Searching for Consumer

  • Phone buyers who were holding out for the iPhone 4S or other hot smartphones slowed overall global growth in Q3, even as demand for handsets continued to surge, according to a new Gartner report. Sales were boosted by strong demand for low-cost phones in developing countries.
  • SEOUL (Reuters) - Samsung Electronics, the world's top TV maker, is in last-stage talks with Google to roll out its Google TVs, the head of Samsung's TV division told reporters on Tuesday. Google TV -- which currently comes built-in on certain Sony Corp television models and on Logitech International set-top boxes -- allows consumers to access online videos and websites on their TVs, as well as specialized apps such as video games.
  • According to the survey, nearly one in five consumers who own both an iPad and an iPhone believe that it's more difficult to switch smartphones than it is to change bank accounts, gas companies, or electric providers.
  • Facebook settled with the FTC over "charges that it deceived consumers by telling them they could keep their information on Facebook private, and then repeatedly allowing it to be shared and made public." Jon Leibowitz, Chairman of the FTC said, "Facebook is obligated to keep the promises about privacy that it makes to its hundreds of millions of users. Facebook's innovation does not have to come at the expense of consumer privacy. The FTC action will ensure it will not."
  • The majority of cloud traffic is taken up by such data center operations like backup and replication. Only around 17% is actually used by end users. The total cloud traffic will reach 1.6 Zettabytes annually in the next four years.
  • The trend of 'celebrity angels' isn't exactly surprising. But why are we suddenly seeing celebrities become more involved in tech investing? Hunter Walk of YouTube offers three possible explanations, and pulls together choice quotations from top consumer internet moneymen.
  • The research firm also says Siri is the feature consumers 'like best.' They've got gripes, though, about the battery life of Apple's smartphone. Read this blog post by Don Reisinger on The Digital Home.
  • Everything in moderation, right? Don't go spouting off such nonsense to the insane folks at German audio equipment maker Behringer, who just pimp-slapped the consumer market with the iNuke Boom. What is it, you ask? Only the loudest iPod and iPhone dock in the world, not to mention the heaviest at 700 pounds, and the most expensive at $29,999.99....
  • Carrier IQ has become the target of public outrage, but a new study finds that the condemnation of Carrier IQ might be misplaced. The Yankee Group discovered a majority of consumers want their operators to access the very information that Carrier IQ is tracking.
  • The privacy concerns around the tracking of consumers and targeted advertising online may be coming to the physical world. At a Federal Trade Commission workshop about the privacy implications of face recognition on Thursday, all eyes were on the new “Find My Faceâ€? feature in Google+, announced at the conference. The event, however, also focused on how face detection is being used offline in “smart signâ€? technology and other applications.