The Seattle Times

Household brands like Whirlpool, Samsung and Bosch are racing against tech behemoths like Google and Amazon to dominate the kitchen with internet-connected appliances and cooking gadgets that include refrigerators embedded with touch screens, smart dishwashers and connected countertop screens with artificially intelligent assistants that react to spoken commands.

Yet the “smart kitchen” remains a tough sell. With the kitchen often a hub for families and friends, habits there ...read more

Sixteen percent of U.S. broadband households admit to either using someone else’s credentials to stream cable TV or sharing their login info with someone outside their home, according to Parks Associates. The TV industry’s losses from password sharing are expected to rise to $9.9 billion by 2021 from $3.5 billion this year, the research firm estimates. That lost revenue is especially important because the pay-TV industry is already losing subscribers to cheaper online rivals lik ...read more

Hartstein’s decision was made easier because of a flood of Internet-streaming services that allow consumers to cobble together their own video packages. There are more than 100 Internet-video services operating in the U.S., with at least 40 percent launching during the last two years, according to Dallas consulting firm Parks Associates.

Although Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime kicked off the streaming revolution, the field is getting more crowded with new entrants serving up ...read more

Parks Associates, a Dallas market-research firm, estimates about 1 in 10 U.S. homes with a broadband connection now has a smart thermostat.

“Six (million) to 8 million thermostats are sold annually, and in the future a larger and larger portion of those are going to be smart,” says Tom Kerber, director of energy research for Parks Associates. “Think about automatic door locks. They used to be only on Cadillacs. But it moved down to the lower-tier cars. And now you can’t buy ...read more

Control of other set-top devices and smart TVs is “coming soon,” according to the company’s announcement.

Some 55 percent of U.S. smartphone owners use TV apps at least once a month, mostly to watch videos, according to a new report by research firm Parks Associates.

From the article, "Hulu releases remote control for consoles" by Brier Dudley.

Increasingly these capabilities are built directly into TV sets, so they can connect wirelessly to a home network, stream video and run apps like a smartphone. It may come to be a standard TV feature, similar to the way Wi-Fi is now built into PCs.

These systems are mostly used to stream video from Netflix, which is used by 46 percent of the U.S. homes with broadband, according to a survey by research firm Parks Associates.

Amazon entered the fray in 2011 when it began o ...read more

Apparently the economy’s doing all right and the game industry is poised for a big rebound, following this month’s launch of the Xbox One and PlayStation 4.

Some 40 percent of broadband-connected households plan to buy a new game console this holiday season during which they’ll spend more than $1,000 on gadgets, according to a forecast by the Parks Associates research firm.

Consoles are also the most-wished-for holiday gift among teens and in the top five for adults, acc ...read more

It's also a new business direction for Microsoft's PC game business, which is using "Flight" to experiment with free online games monetized through microtransactions. About 80 percent of U.S. gamers now play such titles, mostly through Facebook, where players spend an average of $29 per month, according to Parks Associates research.

From the article, "Q&A: Microsoft Flight boss on "rebooting franchise" by Brier Dudley