Fast Company

In late 2014, Amazon launched the Fire TV Stick for $40. Compared to the $100 Fire TV box that launched earlier that year, the Stick had significant performance hiccups, and the first version of its remote control didn’t support voice commands.

But again, consumers didn’t mind. Within a year, Amazon’s stick was outselling its box 3 to 1, according to Parks Associates. A spokeswoman for Parks says the Fire TV Stick now makes up 81% of all Amazon Fire TV devices owned in U.S. ...read more

The early support for Thread may even hint at where Eero is going next. Tom Kerber, an analyst for Parks Associates, notes that one of the main features of Thread is that it’s decentralized. Instead of sending all communications through a single hub, Thread enables a scenario where any device can make decisions and perform computing on behalf of other devices on the network.

“When you talk to the silicon vendors, their long-term view of the connected home, and how it operate ...read more

The deal is a coup for Beck, whose network has struggled to find carriage with some traditional cable systems. Sling, which launched in early 2015, has emerged as one of the most popular services for "over-the-top" TV. A recent research report from Parks Associates put Sling at No. 6 among the top 10 streaming-TV services. Dish doesn't disclose how many people use Sling, but Parks analyst Brett Sappington estimated last month that the service has surpassed 1 million subscribers. ...read more

For device makers, the sheer number of languages on offer poses a dilemma: Which ones do you support when building a new product?

"You may not have the resources to do everything, and you may not have the capacity, the bandwidth, the processing power to do everything in an individual product, so you have to make selections," says Tom Kerber, an analyst with Parks Associates. "Limiting those choices to the critical few is important."

From the article "Why The Internet Of ...read more

Samsung has thrown its weight behind an effort called Thread, which also has the backing of Nest, processor designer ARM, and a few other industry players. As Parks Associates analyst Tom Kerber explains, Thread works by assigning every device its own IP address, and brings numerous benefits including end-to-end encryption and low power consumption. "If you think about longer-term, it's very likely that a lot of the intelligence is going to be in the end devices rather than in a ...read more

2014 brought us twerking, Sam Smith, better smart thermostats and the promise of the Apple Watch. Here are seven trends we expect to see in full bloom at this week’s Consumer Electronics Show that will impact technology and lifestyle products throughout 2015:

1. The internet of things. If you can’t resist, go ahead and enable things with intelligence; just, do it in a smart way. Water heaters, smoke alarms, thermostats, lights, and almost anything with a plug has the potenti ...read more

At CES on Monday, Roku TV announced that it was partnering with a few up-and-coming hardware manufacturers to have its streaming technology built into their TV sets, no box necessary. The company actually announced its first two partners—China-based TCL and Hisense—at CES 2014, and began shipping (quietly) in the fall. But now it’s expanding in a big way.

Roku and its boxes are already No. 1 in the streaming-media market, with 29% marketshare, according to research firm Park ...read more

Apple is hoping these upgrades will deliver a jolt to iPad sales. Once a product that flew off Apple's shelves--and thought to be the future of the company--the iPad has been underperforming as of late. Cook said Apple sold more than 225 million iPads worldwide, and in its first four years, the tablet was its best-selling product in the company's history. However in the last two quarters, Apple reported declining iPad sales, an 8% drop last quarter and 13% the quarter before tha ...read more