Did iPad Cannibalize Half of Best Buy's PC Sales?

Apple's iPad might have cannibalized as much as 50 percent of Best Buy's PC sales over the last quarter, the Wall Street Journal reports. If that keeps up, notebook and netbook sales could plummet.

'It's a very different environment now,' said Stephen Baker, the chief electronics analyst for market researcher NPD Group Inc. "The real cool stuff now will be the tablets, e-readers and probably the higher-end digital cameras."

Sirius XM Promises Satellite Radio 2.0

The fourth quarter of 2011 might be the time Sirius XM introduces the ability to customize audio feeds delivered over the Sirius XM service, but possibly also content captured from HD Radio, WiFi, and possibly terrestrial radio broadcasts as well.

"Satellite Radio 2.0" is expected to offer "significantly more choices for the consumer and contain functionality that does not exist today in our radios," says Sirius XM CEO Mel Karmazin.

Users might be able to customize their own channels using a “like” or “dislike” style button.

Sirius XM might analyze each song that was streaming through the Sirius XM spectrum, and then capture specific songs that met the listener’s preferences. The software could then cache that live content onto a new storage chip on the radio for playback at later times.

This caching could happen at any time that the radio was active, and not just while the user was listening to their personally designed channel.

All the while, the program could insert new content into the playlist that may potentially match the listener’s preferences and allows for music discovery over every single one of Sirius XM’s channels.
The same features might also be used for overall content discovery including news, sports, talk, and comedy programming as well.

Users might be able to save their favorite songs for instant playback at any time.

detail on Satellite Radio 2.0

webcast

ABC And Nielsen Partner On iPad App That ‘Syncs’ TV And Mobile Viewing

The ABC Television Group and The Nielsen Company have developed an iPad app for one of the network’s new primetime dramas in hopes of seeing how much of a connection there is between iPad viewing and regular TV watching.

The app is built on Nielsen’s Media-Sync Platform, which allows mobile apps to automatically detect and synchronize with TV programming using audio watermarks. That means users can watch, leave and come back again right where they left off.

The free My Generation Sync iPad app was available in iTunes’ App Store. In addition to promoting the show, "My Generation," the app also is also designed to help draw interest to Apple’s new $0.99 “TV show rental” offer with Apple.

ABC And Nielsen Partner On iPad App That ‘Syncs’ TV And Mobile Viewing

More Evidence Android Will Blow Past RIM And Apple To Become The Biggest Smartphone Platform

Android is eating the lunch of every major smartphone platform, according to new data from comScore.
While everyone else lost at least 1 percentage point of market share, Android gained 5 percentage points of share in the second quarter of this year.

More Evidence Android Will Blow Past RIM And Apple To Become The Biggest Smartphone Platform

New Twitter is "Media"

As one would reasonably have concluded that Google is now "media," not a search engine, one would reasonably conclude that Twitter also is becoming "media," not a text communication app.

With the new format Twitter is rolling out, which will include ability to integrate video and other related information, Twitter will tend to highlight the actual value and quality of information and analysis, which is going to lead to a scenario somewhat analogous to the music industry, where people buy songs, not CDs or albums.

Twitter is going to bring more of that sort of environment to news and video content. One has to wonder if that will lessen the value of packaged "news channels."

New Twitter Completes Its Transformation into News Source

HTC "Desire" for AT&T

Some Android enthusiasts might not like application overlays such as HTC's "Sense" interface. Some users might disagree. The new HTC Desire to be sold by AT&T and other carriers internationally is the latest in the HTC line up using a similar form factor and the Sense user interface.

Will Access Rules Kill New Fiber to Home Investment?

A number of vendors at the FTTH Council meeting said their business in Europe, where the European Union imposed open access rules, has come to a virtual standstill, and that's something they want to avoid in the U.S. market, Carol Wilson, Light Reading events chief editor, reports.

Much will hinge on whether Title II regulation is imposed on broadband access services, or whether, by some other mechanism, mandatory wholesale rules, especially with discounted access rates, are on imposed on the owners of fiber-to-customer networks.

To be sure, competitive providers would get a new lease on life if such rules were put into place. But just as surely, incentives to build new fiber-to-customer access plant will diminish.

Some will argue this won't happen. But it apparently is happening in Europe, at least by some accounts.

FCC Could Crash FTTH Party