This Sunday I attended a great presentation at the IBC 2008 conference. The first transatlantic 3D live video transmission was shown. The CEO of Dreamworks (Shrek) was interviewed sitting in front of a nice office park in LA while the audience at IBC in Amsterdam watched it all on a big screen in 3D with polarized glasses on. (this company here claims to be THE source for 3D glasses)

They also showed 3D clips from the last (Kung Fu Panda) and their next upcoming animated movie (Monsters vs. Aliens) which were absolutely outstanding and highly impressive. Looks like that 3D will be the next really big wave in video viewing as Mr. Katzenberg said comparable to what happened when audio and color were made available quite some time ago now. We all see in 3D so it is only natural to also give that same 3D experience watching video was his explanation why soon everyone will make movies in 3D. And there are no technical hurdles any longer. Made sense to me and the live demo showed what new exciting movie theater times are ahead of us. Also Walt Disney and I suppose many other studios are working on 3D versions of their movies. While Dreamworks does not seem happy yet with the technical possibilities to transform existing 2D-made movies into 3D versions others seem to have less of a problem. Looks like Star Wars is being redone in 3D which makes of course a lot of sense for many of the outer space scenes and then Star Wars movies always tried to move the technical boundaries further.

The driver for the consumer markets will be gaming since in gaming you have ideal conditions sitting close to the screen Mr. Katzenberg said. Dreamworks also seems to work with Intel to help bring 3D experience to the mass markets. In the US 3D displays are already sold since about 2 years and by end of 2009 - just for the next Shrek movie - about 80% of all cinemas in the US will have 3D viewing capabilities already Mr. Katzenberg predicted. Or 80% of the audiences will be able to see it in 3D; I think that's what he probably said...

As reported today a satellite which allows pictures of the earth to be taken down to the size of a tennis ball (not really - but half a meter) is now owned by Google (its data). The satellite was launched from the US military base Vandenberg (halfway between San Jose and LA in California, which is closed airspace for the public). Google will soon see what people are eating as they sit on their veranda... I see good and bad things here. As usual "Search" book author John Battelle who is always quite negative about Google talks about it in his blog that way:

"And it brings Google one step closer to what I think could be the company's Waterloo - a viral meme that Google is sensing too much, knows too much, and is too powerful. It may not be rational, but no one ever accused humans of being entirely rational."

While I am more relaxed about this all he addresses a key problem for Google: Public perception. Already with its browser launch they got a lot of bad press in the European news and I even saw the German news Tagesschau reporting that the German BSI data security organization warns users against using the new browser. This was mentioned in front of millions in the 8pm news. On their website they have a more in depth interview though with a German IT journalist that is more differentiated.

For the first time ever I visited IFA in Berlin. Being into B2B marketing and business development I so far had no business interest visiting the world's largest consumer electronics show. (no idea why they claim to be bigger than CES in Las Vegas)
Unlike I expected the show was not packed at all though. I suppose thats the reason why on the last day tomorrow, from 2pm on, they will have free access for all visitors.
As usual my attention was on how technology is explained and presented by the different vendors.
The type of booth designs that I saw fell into the following categories:

• show innovation
• explain technology and innovation
• entertain
• showcase products and companies

My favorite displays:

1. Toshiba

Did a great job showing innovation history and explaining it nicely. Also the people could answer questions very well.

2. Philips
"Sense and simplicity" is Philips' tagline which they tried to demonstrate and did so extremely well. Also they seem to work hard to bring new innovative ideas out to the mass markets.

3. Harman International
A genius booth designer built a huge tent inside the whole hall giving it a cathedral-like feeling. Unfortunately they did not show the same creativity explaining the many displays and demo stations. No signs were put up, maybe it would have disturbed the overall look&feel. In B2B this would have been a classical case where designers try to win an award but don't care much if anyone understands what their clients actually sell. Not so in consumer markets where you also need to impress I guess. They impressed me...

4. Sony
Although I saw many things that I did not like at this gigantic booth it is difficult to not impress if you have so much money to blow on a whow-effect booth. So they managed the expensive way.