As Sony Corp. (SNE) scrambles to reassert its technological relevance, Chief Executive Howard Stringer is betting on a strategy for the electronics giant that focuses on adding online content to more of its gadgets.

Speaking at the first joint public appearance by Sony’s new management team since a shake-up in February, Mr. Stringer said the Japanese giant is “moving faster than we’ve ever moved” to meet parallel challenges.

Sony is racing to close the gap with technology companies like Apple Inc. (AAPL) and Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) that have used Internet services to enhance standalone electronics like digital-music players and electronic-book readers. Sony was a pioneer in both only to see it early advantage evaporate without a strong online component.

At the same time, Sony is trying to overhaul its core electronics division, a business encumbered by heavy overhead costs and an inefficient supply chain. This has put the company at a disadvantage to both conglomerates like Samsung Electronics Co. and upstarts like discount TV maker Vizio Inc.

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China Mobile Ltd. (CHL), the world’s largest mobile operator by subscribers, is pinning its hopes on new third-generation services such as mobile television and mobile readers to drive growth amid increasing competition and falling voice revenue.

Chairman Wang Jianzhou said Thursday the company plans to launch mobile-reader services next year and is working with Datang Telecom Technology Co., Taiwan’s Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. and Hanwang Technology Co. on electronic reading devices.

It is also planning to launch a trial service for mobile TV on third-generation handsets by the end of this year.

Mr. Wang said the company is targeting several million subscribers to its mobile-TV service in the first year and tens of millions of users in the second year.

The new services should help China Mobile achieve profit growth, he said.

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Washington policy makers, long concerned about how marketers use consumers’ personal data to their guide sales pitches on the Internet, have stepped up scrutiny of the increasingly sophisticated ad-targeting techniques used in other media, ranging from mobile phones to TV commercials to the ads consumers get in their mail boxes.

In recent years, marketers have grown more adept at culling consumer data from an array of online and offline sources–including real-estate and motor-vehicle records, consumer surveys, credit-card data and logs of Web visitors’ online behavior–to identify the most receptive audiences for their ads.

At a hearing Thursday, a House subcommittee plans to explore the impact of these practices on consumer privacy, and will hear from witnesses including advertising giant WPP, database-marketing company Acxiom (ACXM), privacy advocates and others.

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California created the nation’s first energy-efficiency standard for television sets, arguing that it needed to act because federal energy officials have been slow to confront the issue.

Under the standard adopted Wednesday by the California Energy Commission, no TV with a screen size less than 58 inches may be sold in the state after 2011 unless it meets limits on energy consumption. The standard tightens further in 2013. (Larger screens were left for future examination.)

Sets sold in California under the standard would consume 33 percent less electricity in 2011 and 49 percent less in 2013 than the average set sold today, according to the commission. The standard replaces a rule that only considered energy use when sets were in standby mode.

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I remember my brother showing off a new device in the late 1990s that let him navigate the Internet on the television. Back then, there were no dogs riding skateboards on YouTube or NBC dramas on Hulu, but the technology from WebTV appeared to be a breakthrough in the convergence of the two mediums.

The frustrating thing about WebTV was that the dialup connection was so slow–at times crippling–that you often sat on the couch waiting minutes for a page to load. Plus, the resolution on TVs then was far from hi-res, and the lack of multimedia on the Web made the task rather boring.

Fast forward more than a decade: While you can now search the Web at lightning speed on the tube, watch television shows online at will and view Internet videos with clarity on any screen, companies are still struggling to come up with a business model for the Internet-connected television market.

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Current TV began with a promise to be the great democratizer of media. Some four years into the experiment, it has a new chief executive who is shifting it away from short videos to more traditional cable programming.

In that transition, Current has cut shows and staff, with the most recent layoffs happening last week. The announcement has prompted questions about citizen journalism’s future, though Mark Rosenthal, Current’s CEO and a former president and operating chief at MTV Networks, said that it isn’t in doubt.

“Current’s mission has not changed one iota,” he said in an interview. “Citizen journalism is far from dead.”

The moves are among Current’s first big changes from Mr. Rosenthal, who helped take MTV from videos to reality and entertainment programming in the ’90s. And while he said the network is still committed to viewer-created content, the format still faces plenty of skepticism as a business model.

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Ben Schefers bought his first Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) Xbox 360 console four months ago to play games remotely with his friends. But the 33-year-old database manager now spends more time using it to play movies, television shows and documentaries.

“It’s something that my wife and I can both agree on,” he says, adding that he plays Xbox 360 games only a few times a week–and often only after his wife is asleep. Each night, he and his wife, who live in Berkeley, Calif., spend an hour or two catching up on TV shows with the console. “It’s kind of taken over from our DVD player,” says Mr. Schefers.

Videogame consoles like the Xbox 360 and Sony Corp.’s (SNE) PlayStation 3 were designed primarily to play games, but the gadgets are increasingly evolving into multimedia home-entertainment devices as manufacturers add nongame features.

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How many tweets does it take to create a sit-com? CBS (CBS) is about to find out.

The network has picked up a comedy developed by Justin Halpern, the creator of the breakout Twitter account S—mydadsays, and his writing partner Patrick Schumacker.

S—mydadsays is an ongoing feed of Mr. Halpern’s father’s remarks, in all their brief, funny, often unprintable glory (for an example of all three, check out today’s).

The account has more than 700,000 followers (it follows only one Twitterer, LeVar Burton) and sparked interest from book publishers and producers after it gained notoriety.

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Since first releasing the Xbox nearly a decade ago, Microsoft (MSFT) has been targeting your living room. From videogames to film downloads to the coming Facebook add-on for their Xbox Live service, the software maker has rolled out features that aim to shorten the link between your computer and your TV set. Later this month, Xbox Live will feature another addition: a live game show.

On Nov. 19, Microsoft Game Studios is starting a new season of the multiplayer game show “1 vs. 100,” after a highly-popular demo version earlier this summer. The game is based on the popular show of the same name that started in the Netherlands and has since aired in more than two dozen countries. In the game and on the show, a randomly selected contestant must defeat “the Mob” of 100 other players to collect a cash prize.

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A new feature wherein All Things Digital looks at up-and-coming and innovative start-ups you should know about.

This week: A video visit with, some questions for and a few pertinent stats about Chris Wetherell and his creation, Brizzly, a Web-based social media reader, one of many in the hot status update arena.

Who: Chris Wetherell

What: VP of Technology, Thing Labs, creator of Brizzly.

Why: Brizzly is a Web-based social media software client, for microblogging sites like Twitter or Facebook, expands attachments automatically and allows users to describe and define the trending topics for all its users to see. It’s in invite-only beta.

Where: @cw (Twitter); massless.org (Wetherell’s personal blog); San Francisco (HQ for Thing Labs and Brizzly)

Who else: TweetDeck, Seesmic, TwitIQ

Five Stats You Won’t Find in his Facebook Profile

Worst Job: Assembly line at Fujitsu, making rack servers

Has a Geek Crush on: Mihai Parparita, Google developer in Boston

Gadget of the Moment: Roku’s digital video box. “It’s got Netflix, You Tube and TV. Damn.”

Wishes There Was an App for: The legal arena. “They need to, like, use a computer.”

Fails at: Anything related to email

Bio in 140 Characters

From Beaverton, Ore. Dropped out of Berkeley. Got hungry as an indie rock drummer. @Google Reader. Left Google, invented Brizzly.

The Five Questions

Why should I care about Brizzly?

It depends on what you’re looking for. If one of the things that interests you is how a large community is experiencing life–I mean really interested in the community and not just the idea of your friends–then Brizzly does that a little more easily than other things. [Brizzly's assets are] no small difference for those who are interested in it.

Why are all Twitter-related logos, including yours, so darn cute?

Yeah, we’re a little cheeky, right? I think it’s probably just because of a pendulum swing. I mean, the last thing [Thing Labs' CEO Jason Shellen] and I worked on was the exact opposite. Google Reader is not cuddly. It’s friendly, but cuddly it isn’t. The other thing is, we were hoping to try what strong branding is like–in terms of anthropomorphic animals. The bear design [was drawn by] both Jason and [Twitter Co-founder] Biz Stone.

What can we expect from Thing Labs and Brizzly three months out?

We will have at least three richer sets of experiences, some of which include entirely different products all connected through our letsbetrends.com API.

Every geek has a memory where they saw something new and had to say to themselves, “Dang, I love living in the future.” What’s yours?

One big one for me was at Google–it was my first day and someone says, “Hey, have they taken you to see the robots yet?” I was like, “Hahaha… No.” They took me to this building where there was a room filled with these Rube Goldbergesque mechanical devices. Large cages with metal bars and wires, culminating in this ball in the center. This girl climbed into the thing. She put her feet in these stirrups and sat in this weird chair, and then this book slides out. The girl started tapping her feet on this base drum pedal and doing this thing with her hands, and then the book slides away [they were scanning the books]. I was like, “What is this?” and they said, “Well, this is Ocean [the internal name for Google Books].” What struck me was the scale. It was clear to me that they were going to scan ridiculous amounts of information very, very quickly, and I realized: Whoa, THIS is very different.”

Are you really competitive with rivals?

I just don’t have that kind of fight in me. I mean, I want to kick my own ass. I know there are lots of guys out there who can totally drop the names of someone they want to just crush. I just don’t have it. I get more frustrated with me, more than anyone else. I’m like Jim Carrey in “Liar Liar”: “I’m kicking my ass.”

The In Living Color Interview