Toshiba announced it will start selling its second generation of 4K TV sets next spring.
The TVs — which at 3,840 by 2,160 pixels, have four times the resolution of HD — will include an 84-inch model and two in the 50- to 60-inch range, according to Toshiba executive Masahiko Fukakushi.
Toshiba’s first generation 55-inch 4K TV is currently available in Japan for 750,000 yen ($9,650). Sony recently announced it will also offer its 84-inch 4K model in November for 1.68 million yen.
One potential obstacle involves the lack of 4K content. While the movie industry has started a shift to 4K, there’s no delivery mechanism in place for 4K televisions.
“TV broadcasters have only recently spent billions of dollars upgrading to high definition and a further upgrade to 4K would mean most of their new equipment will have to be scrapped so that’s unlikely,” reports CIO. “The Blu-ray Disc format hasn’t been extended to 4K either.”
In the meantime, Toshiba has been working on custom chips for up-conversion that may prove a short term solution. According to the post: “The quality isn’t the same as if the original 4K content was viewed, but it’s better than HD, said Toshiba.”
For consumers looking to upgrade their HDTV to a Smart TV without purchasing a new set, the recently announced SmartStick by FAVI is one option.
“The SmartStick looks just like your average thumb drive, but it actually plugs into your HDMI input,” reports Digital Trends. “Once there it edifies your TV and allows you to utilize the newest Android OS to download apps or browse the Web.”
SmartStick does not include a keypad remote, but FAVI is marketing a mini wireless keyboard with touchpad as an add-on.
“With the SmartStick, the HDMI connector is built right on the stick which plugs directly into your HDTV with no cables or confusing adapters,” explains the FAVI site. “The DC power is supplied over a Mini-USB port, and the included Mini-USB to USB connection is just the right length, to reach the USB port already on your HDTV.”
The new device offers access to services such as Netflix, Hulu, YouTube, Flixster, Spotify, Pandora, Facebook and more. It also includes a Web Browser and 4GB flash memory.
The 4GB Wi-Fi version of the SmartStick is available for pre-order for $49 ($79 for 8GB) and is expected to ship by the end of October. The wireless keyboard is an additional $39.
Kevin Sintumuang writes about the benefits of viewing video on a tablet and introduces add-ons that improve the experience.
“I’m not claiming an iPad beats the big screen,” he writes in the Wall Street Journal, “but I will say this: Watching shows and movies on a tablet feels closer to what television viewing should be like in the 21st century than what 21st-century TVs actually deliver.”
Smart TVs that offer access to streaming services often feel sluggish, he notes. “Devices that help bridge the gap between Internet-based content and your living room’s television, like Apple TV and the Xbox 360, are pretty excellent, but once you’ve become accustomed to the speed and intimacy of using something like an iPad to watch your shows and films, it’s hard to deal with tech that’s not as responsive.”
Sintumuang suggests that portability and functionality puts the tablet ahead of the television — while apps from networks and providers offer all the content a viewer needs. He also lists the gear and apps required for the best experience.
Essential apps: Netflix, Hulu Plus, Amazon Instant Video, Fanhattan, HBO GO. For live TV, he recommends apps from Dish, DirecTV, ESPN and Disney. Attaching a Slingbox to your cable box is another option with the $30 SlingPlayer app.
Essential gear for upgrading the A/V: Optomo ML500 projector ($599), Logitech UE Boombox rechargeable speaker ($100-250), Klipsch Image ONE Bluetooth headphones ($250).
California Governor Jerry Brown announced on Facebook his signing of two privacy laws protecting social media accounts.
“Today I am signing Assembly Bill 1844 and Senate Bill 1349, which prohibit universities and employers from demanding your email and social media passwords,” he wrote in the September 27 Facebook post. “These laws protect Californians from unwarranted invasions of their social media accounts.”
“AB 1844 was designed to prohibit employers from requiring an employee or job applicant to provide their username and password for social media accounts,” CNET reports. “Assemblymember Nora Campos, who authored the bill, called AB 1844 a ‘preemptive measure’ that will offer guidelines to the accessibility of private information behind what she calls the ‘social media wall.'”
There are more than 100 cases involving employer workplace policies around social media currently in front of the National Labor Relations Board. There has also been an increase in reports of employers trying to gain inappropriate access to Facebook accounts.
CNET cites the Michigan teacher’s aide that drew attention after being suspended for refusing to provide the school access to her Facebook account.
“SB 1349 is a companion bill to AB 1844,” the article explains, “and focuses on prohibiting colleges and universities from demanding social media usernames and passwords from students and prospective students.”
Social gifting is growing up. No longer just about virtual goods, digital gift-giving has evolved to allow friends to easily send physical items while also letting brands “become a part of the conversation between friends,” writes AllFacebook.
Following Facebook’s acquisition of gift card app Karma, the social network has launched Gifts, a native program to compete with Wrapp, Gifties and other social gifting services. It enables Facebook users to send physical gifts such as Gund teddy bears, Starbucks gift cards and Star Wars flash drives.
“The action appears next to Post and Photo options, above the prompt to write on a person’s timeline. The friend then fills in their address to receive the real-life gift (unlike SuperPoke, these presents are real),” the post explains. “Facebook also prompts users to give gifts when they click on a friend’s birthday announcement in the top-right corner of the news feed.”
In addition to reducing the friction of gift giving, social gifting aims to provide opportunities for advertisers.
According to Wrapp co-founder and COO Carl Fritjofsson, a gift card or personal message that comes from a personal contact holds more weight than a brand simply emailing a discount offer.
“For consumers, it’s all about casual gifting, as well as significant gifting. From a retailer’s prospective, it’s generating store traffic through very genuine and friend-to-friend contacts,” Fritjofsson says. “Facebook is essential to the way that we built our platform… We think that social gifting is definitely going digital, and Facebook is the natural way to facilitate that, because of the friendship graph.”
While banks, merchants and technology companies have bet billions of dollars on mobile payment technology, it’s not likely they’ll see any return for years to come.
“Mobile payments and purchasing at the physical point of sale have experienced little adoption in the U.S. marketplace despite abounding innovation in mobile and payments technologies,” according to a report from Javelin Strategy & Research.
As more people get smartphones, mobile payments in general and NFC (near field communication) specifically will have more room to grow.
That same report from Javelin Strategy & Research estimates that by 2016, 72 percent will own a smartphone, up from the current 51 percent.
“We think NFC is a great user experience and today provides the broadest reach in terms of merchant coverage compared to other technologies,” says Robin Dua, head of product management for Google Wallet.
Many had hoped that the recently released Apple iPhone 5 would come equipped with the NFC-enabled chip in order to push the process along. But the phone does not include an NFC chip.
“Equipping the most popular phone with NFC would have a been huge education moment for consumers and a big validation for NFC,” notes Thomas McCrohan, an analyst at Janney Montgomery Scott.
More than ten percent of Internet traffic is now on mobile devices, but mobile advertising still only accounts for less than two percent of all U.S. marketing spending.
“Mobile advertising has been touted as the next big thing since Apple’s iPhone debuted in 2007,” reports the Wall Street Journal. “Yet the promise remained unfulfilled because marketing companies have to navigate consumers’ desires for privacy with the enticements mobile devices offer, such as fresh information about users’ location and spending habits.”
Because advertisers are slow to make the switch to mobile, ad rates have stayed relatively low.
“About half of all U.S. mobile ad spending goes toward search ads, more than the roughly 47 percent of total digital spending going into Web search, according to eMarketer. Google takes a 95 percent share of all mobile-search revenue in the U.S.,” notes the article.
Advertisers are attempting to create experiences that are useful or fun. Others have started taking advantage of increased smartphone screen sizes with “takeovers” that briefly fill most if not all of the screen. This technique should be used sparingly though, marketers say, because consumers may get annoyed.
Placing ads in unfamiliar places is another method to overcome “ad blindness.” Although it has had mixed results, Amazon sees some traction with its sleep-mode ads for its Kindle e-readers and tablets.
Lastly, “banner ads — the boxes or rectangular ads on many mobile websites or apps — are known as the ‘spray and pray’ approach. Marketers, consumers and companies all said these ads are cheap, crude and annoy mobile users. Still, banner ads account for nearly $2 of every $10 spent on U.S. mobile ads.”
“In a Pew Research Center survey of 3,003 U.S. adults, 17 percent said they accessed news on cell phone or tablet device the day before. Even more — 20 percent — said they regularly get news from social networks like Facebook or Google+,” Mashable reports.
The overall online consumption of news increased ten percentage points from 2008 with 39 percent of respondents accessing news online the day before.
Twitter was not a popular news source for most; only 13 percent of participants used Twitter at all compared to the 53 percent that used other social networks.
“Less than a quarter said they read a print newspaper the day before, about half the number who did in 2000,” Mashable writes. “Magazine readership has likewise declined, though at a softer rate: 18 percent said they read a magazine in print the day before, versus 26 percent in 2000. Book-reading has, at least, remained flat, but more Americans are now reading books through electronic or audio devices.”
Television remained the most common source of news for Americans with 55 percent of those surveyed saying they watched news on TV the day before. These people also spent the most time consuming news, 12 minutes more than mobile consumers.
“Where news consumption habits shift, ad dollars are likely to follow,” notes the post. “TV advertising levels, which so far have remained steady despite growing competition from online advertising outlets, could be negatively impacted should younger consumers continue to gravitate towards other channels.”
“Print, it is clear, still has a tough road ahead. The landscape for social networks and mobile looks promising, but only if marketers can figure out how to demand better ad rates for those channels.”
Hitachi has demonstrated a technology that allows the company to encode data on “quartz glass.” The technique can reportedly store data for 100 million years.
Although the quartz glass formula is proprietary, TechSpot suggests it could be fused quartz. When quartz is subjected to high temperatures for long periods of time it “loses its crystalline structure and can be made into a glass-like substance known as fused quartz.”
Lasers create microscopic pits in four layers of quartz glass that represent binary data. Although the new technology boasts impressive longevity, it can only store about 40MB per square inch. This is about equal to compact disc density, but is much less dense than magnetic storage devices.
The claims that the material could last 100 million years come from accelerated age tests that exposed the material to 1,000 degrees Celsius for two hours. The glass reportedly showed no signs of degradation during the test.
While it’s become increasingly necessary for companies to have a social media presence, many CEOs shy away from personal accounts in fear of costly social gaffes.
“Chief executives are under pressure these days to appear accessible and ‘authentic,’ but social media — with its demands for quick, unscripted updates that can quickly go viral — poses risks for top managers and the companies they represent, in the form of lawsuits, leaked trade secrets or angered customers,” reports the Wall Street Journal.
But according to former Medtronic Inc. CEO Bill George, who is now a management professor at Harvard Business School, “people want CEOs who are real. They want to know what you think… Can you think of a more cost-effective way of getting to your customers and employees?”
According to a recent report from CEO.com and the analytics company Domo, seven in 10 Fortune 500 CEOs have no presence on social media at all.
“CEOs who do mind their own accounts have to steer clear of bashing competitors, disparaging customers or opining on polarizing topics like religion and politics,” notes the article.
“When she trains executives on social media, Amy Jo Martin, CEO and founder of social-media agency Digital Royalty Inc., says clients are ‘fearful of sharing too much versus not sharing enough.’ She advises executives to give followers a glimpse, not a guided tour, of their lives.”
“People start out addicted to Facebook, and then become fatigued. On Twitter, they start out fatigued, and then become addicted,” tweeted The New York Times tech blogger Nick Bilton recently.
In Forbes, contributor Eric Jackson argues that this user interest threshold is true, and after years of being overshadowed by Facebook’s growth, Twitter will rise to the top while Facebook will fade away like MySpace.
Although the article notes Facebook leads in user base, valuation, revenues and IPO, Twitter has one distinctive win: “Twitter already has almost double the mobile revenue that Facebook has today, even though Facebook supposedly has 7x as many monthly average users. eMarketer says that Twitter will do $130 million in mobile ad revenues this year versus Facebook’s $70 million.”
Jackson says this is more important because the world is transitioning to mobile. Unlike Twitter which started as a mobile company — the 140 character limit is a carry-over from SMS limits — Facebook is based on websites and has had a hard time transitioning to mobile without feeling clunky.
“Advertisers will always want to corral users to go to their Facebook pages to keep that community within a walled garden the advertiser can study how they talk about their product,” Jackson suggests. “But, if the users don’t want to go there, they won’t go — and the advertisers will simply go where the users go and interact with them on their terms.”
Twitter has more of a “cool” factor and its interest graph is more valuable to advertisers than Facebook’s social graph.
YouTube wants to launch a new mobile music service that enables users to easily discover music via multiple categories, according to a new LinkedIn job posting.
The Google-owned video platform wants to create “new systems from the ground up that will generate millions of new music videos and surface YouTube’s music video catalog by artist, discography, and genre to users on mobile devices for the first time,” suggests the job posting for technical program manager.
YouTube has had some difficulty in the mobile space because not all of its content was available on its app.
“Previously, publishers were able to opt out of displaying their videos on mobile devices,” GigaOM explains. “Now, publishers can only block their videos from being displayed without ads — which means that a lot more monetized clips, including numerous music videos, are available on mobile devices.”
The site created its own iOS app after Apple’s YouTube app was removed in iOS6. The company must also compete with Vevo apps that separately run their own videos and advertising, even though Vevo is a YouTube content partner.
Even after OnLive’s difficulties, top cable and phone companies are looking to offer cloud gaming directly on televisions, sources say.
“If successful, Web-based games could accelerate a shift away from consoles, the industry’s main money maker for the past three decades,” reports Bloomberg. NPD notes that Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo built a U.S. market worth $24.1 billion in 2011.
“Consumers are already dumping consoles in favor of games on smartphones and tablets, leading to a 39 percent decline in video-game hardware sales last month from a year earlier,” explains the article.
AT&T, Verizon, Time Warner Cable, Comcast and Cox Communications are all reportedly in talks to deliver video-gaming services. The sources also say that carriers are likely to start testing technologies this year for a rollout as early as next year.
“It makes perfect sense why they would want to go after this market,” says Mitch Lasky, former executive at Electronic Arts. “Streaming games use a ton of bandwidth and really benefit from good networks. But it’s a gnarly execution problem they’re trying to solve.”
“Carriers still have to get the technology in place,” the article states. “To stream games from remote servers to multiple devices simultaneously, they need to license virtualization technology. And to make the experience comparable to that of a console, they also must incorporate powerful graphics processors into their data centers, replacing chips used in consoles.”
According to consumer-tracking service NPD, television sets are now the most popular way to watch streaming video from the Internet.
“NPD says 45 percent of consumers report that TV is now their primary Web video screen, up from 33 percent last year,” reports AllThingsD. “It basically swapped places with the PC, which used to account for 48 percent of viewing but now represents 31 percent.”
At this point, NPD figures that only about 10 percent of homes have an Internet-enabled TV, but consumers are often streaming programming through devices such as their Blu-ray player, Apple TV and Xbox 360.
NPD’s general screen breakdown by device: TV — 45 percent, laptop PC — 17 percent, desktop PC — 14 percent, tablet — 1 percent, netbook — 1 percent.
Also according to the NPD report, Netflix is the most popular streaming service, with 40 percent of connected TV watchers using that service.
New Nielsen numbers reflect the continually shifting television viewing habits of Americans, as the number of U.S. TV households fell by 500,000 — dropping for the second straight year.
“We have had no household formation over the past several years, and I believe there is a modest amount of cord-cutting happening in younger households and in lower-income households,” notes Paul Sweeney, Bloomberg Industries’ director of North American research.
“To the extent that there is cord-cutting, over-the-top companies such as Hulu and Netflix are benefiting,” Sweeney adds. “These households then fall out of Nielsen’s total household mix.”
“Nielsen said it’s working with TV and advertising clients on what should constitute a TV home and how to account for new products such as tablet computers. It has already begun incorporating online viewing into ratings,” according to Bloomberg.
