Blog articles from 01/2011

The gaming industry is going through radical transformations thanks to motion controllers, gesture recognition, 3D, digital distribution, social gaming, etc. The Supreme Court is also expected to rule on Schwarzenegger vs. EMA (Entertainment Merchants Association) in the next few months. If the Court decides to uphold the law, such decision will create stricter rules for game distribution. In the midst of all these changes, it has become more and more difficult for game developers...

Borrowing a page from computing projects in developed nations, Martha Lane Fox, the UK's "digital tsar", recently announced a program that will offer refurbished computers to UK consumers . These PC systems will be priced at only £98 and will include wireless broadband, flat panel screens, keyboard, mouse, telephone tech support, and delivery. Over 60 retail outlets are planning to sell these systems. With a price that low for PCs, the UK will be performing an...

What will be the defining consumer and technology trends of 2011? Join Parks Associates on Thursday, January 20th at 1 pm CENTRAL for the webcast, Analyst Roundtable What's Hot in 2011, and learn more about CES 2011 announcements and notable trends in the digital home and CE industries. This event provides primary consumer data and trending, predictions, and forecasts for a number of product and service categories. Parks Associates research finds: -- U.S. sales of...

Boxee may turn to subsidies to help get the price down and better compete in the market, company founder Avner Ronen said in an episode of the This Week in Startups show. He mentioned that the $200 street price for a Boxee Box was "way too expensive" to get mass market adoption and floated the idea as one option for future models. Nothing was definite in the talk and might not necessarily come about with a future deal. Ronen also provided some brief hints at the possible...

Parks Associates is supporting The Gamification Summit on January 20-21 in San Francisco. The Gamification Summit brings together top thought leaders in game mechanics and engagement science for the first time. Hear what works and what doesn’t in this dynamic and fast-moving field through case studies, workshops, keynotes and panels delivered by experts such as Gabe Zichermann (author, Game-Based Marketing), Amy Jo Kim (gamification guru) and Jane McGonigal (TED fellow, author...

As the glitzy Las Vegas curtain falls on yet another Consumer Electronics Show, tablet computers and 4G networks remain the talk of the town—specifically in relation to Motorola’s promising Xoom . Moreover, the Xoom’s combination of a dual-core Tegra 2 processor, Google Android 3.0 (a.k.a. Honeycomb) and 4G LTE connectivity could well see Motorola’s slate even challenging Apple’s iPad in the tablet space. The Xoom’s chances of success have today seen the...

Walt Disney Co. is discussing making video from some of its television networks available on sets embedded with Yahoo Inc.'s Internet-TV software, people familiar with the matter said. Such new offerings would propel Yahoo into a broader battle to use the Internet to bring premium content to digital TVs, amping up the competition with traditional cable-TV and satellite operators. Companies including Apple Inc., Google Inc., and Cisco Systems Inc. have entered the race to...

In November, we shared some thoughts about what the "cloud" could mean for consumer products and services. For a review, you can click on this link. Microsoft's recent Windows 7 commercials have helped to bring broader market awareness about what practical end-user applications can come as a result of cloud-based services. To review, the consumer cloud products and services as we categorize them are: E-mail/Calendaring/Family Sync: These are features such as...