Light Reading has projected an increase in Home Gateway over the next 24 months.  The report cited the increase convergence of home appliance and the need for a digital lifestyle.  The increase demand for home gateway is also down to its modern architecture and versatility over the standard home modem.  With more and more new digital home solution and the popularity of VoIP technology is also fuelling the demand for home gateways. The author sees this increase as an opportunity for service providers (SP).

Coming to a shop near you next month are two of the latest in AV home entertainment technology from Pioneer.  These two systems will set the benchmark in high power AV receiver performance.  The SC-LX82 and SC-LX72 AV receivers are design to bring enhanced clarity, detail and dynamic “quick response” from lossless Dolby True-HD and DTS-HD Master Audio soundtracks used in Blu-ray Disc entertainment.  Both SC-LX82 and SC-LX72 AV receivers offer seamless digital audio connectivity to iPhone® and iPod® devices.

Abilis Systems announces the acquisition of Freescale Semiconductor CMOS Modulators and Silicon Tuner product lines.  The acquisition of these assets will allow Abilis to expand its broad portfolio of leading, silicon- based digital TV (DTV) and tuner solutions and better address the needs of the growing digital TV market, and in particular of Digital Terrestrial (DTT) and cable platforms.

Panamax and Furman as announced some new products as a preview to this year’s CEDIA show in Atlanta - 9th to 13th September.  The companies will introduce a new enhancement to its range of UPS battery backup for home theater systems. Named BlueBOLT and is due out Q4 2009.

PacketVideo (PV) announced Last Wednesday that a new version of its award-winning home media server software, TwonkyMedia™ manager v1.2, is now available for download (twonkymedia.com).  Packetvideo said, the latest version incorporates new features and functionality that provide users with more ways than ever to enjoy and share media throughout the connected home. TwonkyMedia manager v1.2 is available for $39.95 and includes installation for up to three different PCs. A 30-day free trial is available to new users and a low-cost upgrade is available for all current TwonkyMedia server owners.

OpenTV will be demonstrating some of its next generation television solutions at this year’s IBC show at the RAI in Amsterdam.  The solutions are designed to allow service providers to cost-effectively deploy advanced television services and enable a next generation digital television experience, the solutions allow operators to provide their subscribers with a unique and robust viewing experience enabling the effective discovery and viewing of the content they want to watch.

OpenTV Corp., a leading software and technology provider of advanced digital television solutions, and Jinni, the developers of a unique personalized discovery engine for premium content, are bringing next generation search and recommendation functionality to the television that will allow viewers to find the content they want quickly and intuitively. The feature is expected to be part of the latest release of OpenTV Core2™ middleware which will be available in the fourth quarter of 2009.

Intellon Corporation has announced that NETGEAR is using its newest HomePlug AV-based INT6400 chipset in its new XAVB1004 Home Theatre Internet Connection Kit.  The kit includes a four-port and a one-port powerline communications adapter.

Entropic Communications, a leading provider of silicon and software solutions to enable connected home entertainment is joining forces with the Intel Digital Home Group at the CableLabs Summer Conference 2009 in Keystone, Colo., to showcase the world's first demonstration of the newly ratified Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) Quality of Service (QoS) 3.0 specification over MoCA on a set-top box (STB) platform. The demonstration utilizes Entropic's EN2510 single-chip, coaxial network controller and RF transceiver, which is based on the MoCA 1.1 standard and the Intel Media Processor CE 3100 system-on-a-chip (SoC) based on the company's popular Intel architecture.

Sigma Designs, a leader in digital media processing system-on-chip (SoC) solutions for consumer electronics, today announced a partnership with 4Home, Inc., a leading provider of home control services, to expand the range of additional services in the home through Sigma’s set-top box (STB) reference designs. As a result of this partnership, Sigma will be able to offer set-top box suppliers an integrated home control solution, based on 4Home’s innovative software platform and the complete Z-Wave ecosystem of RF-based home control devices. The reference design is being unveiled at this year's CableLabs® Summer Conference, August 10 - 11, in Keystone, Colorado.