless of your control scheme of choice.

The opening sequence and smooth 3-D transitions when navigating the game’s menu system attest to the development team’s attention to detail. There are over twenty different courses to choose from, and variations in weather and time of day keep replay value high. All fourteen cars on offer are customizable: You can select the color and style, as well as upgrade each as you collect money and customizations along the various tracks. If you want to upgrade in a hurry, you can use in-app purchases ranging in price from $0.99 up to $14.99.

Even without multiplayer support, the game is worth buying. Being able to play with up to four racers over Wi-Fi or two over Bluetooth, the multiplayer mode just adds to the bargain.

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Inkjets? Bah! Let’s build a future with 3-D printers

Kevin C. Tofel — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 20:22:40 +0000

Now that robots have their own app stores, it’s about time we humans gained some cool new tech. And if I had to pick it, I’d say it’s 3-D printing. Oh, don’t worry, Angry Birds: I’m looking forward to your eventual line of furniture with haptic feedback so I can feel every breaking of wood, ice and rock on my bottom. I just think 3-D printing is a little more useful.

Cubify is positioned to bring such a printer to the home market, although it’s not exactly cheap at $1,299. And if you do buy a Cube 3-D Printer, you won’t be complaining about overpriced inkjet cartridges any longer: Expect to shell out $50 for each colored cartridge for the printer. That may sound like a big price to pay, but the beauty of a 3-D printer is that you’re actually creating a physical, usable object.

Here’s a high-level explanation. Instead of printing a two-dimensional image using ink on paper, a 3-D printer “prints” thin layers of plastic. Each layer is printed on successive layers, building a physical object. In the case of the Cube 3-D printer, that object can be as big as 5.5-inches square.

That means if you can design an object in a format recognized by the 3-D printer, you can actually create it. Or you can design something, upload the plans and Cubify will print the object and send it to you for a fee.

Here’s a short video example from last month’s Consumer Electronics Show, demonstrating how the Cube 3-D Printer can print out a wearable iPod Nano wristband. (No, you can’t yet print a working iPod Nano.)

Once you understand the concept of 3-D printing, you can start to imagine the usefulness it can bring. Lost a key from your computer keyboard? Print one. Stripped a screw in a project? Print one. Broke the flag on your mailbox. Print … well, you get the idea.

It may not be cost-effective to replicate small physical objects yet, but as with most technology, expect the prices to drop for supplies and printers over time. And then get printing!

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12 tech leaders’ resolutions for 2012

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 17:14:37 +0000

Lose your love handles, call your mom more often, get that promotion: If you’re like many of us, you’re already thinking over some New Year’s resolutions that will make you a better “you” in 2012. But how are the tech industries’ thought leaders approaching the new year? We asked 12 of them for their resolutions and published those from Dec. 27, 2011, through Jan. 7, 2012, on gigaom.com. We have bundled them together here in a single document for the convenience of our valued GigaOM Pro readers. Be sure to check back over the coming months for further thoughts and advice from some of the tech industry’s most well-known names. Companies mentioned in this report include Sprint, Facebook and Amazon. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial.

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Netflix: No plans for games, but 3-D streaming possible

Janko Roettgers — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 23:53:34 +0000

Remember that expansion into the gaming space that Netflix was talking about when it launched its Quickster DVD rental service last summer? Those plans seem to be canned together with the whole Quikster idea, according to statements by the company’s CEO Reed Hastings on Wednesday’s earnings call.

However, the company may have another interesting product in store for its streaming subscribers: 3-D movies. “On streaming, that is definitely something we can do and we will be looking at,” Hastings said. The company is already offering 3-D Blu-rays for rent, but hasn’t said how well these titles are doing. Subscription plans for physical discs have been declining sharply, and Hastings said during the call that he expects these numbers to decline quarter-over-quarter “forever.”

What else can we expect from Netflix in the next few months? Hastings said that it will finally start offering separate streaming queues for families this year, and it looks like the company is continuing to roll out Netflix for Kids on connected devices. Most recently, it rolled out the kids-focused UI on Apple TVs, and Hastings said that the device has been “very successful” for his company. Netflix will also continue to work on other devices, with a special focus on tablets. “We do see people enjoying a lot more of their viewing on tablets relative to the PC,” Hastings revealed.

Image courtesy of Flickr user bark.

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