CEA President Gary Shapiro used a news conference Tuesday at the CES Unveiled New York conference to announce that CBS President Les Moonves will keynote the Brand Matters workshop at CES on Jan. 7 at 3 p.m. at the theater in the Westgate Hotel in Las Vegas. Shapiro hailed Moonves as "an innovator" who "does things differently," and is "leading his company to the next digital era." Two years ago, Shapiro blasted CBS for "practicing effective censorship over CNET’s editorial staff" when it ordered CNET to pull Dish Network’s Hopper with Sling DVR from consideration for its Best of CES awards (see 1301140063). CNET is an affiliate of CBS, which like ABC, Fox and NBC, has sued Dish in federal court seeking injunctions that would bar the AutoHop feature in ongoing litigation. When we asked Shapiro at the Tuesday news conference about the irony of inviting Moonves to keynote CES two years after blasting CBS for "denying CNET readers full access to information about an exciting innovation" in the Hopper with Sling DVR, he responded with a long answer about how he and CEA have long defended CES as "a very big tent." In retrospect, the dust-up with CBS over CNET was a "tiny issue," though CBS’s actions were "not pleasing to us" at the time, Shapiro said: "I have a personal philosophy that I never make these issues personal. I know that today we may disagree with someone, but tomorrow they’ll be our ally. That’s how we succeed in the business world." At CES, "people disagree with CEA’s position on any issue -- net neutrality, any other issue -- and we invite them to come onstage and present it," he said. "We treat them fairly and respectfully, and that’s indeed why we have over 100 associations supporting CES as our ‘allied associations,’ and their names are posted." CBS representatives didn’t comment.
Gilat unveiled its satellite-cellular hybrid terminal. The SkyEdge II-c Libra terminal was designed to enable mobile network operators to extend their broadband reach beyond the limits of their existing mobile or DSL infrastructures, Gilat said Wednesday in a news release. The terminal allows direct-to-home service providers to enrich their offerings by adding broadband services, it said. The terminal includes a standard receive-only antenna, low-noise block converter and a self-install option, which reduces deployment-related expenses, it said.
Yahoo’s acquisition of BrightRoll, a video ad platform company, is a “solid first answer” in determining Yahoo’s outlook following Chinese e-commerce platform Alibaba’s IPO, said Internet marketing company WebiMax CEO Ken Wisnefski in a statement Wednesday. Yahoo is a major Alibaba shareholder (see 1409120062). Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer announced the BrightRoll deal in a blog post Tuesday. Wisnefski said Yahoo is buying BrightRoll for $640 million.
Mozilla Firefox celebrated its 10th anniversary by launching several platforms and initiatives, said a company blog post Monday. The company rolled-out DuckDuckGo, a pre-installed search option for desktops and mobile, and Polaris, an initiative to develop improved privacy protections online, it said. The company also launched its Developer Edition to strengthen the services of website creators, it said.
A new "wave" of media content in the form of "unbundled, long- and short-form content streamed at will and monetized through subscriptions, microtransactions and advanced advertising solutions" is overtaking the world, feeding "a new segment of content consumers that cuts across ages," said a Bain & Co. report. "These digital-savvy consumers already outnumber analog diehards, and content formats and business models created for them are quickly gaining momentum." Bain researchers canvassed more than 7,000 consumers in 10 countries in July and found that "all-digital consumption has become pervasive," said the report released Thursday. In developed economies, 63 percent of adults older than 36 watch video online, 93 percent listen to digital music and 34 percent read e-books, it said. The percentages for younger consumers are even higher, it said. "Digital content consumption is now firmly entrenched across age groups." As many as 20 percent of the consumers canvassed in the 15-18 age group "said they never use traditional media" such as a DVD or Blu-ray to watch videos, it said. That’s nearly triple the percentage of respondents over 35 who said the same thing, it said. Additional "stark differences" abound between digital natives and older consumers, said Bain. For example, "younger consumers rely more on their social networks to select media content," it said. "More than two-thirds of respondents aged 15 to 25 in developed countries said they choose video, music and books based on social recommendations, compared with fewer than half of those older than 35" who do so," it said. "Digital natives have spurred the growth of fresher-faced alternatives to YouTube, iTunes and even Facebook for consuming content, even as people over age 35 have embraced these platforms." Younger consumers "also have a different take" on data privacy issues than do their older counterparts, Bain said. In developed countries, nearly six of 10 of those 25 or younger "would forego personalized recommendations to ensure their data remains private, compared with three-quarters of adults older than 35," it said.
AT&T’s decision to drop its plans for an in-flight connectivity service confirms that there are high barriers to entry in the in-flight connectivity business, said Evercore ISI analysts. AT&T announced the change of plans in a Reuters report. At the time that AT&T announced its plans to develop the service, Evercore analysts cited FCC approval of spectrum use for air-to-ground service and high equipment switching costs as barriers to entry, analysts said in a research note. Gogo is the only company to combine telecom service provider DNA with aeronautical DNA, and “both are necessary to be successful longer-term,” they said. No current competitors are telecom service providers, “and speculated competitors have no background in the aeronautical space,” they said. Last week, AT&T announced its intent to acquire Iusacell (see 1411100034), a wireless company in Mexico, an AT&T spokesman said. "At the same time, and after a thorough review of our investment portfolio, the company decided to no longer pursue entry into the Inflight Connectivity industry." AT&T will focus its capital on transformative investments, such as international and video, he said.
U.S. shoppers who own a Samsung Galaxy S or Galaxy Note device can add "Card Linked Offers" via the Samsung Wallet app for automatic coupon redemption at checkout as a result of a new partnership between Samsung and Coupons.com. The partnership will mean mobile savings for more than 20 million Samsung flagship devices in the U.S., the companies said Monday. With a single tap, shoppers can add coupons from top national retailers and restaurants directly to their Visa, American Express and MasterCard accounts, they said. "We are striving to enhance Samsung Wallet through strategic partnerships and to connect users to more useful content," Samsung said. "As coupon redemption continues to play a more and more prominent role in the mobile shopping experience, our service will allow consumers to save money more conveniently when shopping," online or offline, it said.
Toshiba is using this week’s electronica 2014 show in Munich to showcase a new addition to its TZ1000 series of ApP Lite application processor chipsets for wearable devices, the company said Monday. The new chipset, the TZ1021MBG, integrates a processor and flash memory, but not the Bluetooth Low Energy and accelerometer that Toshiba built into its previous chipset, the TZ1001MBG, Toshiba said. The result is a "smaller, slimmer package," it said. Toshiba will start sampling the TZ1021MBG this month and begin mass production in March, it said.
Compared with last year, IBM’s annual holiday sales forecast report (see 1411050036) predicts significantly higher mobile browsing activity as a share of total online traffic. IBM believes that’s because of "a combination of an increased number of people using tablet devices, companies offering ubiquitous and affordable smartphones (a move away from feature phones) and consumer comfort and familiarity with mobile shopping," spokeswoman Amanda Carl emailed us Thursday. As for IBM projections that iOS devices will dominate Android smartphones and tablets in mobile browsing and shopping, we asked if IBM has any read on the possible impact of Apple Pay on holiday sales in this, its first holiday selling season. "Retailers are looking to bring the latest in online shopping to the store," Carl replied. "This includes in-store targeting via mobile applications, personalization in terms of mobile coupons, and mobile push notifications. This in-store digital push is now including mobile payments, especially with the recent launch of Apple Pay, which may in fact be the catalyst for broad adoption of mobile payments, both through Apple and other devices."
Wireless carriers will deploy more than 4 million public Wi-Fi hot spots and 20 million home spots in 2015, consultant Mobile Experts said in a report. "Even if we exclude homespot deployments, the number of Wi-Fi access points will reach the level of millions for cable operators and public venues during 2015, outstripping the capacity of new LTE base stations,” said Joe Madden, principal analyst, in a news release. “Several large mobile operators have made a gigantic blunder, by ignoring the opportunity to deploy Wi-Fi or utilize Hotspot 2.0 -- so cable operators and other service providers are jumping on the opportunity.”