The average time spent on the Internet by adults in the U.S. grew an estimated 6 percent in 2010 to 155 minutes a day, or about two and a half hours, according to new estimates from eMarketer. Compared to watching TV, which the average American adult does for 264 minutes a day (or four and a half hours), it still has a way to go in terms of becoming the media we spend our most time on. However, TV time declined about 1 percent.
More startling is that time spent on mobile devices is now the same as time spent reading print newspapers and magazines combined. The average American spends an estimated 50 minutes a day staring at his cell phone, versus 30 minutes reading a print newspaper and 20 minutes reading a magazine. Of course, much of that time staring at mobile screens is reading news online so maybe when all is said and done people are actually reading more. Although what they are reading—Tweets, email, and text messages, along with articles— is not always the same as in the offline world. → Read More
And there it is: Americans now spend as much time on the Internet as they do watching TV. So says a new study released by Forrester Research, which says that people now spend 121 percent more time online than they did only five years ago. What’s probably most significant is that these stats now include people in the 30+ age group; it’s not just college student insomniacs who spend their time online these days. → Read More
I remember, back in the old days, there wasn’t much on TV during family holiday dinners and we wished we could play Nintendo. We’d go out to my Uncle’s house in Martin’s Ferry, Ohio and we’d watch whatever was on their old CRT – maybe the Yule log on QVC or the same old holiday specials over and over, and we’d dream about playing the NES on that big old box. But we couldn’t. It was too much trouble and the adults, after all, were hopped up on lasagna and beer.
Well I’m here to tell you that this won’t happen to my kids. And it won’t happen to your kids. They’ll get something like this 7-inch portable TV with multiple inputs from Vizio. The screen has 800×480 resolution and and comes to you courtesy of Vizio and Sam’s Club. How do you win? Easy peasy. → Read More
Almighty Giz has two exciting maps that offer an alternative explanation for the decline in cable and satellite subscriptions in the past year. If you look at the maps, you’ll find that the areas that saw the biggest drops in subscriptions are also, generally, the areas hardest hit by foreclosures. The theory goes, these areas have been hard hit by the recession, and subsequent unemployment, so they’d be first to drop superfluous things like $100+ cable TV bills. → Read More
Attention, Team Coco! I just want to remind y’all that Conan’s new show, conveniently named “Conan,” debuts tonight on TBS at 11pm. → Read More
Batten down the hatches, netizens! At a streaming media conference yesterday, Dish Network Vice-President of Online Content Development and Strategy, Bruce Eisen, said that sites like Hulu, which allow Internet users to watch certain television programming (and sometimes for free), may well destroy the television industry as we know it. That’s a bad thing if you’re Dish Network, but what if you’re the average person? → Read More
Got Google TV? Well now you can get root. This isn’t a full root access, mind you, but it’s a start. AndroidForums user Apeman shows us how to access the GoogleTV’s recovery menu and there is a tempting entry in the menu allowing for USB uploads. This means, in short, that eventually someone will be able to figure out how to add homebrew apps to Google TV.
The folks at the forums are digging further so I’d expect this thing to be wide open by November. → Read More
How did that silly song go? TV killed the radio star? First off, try telling that to Ron Bennington. Second off, whatever. Now we’re getting word that Apple, thanks to all those iOS-powered devices out there, is killing the TV star. Or, in English, that iOS, specifically the Apps, is responsible for recent downward trend in TV ratings. Hmm. → Read More
That’s right, Panasonic has teamed up with the Charlotte Motor speedway. The new TV will weigh in at 165,000 pounds, and cover an area of 16,000 square feet. Now for the bad news, the TV will only be running 720p. Although when it’s that big of a TV I doubt anyone will notice.. [via Geeky Gadgets] → Read More
Would you ever sit down an voluntarily watch any of the following movies: Clash of the Titans, The Polar Express, and Cats and Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore? If you answered “yes,” or even, “yeah, maybe” please answer the following question: wow, why? In any event, just know this: HBO plans to launch a 3D on-demand channel “early next year,” and these movies will be among those featured at the onset. → Read More
Plex, taking over the world. Only a few days after releasing Plex/Nine and Plex for iOS, the media center announced a partnership with LG to include a version of the software on its Internet-enabled TVs and Blu-ray players. But you knew that already. Wouldn’t you know it, I have here a brief video demo. Who loves ya? → Read More
Without Sony‘s support ESPN “probably would not have launched” ESPN 3D. So said Bryan Burns, Vice-President of ESPN, at IFA earlier today. Burns, talking before a reasonably crowded auditorium, reiterated ESPN’s commitment to 3D sports broadcasting while fully recognizing what we’ve all been going on about for months now: nobody’s going to buy an expensive 3D TV—have you seen the unemployment numbers of late?—when there’s nearly zero 3D content to be found. → Read More
IFA still hasn’t even opened yet, but a few companies have been having informal “come look at our stuff!” booth tours. One of the bigger ones today was LG‘s, and this here is probably the flashiest of all their wares: a 31-inch OLED television that’s only 0.29mm thin. I can practically hear the LG managers yelling at their engineers, “Under 0.3mm or you’re all fired~!” → Read More
HP announced more then just laptops tonight, but this product is a bit of and odd man out. For whatever reason they’ve decided to come out with a wireless media streaming box. Makes sense, until you start reading up on exactly how it works. The video does stream at 1080p, so that’s cool; but after that, it just gets strange. → Read More
LG seems to be planning on dominating the 3D OLED market this coming year, and will be showing a few examples of their technology off at IFA this week. The current jewel in their crown is a 31-inch, 2.9mm thin OLED display. This will earn LG the title of “world’s thinnest OLED TV”. At least until someone else comes out with something thinner. → Read More
Between online video, DVRs, and on-demand cable the amount of time people spend watching live TV (you know, with all of those commercials that advertisers spend $70 billion a year on) is shrinking fast. Only 52 percent of American’s viewing time is spent on live TV compared to online and time-shifting alternatives, according to a new survey of 1,000 American consumers by market research firm Morpace. And that percentage decreases the younger the audience, with the key 18-to-34-year-old demographic watching live TV only 41 percent of the time, versus 64 percent of the time for those 55 and older.
The alternatives to live TV are growing and basic cable is under assault, but no one single competing technology is taking over. People watch DVDs 14 percent of the time, online (including streaming video from services like Netflix) 13 percent of the time, saved programs on their DVRs 12 percent, and on-demand cable 6 percent. The survey breaks down online viewing into video from online sources like YouTube (9 percent) and streaming video from services like Netflix and Hulu (4 percent). For 18-to-34-year-olds, online video makes up 16 percent of their viewing time, and streaming video makes up another 7 percent. → Read More
Some Boxee news for you, as we all sit back and watch the Barcelona-Milan friendly. (Good to see Ronaldinho get such a nice reaction from the Camp Nou crowd. I haven’t seen him this happy in years!) The company has decided to add a Movie component to its much celebrated TV-watching interface. The gist is, just as you can watch TV programming with Boxee, you’ll be able to watch movies. Boxee has initially teamed up with EZTakes, Indie Movies Online, MUBI, and Openfilm. → Read More
It was just a matter of time, and now we are about to get them: Mitsubishi Japan announced [JP] TVs that not only are 3D-enabled but also come with an integrated Blu-ray recorder and an HDD. The TVs in the so-called REAL MDR1 series will be available in three sizes: 40, 46, and 55 inches (the biggest is pictured again below). → Read More
Can you guess what is the “perhaps the most overhyped and overanticipated phenomenon in tech history”? If you guessed “replacing cable TV with Internet services like Hulu,” have a cookie! For all the talk of Google TV this and Boxee that, the numbers couldn’t be more clear: hardly anybody plans on ditching cable TV for a world of Internet-delivered content. It’s a nice idea, and maybe one that will gain traction in the future, but right now? Not happening, sorry. → Read More
In the hierarchy of American Needs, the TV used to be paramount. But fewer and fewer Americans feel that they need a TV anymore. A headline-grabbing report from the Pew Research center titled “The Fading Glory of the Television and the Telephone” shows that more Americans surveyed say that they need their home computers (49 percent), cell phones (47 percent), and even microwave ovens (45 percent) than their TV sets (42 percent). The number of people who consider the TV to be an essential item dropped from 52 percent last year.
This is a stunning drop in a single year, and surely it shows that more people have their faces glued to their computer screens and cell phones, which is taking away from how they feel about their TVs. Except that is not what the data shows at all. The survey breaks out TV sets and flat screen TVs. Guess how many people consider a flat screen TV essential? It is 10 percent, which when you combine it with the regular TV sets, brings you back to 52 percent. → Read More
