After a stutter start in the tablet business last fall, Staples is taking the nascent category head-on with an online section dedicated to tablet technology, and plans to field a lineup of half a dozen models “over the next few months,” the company said Thursday. Staples launched its tablet business in November with a 10-inch Viewsonic model (CED Nov 22 p8) then it pulled a month later citing a “manufacturing defect” that it attributed to a glitch in the Android software.
More than 30 million passive TVs will be in the market by 2016 around the world, exceeding the number of active-shutter models, Insight Media President Chris Chinnock said Wednesday on a 3D@Home Consortium webinar. The “clear debate in the industry” is whether active-shutter or passive TVs will prevail, but “it won’t be a matter of one versus the other,” he said. Both will “well-received in the market and both are valid,” Chinnock said.
The 3D era collided with the wireless world this week at CTIA in Orlando. LG Mobile Phones announced the Thrill 3D 4G smartphone, due in AT&T company-owned stores in the coming months, along with a 3D tablet that will ship this spring and run on T-Mobile’s network. The tablet requires glasses to view 3D content but the smartphone doesn’t. Consumers can capture, share and play 3D video in 720p on both devices, LG said.
Marchon 3D is planning a staggered rollout of 3D-ready prescription glasses, the company said Monday. Marchon has been working on the designs for 18 months, testing them for “proof of science” prior to going into production with larger quantities, David Johnson, president of Marchon 3D, told Consumer Electronics Daily. The company hopes to have completed the test mode and to begin putting lenses in frames “and have people wear them,” by the end of May, he said. Testing is being handled by VSP Optics, Marchon’s contract lab partner.
Enabling a “good user experience” will ultimately “make or break” 3D as an entertainment medium, said Philip Corriveau, Intel Labs principal engineer of interaction and experience. He spoke during a symposium in New York last week on 3D vision and health sponsored by the American Optometric Association and the 3D@Home Consortium. An experimental psychologist, Corriveau has been studying the human factors involved in driving the adoption of 3D in the home, both for Intel and with the Vision Performance Institute at Pacific University.
Nintendo’s introduction of the 3DS game system next week could have a profound effect on children’s vision in the future, but not in the way Nintendo has warned, said a panel of optometry experts who want to use 3D content to screen for potential vision problems.
Samsung has splintered the tablet market with the introduction of four- and five-inch “ultraportable” models designed to provide “more choice” to consumers, the company said at its spring line show in New York. “We wanted to deliver solutions for different sets of users,” Tim Baxter, president of Samsung America, told us. Prices haven’t been set for the handheld devices, which squeeze into the Galaxy lineup between the company’s smartphones and its 7-inch tablet. Scheduled for May delivery, the ultraportables will be Wi-Fi-only models, Baxter said, and there are no plans now for 3G versions. The models are designed for the “youth market,” he said, but also for any consumers “looking for a second device” who want to stay connected with social media through a product small enough to fit in a purse or pocket and not requiring a wireless data plan.
Dolby Labs and DTS royalty fee growth is being hampered by Chinese TV set makers that are implementing audio codecs in firmware, thus sidestepping Dolby and DTS chip audits Collins Stewart said in an investment report. The report said set makers have been producing TVs with the codec technology but “have not fully reported all TVs shipped with the companies’ codecs.” Dolby and DTS are “likely already aware” of the issue and may have reflected it in forward guidance, the report said, adding that the practice “may limit more meaningful near-term revenue growth opportunities.” Dolby and DTS have dealt “successfully” with similar issues with DVD players in the past, it said. If Dolby and DTS were able to reinforce compliance of royalty payments, it would represent a “significant revenue opportunity,” Collins Stewart said, estimating the attach rates of multimedia TVs in China to be more than 70 percent. In response to the report, a Dolby spokesman told us the company values its brand and intellectual property, and China is a market of “strategic importance.” Dolby “works closely with licensees, retailers, industry associations and government organizations to protect our assets, support fair competition and ensure a level playing field,” he said. DTS did not respond by our deadline.
Google TV missed the boat in first-generation products that launched in October by not understanding what the consumer wants, said panelists at the NexGen Entertainment Home Experience panel at the Digital Hollywood 2011 Media Summit in Manhattan Wednesday. The platform should come back strong in subsequent generations, assuming Google addresses issues that limited its appeal the first time out, panelists said. But Google’s stab at an undefined, fast-moving target shows how far the entertainment industry has to go in defining the home entertainment experience of the future.
Google TV missed the boat in first-generation products that launched in October by not understanding what the consumer wants, said panelists at the NexGen Entertainment Home Experience panel at the Digital Hollywood 2011 Media Summit in Manhattan Wednesday. The platform should come back strong in subsequent generations, assuming Google addresses issues that limited its appeal the first time out, panelists said. But Google’s stab at an undefined, fast-moving target shows how far the entertainment industry has to go in defining the home entertainment experience of the future.