TechHive

To go a step further, Apple could embrace over-the-air antennas, whose usage is still on the rise as cable subscriptions sink. (According to Parks Associates, roughly 20 percent of U.S. homes with broadband internet used an antenna last year, up from 16 percent in early 2015.) While Apple TV does work with some networked antenna tuners such as Tablo, their apps are not allowed to integrate with the TV app or with Siri.

From the article "Will Apple TV kill the cable box? Not ...read more

Antenna use is on the rise. According to Parks Associates, 15 percent of U.S. homes with broadband service used an antenna instead of traditional pay TV service in Q3 2016, up from around 10 percent a couple years earlier. Over-the-air has become so prevalent that Nielsen is now tracking antenna channel viewership in many markets, as it does with cable.

From the article "Where’s the antenna support on streaming-TV boxes?" by Jared Newman.

When it comes to predicting when the smart home will become a mainstream phenomenon, we’ve repeatedly missed the mark. Some of us have enjoyed the benefits—and dealt with the few headaches—of living in smart homes for years. And since today’s technology is so much better than what we started with, we’re always surprised to hear statistics like this one from the market-research firm Parks Associates: Just one of every five broadband household owns a smart-home device.

Here’s ...read more

Amazon’s decision to enter the media streamer business has paid off, according to a study from Parks Associates.

The research firm found that Amazon’s Fire TV and Fire TV Stick took third place in U.S. device shipments last year, overtaking Apple TV. Still, Roku held onto its lead from 2013, with 34 percent of shipments, while Google’s Chromecast remained in second place with 23 percent. Parks Associates says that nearly 20 percent of U.S. homes now own at least one streamin ...read more

The idea behind HDR video is similar: It increases the range of brightness in an image to boost the contrast between the lightest lights and the darkest darks. If you’re having difficulty grasping how that translates into a more realistic image on your screen, think of the subtle tonal gradations a fine artist creates in a charcoal drawing to build the illusion of volume, mass, and texture, and you should begin to get the picture. But HDR doesn’t just improve grayscale; its grea ...read more

While the Wii U's dual screen support is the best in the market, Wu said, it's not a killer app, as gesture control was in the original Wii.

If sales of the Wii U continue to lag, it will be a cause of concern for Nintendo, especially with competitors Microsoft and Sony preparing their next-generation consoles, according to Brett L. Sappington, director of research for Parks Associates in Dallas, Texas.

From the article, "Nintendo Wii U sales disappoint, prognosis mixed, ...read more