Rep. Suzan DelBene, D-Wash., Wednesday is hosting a roundtable at Inrix, 10210 NE Points Dr., Suite 400, Kirkland, about the Internet of Things with Puget Sound and University of Washington, a DelBene news release said. The roundtable will focus on what businesses and government can do to help protect consumer privacy, it said. Guests will include Inrix's Bryan Mistele, Microsoft's Heidi Holman and Snupi Technologies' Jeremy Jaech. The congresswoman started a congressional IoT Caucus with Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., to educate lawmakers and the public on the development of Internet-connected devices and the privacy concerns that arise with technological advances. The roundtable will begin at 10:30 a.m.
The Digital Entertainment Group added 12 new member companies, the group said Tuesday. They are Alchemy, Comcast, DirecTV, DreamWorks Animation, Imax, MGM, Playster, Sellthru Co, The Orchard, Testronic Labs, Verizon Digital Media Services and Yekra, the DEG said. "These new companies represent diverse areas all serving the home entertainment industry -- from cable providers, content providers, consumer electronics, cloud storage solutions, streaming services, content distribution, quality assurance solutions and wireless solutions," it said. "Just as the industry evolves, so must the DEG.”
Charter Communications improved its prime time Netflix performance by two spots to No. 6 among U.S. ISPs in February to an average speed of 3.29 Mbps, said the Netflix February ISP speed index released Monday. That was up from 3.14 Mbps for Charter the previous month. Also in the U.S., Verizon FiOS had the fastest speed at 3.53 Mbps and Clearwire the slowest at 1.10 Mbps. The average was 3.07 Mbps. Those speeds compared with the U.K., which saw the fastest streaming speeds at 3.62 Mbps and the slowest at 2.99 Mbps, with the average at 3.33 Mbps.
HBO’s new stand-alone streaming service -- HBO Now -- will launch in April and be available via subscription exclusively to Apple customers, a news release from HBO parent Time Warner said Monday. When the service is launched, Apple customers can subscribe using the HBO Now app on an iPhone, iPad or iPod touch or directly on Apple TV for $14.99/month. HBO will offer a 30-day introductory free trial period to new HBO Now customers who sign up through Apple in April. The service provides instant access to HBO programming over the Internet. HBO CEO Richard Plepler used Time Warner’s investor meeting in New York last fall to drop the news that the company will offer a "stand-alone HBO streaming service" in 2015 (see 1410150095).
In advance of Apple’s release Monday of new details on its impending Apple Watch launch, consumers interested in wearable technology “have already started to form opinions whether they think they will buy one or whether they like some of the watch's features,” Accent Marketing said in a research report. "Our data shows that brand and product engagement can positively or negatively influence purchase decisions even long before a product is in market,” the company said. “It reinforces that companies need to offer and deliver an omni-channel engagement strategy early and often to build long-lasting relationships, as soon as consumers are exposed to a product, even a concept, all through the purchase cycle." The company polled online in February 1,000 consumers who already own at least one wearable device and found that four of every five had no plans to buy an Apple Watch, it said. Fifty-four percent view the Apple Watch as “an exciting use of technology,” though 51 percent believe the Apple Watch interface “will be too small to use,” it said. Other findings: (1) nearly two-thirds (64 percent) of wearable product consumers surveyed use their wearable tech device daily; (2) two out of three wearable product consumers want access to social media via their wearable devices; (3) three-quarters of millennials believe wearable tech devices are a new way consumer brands can engage with customers.
Correction: What an FCC spokesman said -- about small, rural ISPs choosing to become regulated under new Communications Act Title II FCC rules rather than the old ones they are now subject to -- is that the Feb. 26 net neutrality order would not count broadband costs in rate-of-return calculations (see 1503050054).
TomTom’s Runner and Multi-Sport GPS sport watches can now connect to the Nike+ platform, TomTom said Friday. The platform enables users to track and share their progress with the Nike+ community, challenge friends and earn NikeFuel points, the company said. TomTom GPS sport watches automatically sync activities to multiple running sites and apps including Nike+, TomTom MySports, RunKeeper, MapMyFitness, Jawbone, Endomondo and Strava, said TomTom, and data can also be uploaded manually to other open platform communities. The sport watches track real-time information including time, distance, pace, speed, heart rate and calories burned during an activity.
Fifty-three percent of Americans 12 and older listen to online radio monthly and 44 percent listen weekly, said a survey released Wednesday by Edison Research and Triton Digital. The survey also found that 54 percent of the Internet audio users use Pandora most often, followed by iHeartRadio at 11 percent, Spotify at 10 percent, and iTunesRadio at 8 percent. Along with Internet radio, podcasting is on the rise, with consumption growing from 39 million monthly users in 2014 to about 46 million in 2015, it found. On social media, 65 percent of those surveyed said they use Facebook most often, the report said. Facebook beats out Instagram at 18 percent, Snapchat at 15 percent and Twitter at 8 percent as the most-used social media sites among 12- to 24-year-olds, it found. The survey was done Jan. 6 to Feb. 10, with 2,002 persons 12 and older selected via random-digit dial sampling and interviewed by phone.
The 17 largest U.S. cable and phone providers added 3 million net broadband subscribers in 2014, Leichtman Research Group (LRG) said in a news release Thursday. Cable companies have 51.9 million broadband subscribers and phone companies have 35.4 million, it said. AT&T's U-verse and Verizon's FiOS broadband subscribers make up 53 percent of telco broadband subscribers, up from 37 percent at the end of 2012, LRG said. In 2014, the top cable companies added 2.65 million broadband subscribers and the top phone companies added about 345,000 subscribers, LRG said. In 2014, the top cable companies saw 2.3 million more net additions than phone companies did, compared with 1.7 million net adds in 2013, it said.
In Q4 2014, 43.6 percent of U.S. consumers with a smartphone owned an Apple iPhone, according to a survey by Nielsen. Samsung followed with 31 percent, LG at 7.6 percent, Motorola at 5.8 percent and HTC at 3.9 percent, all from the Android community. Windows Phone-based Nokia phones had 2.2 percent, and BlackBerry smartphones were 1.2 percent of the U.S. smartphone population, said Nielsen. Android was the leading operating system among U.S. smartphone owners, at 49.5 percent of users, it said. Sixteen percent of smartphone owners said they had acquired their handset within the past three months, bringing smartphone penetration to 77 percent of mobile phone owners in the U.S., said Nielsen. Among those who had recently acquired a phone, 91 percent chose a smartphone, compared with 82 percent in the year-ago quarter. Overall, smartphone penetration grew 8 percentage points over Q4 2013, it said. Nielsen’s Mobile Insights is a monthly survey of 30,000-plus mobile subscribers aged 13-plus in the U.S.