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Qualcomm Makes Bet on Mobile TVs

Don Clark — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 08:00:48 +0000

By Don Clark, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal

Qualcomm Inc. (QCOM), which is known more for cellphone chips than products sold to consumers, is betting that a new pocket-sized device will spur more interest in mobile TV.

The San Diego-based company late Tuesday announced that a subsidiary will begin offering what it calls FLO TV Personal Television. Qualcomm said U.S. retailers are expected to offer the device over this holiday season at a suggested price of $249.99.

FLO TV is a wholly owned Qualcomm unit that operates a special network that broadcasts TV signals, rather than having users call up video programming using conventional cellular networks. So far, the service has been available on specially equipped cellphones.

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Online Shopping Pops 98 Percent Last Christmas Weekend

Tiernan Ray — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 00:19:53 +0000

By Tiernan Ray, Blogger, Barron’s, Tech Trader Daily

Online analytics firm comScore (SCOR) today released numbers for holiday online shopping activity in the U.S., and it looks as though cold weather that kept people indoors and online in some places provided one bright little sliver of hope.

Online shopping in the first 51 days of the holiday season, from Nov. 1 through Dec. 21, was $24.71 billion, reports comScore, down one percent from the prior year’s haul. Now, the weekend that just passed, Dec. 20 and Dec. 21, was down 17 percent from “the corresponding fourth weekend after Thanksgiving in 2007,” at $677 million. However, that’s a 98 percent increase from the $341 million booked during the Dec. 22 to 23 weekend of 2007, the “weekend nearest Christmas last year,” as comScore slices it.

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Electronic Arts Profit Outlook Cut as Time Warner Delays "Potter"

Tiernan Ray — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 21:48:16 +0000

By Tiernan Ray, Blogger, Barron’s, Tech Trader Daily

Behold the Power of Potter. Time Warner (TWX) yesterday disclosed it won’t put out the new Harry Potter film, “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,” this November as originally planned, and instead will make it a Summer 2009, release–specifically, for July 17 of next year. That’s going to hurt Electronic Arts (ERTS), which will lose a 2008 holiday game title that represents about $150 million in revenue this year, according to analysts. The revenue and profit should come back the following year, though.

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