On CE - For Dealers, Distributors and OEMs of Consumer Electronics throughout EMEA

Your customers of a more athletic nature may finally find their ideal gadget in VEA's take on the sport watch -- one combining mobile phone, camera, GPS, MP3 player and (of course) watch in a wrist-mounted form factor.

Simply named "Sport", its phone has all regular functions, including EDGE connectivity, MMS and bluetooth. It also comes with a variety of performance tracking functions-- including speed, distance, calories burned and pulse.

It can also record video and play mp3s, with 8GB's worth of internal memory.

The Sport should be available from late November.

Go VEA Digital Sport

The IDC reports WW tablet sales are slowing down-- with unit shipments for Q1 2011 reaching 7.2m, a 28% decline from Q4 2010.

Such a decline follows seasonal trends typical to more mature CE and computing categories. The WW eReader market also feels similar seasonality, with shipments going through such a similar decline and reaching 3.3m units.

The eReader market also shows Y-o-Y growth of 105% in Q1 2011 (Y-o-Y growth figures for tablets are not yet available).

The analyst still predicts growth for both markets' 2011-- with shipments forecasts reaching 53.5m for tablets and 16.2m for eReaders (a 24% increase over 2010).

Apple's tablets continue dominating the market, even if IDC decribe Apple's Q1 2011 shipments as "well below expectations". Other vendors find the quest for market acceptance more difficult, even if the market share for Android-based devices grows to 34% (an increase of 8.2% from Q4 2011).

When it comes to eReaders, Barnes & Nobles' Nook beats the Amazon Kindle for the first time, no doubt thanks to its colour screen.

Go IDC Worldwide Quarterly Media Tablet and eReader Tracker

The Head Monster never does anything without jumping in with both feet...and you can imagine the King of Cables has stood by for years without being tempted to enter the fray for loudspeakers. After all, hundreds of manufacturers try to "redefine" audio sound every year, year in year out...

So what did it take to get Monster to finally create its own version of the high performance loudspeaker for the digital age?

Before, we answer that, here's what the Monster has made: The ClarityHD Model One High Definition Multi-Media Speaker Monitor (USA SRP: $749.95/pair) with a built-in high-powered digital amplifier and iPod dock.

Specifically designed for high resolution playback in the digital realm, it includes advanced 6.5" bass drivers with 4-layer voice coils for deep extended low end response and proprietary soft-dome tweeters for "smooth articulate highs with superior inner detail". The ClarityHD Model One will begin shipping worldwide in mid July 2011-- with all the advanced connectivity options to satisfy the needs of today's most ahead-of-the-curve digital audio consumer.

The Monster ClarityHD Model One can be set up easily in just seconds and provides room-filling sound right out of the box. It will be available in several designer colors, including automotive-grade-gloss yellow, and red to start, with additional colors coming this fall. The Model One is for use in the living room, den, bedroom or kitchen, as well as for in-home or professional music studio use.

Head Monster Noel Lee notes: "We named our new ClarityHD speaker system the Model 'One' for the simple reason that it's the first of its kind to combine such powerful audiophile-grade performance with total user simplicity and all the connectivity features demanded by today's consumer – not yesterday's. The way we listen to music has changed. We no longer build our family rooms around a stack of gear in the center of the room, and we don't want the intrusion of huge speakers and other components. And thanks to portable, digital music players like the iPod, we now keep vast music collections in our pockets. The Model One delivers the kind of big sound you wouldn't expect from a bookshelf speaker, and with the iPod as heart of the system, you can listen to all your favorite music in 'higher definition.'"

So what did it take to finally drag the Head Monster into the speaker business? It's a simple answer. Noel Lee loves music... from his cables to his headphones, you can see the Head Monster is at his personal best when surrounded by good music, great musical artists, and superior quality sound. Taking complete control of the final output of Monster-delivered sound has probably been on his wish list for years...and digital audio gives him the opening he deserves.

I'm only surprised he waited this long.

Go Monster

IEEE is developing a standard called P1905, an abstraction layer allowing devices and services to work over any of the four main extent home networking technologies — HomePlug AV over power lines, MoCA over coaxial cable, Ethernet over Cat 5 twisted pair cable and Wi-Fi for wireless.

Paul Houzé of France Telecom-Orange is the Chair of IEEE P1905.1 Working Group, says “Creating a bridge between the world’s most popular wired and wireless technologies will bring much-needed synergy, making home networks easier to use and elevating their overall performance.”

Rather than a gateway or an application to recognize which physical network is present, P1905 brings together the four technologies in a single abstraction layer interface that would use the option available or best-performing option at a particular time.

Sounds good, but why another home networking standard? Because it's now clear that no single physical technology will dominate home networking: several will coexist in many individual homes as well as the market in general. And clearly IEEE feels (while they see many banner-bearers) there is no victorious unifying solution in sight.

The powerful ITU recently called for a G.Hn standard, a universal physical interface designed to integrate coax, power lines, Wi-Fi and Ethernet into a single physical network. P1905 would instead operate at a higher level, rejecting the need for integration at the physical level.

Yet G.Hn components would not be backwards compatible with existing MoCA, HomePlug or Wi-Fi ones. Nor does G.Hn yield any performance improvements over MoCA and the other existing physical standards-- it would simply replaces these by raising an umbrella of an interface.

Instead of adding a new dominant flavour as G.Hn urges, P1902 acts as the ice cream cone that might support a twist of vanilla and chocolate flavours.

Many say the market will choose the winner of this argument. We say the market is a poor chooser (otherwise we wouldn't have this problem in the first place.)

Indeed the market seems to prefer the wild chaos of diversity to the tamer order imposed by a single standard. We will probably see these unifying standards proliferating, running wild and freely co-existing. Just like the technologies they had hoped to lasso and haul into into their own technology corral, these standards will all build and maintain separate corrals, sharing the ranch on the free range known as home networking.

Go IEEE P1905