An insight in to Japanese consumer electronics market

Over the past few years, the global consumer electronics industry has witnessed a phenomenal growth. It can be attributed to the increasing effect of state of the art electronic devices in the market. The Asia Pacific region is the market leader in consumer electronics and more of this credit goes to the Japanese companies, which are known worldwide for their innovations and quality. The world famous brands like Sony, Panasonic and Matsushita are owned by the Japanese companies.

The total revenue generated by the consumer electronics market consists the sale of audio, video, and games console products. The video section consists of camcorders, digital cameras, CRT and flat-panel television sets, videocassette and DVD players and recorders, and set-top boxes. The audio section includes MP3 recorders and players, personal stereos, radios, hi-fi systems, cassettes, CDs, and minidisc. Gaming consoles includes all hand-held and plug-in consoles.

In a survey, condusted by the Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC), the consumer electronics market is estimated to grow to 11 trillion yen by 2010. It is more than quadruple the value of 2004. One of the main highlights of this survey is an emphasis on the convergence of communication and entertainment electronics. This trend is already spreading rapidly, the government views this as a major shift in the consumer electronics industry.

The MIC defines the consumer electronics market to include the following areas:

• Appliance market

  • Digital consumer electronics like TV, washing machine, PC, modems, etc.

• Service content market

  • Content like entertainment information on movies, drama, etc.

  • Services like distance learning (tele-education), security services, etc.

• Network platform market

  • Networks, including ADSL, cable Internet, fiber-optic cables, etc.

Future Prospects

The consumer electronics industry is expecting the integration of entertainment and communication electronics in coming years. The companies aim at providing advanced services to help consumers achieve more convenience in their daily activities. It can be achieved by offering networking consumer electronics in the home market.

The home security systems is expected to enter in the consumer electronics market. It can help monitor fires or break-ins and report them to nearby fire stations. Consumers could be able to control appliances in home from their personal digital assistant (PDA) or mobile phones. While departing the home, you can turn on the security system while turning off all consumer electronics. On the way back to home from work, a person would be able to start a bath or begin warming up the house.

World record downloading for firefox 3.0

Within the first day of the release of Mozilla Firefox 3.0 , an unique world record was created. A record breaking 8,002,530 downloads took place for web browser Firefox 3.0. Mozilla officially made history with a new Guinness world record for the largest number of software downloads in a 24-hour period.

According to the Marketing head Paul Kim, "The enthusiasm and creativity of Firefox fans was key to making this happen". He told the BBC News: "The notion of going for a world record, as gooky and nutty as it may have sounded, was a really sticky idea. It was an idea that translated really well across national borders and to all different kinds of people around the world." It was called an extremely impressive accomplishment by Gareth Deaves of Guinness World Records.

Some security firms claimed to found flaws in the software on the very first day of its release. Within few hours of Firefox 3.0 debut, DV Labs/Tipping Point reported a flaw that potentially let an attacker take over a personal computer if a user clicked on a booby-trapped link. Mr Kim told the BBC News: "Firefox users are safe. We have a patch in the works and hope to release it very soon."

It seems happy timing for the Firefox as its market share reached to more than 19%, second best to Microsoft's Internet Explorer. According to the statistics firm Net Applications, a substantial part of the gain came from rival IE and predicted that it would break the 20% share bar very soon. Mr Kim said: "We offer the best browsing experience and this shows people are getting the message and voting with their browser choice."

World of Insecure browsing

If you are surfing the web through a browser that isn't up to date then you fall under the pool of those 40% internet surfers who are more prone to malicious attack. Almost 59% people use the latest version of their internet browsers and they are safer compared to the above mentioned 40%. The numbers are disturbingly high for anyone working in IT security.

These figures are revealed as the result of a comprehensive study conducted by researchers at The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Google and IBM Internet Security Services. The researchers performed their analysis using Google's database of user information. The data between January 2007 and June 2008 was gathered for the analysis.


It was found during the research that although software vendors provide patches for security problems, users take days, weeks or months for updating their applications. However it was concluded that it's not solely the fault of users since the vendors haven't exactly made patching easy. Mozilla's Firefox was declared the best due to its auto-update feature, which tells users about the availability of a new patch and offers a one-click way to upgrade. According to the study, most Firefox users are up to date within three days. The updating features and installation wasn't found quick and easy for other browsers, such as Opera and Safari.


Who stays where?
IE7 is the oldest browser taken in the study but only 52.5 percent of the users surfing the web with Internet Explorer were using IE7. In spite of Microsoft's repeated and emphatic pleas to upgrade, 47.5 % IE users were still presumably using IE6. Firefox users were considered the best in upgrading, with 92.2 percent of Firefox users now using version 2 (Firefox 3.0 was not taken into account since the data gathered was between January 2007 and June 2008). 90.1 % of Opera users were using Opera 9 while 70.2 % of all Safari users currently running Safari 3.


Threats and recommendations
Web browsers are considered a weak link in the IT security chain. It becomes easy for hackers to gain control of a personal computer due to the software vulnerabilities. In the cases of hacking, hackers can perform malicious acts such as stealing personal data or turning PCs into spam-spewing drones.


The group suggested that auto-updates are a very good thing, and recommended that the feature be included in all browsers. The study recommended that corporate businesses should adopt URL Filters, or filters designed to prevent company employees from even touching websites carrying malicious content. One interesting recommendation is that the software industry follow the same type of labeling system as used by the food industry. If adopted, web browsers would be dated with a "Best before" label, and would automatically flag the user when the browser "expired."

Chart Source: SFIT