Each year on the evening of December 31st an estimated one million people from around the world flock to New York City’s Times Square to cheer in unison as the final 10 seconds of the year are counted down and the iconic glowing ball is lowered down a 130-foot pole from atop 1 Times Square. BGR recently attended the Philips Ball Test, during which the city does a dry run of the ceremonies that will take place seconds before midnight on New Year’s Eve. We had a chance to sit down with Jeff Straus, the president of Countdown Entertainment and one of the producers who has overseen the event for the past 17 years, and Ed Crawford, the CEO of Philips Lighting, which provides the bulbs for the New Year’s Eve ball. We also had a chance to walk up and see the ball in person, and learn about how the whole process works from the beginning down to the second when a switch is flipped and the ball begins its descent.

Why does the ball drop in Times Square?

Jeff Straus is an expert when it comes to all things surrounding the New Year’s Eve ball, and it was immediately apparent how passionate he is about the topic we were discussing. New York City has been celebrating New Year’s Eve in Times Square since 1904, Straus explained during an interview in his office. It all started when The New York Times held a celebration for the official opening of its brand new Manhattan headquarters.

“Previously the celebration was held down at Trinity Church,” Straus explained. “And they would be very raucous and the church elders were really very happy to have the celebration moved uptown. People would throw bricks in the air and they would hit people in the head. It was a crazy celebration.”

So why was it moved to, what was formerly known as, the Times Building? “It was the second tallest building from ground level up at the time and the New York Times could get their papers in and out to their readership downtown,” Straus said. “So they had this corporate promotion to announce that they were here in the new Times Square. For several years they would launch fireworks from the top of the building, and the hot ashes would rain down on people’s heads,” he added, noting the city’s decision to switch to the maritime tradition of lowering a ball. “They matched it with the latest technology, electricity, with a lighted time ball that would be lowered at midnight,” Straus added. “This being the tallest building in the area, it attracted hundreds of thousands of people to Times Square. That tradition has gone on for 107 years and there are only two years when the ball didn’t drop, ’42 and ’43 during the dim-out.”

The first ball was tiny — just 6 feet in diameter — and made of iron. It was covered in 100 25-watt incandescent light bulbs and weighed 700 pounds. In the 1920s, a new ball was made out of iron and wood and, in the 1950s, yet another one was created out of aluminum and covered with 180 incandescent light bulbs. In the 1980s New York swapped the white lights for red bulbs, put a stem on it and called it “The Apple.”

Then, in 1995, the city of New York City ditched the old pulley and stopwatch system, which was controlled by hand, and began upgrading the system’s technology as well as the entire operation behind it. “We added GPS, computer controls and an atomic clock,” Straus said, smiling. “We have a GPS locating device up there, it’s all synced with computer programming down to the second. It’s amazing.”

Then, in 1999 to mark the change of the millennium, Waterford and Philips stepped in and created the first crystal ball with halogen lights. That was yet again upgraded in 2007 to a ball with LED lights that offered double the brightness of the halogen ball before it. “The very next year we build this big ball we have today,” Straus noted. “It’s 11,875 pounds, it has 32,256 Philips Luxcon LED lights and 2,668 Waterford crystal triangles. So we made this huge change from incandescent, to halogen, to LED to really show the future of lighting changes. It’s the largest crystal ball in the world.”

New York City doesn’t just use the ball on New Year’s Eve, either. It’s decorated for several holidays throughout the year, including Christmas Eve, Earth Day, Father’s Day and Valentines Day. “For mother’s day I put ‘I ♥ Mom on it,’” Straus said laughing. “What’s even more fun is since the ball is something we all grow up with, the ball now Tweets,” Straus said, reminiscing about the history of the ball and detailing its fictional “mother and father.” The father is a medicine ball and the mother is a globe, according to the joke. Straus then took us up to get an up-close look at the ball and get a few shots of what it’s like on top of Times Square.

Visiting the Ball

I felt like I was entering a secret back entrance on my way up to see the ball. In fact, the elevator up to it is in public view inside a Walgreens at 1 Times Square. After a quick trip to the 21st floor where I could see out over the whole of Times Square from Straus’s offices, I had to walk just three and a half more flights to get outside to where the ball is. Then, right in front of me, it sat there glowing.

Straus and Crawford were kind enough to raise and lower the ball several times so that we could grab photos of the entire process. If you’ve never seen it up close, the two men simply count down and then flick a giant Philips light switch, and the ball begins to drop. But there’s much more behind the scenes than what you might see on television. In fact, there’s a whole crew at the bottom of the ball, outside, making sure everything goes smoothly.

“We actually have five guys now. We lost the stopwatch guy, but we still need the guys to handle all of the cabling,” Straus explained. “The ball goes up and with it the same kind of robotic cabling that you see in automobile factories. It’s for the computer controls, but they have to, by hand, manually make sure it doesn’t get tied up, or cinched, or clinched, so they’re there to make sure it goes smoothly.”

Under the ball, back inside 1 Times Square, there’s also a computer control room. We had a chance to peek inside — it’s especially busy this time of year — and saw a number of Toshiba laptops, servers and more. “There’s a gentleman there that actually sits in front of a computer screen and he can program the ball just like you’d program anything,” Strauss explained. “You’ve got 16 billion colors, billions of patterns, it’s a whole system. We used to have a big lighting board, now we do everything on a laptop.”

Philips’s lighting technology inside the ball

“Philips has been involved with the ball for 12 years,” Phillips Lighting CEO Ed Crawford said. “We first got involved with the ball in 1999 for the millennium drop. At that time, the Times Square Alliance wanted to create something spectacular for 1999 to 2000. At the time halogen was the latest lighting technology. The ball you see today is revolutionary. Each LED is individually programmed and the Waterford crystal is a shell that creates the sparkle and special effect. LED’s can do things that were impossible before and are more energy efficient.”

Crawford also explained that his team worked closely with Countdown Entertainment, the group in charge of the whole event, as well as outside vendors to create the ball. But what makes the LEDs inside the New Year’s Eve ball different from the ones consumers see every day?

“In some ways the LEDs are the same, but I wouldn’t compare them to Christmas tree lights,” Crawford explained. “There’s really two levels of LEDs. There are LEDs in Christmas tree lights and in the dashboard of your car and things like that. Those are what we call low-power LEDs. In the Times Square ball, there are high-power factor Philips Luxcon LEDs that are extremely bright and extremely energy efficient.”

The CEO continued, “From a consumer standpoint, consumers have gotten used to the idea that wattage equates to light. Wattage has nothing to do with light. So a 60-watt light bulb means it uses 60 watts of energy. It doesn’t generate 60 watts of light. This light bulb in my hand generates 850 lumens, which is the measure of light and the same amount of a 60 watt standard incandescent bulb, but it only uses 12 watts to do it.”

Until next year

I have to admit, I’m slightly afraid of heights so standing under the ball on the roof was a bit daunting and I was happy to get back inside the building. Still, I’ve watched the ball drop on New Year’s Eve every year of my life and it was surprisingly heartwarming to be so close to it. Even with my fear of heights, I would visit this facility again in a second.

On the way down, I stopped on the 5th floor of 1 Times Square, where a dozen or so workers were busy blowing up more than 25,000 balloons that will be distributed on Saturday night.

Whether you’ll be down in the crowd or watching on your TV, in the viewer below or on an iPhone or Android handset, we hope you’ll enjoy seeing the ball drop even more now that you know a bit more about the process, the operation and the great people who work hard all year long to make sure it all goes off without a hitch.

We also hope you all have a happy new year.

Personal fitness GPS products could be a possible growth market for struggling PND companies. A new report from ABI Research is forecasting that the personal fitness GPS market could soon surpass 10 million units. Products such as the Garmin Forerunner 610 have helped its Outdoor and Fitness division deliver 27% of the company’s operating income last year, ABI said, and that growth continued into 2011 when the company recorded a 25% increase in fitness sales during the second quarter. “Garmin remains by far the dominant player in this expanding market, with over 90% of the market share, but it will face some new emerging competition,” telematics and navigation senior analyst Patrick Connolly said. The industry growth has been spurred by other companies too, including Citizen, Casio and Polar, among others. “There has also been a dearth of health/fitness devices launched on the market in 1H11, from companies such as Basis, Fitbit, Jawbone, Bodymedia, Philips and Hitachi,” said ABI Telematics and navigation practice director Dominique Bonte “Many have indicated that GPS is part of their future plans.” Mobile devices have also helped drive sales of personal fitness GPS applications, and ABI Research noted the success of Nike, Runkeeper and MapMyRun. Read on for the full press release.

Garmin, Citizen, and Casio Have Their Sights Set On the 10 Million Unit Fitness GPS Market

The Launch of Nike/TomTom’s GPS fitness watch has given the market the shot in the arm it needed, with new devices, applications, and companies helping to drive forecasts for fitness GPS shipments beyond the 10 million mark.

Garmin has responded to the challenge positively with the latest edition of its Forerunner series, the 610, a watch featuring slim line ergonomics and responsive touch user interface. Garmin’s Outdoor and Fitness division delivered 27% of the company’s total operating income for 2010, and saw a 25% increase in fitness sales for 2Q11. Telematics and navigation senior analyst Patrick Connolly said, “Garmin remains by far the dominant player in this expanding market, with over 90% of the market share, but it will face some new emerging competition.”

Polar, Citizen, and Casio have also made announcements around new GPS fitness devices. Polar launched its RCX5 training computer, which features a GPS accessory. Citizen has also taken steps to integrate GPS into its watches with the Appleseed. Although the watch has no clear fitness application and clocks in at over $4000, the GPS technology is expected to filter into future watch lines. Additionally, Casio announced its prototype watch that features Bluetooth 4.0 for smartphone synching. It has stated that it plans to incorporate public transport and fitness functionality via GPS in the near future.

Fitness remains a key segment at the major application stores. Companies like Runkeeper, Nike, and MapMyRun continue to attract new users and investigate new business models. Telematics and navigation practice director Dominique Bonte said, “There has also been a dearth of health/fitness devices launched on the market in 1H11, from companies such as Basis, Fitbit, Jawbone, Bodymedia, Philips and Hitachi. Many have indicated that GPS is part of their future plans.”

ABI Research’s study, “Recreational, Outdoor, and Fitness GPS Solutions,” compares the hardware and mobile application revenue for key GPS sports, outdoor, and fitness markets, illustrating how these will evolve together.

It is part of the firm’s Location Platforms and Enablers Research Service which also includes other Research Reports, Surveys, Market Data products, ABI Insights, ABI Vendor Matrices, and analyst inquiry support.

In the future, the cost of your next smartphone might decrease by a few pennies thanks to a new lawsuit brought on by Nokia against some of the world’s largest LCD manufactures. Filed simultaneously in both the United States and the England on November 25th, Nokia is alleging that AU Optronics, Hitachi, LG, Philips, Samsung, Seiko Epson, Sharp, Toshiba and others willingly conspired to “artificially inflated the price of liquid crystal displays ultimately incorporated into LCD products purchased by Nokia, causing Nokia to pay higher prices.” Earlier this year, AT&T started a similar lawsuit after LG, Chunghwa Picture Tubes and Sharp pled guilty to price fixing which eventually caused Hitatchi to come clean. Of course with Nokia’s financial situation being what it is, any savings brought on by a successful lawsuit could just as easily — and most likely — be contributed towards the companies profit margins. So far Nokia has yet to go on the record regarding the remedies it is seeking, but we imagine the information will become clear soon enough.Read

Philips makes cell phones? Sure the manufacturer is all but forgotten here in the US where handsets are concerned, but that apparently won’t stop it from churning out Sony Ericsson-like handsets such as the K700 for other markets. Truth be told, at the right carrier-subsidized price the K700 would likely fair pretty well here in the States. Purported specs:

• 2.8-inch touchscreen TFT-LCD, 262,000 colors, 400 x 240 pixels
• GSM/GPRS/EDGE 900/1800/1900 MHz

• Supported file formats RMBV, AVI, FLV, Divx, MP3, WMA, AC, FLAC, APE
• Dedicated GPU / stereo
• 3.2 megapixel camera with auto-focus and video recording
• Up to 4 hours of video playback / Up to 25 hours of music playback in CD-quality
• 48 MB of internal memory, support for MicroSD memory cards up to 8GB
• Bluetooth 2.0 / USB 2.0 / FM-radio with RDS / jack 3.5 mm
• Battery: 1000mA / h lithium-ion
• Dimensions: 101 x 52 x 13 mm
• Weight: 97 g
• Standby time – up to 1 month, talk time – up to 8.5 hours

Not too shabby, really. No word yet on a release date, pricing or target markets but we have a feeling you’ll be hard-pressed to locate one of these puppies on North American soil any time soon. Hit the jump for another pair of renders.

Thanks, Vlad!

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Some things in life just can’t be explained. Bush’s presidency… Ryan Seacrest’s popularity… And the Philips X800. Sure it’s an iPhone designer impostor but plenty of manufacturers are going that route. The spec read out on this puppy is what confounds the mind and warrants a viciously loud “WTF!?”

• General: 2G Network GSM 900 / 1800 / 1900
• Display: Type TFT touchscreen, 256K colors
• Size: 240 x 400 pixels (Wide QVGA), 2.9 inches
• Data: GPRS Class 10 (4+1/3+2 slots), 32 – 48 kbps
• HSCSD: No
• EDGE: No
• 3G: No
• WLAN: No
• Bluetooth: v2.0 with A2DP

Ok, so GSM 850 is missing but we’re used to that. Ok, the touchscreen display is nice and big but only supports 256K colors. All that is WTF-able but it can be worked through. The real marvel here is the connectivity. No WLAN, no 3G and no EDGE! That’s right people, this sweet-looking handset is limited to GPRS Class 10 data with a whopping ~ 48 kbps cap. We also notice that a flash for the camera has been omitted, but perhaps Philips presumed no one would notice thanks to the rest of the specs. Supposedly there is a higher-end Xenium X-Connect model in the works that will resolve many of the connectivity issues facing the X800. If that’s the case, why even bother with this model? The look is high-end but the specs are emerging market; someone might just get fired over this.

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