Tt's not that Blu-ray isn't finally racing along…it's more the danger than digital download is sprinting faster and threatens to permanently overtake Blu-ray any time soon.

Now digital distribution platforms for in-home entertainment (including video-on-demand) have outpaced Blu-ray Disc in US consumer spending during the first half of 2010, passing the $1 billion mark for the first time, according to new figures released by DEG.

Electronic sell-through increased 37% year-over-year to $285 million between January and June, as video-on-demand (VOD) rose 19% to $865 million, for a combined growth of 23% to $1.1 billion.

Sales and rentals of Blu-ray discs, reached a combined total of $982 million for the 6-month period. Blu-ray sell-through increased 84% year-over-year to $733 million during the half.

Blu-ray disc shipments topped 77 million units in the first half of 2010, nearly double the number of the comparable period in 2009, according to figures compiled by Swicker & Associates on behalf of the DEG. Household penetration of all Blu-ray compatible devices, including set-top players, PC drives and PlayStation 3 consoles, now reaches 19.4 million U.S. homes.

Overall consumer spending for the first half of 2010 in the home entertainment window for pre-recorded entertainment — which includes DVD, Blu-ray Disc and digital distribution — reached $8.8 billion, off 3% compared to the same period in 2009. Yet consumer transactions for home entertainment products were up 2% for the first half of the year, DEG says.

Packaged media sell-through, which includes DVD and Blu-ray Disc, declined 7% year-over-year during the half. But the rate of decline slowed to 3% during the second quarter.

Rental spending in USA was down nearly 5% to about $3 billion between January and June, says DEG (citing Rentrak Corp.'s Home Video Essentials). The trade group faults Movie Gallery store closures for the decline, noting that kiosk revenues increased 55% during the 6-month period.

Go DEG

The internet is in the running for this year's Nobel Peace Prize.

You may think this is very Scandinavian concept because this week Finland residents will have the right by law to access a broadband connection at a mandated speed (at least 1 Mbps, with a goal of 100 Mbps by 2015.)

Yet the Nobel nomination actually follows a campaign by the Italian edition of Wired magazine.

Following the Dynamite-inventor’s will, Alfred Nobel's Peace Prize is to go to whoever "shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses."

Riccardo Luna, Wired Italy's editor in chief, says (quoting Tim Berners Lee, the biological father of the internet): "Internet is not a network of computers anymore, but a network of people."

Luna adds: "It is the greatest social interface humanity has ever had. It is a weapon of mass construction. As we have put out in the official manifesto of the campaign, 'digital culture is promoting a new kind of society through communication and education'. And communication and education are the roots of a peaceful world."

TIME Magazine has its famous MAN OF THE YEAR award. In 2007, the cover showed the Award winner as a computer with a mirror for a screen and the text “You. You control the Information Age.”

I think that qualifies us to claim (if we win the Nobel in October) that we are multiple award winners.

The prize money shoud be about $1.4 million. If they give to us internet people, by my calculation, you’ll get your check for $0.00025.

These days, thanks to internet making it so easy to share what’s on your mind, you can’t even get a full penny for your thoughts.

Go Internet for Peace Prize

Direct Connection Easier for WiFi Devices

The Wi-Fi Alliance completes a new spec to enable wi-fi devices to connect to one another without joining a traditional network (home, office, or hotspot).

The Wi-Fi Direct spec can be implemented in any wi-fi to make a 1-to-1 connection or 1-to-many. The Wi-Fi Alliance will begin certification in mid-2010 and certified products will be designated Wi-Fi CERTIFIED Wi-Fi Direct.

Go Wi-Fi

The w3C (World Wide Web Consortium) has spoken: their new Pronunciation Lexicon Spec will create a “100% standard” for speech-enabled web applications. Besides creating Web apps driven by voice, PLS 1.0 provides web access for mobile phones.

"There are 10X as many phones in the world as connected PCs. Phones will become the major portal to the Web,” says James Larson, co-Chair of the Voice Browser Working Group. “Speech recognition is not yet widely associated with the ‘visual Web’. But this will change as devices continue to shrink and make keyboards impractical, and as cell phones become more prevalent in regions with low literacy rates."

Go W3C