Blog articles from 02/2013

By Kurt Scherf, Contributor A significant buzz in the consumer electronics industry for the past year or so has been the term “second screen.” It denotes how consumers are simultaneously watching television while using mobile devices such as smartphones and web tablets to create an interactive environment. Whether they are voting for their favorite musical contestant, tweeting about a show, or looking up programming information on a site such as imdb.com, the industry is...

By Kurt Scherf, Contributor CES is not the main venue where smartphone manufacturers make their most-significant announcements; they wait until the Mobile World Congress in late February. However, the influence of mobile devices was everywhere at CES, and as I’ll talk about shortly they are in fact a major driver for the expected growth in both health and fitness and home control solutions. Two great articles published in Wired (“In the Coming Age of the Connected Home,...

Tricia Parks , Founder and CEO, Parks Associates was named one of CE Pro Magazine’s 20 most influential people of the past 20 years. The list has named 20 people that made the biggest impact on the industry in the past two decades. CE Pro started the list by first turning to the community for nominees, and then put the top nominees to a vote. Top vote-getters made the list, and then CE Pro editors and a small circle of insiders selected five relatively unheralded wild cards who...

By Kurt Scherf, Contributor CES isn’t necessarily the show at which major pay-TV providers (cable, satellite, or IPTV) make announcements, but as consumer electronics becoming important complements or replacements to the set-top box or pay-TV altogether, the show serves as an increasingly important way for these providers to demonstrate their continued relevance. The pay-TV market is under significant threat from alternative sources of entertainment and content, whether it is...