Parks Associates estimates 15 percent of U.S. broadband homes now use only antennas to receive TV and that the portion has “steadily increased” since Q2 2013 when it was under 9 percent, the research firm reported Wednesday. The increase coincides with a drop in pay-TV subscriptions and an increase in internet-only video subscriptions, it said. “Several factors have played a part in this decline,” including growth in over-the-top video services, increasing costs for pay-TV services and “consumer awareness of available online alternatives,” it said. Parks found that in 2016, twice as many pay-TV subscribers downgraded their service as upgraded it.

Global shipments of “traditional” PCs, including desktops, laptops and work stations, totaled 70.2 million units in 2016's fourth quarter, down 1.5 percent from Q4 a year earlier, IDC said in a Wednesday report. The Q4 results “continued the recent trend of stabilizing growth” in the PC market, which has been in steady decline the past four years, it said. For all of 2016, total shipments declined 5.7 percent to 260 million units, it said. The Q4 results “reinforce our expectations for market stabilization, and even some recovery," said IDC. "The contraction in traditional PC shipments experienced over the past five years finally appears to be giving way as users move to update systems. We have a good opportunity for traditional PC growth in commercial markets, while the consumer segment should also improve as it feels less pressure from slowing phone and tablet markets." Despite a 3 percent decline in unit shipments from 2015, Lenovo held its spot as the top global brand in 2016 with 21.3 percent share but lost ground to No. 2 HP (20.9 percent share) and No. 3 Dell (15.7 percent), both of which had shipment increases, IDC said.

Consumer spending on digital devices, services and content will rise on average 4.7 percent annually, reaching $3.4 trillion worldwide in 2020, IDC said in a Tuesday report. Total consumer digital spending is going up, but “the nature of the spend is changing,” it said. “Just as consumers shift spending towards digital content, consumers worldwide are moving digital spending towards online media and away from entertainment devices.” Regions outside the U.S. will account for most of the change in consumer habits, it said. In developing countries, “consumer spending on digital content and services, versus devices, is still gaining, while online media spending also increases in wallet share,” it said.

Consumer intentions to buy TV sets jumped sharply in December from November, according to preliminary data in the Conference Board’s monthly survey. Nielsen canvassed 5,000 consumers for the Conference Board through Dec. 15, and found 13.8 percent said they plan to buy a TV set in the next six months, up from 12.7 percent in November, 13.1 percent in October and 13.1 percent in December 2015, the Conference Board said Tuesday. Consumer confidence improved in December for the second straight month, it said. There was a “post-election surge in optimism” for the economy, jobs and income prospects that “was most pronounced among older consumers,” it said. “Looking ahead to 2017, consumers’ continued optimism will depend on whether or not their expectations are realized.” CTA in its own survey report Tuesday, also said consumer confidence toward tech spending and the overall economy “both saw significant increases” in December. “We’ve seen a healthy appetite for tech over the course of the 2016 holiday season thanks to a strong performance for perennial strongholds,” CTA said. As for consumer optimism toward the overall economy, December “saw another month of steady gains,” CTA said.

The FTC's second annual PrivacyCon event will feature 18 presentations of original research on consumer privacy expectations, information security, IoT and big data, mobile privacy and online behavioral advertisements, said the commission in a Friday news release. The agency released a detailed agenda for the Jan. 12 public forum that will include opening remarks by Chairwoman Edith Ramirez and a closing panel moderated by Consumer Protection Bureau Director Jessica Rich. Among the presenters are Maria Rerecich, who heads Consumer Reports' electronics testing team, Center for Democracy & Technology Senior Policy Analyst Alethea Lange and George Mason University associate law professor James Cooper. The FTC said the first PrivacyCon event earlier this year drew more than 300 attendees and 1,500 webcast viewers (see 1601140062 and 1601140029). The all-day event will be at 400 7th St SW.

Parents spend on average 9 hours 22 minutes a day with screen media, with 78 percent believing they're good media use role models for their kids, even as significant percentages worry about their kids' screen media use, Common Sense said in a study released Tuesday. "Parents are using media for entertainment just as much as their kids, yet they express concerns about their kids' media use while also believing that they are good role models for their kids," CEO James Steyer said. "If they are concerned about too much media in their kids' lives, it might be time to reassess their own behavior so that they can truly set the example they want for their kids." Fifty-six percent of parents worry their children may become addicted to technology and 34 percent think technology use hurts their kids' sleep. Forty-three percent of parents said they're "moderately" or "extremely" worried about their kids spending too much time online, 38 percent said so about their children over-sharing personal details, and 36 percent said so about their kids accessing online pornography and about exposure to violent videos or images. The results come from a national GfK survey of 1,786 parents of those age 8-18.

Eighty-nine percent of adults over 50 own a mobile device, and 73 percent ages 50-59 own a smartphone, AARP reported Monday. Smartphone ownership among people 50-plus is up 10 percentage points over July 2014 and 25 points since 2013. Portable device adoption among Americans 50 and older is growing, while adoption of traditional computing has flattened or declined, said the group. Seventy-six percent of respondents 50-plus own a computing device defined as a desktop, laptop or tablet, and 11 percent of adults over 50 own a wearable device.

Consumer intentions to buy TV sets jumped slightly in November from October for the third straight month, according to preliminary data in the Conference Board’s monthly survey. Nielsen canvassed 5,000 consumers for the board through Nov. 15, and found 13.3 percent said they plan to buy a TV set in the next six months, up from 13.1 percent in October and 12.7 percent in September, but down from 14.2 percent in November 2015, the board said Tuesday. Consumer confidence improved in November after a moderate decline in October, “and is once again at pre-recession levels,” the board said. “A more favorable assessment of current conditions coupled with a more optimistic short-term outlook helped boost confidence.” Though Nielsen canvassed most of the consumers for its November survey before the Nov. 8 presidential election, “it appears from the small sample of post-election responses that consumers’ optimism was not impacted by the outcome,” it said. “With the holiday season upon us, a more confident consumer should be welcome news for retailers.”

Ransomware attacks will decrease in volume and effectiveness in the second half of 2017, while hardware and firmware will be increasingly targeted by “sophisticated” attackers, Intel Security’s McAfee Labs reported Tuesday. Intel surveyed 31 “thought leaders." IoT malware will open back doors in connected devices that could take years to detect, Intel said. Mobile attacks will combine mobile device locks with credential theft, increasing the vulnerability of personal information stored on consumers’ devices, Intel said. Hackers will attempt “dronejackings” using laptops for criminal and “hacktivist” purposes, Intel said. Hacktivists will also likely play an important role in exposing privacy issues, Intel said. “To change the rules of the game between attackers and defenders, we need to neutralize our adversaries' greatest advantages," said Intel Security Vice President-McAfee Labs Vincent Weafer. “To overcome the designs of our adversaries, we need to go beyond understanding the threat landscape to changing the defender-attacker dynamics in six key areas: information asymmetry, making attacks more expensive, improving visibility, better identifying exploitation of legitimacy, improving protection for decentralized data, and detecting and protecting in agentless environments.”

More than one in four of the more than 31 million Wi-Fi hot spots around the world is “just waiting to be hacked,” Kaspersky Lab said in a Thursday report. Kaspersky estimates 25 percent of the world’s Wi-Fi networks “have no encryption or password protection of any kind," meaning the information they transmit is “completely open and can be read by third parties.” Another 3 percent of hot spots use Wired Equivalent Privacy protocol to encrypt data, it said: “This unreliable protocol can be ‘cracked’ within minutes using tools that are freely available on the internet.” The rest of the world’s hot spots use “a more reliable form of encryption” based on the "family" of Wi-Fi Protected Access protocols, it said. “The effort required to hack these networks depends on the settings, including the strength of the password.” It’s “worth noting” that the top 20 countries with the highest percentage of non-encrypted Wi-Fi hot spots include many popular tourist destinations, among them in the U.S., Kaspersky said: “Travelers are among the most vulnerable because the nearest available Wi-Fi hotspot is often the only way for them to stay connected.”