There is a lot of video content online but watching it on your television remains a hit or miss affair. The market is fragmented as best so what you get depends on your specific hardware and the vendor partnerships that go with it. With one TV (or connected Blu-ray player) you can watch Netflix or a YouTube stream out of the box. With another you can plug into Cinema Now content or something else.
From WiFi to Bluetooth, mobile technologies have begun to shift where we consume information and entertainment. Touchscreens and voice automation have similarly begun to shift how we interact with it. In the coming years, changing display technologies will likely have a similar effect on where and what we see.
Case in point – this week Sony revealed a new prototype OLED display so flexible it can be rolled and unrolled around a tube no wider than a pencil. We’re not talking a screen that can just bend, this can literally roll and unroll. (Watch the video. More After the jump)
Confirming reports circulating for several days, Microsoft announced a substantial plan to reorganize its Entertainment and Devices division. Timed to coincide with the fall departure of retiring group head Robbie Back, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer will take over the division starting July 1.
It’s a story about great creativity, perseverance, forward thinking. It’s a story about vision, about leadership, about innovation. Hollywood couldn’t have scripted it any better. After a long exile, Steve Jobs returned to a then struggling Apple when it acquired his NeXT Computer company in 1996. Apple at the time was little more than a boutique competing against the mass market Window’s juggernaut. It had passionate followers, a known brand, and solid product, but a relatively meager market share. In the decade plus that’s followed Job set out to rebuild and restore the company he first created. It may be a foregone conclusion, but we can now send the Champagne to Cupertino.
In the late 90’s, there was periodic uproar over privacy issues coming from then developing internet marketing practices. A decade later, some of the old lessons are still being revisited, some of them relearned.
Amid growing concern and outrage from users over privacy controls, Facebook announced Wednesday that it will implement a much more simplified privacy management environment for its users.
Consumer demand for mobile PC’s (defined as laptops, tablets and netbooks) is on the rise. According to research from Gartner, global shipments jumped 43.4% in the first quarter, their highest in eight years.
With average prices down (off 15.7% year over year), increased consumer demand (as opposed to professional) was a key driver.
Asus and Acer, both pushing several inexpensive products, saw the largest growth rate among manufacturers. The companies’ shipments were up 113% and 48% respectively.
Smartphone use (particularly iPhones) is addictive and contagious. Sit down in a public place – a coffee shop, a bar, a book store – and chances are you’ll see someone whip out their phone. Within minutes, sometimes just seconds, someone else will follow. I’ve been out with friends and seen three out of five people at a table all “plugged in.” They were texting, gaming, checking emails, scanning news. Funny thing is, not one of them was actually using the phone to talk.
Phones have become our anytime, all-the-time, information portals and the trend isn’t slowing down.
