Apocalyptic Hope ...................................... All VeriChip Articles

Interactive ( IA ) Shopping, Voting and Worship
through our TVs, Internet, cellphones, iPods, handhelds and etc.
More people have TVs than have Internets.

Worshipping the IMAGE of the Beast ...
"If any man worship the beast and his image and receive his mark in his forehead or in his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of His indignation;
" and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb;
and the smoke of their torment ascendeth up forever and ever; and they have no rest day nor night who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth
the mark of his name."-- Book of Revelation 14: 9-11

Into the holy of holies ... the living room

More info like this : http://www.varbusiness.com/

Fair educational use


The Future of Smart Shopping ......... the edge daily

Commerce ( buying and selling ) is becoming effortless with an Interactive TV system that is linked with banking systems that work with smart cards and decoders. Will the 666 system be a commercial decoder ? Time will tell.

And because TV is now High Definition digital, it is all the more ready for the Interactive image of the beast, with whom we will be able to communicate a simple "yes" or "no" with just a click of a remote.
( voting , allegiance , loyalty and worship )
What life and death issues and decisions lie ahead for all of us within the global reach of our armchairs ??

From the Newswires: Fair Educational Use

TV COMMERCE

TV that Watches You
At the same time, a new book titled Spy TV exposes the methods by which digital interactive television will observe and experiment of viewers. It describes how neural network software will be used to create "psychographic profiles" and then "modify the behavior" of individuals.
http://www.whitedot.org/spyinteractive/

Internet TV- IPTV -- Jan. 6, 2006
Internet companies gear up to transform television
A future dominated by Internet TV, or IPTV, seems possible, maybe even inevitable.

What would a world with television coming through the Internet be like? Instead of tuning into programs preset and determined by the broadcast network or cable or satellite TV provider, viewers would be able to search the Internet and choose from hundreds of thousands of programs sent to them from high-speed connections

Appointment-based television is dead," said William Randolph Hearst 3rd, a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm. "The cable industry is really in danger of becoming commoditized." Hearst sits on the board of Akimbo, a provider of an Internet service that lets users download video content via the Internet to a set-top box digital video player. This week, Akimbo announced its first mainstream content deal in which its customers will be able to download Hollywood movies for later viewing on their televisions
The same phenomenon may well overtake traditional TV providers. Potentially, IPTV could replace the 100- or 500-channel world of the cable and satellite companies with millions of hybrid combinations that increasingly blend video, text from the Web, and even video-game-style interactivity
(IPTV could potentially record many streams if bandwidth is available.) A prototype of one feature of the Microsoft IPTV service, known in the industry as a matrix channel, allows several baseball games to be viewed simultaneously along with textual information like player statistics
ViiV
On Thursday, Intel introduced its new ViiV computer design that is intended to bring the capability of the personal computer to the living room. ViiV is a set of computer hardware and software technologies that will go inside computers and set-top boxes
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/01/06/business/video.php

Defining ViiV
My take on it is that Viiv is the specification for how to build a digital entertainment computer, which is pretty much the same as any other modern computer, but with enhanced graphics and sound, but for which vendors can't charge much. This is because it is to be sold as an alternative to what used to be called brown goods, serving as a combination of cassette and record player, video tape recorder, DVD player and set-top box.
http://www.informationweek.com/hardware/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=175802185

Google to launch video-streaming -- Jan. 7, 2006
Google Inc. is opening the Google Video Store, enabling consumers to buy and rent a wide range of video content from a major television network, a professional sports league, cable programmers, independent producers and film makers.

The collection of videos will include prime-time and classic hits from CBS, a full slate of NBA games from this season and outstanding performances from the past, music videos from SONY BMG, Charlie Rose interviews as well as news and historical content from ITN and new titles being added everyday.
http://www.geekzone.co.nz/content.asp?contentid=5703

Yahoo video-streaming
This software will allow viewers to use a TV set, not merely a computer screen, to see any of Yahoo's offerings of video content - from music videos to original news reports - and the more than one million video clips in its video search service. It will offer a program guide, similar to those offered on digital cable services, but Yahoo's version will include viewers' ratings of shows
Google announced Thursday that Motorola would start to make several wireless telephone models with dedicated buttons that will link to a version of Google's Web site formatted for cellphones, said Nikesh Arora, Google's vice president for European operations.  
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/01/06/business/google.php

Windows IPTV
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/forpros/IPTV.aspx

Home automation ... Digital home
Intel is working with manufacturers such as MovieLink, Adobe Systems Inc., Napster and TiVo, to develop Viiv-verified applications and services compatible with the system. Channel partners will be integral in delivering custom configured packages of services and components, Intel executives said.
The technology presents a new opportunity for VARs now doing integration work in the corporate and government space. Intel is calling on its VARs and integrators to drive adoption of the technology, the company said.
Ace Computers, Inc., Arlington Heights, Ill, a custom system builder that outfits storage systems for the Department of Defense, has built a line of media center computers based on Viiv and launched a home division, Ace Digital Home, to capitalize on the opportunity
http://www.thechannelinsider.com/article2/0,1895,1908445,00.asp

Napa Yonah
http://www.thechannelinsider.com/article2/0,1895,1901748,00.asp

CBS Video-streaming
Since Kramer, the founder of financial news site MarketWatch.com, came on board as president, CBS News has rebuilt its Web site into a 24-hour news operation, with original video and reporting not found on its TV news programs. The company is now streaming news and entertainment video to mobile phones. It will stream NCAA basketball games on the Web this spring. And it's experimenting with putting episodes of prime-time TV sitcoms on sites such as Google Video and Yahoo
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/business/13568968.htm

WiFi - PDA .. Message Board regarding inquiries
http://reviews.cnet.com/5208-6140_7-0.html?forumID=57&tag=cd.fp&messageID=1603576&threadID=143071

High Definition VIDEO
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/content_provider/film/HDVideo.aspx

International CES Consumer Electronics Show
Consumer Electronics Assoc. CEA -- Jan. 7, 2006
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/3571457.html

Astro Interactive TV launched in Malaysia -- Nov. 21, 2005
Astro subscribers in Malaysia can soon shop for and have merchandise delivered to them in the comfort of their own homes via the use of their chip-based credit cards under the TV-commerce option of their Astro decoders.
The satellite TV operator and Visa International Asia Pacific are believed to be in the midst of finalising the service to launch the hassle-free and secured-payment shopping option in the near term.
The TV commerce options, including the home shopping feature, will soon follow the world’s first-of-its-kind interactive TV shopping coupons that were launched on Nov 18 by Astro, Visa and Public Bank.

Visa country manager for Malaysia Jeffrey Perera said TV commerce was the second phase of interactive TV in Malaysia as it would allow viewers to make purchases using Visa credit cards on a secured payment system

The Astro decoder is equipped with a second smart card reader slot, into which the credit card could be inserted to undertake the TV commerce transaction
http://www.theedgedaily.com/cms/content.jsp?id=com.tms.cms.article.Article_b06b74e4-cb73c03a-df4bfc00-b43b3daa


More Banks to follow TV Commerce --Nov. 18, 2005
Astro chief operating officer David Butorac said Astro was the first with a digital TV platform in the world to launch Interactive TV-Coupons.
He said by leveraging on Astro’s multimedia platform, participating merchants offering TV-Coupons were able to influence the purchasing decision of over 1.7 million Astro households with significant purchasing clout.
Speaking to reporters after the launch in Kuala Lumpur on Nov 18, Butorac said the Interactive TV-Coupons tie-up was now exclusive to Public Bank and Visa but would rope in more banks at a later stage. http://www.theedgedaily.com/cms/content.jsp?id=com.tms.cms.article.Article_a308fada-cb73c03a-df4bfc00-385bb022

Astro and Sun TV of India seek global programming
Sun TV is the flagship channel of Sun Network, which owns a bouquet of 12 satellite and cable entertainment channels in various Indian languages. Its content reaches more than 100 million Indian-speaking viewers, covering Asia, North America, Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand.
http://www.theedgedaily.com/cms/content.jsp?id=com.tms.cms.article.Article_f4ca0e55-cb73c03a-10980e70-a86c605d

Celestial Pictures ( Astro ) and the Chinese media
http://www.theedgedaily.com/cms/content.jsp?id=com.tms.cms.article.Article_cc48f781-cb73c03a-511e0a00-c64d4740

iTV.....Interactive TV
One day the television, computer and telephone may converge for video, data and voice services on an Internet that's everywhere.How well do we balance excitement for iTV with due wariness of vaporware? Deep literacy mandates understanding interactive media trends and issue, so we can help shape the future we are creating together. -- Ken Freed
http://www.media-visions.com/itv.html

It is interesting to note that CNN has a "first, second,and third watch", trying to sound a lot like Luke 12:38.

CELLPHONE COMMERCE

Interactive shopping by cellphone -- Jan. 4, 2006
" This will start to show up on the radar screen in 2006," said Roger Entner, an analyst with Ovum, a technology consulting firm in London. "The more different pieces we add to these Swiss Army phones, the easier it is to get user acceptance for the next application. And especially around next Christmas, the convenience of shopping on a computer or a cellphone will beat the mall hands down
"190 million people in the United States have a cellphone, and at least 150 million of those have a color screen"

Ed: "the prince of the power of the air " Ephesians 2:2
" ring tones, video clips, games and other services - to say nothing of the money they are paying phone companies for the extra air time required to use them

In South Korea and Japan, where advanced phones took off earlier, many consumers already are shopping regularly on their phones. In Japan, mobile shopping was spurred on by an electronic payment system developed by Sony and NTT DoCoMo, the country's leading mobile phone provider

EBay, which like Amazon.com offered U.S. users years ago a way to shop its site on cellphones, planned to introduce to Verizon users this month a new version of mobile phone technology that would allow subscribers, for $4 a month, to browse the site, bid on items and receive alerts whenever they have been outbid
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/01/03/business/ecom.php

SIM -- Subscriber Identity Module
Interactive Finance on Cellphones -- Dec. 21, 2005
The subscriber identity module - the tiny, removable computer chip in plastic that the world's billion and a half GSM phones use to store user and account information - is taking on new importance as the mobile phone becomes more versatile
In South Korea and Japan, carriers are putting advanced payment functions right on the SIM.

In Europe, Orange is testing a SIM with 128 megabytes of memory - 1,000 times as much as the 128-kilobyte cards currently in use - to hold music and other digital files.  
And in Italy, Telecom Italia has developed a SIM card for secure payment that can also remotely control television set-top boxes and other electronic devices. Developed in Telecom Italia's laboratories and to be produced by a yet-to-be-chosen manufacturer, the card is expected to be in use by the end of 2006, according to Massimo Castelli, the company's chief operating officer.  
Ed : Next step : a wave of the right hand [ or forehead] with a verichip ID embedded ?
With this chip - what Telecom Italia is calling the Z-SIM - the cellphone essentially becomes a smart card with a contactless chip, which needs only to be waved near a machine to be read. Contactless chips, with as little as 16 kilobytes of memory, are already used in passports and have become common replacements for tickets on urban transportation systems around the world

Using the SIM for payments is of great interest because it is a smart card recognized by banks as a safe mode of payment," said Philippe Vallé, president of the telecommunications unit at Gemplus, the world's largest maker of smart cards. "The SIM card has been designed with the security issue in mind, while the phone itself cannot give the same security

Though South Korean carriers have a head start in some of the newer functions being put directly on the SIM, France, Italy and other West European countries already have some advanced functions on the SIM, as do operators in Brazil and Mexico, Vallé said. Nokia this year released a phone that has a slot for a second card that can make payments, including at vending machines
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/12/19/business/wireless20.php

Interactive Voting
More recently, Diebold has faced technical questions. The company’s machines were blamed for voting disruptions in a 2004 California primary. During a test on Diebold equipment in Florida, a security researcher showed how vote results could be changed
http://www.seacoastonline.com/news/12182005/business/78673.htm

Salvation www.cybertime.net/~ajgood/sal.htm

Bible www.blueletterbible.org