CONNECTIONS Europe Welcomes New Sponsor

Parks Associates welcomes Advanced Digital Broadcast (ADB) as a 2010 Advisory Sponsor for the CONNECTIONS Europe Summit in Amsterdam.

Advanced Digital Broadcast (ADB) provides set-top solutions to the worldwide digital television industry. We supply advanced customer premise equipment across all transmission platforms including cable, IPTV, satellite, and terrestrial. We strive to bring to market innovative solutions that help our customers deliver the best consumer TV experience. A leader in hybrid set-top devices with deep software expertise, ADB enables the Internet/TV content convergence, letting operators provide innovative services such as push video-on-demand, multi-room DVR, interactive TV, over-the-top applications and more. We fine-tune the entire software and hardware set-top solution for each operator’s specific infrastructure to deliver peak performance. With over 15 million digital set-top devices sold to a global customer base, our products have been recognised for being among the industry’s most advanced and reliable.

For more information, visit www.adb.com.

Digital Living Conference & Showcase features keynotes from Sony Pictures, Samsung, Sony Electronics

Parks Associates announced the preliminary agenda for CONNECTIONS™: The Digital Living Conference and Showcase, which will address the future of digital entertainment and connected CE with keynotes from Sony and Samsung. In addition to the focus on digital content and new service offerings for consumers, the three-day event will feature research presentations and speaker panels on support services, DRM, energy management and controls, advertising, and mobile applications and services.

CONNECTIONS™, in its 14th year, will take place June 8-10 at the Santa Clara Convention Center and is the premier event for research and analysis on connected home technologies and digital living solutions. CONNECTIONS™ attracts over 600 executives in the connected home industries and is the only event that addresses developments within each industry sector while also focusing on the impact and opportunities for convergence across industries.

Keynotes include:

· Scott Birnbaum, Vice President, Samsung LCD Group

· Mitch Singer, CTO, Sony Pictures Entertainment; President, DECE

· Scott Smyers, Senior Vice President, Sony Electronics; President and Chairman of the Board, DLNA

For more information, visit www.connectionsus.com.

Owe Someone Money? Just Bump Your Phones

PayPal’s new iPhone application could finally change that. It promises to let you quickly divide a restaurant bill and send a friend the portion you owe just by bumping your iPhones together.

To send money, users choose a recipient from their cellphone contacts or bump two phones together. For that, the app uses technology from Bump Technologies, which developed it to swap contact information between two phones. The money is transferred immediately.

But now might be the time, for a few reasons. PayPal’s iPhone app is easier to use than the text-message service, in part because people do not have to remember the exact language to use in their messages. And most are familiar with PayPal —80 million people actively use it on the Web and 200 million are registered.

The number of PayPal mobile transactions climbed from 24 million in 2008 to 140 million in 2009, according to Eric Duprat, PayPal’s general manager for mobile. In addition to person-to-person payments with cellphones, PayPal has ventured into mobile commerce. Last year, people spent more than $500 million using eBay’s mobile apps, which incorporate PayPal.

For the full article, click here.

The Masters Broadcast In 3D

The Augusta National Golf Club just announced that the 2010 Masters Tournament will be produced and broadcast live in 3D for the first time.

Two hours of live afternoon 3-D coverage will be available each day beginning April 7 and continuing through April 11. Comcast will carry the 3D broadcast, and you'll need a 3D TV and glasses to see the effects. It is the first time a golf telecast has been shown in 3-D and will include multiple 3-D cameras placed strategically throughout the course, according to a club announcement.

Samsung and Panasonic just rolled out their $3,000 3D TVs into retailers last week, so we don't expect too many people to enjoy the 3D action from their living rooms. Even if big sporting events in 3D convince consumers or bar owners to pick up a few TVs, we still think 3D TV is dead on arrival.

For the full press release, click here.

CONNECTIONS Europe features Technicolor keynote & executives from ADB, HbbTV, IBM, NDS, Omniphone, OpenTV and more

The speakers for CONNECTIONS™ Europe Summit: Monetizing Connectivity and User Experiences, announced today by Parks Associates, offer unique executive insight into business strategies for digital content, value-added services, connected CE, and advanced video devices and services. International research firm Parks Associates will host the Summit on April 27, 2010, at the Mövenpick Hotel in Amsterdam.

Benoit Joly, Vice-President, Home Network & Applications, Technicolor, will present the opening keynote. Other speakers:

-- Jonathan Beavon, Director, Segment Marketing, NDS

-- Paul Bristow, VP Strategy, Middleware & Consumer Experience, ADB (Advanced Digital Broadcast)

-- Ronald Brockmann, Managing Director, Europe, ActiveVideo Networks

-- Rob van den Dam, Global Telecom Sector leader IBV, IBM

-- Klaus Illgner-Fehns, Managing Director, HbbTV

-- Trond Neergaard, Founder and Managing Partner, Cloudberry Associates

-- Steve Oetegenn, Chief Sales and Marketing Officer, Verimatrix

-- Rolf Uwe Placzek, CEO, Acetrax

-- Kurt Scherf, VP, Principal Analyst, Parks Associates

-- Stuart Sikes, President, Parks Associates

-- Andrew Wajs, CTO, Irdeto

-- Olivier Wellmann, VP, Product Management, OpenTV

-- Speaker TBA, Omnifone

For information or to register, visit http://www.connectionseurope.com.