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On November 23, UPnP Forum announced that Open Interconnect Consortium (OIC), one of the major standards efforts focused on the Internet of Things, would be acquiring the assets of UPnP forum. The news was generally lauded in the international press as one substantial step in reducing the disarray that is the Internet of Things. This […]

During the past couple months, CableLabs has been engaged with The MEF Forum in planning of the first-ever Lifecycle Service Orchestration Hackathon. The LSO Hackathon as mentioned in this press release will take place alongside the MEF’s GEN 15 conference in Dallas from Nov 16 to 18. The LSO Hackathon will bring together software developers and […]

The screw is widely believed to have been invented by Archytas of Tarentum around 400 BC. Its original application, not surprisingly, was to press grapes for wine. Over time, other uses evolved such as using it to move water uphill or as a fastener. Skilled artisans would create these screws by hand using chisels and […]

ARIN just ran out of IPv4 addresses! News sources are abuzz that ARIN has finally ran out of IP addresses. Let’s take a look at the implications. Q: What is ARIN? A: ARIN is the American Registry of Internet Numbers serving North America and is one of five official entities that can issue IPv4 addresses […]

There are four main concepts involved in securing premium audio/visual content: Authentication Authorization Encryption Digital Rights Management (DRM) Authentication is the act of verifying the identity of the individual requesting playback (e.g. username/password). Authorization involves ensuring that individual’s right to view that content (e.g. subscription, rental). Encryption is the scrambling of audio/video samples; decryption keys […]

(Disclaimer: the author is a regular contributor to the dash.js project) A crucial piece of any standards development process is the creation of a reference implementation to validate the feasibility of the many requirements set forth within the standard. After all, it makes no sense to create a standard if it is impossible to create […]

The basic solution that streaming video provides is that an entire video file does not need to be downloaded before it is viewed. Little chunks of media may be grabbed for playback in order to achieve the same effect. The one caveat is that the media must be received as fast of the player consumes […]

Background Carriage agreements between content owners and Multichannel Video Programming Distributors (MVPDs) are likely to contain clauses that require the MVPD to provide ample protection against content theft. In the traditional, QAM-based delivery model of cable television networks, the desired level of protection was relatively easy to implement and manage due to the fact that […]