by Jon Healey, Editorial Writer, Los Angeles Times
Two things struck me about Roku’s newly announced $100 Netflix Player, a book-sized set-top box that lets people watch streamed video files from Netflix on their TVs. First, it was priced lower than anything I’d previously seen in the “digital media adapter” category (i.e., devices that bridge the gap between the Internet and the TV). And second, it delivered less than any of those other devices. All it can do, in fact, is connect to Netflix’s Web site, select a movie or TV show to stream, then display the chosen program on a TV set.
by Gregory M. Lamb, Staff Writer, Christian Science Monitor
The laptop computers most people haul around are underutilized. They hardly break a sweat to read email, stream video, view photos, browse the Web, or run word-processing or spreadsheet programs. Their powerful processors are rarely tested except by heavy-duty gamers, scientific researchers, or other specialized users. So while some PCs continue to bulk up and tout their speed and raw power, others represent a new trend: slimming down. Way down. These smaller, simpler machines are aimed at a potentially lucrative market: the next 1 billion PC users around the planet.
by Michael Learmonth, Senior Editor, Silicon Alley Insider
Remember how the writers’ strike was forcing people to shut off their TVs and turn to their Web browsers? Think again: Nielsen says video viewership actually dropped 5% from December (6.2 billion streams) to January (5.9 billion). Not surprising, then, that YouTube, the dominant purveyor of Web video, also slipped from 2.64 billion streams in December to 2.57 billion in January. Unique viewers at YouTube were also down slightly from 67.2 million to 66.2 million in January. But YouTube kept its 42% market share of total streams.
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