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OTT Video Views Continue to Increase, Streaming Catches Up to Satellite

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November 29, 2012
  • According to a survey from Accenture, about half of U.S. consumers currently view content via over-the-top devices such as Roku media players and game systems.
  • “Consumers are also viewing content on mobile devices, creating video playlists, posting videos on social media, and learning about new TV programs and video offerings through social networks,” reports MediaPost.
  • The survey notes that 27 percent of consumers subscribe to streaming services such as Netflix, a number which now rivals the 28 percent who have satellite subscriptions.
  • “We are seeing a seismic shift in consumer viewing habits,” notes Robin Murdoch, a managing director with Accenture’s Media & Entertainment industry group. “The connected consumer is now comfortable viewing TV shows and video on a variety of screens, as well as sharing opinions of that content via social channels or recommendation engines.”
  • Not surprisingly, younger viewers are leading the charge with OTT video and discovering new content through social networks rather than commercials or program guides.
  • “Domestically, 82 percent of consumers between the ages of 18 and 24 watch some OTT video, with 60 percent watching at least a quarter of their video over-the-top compared to 32 percent of U.S. consumers overall,” explains the article.
  • “The survey showed that 35 percent of 18-to-24 viewers are interested in social newsfeeds of videos that friends have watched, compared with 11 percent of consumers age 45+.”

New York First to Roll Out SmartScreens in 250 Public Phone Booths

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November 28, 2012
  • Some 250 New York City phone booths will soon feature large interactive touchscreens that provide local information and free Wi-Fi.
  • The first 10 opened around Union Square in Manhattan two days before Thanksgiving. New booths will be installed across New York’s five boroughs during the next few months.
  • “Cisco, which operates the new service in partnership with City24/7, said New York is the first city in the U.S. to have its public phone booths given the makeover, which involves the installation of large 32-inch touchscreens highlighting local news, local deals, entertainment listings and more,” reports Digital Trends.
  • “Information can also be fed from the so-called SmartScreens direct to a user’s smartphone,” notes the post.
  • “The new-look booths are equipped with a number of accessibility features, including screen repositioning for wheelchair accessibility and headphone access for the hearing impaired. Multiple languages are also available, including English, Spanish, Russian and Mandarin Chinese.”
  • Plans are underway to introduce the high-tech booths to additional U.S. cities and several international locations next year.

Will Camera-Outfitted Mannequins in Stores Raise Privacy Concerns?

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November 28, 2012
  • Some high-profile clothing store chains are reportedly using high-tech mannequins outfitted with small cameras to gain a better understanding of shoppers and passers-by.
  • “Benetton, for one, has started installing the EyeSee, created by Italian mannequin manufacturer Almax,” reports Digital Trends. “It’s been on sale for almost a year and is currently being used in stores in the U.S. and Europe. Up to now the technology, which uses face-recognition software, has been used in airports to help identify criminals.”
  • A camera embedded in one eye of the mannequin collects data to identify a shopper’s age, gender and race. Retailers can then use the information to cater store displays and product lines. Almax says one store featured children’s clothing after data indicated that kids comprised more than 50 percent of its visitors.
  • The company is reportedly working on a mannequin outfitted with a microphone to gain additional opinions from shoppers.
  • “Of course, most stores have a good number of security cameras dotted about — cameras which could utilize the same face-recognition technology — but incorporating the tech into mannequins should provide more accurate data as they’re positioned much closer to the passing consumer,” notes the post.
  • “It could really enhance the shopping experience, the product assortment, and help brands better understand their customers,” suggests Uché Okonkwo, executive director of strategy and management consultancy Luxe Corp.

Radical.fm Wants to Become Your All-In-One Streaming Music Service

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November 28, 2012
  • Radical.fm is entering the rapidly evolving music industry with a new business model: “A completely free-to-stream, ad-free, no-strings attached music streaming service that could stir up the digital music market’s dust yet again,” suggests Digital Trends.
  • Already launched in Sweden, Radical.fm bundles music services into a single package — “namely, it gathers your Spotify, Pandora, Slacker Radio, Last.fm, Rdio, and even YouTube accounts.”
  • It currently features a library of 22 million songs. Labels and musicians are paid the same way they are on other streaming services. Outside of Sweden, users only have access to music from indie record labels for now.
  • “The number of features that this one platform offers is dizzying, but should it prove to be successful it could be the music industry darling that revolutionizes the radio and music streaming industry,” notes the post.
  • CEO and founder Thomas McAlevey says he is in negotiations with “labels at the highest level” to offer the streaming service in the U.S.
  • “However if Radical.fm doesn’t ‘get the direct deals we want with the licenses in time,’ McAlevey could switch on its currently-dormant radio feature and broadcast the music from any rights holders that are hesitant to jump on board thanks to the SoundExchange license Radical.fm has obtained,” explains the post.

Facebook Gifts Now Allows Users to Purchase iTunes Credit for Friends

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November 28, 2012
  • Customers can now purchase iTunes digital gift certificates on Facebook, deepening the Facebook-Apple alliance that formed with integrated Facebook features on iOS 6. Users can recommend what music, videos or apps to purchase with the gift certificates.
  • “What the actual revenue split is remains a secret,” reports TechCrunch. “We do know there’s no shipping costs for either partner to pay for, and Apple typically taxes content and app creators 30 percent to be sold in iTunes.”
  • The iOS 6 release brought Apple and Facebook together through Facebook sharing buttons and contacts integration. “If today’s integration is a success, it could create a virtuous loop where Facebookers buy iTunes credits for friends, who buy media or apps and share news of their purchases back to Facebook,” notes the post.
  • The partnership also provides more legitimacy to Facebook Gifts, which recently left its beta phase and launched for millions of Facebook users.
  • TechCrunch explains that the real money in Facebook Gifts would be if Facebook begins suggesting who to buy gift cards for, and for what. Facebook certainly has enough user data to know who frequently makes purchases on iTunes, and who uses Facebook iPhone applications, so this should not be a difficult step to implement.

CES 2013: Samsung to Possibly Unveil 4.99-inch 1080p Touchscreen

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November 28, 2012

Samsung may unveil its own smartphone-sized 1080p display during January’s CES in Las Vegas, on the heels of HTC’s Droid DNA. “Full high definition displays are all set to be next year’s must-have new smartphone feature, although their size will see them used on hardware that tips over into smartphone/tablet hybrid territory,” reports Digital Trends. Continue reading CES 2013: Samsung to Possibly Unveil 4.99-inch 1080p Touchscreen

Will Multi-Function Tablets Become the Next Mass Market Games Platform?

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November 28, 2012
  • With a growing number of tablets hitting the market, and games now serving as the largest category of tablet apps, industry leaders are faced with a possible shift: Are tablets the gaming console of the future, or something all to their own?
  • Tablets certainly play an important role in the gaming industry, argues Scott Steinberg, CEO of TechSavvy Global, but Greg Harper of Supercell North America adds that tablets should not be compared to anything in the past (i.e. gaming consoles) because they have created a new market rather than replaced an old one.
  • The consensus among industry leaders is that tablets will not replace consoles, but could pull casual gamers away from the more expensive and time consuming consoles in favor of the relatively simple world of tablet games.
  • “I don’t think tablets are going to replace the next console generation, but they will siphon a large number of potential players away from next generation consoles,” suggests Chris Ulm, CEO of Appy Entertainment. “Tablets will have the effect of luring away casual and semi-casual players because they are portable, have multiple entertainment functions and an incredible number of free or low priced games.”
  • Tablets should dominate consoles this holiday season for multiple reasons, industry insiders told GamesIndustry International.
  • First, Microsoft and Sony’s consoles are dated, and fans are essentially waiting for the next console. This leaves tablets competing with just the Wii U. Additionally, some parents favor tablets rather than consoles because tablet games are relatively inexpensive compared to the $60 offerings on consoles.
  • But if game developers hope to make a significant splash in the gaming industry, they must overcome the problem that tablets lack physical buttons. This makes complex controls difficult. The first game to overcome this obstacle will likely benefit greatly.

90 Percent of 18-29 Year-Olds Sleep with Smartphones: Too Connected?

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November 28, 2012
  • More than 75 percent of Americans are now connected to mobile devices (smartphones, tablets and/or laptops). According to a new infographic from Online Psychology Degree, it seems smartphones are becoming much more to users than convenient mobile devices.
  • Some of the more interesting (or perhaps alarming) findings:
  • “90 percent of 18-29 year-olds say they sleep with their phone in or right next to the bed” and “one in three smartphone owners would rather give up sex than their phones.”
  • “In the hour before bed, 95 percent of people say that they regularly browse the Web, text and watch TV.”
  • While 25 percent do not silence their phones before going to sleep, one in ten say they are regularly awakened by calls, texts or emails — and half say if they wake up during the night they check their phones immediately.
  • Online Psychology Degree suggests exposure to the light from electronic devices so close to bedtime suppresses melatonin and can lead to sleep disorders, stress, depression and more negative effects.
  • “You love your gadgets, but taking them to bed isn’t worth it,” concludes the infographic. “When you go to bed, say goodnight to your technology, too.”

Megaupload Shutdown Hurts Box Office Totals: Is Piracy Free Marketing?

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November 28, 2012
  • The shutdown of the Megaupload file-sharing service in January has hurt box office revenues for average and smaller firms, writes Torrent Freak. This could be because word of mouth promotion was negatively affected, as fewer people saw the films on Megaupload.
  • The report comes from the Munich School of Management and Copenhagen Business School in a study that analyzed weekly data for 1,344 movies in 49 countries over five years.
  • While negative effects were found in some cases, the report notes that some of these negative effects were negligible. However, the report still concludes that piracy can act as a form of promotion, as people who watch pirated movies can talk about them to friends, who then actually purchase tickets.
  • “Our counter-intuitive finding may suggest support for the theoretical perspective of (social) network effects where file-sharing acts as a mechanism to spread information about a good from consumers with zero or low willingness to pay to users with high willingness to pay,” notes the report, titled “Piracy and Movie Revenues: Evidence from Megaupload.”
  • While this theory works for small and average films, it does not work for films shown on more than 500 screens. For these bigger films, Megaupload’s shutdown had the opposite effect and helped increase revenues.

Cinema History: Warner Bros. to Release HFR Version of The Hobbit

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November 28, 2012

We have an update to Peter Jackson’s “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey,” the first major movie release to be shot at 48 frames per second. When the film premieres in the U.S. on December 14, a new projection technique — that could possibly revolutionize the industry — will offer some film fans a brand new experience. Continue reading Cinema History: Warner Bros. to Release HFR Version of The Hobbit

Retail Trends: Cyber Monday 2012 Sets New Record in Online Sales

By
November 28, 2012
  • According to the Adobe Digital Index, which tracks consumer shopping activity, this week’s Cyber Monday has become the busiest online shopping day in history. The report indicates that online sales grew 17 percent over last year to $1.98 billion.
  • Adobe suggests that mobile shopping “has passed the tipping point.” Cyber Monday saw mobile devices accounting for 22 percent of total online shopping, up 100 percent year-over-year.
  • Tablets accounted for 14.1 percent of total online sales and smartphones generated 6.8 percent.
  • “We attribute this behav­ioral change to two fac­tors,” explains the report. “First, con­sumers are more will­ing to fill up their online bas­ket to a higher dol­lar amount and com­plete the trans­ac­tion in a shorter period of time.”
  • “Sec­ond, con­sumers have become savvy mobile shop­pers. We antic­i­pate that the behav­ioral change will be fol­lowed by mod­i­fi­ca­tions to online pro­mo­tional strate­gies as shop­ping behav­ior con­tin­ues to move online.”
  • The impact is also being felt outside the U.S. “We’re notic­ing the ‘Cyber Mon­day effect’ slowly spread­ing to other parts of the world where they don’t cel­e­brate the Thanks­giving holiday,” notes Adobe. “In Europe, Cyber Mon­day this year rep­re­sented an 8 percent growth in online sales.”
  • Adobe expects retailers to generate $6 billion in online sales since Thanksgiving Day. “With over­all growth rates for hol­i­day spend­ing in the low sin­gle dig­its, online shopping’s con­tin­ued double-digit growth appears to be an unstop­pable force,” concludes the report.

Mobility Report: Data Traffic Doubles, Video Will Lead Additional Increase

By
November 27, 2012
  • Ericsson’s most recent Mobility Report points out that mobile data traffic has doubled from last year. “Ericsson estimates that between 2012 and 2018, demand for mobile data will increase twelve-fold,” reports GigaOM.
  • The two key drivers of growth: continued smartphone adoption and the rising consumption of mobile video.
  • The report notes that 40 percent of data use on tablets involves online video and more than 50 percent of the U.S. population now has a smartphone.
  • “The top activities on handsets are adding to the data demand: Web browsing and video consumption comprise around 35 percent of all smartphone data usage,” notes the post. “And already about half of all video consumption on a smartphone takes place outside the home on a mobile network.”
  • The report notes a shift to HSPA+ and LTE around the globe as faster, more efficient networks are developed to meet demand. An estimated 55 million people will use LTE by the end of 2012, a number expected to grow to 1.6 billion by 2018.
  • “In the meantime, however, WCDMA/HSPA networks are shouldering the transitional load with more growth in subscribers than LTE as carriers have to build out new infrastructure for LTE coverage for our mobile screens,” explains GigaOM.
  • It should be noted that Ericcson is a major seller of networking equipment, and would benefit from the growing demand for mobile data.

Slush Conference: Jolla Unveils MeeGo-Based Open Source Sailfish OS

By
November 27, 2012
  • Nokia spinoff Jolla has unveiled its open-source Sailfish operating system, which features a user interface that evolved from the ill-fated MeeGo platform. Nokia ditched MeeGo in favor of Windows Phone before it partnered with Microsoft.
  • Jolla CEO Marc Dillon and his team recently demonstrated the displays at the Slush startup conference in Helsinki.
  • The presentation did not include lot of new details and did not showcase any hardware. “Indeed, the team came on stage brandishing a range of development hardware, rather than the Jolla smartphone that will soon go on sale through giant Chinese distributor D.Phone,” notes GigaOM.
  • “In some ways — and I say this without denigrating the Sailfish UI — it brings together elements of both Windows Phone and Android,” reports GigaOM. “From the Windows Phone side, it seems to have borrowed the live tile concept for the homescreen, only it presents it in quite a different fashion. The app menu looks Android-ish, in my opinion, as does the dock at the bottom of the screen.”
  • The Finnish company hopes to port Sailfish into tablets, set-top boxes, TVs and smartphones.
  • The GigaOM post includes still images from the Helsinki presentation and a one-minute promotional video.

Google Integrates Brands and Locations in Virtual Reality Game Ingress

By
November 27, 2012
  • Currently invitation-only, Google will soon launch the beta of a new virtual reality mobile game, testing whether the model can lead players to visit retail and online locations.
  • The company will integrate communications for brands such as Jamba Juice, PopChips, Hint, Zipcar and Chrome Bags Store within the Android-based “Ingress” game.
  • The pilot will incorporate physical locations and use Google Maps, GPS locating, QR codes and possibly Google’s Project Glass virtual-reality eyeglasses as an accessory.
  • “As fiction, the game describes the app as a leaked piece of technology allowing people to use a smartphone camera to view exotic matter and portals around them in the physical world,” reports MediaPost. “In reality, it’s a free downloadable app from Google Play for Android-running smartphones that will become the marketing platform for brands.”
  • “The narrator, P. A. Chapeau, describes the journey through a series of notes and clues pinned to a pegboard, as well as shareable content on Google+, Facebook and Twitter,” explains the post.
  • “What’s most interesting about ‘Ingress,’ though, is what it suggests about Google’s future plans, which seem to revolve around finding new ways to extend its reach from the browser on your laptop to the devices you carry with you at all times,” notes Technology Review in a related post. “The goal makes plenty of sense when you consider that traditional online advertising — Google’s bread and butter — could eventually be eclipsed by mobile, location-based advertising.”

Video Professionals Put the 2.5K Blackmagic Cinema Camera to Work

By
November 27, 2012
  • Australian video company Blackmagic Design announced its Blackmagic Cinema Camera (BMCC) earlier this year during the NAB Show in Las Vegas.
  • The 2.5K camera features a built-in SSD recorder and is designed to record footage in native formats including 12-bit CinemaDNG raw, Apple’s ProRes 422 (HQ) and Avid’s DNxHD at 220 Mb/s.
  • “Then it can offload its material over a Thunderbolt connection at up to 10 Gb/s for instant editing that is facilitated by including metadata directly from the camera,” reports creativePlanet. “Priced at $2,995, Blackmagic has bundled the camera with software packages including Resolve and UltraScope, which total more than the cost of the camera itself.”
  • As previously reported on ETCentric, the original camera was outfitted with an EF mount that accommodates Canon and Zeiss lenses, and the company later announced a Passive Micro Four Thirds (MFT) model for lenses with manual iris and focus capabilities. “Other lens formats, like PL or Nikon, can be used with third-party adapters,” explains the article.
  • Jacob Rosenberg, director and CTO at Bandito Brothers in Culver City, describes the camera as “awesome,” noting that Blackmagic truly understands the needs of video professionals.
  • “Blackmagic Design is aware of the color science that goes into using video formats like CinemaDNG raw files to get what we need out of them,” he says. “It gives you great latitude at 2.5K for an HD deliverable, giving us extra headroom for enhancements like stabilization.”
  • Marco Solorio, owner of OneRiver Media in the San Francisco Bay area, has shot several interesting tests, including one that offers a comparison between 12-bit raw footage and 8-bit alternatives.
  • Blackmagic has given the camera a 13-stop dynamic range, that serves bright and dark shooting environments. “Solorio finds that the camera has very solid low-light capabilities and says you can boost its sensitivity all the way up to 1600 ASA,” notes the article.
  • “This camera has a 15.81mm x 8.88mm sensor that is sized between Super 16mm film and Micro Four Thirds,” he says, “and some have expressed concerns over its potentially limited depth of field. But we’ve found that using a fast lens, like f/1.2, and stepping back so you can zoom in a bit can put backgrounds out of focus the way most modern shooters expect.”

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