The Business of Tech

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Samsung

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Samsung's inTouch brings 'Apps' like Skype and a browser to your TV

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Samsung pushes SwipeIt media sharing app, AirPlay competitor to Smart TVs

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Other TVS

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Myspace TV announced for Panasonic Viera Connect-enabled HDTVs

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Ubuntu TV making its debut at CES, gets short demo clip

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Microsoft

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Microsoft moves 18 million Kinect sensors, leaves behind a lot of lonely couch cushions

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Microsoft Kinect coming to Windows on February 1st, up for pre-order now!

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Microsoft bringing Comcast Xfinity TV to Xbox 360, nails down News Corp. partnership

The Year of Windows Phone?

Lumia 900

HTC Titan II

According to internal Microsoft documentation that I first viewed in mid-December, Microsoft and its hardware maker partners -- Nokia, Samsung, and HTC -- are going to invest in Windows Phone fairly dramatically in the coming months. I'm talking almost $200 million in the United States in the first half of 2012 alone. And Microsoft and Nokia will spend $130 million marketing just a single Windows Phone -- the Lumia 900 ("ACE") -- on just AT&T, just in the first half of 2012. Samsung and HTC are both contributing tens of millions of dollars as well, just for the first half of 2012, just in the US. The worldwide marketing effort for Windows Phone must be much, much more.

A good portion of this money will be heading toward so-called "below the line" marketing efforts, which are those efforts aimed directly at retail sales professionals, or RSPs. (This is in contrast to "above the line" marketing efforts, which is the marketing we all see as the public: TV and web ads, billboards, and so on.) And since first discussing this move, I've heard from dozens of retail reps from a variety of wireless carriers. And they've all told me the same thing: This practice isn't just common, it's simply the way business is done. And that Microsoft's (and its partners') incentives are so good, that they're going to, in the colorful words of one rep, "sell the crap out of Windows Phone this year."

http://www.winsupersite.com/article/windowsphone75/microsoft-windows-pho...
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Others @ CES

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Polaroid announces Android-powered SC1630 Smart Camera, slated for release this year

Netflix: Warner Bros. movies now available after 56 day delay

Monster and Beats Electronics discontinue partnership, audiophiles rejoice

PayPal's Scott Thompson becomes CEO of Yahoo; signing bonus probably stuck in a frozen account

Google
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Search, plus Your World

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Twitter and Google battle over Google+ results in search

What's the fuss about Google Search, Plus Your World?

On Tuesday, Google announced something called Search, plus Your World (SPYW). It marked a startling transformation of the company’s flagship product, Google Search, into an amplifier of social content. Google’s critics—as well as some folks generally well intentioned towards Google—have complained that the social content it amplifies is primarily Google’s own product, Google+.

http://www.stevenlevy.com/index.php/01/12/is-too-much-plus-is-a-minus-fo...

Warner Brothers will delay release of movies to Redbox to 56 days