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Smart Toy Revenues Driven by ‘Connected Toys’

Skylanders toys are imported to a game through an NFC code.‘Smart toys’ will generate revenues of $2.8 billion this year, says Juniper Research – driven by those that connect to mobile apps and game consoles. These products, like Activision’s Skylanders, are emerging as a key market for toy vendors. Smart toys bridge the divide between … Read more

CPT Requires Unpaid Leave to Avoid Layoffs

CPT

‘To overcome [the] economic recession and improve financial performance’, Chungwha Picture Tubes has asked its employees to take unpaid leave. From now until the end of 2016, an unspecified number of workers will be required to take one or more unpaid days off of work every week. Domestic sources estimate that as many as 3,000 … Read more

Philips Puts SoftBlue in Smartphones

Philips has differentiated its newest smartphones – the Sapphire S616 and Sapphire Life V787 – by incorporating its SoftBlue technology in the displays. SoftBlue lowers the blue light output of a screen – by up to 86% on these phones, according to Philips. However, rather than achieving this with a filter (which affects all colours … Read more

Planar Shows Off Transparent OLED Variants

Earlier this year, Planar showed a 55″ transparent OLED display at ISE (Planar Talks 100% UltraHD), although little information was available (it was also shown by others including NEC and Eyevis as well as Samsung’s Display Division – Man. Ed). The company has now announced that there will be four variants, and has released specifications … Read more

Acer Monitor Families go UltraHD

Two new monitor families have been developed by Acer, for professional users such as graphic designers and photographers. The BX0 and CB1 monitors have several resolution options, up to UltraHD, and picture-in- and picture-by-picture modes. Both new models have Acer’s EyeProtect features; these include a flicker-free backlight that can dimmed to very low levels; an … Read more

Tablet Adoption Slowing, but Hybrids are ‘Opportunity’

A survey by Gartner has found that 17% of consumers in mature markets intend to buy a tablet in the next 12 months. 19,000 consumers were surveyed in early summer, across the UK, USA, China, France, Brazil and India. Although apps, rather than hardware, drive tablet adoption, most apps work well with first- and second-generation … Read more

Blu-ray Popularity to Rise

The Digital Entertainment Group (DEG) says that consumer spending on home entertainment remained stable in Q3 this year. Spending was driven by gains in electronic sell-through and streaming. Although a ‘resurgence of interest’ in Blu-ray discs and UltraHD are expected this year, as the two technologies come together, significant gains will not be felt until … Read more

Q3 Cord-Cutting Forecast by TDG Research

US-based TDG Research has found that adult broadband users are now less likely to cancel their pay-TV service. Research conducted in the first half of 2015 found that the percentage of these users ‘moderately to highly likely’ to cancel their subscription fell 20% YoY. Those willing to ‘cord-cut’ has remained steady for several years, at … Read more