Maybe $400 heaters and $85,000 TVs will get consumers spending again
It was a confusing week to be a consumer electronics reporter. At the start, I was convinced that no one wants to spend on anything besides an iPad and by the end, I learned that there are people out there buying $85,000 TVs.
On Tuesday, Best Buy’s shares tanked on disappointing earnings. Our headline shouted “tech shoppers turn thrifty,” and explained how nobody will buy a new flat-screen TV once they have bought their first one.
But if U.S. consumers won’t shell out for new flat screens, maybe they will buy high-end fans and heaters. That’s what James Dyson told me on Wednesday at the launch of the inventor’s latest gadget– a heater that costs $400, the Dyson Hot.
Dyson’s privately held UK-based company has 2,700 employees and saw its profit soar 26 percent this year, on the strengh of items like its cordless vacuum cleaner and swanky “air multiplier” fans that lack blades and cost much more than the competition.
Dyson told Reuters that Best Buy, his company’s largest distrubutor in the U.S., would probably rebound when spending comes back. “People will always want to buy technology,” he said.
I realized that consumers this holiday may still want to splurge on items like the Dyson Hot, which have features that are hard to find in other brands. For example, the new heater makes it impossible to burn yourself on it, with ceramic stones inside the device providing the heat, and unlike other space heaters, there’s no burning smell wafting off the device.
The spell of the pricy $400 heater had barely worn off the next day when I strolled into Bang & Olufsen’s Soho showroom. The Bang & Olufsen showroom is to Best Buy what a modern art museum is to a run-down Radio Shack.
Tech wrap: ITC joins Apple-Samsung spat
The International Trade Commission agreed to investigate Apple’s complaint that mobile phones and tablets made by rival Samsung violate its technology intellectual property. The intensifying patent dispute threatens to strain a lucrative supply relationship: Apple in 2010 was Samsung’s second-largest customer, accounting for $5.7 billion of sales tied mainly to semiconductors, according to the Asian consumer electronics company’s annual report.
Google faces a total of nine antitrust complaints which EU regulators are now investigating, two sources said. Up to now, The European Commission has only confirmed four cases against Google. The increased number of complaints underscores Google’s dominant position but does not necessarily mean bad news for the company, said Simon Holmes, head of EU and competition law at law firm SJ Berwin.
“Google’s strong position means there are lots of interests involved. But there is nothing wrong per se in having a strong position,” he said.
Broadband speeds on average are within 80 percent of what major Internet service providers advertise, a big improvement from two years ago, according to an FCC study. I suggest that the study, while attempting to arm consumers with a comparison tool in order to make more informed choices, masks regional disparities in broadband speeds that were brought to light last week.
For an extra $25 per year, fans of Electronic Arts sports titles will be able to download video games three days before they hit stores, a move that should boost EA’s digital sales. EA’s new program called “Season Ticket” will let consumers get access to five sports games–its soccer, golf, hockey, pro-football and college football titles. Users will be able to download the games over the Internet on Microsoft’s Xbox and Sony Corp PlayStation systems three days before they are out in stores.
Russia’s interior minister called for limits on the Internet to prevent a slide in traditional cultural values among young people, raising fears of controls over the vibrant Russian-language Web. Rashid Nurgaliyev, who did not indicate which sites he felt should be curbed, said that Russia’s youth needed looking after to prevent young people from being corrupted by “lopsided” ideas, especially in music, that may undermine traditional values.
Tech wrap: Yahoo’s CEO-in-waiting?
New Yahoo board member Akamai President David Kenny is the obvious choice to replace struggling CEO Carol Bartz, writes The Wall Street Journal’s Kara Swisher. Kenny is smooth and well-liked, has deep advertising experience, has a long relationship with Yahoo and its co-founder Jerry Yang and has tech cred as a leader of one of the Internet’s most important infrastructure companies, regularly in contact with media giants, ad networks and video providers that are Akamai’s clients, Swisher argues.
Microsoft explained the delay in updating its new phone software, partly blaming handset manufacturers for the problem. Microsoft’s JoeBelfiore did not name names, but said the company had started the update and ran into problems on some newly manufactured phones that would not function properly afterward. Samsung, HTC and LG Electronics are the main handset makers of Windows phones. A more comprehensive update, code-named Mango, will be available later this year, featuring performance bumps, live updates and applications that can run in the background while users move onto other programs, he said.
Russian hacker attacks on the country’s biggest blog site and a spy agency’s warning to Gmail and Skype have raised fears that authorities are tightening their grip on dissent in a China-like assault on free speech ahead of next year’s election, writes Thomas Grove. “This is a test drive during a very important year to see if it’s possible to close down websites, in particular social networking sites in case of demonstrations,” said Andrei Soldatov, head of the think-tank Agentura.ru.
Libyan students are using mobile phones, an amateur video camera and YouTube to offer a glimpse of the war in the besieged city of Misrata where journalists are prevented from reporting freely. Under their Freedom Group channel, the group has posted some 130 videos, some of which include chilling footage of fierce street battles.
Twitter + Georgian blogger + South Ossetia = Hack Attack
If you were miffed at not being able to tweet your innermost thoughts and random musings to your followers yesterday, or post that smartypants comment on a friend’s Facebook status update, blame politics. Turns out the reason why Twitter was knocked down for hours, while Facebook users had trouble logging in and posting to their profiles on Thursday was a Georgian blogger who uses both services.
According to CNET, which cites Facebook’s chief security officer Max Kelly, the blogger also has accounts in LiveJournal and Google’s Blogger and YouTube platforms, and goes by the name of Cyxymu, which is the name of a town in Georgia. Kelly told CNET:
“It was a simultaneous attack across a number of properties targeting him to keep his voice from being heard.”
Now, for those who don’t follow international politics closely, here’s why the pro-Georgian blogger may have been targeted. August 8 marks the first anniversary of the war that broke out between Russia and Georgia over South Ossetia. Russia sent troops into the separatist region last year, which Georgia claims forced it to launch a counter-offensive. Some other folks say the war started on August 7, 2008. So it was probably no coincidence that the Web attack on Cyxymu, the blogger who blames the attack on Russia, took place on the eve of the war’s anniversary.
Whatever the date, one thing is clear: the more Twitter becomes a communication tool in zones of conflict, the likelier it is to become a target for hackers with political motives. The micro-blogging service obviously needs to step up security so that hack attacks don’t shut it down. After all, regular folks like MC Hammer still need to get to the airport.
Keep an eye on:
- Platinum Equity turns up as the third bidder for The Boston Globe. (The Boston Globe)
- TV dealmaking season wraps up; prices, volume down. (Reuters)
- News Corp’s Fox has asked distributors to withhold DVDs from Redbox. (Bloomberg)
