Sony and Panasonic are reportedly in early talks to jointly develop and/or produce OLED TV sets, according to people familiar with the matter.
“The talks are still in the preliminary stages, and there is a chance that discussions might not reach a conclusion or that other potential partners might join the alliance,” reports the Wall Street Journal.
“OLED is considered a promising technology for next-generation television sets because it doesn’t require a backlight, making it thinner than existing liquid-crystal or plasma displays,” explains WSJ. “In the future, the technology is expected to enable curved or flexible screens.”
While OLED technology is making its way into the smaller screens of smartphones and tablets, it remains an expensive proposition for TV manufacturing.
“An alliance between Sony and Panasonic, the first of its kind between the two companies, would mark a watershed moment in the Japanese consumer-electronics industry as companies face difficult market conditions and shifting industry dynamics,” suggests the article.
Both Samsung and LG are planning to launch 55-inch OLED models this year, expected to be priced in the $8,000 range.
Netflix claims that approximately one-third of its new subscribers are actually former customers who are now returning to the service, after leaving last year in the wake of the price increases.
According to David Wells, Netflix’s chief financial officer, speaking at the J.P. Morgan Technology Media and Telecom conference: “…we’ve said before that the brand hit will take years to recover from and I think that’s still true, with the bulk of the recovery coming in the full year and I think we still feel that way.”
The company is approaching the first anniversary of its price increases, which were initially met with public and media criticism.
“In addition, Wells said Netflix is merchandising better and aiming to burn off ‘the negative PR swirl around the brand,'” reports CNET. “Wells added that he expects the public relations hit will ‘dissipate over time.'”
“Netflix compares the address and credit card data to match up new customers with former subscribers,” explains the post. “Netflix keeps old customer data for about a year.”
Wired reports that we’ll finally see some flexible displays produced this year, but warns we should curb our enthusiasm since production will be limited, early displays will not be as “bendy” as the technology aspires to be, and “they won’t appear in Apple hardware as some news outlets have recently speculated.”
Samsung, for example, has announced it will mass produce flexible OLED displays and has already been receiving orders. Samsung’s display is thin but rugged, and is basically unbreakable since it uses a plastic called polyamide rather than glass.
The article suggests we should expect to see gently curved screens in the future and bendable phones or tablets enabled by the technology. “But that’s probably not on the horizon — especially Apple’s horizon — anytime soon,” comments Wired.
“It’s completely impossible to see any Apple product with flexible AMOLED this year,” suggests Jennifer Colegrove, NPD DisplaySearch’s vice president of emerging display technology. “However, I do believe Apple display engineers are constantly looking into new technology to put into their products, and OLED is one of the technologies they are looking at.”
Apple is more concerned about functionality than making something curvy for the sake of being interesting. Colgrove doesn’t anticipate a flexible display in Apple products until at least the 2013-2014 time frame, “with truly bendy iDevices appearing in 2015 at the earliest,” indicates the article.
Disney Interactive Labs has introduced a new video portal that features clips, trailers and curated YouTube content for viewing online or via mobile devices.
“The new Disney Video site, located at video.disney.com, combines the best of Disney past and present, with a whole lot of content that might not be found anywhere else,” reports TechCrunch.
Last year Disney and YouTube made a deal to cross-promote content, and the YouTube section of the new Disney site is one offshoot of this deal. Disney will host some YouTube content on the new portal while YouTube will receive some Disney original kids programming.
The portal is organized by sections: “In the movies section, Disney Video features trailers, as well as behind-the-scenes footage and interviews with stars of upcoming and recent feature films like ‘Frankenweenie’ and ‘The Avengers.’ Its shows page puts the spotlight on popular clips from the Disney Channel and related cable networks. Collections organizes its video library into themes, like Disney Fairies, for instance, or content available from Disney Theme Parks,” explains the post.
Disney’s video content is formatted to work both on Web browsers (via Flash) and on mobile devices including iPhone, iPad, and Android devices. The company hopes this will help increase traffic as younger consumers continue to use more mobile devices.
Apple still doesn’t pay for product placement in entertainment media, yet its products appeared in more than 40 percent of last year’s top movies.
According to Brandchannel, that percentage represents almost twice the penetration of Dell, Chevrolet, and Ford — the brands most commonly used in Hollywood content.
“Apple has spent decades strengthening its subtle but powerful grip over Hollywood, and unlike many companies, says it never pays for its products to appear on television or in movies,” reports Businessweek. “The company’s gadgets were discussed or shown 891 times on TV in 2011, up from 613 in 2009, according to researcher Nielsen.”
Dominance in this arena comes at a transitional period for traditional marketing as consumers increasingly skip ads via their DVRs and are influenced more by social media.
Apple has proven successful in media content where devices are treated as objects of devotion or a certain hipness factor is required. “Producers and executives may make plot changes or write entire episodes merely because they love a brand or in exchange for freebies,” explains the article.
“Apple won’t pay to have their products featured, but they are more than willing to hand out an endless amount of computers, iPads, and iPhones,” says producer Gavin Polone. “It’s kind of a graft situation.”
Despite availability of pirated versions online, “The Avengers” had a record-breaking opening weekend at the U.S. box office.
About a week before the premiere, a camcorder version of the film appeared online. According to TorrentFreak, the pirated version was downloaded half a million times, and while that may be a high number for a “cam” movie, “it failed to exceed the download numbers of several other movies that were available in higher quality.”
The film, produced by Marvel and distributed by Disney, earned $200 million its opening weekend. With 20 percent of illegal downloads occurring in the U.S., TorrentFreak argues that if those same 100,000 Americans opted for a theater experience, the resulting box office revenue would only have been 0.5 percent higher (and there’s no way to determine whether or not the pirated version kept any of those viewers out of theaters).
“We don’t think that there are many movie fans who see a low quality camcorded version of a movie as a true alternative to watching a film in a movie theater,” comments TorrentFreak. “The two are totally different experiences, and not direct competition at all.”
“If anything, downloading a camcorded movie could be compared to downloading a low quality bootleg of a concert. People who download these are collectors, passionate fans, or just curious. But in no way do these bootlegs seriously hurt concert attendances,” adds the article.
TorrentFreak agrees that higher quality pirated copies may directly compete with international theatrical releases, DVD-aftermarket and VOD sales, but suggests that “in no way are camcorded copies killing the U.S. movie industry.”
Facebook launches its long-awaited initial public offering today, expected to be the biggest IPO for a U.S. tech firm.
Today’s offering will also mark history’s second largest for any industry: Visa’s 2008 IPO was $17.9 billion at $44 a share.
“While Facebook announced on Thursday that its initial public offering of common stock would be priced at $38 a share, raising $16 billion and valuing the company at $104 billion, the shares available for purchase by the public will likely be priced higher,” reports ABC News. “That’s causing many analysts to caution individual investors not to rush into making any risky investments.”
Some analysts suggest that there are long-term risks in a Facebook investment. Despite its immense user base, the social network will still have to find ways of matching revenue with stock valuation.
There are concerns that going public could potentially ruin Facebook by alienating its user base with changes to its advertising model, especially in the mobile space.
Analysts have also issued warnings to individual investors that institutions and “prestige clients” have already invested in what is viewed as sort of an elite lottery system.
“The elite have a chance to deliberate and evaluate the assets, and then the general public comes in later for the feeding frenzy,” said stock analyst Max Wolff, adding that chasing shares in the open market can be an expensive proposition.
In the wake of Facebook’s acquisition of photo-sharing service Instagram, the social network hired the seven-member team that runs competitor Lightbox on Tuesday.
The Lightbox mobile photo-sharing service plans to shut down as of June 15.
Co-founders Thai Tran and Nilesh Patel posted a farewell to their user community: “We started Lightbox because we were excited about creating new services built primarily for mobile, especially for the Android and HTML5 platforms, and we’re honored that millions of you have downloaded the Lightbox Photos app and shared your experiences with the Lightbox community.”
“Today, we’re happy to announce that the Lightbox team is joining Facebook, where we’ll have the opportunity to build amazing products for Facebook’s 500+ million mobile users,” added Tran and Patel.
The seven-member staff of London-based Lightbox will join Facebook, but the deal is not an acquisition of the company or its user data. “So it’s obviously another step toward figuring out mobile for Facebook,” reports AllThingsD. “The company realizes it needs mobile talent; Facebook acquired mobile discovery start-up Glancee last week, and of course bought Instagram last month for a whopping $1 billion.”
Lightbox has “promised to open source portions of the Lightbox code and post them in a Github repository” reports WebProNews. This will allow for the possibility of a Lightbox clone in the future.
Lilliputian Systems is developing a portable USB fuel cell capable of charging smartphones and other devices without the need for an electrical outlet.
The charger uses fuel cartridges about the size of a box of matches that are expected to cost between $3 to $5 each.
The device, targeted for release before the end of the year, will be in the $100-200 range. According to Lilliputian Systems, the device will be allowed as carry-on for air travel.
“Each fuel cell will be able to charge an iPhone 4 approximately 10 to 14 times over the life of the cartridge,” reports Digital Trends. “This device could be ideal for travelers heading overseas on short vacations as they could avoid having to purchase charging adapters. It would also be helpful for anyone using a power hungry portable gaming device like the PlayStation Vita.”
In preparation for the planned Galaxy S III launch in Europe at the end of May, Samsung has announced a special edition Olympics phone.
“Samsung has partnered with Visa and Lloyds TSB bank in the UK to create the limited edition Galaxy S III, which will come bundled with a special Olympic-themed version of Visa’s payWave wireless payment system, allowing it to make full use of the phone’s NFC chip,” reports Digital Trends.
The Olympic S III will only be available to sponsored athletes, who “will be able to use payWave at various outlets in the Olympic Village, purchase items from around 140,000 stores outfitted with the necessary terminal and even pay for taxis,” explains the post.
“What hasn’t been revealed is whether payWave will appear as an application, or be installed on the SIM card, or how the system will need to be funded,” adds Digital Trends. “As no pictures of the device have been released yet either, we don’t know if it will have a unique color scheme or other Olympic branding to make it standout beside the standard S III.”
The NFC chip will be a standard feature when the new phone ships in the U.S. this summer.
HP is targeting mainstream consumers with its new Envy ultrabooks that feature larger screens and lower price tags.
“The new 14- and 15.6-inch Envy ultrabooks retail at $800 and $750, respectively, which puts them squarely below even the cheapest first-gen ultrabooks,” reports Digital Trends.
“HP’s research shows that 15.6-inch notebooks are the most popular size in the U.S. and Europe, and 14-inch notebooks are the most popular in China, one of HP’s growing markets,” adds the post.
The Envy ultrabooks use Intel Core series processors, but are built on Sandy Bridge hardware, not Ivy Bridge — “one of a few possible concessions to reach these prices.”
Measuring 19.8mm thin and just under 4 pounds, they are not the thinnest or lightest of the ultrabook offerings, which could also have to do with their affordability.
Samsung has revealed the production-ready version of its 55-inch OLED television, the prototype for which initially debuted at CES in January.
At the World’s Fair in Korea, the company demonstrated the ES9500, expected to ship in Korea later this year for more than $9,000.
“Samsung has gone crazy with features that start with the word Smart,” reports Digital Trends. “We’ve got Smart Interaction, Smart Evolution and Smart Content, all of which can be found on other high-end Samsung TVs, and respectively refer to voice and gesture controls, an upgradeable dual-core processor and Samsung’s extensive range of online content and apps.”
“Now we’ve got Smart DualView, which allows two people to watch two different programs on the same screen at the same time, in full high definition too, by using special 3D glasses with wireless headphones attached,” adds the post.
LG also debuted a 55-inch OLED model at CES. Rumors suggest it could be introduced this month in the $8,000 range.
Cult of Mac claims to have a source that has seen the long-rumored Apple high-definition television.
“According to our source, who has asked to remain strictly anonymous, the Apple HDTV looks like Apple’s current lineup of LED-backlit Cinema Displays but is ‘much bigger,'” explains the post. “It has a built-in iSight camera for making free FaceTime video conference calls. And it has Siri, the iPhone 4S’s voice-activated virtual assistant.”
Cult of Mac claims the “well-placed” source has provided strong tips in the past, although not all of them have involved concepts that have gone beyond the prototype stage.
In an update to the post, Paul Gagnon of NPD DisplaySearch guesses that an Apple TV product will ship in 2013.
“He noted that Apple’s Chinese supplier, Foxconn, has invested $1.6 billion in Sharp’s TV unit, which can efficiently make large size panels up to 60-inches,” explains the post, adding that Gagnon expects a conventional introduction. “They will not be anything exotic like OLED or 4K resolution. There will likely be two to four models ranging from 40-inches to 60-inches. They will be standard 1920 x 1080p resolution and cost between $1,000 to $2,000 or slightly higher.”
Kentucky-based Gyroskope has developed a platform for musicians to upload video content including live concerts, recording sessions and behind-the-scenes footage.
“Videos are uploaded to a social platform, and the artists set their own prices for how much they want to charge,” reports Fortune. “The videos, which are streamed from the cloud, can be viewed in a Web browser as well as on iPhones, iPads and Android phones.”
Musicians collect all of the revenue, but pay Gyroskope a monthly fee, “ranging from as low as $19 a month for the ‘indie’ plan to $499 a month for the ‘platinum plan,'” explains the article.
Pricing is determined based on the number of videos and required bandwidth.
The service currently has 24 customers including musicians, festival organizers and comedians, but Gyroskope expects to increase this base when it plugs into Facebook and Twitter this month. It also plans to start streaming live events in real-time later this year.
Lenovo broke ground this week on a new facility in China that will focus on smartphone and tablet PC research and development. The company plans to spend $800 million on the effort.
The company also introduced an Internet-enabled television to the China market. “The TV is the first to run Google’s Android 4.0 and is powered by a dual-core 1.5GHz Qualcomm CPU,” reports eWeek.
Independent software developers have already produced more than 1,000 apps for the smart TV, now available in Lenovo’s Le Store online storefront.
“Lenovo has also teamed with SMG’s BesTV to a create an ISmartv joint venture that already provides viewers with more than 300,000 hours of high-definition video resources, and the Smart TV will come with a ‘Sandwich’ user interface said to integrate ‘touch, voice, air mouse, gravity sensor, smart keyboard and [a] traditional television remote control in a ‘Six in One’ Smart Remote Controller,'” explains the article.
Sony and Panasonic are reportedly in early talks to jointly develop and/or produce OLED TV sets, according to people familiar with the matter.
