Blog articles from 06/2010

Three applications will drive adoption of control systems over the next five years: energy management, entertainment systems and content control, and remote home self-monitoring. Consumers see the value in these areas, which, once established, can serve as the base for expanded control systems in the home. Parks Associates new report Home Systems: Home Controls – Analysis and Forecasts finds low consumer awareness and a shortage of affordable installation services currently hinder...

Parks Associates is supporting Seventh Annual Healthcare Unbound Conference & Exhibition. Harry Wang , Director, Health & Mobile Product Research, Parks Associates will be moderating the panel, "Innovations in Wireless Technologies" on Monday, July 19th at 4:15 PM. Wireless technology has a number of distinctive characteristics that make it an attractive platform for delivering healthcare anytime, anyplace. Though a number of real barriers remain to be...

My first summer at Parks Associates (twelve years agao this month) was characterized by a monthlong heatwave and zero rain for several weeks in a row. It was also my first introduction to consumer-oriented home networking technologies - it seemed that there was a new announcement regarding powerline, wireless, coax, twisted-pair or other types of home networking technology. It was quite an introduction into the dynamic consumer technology space. I'm reminded of the milestones of...

DVRs and video downloads will push the storage needs of U.S. broadband households to almost one terabyte by 2014, creating a parallel rise in the market for file backup and storage solutions, according to international research firm Parks Associates. Parks Associates’s new report Consumer Storage Opportunities finds almost 50% of households are performing regular backups, including external storage, flash drives, and online backup, up from only 35% in 2006. This is a classic...

In a CONNECTIONS™ wrap-up post last week, I had predicted that we would see many more announcements regarding the linkages between premium video services (from pay-TV providers) and the connected CE world. Widevine's announcement this week with Samsung speaks to the technology relationships being formed to enable just these types of features on connected TVs and Blu-ray players. With the agreement, Widevine will provide Samsung with live and on-demand adaptive streaming, virtual...

In a matter of hours, consumers gained at the expenses of e-book reader makers' profit margin. I am talking about the price war initiated by Barnes and Noble this morning on its Nook e-book reader device and the swift action taken by Amazon.com to lower the price of its low-end Kindle. by the end of the day, the entry-level Kindle is $70 lower, from $259 to $189, while a new Wi-Fi only Nook costs $149. Even the price of the 3G Nook was lowered to $199. I have tracked the portabl CE...

Last week's CONNECTIONS™ conference was the best that I can remember in terms of the lineup of speakers and the discussions that we had. Last Thursday, the Parks Associates analyst team provided some closing thoughts on the conference, and I wanted to share my thoughts. Multi-platform solutions are real: Whether we are talking about third-party solutions providers such as Vuze linking the PC to the consumer electronics device, or Verizon’s vision of “flicking” photos...

Join Parks Associates on June 24th at 1 pm CENTRAL for the Trends in 3D TV webcast. This will be a great opportunity to learn more about latest 3D TV consumer research and the business opportunities and implications for CE manufacturers, content creators, and service providers. Pietro Macchiarella , Research Analyst will present analysis and forecasts from Parks Associates examining the following questions: -- What challenges will 3D TV present within the digital content...