So please take the time to go back and review these as the conference offered some really great discussions and information about what’s on the way.

It was my first Influence Forum and overall a great experience. The sessions provided some great discussions, while the lunches and evening events provided valuable networking opportunities.

I’m sure next year will be bigger and better and would love to attend again.

Twin tuners – HD, based on Series 3, modifications including PAL.

Can FF ads, not skip entire ad.

tivo.com.au to get more updates soon – watch this space. 

John – Samsung

Focus on Full HD (1080p)

Movement away from component, multiple HDMI ports on TV’s.

Moved from version 1.2 to 1.3 of HDMI – includes CEC – Consumer Electronics Control (1 remote controls any device)

Prediction that within the next couple of years Full HDTV’s will be the standard.

Question about how much Australian content in in HD. Required is 1020 hours a year, most broadcasters doing more.

Comment about users still struggle to know about HD quality levels.

Speaker from Asus on Home Automation

Smart wiring

Wireless devices are an option for existing homes.

Options for distribution – Go big or go niece

Speaker about 802.11n
Designed to compete with a wired network.

Spoke last year about 802.11n draft 1.0

About designed to be about twice the range of current wireless, and 3,4,5 times the speed approaching the real speeds of 100Mb.

Expectation was that n standard would be ratified by about this time this year, however it’s now going to be around October next year.

Most changes form draft to final release should be able to be updated with Firmware.

Draft 2.0 currently, Draft 3.0 due next year.

Fine tuning the standard to avoid interference with BlueTooth and other wireless device spectrums.

5x speed, 2x the range – verified by 3rd party testing.

Home network adoption of 802.11n should be very prevalent by end of 2008.

Tivo may be upgraded to N via USB port, or may be a new version of Tivo.

Some topics discussed in the session are:

Overview of techAU
- Gaming, Gadgets, Social Networks, Phones.

- Impacts of broadband speeds in Australia on audience.

- Big issues (Storage of files – providing the podcast in multiple formats can easily be 400 Mb +)

- Adoption of HDTV’s is growing, which feeds the need for content in HD. I think podcasts have a significant role to play in this arena. We have the pro-sumer level tools to create HD, but our limitations are cost of hosting and bandwidth limitations.

The new upcoming phone were impressively thin. Netgear displayed their new router with VOIP configuration built in.

Introducing 4 cores this year, 8 cores next year
Fusion released next year (late 2008/2009) – combines CPU / GPU.
Using 65nm atm, moving to 32nm next year, then 25nm, reaching limits of making transistors down to the size of atoms. Next evolution to light.
Currently 65w moving down to 45w, estimation of by 2010 processor power consumption to 20w – heat not longer an issue.
AMD Live – suite of software packages for Home users, communication, handle data, media centers.
Fusion price point is aimed at entry level pc’s, top end systems will still required dedicated GPU.
Games now supporting multi-core, releases in the next month or 2.

Question to magazine editors about why we haven’t seen processors on front pages, response was the move away from clock speed, and core 2 has ruled processors.

Speaker form Asus (Emmanuele Silanesu)
Evolution from dedicated cards to being integrated to motherboard.
In-car-PC’s and Home Theatre PC’s upcoming areas of development.

Question about RAID on motherboards – about 1/3 of Asus products.
EEE PC to begin in Australia later this year. Price point in US is a subsidized – around AU$400 but will contain bluetooth etc.
I asked if Asus would supply the software for the in-car PC or look at Windows Automotive, he wasn’t sure.

Speaker from Acer
Figures show that PC’s are still growing, but not as fast as laptops.
Acer offering 3ltr Ultra Mobile PC.
Storage and Media
Acer to have HD-DVD and Blu-ray RW drives by the end of this year.
22″ LCD monitors are the sweet spot for price point, 24″ LCD’s will be the best option in the next 12 months.
Question if Acer will have a 13″ Laptop, response: they currently offer 12′s and 14′s.
Quantity of 17′s sold is reducing in favour of 19′s in commercial applications.

Speaker
Evolution away from PC’s to Laptops, where they’re heading.

Wireless
- GPS, access anywhere

Portability
- demonstration of handle on laptop, easier to carry. Consideration of how to carry in vehicle, needs required maybe secure area, could be charged while driving, connect to other car systems.

Durability
- Needs to hold up under most conditions, i.e. direct sunlight.

Weight

Fransico from Bebo
Has worked for Yahoo
Plays clip – When in doubt… ask the BBC.
Beebo joins with iTunes to offer 5 million songs.
Video covers MySpace, Facebook and Bebo.
Slide shown of demographic for social networks, indicates Bebo huge in the UK.
Kids aren’t using email as much anymore in favour of social networks.
The got the creator of Lonelygirl15 and produced similar for a social network. currentTV
Around 10% of all Internet traffic in Aus is YouTube.
Looking for the next presenter of currentTV.
Michael Bourke – founder.
Number 2 in Australia, number 1 in NZ.

Daniel from eBay
Online shopping
62% of Australian Internet users have made an online purchase in last 12 months.
11-12 million Internet users in Australia.
For ever $11 spent in retail $1 is spent online.
5 million eBay users registered  in Australia.
3 million Australian accounts for PayPal.
Question about eBay owning PayPal, help support.

————-
Ross Dawson – http://www.rossdawsonblog.com/
Future car radios will be IP based.
Immersive experience
40th anniversary of the mouse, we’re still using it.
Discussion around the digital divide and broadband in Australia.

————

RSS feeds – 800
Living online
Flickr
Facebook
Twittr

Investigate more
About something / iSomething – blog
Heartbeat

Currently downloading an average video podcast takes around 30 minutes on a 1.5Mb connection, downloading the same file on an 8Mb connection takes around 10 minutes, and so on.

One question I’d like 2 know is what others think faster internet will be used for ? HD video, real time gamin/training environments, video conferencing taking over traditional phone calls ?

Follow up
Paull Young – Aus blogger, now in the US.

Update:

Speaker form Engine

Topics covered..

Dial-up became competitive, price of dial-up reduced, ISP’s going out of business.

3/4 of households have computers
1/2 of households have Internet
Source: ABS

Not much loyalty to ISP’s
Line rental
Speed isn’t the issue, price is… ?
Speakers thoughts are majority of people’s priority is – Price, Download, Speed

Strategy for IPTV is TIVO

Naked DSL – no line rental

Speaker from Go-Talk

Reading from a Newspaper article, stats indicate older generation are heavier users of the web that younger people.

Pulls out old story of oldest 107yo blogger, months old.

Reads out tech support website story, is clear she has no idea about the terms on the story.

Refers to TV setup evolution as an example of what the PC / phone should work like.

Speaker from Netcomm

Discussion around government solutions
Says dial-up is not dead
Demand is not for speed
New filters for ADSL2+
Fibre to the Node uses VDSL required to be within 1.5km of exchange, ADSL2 required to be within 5km.
Estate in TAS 20 Mb downstream / 1Mb upstream, can get synchronous of same as download.
17 Million mobile users in Australia
3G can be increased to go through multi-story buildings.

Follow up
Real time Australia 

David Haviat
Haviat associats

Hand outs, really, technology conference and we can’t get a projector ?

Symantec
Online identity theft.
Security of PC + mobile device.
Bots on the increase, ability to phone home receive an update and morph to avoid detection / removal.

New threat legitimate sites delivering drive-by-download threat.
Feb – Miama dolphins website

Online Identity
- Constructed from multiple sites / information.
- Consumer identity protection is evolving to include mobile devices.
- Estimated $1.4 billion, 1 person every 4 seconds in US.
- Smart phones are seeing a 77% increase, fastest growth area.
- $2.1 billion mobile devices atm

Q & A session
48,000 virus’ on WIndows last year
4,000 on Linux

—————

Michael Green
PC Tools

New trends in Malware (Malware 2.0).
New tools are being used to create Malware, creating variants up to 3 per minute.
Malware companies have so much coming through they have 2 choose which to fix.
Changing strategy – moving from signature method to full circle (rapid detection, behavior, signature creation, push back down to desktop)
Consumers don’t care about how, they just want things 2 be secured.

Q & A session
Question about individual products vs 1 product / easier for consumers.
Comment that consumers shouldn’t have 2 worry about protection.

————

Computer Associates

User education needs 2 improve.
Firefox will no longer be regarded as more secure than Internet Explorer.
Symantec running Connnected and Protected campaign bus.

———–

Air Win, Mac, Linux story

Snoopware – mobile devices turning on microphones and cameras.