InformationWeek

Imagine you're an entrepreneur with access to a vast, largely untapped market worth billions of dollars that will continue to expand for years to come.

This market is at your doorstep. It is Americans aged 50 and older, and it represents more than 100 million people responsible for $7 trillion in economic activity each year. If this market were a country, its gross national product would be exceeded only by the United States ($16.2 trillion) and China ($9.1 trillion), accord ...read more

Fitbit currently dominates the fitness tracker market, accounting for almost 40% of sales, according to a Parks Associates report; Samsung and Nike place second at 14% each. Yet Harry Wang, director of health and mobile product research at Parks Associates, said in a blog post that the report, released in August, predated the long-anticipated Apple Watch, and only 6% of US households have a digital pedometer or fitness tracker.

From the article "Fitbit Takes On Apple With Ne ...read more

The need to develop a cross-platform system for consumers to access movies, TV shows, games, and other digital content from multiple devices has become more urgent as the number of Web-connected devices grows. According to Parks Associates, the number of such devices will grow to 780 million units in 2014 from 350 million this year.

From the article, "Consortium Unveils Digital Entertainment Locker" by Antone Gonsalves

Quoting a recent report by Parks Associates, the vendor says digital media storage for the average consumer household will increase nine-fold to nearly 900 GB by the end of 2014. Much of that growth will be due to video downloads and managing copies of Blu-ray high-definition movies.

From the article, "Seagate Launches 3TB External Hard Drive" by Antone Gonsalves

Last year, the number of U.S. households using Web-connected game consoles rose by 64% from 2008, while the number of households connecting a PC to a TV increased by 36%, according to a report released Tuesday by Parks Associates.

"Many households are working with devices they already have to get the connected-TV experience, which shows strong future demand for connected TVs, Web-enabled Blu-ray players, and networked digital media players such as Apple TV and Roku," Parks a ...read more

As a result of the increasing demand, service providers will overhaul their current base with next-generation models to try to grab a competitive advantage, Parks Associates said in its latest market outlook released Thursday. The new set-tops are expected to support applications such as time- and place-shifting and Internet-based services

A Parks survey of U.S. broadband households found a third "very interested in a set-top box that connects to their PC and Internet servic ...read more

The gradual increase in megapixel capacity for cell phone cameras is expected to spur the growth of imaging applications for mobile phones, according to a report issued Tuesday by Parks Associates. Revenue from imaging apps on mobile phones should exceed $500 million in 2013, the market research firm said.

Predicting that the photo-sharing services businesses will expand to personalized content management and social networking applications, Parks Associates said consumers wi ...read more

A Parks Associates survey suggests 2009 will center largely on connecting digital cameras, photo frames, and mobile phones.

Consumer electronics purchases will get a new push in the coming months from increased consumer demand for networking among imaging and mobile devices, according to a survey announced Tuesday by Parks Associates.

The new demand, which Parks described as the "next wave of consumer electronics purchasing," will center largely on the home use of digita ...read more