SAN FRANCISCO--Marketers convened here this week to figure out how best to reach teens on the Internet. The answer: It's all about the mobile phone.
Advertisers are clamoring to reach teens in digital environments because that's where they're spending much of their time--either online, with cell phones or playing video games. What's more, teens wield an estimated $200 billion annually in discretionary spending.
Fuse, a marketing agency based in Vermont, talked in recent weeks to senior technology executives from companies such as Sony, MTV Networks, Yahoo, and Nokia to find out what the future of technology will look like for the teen market.
Among the predictions: Mobile phones in the United States will surpass the popularity of desktops for teens. Only an estimated 20 percent of teens currently own a smartphone such as the iPhone, but mobile phone and content companies are counting on the idea that smartphone adoption will spread fast among teens in middle America and other areas.
"The iPhone is just the beginning of the all-in-one device. Uses of mobile devices will expand to include all kinds of bar code applications and prepaid debit card payment methods," said Bill Carter, a partner at Fuse, who presented the findings here at the YPulse 2008 National Mashup, a two-day conference on teens and technology.
That's likely why geographic ad targeting to teens via the phone is expected to explode in the coming years. Right now, mobile phone providers analyze an estimated 4 billion Internet Protocol addresses to provide street-level targeting to consumers. Companies like U.K.-based Blyk, for example, are reaching teens through the phone with ads and information on nearby nightspots. Teens sign up for the service.
"When you combine this new technology with teens giving their permission to market to them, the growth could be exponential," Carter said.
But, he said, mobile phone providers likely won't succeed as the entertainment leaders for the phone, despite their efforts to sell ringtones, games, and music. Other companies like Apple, Google, and Yahoo will be more effective at "side-loading" the cell phone with services.
Case in point: Most teens download music to their iPod that's been ripped from a friend's collection as opposed to bought from the iTunes music store. "There's a natural gravitation to get content on a device that's different than the one the manufacturer intended," he said.
As a corollary, he said that most teens will eventually buy subscription-based music services, much like the cable TV model. He predicted that Apple's iTunes will offer an unlimited monthly download service for music. Mobile phone companies, too, will launch music subscriptions on the smartphone.
Another prognostication: Other technology platforms will save, not kill TV networks, Carter said. The analog-to-digital conversion will make it possible for teens to watch live TV on portable devices. The technology will help the television networks target programming to specific audiences, and that will buoy the cost of advertising, he said.
"The device is inconsequential compared to the content," he said.
Sun Microsystems on Tuesday announced preliminary fourth-quarter results that were higher than Wall Street's expectations, sending its shares up more than 11 percent in after-hours trading.
Shares of Sun climbed as high as $9.83 per share in after-hours trading, up from a close of $8.80 a share during the regular session.
"In these difficult economic times, we continue to see customers across the world look to open software and hardware as a source of savings," Jonathan Schwartz, Sun's chief executive, said in a statement.
Sun said it expects to report fourth-quarter revenue between $3.7 billion and $3.8 billion for the period ending June 30, compared with nearly $3.84 billion a year ago.
Wall Street, meanwhile, expected Sun to generate revenue of $3.8 billion, falling in the high end of Sun's range, according to Thomson Financial.
On the earnings front, Sun said it expects to generate net income of 5 cents to 15 cents a share. After excluding special charges, the hardware maker expects fourth-quarter net income to be in the range of 25 cents to 35 cents a share.
Analysts, meanwhile, were expecting Sun to post earnings of 27 cents a share, according to Thomson Financial.
Sun expects to report its fourth-quarter results on August 1.
The new Xbox 360 dashboard
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News)
The E3 conference opened Monday in Los Angeles with a press conference from Microsoft. Here are some highlights.
Microsoft showed off first-ever game play footage from the post-apocalyptic title Fallout 3 and announced that there will be downloadable content exclusive to Xbox Live. We saw real-time action from Resident Evil 5, shipping on March 13. We got a peek at the new co-op feature in the game, where players will be able to team up and make their way through together. Developer Square Enix also made announcements that included the release of four titles for Xbox 360 including Final Fantasy XIII.
Complete E3 coverage
but that doesn't mean Microsoft
and others aren't making noise.
As for console exclusives, we saw in-game action from Fable 2, shipping in October. Players will be able to seamlessly invite other friends who are also playing the game. Finally, we were blown away by the impressive game demo of Gears of War 2 shipping November 7. The game actually looks better than the original and will feature a five-player online co-op mode.
Microsoft will be releasing a new dashboard interface this fall that incorporates an avatar system--the Xbox answer to Nintendo Mii characters. The new feature allows you to join up with other friends to form a "party," a group of up to eight people where you can share multimedia items or start a game. A new mode called Primetime will actually incorporate real-life TV shows like 1 vs. 100 and allow Xbox Live members to play and watch these game shows and possibly even win real prizes.
Microsoft also announced ... Read more
300 is one of the movies that will feature a lower price tag in the fall.
(Credit: Amazon)As much as we complain about the high prices of standalone Blu-ray players, in some ways the high prices of Blu-ray movies are even more frustrating. Today, Warner Home Video has taken a step in the right direction, by announcing that the company will offer discounted pricing on select titles this fall. Blu-ray buyers can expect prices between $17 and $20, which is a lot more than DVDs sell for, but less than the $20-$30 prices Blu-ray discs currently go for.
While there isn't a complete list of movies that will be available at this lower pricing, Video Business reports that The Fugitive, Enter the Dragon, Clockwork Orange, The Shining, The Aviator, Road Warrior and Swordfish will get the discount. Additionally, some newer movies will get a smaller price cut, including 300, The Departed, I Am Legend, Ocean's 13 and We Are Marshall.
While this certainly won't make everyone run out and buy a Blu-ray player, it's definitely good news that studios are hearing complaints that Blu-ray movies are just too expensive at their current levels. Of course, we'd prefer if the prices fell below the $15 mark, which would make them feel comparatively-priced to DVDs, but we'll probably have to wait until at least 2009 to see those prices. In the meantime, at least there's always Netflix.
Sources: Video Business via High-Def Digest
Update at July 15, 3:00 a.m. PDT with additional information and corrections concerning the Intel-Nvidia dispute.
Nvidia said Monday that its multichip technology will be architected to work on Intel's upcoming Nehalem chip platform.
Nvidia SLI technology supports multiple graphics boards.
(Credit: Nvidia)This announcement may help Nvidia to work around a standoff with Intel over whether Nvidia can make chipsets that work with Intel's next-generation Nehalem platform, due later this year. And also demonstrates that despite Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang' s rhetoric, Nvidia must cooperate with Intel in order to thrive.
Monday's announcement has no relation to separate licensing negotiations, according to sources familiar with the discussions. In other words, Nvidia is not announcing a chipset for Nehalem--which would require a license. It is simply a statement that Nvidia will support Nehalem with its nForce 200 Scalable Link Interconnect (SLI) chip.
However, some reports say Nvidia has reached an agreement with Intel to license Intel's Quick Path Interconnect (QPI) technology, paving the way for Nvidia to design chipsets for Nehalem.
The nForce 200 chip will work with Intel's "Bloomfield" line of Nehalem processors and the accompanying Intel chipset. SLI allows Nvidia to use multiple graphics boards in one system.
Upcoming SLI motherboards will use Nvidia nForce 200 SLI silicon, Intel Bloomfield processors, and Intel Tylersburg (X58) chipsets, Nvidia said in a statement.
"The nForce 200 SLI processor features patented SLI technology for graphics bandwidth management and multi-GPU peer-to-peer communications, both required to optimize graphics performance," Nvidia said. GPU stands for graphics processing unit.
Future systems "can be powered by one, two, or even three Nvidia GeForce GPUs, including the new...GeForce GTX 280 and GTX 260 GPUs," according to Nvidia.
Nvidia included statements from system suppliers in the Monday release. "It's great to see that Nvidia opted to enable SLI on the future Intel Bloomfield platform," said Rahul Sood, CTO Voodoo Business Unit, HP. "Make love not war I say...and Nvidia's (enabling) of Intel chipsets to support SLI will make our jobs much easier."
Nvidia claims that nForce 200 SLI silicon with Intel's new Bloomfield processor and Tylersburg chipset core logic chipset will deliver up to a 2.8X performance boost over traditional single graphics card platforms.
Motherboards and PC systems that will use the Nvidia nForce 200 SLI chip, Nvidia GeForce GPUs, and Nvidia SLI technology will be available from companies such as Acer, ASUS, Dell, Falcon Northwest, Legend, and Velocity Micro.
Nvidia has slashed the price of products with its newest GTX 260 and 280 graphics processors only a few weeks after it launched the chips, in response to stiffer competition from Advanced Micro Devices' ATI unit.
Nvidia said Sunday night that the GeForce GTX 280 is now available for $499 and the GTX 260 for $299. The high-end GTX 280 was originally $649, while the 260 was priced previously at $399. Both products were rolled out less than a month ago.
Nvidia's graphics boards are now more in line with ATI's newest offerings. At $299, the GTX 260 price now matches that of ATI's comparable HD 4870.
There's more to come from ATI too. Later this quarter, ATI is expected to launch the 4870 X2, which combines two chips on one board. This will be ATI's high-end offering for the enthusiast gaming market. The lower $499 price for Nvidia's high-end GTX 280 should bring it close to 4870 X2 pricing.
ATI appears to be faring well in this round of graphics chip competition, putting more pricing pressure than usual on Nvidia. Not only are its individual chips more competitive than previous generations, but its strategy of building smaller, lower-cost chips is paying off. Instead of building one large, expensive graphics processor as Nvidia does, ATI is building less power-hungry chips for the mid-range market, then ganging them together to boost performance for the high-end enthusiast market.
Sun Microsystems and Fujitsu have announced a quad-core version of the Sparc64 processor and servers to that will use the chip.
Fujitsu--which manufactures and designs the Sparc64 processor--along with Sun unveiled the M4000, M5000, M8000, and M9000 enterprise servers that use the new quad-core Sparc64 VII chip. The two companies claim the processor delivers 80 percent better performance using 44 percent less power than the previous Sparc64 VI processor.
Sun Sparc road map
(Credit: Sun Microsystems)The Sparc64 VII is made on a more advanced 65-nanometer process than the Sparc64 VI chip, which used a 90nm node.
Sun is no stranger to multicore--putting many processing cores on one chip. Its UltraSparc T2 processor can place up to eight cores on a single piece of silicon. This allows the UltraSparc T2 to run up to 64 threads--parts of a program that can execute independently--or eight threads per core. It's a feat processor giant Intel still hasn't accomplished.
Sparc Enterprise servers using the Sparc64 VII processor are targeted at high-availability, mission-critical enterprise applications, including large-scale databases, data warehousing, and enterprise resource planning.
Current Sparc Enterprise servers can be seamlessly upgraded by swapping out older processors with the new Sparc64 VII chips, the two companies said. Sparc VI and Sparc VII chips can also be mixed and matched within a "single domain."
Pricing and availability information is here.
Microsoft on Sunday cut the price of its best-selling Xbox 360 Pro model game console with a 20GB hard drive from $349 to $299.
Microsoft on Sunday unveiled an Xbox 360 with a 60GB hard drive. It's expected to go on sale in August.
(Credit: Microsoft)The company also introduced a new Xbox 360 model with a 60GB hard drive. It will go on sale in stores in the U.S. and Canada for $349 in early August.
Microsoft's announcements, which were widely expected, come on the eve of the start of this week's E3 video game industry trade show in Los Angeles.
Rumors of the Xbox price cut swirled on popular gaming blogs Joystiq and Kotaku last week. The two sites received snapshots of Kmart and RadioShack fliers advertising the $299 price.
Microsoft announced in May that Xbox 360 had become the first next-generation video game console to hit 10 million units sold in the United States. All told, Microsoft said it has sold 19 million Xboxes worldwide.
Approximately 36 hours after the release of the iPhone 2.0 firmware, existing iPhone customers still can't download it. iTunes says it's unavailable. Apple should have done better.
We already know that on Friday, there were severe activation problems with the iPhone 3G. This isn't exactly a surprise, perhaps, after the new in-store activation procedures and AT&T's dismal performance last year.
What is surprising is that approximately 36 hours after Apple said the new system software would be available for existing customers to access, it still isn't. At least not for everyone.
I have the first-generation iPhone I bought a year ago--and as of midday Saturday, the new v2.0 firmware was unavailable for download. iTunes tells me, incorrectly, that "this version of the iPhone software (1.1.4) is the current version." See the above screenshot.
This is in addition to what my CNET News colleague Erica Ogg reported on Friday: some existing iPhones have been bricked by software update glitches. At least that didn't happen to me.
I'm not exactly desperate to upgrade to the new system software (I'm at a political conference in Las Vegas and am mostly focused on what's happening here).
But this points to a bad miscalculation on Apple's part. Why didn't it come up with a better estimate of how many people would be connecting to its servers and add sufficient capacity? Apple probably is curbing existing customers' access to software updates to prevent its servers from overheating (this is at least a better failure mode than yesterday morning's odd errors).
This is understandable, perhaps, but it's disappointing--especially because this should have been preventable with even a modicum of advance planning.
Update 1:50 p.m. PDT: iTunes is now showing the update as available. I should have noted that I already upgraded to the latest version of iTunes. That wasn't the problem--Apple's servers were.
The Remote App puts control of iTunes--or Apple TV--in the palm of your hand.
(Credit: CNET)We've had a few minutes to play with the Remote App (download) for the iPhone. The (not surprising) verdict? It's an easy must-have for any iPhone or iPod Touch owner who enjoys listening to music at home.
Once you've upgraded your iPhone (or Touch) to version 2.0, just go to the App Store and search on "remote." (Amazingly, that--not "iRemote"--is the program's official name.) You can download it straight to the phone over a Wi-Fi connection (tap the word "free" on the upper right corner), and it auto-installs, adding a new icon to your home screen.
... Read more
