study

Apple's iPad still reigns supreme among tablets, but its grip on the market is starting to loosen.

In the fourth quarter, Apple's tablet captured 75.3 percent of worldwide market share, easily besting Android-based devices' 21.6 percent share, according to market-research firm Strategy Analytics. However, those figures differ vastly from the third quarter when Apple had 95.5 percent share and Android had just 2.3 percent.

For 2010 overall, iPad's held 84.1 percent of the market, while Android devices accounted for 13.1 percent.

Despite the iPad's slip, Apple sold millions more in … Read more

Scientists from Stanford University and the University of California at Davis have crunched the numbers and come up with a plan for how the world might economically and feasibly make the move to renewable energy in the next 20 to 40 years.

In a two-part paper (Part 1 PDF, Part 2 PDF) published in the journal Energy Policy, Mark Z. Jacobson and Mark A. Delucchi show in great detail the who, what, where, and how of implementing a renewable energy-run world. It includes solutions to economic, material, and transport issues.

Jacobson, an atmospheric scientist and professor of civil and environmental … Read more

Both Amazon and Barnes & Noble don't report sales figures for their respective e-readers, the Nook and Kindle. But one company, Crimson Hexagon, has taken it upon itself to formulate some opinions about the e-reader market by charting and analyzing Twitter conversations for both the Nook and Kindle, as well as the iPad as an e-reader.

This is one of the studies you probably have to take with a grain of salt because there are some mixed messages in the report. For starters, the title of Crimson Hexagon's blog post for the study is, "Nook emerges as … Read more

LCD TV shipments will rise this year, but that growth won't be as high as it has been over the past few years, market research firm DisplaySearch predicts.

Global LCD TV shipments are expected to rise 13 percent in 2011 to 215 million units, DisplaySearch said Monday. In 2010, LCD TV shipments were up 31 percent compared to 2009, with 190 million units shipped for the year.

Even with more shipments, the LCD TV market's continuing price erosion will cause it to see its "first ever revenue decline," DisplaySearch claims. The researchers didn't say how … Read more

Links from Friday's episode of Loaded:

Google releases its 2010 Zeitgeist with the year's fastest growing and most popular search terms

YouTube will now allow a select group of users to upload video longer than 15 minutes, which used to be the maximum time limit allowed

Yahoo revamps Yahoo Local

A new Pew Research study shows that only 8 percent of online Americans are on Twitter

Mobile game revenue is expected to nearly double by 2015, Juniper Research predicted today.

According to the market researcher, mobile game revenue topped $6 billion last year. By 2015, Juniper predicts, that figure will be over $11 billion. However, the research firm noted that as time goes on, a shift will occur with revenue migrating from the "traditional pay-per-download model" to in-game purchases.

Juniper expects that by 2013, more revenue will be generated from in-game purchases than from actual downloads of mobile games. The research firm said "discoverability remains a problem for developers and publishers on some … Read more

So far this year, online holiday shopping is up. And market research firm ComScore believes that trend will continue.

According to ComScore, consumers spent $9.01 billion during the first three weeks of November, representing a 13 percent gain over the $7.95 billion spent during the same period last year.

For the months of November and December combined, ComScore is forecasting $32.4 billion in online spending. Last year, consumers spent $29.1 billion during that two-month holiday shopping period. ComScore also said that from January through October, online consumers spent $109.9 billion, representing a 9 percent gain … Read more

If your kids are begging for tech, the iPad might just top their holiday wish-list.

According to Nielsen, which conducted a survey in October to see which tech products American kids want through the beginning of next year, Apple's tablet sat at the top of a 17-item list, with 31 percent of children between the ages of 6 and 12 saying they want to get their hands on the device.

A computer and Apple's iPod Touch tied for second, with 29 percent of children saying they wanted those products. Nintendo's DS took the fourth spot with 25 … Read more

Americans and Japanese watch more television than residents of any other country in the world, a new study from Motorola has found.

According to Motorola's Mobility's Global 2010 Media Engagement Barometer study, American and Japanese viewers spend 21 hours per week watching television and video content. South Koreans watch the least TV--just 13 hours a week. The average amount of time spent watching TV each week around the world is 17 hours. Motorola said most television viewers watch scheduled programming, but 34 percent watch scheduled content in addition to online video and on-demand shows.

The study, which looked … Read more