China

Things are even worst for the USA that is seriously topping the recession in the shoulders of the other countries. Recently the US ministry of economics has announced that China was the USA's golden sponsor for Septemeber 2008. Thats not ofcourse about all the Chinese restaurants that are rapidly growing feeding the
Americans with the americanized chinese springrolls, but about the US debt that is growing. The US ministry of economics announced that China has topped out Japan making the Americans grateful to the Chinese empire and then to their Japanese buddies.


Crunching the numbers in, China has a bill of $585 billions to "cash out" (doubt it) and Japan $573,2 billions. Proudly the 3rd country in the list is the UK with $228,4 billions, really far away from the top. Now, Obama wants to support the auto industry with another $50billions... Is that new "freakonomics" or what? Guess, China and Japan need to work harder to finance the Presidential plans and save GM, when literally they are riding bikes or they are walking to work? Isnt that an excited story with plenty of suspence that will keep us wondering for a while? On the other hand excpect another flood of Chinese and Japanese products, surfing the US market unregulated and tarrif free :-) Whenthe credit cards will be maxxing out, the international trade agreements might not be enough to excuse the above huge bills and then the USA might collapse for ever..

content

Lots of discussion lately on interactive content and digital content production. Most of the European markets including Greece are trying to adapt IPTV solutions, examining platforms and content over the pipe. The Telcos seem to have an advantage looking for content in different markets that they are heavily investing into, leaving the local content producers out of the game.

Is IPTV a viable solution in Greece? When the government and all are investing in broadband, the answer is yes. What really needs is serious planning and collaborations identifying the subscribers needs. The interactive content can easily fuel people's excitement, making them pay for it and isnpire others to create the right channels, with interesting program and content. Culture and entertainment should be the top needs to start with, including international production on travel and cooking.

On Telecoms brings Fox channel to the screen, creating a fully subtitled 24/7 program. Fox International Channels is distributing High-Definition content also for mobile platforms: FOX Life HD, Next HD, National Geographic Channel HD and FOX Mobile. Whats really interesting is to see the competitors reaction that perhaps are still negotiating with similar content distributors. Early IPTV markets are really interesting and offering excitement and surprises with the enntertainment and access to new stuff not only for the investors but also for the users.

Books

...finally I'm going in and into serious publications. I am really happy, cause finally my research will be included in book chapters on relevant topics.Thus, two of my papers that lation are both mainly on new technology forecasting and regulation will be published next year in two different books.
"Fourth-Generation (4G) Wireless Networks: Applications and Innovations"
A book edited by Adibi, Sasan and Mobasher, Amin - published by IGI Global(IDEA Group).


Then, I have another paper on forecasting and regulation that will appear in:
"Regulation and the Evolution of the Global Telecommunications Industry" edited by A. Gentzoglanis & A. Henten, by Edward Elgar Publishing


Finally two other papers have been already published in the special issue in the journal of Communications and Strategies, Ultrabroadband Networks, IDATE, November 2008. The first paper was on QoS and the other one was on new technology forecasting and regulation.

Its been a productive year, cause last year I was stuck, doing only conference papers, due many life's changes, but finally here I am, surviving. Concluding, I can easily call 2008 a fruitful academic year, thanks to my partners and collaborators that supported me. I 'm going in guys - thank you!

-E

ebusinessforum

And yes, digital TV will arrive slowly to Greece, since the EU has announced the full transition to the digital world by 2015. Advanced countries will do that much faster, following the US that is a few hundred days away based on Shelly.
On the other hand FCC recently OKs unlicensed access to vacant TV airwaves. That U.S. regulator's decision seen as a victory for Google, Microsoft, Moto and others, against broadcasters.

But Europe is getting there. Being part of the ebusiness forum public consultation's team, I got the feeling that people will get there sooner or later, since some piolot digital broadvasting has already started from the government channel. however there is still lots of discussion and consultation on the future available TV bands, the upcoming digital services, the benefits and drawbacks. The ebusiness forum always puts effort into new things and is really exciting the fact that we will draw some new actions to promote digital TV with perhaps some EU financial support.

Digital TV in Greece is not a Sci-Fi project any more and I am confident that will soon happen even with some international support and guideline. People are really excited and love the opportunity of the new TV, either that is digital broadcasting or even IPTV, altough it is really early for Greece right now. The Telcos are still wondering, but they should definetely keep a very close look to our tema's progress and future plans, since our coordinator is the ministry of transportation and communication.

P2PTV

..well, thats nothing new, but check out the content growth and what can happen with the almost real time option that P2PTV supports. It has some delay as the peers retransmit the data, thus usually a live soccer game is lagging behind from the reality. Particurarlly, a few days ago was watching a champions league soccer game from a P2P agent, since the regular TV was not covering the game and the same time from a sport's Web site Live Center that was posting the score, refreshing continuously - also 'real time'. Well, these two sources had a 2-3 minutes difference..when the one team was scoring as the Live Center was posting, then was waiting for 2-3 minutes to watch the goal on P2PTV - almost real time!


No matter that real time weakness, I am really impressed with the P2PTV. Not only its free. but in many cases can work as cable TV with good quality and resolution, In one of the agents, that are so many, was watching the "National Georgaphic" channel with Chinese subtitles, true! But the other cool thing is that you can add your own server and start streaming, if you really want to feel the excitement of a TV producer. Back in time people used to broadcast with Antennas and in some cases illegally without registering their channels, usually called TV piracy; today you can do that legally if you master the video streaming technology and have some content. The good news is that the P2P agents are under human supervision restricitng in most of the cases porn and similar inappropriate content


Do the people like it? Sure they do, especially the sports fans, thousands and thousands of people are watching and all you need is broadband i.e ADSL or cable connection or even WiMAX, that simple! People love variety, international content, looking up all these different channels that offer more than you can imagine overrriding a stereotype TV channel with certain content that could be easily boring.


Some P2P agents to check Sopcast, JustinTV and more, keep searching, its a really exciting live media world. Folks, lets deliver our media to the world!