Negotiations proceeded smoothly in 2005 to unify HD DVD and Blu-ray and avert a costly format war, so much so that the two camps at the peak of their optimism stood a “50-50” chance of reaching a settlement, Toshiba’s former HD DVD point man told us in an interview. Ultimately, the talks collapsed in the summer of 2005 because the sides were too far apart on form factor and other issues and because the Blu-ray Disc Association was incapable of talking with a single voice, Yoshihide Fujii, now CEO of the New York-based Toshiba America holding company, told Consumer Electronics Daily.
DUBROVNIK, Croatia -- Organizers of Berlin’s annual IFA show brought their pre-show international media briefing Friday and Saturday to this Adriatic coastal city, the first time they have staged the event at a former Eastern Bloc location. As at past events, organizers peppered their remarks with references casting IFA in a superior light to CES, though their words seemed more measured than in past years.
A headphone market shakeout is looming even as more manufacturers are planning to enter the business, hoping to grab share from an $828 million-and-growing annual business, according to CEA projections. Personal media devices including smartphones and tablets are expanding a market propelled by the iPod, which makes tracking the market a challenge due to the diverse range of use cases and types. When we plugged in “headphone” during a recent Amazon search, it returned 160,631 options.
A federal judge set a hearing for Feb. 27 on Emerson Radio’s motion to dismiss a federal racketeering suit filed against it, Emerson said in an SEC filing. The motion before U.S. District Judge Sheri Bluebond, Los Angeles, seeks to dismiss a suit filed against Emerson last July by investors Fred and Stephen Kayne and Milton Okun for failing to state a claim, the company said. The Kayne’s suit claimed Emerson was the “alter ego” for its parent company, Grande Holdings, and is liable for the $47 million judgment made against Grande. The allegation is part of the suit that sought to enforce a $35 million judgment, that increased to $47 million with interest. Following a trial in California Superior Court in December 2010, Judge Mary Ann Murphy in June approved the $47 million judgment and awarded $875,000 in attorneys fees. After the superior court decision, Kayne and others sued Grande and executives Christopher Ho, Adrian Ma and others claiming violations of federal racketeering laws. Ho and Ma are former Emerson Radio CEOs, the latter having resigned earlier last year. Among the other executives named in the suit are Emerson board member Eduard Will and former Emerson Chief Financial Officer Greenfield Pitts, who left the company in September 2010. Emerson paid Will $20,000 in Q3 ended Dec. 31 for work related to “strategy” for the Kayne suit, the company said. Investors have maintained that Emerson’s board and executives “intentionally interfered” with their efforts to get the $47 million. The legal action followed the High Court of Taiwan in May appointing FTI Consulting to liquidate Grande. The Kayne’s federal suit partly stemmed from an action investors originally took against former Grande subsidiary MTC Electronic Technologies. Meanwhile, Emerson posted a $347,000 gain on the sale of its headquarters in Parsippany, N.J., and began renting office space this month in Moonachie, N.J., the company said. Emerson’s Q3 net income narrowed to $3.17 million from $4.18 million a year earlier, the latter having benefitted from the $966,000 sale of marketable securities. Revenue rose to $43.4 million from $40.5 million. Housewares sales grew to $38.5 million from $33.1 million as an increase in microwave oven revenue offset a decline in compact refrigerators. Audio net sales slipped to $2.2 million from $5 million, while those from licensing declined to $2.2 million from $2.5 million. Deutsche Bank also sold 9,322 shares in Q3, but continues to control 3.3 million. Grande and Deutsche Bank both claim to own 12.5 percent of Emerson, the latter maintaining it gained the stake to secure debt owed by Grande, the company said.
LAS VEGAS -- Polaroid saw “pretty good” sales of its products during the holiday season, Chief Technology Officer Jon Pollock told Consumer Electronics Daily at CES. The company was “pleased, not overly pleased” with results for the season, but it had a “much better holiday” than in 2010, he said. “Black Friday was strong for us,” with “robust TV sales” that he said were “mostly promotional-driven.” Its 7-inch Android tablet also “did very well,” he said.
Google’s integration of its social network into search results should draw FTC scrutiny, the Electronic Privacy Information Center urged the FTC in a letter (http://xrl.us/bmojh2) Thursday. Just as the FTC is investigating Google already for possible anticompetitive violations for favoring its own content and services in search results, it should take note of Google’s new practice of replacing “highly visible advertising space” on the right-hand side with “notable business” and Google Plus users, even for searchers who aren’t Plus users or logged in to Google, the letter said. It noted criticism from experts such as Harvard Business School’s Ben Edelman, who said Google was favoring its own content over “objectively superior” destinations. Edelman has also consulted for Microsoft, which operates the Bing search engine. The change also makes Google users’ personal information more accessible, because users can’t opt out of having their information found by their Plus contacts through Google search, the group said: That’s in contrast to Google letting content owners “remove pages” from public search results. The group copied the letter to leaders of the Senate Antitrust Subcommittee and House IP Subcommittee, which also examines competition issues.
Despite published reports of consumer pushback and the effort of a Target employee with a petition of nearly 200,000 names hoping to change the company’s plans for earlier-than-usual Black Friday hours, midnight openings appeared to have drawn even more than the customary hordes of bargain shoppers, or so our sweep of the Palisades Center mall in West Nyack, N.Y., and other metropolitan New York shopping venues found. Seasoned Black Friday shoppers reported having happily lined up all day Thanksgiving Day, some for as long as 31 hours, to have their crack at a handful of doorbuster electronics.
Ten years is like a century in the tech world. What seemed like earth-shaking products a decade ago, as reported in Consumer Electronics Daily’s inaugural issue of Oct. 16, 2001, appear quaint now. A new portable music player, the Apple iPod -- pre-iTunes -- drew little interest that month as anything more than just another mp3 player predating the iTunes store launch in 2003. A decade later, the iPod will have sold more than 320 million units through Q3 2011, according to IHS projections, and has led an iRevolution expanding to smartphones and tablets that few but Steve Jobs could have envisioned in 2001.
New Coke and the Edsel were notorious marketing fiascos. Gerber heat-and-serve meals for adults packaged in large baby-food jars was a more obscure example of inventions gone awry or marketing campaigns gone wrong. CE has not been not immune. Who can forget the Elcaset, the Digital Compact Cassette, or the MiniDisc?
Kaleidescape is readying a video download service for launch in Q1 and preparing for a second trial in an ongoing court battle with the DVD Copy Control Association (DVD CCA), Product Marketing Director Linus Wong told us. The company hasn’t released details of the service, including pricing and the number of titles that will be available. But Kaleidescape previewed for dealers at CEDIA earlier this month a video downloaded from the Kaleidescape website. Wong declined comment on whether Kaleidescape had any distribution pacts with movie studios and whether the company developed its video download platform or licensed one from a third party like Rovi.