Daily Marauder

TECHNOLOGY

Microsoft just announced earnings for its third fiscal quarter. Revenues were down 6 percent to $13.65 billion, and net income was down a whopping 32 percent to $2.98 billion or $0.33 EPS. Analysts consensus was closer to $14 billion for revenues and $0.39 for non-GAAP EPS, which Microsoft met thanks to its cost-cutting measures. Still, this counts as a miss for Microsoft. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/04/23/microsoft-reports-a-massive-miss-with-net-earnings-down-32-percent 4/23)

DVR maker TiVo is ramping up its efforts to thwart the very trend that it created: ad-zapping. The company now is offering advertisers ways to keep their ads static while viewers are fast-forwarding through commercial pods or interactive ads that appear in small text boxes when a show is paused. The New York Times (4/22)

Consumer demand for DVDs is forecast to fall further over the next five years as the maturing market transitions to digital distribution. Bankers say these trends could hamper future film financing at the major Hollywood studios. “It’s a different era from four years ago.” (Iwantmedia 4/23, http://www.reuters.com/article/industryNews/idUSTRE53L6L920090422 4/22)

Amazon.com’s Kindle 2, an electronic book reader available from the online retailer since late February, retails for almost double what it costs to build the device, according to iSuppli. Its analysis service says the Kindle 2 retails for $359 but only costs $185.49 to build. (Iwantmedia 4/23, http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=11300AFR6KBF&full_skip=1 4/22)

More than 50% of U.S. consumers say they take environmental considerations into account when shopping for an LCD TV, according to survey results from iSuppli, which found that 27.5% called green factors an important influence on their decision and 23.1% said they looked for such features when buying a TV. Dealerscope (4/23) , TWICE (4/22)

Panasonic has announced that some of its current and future HDTVs with the Viera Cast feature also will be compatible with Amazon Video on Demand. Amazon currently offers about 40,000 movies and TV shows through the VOD offering, and about 500 of those titles are in high definition. PCWorld (4/22) , Pocket-lint.co.uk (4/23)

Sony has demonstrated some of the new capabilities of its BD-Live high-definition format. The advances primarily dealt with being more user-friendly, but Sony home-entertainment chief David Bishop apparently still feels the technology has a ways to go. “I like to say we’re just at the ‘Pong’ stage of BD-Live, if you were to compare it to the video game industry,” he said. The Hollywood Reporter (4/22)