DEMOfall ’09 product spotlight: HP Skyroom

SAN DIEGO - One of the most striking enterprise products on display at this year's DEMOfall show has been HP's Skyroom videoconferencing software that combines instant messaging capabilities with high-definition video streaming. Even more interesting was the software's ability to create windows on their desktops where they can drag and drop pictures, audio files and video files that the person on the other end of the videoconference will then see on their own screen. During the product's demonstration at DEMOfall Tuesday, HP workstation global business unit vice president and general manager Jim Zafarana showed how users can simply click on names displayed on their Skyroom buddy lists to start impromptu HD videoconferences. During the demonstration, Zafarana received a streaming trailer for the film "Monsters, Inc." after his friend dropped it into the Skyroom conference window.

So when I purchase HP Skyroom, I'm not paying for any additional equipment? Slideshow: 13 hot products from DEMOfall '09 After his presentation, Zafarana sat down with Network World to discuss Skyroom's system and bandwidth requirements, its security features and its ability to integrate with existing enterprise chat protocols. I'm only paying for software? You have to meet the minimum system requirements of having a 2.3 GHz Intel Core Duo processor, and your machine has to run on Windows XP or Vista. Yes. We're planning on having a version that runs on Windows 7 out in November.

One of my colleagues in Boston, for instance, has fiber-to-the-home and he uses a VPN to hook onto the HP network and conference with us using Skyroom. We're targeting business customers and this software can really be optimized through company networks, whether it's an onsite network or a VPN with a good network connection. How fast of a data connection do you need to make Skyroom effective? If you have a one-on-one conference, then it's a 1Mbps requirement for high-quality video and you can dial down the quality to make it work at around 500Kbps. It depends on what you're doing. If you do things such as video and picture sharing it'll take up more bandwidth.

Is this designed for people who want to talk to people in other companies, or is it just for coworkers who want to collaborate? With the Monsters, Inc. video clip I shared today during the demonstration, for instance, I was probably adding 5Mbps to the requirements. At this point it only allows for intra-company conferencing. The bits traveling over the network are encrypted at 256Kbps and they can only go through a VPN or a secure corporate network, so it's pretty secure. What are its security features?

How much does Skyroom cost? Additionally, every new HP desktop workstation will ship with Skyroom as a complementary part of the entire package. The pricing model we have now is $149 per user for a license to use the software and there's no subscription fee. How do I add "buddies" to my Skyroom videoconferencing list? If you have corporate Microsoft infrastructure with Office Communicator, for instance, it will pull your Office Communicator buddy list into Skyroom and all your colleagues on that list will show up as available for you to connect to as long as they have Skyroom installed. There are multiple ways for you to populate your buddy list.

You can also use other communication software products such as Jabber Server, to leverage you buddy list into HP Skyroom. Any plans on expanding that? And finally, Skyroom currently limits that number of people who can participate in an HD videoconference to four. Obviously we could do that in the future but we're not talking about that at this point.

Microsoft Betrayed i4i, Say Court Documents

Microsoft Corp.marketed i4i Inc.'s XML software to potential customers at the same time it planned to drive the small company out of business by infringing on its patent for the technology, according to court documents filed last week. Federal Judge Leonard Davis issued the injunction in August, barring Microsoft from selling Word 2003 and Word 2007 after Oct. 10. The decision came about three months after a Texas jury found that Microsoft had illegally used patented i4i technology to build XML features into its word processing software. In a brief submitted to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal District in Washington, Toronto-based i4i argued that an injunction blocking Microsoft from selling current versions of Word should stand. The jury had awarded i4i $200 million, but Davis increased the amount to just under $300 million when he issued the injunction.

Earlier this month, the three-judge appeals panel decided to stay the injunction while it weighs Microsoft's appeal . I4i filed the patent infringement lawsuit in 2007. The new i4i brief charges that in 1991, "at the same time Microsoft was praising the improved functionality that i4i's product brought to Word, and touting i4i as a 'Microsoft Partner,' Microsoft was working behind i4i's back to make i4i's product obsolete." According to the brief, just days after a 1991 meeting in which Microsoft had sought to find ways to work with i4i, Microsoft executives discussed XML plans for Word that would eventually "make obsolete any competitive attempts by third parties to conquer that market." Microsoft must file its rebuttal to i4i's brief by Sept. 14; the appeals court is slated to hear oral arguments from the two sides on Sept. 23. Asked to comment on i4i's briefs, a Microsoft spokesman said, "We're looking forward to the hearing on the merits of our appeal." This version of the story originally appeared in Computerworld 's print edition.

Firefox's Flash check drives 10M to Adobe's download

Mozilla said yesterday that Firefox's check for outdated editions of Adobe's Flash Player convinced 10 million users to go to Adobe's Web site and grab the latest software. Adobe on Thursday confirmed a spike in traffic to its Flash Player update page, and applauded Mozilla's move. "For us, anything that others do to help users stay up-to-date is a good thing," said Brad Arkin, Adobe's director for product security and privacy. "We're glad to see Mozilla doing this." After Firefox 3.0 and 3.5 users installed the security update Mozilla issued last Wednesday, they saw a message on the "landing page" - the first page that appeared after the browser restarted - if they had an out-of-date version of Flash Player. "You should update Adobe Flash right now," the message read. "Firefox is up to date, but your current version of Flash can cause security and stability issues. About a third of the Firefox users who were warned last week that they were running an old, and vulnerable, version of Flash followed the link to update the Adobe software, said Mitchell Baker, the former CEO of Mozilla and current chairman of the Mozilla Foundation. "This is a very high response rate," said Baker in a post to her blog . "A typical response rate for this [landing] page is around 5%." "Those results have been nothing short of awesome," echoed Johnathan Nightingale, of Mozilla's security team, in an entry on the company's security blog yesterday. Please install the free update as soon as possible." The message also included a link to Adobe's download site for the latest Flash Player plug-in.

On Sept. 10, the first full day after the update rolled out, about six million users saw the landing page. According to Ken Kovash, Mozilla's chief of metrics, 10 million people clicked on that link in the week after the update and Flash plug-in check were fed to Firefox users. More than three million, said Kovash on his metrics blog, were running an outdated copy of Flash, and of those, over one million clicked on the link to Adobe's download page. "Beyond the total impact of 10 million clicks, the most impressive pattern that stands out is the click-through rate," said Kovash. "While the Firefox 'whatsnew' page generally sees a click-through rate below 5%, the Flash update link alone has generated a click-through rate better than 30%. Phenomenal!" Adobe's Arkin said that Mozilla's tactic isn't the first time a company's urged its users to update Flash. "Other sites, such as Facebook, have been doing this for awhile, and are already encouraging their users to stay up-to-date," Arkin said. "No one has to ask our permission to do it." The request is frequent enough, in fact, that Adobe provides JavaScript code to Web site developers that they can use to detect the current version of Flash on a machine. Even though he welcomed Mozilla's plug-in check, Arkin said it isn't a complete solution to the problem of outdated software. "Firefox's is a good approach for a certain demographic, but not all users have the rights to update on their own," said Arkin. "It's not the complete and final solution." Arkin declined to go into specifics about what plans Adobe has in mind, or in the works, to boost update uptake. Dubbed "SWFObject," the code is part of an open-source project of several Adobe engineers. "Anyone who wants to help update their users, they can get in touch with us and we'll help them," said Arkin. But doing that is imperative, a collection of security experts concluded earlier this week after releasing a report that correlated data on Web attacks with patching practices . "Applications that are widely installed are not being patched at the same speed as the operating system," said Wolfgang Kandek, the chief technology officer of Qualys on Tuesday.

Baker acknowledged that Firefox's check for outdated plug-ins - something the company intends to expand later this year in version 3.6 - won't solve the problem on its own, but was optimistic that the browser maker was on the right track. "The response suggests that people are receptive to clear information about how to keep themselves safer," she said. "That's encouraging. Qualys contributed its patching data to the study. "For Adobe Reader, Adobe Flash, Sun Java, Microsoft Office, Apple QuickTime, the patch cycles are much much slower than for the operating system," he said. It benefits the individual doing the updating, and also provides a system wide 'public health' benefit, as well." To manually download the latest version of Flash Player, users can head to Adobe's Web site.

Fall HDTV Trends: 3D, Fewer Cables, and Skinny LEDs

Move over, LCD - here comes green, lean LED. Make room, too, for sets that dispense with unsightly cables and get ready for a coming wave of 3D sets. CEDIA (Custom Electronic Design and Installation Association) is the trade group for people who install high-end home entertainment and automation systems, and its annual show has become the venue of choice for consumer electronics companies who want to show off their high-end wares. These are the big HDTV tech trends on display at CEDIA Expo in Atlanta this week.

One of the biggest trends is the emergence of LED backlighting as the upscale replacement for conventional, CCFL LCD screens. But they also cost more than traditional LCDs, so most vendors are continuing to offer LCDs for those on a budget. LEDs are more energy-efficient than LCDs (many sets tout local dimming - the capability to turn down brightness in dark spots - and ambient-light-sensitive displays that get darker in darker rooms). LEDs also dispense with environment-damaging mercury, and their superslim screens are capable of richer color. Either way, the sets are now almost all 1080p (as opposed to the 720p resolutions that dominated the market earlier in the decade. The sets come with either a 46-inch or a 52-inch screen. Sony, for example, announced a new pair of super-skinny Bravia sets, the XBR10 series, with edge-lit LED backlighting.

They boast speedy 240Hz screen refresh technology to make action video look smoother. You hook up all your audio and video sources - set-top boxes, game consoles, home theater receivers - to the transmitter box, which beams their uncompressed signals (1080p and 7.1-channel audio) to the set over the unlicensed 60GHz band. Cutting those Cables The XBR10 sets feature another hot technology: WirelessHD. Designed to eliminate ugly cables dangling from wall-hung sets (although they still need a power cord), WirelessHD sets come with transmitter boxes that have the myriad of inputs usually found on the back of the set. WirelessHD offers vastly more throughput than even the fastest Wi-Fi ; backers say the first products, all based on chips by a company called SiBeam, move about 4GB per second (802.11n tops out at a theoretical rate of 600mbps). But WirelessHD lacks Wi-Fi's range - it can cover only up to 33 feet - which is why it's a cable-replacement technology, not a home networking technology. LG Hops on the LED Train LG Electronics' new SL90 LED sets are also extremely thin - less than 1.2 inches thick, with no raised bezel.

All the goodies in the XBR10 series don't come cheap, however; the 46-inch set is expected to run about $4500, while the 52-inch model will go for $500. Sony plans to ship both next month. They're due out later this fall with price tags of $2599 for the 47-inch model and $2099 for the 42-incher. LG is also bringing three WirelessHD sets to market. A trio of new conventional LCDs, the SL80 series, are somewhat thicker - 1.8 inches - but also less expensive, at $1599 for the 42-inch model, $1,899 for the 47-inch set, and $2799 for the 55-inch display. The top-of-the line 55-inch LED-backlit 55LHX is expected to ship shortly at a suggested price of $4799, while a pair of conventional LCD sets, the LH85 series, are due later this fall for $3199 (55 inches) and $2399 (47 inches). Panasonic Shows WirelessHD set, 3D Technology Panasonic recently began shipping a 54-inch plasma TV with WirelessHD, the TC-P54Z1, which It had announced at the Consumer Electronics Show in January. Insisting that its technology is poised to become the industry standard for 3D, Panasonic said it expects to begin shipping 3D-enabled TVs and Blu-ray Disc players next year.

The set/transmitter bundle runs $5500. However, 3D HDTV took center stage at the company's CEDIA booth, in the form of a mobile theater showing dramatic 15-minute reels that included clips from the Pixar film Up! and sports footage. The technology requires wearing special glasses, which Panasonic says are superior to those provided for 3D movies in theaters. Samsung, meanwhile, has for some time been shipping 3D after-market kits. Panasonic isn't the only vendor to set a stake in 3D. Jeff Goldsmith, Sony Electronics television VP, says the company is committed to 1080p content in 3D. "You can bet that we're bullish on the technology as 2010 approaches," he told reporters at the company's CEDIA news conference. Sharp Thinks Big Sharp's new offerings also include a line of four LED-backlit AQUOS sets, the LE700 series, all 1080p sets ranging in price from $2800 for a 52-inch model to $1100 for a 32-inch set. The 65-inch LC-65E77UN will sell for about $4500 when it ships later this month, Sharp says, and the 60-inch LC-60E77UN will run $3500. JVC, meanwhile, announced only one LED HDTV, a petite 32-incher weighing a mere 12.5 pounds.

The company also announced a pair of larger conventional LCD sets at what the company described as attractive price points, given the dimensions involved. As skinny as one-quarter-inch at its leanest point, the 1080p JVC LT-32WX50 is slated to ship in November - but there's nothing skinny about its price (except maybe the effect on your wallet), which JVC describes as "less than $3000."