Increasing numbers of cost-conscious American families are avoiding 3D screenings due to rising prices and decreasing excitement around the technology.
More than 85 percent of revenue for “Avatar” came from 3D tickets, and 56 percent of revenue for “Toy Story 3” came from 3D. But newly released “Brave” only received 32 percent of revenue from 3D sales.
A family of four could have to pay as much as $65 in some American theaters to see a 3D movie such as “Ice Age: Continental Drift.” If the family chose to see the movie in 2D, the price would drop 25 to 40 percent, depending on the theater.
The number of 3D movie releases rose about 75 percent between 2010 and 2011, but 3D revenues dropped by $400 million.
“For the moment, it appears that the movie industry is relying on extreme fans of comic book films and action movies to prop up 3D ticket sales in the United States,” notes Digital Trends.
While American 3D sales decline, sales around the world have increased. Successful 3D ticket sales in China, Brazil, and Russia will continue to encourage studios to produce 3D movies, even if American audiences opt for the less expensive 2D versions.
Global Industry Analysts has published a comprehensive research report titled “3D TVs: A Global Strategic Business Report” that suggests 3D TV is experiencing a healthy worldwide upswing.
“The global market for 3D TVs is projected to exceed 200 million units by 2018, primarily driven by increased consumer interest, falling prices of 3D TVs, and the introduction of 3D standards,” according to the press release.
“Other growth drivers include soaring demand for digital media entertainment, growing penetration of high-bandwidth broadband services among households, and rapid proliferation of Internet enabled devices such as smart TVs, smartphones and tablet PCs.”
The press release also cites enhancements such as direct-lit LED backlights and ultra-slim form factors, more user-friendly 3D glasses, and a wider range of television size selections as factors that will continue to generate consumer interest.
“Improvement in Quality of Service, reduction of deployment times, introduction of innovative service packages and competitive pricing will be critical for 3D TV to gain mass market adoption,” notes the release.
The Wall Street Journal conducted a 21-day evaluation “to find out what it’s like to live with an actual 3D TV and all of the attendant content, from movies and videogames on disc to dedicated cable channels.”
WSJ used a 46-inch Sony LED HX850 Internet TV ($1,900), two of Sony’s new, ultra-lightweight Titanium Active 3D Glasses ($100 each), and the PlayStation 3 and a standard digital cable box for content.
During week one, the writer watched basketball on ESPN 3D. “I can tell this is basketball, but it’s displaying as a demented picture-in-picture, with two duplicate versions of the same frame squashed onto the screen, side-by-side,” notes the review.
The viewer must manually switch to TV mode to view 3D. Once changed, “the depth achieved here is nifty, yet disorienting. Players hover forward, but the surface of the court doesn’t compute. It’s a flat, 2D plane, a backdrop against which these odd shapes are sliding.”
During the second week, the writer tried 3D Blu-ray: “The 3D flicker that I’ve spent a week trying, and failing, to get used to…is gone. I didn’t even have to select the appropriate 3D mode. The TV automatically adjusted to the correct setting. More importantly, the film has compositions meant to be shown in stereo because it was shot with 3D camera rigs.”
However, it’s not the most comfortable user experience. “3D TV comes with a price. You can’t lie down. Tilt your head even a few degrees, and that crisp image flattens and blurs. Sit to one side of the screen and objects double at their edges, taking on ghostly auras,” according to WSJ.
“When my three weeks are up, I realize that, other than gaming, I’ve given up on 3D,” notes the review. “Why bother, when this TV displays 2D programming so well?”
The article concludes by describing 3D TV as a “fragile technology that still feels experimental. With careful calibration and content selection, it can be fantastic and otherworldly. To the casual viewer, though, it’s more likely to be unpredictable. Maybe glasses-free approaches will eventually reinvent 3D as an effortless standard.”
Research presented on Monday from the Interactive Advertising Bureau indicates that mobile advertisements that appear on touchscreen devices such as tablets and smartphones show signs of having some of the highest levels of engagement amongst all social ads.
The report represents interviews with 552 smartphone owners and 563 tablet owners and covers “topics like what media they are consuming when they are viewing and responding to ads, where they are, what time of day it is, what ads work the best, and what users do after they see the ads,” details TechCrunch.
One highlight of the report is that “size matters.” Advertisements on the larger tablet screens fare better than those on the smaller smartphone touchscreen.
“When asked if they engage with ads more than once a week — that is, click on an ad for more information — 47 percent of tablet users responded yes, compared to 25 percent of smartphone users,” notes TechCrunch.
Ads are also more successful on a tablet because of its more common functionality: users are more likely to consume longer-form media on a tablet than a smartphone, which is more often used for short bursts of information.
Smartphones outperformed tablets regarding mobile ad content only in the “on the go” category.
NBC’s promised complementary mobile apps for its London summer Olympics coverage have arrived.
“Available for Android phones and tablets as well as the iPhone and iPad, they’re built on Adobe technology to deliver the information and live streaming video, as well as handle the TV Everywhere authentication with the cable providers that’s necessary to view all of the content,” reports Engadget.
The NBC Olympics Live Companion is designed to operate as a second screen for users to find out stats and information while watching Olympics coverage.
The other app, called NBC Olympics Live Extra, “delivers video of every event streaming live to users wherever they are. It supports multiple camera angles, social features like the Facebook tie-ins NBC announced yesterday and users can even switch between the two apps at will,” details the post.
In a related story, Facebook and NBCUniversal have agreed to a cross-platform partnership tied to the Olympics that will integrate branded content across TV and Web platforms.
While Olympics-themed extras will be available on Facebook and NBCOlympics.com, the deal will also include airtime for the social network.
“Facebook is sending a production team to London that will mine digital discussions pertaining to the Olympics for a ‘talk meter,’ which will provide an on-air window to what viewers are saying about the games, and other segments including a polling feature,” reports Variety.
The Facebook-NBC announcement was made days after that of a similar collaboration between Facebook and CNN for coverage of the presidential election.
Cloud storage company Bitcasa hopes to provide consumers “infinite storage” for their devices for a mere $10 per month. The Mountain View, California-based start-up recently attracted $7 million in its first round of funding.
Bitcasa is exciting “because unlike players like Dropbox, Box, SugarSync, or Google Drive, its storage solution goes beyond syncing files across machines,” reports VentureBeat. “The company’s app does not take up any room on your hard drive, which is extremely helpful if you have a MacBook Air, Ultrabook, or a small SSD drive for storage.”
Data is stored on Bitcasa’s servers for easy access. Although the app does not offer some of the same sharing and integration tools as its competitors, it “seems incredibly appealing for individuals who want a better backup solution than an external hard drive,” suggests the post.
Users can try the service for free during the beta period, expected to last a few months, after which interested parties can continue with the $10/month “infinite storage” option.
The post includes a one-minute video demo from Bitcasa.
AOL is in the process of building data centers “about the size of French door refrigerators,” according to GigaOM.
Mike Manos, AOL Services CTO, wrote of the initiative — part of a project code-named “Nibiru” — in a recent blog post.
“If they work as planned, AOL will be able to deploy new services and infrastructure when and where needed with little more than an electrical outlet required,” reports GigaOM.
“Our primary ‘Nibiru’ goal was to develop and deliver a data center environment without the need of a physical building,” writes Manos. “The environment needed to require as minimal amount of physical ‘touch’ as possible and allow us the ultimate flexibility in terms of how we delivered capacity for our products and services.”
According to Manos, these mini-data centers offer multiple benefits, including:
“It redefines software architecture for greater resiliency.”
“It allows us an incredibly flexible platform for driving and addressing privacy laws, regulatory oversight, and other such concerns allowing us to respond rapidly.”
“Gives us the ability to drive Edge Computing delivery to potentially bypass CDNs for certain content.”
“Gives us the capability to drive ‘Community-in-a-box’ whereby we can quickly launch new products in markets, quickly expand existing footprints like Patch in a low cost, but still hyper-local platform, allow the Huffington Post a platform to rapidly partner and enter new markets with minimal cost turn ups.”
President Obama signed an executive order titled “Assignment of National Security and Emergency Preparedness Communications Functions” in an effort to increase government control over the Internet during natural disasters and security emergencies.
“The Federal Government must have the ability to communicate at all times and under all circumstances to carry out its most critical and time sensitive missions,” explains the order.
“Survivable, resilient, enduring, and effective communications, both domestic and international, are essential to enable the executive branch to communicate within itself and with: the legislative and judicial branches; state, local, territorial, and tribal governments; private sector entities; and the public, allies, and other nations.”
“Such communications must be possible under all circumstances to ensure national security, effectively manage emergencies, and improve national resilience,” states the order.
Critics of the bill are especially concerned with Section 5.2, which outlines how telecommunications and the Internet are controlled — and can be interpreted as a plan to provide the government with an “on/off” switch for the Internet.
“Presidential powers over the Internet and telecommunications were laid out in a U.S. Senate bill in 2009, which proposed handing the White House the power to disconnect private-sector computers from the Internet,” reports CNET. “But that legislation was not included in the Cybersecurity Act of 2012 earlier this year.”
According to The Dyle Mobile TV Data Report recently released by the Mobile Content Venture, 68 percent of U.S. adults recently surveyed said they would watch more programs if live mobile digital TV were available.
“As people upgrade to smartphones and tablets, live TV is a must-have service,” explained the Mobile Content Venture in a statement. “Whether you are a wireless carrier or a cable/satellite operator, it seems clear that enabling the ‘living room experience’ on the go can be a smart business opportunity.”
Survey respondents said they would most likely access live mobile DTV during downtime while waiting, for entertainment while traveling, for entertaining children in the car, as an additional television at home, for being connected at sporting events and while working out at the gym.
Perhaps most telling, 61 percent of respondents said they would be “somewhat or very likely” to switch their service providers in order to receive mobile TV.
“The Mobile Content Venture is a joint venture consisting of 12 major broadcast groups, Fox, Ion Television and NBC that plan to launch the Dyle mobile TV service this year,” notes Broadcasting & Cable.
A new 15-month study, conducted by the Pew Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, shows that Internet users are increasingly accessing YouTube for news.
First-person, citizen-made videos depicting major events such as natural disasters and political upheaval are helping to drive the trend.
“The data reveal that a complex, symbiotic relationship has developed between citizens and news organizations on YouTube, a relationship that comes close to the continuous journalistic ‘dialogue’ many observers predicted would become the new journalism online,” writes Pew in the report.
“Citizens are creating their own videos about news and posting them,” the report continues. “They are also actively sharing news videos produced by journalism professionals. And news organizations are taking advantage of citizen content and incorporating it into their journalism. Consumers, in turn, seem to be embracing the interplay in what they watch and share, creating a new kind of television news.”
Additional key findings include: “Unedited video is becoming an increasingly popular way to view events, with such video making up 42 percent of the news watched on YouTube” and “Short videos —about two minutes in length —are the most popular, but they are not the only clips that do well. Thirty three percent of videos analyzed were between two and five minutes. And 18 percent were five minutes long or greater.”
Comcast, which owns NBCUniversal, has acquired Microsoft’s 50 percent stake in MSNBC.com for $300 million, according to “people with knowledge of the transaction,” reports The New York Times.
The URL now redirects to NBCNews.com. However, MSNBC.com will return early next year as the online home of the MSNBC cable channel.
Microsoft sold its share of the MSNBC cable channel in 2005, but kept 50 percent control of the online news site. This deal created advertising problems between the two entities, as they could not sell shared advertising to interested parties.
The sale will allow MSN to feature stories other than MSNBC content. “Being limited to MSNBC.com content was problematic to us because we couldn’t have the multiple news sources and the multiple perspectives that our users were telling us that they wanted,” explains Bob Visse, MSN general manager.
“Most interestingly, though, Microsoft plans to strike out on its own this fall with original online reporting,” reports The Verge. “Visse told the AP that MSN will be building a brand-new news team of approximately 100 journalists, or roughly the same size as the original group of reporters behind MSNBC.com at its launch in 1996.”
Yahoo announced that Marissa Mayer has been appointed as the company’s new president and CEO, effective today.
Mayer was employee #20 at Google (the company’s first female engineer) and most recently served as VP of Local, Maps and Location Services. At Yahoo, she replaces interim CEO Ross Levinsohn.
“The appointment of Ms. Mayer is consider a coup for Yahoo, which has struggled in recent years to attract top talent in its battle with competitors,” reports The New York Times. “One of the few public faces of Google, Ms. Mayer, 37, has been responsible for the look and feel of some of the search company’s most popular products.”
According to the press release, Mayer helped launch more than 100 features and products at Google “including image, book and product search, toolbar, iGoogle, Google News, and Gmail — creating much of the ‘look and feel’ of the Google user experience.”
She has degrees in Symbolic Systems and Computer Science, and holds several patents in artificial intelligence and interface design.
“I am honored and delighted to lead Yahoo!, one of the Internet’s premier destinations for more than 700 million users,” said Mayer. “I look forward to working with the company’s dedicated employees to bring innovative products, content, and personalized experiences to users and advertisers all around the world.”
“As she hashes out Yahoo’s strategy, Ms. Mayer said she wanted to focus on the Internet company’s strong franchises, including e-mail, finance and sports,” notes NYT. “She also hopes to do more with its video broadband and its mobile businesses, tapping into its significant base of users.”
The summer Olympic games will use more social media than ever before. Mashable takes a look at the top seven ways to make the most of these tools during what some are calling the first “Socialympics.”
1) Online Olympic Communities: The Olympic Athlete’s Hub allows fans to interact with more than 1,000 athletes via real-time chats and personalized athlete updates.
2) Facebook: The Official Olympics Facebook page has more than 2.8 million likes. Mashable suggests also liking the NBC Olympics page and the Countdown App page.
3) Twitter: @Olympics, @USOlympicTeam, and @IOCMedia are all worth a follow, according to the post.
4) “More than 300,000 users have the London 2012 Google+ page in their circles, with many posts receiving more than 50 comments and +1s,” reports Mashable.
5) YouTube: Team USA plans to update the Team USA YouTube channel with five to ten videos per day during the summer games.
6) Photos/Pinterest: Although an official Olympics Pinterest page does not yet exist, fans can follow the IOC on Flickr.
7) Shazaam: “A recent partnership between Shazaam and Comcast’s NBCUniversal will allow Shazaam users to access additional content when using the app during broadcasts on five NBC networks. The recent integration of Shazaam with the Grammys proved successful, so it could also perform well at the Olympics,” suggests the post.
Amazon has long fought legislative efforts to force the retail giant to collect sales taxes. Because Amazon only needs to collect sales tax in states in which it has a physical presence, the company strategically built warehouses in low population states like Kentucky and then shipped the goods to larger markets like California.
However, Amazon is changing its strategy, and has pledged hundreds of millions of dollars to build new warehouses across the country in an effort to bring same day shipping to its customers.
The new warehouses will increase prices on Amazon, as customers will have to pay sales tax, but they will also greatly increase the speed of shipping.
The company currently offers free three-day shipping for all customers and free two-day shipping for its Amazon Prime subscribers. Customers can also pay extra for next day shipping.
Amazon invested in robot development company Kiva Systems to improve shipping times and reduce warehouse errors.
Slate argues that local retail could be impacted as a result of the convenience of same day shipping. “Order something in the morning and get it later in the day, without doing anything else. Why would you ever shop anywhere else?”
Facebook and other social media platforms are using smart technology to scan users’ conversations for potential criminal activity.
The software “monitors chats for words or phrases that signal something might be amiss, such as an exchange of personal information or vulgar language,” reports Mashable.
The software targets people without a well-established connection to the site and conversations between people of very different ages. If Facebook positively detects evidence of a crime, the police may be contacted.
Facebook identified at least one alleged child predator using the software. And in April, the company complied with a Boston Police Department subpoena by turning over printouts of data of a murder suspect.
“We’ve never wanted to set up an environment where we have employees looking at private communications, so it’s really important that we use technology that has a very low false-positive rate,” explains Joe Sullivan, Facebook chief security officer.
Increasing numbers of cost-conscious American families are avoiding 3D screenings due to rising prices and decreasing excitement around the technology.
