Posted 12/03/09 at 03:14:40 PM by Bart Salisbury

Cable companies, to this point, have mostly been bit players in providing content--the life-blood of the cable system. People won’t watch if you’ve nothing to show them. Comcast has just altered the landscape on content production, buying a majority share of NBC Universal, which it will now jointly run with General Electric (G.E.). Comcast’s entry price: $6.5 billion in cash and $7.25 billion in other value, for a total of $13.75 billion. (And you thought we were in a recession.)

Comcast, which has been jonesing for this deal for more than a year, said in an announcement, the deal is “a perfect fit for Comcast and will allow us to become a leader in the development and distribution of multiplatform ‘anytime, anywhere’ media that American consumers are demanding.” The deal between G.E. and Comcast was completed weeks ago, but held up by G.E.’s having to buy out Vivendi, which owned a 20 percent stake in NBC. Vivendi will get $5.8 billon for its share.

Benefits of the deal revolve around NBC having valuable content, such as CNBC, MSNBC, Bravo, USA, and SyFy channels, and Comcast having the means of delivering that content via cable, Internet, and mobile platforms to over 45 million subscribers. Because Comcast is already deriving fees from subscribers, it could well mean that online content from NBC Universal will become readily available, at least within the Comcast system.

This is only the first stage, however. The deal has to past the muster of the Federal Communications Commission, Federal Trade Commission, and the Justice Department’s antitrust division. Could be another year before the deal is finalized

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Posted 04/27/09 at 09:44:28 AM by Paul Lilly

Hold the boat, Blu-ray, a breakthrough in optical storage technology could prove to be game changing, according to General Electric. GE today announced that its researchers have successfully demonstrated a threshold microholographic storage material they say can support 500GB of storage capacity in a standard DVD-sized disc. That breaks down to about 20 times the storage capacity of a standard Blu-ray disc and is equivalent to 100 regular DVDs, the company says.

"GE’s breakthrough is a huge step toward bringing our next generation holographic storage technology to the everyday consumer," said Brian Lawrence, who leads GE’s Holographic Storage program. "Because GE’s micro-holographic discs could essentially be read and played using similar optics to those found in standard Blu-ray players, our technology will pave the way for cost-effective, robust and reliable holographic drives that could be in every home."

GE's holographic storage technology makes use of the entire volume of the disc material rather than just the surface. Three-dimensional patterns represent bits of information, a process GE has been working on for over six years but has only just now turned a corner with the latest breakthrough.

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