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The Media Center Show v2.06 - Sonos

Mike — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 15:44:10 +0000

Great call this week, as Mike Wolf of ABI Research talks to Tom Cullen, the VP of Sales and Marketing for Sonos. Sonos is a manufacturer of wireless multi-room audio systems, and Tom tells us about how Sonos went through an intense period of useability testing - as they tap the expertise of the woman who helped with useability for Philips’ Streamium products - to put useability “in the bones of the device”.
Some interesting info Tom reveals about the typical Sonos user:

-typically male

-have thousands of tracks

-typical income is over $100 thousand

-users are generally not in their 20s, but typically 30-45

-Average of 3 rooms supported per customer, up from 2 rooms just a couple years ago

-The average user say their music listening has doubled since buying their Sonos system.

Take a listen:

download link

Microsoft Debuts Mediaroom

Mike — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 21:55:04 +0000

I was a little confused by the name of the product, which half-sounded like a virtual press area (they were announcing it from a trade show after all) and also somewhat Media-Center-ish. The new platform is really just the next iteration of their Microsoft IPTV software, and the new features include the ability to share home photos, video and content on your PC with your IPTV set top box. Sound familiar? Details are scant at this point, but I am curious if there are any of the same underlying pieces of code powering media center extender with the new Mediaroom. I have a feeling there is. I’ll try and get a Microsoft TV person on the show sometime soon.

Wi-Fi on SD Card: How Compelling is Instant Photo Transfer?

Mike — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 18:08:04 +0000

A new company called Eye-Fi has developed an SD card with Wi-Fi to allow legacy digicams to transfer photos. I know the likes of Canon, Nikon (especially Nikon) and others have pushed out integrated Wi-Fi cameras, but this company would argue that there are tens of millions of cameras out there that need Wi-Fi. The card combines the memory with Wi-Fi (most cameras only have one SD slot).

My question to you, the Media Center community, is how appealing is Wi-Fi connected cameras? I think being able to replace the USB cable is great, but I actually usually just pop my SD card into my PC to transfer. Am I like everyone else, or are you looking to use the network for photo uploading and display?