Toshiba is taking another stab at the tablet market after backlash from its Thrive tablets that were criticized for poor battery life and chunky design.
Its latest three models are much more slim and sleek with textured aluminum backs. The Excite 7.7-, 10- and 13-inch slates will run Ice Cream Sandwich and feature NVIDIA’s Tegra 3 SoC.
The 7.7 has an AMOLED display and will launch on June 10, costing $500 for 16GB and $580 for 32GB versions.
Launching the same day, the Excite 13 will have 1600×900 resolution, a full-sized SD slot and will sell for $650 and $750 for 32GB and 64GB versions, respectively.
The Excite 10 will roll out a little sooner on May 6 for $500, $530, or $650 for 16GB, 32GB and 64GB versions. The tablet will also have a full-sized SD slot.
“Each tablet is equipped with a 5-megapixel camera on the back, along with a 2-megapixel front-facing shooter for convenient photography, video capture and chat. The tablets also include stereo speakers with exclusive sound enhancements by Toshiba and SRS Labs, as well as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity,” the press release states.
Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson has issued a memo to his staff, outlining a “new organizational structure and a focus on commerce initiatives,” according to The Hollywood Reporter.
This memo comes after Yahoo laid off 2,000 employees last week. According to THR, that move and the start of this new plan indicate that “Thompson is looking to return the Internet giant to prominence, with commerce revenue being one key focus.”
Thompson said he would split the company into three groups with different objectives. “They are a consumer group, which includes Yahoo’s media sites and commerce-related, search and email services; regions, which is broken up into the Americas, Europe and Asia divisions that work with advertising partners; and technology.,” explains the article.
According to Thompson’s memo, the overall goal of focusing on commerce is “driving higher [return on investment] for advertisers and agencies that reach users on Yahoo by closing the loop for them between user interests, advertiser spend, consumer intent and purchase behavior,” reports THR.
Yahoo currently generates about $1 billion in annual revenue via commerce partnerships.
Best Buy has been struggling to keep customers coming into its stores with competitors like Amazon that often sell the same electronics for less. The retail chain announced it would have to close 50 stores to return to a profit margin.
In the wake of these challenges, CEO Brian Dunn has resigned, handing over the reigns to director and board member G. Mike Mikian while the company searches for his replacement.
“There were no disagreements between Mr. Dunn and the company on any matter relating to operations, financial controls, policies or procedures,” Best Buy stated in a press release. “There was mutual agreement that it was time for new leadership to address the challenges that face the company.”
Dunn started at Best Buy in 1985 as a store associate. By June 2009, he had worked his way up to CEO, right when the company was facing mounting pressure from Amazon and Walmart.
According to VentureBeat, “Dunn did not radically change the company’s strategy to deal with these threats.”
Pay TV could cost as much as $200 a month by 2020, according to a new survey from NPD Group. Compared to today’s $86/month rate, the rise seems rather drastic, especially when considering the rise of online content services.
“As pay TV costs rise and consumers’ spending power stays flat, the traditional affiliate-fee business model for pay TV companies appears to be unsustainable in the long term,” said Keith Nissen, research director for The NPD Group. “Much-needed structural changes to the pay TV industry will not happen quickly or easily; however, the emerging competition between S-VOD and premium-TV suppliers might be the spark that ignites the necessary business-model transformation of the pay TV industry.”
The majority of pay TV subscribers have stuck with their services despite the trend to cut cords in favor of streaming services. The main reason for staying with their services is lack of content, especially live sports, as well as the convenience of getting all their content from one source.
As prices go up, however, these reasons might not be enough to keep customers. Online options will become even more appealing if consumers don’t have to worry about going over their broadband cap.
“So the question for TV consumers is: Do you keep paying $86 today for access to a walled garden of really good content that will likely to continue to rise in cost? Or do you go outside the walled garden and scramble to get your regular shows while fighting the caps and agreements that will eventually make the world outside the walled garden inhospitable for a TV lover? And the bigger question is whether or not the FCC or anyone in Washington is watching this play out and plans to help the consumers by taking action?” GigaOM asks.
A bill banning employers from asking for social media passwords is sitting on the desk of Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley.
After passing unanimously through the state Senate and by a 128-10 vote in the House, the bill could go into effect with the governor’s approval.
The proposed bill is in response to recent reports of employers requesting that job applicants submit their passwords to Facebook and other social networks.
Facebook was quick to denounce the practice and a number of states began drafting bills in opposition.
“While Maryland is the first state to pass such legislation, it likely won’t be the only one for long — Illinois and California have both introduced similar pieces of legislation, and senators from New York and Connecticut have both asked the U.S. Attorney General to prohibit this practice,” The Verge reports.
The U.S. government is joining the top wireless providers to fight cellphone theft with the creation of a centralized database for stolen phones.
Using the database to track stolen phones by their serial numbers, the carriers — Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint Nextel — will be able to deny access to voice and data networks. This will hopefully make the devices impossible to use after they’ve been reported stolen.
Additionally, the initiative will include a program to educate consumers on mobile privacy, “teaching them how to remotely lock their phones, delete personal information, and track their devices’ location,” Mashable reports.
The carriers will create their databases within six months, which will then be consolidated into one large database within a year.
Similar programs in Australia, France, Germany, and the UK have proven successful in reducing — if not entirely eliminating — phone theft.
TechCrunch analyzes the future of content suggesting that it will be free (ad-supported), shorter, and promotional.
Consumers are demanding free content and they’re also increasingly impatient, watching only the first 30-60 seconds of YouTube videos, which is a strong motivator for producers to cut their content length.
New York venture capitalist Fred Wilson suggests in his piece “The Future of Media” that producers consider the following four steps: “Microchunk it — Reduce the content to its simplest form; Free it — Put it out there without walls around it or strings on it; Syndicate it — Let anyone take it and run with it; and Monetize it — Put the monetization and tracking systems into the microchunk.”
The article says scale comes from distribution and monetization. “Content was an art. Today it’s a science as well. It will always be about Influence and Authority,” explains TechCrunch.
With some 48 million tablets and e-readers sold last year, book publishers are being forced to become multimedia companies whose e-books can include audio, video and interactive elements.
Standards and formats can vary from books with audio and video for the iPad to so-called “enhanced e-books.”
Young adult (YA) fiction caters to teens who are already involved with text messages, Facebook and blogs. YA literature crosses film, TV and social media to create multimedia storytelling.
One publisher envisions books as social experiences. Another released a book that allows the story to be told in different ways. “Last fall, for example, indie publisher Folded Word released author Mel Bosworth’s ‘Freight’ as an e-book that electronically built on the choose-your-own-adventure format, creating a narrative that could be told in more than one way (‘Chopsticks’ incorporates a similar feature),” reports Wired.
HarperMedia is looking for opportunities where publishers and studios can work together to create both print and screen versions.
New York City is preparing to upgrade its mostly unused payphones with 32-inch touchscreens, which will “offer a quick connection to 311 for requesting info and filing complaints, as well as interactive guides to the neighborhood,” explains Engadget.
Presently, the payphones are essentially useless to a society filled with smartphones, but soon the booths will transform into a mechanism for gathering restaurant suggestions or locating local landmarks.
The organization City24x7 is providing 250 of the new touchscreen devices free of charge as part of its pilot program.
“If all goes well, the company and the city will split revenue generated from ad sales following an expanded roll out,” explains the post. The touchscreens are expected to be available in May.
The newly released Nokia Lumia 900 smartphone is already topping the charts on Amazon’s cellphone bestseller list.
Both the black and blue models of the Lumia 900 (ranked 1 and 2, respectively) are currently outselling the Droid Razr Maxx and Galaxy Nexus.
According to CNET, Nokia and Microsoft have a lot riding on this phone: “Microsoft is looking for the Lumia 900 to break Windows Phone into the mainstream, while Nokia sees its phone as a way to get into in the U.S. market.”
AT&T has also promised to bring out the big guns with its launch campaign of the new phone.
“Amazon, of course, only makes up a small percentage of total sales — AT&T still sells most of its phones directly to customers through its stores and Web site,” adds the post. “And the Lumia 900 is a brand new phone, likely generating more attention than phones that have been out for a few months.”
Nearly 90 percent of tablet owners watched TV and used their devices simultaneously at least once a month in Q4 2011, according to a new report from Nielsen.
The data suggests that 45 percent used tablets while watching TV on a daily basis, and 26 percent did so several times a day.
Smartphone use is also on the rise while watching television. “Only 14 percent of U.S. smartphone owners never used their phone while watching TV, while 41 percent had their smartphone in hand while viewing TV,” reports Broadcasting & Cable. “About 86 percent used their smartphone and TV at the same time at least one a month.”
“The numbers provide new support for efforts by broadcasters, cable channels and multichannel providers to provide second screen apps or synch apps that can enhance the viewing experience of live TV,” suggests the article.
Netflix has created its own political action committee called FLIXPAC.
The company has been increasing its lobbying presence in Washington and sees the PAC as a logical next step.
Netflix is especially interested in video privacy laws, which have kept it from integrating with social network Facebook.
According to the company statement on its objective: “PACs are commonplace for companies that lead a big, growing market and Netflix is no exception. Our PAC is a way for our employees to support candidates that understand our business and technology. It was not set up for the purpose of supporting SOPA or PIPA. Instead, Netflix has engaged on other issues including network neutrality, bandwidth caps, usage based billing and reforming the Video Privacy Protection Act.”
“Reminder: Netflix has been particularly vocal about the VPPA since last summer,” reports Peter Kafka for AllThingsD. “Last year it boosted its political spending significantly in an effort to change that law.”
Netflix is updating its Xbox 360 application this week, “the biggest update to arrive since the integration of Kinect gestures and voice control back in December of last year,” suggests TechCrunch.
According to the post, “the most notable changes involve improvements to Facebook sharing in select markets and single sign-on support using your Xbox LIVE credentials,” meaning users can sign in with their personal logins on devices other than their own.
Netflix has also improved Facebook integration for international users, allowing them to see what friends have watched and rated on Netflix.
TechCrunch adds that “unfortunately, these social features are not available in the U.S. at this time due to legal issues surrounding the 1988 Video Privacy Protection Act, which prevents users’ movie rental activity from being shared.”
Additional updates include: improvements to the Skip Forward and Skip Back buttons, a zoom for enlarging letterbox to full screen, and enhanced contrast for more vivid colors.
The acquisition news is not even a day old and there are already some Instagram users who are quite upset with its sale to Facebook.
Instagram was becoming a social network in its own right, serving as more than just a photo-sharing app to some of its users. Many had signed up with Instagram as an alternative to Facebook, which they did not trust.
“One of my favorite Instagramers, Elise Marie, shared a black screen in protest of the deal,” writes Om Malik for GigaOM. “There is a #instablack hash-tag that has been created to protest the deal. Clicking on #facebook on the service exposes one to even more photos expressing disappointment.”
Malik republished a 2005 post by Robert Young, originally written about MySpace, that explains the emotions involved with such a change. The post opens with the following: “There’s a certain level of what (for the lack of a better phrase) I will refer to as cognitive dissonance when you run a business based on community. And that’s that you quickly realize that the members of the community feel strongly that the service belongs to them, and the control that you, the corporation, think you have is actually, in large part, an illusion.”
“What Robert said in 2005 is even more valid today, except that instead of large media owners, the disruptors and social media platforms are finding themselves at a weird sport — the tail is wagging the dog,” concludes Malik.
This month’s NAB Show (April 14-19, Las Vegas) promises to feature the latest in 3D technology products and trends, according to Chris Brown, NAB’s executive VP, conventions and business operations.
James Cameron and Vince Pace, for example, will share their insights in a session entitled “The Secrets of Making 3D Profitable.”
“Cameron and Pace will reveal the strategy behind 5D productions, including the ESPN Winter X Games where 35 rigs were used to accomplish the largest 5D production in history. Attendees will see how the 5D methodology enables broadcasters to increase revenue by integrating 3D into their existing 2D business model,” writes Brown in Post Magazine.
“Independent voices will be heard in 3D filmmaking,” adds Brown. “As previously out-of-reach equipment and techniques permeate the marketplace, watch for up and coming creators to push beyond the expected and into new territory.”
Among the planned 3D offerings at this year’s show: a number of glasses-free 3D HDTVs (including 4K models) will be on display; the first U.S. demo of a 200-inch, glasses-free projection system will be featured at the show’s International Research Park; an April 15 session on “Higher Frame Rate 3D,” which promises a cinema-like experience; and discussions of the tech requirements for over-the-air broadcast 3D (one component of the half-day engineering conference).