Yahoo! and Philips in Streamium TV

Wireless entertainment

CES Yahoo! is to provide much of the content of Streamium TV, which was introduced this week by Philips at the 2004 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. Through a broadband connection, Philips allows consumers to access video and audio content, as well as images through a wireless or wired Ethernet connection from a PC or Internet service.

The 23-inch diagonal widescreen LCD display TV set can display streaming video in several formats (MPEG1, MPEG4), JPEG images and play MP3 music directly from many content providers. Streamium TV also features a PC Link providing viewers the ability to link wirelessly to a local or home PC.

Consumers can enjoy multimedia content available through the web or stored on their PC, wirelessly streamed to their Streamium FlatTV, while comfortably seated in their living room. That in itself is not a new idea. At CES both Sony and Panasonic showed a Location Free Wireless TV, which employs 802.11 a/b/g Wifi standards. But only Philips adds a full service concept to that. Details of Yahoo! content were not supplied. The service will be introduced in the US first.

Alongside Visa International Philips also showcased the potential of Contactless Payment and Connectivity. Technologies used here are Near Field Communication (NFC) combined with Visa's Verified by Visa, an authentication service based on the industry standard 3-D Secure, which enables Visa cardholders to safely shop online using a unique password.

In one scenario, music fans can download the right to listen to a song to their PDA or their Visa payment card either by holding the PDA near a smart poster of their favorite Universal Music pop star or by holding their contactless Visa card near a store kiosk selling songs.

Among the partners working with Philips and Visa International is Universal Music France, which may want to use the technology to give users access to Universal Music France's E-Compil music portal.

Mobile phone users can pay for concert or movie tickets at the box office simply by holding their phone next to the payment terminal. The contactless chip in the phone transfers Visa payment data to the terminal and, once payment is confirmed, sends the tickets back to the phone. The phone user can then transfer a ticket using NFC to a friend's mobile phone. ®