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Now New York Moves To Ban Same $798 Hoverboard Being Sold By Harvey Norman

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A hoverboard that is identical to one that has just gone on sale at Harvey Norman has been banned in New York, the same hoverboard has also been banned in London despite the Mayor of London Boris Johnson describing the ban as “silly”.

The latest ban came after the New York Police Department’s 26th Precinct tweeted a warning to citizens last week stating that: “The electric #hoverboard is illegal as per NYC Admin. Code 19-176.2”.

The cited code refers to “motorized scooters”, defined as “any wheeled device that has handlebars”, and states that anyone found in violation could be liable for a fine up to $500.

New Yorkers as well as residents in the UK have said that the hoverboard which has stabilising gyroscopes should “not be banned” as they are no more dangerous than a bicycle.
 
The law on using hoverboard in the rest of the US is still unclear with NSW and Victorian authorities telling SmartHouse that they are “still investigating the matter”.  

Earlier this year, the rapper Wiz Khalifa was handcuffed at LAX airport, after he refused to dismount from his hoverboard.

 In the UK police have banned people from riding hoverboard on roads or pavements, stating that they can only be used on private property.

Under UK law, hoverboard must adhere to the same rules as Segway’s, which are classified as motor vehicles, and thus cannot be ridden on pavements, but are also unlicensed so cannot be ridden on roads, after a 2011 ruling.

“You can only ride an unregistered self-balancing scooter on land which is private property and with the landowner’s permission,” the Crown Prosecution Service said at the time.
“The Department for Transport would advise that appropriate safety clothing should be worn at all times.”

The word “hoverboard” was recently recognised in the Oxford English Dictionary, which defines it as “a board, resembling a skateboard without wheels, which hovers above the ground and may be ridden like a skateboard”.

The hoverboard at Harvey Norman is distributed by Melbourne based Company Kaiser Baas, it is selling for $798.

Panasonic Set To Twitter The Genius Inside

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Panasonic who in Australia have both Sony and Samsung worried because of their strong performance and high marketing spend are set to chase consumers who frequent social network sites with Company CEO Steve Rust claiming that the Company is learning how to “Twitter”.

The move to expand their online marketing came after Sydney research group Polinate identified several new online marketing opportunities for the Japanese Consumer Electronic Company who 18 months ago dumped their long time advertising agency George Patterson for the Campaign Palace.


Using the tag line “Built In Genius” Panasonic is set to start using social network marketing to develop peer group synergy for their products while also developing blogs and forums that allow consumers to communicate directly with their 35 Sydney based customer service staff.   

 
 To help them cut through into what Panasonic describe as “a digitally switched on audience” the Company spent months researching marketing Companies that had the “knowledge and an understanding” of the social network audience so that they could put together a shortlist of Companies to pitch for their business said Gemma Lemieux Marketing director at Panasonic.


“Research showed that we had to connect with the audience that were frequenting social network sites and rather than second guess this market we decided to go out and find who in the market had the marketing skills to help us. This was not an easy task as some agencies had everything including creative execution and strategy while others were more focused on strategy and execution”.


In the end and after a lengthy process Panasonic chose Sydney based agency Suede who currently work with clients such as 3, Mercedes Benz, Dell, The NRMA and Thrifty. 

 

“This is unknown territory for Panasonic however we feel it is important that as part of our overall marketing strategy that we have programs in place that reach the Twitter and Facebook audiences. We literally are learning the value of Twitter communication while also allowing consumers to quickly reach people within our Company with knowledge that can help them ” said Rust.


During the past 12 months Panasonic has seen significant growth across all aspects of their consumer portfolio including flat panel TV’s Blu ray and digital camera offerings with the Company reporting one of their “best years ever” according to CEO Steve Rust.

Now the Company is on a mission to grow their brand at a time when long time consumer electronics Icon is faltering under a mountain of debt.

Martin Hoegh Guldberg the CEO of Suede said “Our role is to help Panasonic create a better relationship within social networks that today, have a lot of influence. People are using these environments to find out information and they are following closely what their peers are saying about a particular brand or service”.


“We are going to help Panasonic to develop blogs and forums as well as Twitter communication that allow consumers to communicate directly with people inside Panasonic who have the knowledge and information on Panasonic products that consumers want. We are going to let them talk directly with the geniuses inside Panasonic”.
   

Newspapers On The Nose As Readers And Advertisers Desert Them

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Newspapers are on the nose with advertisers deserting them in droves for online according to Digital Media Wire. In Australia advertising revenue in newspapers has droppped as much as 11% for some major publishers.

The DMW claims that 2007 could wind up as the worst on record for the newspaper advertising industry, which is dealing with long-term industry changes as well as the weakened economy and housing market, In the USA the prestigious  New York Times reported on Monday that after an 8% decline in advertising revenue last year, newspapers are seeing an additional 12% drop so far this year, and financial reports issued by some recently would suggest a 14-15% decline in May.

“I think the probability is very high that there will be a number of examples of individual newspapers and newspaper companies that fall into a loss position,” Goldman Sachs analyst Peter S. Appert told The Times.

“And I think it’s inevitable that there will be closures in this industry, and maybe bankruptcies.”

While rising newsprint prices and falling print circulation have contributed, the advent of online advertising and classifieds is the key factor in the industry’s decline.

Online ad revenue at newspapers has grown 20-30% annually in recent years, but still accounts for less than 10% of total newspaper ad revenue, The Times reported.

Maxtor Shared Storage Device a Beauty

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Maxtor is set to light up the storage market with a shared storage device that includes a media server for streaming content.

Maxtor has launched a shared storage device for homes and small business networks that includes a media server for sharing and streaming files without a PC. Regional Marketing Manager for Maxtor Craig Davis describes the product as “One of the hottest of storage devices thats ideal for both the home and office”.

Dubbed Shared Storage Plus, the 200GB to 500GB drive can be connected to a cabled Ethernet network or to a network router — a wireless one, for instance — so that its contents can be shared across the home or small office. Included software lets each user backup and restore files at will, while something called “SimpleView” acts like a virtual IT administrator to provide backup and storage status at a glance to all users. Users can share folders or lock them down by assigning access rights, and the software automatically identifies and sorts more than 100 different Windows file types and drops them into music, photo, movie, Web, software, or documents folders.
Said Craig Davis “During the past week we have been demonstrating the product at a trade show. The response has been sensational. What is interesting is that people who see the product want it both in their home and office”. 

Because the drive supports streaming media via compatible UPnP AV digital media adapters, a home can use the device as centralized storage for all video, photo, and music files, where users could simultaneously listen to music in one room on a wireless networked sound system and play digital movies in another room on yet another networked entertainment system. No active PC need be on the network to share and stream files.

Shared Storage Plus will be available in 200GB, 300GB, and 500GB models, at prices oranging between $395 and $695. All are to ship in October.

Maxtor also said that owners of its Shared Storage drive — which first went on sale in January — can upgrade to Shared Storage Plus functionality at no charge by downloading additional software from the company’s support site in October.

For Further Information go to: http://www.maxtor.com/portal/site/Maxtor/menuitem.6adb6b8313633595062e6be791346068/?channelpath=/en_us/Products/Network%20Storage

EMC & IBM To Go Head To Head

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EMC & IBM could well go head to head as Big Blue tries to enter the SMB back up market. The move could also cause from problems for Veritas now owned by Symantec.

IBM will shortly unveil software that will continuously back up information on the PCs of small and medium-sized firms. In a sign it is serious about winning more business from firms with less than 1,000 staff, IBM has adapted its corporate Tivoli product for the SMB market.

EMC who recently took over the management of Telstra’s storage operation are also planning to offer a daily back up service for as low as $2.00 a desktop. This could well see them battling with IBM for SMB market share. Smaller firms are often poorly protected in the event of a computer crash, virus attack or other disaster. The IBM Tivoli solution will be able to back up work on laptops from staff on the move. The enterprise market is not seeing the high growth…we are seeing in the small and medium-sized market said Dianne Macadam, analyst at DataMobility The IBM Tivoli Continuous Data Protection for Files software will copy data within seconds of it being entered or changed on a PC or a more powerful server computer, IBM she said.

Growth market

Many rival crash recovery products only back up information several times a day. According to Reuters, the software will be announced on Friday and go on sale on September 16, costing $45.00 per laptop or desktop PC and $1200 per server processor – servers often have two to four processors.

“The enterprise market is not seeing the high growth rate that we are seeing in the small and medium-sized market,” said Dianne Macadam, an industry analyst at US-based DataMobility Group. “Small and medium-sized businesses are contending with a ‘data avalanche’, vulnerable to computer viruses or crashes,” Ron Riffe, IBM’s director of storage software strategy said. In July, IBM reported a 6.6% gain in second-quarter profits – topping market estimates – but sales dipped 4% to $22.30bn after it sold its personal computer division to China’s Lenovo.

 

 

 

Stadus Returns To Head 3Com

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Ralph Stadus, who quit as Toshiba ISD General Manager more than a year ago has returned to fulltime Tech industry duties to take the MD ANZ role at 3Com.


Stadus, has 27 years experience in the IT industry and has been consulting to 3Com in Asia Pacific since February this year. However, he has been tempted into a fulltime position to focus on “ensuring an aggressive roll out of 3Com’s Secure Converged Networks strategy”, according to a brief press statement announcing the appointment.

 

Gerry Harvey’s Chance Of Getting A Go At The Good Guys Is “Zilch” Say Insiders

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Gerry Harvey’s chance of getting his foot in the door to bid for The Good Guys are “Zilch” according to insiders.

Currently JB Hi Fi is looking at whether they make a bid for the mass retailer. ChannelNews understands that the South African Group Steinhoff International have come back into the market and are now looking at whether they bid for The Good Guys, also running a ruler over the group is Bain Capital.

The Harvey Norman Chairman, claimed yesterday that he has only recently become aware that an information memorandum had been circulated by the Muir family relating to the sale of the mass appliance retailer.

Insiders have told ChannelNews that the reason that Harvey Norman was not given the memorandum was because the Muir family “do not want” and “will not deal” with Gerry Harvey due to a family feud that goes back to the days when Ian Muir first established Muir Electrical and Gerry Harvey tried to “nobble” his business they said.

Yesterday Gerry Harvey said that he was gathering his troops for his own bid and called on Australian Competition & Consumer Commission Chairman Rod Sims to discuss the matter.

“I would probably ring up Rod Sims and say ‘mate, what do I do?’ But I’ve only just found out (about JB Hi-Fi’s move) so l’ll have some time to think about it.’

Insiders at the ACCC have told ChannelNews that while there has been a call for “directions” by Gerry Harvey as to whether he would be allowed to bid there has to be a bid made by a party before the ACCC can commence an investigation.

“I would be interested in The Good Guys,” Mr Harvey said after JB Hi-Fi chief executive Richard Murray confirmed speculation yesterday that his retail group had held “preliminary and exploratory discussions”.

“It might be a bit difficult because the ACCC might knock me back, but if they are going to let JB Hi-Fi buy it, then they would have no reason they would stop me.

According to insiders the feud which evolved after Gerry was successful in stopping Ian Muir getting access to a buying group.

Ian Muir began retailing electrical goods in the Melbourne suburb of Essendon in 1952. Initial growth was slow, with 14 stores across Victoria and Queensland trading under the brand name Mighty Muir by 1992, when Ian and son Andrew renamed the chain of stores “The Good Guys”.

A strong advertising campaign in 1998 resulted in increased sales, driving rapid expansion of stores across the country. By 2009, the chain had grown to 89 stores across Australia. In 2012, there were 97 stores in Australia.
In January 2010, the retailer announced plans to expand into the New Zealand market,[3] opening its first store in May at Wairau Valley in North Shore.

A second store at Botany Downs opened in July, followed by a third inManukau.[4] By June 2014, there were five stores across the Auckland Metropolitan Area when the company announced it would pull out of the New Zealand Market citing poor returns. Following the announcement, The Warehouse Group agreed to take over the leases of the Good Guys stores and re-employ most of their local staff.

Questions have also been raised about the accuracy of IBIS Data relating to the Australian appliance market. IBISWorld estimates The Good Guys has a 12.5 per cent slice of the domestic appliance market, while JB Hi-Fi has 13.9 per cent and Harvey Norman is the biggest player with 15.3 per cent.

A JB Hi Fi board member told ChannelNews that this data is wrong and that JB HI Fi only has a very small share of the Australian appliance market.

Big Four Banks Give Apple Two Finger Apple Pay Salute

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Apple who are struggling to get their Apple Pay technology operational in Australia have been given the cold shoulder by the big four banks, now Apple is talking to smaller players in an effort to strip more profits out of consumers.

The problem for both Apple and Samsung is that the big four banks are reluctant to hand over a slice of their interchange fees which is worth $2B to the big banks because they are under pressure from the RBA to tip hundreds of millions of dollars into building the New Payments Platforms and new infrastructure that will have real-time capability who they don’t want Apple to get a benefit from.

The banks are also concerned about the prospect of Apple getting in between them and their customer at a point of sale.

In the United States, Apple gets 15? on every $100 of transactions, the big technology Company who pays very little in taxes in Australia wants the same here.

Fairfax Media said recently that Australia’s big banks will not agree to this level given that interchange fees in Australia are about half the US level – equivalent to an average of 50? $100 of transaction compared with about $1 for $100 of transaction fees in the US.

Commonwealth Bank of Australia chief executive Ian Narev would not comment on the progress of negotiations with Apple, but said Apple’s attempts to offer Apple Pay in Australia won’t be as easy as it was in the US given Australian banks’ record of innovation. 

“By most global standards, the capability that the Australian banking sector has generally, and Commonwealth Bank has specifically, to provide for customers is ahead of a lot of the other markets around the world where Apple has done well,” Mr Narev said last week after delivering the bank’s full-year cash profit of $9.14 billion. 

“There is functionality associated with Apple Pay that we have had in the market for 18 months to two years.” 

Apple Pay launched in October 2014 in the US and in Britain last month. It allows users of an iPhone 6 or Apple Watch to use a tap-and-go terminal to pay for items by holding their fingerprint on the phone or double-tapping the face of the smartwatch.

 But to be switched on in a market, Apple needs to strike a deal with banks to use the payments system.

Mr Narev said CBA had already offered the same functionality as Apple Pay through its app – for users of Android phones – for two years, so it was difficult for Apple to argue it is providing much value. In the US, Apple Pay was innovative because tap-and-go was not a feature of that market. 

Fairfax said that the National Australia Bank was rumoured to be closest to securing a commercial arrangement with Apple over its payments product but Fairfax Media has been told it is more likely a small bank will be the first to strike a deal with Apple and use it as a tactic to target iPhone users for transaction-account market share. 

Despite the reluctance to cut a deal with Apple, Mr Narev said CBA was closely watching the movement of big tech players into financial services, as the global banking landscape is reshaped by ubiquitous mobile phones. 

“If it not Apple, it might be Google; if it is not Google, it might be Samsung; if it is not Samsung, it might be Amazon; if is it not Amazon, it is going to be someone else,” he said. 

“Are we going to be able to sit here today and pick the major winners? No. But the disruption is structural. It is only going one way. And I don’t think there will ever be a point where me or my successor, or his or her successor, is ever going to sit here and say their war is done and we won. This level of innovation is here to stay.

“But we have got customers, we have got distribution, we have got brand, we have got product. So as long as we are adding to that investment and have the right execution focus, we should be able to be really competitive.”

Large Sized LCD Monitor Market To Dominate

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The large-size LCD monitor market, 19-inch and greater, is expected to account for more than 50% of the worldwide market next year, accompanied by a rapid shift in generations toward larger sizes for LCD monitors as well as LCD TVs.

The large-size LCD monitor market, 19-inch and greater, is expected to account for more than 50% of the worldwide market next year, accompanied by a rapid shift in generations toward larger sizes for LCD monitors as well as LCD TVs.

According to a market research firm Displaybank’s data on LCD monitor market size forecasts, market share of 19-inch and larger LCD monitors is predicted to increase by 10% from 25% in 2005 to 35% in 2006, and this trend will continue through 2007, hitting 52%, more than half the market.

Moreover, the market research firm foresees that 19-inch products will net 27% of the total market this year, and 43% next year, emerging as the ‘Best Seller’ model instead of 17-inch. This robust upward trend will continue into 2008, with the share of 19-inch models 23% higher than 17-inch share. As such, a shift in generations in the LCD monitor market is projected to accelerate dramatically.

LCD PC Monitors Big Growth

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LCD PC monitor shipments will hit 155 million units in 2006, with LCD monitor shipments reaching 125 million units for an 80% share of the market, according to a forecast from DisplayBank.

LCD monitor shipments are expected to increase 19% this year, while CRT shipments should drop 31%, about the same rate of decrease the segment saw in 2005, the market research firm noted.

Worldwide monitor shipments are projected to grow by a relatively modest 4% in 2006, and growth will stay at around 5% in the future, as growth in the desktop PC market slows due to a transition to notebook PCs. According a DigiTimes Research forecast, Taiwan will ship 97.5 million of the projected 155 million LCD monitors this year, up 29% from 2005.

Source: DisplayBank, compiled by DigiTimes.com, January 2006.