The NPD Group’s Paul Gagnon and Ben Arnold presented “7 Ways the CE Consumer Has Changed” in the last few years. U.S. consumer attitudes and behaviors changed from early-pandemic lockdown to the slow reopening, and then the fear of inflation and recession. In general, consumers are buying more for individuals than for shared home experiences, they have equipped themselves for remote work which may suppress future sales until they are ready to upgrade, and they buy when bargains appear even if they plan to actually open them for a holiday or special occasion. Continue reading CES: The NPD Group Analyzes Changes in Consumer Trends

Japan, once the world’s top producer of computer chips, is seeking to regain its foothold in the manufacture of leading-edge semiconductors. Last month, a consortium of eight Japanese companies formed Rapidus, a foundry the Japanese government hopes will help get the nation on track for advanced chip manufacturing. IBM Research is joining forces with Rapidus, with plans to manufacture IBM’s 2nm technology in fabs that Rapidus is building in Japan, with output expected to commence in the latter half of the decade. Continue reading IBM Teams Up with Rapidus Foundry on Chip Manufacturing

For four days in Las Vegas, CES 2023 becomes the nucleus of global innovation. The Consumer Technology Association (CTA), owner of CES, predicts a show significantly larger than CES 2022, emerging from two pandemic restricted years on January 5. The annual confab will open more than two million square feet of exhibit space with more than 2,400 exhibitors and the expectation of as many as 100,000 attendees, more than double the last show. ETC@USC will have its team in place, on the ground and online, to explore the show floor and over 175 sessions and keynotes. We’ll be reporting on the latest in AI, Web3, multiverses, image displays and other emerging CE tech impacting M&E. Continue reading CES 2023: What to Expect When the Show Opens in January

Amazon Studios has officially opened its 34,000-square-foot virtual production stage in Culver City, California. On hand for the Monday ribbon-cutting ceremony was director Reginald Hudlin, whose Eddie Murphy-starrer “Candy Cane Lane” will be the first feature to shoot there. Once the set for films including “It’s a Wonderful Life” and “RoboCop,” Stage 15 has undergone a transformation from its original 1940 configuration, now housing a wall of more than 3,000 LED panels as well as 100 motion capture cameras in what is LA’s largest virtual production stage. Continue reading Amazon Opens Stage 15: New LA Virtual Production Facility

A group of 26 Taylor Swift fans have filed a lawsuit against Ticketmaster, alleging anticompetitive conduct and fraud after a glitch resulted in the ticketing service canceling sales to Swift’s “Eras” tour, leaving thousands of fans — some of whom waited four to eight hours in ticket queues last month — “empty-handed and unhappy,” according to The New York Times. Their outcry resulted in not only a 33-page complaint filed in California Superior Court in Los Angeles, but also Congressional demands to unwind the 2010 merger of Ticketmaster and Live Nation. Swift’s 52-show Eras tour is scheduled to begin in March. Continue reading Taylor Swift Fans File Class Action Suit Against Ticketmaster

The protests and riots in response to China’s restrictive COVID-19 policies have resulted in Apple accelerating plans to relocate a chunk of production in that country, according to news reports claiming that “turmoil” in a Zhengzhou area called iPhone City helped prompt the change. At peak output, the zone produced roughly 85 percent of the iPhone Pro lineup, according to The Wall Street Journal, which says the factory “was convulsed in late November by violent protests.” China has long been the primary manufacturing location for Apple products. Vietnam and India are reportedly high on Apple’s list of alternate sites. Continue reading Apple Fast-Tracks Plan to Move Some Production from China

Amazon has announced a preview release of CodeCatalyst, a unified software development and delivery service that the company says enables software teams to plan, build and deliver applications on AWS with reduced friction throughout the development lifecycle. At AWS re:Invent 2022 in Las Vegas, Amazon VP and CTO Werner Vogels detailed how CodeCatalyst offers a “single place” where developers can collaborate to create an app on Amazon Web Services. CodeCatalyst is designed to make it simple to marshal resources and toggle between different application development environments, Vogels explained from the stage at his Thursday keynote. Continue reading CodeCatalyst Automatically Sets Up Developer Environments

Digital Black Friday shopping was brisk, with a record $9.12 billion spent, according to Adobe. Online sales were up 2.3 percent year-over-year for Friday, November 25, the day after Thanksgiving. Also a hit, Buy Now Pay Later payments increased by a whopping 78 percent over the prior week, beginning November 19, with inflationary pressures seeming to drive that pattern. Adobe tracks transactions on retail websites. Total seasonal revenue is estimated to top-out at $209 billion, Adobe says, noting that Cyber Monday alone accounted for $11.3 billion. U.S. consumers also spent more time and money shopping in stores on Black Friday than they did the same day last year. Continue reading Report: 2022 Online Sales Sets Another Record, Says Adobe

Cerebras Systems has unveiled its Andromeda AI supercomputer. With 13.5 million cores, it can calculate at the rate of 1 exaflop — roughly one quintillion (1 followed by 18 zeroes) operations — per second using a 16-bit floating point format. Andromeda’s brain is built of 16 linked Cerebras CS-2 systems, AI computers that use giant Wafer-Scale Engine 2 chips. Each chip has hundreds of thousands of cores, but is more compact and powerful than servers that use standard CPUs, according to Cerebras, which is making Andromeda available for commercial and academic research. Continue reading Cerebras Supercomputer Calculates at 1 Exaflop per Second

Meta Platforms on Wednesday began layoffs that will affect 11,000 workers — approximately 13 percent of the company’s workforce of 87,000. Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg told the staff via video that “I take full responsibility for this decision,” describing it as “one of the hardest calls I’ve had to make in the 18 years I’ve run the company.” This is the first time mass layoffs have been implemented there. Zuckerberg was described as “downcast” as he discussed the news, saying overly optimistic growth projections led to overstaffing. Continue reading Meta Cuts 13 Percent of Workforce, Eliminating 11,000 Jobs

Bolstered by iPhone 14 sales, Apple reported fiscal Q4 revenue up just over 8 percent, to $90.1 billion, with a 7.8 percent increase to $394 billion for the 12-month sales session that ended September 24. “We set an all-time revenue record for Mac and September quarter records for iPhone and wearables, home, and accessories,” Apple CEO Tim Cook told analysts, noting “services notched a September quarter record as well, with revenue of $19.2 billion and more than 900 million paid subscriptions.” Even so, the company’s earnings produced a Rashomon effect as peak performance triggered pique among some. Continue reading Apple Has Record Quarter but Slowed Growth Worries Some

A sharp decline in demand for PCs is prompting Intel to reevaluate its expenditures, with reduced factory hours and staff reductions among the options under consideration. Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger also says the company is considering divestitures as it seeks to cope with a 20 percent drop in Q3 revenue, to $15.3 billion, and full-year outlook downsized by $1 billion. Intel has been undergoing a reinvention of sorts as it steps into the role of foundry. Increased capex for new plant construction means surgical precision is needed to achieve a goal of $3 billion in 2023 cost cuts. Continue reading With Revenue Down 20 Percent, Intel Plans to Reduce Costs

Tech items are making the list this holiday season, with the Consumer Technology Association’s annual shoppers survey forecasting a record-breaking 78 percent of U.S. adults — nearly 199 million people — will purchase devices and related services this season. Streaming services, headphones and earbuds, mobile cases, smartphones and game consoles top the trade organization’s survey, the 2022 Hot Tech Holiday Preview. The seasonal projection marks a 4 percent increase over last year. The 78 percent of American shoppers who intend to purchase tech gifts in the coming months will spend an estimated $145 billion. Continue reading CTA: Streaming Services Will Be Focus for Holiday Shoppers

Live-stream shopping has been slow to take off in the U.S., but some feel the sector is at a tipping point. U.S. revenue from the format is projected to reach $20 billion this year and grow to $57 billion in 2025 says Coresight Research. However, that’s a drop in the bucket compared to the activity in Asia. McKinsey Digital says outlets like Alibaba can rack up more than $7 billion in 30 minutes. Estimates place the Asia-Pacific market at about $180 billion in live-streamed shopping for 2021. Now big players like Walmart, Target, YouTube and TikTok are getting serious about cracking open the U.S. market, too. Continue reading Retailers, Big Tech Get Behind Live-Stream Shopping in U.S.

Amazon is continuing the cost-cutting that CEO Andy Jassy emphasized when the company reported a $2 billion loss in Q2. The company is shutting down Amazon Explore, a virtual tourism initiative launched during the COVID-19 lockdown, unplugging the robotics ventures Canvas and ORCA, and dimming the lights on the Amazon Glow, a video-calling projector for kids. In recent weeks, Amazon also confirmed the end of field tests for the autonomous delivery service Scout. This in the wake of a hiring freeze at its retail division and the closure of the Amazon Care telehealth venture. Continue reading Amazon Faces Economic Challenges, Continues Cost-Cutting