(Credit:
Piper Jaffray)
The results are in for the spring installment of Piper Jaffray's biannual Teen Survey, and not surprisingly, things look very good for Apple--particularly when it comes to the iPod.
According to the survey, now in its eighth year, 92 percent of students own some sort media player--up from 87 percent a year ago--and of those who do own a media player, 86 percent own an iPod. Only 4 percent of the 600 students interviewed for the survey owned a Zune. (The average age of the students surveyed was 16.3 years old; 54 percent were male, and 46 percent female).
With the iPod being so dominant, those numbers are about what you'd expect. But what should concern other MP3 makers is the number that came up when teens were asked what MP3 player they were planning on buying in the next 12 months: 100 percent said they were buying an Apple iPod. Not a single vote was cast for MP3 players from Microsoft, Creative, Sony, iRiver, Sandisk, or "other."
Of course, teens don't represent the whole market, but this group does represent the leading edge, and if Apple's "hooking" kids early, this will translate into future domination in older age brackets where Apple currently enjoys a large lead in media players.
While I'm highlighting that 100 percent figure on MP3 purchases, publications like Apple Insider are talking about how Apple's "near the saturation point for iPod, iTunes use by teens." And the big question is whether Apple can convert teen iPod users into iPhone users.
Eight percent of the teens surveyed said they owned an iPhone and 16 percent said they were considering buying an iPhone in the next six months. The latter number actually represents a decline from Piper's last survey, where 22 percent of the teens said they were going to buy an iPhone. Also, in the fall '08 survey, 8 percent said they owned an iPhone, so that number hasn't gone up. But if AT&T and Apple were able to get out a $99 iPhone with a more affordable plan, you'd probably see that ownership number jump quite a bit in the next survey.
Comments?
Via Apple Insider
The team from Mater Dei High School poses with its two gas-sipping entries in the Shell Eco-Marathon Americas. The grand prize winner (left) logged 2,843.4 miles per gallon.
(Credit: PRNewsFoto/Shell)
Correction, 2:50 PM PDT: Due to incorrect information provided by the company, this post misstated the name of one of the fuels used in the Eco-marathon. The entry from Schurr High School ran off liquified petroleum gas (LPG).
The team from Mater Dei High School might be only months (or less) removed from driver's ed, but it pulled off a nifty feat of driving over the weekend. One of its entries in the Shell Eco-marathon Americas won the grand prize for motoring to a record 2,843.4 miles per gallon.
Its other entry proved none too shabby as well, logging 2,383.8 mpg for a strong third-place finish. The second-place vehicle (2,752.3 mpg) was from last year's victor, California State Polytechnic.
All three broke last year's record, set by Cal Poly, of 1,902.7 mpg. The grand prize purse is $10,000.
Mater Dei has been entering the Shell-sponsored event, which took place at the California Speedway in Fontana, Calif., for about five years. How did the Evansville, Ind., team come up with its winning airfoil-meets-teardrop design and beat out its largely collegiate competitors? "It comes from trial and error, seeing what works and what doesn't," an unidentified student and team member told a local newscaster Friday.
Those top three vehicles, like most in the competition (25 out of 33 total), used internal combustion engines. The goal for all entrants was to travel as far as possible using as little fuel as possible. Vehicles--sans driver--couldn't weigh more than 160 kilograms (352 pounds), while drivers had to weigh at least 50 kilograms.
The Pulsar vehicle from Purdue University was the top solar finisher; it got credited with a fuel economy rating of 2,861.8 mpg.
(Credit: Courtesy of Purdue University's Eco-marathon team)The lone diesel entry, from The College of the Redwoods in Eureka, Calif., achieved 304.5 mpg. The one vehicle to use liquified petroleum gas (LPG), from Schurr High School of Montebello, Calif., hit 163.5 mpg.
Of the four vehicles powered by hydrogen fuel cells, the top finisher was Penn State's HFV Team, 1,668.3 mpg. The best of the two solar-powered entries came from Purdue University, whose Pulsar vehicle reached the equivalent of 2,861.8 mpg. (Solar vehicles weren't eligible for the grand prize.)
On the Fontana racetrack, the challenges included winds that gusted up to 50 miles per hour. Even before the race, though, the team from Universite Laval in Quebec faced its own last-minute challenges--it had to wait two days for its vehicle to clear customs, then had to race through the setup and inspection on the last day of competition. Still, the Laval team finished fifth (1,810.8 mpg), behind another Canadian team, the University of British Columbia (1,864.9).
Rounding out the top 10 in the internal combustion field were Cedarville University (1,151.1 and 1,056.3 mpg for its two Supermileage entries), Grand Rapids Technical High School (754.8 mpg), Colorado School of Mines (679.4 mpg), and Lamar University (572.8 mpg).
Fellow Americans, on January 31, we celebrate the anniversary of what was undoubtedly one of the most hilarious faux-pas in homeland security: the 2007 Boston Bomb Scare.
For those who stepped in late, on January 31, 2007, the city devolved into mass hysteria (well, kind of) when police were alerted to a number of suspicious electronic devices scattered around the city.
Before long, the city realized that the light-up displays were actually promotions for the upcoming film version of the cartoon show Aqua Teen Hunger Force--light-emitting diode (LED) circuit boards shaped like the show's "Mooninite" characters. But by that point, there had already been trains delayed, traffic rerouted, bridges shut down, and press conferences aplenty.
The Mooninites had been installed in a dozen other American cities, including my hometown of New York, where I saw one for weeks on Lafayette Street near Cooper Square and didn't think that it could possibly be anything other than silly cartoon art.
Apparently, some things just don't go over too well in the land of the Red Sox. When the state's attorney general arraigned the marketers in charge of the campaign for planting a "hoax device" in public, the statute used to justify the arraignment actually used the phrase "infernal machine."
As a commemoration of the national-security laugh fest's one-year anniversary, a group of artists have brought LED art back to Boston's streets, this time in the shapes of political figures like George W. Bush and Osama bin Laden. The Boston Globe reported earlier this month that the original "Aqua Teen terrorist" remains proud of his work.
Poor, neglected Boston must've just wanted its moment in the post-apocalyptic sun; after all, you sure didn't see that Cloverfield monster splashing around in the Charles River or the megahurricanes from The Day After Tomorrow flooding the Big Dig.
Full disclosure: I am not rooting for the Patriots this weekend.
Click on the youth to go to MIT's teenage inventors
Twenty teams from high schools across the United States are showing off their inventions this week during the Lemelson-MIT InvenTeams Odyssey at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology campus in Cambridge. Last fall, each team received a grant of up to $10,000 from the Lemelson-MIT Program to create a solution to a problem they chose.
The three-day event enables students to show off their inventions, which run the gamut from health, safety and environment-oriented gadgets to consumer products and assistance-offering devices.
Click above for more photos of the young 'uns and the products of their intellect.
Nothing delights the tortured teenage soul more...
...than using adorable keychain fobs to discover the title of their favorite Morrissey song.
It's a good thing teenagers are attracted to ironic fashion statements like a moth to light. MusicMarker, purveyor of the too-adorable Tamagotchi-like MusicMarker song-identifying keychain fob, will soon be selling their product at America's one-stop solution for disenchanted suburban youth--Hot Topic.
The MusicMarker helps people identify songs they hear by recording a short audio clip into its memory and then uploading that data to the MusicMarker Web site when it gets plugged into a computer USB port. The data then gets analyzed and (ideally) reveals the song information and where to buy it. A number of people have been using this technology for quite a while as either software (Tunatic is one example) or with a handful of MP3 players and cell phones.
To be fair, Hot Topic actually makes sense for this product. I mean, come on, teenage hipsters are unmatched in both their ravenous appetite for new music and their terrifying fear of not being able to name-drop cool bands. Plus, if they can get away with selling Rainbow Brite T-shirts and Hello Kitty seat covers, then a little egg-shaped USB toy should fit right in. Price should be around $15.
Parents of teens already dread getting their monthly cell phone bill, and it could get even worse. The reason comes from an unlikely source: soda pop.
In the coming weeks, Coca-Cola will bring "Sprite Yard" to the U.S. market, a social-networking site that targets cell-phone-toting teens (is that redundant?), with such features as personal profiles, photo sharing and online chat, according to the New York Times.
Jonathan Sackett, the head digital officer at Arnold Worldwide, makes this observation in the report: "Coke could see trouble if teenagers run up high data charges on their phones using Sprite Yard."
(Credit:
Junkfunnel Labs)
Just like Yankees jerseys, this is the sort of thing you should keep out of Boston. It's called the SLD, or Suspicious Looking Device, and it's manufactured by Junkfunnel Labs. It has all kinds of fun features, like a character display, buzzer, plenty of LEDs, and touch and distance sensors. Table of Malcontents explains that it's actually Ghostbusters-inspired. (Side note: Why has no one made a video mashup of Ghostbusters and the Great Mooninite Bomb Scare of 2007?)
According to the Junkfunnel Labs product page, "the only function of the Suspicious Looking device is to appear as suspicious as possible, whether carried in hand or placed indiscrimately in public places."
Sounds good to me.
(Credit:
Pottery Barn)
If you've got teenagers in your house, you've got loud music. Lots of it. But be aware, it could be worse: They could have a bed that plays music too.
The "Tune-In Bed" from PBteen essentially turns an entire headboard into a sound system with two 4-inch stereo speakers and a control panel for connections to an iPod or MP3 player. (Maybe there's a way for parents to hack the volume levels.)
This "biggest iPod dock in the world," as Red Ferret calls it, doesn't come cheap--it's $700. But that's a lot less than a bed with a TV.
Last Wednesday, the execs in charge of the latest Aqua Teen Hunger Force marketing campaign got a bit more publicity than they expected when the city of Boston called in bomb squads and shut down bridges after police mistakenly took the LED advertisements to be hazardous materials.
Six days and one $2 million fine for parent company Turner Broadcasting later, the Web is still captivated by the Mooninites who nearly shut down the city of Boston.
At this week's RSA Conference in San Francisco, the software company CyberDefender is giving away one of the infamous signs of Ignignokt (Err is pictured at right) that sent Bostonians into a panic. To enter the free raffle, visit booth number 650 at the RSA Conference in San Francisco's Moscone Center. Contestants must be present at 2 p.m. PT on Thursday, February 8 to win.
Take your chance and enter if you must, but beware the Quad Laser!
[Source: AppScout]
(Credit:
Boing Boing)
Hey, Boston! So those Mooninites cost you $785,000? I know where you can get it back: Curt Schilling's paycheck! Anyway, continuing with the entire blogosphere's running theme of Aqua Teen Hunger Force and the ridiculousness of how it shut down the city of Boston, we here at Crave have chosen to spend a post showcasing a gadget tribute to the Adult Swim cartoon. So, esteemed readers, here's what we recommend for gadget freaks who also happen to be ATHF junkies.
--Lite Brite. Let's start off with the obvious. Plenty of blogs have been comparing the appearance of the LED-filled "Mooninite" ads to this classic Hasbro toy. Here's how you can make your own!
Stainless Steel Meatballer
(Credit: The Kitchen Store)--French Fry Cutter. Think of it as a haircut for Frylock.
--High-powered Green Laser Pointer. On the subject of Frylock, because he shoots laser beams out of his eyes, clearly you need a pricey laser pointer like this one.
--Stainless Steel Meatballer. "Perfect meatballs quickly and easily." Sure, maybe Meatwad isn't a perfect meatball, but this thing still looks pretty cool.
Classic Milk Shake Maker
(Credit: Williams-Sonoma)--Oster Classic Milk Shake Maker. This shake maker is so good-looking, it probably makes concoctions that are way tastier than Master Shake.
--Play-Doh Fun With Food. Because ATHF is all about fun with food anyway.
