Filed under: TECHNOLOGY | Tags: Blu-ray Disc, Christmas Carol, Disney Digital 3D, DVD, Jim Carrey, Netflix, Reed Hastings, Sony
Theatres equipped with RealD’s 3D cinema technology brought in over half of the total box office or nearly $16 million for “Disney’s A Christmas Carol” shot in Disney Digital 3D, according to the company. The movie, which stars Jim Carrey as Scrooge, earned an estimated $31 million during its opening weekend. (Cynopsis 11/9)
In a bid to sell living room electronics and spur buzz for “Cloudy with A Chance of Meatballs,” Sony Corp. is offering the movie for free to U.S. buyers of its Internet-connected TVs and Blu-ray players starting Monday. (AP11/8)
The studios have put the screws to Redbox and Netflix in order to get them to take new releases at a later date. Redbox has sued many of the big studios but Netflix is taking a different tack. During the company’s most recent earnings call, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings acknowledged the impact that cheap rentals were having on DVD sales and said that “if we can agree on low enough pricing for delayed rental, it could potentially increase profits for everyone.” (Paidcontent11/6)
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Filed under: TECHNOLOGY | Tags: Apple, Best Buy, Blu-ray Disc, Consumer electronics, DVD, Microsoft, Microsoft Courier, User interface
Two still mythical tablet devices, the Microsoft Courier and the Apple Tablet, are probably the hottest and most coveted devices that do not yet officially exist. To further fuel the anticipatory gadget lust, Gizmodo has scored an in-depth look at the former’s user interface and overall design. (Mashable 11/4)
While DVD sales and rentals have slowed, entertainment-industry executives are turning to the Blu-ray format as the saving grace for home entertainment in the near-term. Sales of Blu-ray players have spiked 112% this year, and consumer-electronics giant Best Buy expects to sell 18.6 million Blu-ray players next year. Variety (11/3)
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Filed under: TECHNOLOGY | Tags: Blu-ray Disc, DVD, HD DVD, Microsoft, Time Warner Cable, Video game console, XBox, Xbox 360
Microsoft has no plans to redesign its Xbox 360 video game console to include a Blu-ray player, according to a company spokesman. The software giant, which supported Toshiba’s HD DVD platform in the high-definition format battle with Blu-ray, has been bulking up the VOD capabilities of its console through the Xbox Live service. Digital Trends (10/23)
Time Warner Cable’s Internet customers could be vulnerable to an attack due to a “serious security hole” in the provider’s cable modem and Wi-Fi router, according to blogger Brian Chen. Days after Time Warner promised a fix, Chen says the devices are still vulnerable. http://news.cnet.com/8301-27080_3-10383543-245.html
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Filed under: TECHNOLOGY | Tags: Blu-ray Disc, Microsoft, Netflix, Steve Ballmer, TiVo, Wall Street, XBox, XBox Live
Microsoft announced another down quarter this morning. Revenues in the September quarter were down 14 percent to $12.92 billion, and net profits declined even further to $3.57 billion, or $0.40 a share. The consensus estimate was $0.32, so Wall Street is happy and the shares are rallying (up 10 percent in early-morning trading). (Techcrunch10/23)
With expanded distribution options and a big jump in its subscriber count, Netflix reported a third-quarter profit of $30.1 million, a 48% increase over the year-earlier period. Netflix now has 11.1 million subscribers, the company said, and its streaming service now is available via TiVo DVRs, Xbox Live and Web-capable Blu-ray players. Bloomberg (10/22) , PaidContent.org(10/22)
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Filed under: TECHNOLOGY | Tags: Australia, Blu-ray Disc, Edward Jones, Hewlett-Packard, Optical disc, Swinburne University of Technology, Wall Street, Wall Street Journal
(Below) But what if people no longer want to use optical drives?
Researchers at the Swinburne University of Technology in Australia report that they have developed optical-disc technology that will allow for the storage of 1.6TB of content, about 32 times what a 50GB Blu-ray disc can hold. And the researchers apparently have struck a deal with consumer-electronics powerhouse Samsung to use the technology once it is perfected. Electronista (5/20)
After reporting a 3.2% revenue drop in its second fiscal quarter, Hewlett-Packard this week announced plans to cut 2% of its work force, accounting for about 6,000 jobs, over the next year. Overall, however, the results were in line with Wall Street expectations. “We’re pretty pleased with the results,” said Bill Kreher, an Edward Jones analyst, though he added that “we’re not seeing clear signs of a pickup” in the tech market. The Wall Street Journal (5/20)
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Filed under: TECHNOLOGY | Tags: Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud, Blu-ray Disc, Consumer electronics, New York, New York City, Television, United States, VUDU
Amazon revealed its third Kindle today at a jam-packed press conference in New York City. The new Kindle, which Techcrunch first caught wind of last year,
is expected to have a larger screen to be used for reading newspapers, magazines, and textbooks. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/05/06/the-big-kindle-revealed-liveblog/ 5/6)
Old Kindle vs. the new Kindle.
Looking to add to its subscriber base, Vudu will begin offering its collection of movies to Entone, a company that supplies set-top boxes and DVRs to regional TV providers. Vudu’s library includes more than 14,000 movies and TV programs. CED Magazine (5/2009) , xchange (5/5)
Sales of “connected” consumer-electronics products — including TVs, set-top boxes, servers, consoles and Blu-ray players — will reach 100 million units by 2013, according to a new study by Parks Associates. Kurt Scherf of Parks said the trend toward connected CE systems was fueled by consumers who wanted “whole-home access” to content as well as the ability to bring Web content to their TVs. Dealerscope (5/6) , CEPro.com (5/5)
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Filed under: TECHNOLOGY | Tags: Best Buy, Blu-ray Disc, Consumer electronics, DVD, RealDVD, RealNetworks, Verizon, Wall Street Journal
Best Buy, the country’s leading consumer-electronics retail chain, is preparing to pump up its use of private-label brands. But, according to this article, the move can be a two-edged sword if products offered up under the company’s private labels do not meet the high-quality expectations that Best Buy has worked hard to cultivate. The Wall Street Journal (4/27)
Revenue from home-video rentals was up just under 1%, to $1.7 billion, in the first three months of the year, according to Rentrak. Revenue from video purchases, however, was not as strong: That category was down 11%, to $3.1 billion, according to Video Business research. Total spending on DVD and Blu-ray sales and rentals fell 7% during the period. Variety (4/26)
The overwhelming majority of teens are worried about the economy and are cutting back spending by about 14%, research shows. While they’re spending less on clothing, beauty, food and trips to movie theaters and concerts, video game, music and DVD sales have been less affected. Advertising Age (4/27)
A U.S. District judge in San Francisco will hear arguments in the MPAA’s lawsuit against RealNetworks‘ RealDVD software this week in a case that could determine whether consumers get to legally copy movie discs. The RealDVD software, which enables users to copy DVDs to a computer hard drive, came under fire from the Hollywood industry group, which said it bypasses DVD copy protection and violates the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. CNET (4/24)
The newest telecom device on the market — home media phones such as Verizon‘s Hub and AT&T’s HomeManager — could grow from 1.4 million units shipped this year to 14.3 million by 2013 if carriers continue to subsidize their costs to consumers, according to research company In-Stat. “The media phone represents a new category of broadband multimedia device that has the potential to become the fourth screen in the home, complementing the PC, TV and mobile handset,” In-Stat predicted. TWICE (4/24)
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