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THURSDAY, JANUARY 9, 2014 technology Facebook buys Indian mobile tech start-up NEW DELHI: Facebook has bought an Indian Eye will help Facebook develop performance terday. apps,” Facebook engineering manager Subbu mobile technology start-up called Little Eye analysis and monitoring tools that provide data Though neither companies disclosed the Subramanian said, according to The Economic Labs, the first business deal in the country by such as the memory and power consumption value of the deal, reports said industry esti- Times. the world’s biggest social network, the Indian of applications. “This is Facebook’s first acquisi- mates were around $15 million. Little Eye Labs, which says it was founded firm said. tion of an Indian company, and we are happy “The Little Eye Labs technology will help us about a year ago “by a bunch of program analy- With Facebook users increasingly logging in to become part of such an incredible team,” to continue improving our Android codebase sis geeks”, will now move its operations to from mobile phones, Bangalore-based Little Little Eye said in a statement on its website yes- to make more efficient, higher-performing Facebook headquarters in California. — AFP Small steps toward Ultra HD television LAS VEGAS: After attempts to hawk 3-D and a 70-inch set around $3,200. OLED TVs fizzled in recent years, television While those price tags are only likely to manufacturers are taking small steps toward appeal to early-adopters, they’re getting clos- making a new technology, Ultra HD, more er to prices people currently pay for big viable for mainstream consumers. screens running only HD. It’s the first TV format to be driven by the Internet video-streaming phenomenon, and Super-sharp screens at the International CES gadget show this But that still isn’t close enough, said James week, major streaming players Netflix and McQuivey, principal analyst with research firm Amazon said they’ll offer movies and TV Forrester. “These TVs won’t actually sell well as shows in the format, and Sharp introduced a long as they are priced high, something TV relatively inexpensive TV with near-Ultra HD makers already know because in the last year quality. they’ve dropped prices considerably,” he said. The moves are meant to coax consumers To entice consumers even further, a hand- to pedal faster on their TV upgrade cycles. At ful of content companies promised to make the moment, most Americans buy new TVs more movies and shows available for the about once every seven years. TV manufactur- super-sharp screens. ers would love to create another wave of buy- Netflix Inc. CEO Reed Hastings made the ing like the one that sent millions of people to rounds at news conferences Monday to stores a few years ago to upgrade from stan- declare that the streaming video company is dard definition, tube TVs to flat-screen HD working on distributing 4K video over the models. Internet. Hastings said all Netflix original series Unlike the 3-D TV trend, which quickly are being shot in 4K and that the company is eroded into a tech fad in recent years, analysts working with studios on formatting movies say Ultra HD may actually catch on. With and TV shows in 4K, with one of the first series screens that house four times more pixels being Sony’s “Breaking Bad.” than regular HD TVs, Ultra HD is a simple Both Amazon.com Inc. and Hulu are shoot- LAS VEGAS: The Murata Girl and Boy robots are demonstrated at the Murata booth at the 2014 International CES at the Las Vegas Convention enough upgrade to gain widespread adop- ing original series in 4K, and Amazon said it Center yesterday in Las Vegas,. —-AFP tion in the next few years. Aside from being was working with major content producers visually jarring, 3-D required sometimes pricey Warner Bros., Lionsgate, 20th Century Fox and special glasses and gave some people Discovery to make 4K content available. headaches. Because Ultra HD content can be The emergence of Ultra HD marks the first Robots invade consumer delivered over a standard high-speed Internet time a major TV standard is being pushed for- connection, it isn’t likely to get bogged down ward with the Internet. “It’s a chance for the in a format war that plagued the Blu-ray disc Internet to really shine,” Hastings said. standard. Downloading huge Ultra HD files would market for play, work take download speeds of only 15 megabits Awesome picture per second and could even work with a Wi-Fi “You see it, you get it. It’s a big, awesome connection, Hastings said. LG’s chief technolo- A crowdfunding effort picture,” said Ben Arnold, a consumer elec- gy officer, Skott Ahn, told The Associated Press tronics analyst at NPD Group. “Consumers will that 4K content could be streamed with 8-15 LAS VEGAS: The robots are coming, and they’re be interested in it as prices come down. Mbps Internet speeds using the latest HEVC here to help. Help clean your windows, teach Consumers are also moving toward bigger video compression standard. children, or even provide entertainment or com- screens. All of this is good news for (Ultra HD).” It’s not clear how close the industry is on a panionship. This week’s Consumer Electronics In side-by-side comparisons, Ultra HD is Blu-ray disc standard for Ultra HD. No Show in Las Vegas highlights enormous growth remarkably crisper than HD. It displays richer announcements about a format were made at in robotics in a range of fields. Meet Bo and Yana, skin textures, finer details and less pixelation. the show, even as The Digital Entertainment for example-they’re cute robots that can fit in The extra resolution becomes more important Group, an industry consortium of studios and your hand and help teach youngsters about pro- as consumers spend more money on bigger electronics makers, declared that strong con- gramming. screens that amplify images. sumer interest in 4K “bodes well for the home “It’s all about programmable play,” said Vikas But Ultra HD, or 4K, is in its very early entertainment industry.” Gupta, founder of California-based i-Play, which stages. Although prototypes and demonstra- Enough people have to own Ultra HD sets designed the toys. tion models have been around for years, the for pay TV providers to start enabling service. The duo can play with each other, fight, dis- first sets for consumer use didn’t hit the mar- If the CEA’s forecast of 485,000 units sold in play expressions with their single eye, or even ket until 2012 with prices in the tens of thou- the US comes true, that could provide enough hit notes on the xylophone. “Music becomes a sands of dollars. Only about 60,000 Ultra HD of a base for cable, telecoms and satellite to way for kids to be engaged,” Gupta said. “We sets were sold last year in the U.S., with begin to upgrade their systems, according to want kids to learn programming and not be 485,000 estimated this year, according to the Pat Esser, president of cable TV provider Cox bothered with cognitive overload.” Consumer Electronics Association. Communications, which serves about 10 per- The robots are designed for children as Today, the lowest-priced Ultra HD TV being cent of U.S. pay TV subscribers. If 50,000 Cox young as five, and are being launched this year sold on Amazon.com is a 39-inch model from subscribers buy Ultra HD TVs, “then you’ve got in a crowdfunding effort, the former Google and Seiki Digital for $500. The cheapest name- my attention,” Esser said in an interview. Amazon executive said. brand manufacturer’s model, a 58-inch screen Widespread adoption by live-TV producers But play is just one of the many areas of from Toshiba, sells for $2,750. And LG still seems a ways off. robotics on display at the show, from simple announced this week it would sell an Ultra HD Sony Corp. promised an end-to-end pro- one-task robots to clean a roof gutter or barbe- set as small as 49 inches diagonally, which duction suite for professionals, and Sony cue grill and others that can be a kind of com- could bring entry level prices closer to $2,000 Electronics President Mike Fasulo on Monday panion to the elderly. for top brands. Sharp’s new Quattron+ brand, unveiled a Handicam that shoots in ultra HD There are also so-called telepresence robots, which brings near-4K resolution to sets by for the home enthusiast, priced at $2,000 - “As including the Double Robotics device seen on making better use of HD pixels, plans to price I like to say, 4K for $2K.” —- AP TV shows such as NCIS Los Angeles. The Double Robotics gadget includes an iPad attached to a wheeled device that allows a telecommuter to show “face time” in the office even when working remotely. The results, at least on television, can often provide comic relief. The global market for consumer robots was $1.6 billion in 2012, dominated by the task and entertainment segments, according to ABI Research, but this is expected to grow to $6.5 billion in 2017 with security and telepresence becoming more significant. LAS VEGAS: A boy plays with a robot presented by Future Robots during the 2014 Artificial intelligence International CES at the Las Vegas Convention Center yesterday in Las Vegas. —- AFP ABI analyst Philip Solis said robotics is mov- ing slower than segments like tablets and live animals are banned.