Google Adds Speech Driven Search for PCs and Chrome Browsers

Google has been supporting voice search on Android devices for a year or so. Now Google has added speech recognition into search on desktop for Chrome users. If you’re using Chrome, you’ll start to see a little microphone in every Google search box.

Simply click the microphone, and you can speak your search. This can be particularly useful for hard-to-spell searches like "bolognese sauce" or complex searches like "translate to spanish 'where can I buy a hamburger'".

Voice Search on desktop is rolling out now on google.com in English.

Official Google Blog: Knocking down barriers to knowledge

Netflix Streams Putting Pressure on Premium Cable Channels

According to The Diffusion Group’s (TDG’s) latest analysis of Netflix Streamers, people who stream Netflix content to their net-connected devices, the inclination to downgrade PayTV services has doubled in just the last 12 months.

In March 2011, TDG queried a random sample of adult broadband users that subscribe to cable, satellite, or telcoTV service as to the likelihood they would downgrade their PayTV service in the next six months.

In general, the percentage of Netflix streamers likely to downgrade their PayTV service increased from 16 percent in 2010 to 32 percent in 2011.

That should make sense. Netflix primarily is a source of movie content. What do premium channels provide? Primarily movies.

TDG: Proclivity to Downgrade PayTV Services Increasing among Netflix Streamers

U.S. Wireless Consumers Get Best Rates

Some of us can remember when mobile phones were the size of bricks and cost four figures. Likewise, there was a time when the United States trailed most other developed nations in wireless service penetration. That isn't the case anymore, of course.

The United States wireless industry offers subscribers the lowest revenue per minute of all OECD countries. Also, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch, average revenue per minute is nearly 70 percent lower than the averages of the other 25 countries.

Average revenue per minute is nearly 70 percent lower than the average European country.

As a result, the average wireless consumer in Europe used just 172 minutes a month compared to 793 minutes a month for the typical U.S. consumer.

The U.S. market also is the largest mobile data market and also has the most mobile Internet users, according to Nielsen Mobile."

US #1 for Wireless Industry Innovation | CTIA-The Wireless Association

Starbucks App Coming to Android

Beginning June 15, 2011, the Starbucks mobile payment app will be extended to include the Android platform.

The coffee giant also plans to add mobile payment capabilities to Starbucks shops in 1,000 Safeway stores, bringing the number of places where mobile payments work to nearly 9,000 in the U.S. That number includes 6,800 company-owned Starbucks and another 1,000 locations inside of Target stores, said Chuck Davidson, category manager for innovation on the Starbucks card.

“With the addition of Starbucks for Android to the Starbucks app line-up, a Starbucks mobile payment app may now be used on approximately 90% of smartphones currently in use,” said Adam Brotman, Starbucks’s vice president and general manager of digital ventures.

January marked the nationwide rollout of Starbucks’s mobile payment system. By the end of March — just nine weeks later — Starbucks told its shareholders that it had processed more than 3 million mobile paymentsvia its Starbucks Card Mobile application for iPhone and BlackBerry. See http://mashable.com/2011/06/14/starbucks-mobile-payments-android/#view_as_one_page-gallery_box1543

Starbucks extends smartphone payment app to Android devices - Computerworld

Digital Drives Media Futures, Hitting $555B In 2015 06/15/2011

Digital has emerged as the central driver for media companies' operating models, consumer connections and revenues, according to PwC's "Global entertainment and media outlook: 2011-2015."

Domestically, the entertainment and media market is expected to grow at 4.6 percent compound annual growth rates, reaching $555 billion in 2015, while online ad growth should average 12.2 percent annually through 2015.

Total U.S. advertising is expected to increase at a 4.2 percent CAGR, from $170 billion in 2010 to $208 billion in 2015.

PwC predicts that global entertainment and media spending will rise from $1.4 trillion in 2010 to $1.9 trillion by 2015, growing at a 5.7 percent CAGR.

MediaPost Publications Digital Drives Media Futures, Hitting $555 Billion In 2015

T-Mobile Father's Day "Free Broadband" Promotion

On June 18, T-Mobile is hooking up new and existing customers (with at least 18 months of contract tenure) with 12 months of free data ($10 a month worth) for signing a new talk, text, and data plan on a two-year contract. So if you’re looking to save Dad from all those data overage charges, perhaps the one-day-only Father’s Day sale at T-Mo is the way to go.

If you sign up for T-Mo’s 200 MByte data plan, the carrier will reimburse you every month with $10 in credit, covering the whole $120 cost of that size plan. If you opt for one of T-Mobile’s larger data packages (2GB, 5GB, or 10GB) with unlimited talk and text, T-Mobile will still offer $10 in monthly credit.

T-Mobile Offers A Year’s Worth Of Free Data For Father’s Day

Ericsson to Acquire Telcordia

Many readers will be too young to remember it, but Telcordia once was called "Bellcore," way back in the days after the breakup of the AT&T system, and designed to provide a similar function for the Regional Bell Operating Companies that Bell Laboratories traditionally had played for Western Electric and the old AT&T.

That function had changed over the years, of course. Bellcore was privatized in 1996, when it was sold to SAIC.