Huge growth set for pico projectors in cell phones, other mobile electronics

EL SEGUNDO, USA: Because of their capability to overcome screen-size limitations in mobile electronics devices, tiny pico projectors embedded into products such as smart phones are set for a staggering sixtyfold growth in shipments during the next four years, according to iSuppli Corp.

Shipments of embedded pico projectors will rise to more than 3 million units in 2013, up from less than 50,000 units this year. The figure presents iSuppli’s forecast of global embedded Pico projector shipments.Source: iSuppli, Aug. 2009

iSuppli defines pico projectors as front projectors weighing less than 2 pounds—or about 0.9 kilograms—and sized at less than 60 cubic inches—or about 983 cubic centimeters—without a battery pack. Despite their small sizes, pico projectors produce large displays, with some products capable of showing bright, 50-inch diagonal images on a wall or other surface.

This combination of small physical size and large image makes embedded pico projectors a perfect fit for space-constrained mobile devices.

“Mobile electronic devices offer consumers and corporate users the portability they desire, causing an increasing number of users to employ products like smart phones and netbook PCs as their primary platforms for computing and Internet access,” said Sanju Khatri, principal analyst, signage/projection, for iSuppli.

“However, a major obstacle blocking the use of mobile devices in this fashion has been their tiny displays relative to desktop PCs. Embedded pico projectors promise to enlarge these displays, making mobile devices more capable as primary computing and Internet-access platforms.”

Pico projectors are likely to find initial acceptance in the corporate market, allowing businesspeople to make presentations directly from their mobile PCs, smart phones or PDAs. However, they also have a strong allure to consumers, allowing large-sized display of video, Internet sites and applications.

Smartphones represent a promising market for embedded pico projectors.

Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. fired the starting gun for this area with the unveiling of its Show smartphone at the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in January. The Show, which presently is only being sold in South Korea, employs Texas Instruments Inc.’s Digital Light Processing (DLP) projection technology. Other smartphones equipped with pico-projectors are likely to be introduced soon.

Besides DLP and other Microelectromechanical System (MEMS) display technologies, Liquid Crystal on Silicon (LCOS) technology shows equally strong promise in the embedded pico projector market.

In an example of the use of LCOS, Nikon announced it will ship in September its Coolpix S1000pj digital camera, which employs pico projection technology for the display of pictures and video.

While iSuppli predicts fast growth for embedded pico projectors, they still will account for a tiny fraction of overall mobile device shipments through 2013.

“The growth potential for embedded pico projectors will be limited during the next few years due to challenges in areas including power consumption, size and manufacturing,” Khatri said. “As these issues are resolved, pico projectors will appear in many more mobile electronics devices.”

Mini-note (netbook) shipments to double Y/Y to over 30mn units in 2009

AUSTIN, USA: DisplaySearch expects shipments of almost 33 million mini-notes (netbooks) in 2009 as penetration of these products into the notebook PC market grows to 20 percent worldwide, according to its Quarterly Notebook PC Shipment and Forecast Report.

At the same time, DisplaySearch expects the market for “traditional” notebooks (those with displays 12.1” and larger) to be flat Y/Y for the first time (see Table 1).

Table 1: Mini-Note and Notebook Shipments and Growth by RegionSource: DisplaySearch Q2’09 Quarterly Notebook PC Shipment and Forecast Report

Penetration rates for mini-notes are forecast to exceed 26 percent in Latin America, and 22 percent in EMEA (Europe, the Middle East, and Africa), with the lowest penetration rates in Asia-Pacific, North America and China.

In emerging markets like Latin America, the low prices of mini-notes offer a more affordable product. In 2008, 45 percent of all mini-notes were shipped into EMEA markets. While this figure is forecast to drop to 40 percent in 2009, this share is well in excess of the region’s total share of the notebook PC market.

In many regions, telecom providers have been offering subsidized mini-notes for several quarters, which helped propel growth. In North America, the three largest telecom providers (AT&T, Sprint and Verizon) are aggressively marketing mini-notes.

As smartphone penetration continues to increase in North America (and a number of other regions), it will become increasingly necessary for telecoms to find their next revenue stream as the incremental revenue increase from smart phone subscribers slows.

Penetration of mini-notes is one of the primary factors behind DisplaySearch’s expectations of flat Y/Y demand for notebook PCs. The other factor is a dramatic reduction in demand from enterprise customers. Businesses responded quickly to the economic downturn by cutting purchasing, especially of expensive IT-related products.

DisplaySearch believes that there is significant pent-up demand in the B2B market as many enterprises did not upgrade from Windows XP to Vista.

The launch of Windows 7 in late October this year, if combined with economic recovery, could lead to a rapid recovery in enterprise notebook PC demand; however, DisplaySearch does not expect this to occur until 2010.

In its Q2’09 Quarterly Notebook PC Shipment and Forecast Report, DisplaySearch analyzes the breadth and depth of mini-note and notebook PCs demand in the major geographic regions, and identifies the key variables influencing changing demand patterns in these markets.

“Mini-notes are forecast to continue to be a significant portion of the market. However, as display sizes of these devices have quickly moved from 7.0” to 8.9” to 10.1”, and now with the emergence of 11.6” and 12.0” mini-note products, it is clear that buyers want a light-weight device, but that they also want a bigger display.

“While these devices have certainly created a new market, our research indicates that they are predominantly used as secondary PCs by consumers, and are not replacing notebooks,” said John F. Jacobs, Director of Notebook Market Research and author of the report.

Gomez launches free cross-browser compatibility testing tool

LEXINGTON, USA: Gomez Inc., a leader in Web application experience management, has introduced a free Web-based tool that automatically tests how Web sites look in four commonly-used combinations of browsers and operating systems (OS), saving Web teams time and money.

After simply entering a URL, the free Gomez Cross-Browser Compatibility Test returns screen captures of the Web page in each browser/OS combination, revealing content-rendering issues such as missing graphics, function buttons or text. The Gomez Cross-Browser Compatibility Test can be accessed at: http://instanttest.gomez.com.

New, popular browsers like Firefox, Safari, Internet Explorer 8 and Google Chrome use more client-side processing and have different ways of handling dynamic content such as JavaScript, increasing the risk of performance issues for Web pages and transactions.

But testing Web application compatibility across every browser type, version and OS is time-consuming and expensive. Few organizations have the infrastructure or resources to build and maintain their own testing environment.

Gomez’s new Cross-Browser Compatibility Test provides a simple, free, and on-demand way to identify content-rendering issues by testing any Web page on the following four frequently-used combinations of browsers/OS:

* Internet Explorer 6.0 on Windows XP
* Internet Explorer 7.0 on Windows XP
* Safari 3.2.1 on Macintosh OSX 10.5
* Safari 2.0 on Macintosh OSX 10.4

The Cross-Browser Compatibility Test is a free version of Gomez’s full cross-browser testing solution which automatically tests Web and mobile applications on over 500 browsers, OS and device combinations -- including Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Chrome and Opera browsers, Windows, Linux and Macintosh OS, and iPhone, Google Android, Blackberry and Windows Mobile smartphones -- to ensure compatibility, functionality, and performance.

“Web pages can look and perform differently from one browser to another,” said Eric Schurr, Gomez’s SVP of Marketing. “In today’s economy, businesses can’t afford to risk losing even one customer or one dollar of revenue because their Web applications don’t work properly on a browser or mobile device. Gomez’s Cross-Browser Compatibility Test reduces this risk while also saving time and money.”

Wireless connectivity to be main focus for vehicle manufacturers by 2012

STAMFORD, USA: By 2012, the majority of vehicle manufacturers will concentrate product development efforts for mature markets on enabling wireless data connectivity in more than half of their next-generation cars, according to Gartner Inc.

“The automotive industry must explore new ways to generate consumer interest, product differentiation and revenue opportunities,” said Thilo Koslowski, research vice president at Gartner.

“Web-based applications and services specifically designed to enhance the driving and ownership experience, in particular, represent a significant chance to accomplish this. During the past two years, consumer awareness and interest for such technologies and applications has grown significantly in mature automotive markets, such as the United States and Western Europe. The goal is to provide dynamic content that is contextual and relevant to the driver and the passengers. It’s not about replicating consumers’ home computer Internet experience”

The continued rise of connected consumer devices, such as smartphones and mobile Internet devices (MIDs), will increase consumer expectations for always-on data availability throughout their work and home, and when being mobile — including when driving.

The automotive industry's ability to differentiate mass-market vehicles based on performance and handling will be limited from this point on, because of environmental and economic concerns, as well as the rise of electric vehicles and other alternative powertrain offerings.

Gartner anticipates that by 2016, consumers will consider in-vehicle connectivity as important as traditional automobile features (for example, safety and fuel efficiency). This means that automotive companies must offer such functionality in two vehicle generations (one generation is traditionally four years) from today, to meet future demand.

Automotive companies will increasingly build in-house expertise to offer connectivity solutions on a growing number of cars and will work with other external partners to offer holistic offerings that address consumers' broader transportation needs.

“Suppliers, content and service providers, as well as automotive-focused technology vendors will evolve and take on broader roles to address automakers' needs for offering such connectivity, integration and content solutions,” Koslowski said.

“The growing need for connectivity solutions in the automobile will also have a significant impact on the automotive aftermarket and will provide opportunities for those companies that can offer cost-effective retrofit solutions for vehicle owners that want to upgrade their existing cars.”

Test mobile Web sites on iPhone, Android, BlackBerry and Win Mobile smartphones

LEXINGTON, USA: Gomez Inc., a leader in Web application experience management, has introduced the industry's first solution that can automatically test how entire mobile Web sites render on iPhone, Google Android, BlackBerry, and Windows Mobile 6.1 and 5-based smartphones.

The service is part of Gomez's "One Web" performance testing and monitoring capabilities that help developers and IT operations teams find, diagnose and fix application performance issues whether they are mobile-specific, Web-specific or both.

Completely automated, self-service and on-demand, Gomez's cross-browser and device testing solution saves mobile developers time and money by enabling them to visually test complete mobile Web sites significantly faster than traditional manual testing processes.

By simply entering a starting URL and selecting which smartphones to test, the service rapidly crawls through the entire mobile Web site and returns volumes of screen captures showing how each Web page appears on each smartphone selected.

Automating the process means developers can more swiftly find and correct content rendering issues like missing or misplaced graphics, buttons and text, prior to launch. It also reduces the need for in-house testing labs which can be expensive and time-consuming to build and maintain.

As smartphone sales increase (more than 36.4 million units were sold in Q1 2009, a 12.7 percent increase from the same period last year, according to Gartner, Inc., so does consumer and enterprise mobile Web usage fueled by the full HTML browsers found in these devices. Consequently, more businesses are developing mobile Web sites and applications to ensure that their brands and services are available to increasing numbers of smartphone owners.

However, much like on the traditional Web, the multiplicity of mobile browsers and devices affects the way content appears and functions from smartphone to smartphone which can negatively impact the end-user's mobile Web experience.

"First impressions count, especially for smartphone owners who have high expectations for a rich mobile Web experience," said Imad Mouline, CTO of Gomez. "Any organization that is building a mobile presence needs to be sure that their content renders as intended across all the devices their customers use -- or risk jeopardizing brand and customer satisfaction. Gomez's cross-mobile web browser testing transforms a process that was once manual and cumbersome to one that is speedy and cost-efficient."

In addition to visually testing mobile Web sites, Gomez's cross-browser and device testing solution also checks how traditional Web applications appear and function in more than 500 combinations of browsers, operating systems and screen sizes. It is available now on an annual subscription basis.

US households spend over $1,200 annually on CE

USA: The average US household spent $1,229 on consumer electronics (CE) products in the past 12 months, $176 less than in the prior year, according to a new study released by the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA).

According to the 11th Annual Household CE Ownership and Market Potential Study, video products are expanding already high levels of ownership.

On an average, men continue to spend more on consumer electronics than women, spending $902 annually compared to women, who spent $558. Young adults spent more than any other age group.

Consumers ages 18-24 spent $1,056 last year on CE devices, an increase of nearly $100 from the prior year. The average household reports owning 23 CE products, down from 24 products last year. However, the number of discrete (separate) CE products per household increased from 13 to 15.

"As products such as smartphones and GPS units incorporate a greater number of features and consumers replace older CE devices with newer ones, it’s not surprising to see the average number of products owned fluctuate," said Ben Arnold, CEA’s senior research analyst. "While consumers report spending less on CE, ownership of nearly all products measured in this study are higher compared to last year showing that consumers continue to buy CE products but are purchasing them at lower price points."

The study also shows an increase in video product ownership. Televisions are the most owned CE device in the US, with 99 percent of households owning a TV. Fifty-two percent of households own at least one HDTV, an increase of 11 percent from last year and double the penetration rate from 2007.

Ownership of plasma and LCD screens as well as sets over 40-inches are also on the rise. DVD players (93 percent penetration rate) and cell phones (90 percent penetration rate) are the next most commonly owned CE devices.

"As the June 12 digital television transition date nears, the average price for HDTVs continues to fall and HDTV programming increases, consumers are buying their first, second or third high-definition televisions," said Arnold. "With fewer Americans traveling and going out for entertainment, they are, in turn, choosing to stay home, save money and watch high-definition content in the comfort of their own living room."

The 11th Annual Household CE Ownership and Market Potential Study (May 2009) was conducted between January 29 and February 2, 2009. It was designed and formulated by CEA Market Research, the most comprehensive source of sales data, forecasts, consumer research and historical trends for the consumer electronics industry.

The complete study is available free to CEA member companies. Non-members may purchase the study for $999 at myCEA.CE.org.