The number of cloud DVR subscribers in the U.S. will exceed 4.6 million by year-end and 24 million by 2018, said a Parks Associates report. Fifty-one percent of pay-TV subscribers are “very interested” in having unlimited space to store DVR recordings, said Parks, which it said indicates strong consumer demand for cloud-based DVR services. More than half of U.S. broadband homes either have a DVR that’s part of their pay-TV subscription or have bought one at retail, said Parks. “Operators are interested in cloud DVR because these services will reduce their long-term hardware costs while providing multiscreen capabilities, enhanced features, scalability, improved flexibility, and new revenue opportunities,” said Brett Sappington, research director, Parks Associates, which plans a free webcast, “Endless Flexibility and Experiences with Cloud DVR,” Thursday at 2 p.m. EDT. Yoav Schreiber, Cisco Systems product marketing manager-service provider video, will discuss time-delayed TV, which Cisco believes will be the fastest growing residential service by 2019. “To meet that growing demand, video operators are looking to transform their business by implementing cloud and virtualization,” and cloud-based DVR offers service providers new ways to grow subscriber revenue “while reducing costs and enhancing their business and infrastructure agility,” Schreiber said.

Online advertising will surpass broadcast TV advertising in 2015 and “become the single largest ad class by next year,” FTI Consulting said in a news release Monday. Online advertising will climb 10.3 percent over the next five years, from $37.5 billion in 2014 to $41.8 billion in 2015 and to $55.6 billion by 2018, FTI predicted. Broadcast ads will rise 4.2 percent in the same period, FTI said. “Broadcast ad revenues are expected to rise minimally in 2015 to $38.9 billion and to $45.5 billion by 2018,” the release said. Online advertising will surpass both broadcast and direct mail as the single largest advertising category, FTI said.

The gesture recognition and touchless sensing market is expected to reach $23.55 billion by 2020, said a report from Markets and Markets. After the launch of Microsoft’s Kinect in the Xbox 360, players from the gesture-control industry began targeting CE products, and now laptops, TVs and smartphones are among the products incorporating gesture-enabled control, said the company. The report also covers growth in the biometric authentication market driven by the increasing rate of cybercrime and illegal trespassing.

Consumer confidence toward the overall economy and technology spending both fell slightly in May, CEA said in a Tuesday announcement. CEA’s Index of Consumer Expectations, which measures consumer sentiment about the U.S. economy as a whole, decreased 2.4 points from April to 173.7, reflecting “mounting apprehension around the economy,” said Shawn DuBravac, CEA chief economist, in a statement. CEA’s Index of Consumer Technology Expectations, which measures consumer expectations about technology spending fell 2.1 points to 86.6.

Consumers in the U.K. are spending at least twice as much time online as they were 10 years ago, fueled by increasing use of tablets and smartphones, U.K. regulator Ofcom said Monday in its annual report on media use and attitudes. Ofcom researchers canvassed 1,890 consumers 16 and older and found they claimed to spend on average more than 20 hours and 30 minutes online in a given week last year, it said. That’s more than double the nine hours and 54 minutes of average weekly time online in 2005, it said. The biggest increase in online use came among those 16-24 years old, almost tripling from 10 hours and 24 minutes per week in 2005 to 27 hours and 36 minutes by the end of 2014, it said. “Increasing take-up of tablets and smartphones is boosting time spent online.” Though 5 percent of adults reported using a tablet to go online in 2010, that increased to 39 percent in 2014, Ofcom said. Using a smartphone also has more than doubled in five years, from 30 percent of adults in 2010 to 66 percent in 2014, it said. “Overall, the proportion of adults using the internet has risen by half” in the past decade, from six in every 10 in 2005 to almost nine in 10 today, it said.

Global advertising spending on mobile devices is expected to reach $105 billion by 2019, up from an estimated $51 billion this year, said Juniper Research. The growth in mobile ads is due to an “attitude shift” among brands and retailers using mobile as a core channel for consumer engagement, said Juniper. The ability of smartphones to deliver targeted, personalized and timely ads -- along with media-stacking trends among consumers -- makes mobile advertising primed for high visibility and high response rates, it said. An uptick of ad spending in the Far East and China, fueled by the adoption of mobile commerce within China, is expected to bring that region’s share of the mobile ad spend to 43 percent by 2019, said Juniper. It cited increasing concerns around consumer privacy based on advertisers use of big data analytics to gain insight into consumers’ purchase patterns and behavior online and offline. With consumers feeling an increasing violation of their rights when their information is shared for ad purposes, it’s important for marketers to offer consumers a way to opt in to data sharing to avoid adverse publicity and possible litigation, said the researcher. As the prevalence of video increases in mobile ads, it will be important for advertisers to address viewability on small screens, it said.

“Tech jobs are creating significant opportunities for non-Asian minorities,” but not women, said a Progressive Policy Institute report by PPI Chief Economic Strategist Michael Mandel and Economist Diana Carew. The report, released Thursday, said from 2009 to 2014 the number of blacks with a college degree employed in the tech industry grew faster than in healthcare. Employment in computer and mathematical occupations rose by 79,000 jobs compared with 76,000 in health care for blacks, a PPI news release said. Hispanics working in healthcare outnumbered those in tech industries, with 104,000 jobs vs. 81,000, but the report’s authors still said it was a significant increase. Women have only 26 percent of college-educated tech jobs, which the report’s authors said isn't an equal share. “Too few science-minded women are pursuing degrees in computer and information science (CIS), choosing instead to study healthcare," the release said. “Policies at the federal, state and local level must encourage more women and minorities to pursue tech careers,” it said. “It is imperative that our nation's higher education system heed labor market signals by providing more pathways into tech jobs,” Carew said.

Small-business owners looking to attract and retain customers should make the most of email campaigns, said the “2015 Cox Consumer Pulse on Small Businesses” report. Slightly more than half of consumers ranked email as the most effective communications channel, the survey found. Despite the shift to mobile devices, respondents ranked email, at 53 percent; in-person events, 48 percent; social marketing, 45 percent; and direct mail, 32 percent, higher than texts/SMS in terms of their effectiveness. Though the majority of respondents were pleased with their "shopping small" service levels, 20 percent of consumers polled suggested offering free Wi-Fi to help enhance the customer experience. Cox Business surveyed nearly 1,400 U.S. consumers in eight states about their sentiments on the importance of shopping at small and medium-sized businesses.

Ticket purchases via mobile and desktop devices, including smartphones, tablets and PCs, will reach 32 billion by 2019 worldwide, from an estimated 16.2 billion, this year, a Juniper Research report said. Digital ticketing services are developing quickly, and smartphones are forecast to account for more than half of digital tickets bought by 2019, Juniper said. In nearly every market, rapid transit and bus ticketing were being driven by mobile phone usage, the researcher said, due to their low transactional price and high usage frequency, it said. Bus ticketing was found to be particularly suited for mobile payments, Juniper said. Transportation ticketing is gaining traction through bar codes delivered through smartphone apps and through SMS-based technology, it said, with the latter becoming more popular in Sweden and Italy. Ticketing apps on wearables such as smart watches are expected to gain popularity, although challenges including scanning capabilities and battery life need to be addressed, it said. Apple Pay will create more awareness of contact-less payment via smartphone, Juniper said, and one in three airline boarding passes will be issued via mobile devices by 2019.

A third of sports fans report interest in watching live sports on their mobile devices, up from 20 percent in 2010, said a sports and technology report from CEA. TV remains the top consumption screen for sports, at 90 percent interest, while 40 percent of sports fans have viewed or listened to sports online using a computer, tablet or smartphone within the past 12 months, said the report. Nearly 20 percent of sports fans have consumed sports content on social media platforms such as Facebook or Twitter, it said. Sports fans are also using CE devices for second-screen viewing, with 23 reporting using a mobile device for sports-related activities while watching TV. Some 21 percent said they’ve used a DVR to pause or rewind portions of a game, and 21 percent have used a recording method to record another game being played simultaneously, said the report. Among fans who watch sports on TV, 62 percent own TVs with a screen size of 40 inches or larger, compared with 38 percent of nonsports fans, it said.