Toshiba who are struggling to get their act together in the consumer notebook market has seen their premium convertible Radius L40W notebook described as expensive having an “ordinary” screen” and an awkward tablet component by Australia’s national newspaper.
Under siege from the likes of Lenovo, whose top end products are running hot off the shelves at JB Hi Fi, the new Toshiba Radius L40W is the product that Toshiba management was hoping would take it up to the highly popular Lenovo Yoga Pro 3, which is proving so popular at $2,300 that it has resulted in a 40% lift in premium notebook sales at JB Hi Fi and Harvey Norman.
Writing in the Australian newspaper, seasoned technology journalist Chris Griffith described the Radius L40 W as “Nothing noteworthy except price”.
The review that was set up by Ogilvy PR who won the Toshiba account back last year, the PR Company has been selective in who has been able to do a review of the top end Toshiba notebook.
Griffith said that the notebook failed to impress in several areas.
He described the 360 degree tablet as “awkward” because the screen and keyboard can’t be separated.
This resulted in the keyboard sitting underneath the screen with the keys facing downwards.
He said this made it uncomfortable on your lap and you can accidentally trigger the keys.
He also described the overpriced notebook and tablet as heavy at 2kg, he pointed out that the weight was four times the weight of an Apple iPad Air.
Toshiba are still using a USB2.0 port in a $1799 machine a move that “perplexed” the reviewer.
Griffith wrote “There’s also a curious Windows button on the left-hand side that switches from the standard desktop to Windows tiles mode. I don’t see the need for this when you have a Windows key on the keyboard”.
He added “Given its $1799 price tag, you’d expect 2015-style innovation: maybe impressive battery life with new, energy-efficient chips, maybe a cutting-edge USB-C port for ultrafast data transfer, maybe a biometric fingerprint reader that eliminates passwords, or a cutting edge design such Dell’s XPS (2015) with its ultra-thin bezel. But nothing stands out”.
He also described the 1366 x 768 pixel, 720p display screen as “ordinary” especially as several brands such as Acer and Asus are delivering significantly better display screens.
How the Australian saw the Toshiba top end offering.
After extensive use Griffith only got six hours and 15 minutes battery life which means that on a flight to Asia the battery will run out without a top up.
Apple’s MacBook Air offers 9-12 hours battery life and Lenovo ThinkPad X250 is reported to last more than 15 hours.
As for the 14-inch, 720p display itself, it is well below full high-?definition or the 2K definition quality you’d expect in a top-line notebook and incredibly reflective.
The review unit was a top end specked machine with an Intel Core i7 5500U processor at 2.40 gigahertz, 8 gigabytes of DDR3 memory, on-board Intel HD5500 graphics, fast 802.11ac wireless and Intel WiDi.
The CPU scored 285 cb which is at the lower end of the Core i7 range.
Giving the device just 5/10 he described the Toshiba Radius L40W as a highly priced mid-range laptop. It’s a convertible, sure but as the flagship of Toshiba’s new Australian range, it is a disappointing device.
Nick Aboud has not been sacked as CEO of Dick Smith Dick, instead Chairman Rob Murray is singing his praise for Aboud who has been responsible for downturn after downturn at the embattled retailer.
Murray dismissed our story yesterday that Aboud was on four months notice after the hiring of Algy Pereira a former Myer executive and of late head of trade and family enteretainment at BigW.
Murray said Dick Smith was focused on Christmas trading and its strategic review is now underway – “Nick is the best person to get us through this period.”
“Algy may well join Dick Smith but not as Nick’s replacement,” said Mr Murray.
Nick Aboud
Dick Smith Marketing Director Neil Merola confirmed yesterday afternoon to several Dick Smith staff that Pereira was joining the Company next year as Merchandising Director after the resignation of two senior merchandising directors last month.
Algy Pereira new head of retail at Dick Smith
“Whenever we manage succession on any of our key roles we will do it in the optimal way and timing for the business,” Mr Murray said.
Mr Pereira, who worked with Mr Abboud at Myer for many years, including two years as general manager of electrical, resigned from his role at BIG W on Tuesday as we exclusivelly tipped.
Dick Smith staff who told ChannelNews of his hiring said yesterday that Aboud was “set to be replaced”.
Dick Smith management now claim that Mr Pereira had been appointed director of retail operations at Dick Smith.
A senior executive at a major supplier to Dick Smith said yesterday “why do they keep hiring exe Myer executives. Myer has been a basket case for years”.
“He certainly wasn’t brought in as an immediate replacement for Nick. It is part of internal succession planning,” the spokesman said.
Mr Pereira will have to serve out a non-compete period with BIG W and is expected to join Dick Smith in April of next year.
Dick Smith shares – issued at $2.20 rose 7.5? to 42.5? today after falling to 0.28c earlier this week.
As consumers demand better battery life and faster charging of their mobile devices vendors such as Samsung with their new Galaxy Note 5 have moved to delivering fast charging capability.
Now Qualcomm who has been losing market share due to their processors overheating has moved to deliver fast charging as a standard feature in their processors.
The new Qualcomm technology is called Quick Charge 3.0, and it’s 38 per cent more efficient than its predecessor. Qualcomm claims it’ll take a mobile from zero battery to an 80 per cent charge in just 35 minutes, in comparison a current model smartphone without Quick Charge, takes about an hour and a half depending on the size of a battery.
Like Quick Charge 2.0, it’ll come built into Qualcomm’s Snapdragon processors, namely the Snapdragon 820.
According to Qualcomm, a new Intelligent Negotiation for Optimum Voltage (INOV) algorithm lets your mobile “determine what power level to request at any point in time for optimum power transfer, while maximising efficiency”.
Compared to Quick Charge 2.0, it will also reduce power dissipation by up to 45 per cent. Which should hopefully help our phones last longer in the first place.
“We are significantly enhancing the capabilities and benefits offered by Quick Charge 3.0 to bring robust fast charging technology to all,” said Alex Katouzian, senior vice president, product management, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc.
“Quick Charge 3.0 addresses a primary consumer challenge with today’s mobile devices in helping users restore battery life quickly and efficiently, and does so through leading technology and a robust ecosystem including leading device and accessory OEMs.”
Quick charging tech is all well and good, but it’s really just something to tide us over until the problem of short battery life is solved. Whoever cracks that is going to make a fortune.
Quick Charge 3.0 will be available in phones from next year. As well as the Snapdragon 820 chipset, it will be in the Snapdragon 620, 618, 617 and 430.
Sonos the market leader in wireless audio has launched a brand new Sonos Play5 speaker which when paired with a second Play 5 and coupled with their new software delivers a pretty good sound experience, they have also delivered new Trueplay tuning software for Sonos speakers.
The first thing you notice about the new Play5 is the shape, it’s a vastly improved design over the previous top end Sonos speaker. The new design can be mounted both vertically and horizontally.
And at $749 this product delivers excellent value for money.
As for pricing Sonos earlier today dropped their overall pricing of all Sonos products by 10% which pretty much puts them on parity with US pricing for Sonos gear.
With the new Sonos Play5 it not what you see that delivers the rich wireless audio experience that Sonos has become famous for.
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It’s their software that differentiates this brand from a lot of other audio brands who are trying to break into the booming wireless audio market.
Sonos Chief Product Officer Marc Whitten recently said that software is driving the next wave of audio innovation and it’s making music sound better than ever imaginable.
He said in a recent blog “When file sharing exploded onto the Internet in the 90s, more than a century of recorded music was turned on its head. Our relationship with music has changed dramatically in the twenty plus years of innovation since.
“In the blink of an eye, the mixtape was replaced by the super-curated playlist, and social media superstars ushered in a new golden age of the live performance. The only constant has been change, and only one thing is sure – we are just getting started”.
He added “Innovators like Spotify, Pandora, SoundCloud and now Apple have embraced the streaming revolution, offering everyone from the 12-year-old down the street to the deepest vinyl connoisseur access to the entire history of recorded music, powered by software. Digital music is, simply music”.
Also released by Sonos is new speaker-tuning software called Trueplay, this software which can be accessed via the Sonos app allows a Play5 owner to tune their Sonos speaker to a room or ambient environment.
Both Trueplay and the new Sonos Play5 will go on sale at Australian stores shortly.
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With Trueplay which I saw demonstrated at a Sydney Hotel recently one is able to place a speaker in any position and then tune the music stream to delivers studio-quality listening experiences in each room of the home.
The only problem at this stage is that the new Trueplay software is only available to Apple device owners which says a lot as to their commitment to the Android platform, which Sonos engineers believe delivers an inferior microphone capability.
This is despite products like the new Samsung Edge, Note 5 and the new HTC One M9 and LG G4 delivering excellent microphone recordings.
” Using the Sonos app, the microphone on an iPhone or iPad, and a special tone emitted by the Sonos speaker, the system analyses how sound reflects off walls, furnishings, glass and other surfaces in any given room. Sonos then smartly tunes that speaker so the music sounds its very best” said Niv Novak from Sonos Australia.
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“Our remit at Sonos has evolved from constantly working to improve the general sound of all of our speakers to customizing them: first by room, and in the future, by person, activity and content,” said record producer, composer, and Sonos sound experience leader Giles Martin.
The new Sonos Play 5 speaker has been redesigned with six synchronized, custom-designed drivers, the speaker’s three mid-woofers create smooth mids and deep, powerful lows, and three tweeters deliver crystal clear highs at any volume.
The sound I heard from the new speaker was significantly superior to their current Play 5 speaker which was one of the first released by Sonos 10 years ago in Australia.
When paired they delivered a true value for money experience that is up there with some serious high priced audio gear.
The new array produces a soundstage that is much wider than expected in a single speaker, creating room-filling sound with precise separation of vocals and instruments.
In addition to horizontal orientation as a standalone speaker, two speakers paired together vertically deliver stereo sound with a focused and intense sweet spot.
Paired horizontally, they create a larger stereo image for an immersive, room-filling listening experience.
A closer look at the facing grill mesh reveals 60,000 individually drilled holes in the grill.
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Sonos has also delivered a total redesign of the touch controls on the top of the speaker.
Smart sensors make these touch controls responsive to all orientations, so the volume-up is always facing up. All you have to do is stroke the controls manually or resort to your app to control the new speaker.
Breaking Sound Barriers
Whitten said “For a truly exceptional result, hardware and software must work in harmony. Our new Play5 brings together all of our learning from many years of hardware and software design and iteration. Smart to its core, its dipole array delivers an incredibly wide soundstage. An accelerometer recognizes which of its three orientations it’s in and adjusts the tuning to suit your listening style”
He added “Sonos’ ultimate goal for sound is to reproduce in your living room what the artists created in the studio, in the purest way possible. That’s why we work with artists like Rick Rubin, Giles Martin, Q-Tip, and many others.
“We believe software is the ultimate craftsman’s tool for our speaker’s sound as well. From the early days of recording, speaker makers have been trying to reproduce the exact sound of the original musical performance in your home. The last 100 years of innovation in the loud speaker were driven by design, materials and manufacturing techniques-primarily hardware innovations and improvements”
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“At Sonos we realized with our first speakers that by controlling the custom-designed drivers, we could ensure that no matter how high you turn up the volume, the music will never distort. We realized that by using software, we could improve how our speakers sounded in just minutes, not months. We learned how to control multiple drivers into an array that delivers a previously unfeasibly wide soundstage for home theatre, and how to create deep bass with just a tiny unit. But that really was just the beginning”
Trueplay
He added “We are convinced that software can drive many more years of innovation in sound, making speakers sound better in any environment – smarter, more aware, and reactive to their environment. Which is why we’re so excited to be launching the first chapter of this innovation with Trueplay. It’s a major step in making sound itself smart.
The battle between LG and Dyson as to whose vacuum product sucks the best has been ongoing across several continents for years.
Back in November 2007, an LG vacuum cleaner adv was pulled by the British advertising watchdog, after Dyson took action against LG Electronics.
Now the two are at it again after LG claimed in a Federal Court filing that advertising for the Dyson V6 currently being sold in Australia was misleading.
In a late statement LG Australia said:
“LG Australia has initiated proceedings in the Federal Court of Australia against Dyson to restrain Dyson from making certain claims in relation to its V6 Cordless Vacuum.
“LG Australia alleges that Dyson’s advertisements claiming that the Dyson V6 cordless vacuums are the “the most powerful cordless vacuums” and that those cleaners have “twice the suction power of any cordless vacuum” are misleading on the basis that the LG CordZero cordless canister vacuum is in fact more powerful and has more suction power than the Dyson V6 cordless vacuum.
“The matter is currently being considered by the Court, and as such, LG is not in a position to make further comment.”
In the UK in 2007 the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) declared that LG marketing for their Kompressor vacuum cleaners misled consumers about the effectiveness of its dust compression technology after Dyson called for an investigation.
The ASA ruled the TV commercial was in breach of UK standards in three ways: (1) the tagline ‘compress your dust’ was misleading because the appliance’s compression system only compacted large material such as fluff, while fine dust was stored in another chamber altogether; (2) the ad misleadingly implied that collected dust was compressed into a solid mass, but the fine dust chamber was not shown in the ad; and, (3) the ad was potentially denigrating to competitors’ products because it implied they produced a larger dust cloud than the LG Kompressor.
All three of Dyson’s complaints were upheld by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) after an independent expert called in by the regulator agreed that the Korean giant’s Kompressor vacuum cleaner TV commercial was misleading.
“We told LG that the ad should not appear again in its present form,” said the ASA in concluding its adjudication.
At the time Dyson claimed that because fine dust is not compacted in the Kompressor’s main chamber but stored in a separate compartment, dust was actually more susceptible to dispersion when emptied and therefore more likely to create a dust cloud than other bagless machines.
“Our engineers focus on developing and testing Dyson technology, but we do keep half an eye on competitors,” said Dyson UK group marketing director, Clare Mullin.
“We’ve come to expect lazy innovation masked behind misleading marketing, and this seems to be what we have here from LG.
At the time LG Electronics Australia who are now taking on Dyson claimed that the UK ASA rulings had no relevance to the Australian market.
LG Australia chose not to run the banned TV commercial in Australia said Paul Jenkins the then General Manager of LG Marketing.
Back in 2012 LG Electronics produced a TV commercial for
their Kompressor vacuum cleaner that appeared to suck fat out of a female
At an Unpack event in New York overnight Samsung has launched a brand new Galaxy S6 Edge+ and a Note 5 that include new software developed by Samsung.
The Korean Company who is under pressure from Apple who will reveal a new iPhone in September is betting on getting tens of thousands of Australians who own a Note 4 to step up to the new device.
Samsung Australia plans to hold a media event on September 18th in Australia.
A Company executive said “Following the global announcement, we look forward to launching the Galaxy S6 Edge+ and Note 5 in Australia soon” In the UK the Note 5 is being held back.
The upgrades that Samsung have revealed while delivering significant hardware overhauls also deliver a number of new software capabilities.
The S6 Edge+, which is expected to be available with carriers and selected retailers on September 4, has a 5.7-inch Quad HD Super AMOLED display and the same curved glass design that debuted with the S6 Edge. Samsung and carriers are tipped to start taking pre-orders between August 18 and the 24th of said sources.
The phone features a new aluminium frame, which Samsung claims is 1.7 times stronger and 1.3 times more scratch-resistant than its predecessor, and a super-slim bezel, which means that the overall device is narrower than some smartphones with 5.5-inch displays.
With research showing that consumers in Australia are turning to video due to carriers offering more data bandwidth Samsung has positioned the new S6 Edge+ as a multimedia device, and has introduced several new video features such as steady video recording with face recognition on the front-facing camera, for smoother selfie-videos, and native live broadcasting supported by YouTube.
It has also added new video editing options, such as “collage mode”, which allows users to film several videos and have them playing back side-by-side in a collage, and series mode, which allows you to cut together several video clips into a continuous film.
Audio quality has also been improved, with the addition of a ultra-high-quality (UHQ) Upscaler, so the ordinary MP3s on your phone can be upscaled to 24-bit 192kHz sound, and a dedicated clock to minimise sound distortion and noise.
Shortly before the announcement LG announced 24bit streaming for their G4 smartphone.
As part of their software upgrade program Samsung has developed its own UHQ Bluetooth codec, so users can stream music from their S6 Edge+ smartphone to a Samsung Galaxy Pro headset or speaker via Bluetooth, and still experience premium quality sound.
In terms of the core specs, the S6 Edge+ is not hugely different from its predecessor. It has the same processor as the S6 Edge, the octa-core Exynos 7, and the same camera combination (16MP on the back and 5MP on the front). It also features Samsung’s “defence-grade” security platform, Knox.
Samsung has improved its wireless charging technology, so despite having a bigger battery than the S6 Edge (3000mAh compared to 2600mAh), the S6 Edge+ takes one hour less to charge wirelessly. Wired charging takes 5 minutes longer than on the S6 Edge.
The S6 Edge+ also comes preloaded with SideSync 4.0 which allows users to sync their smartphone with their PC over Wi-Fi and easily move images and files between devices by dragging and dropping. They can even manage incoming text messages and phone calls from their PC.
As well as the “People Edge”, that was introduced with the Galaxy S6 Edge and allows people to quickly call, text or email their most frequent contacts, Samsung has added an Apps Edge that allows them to quickly access their favourite applications.
The People Edge has also been enhanced, so users can now send pokes, pictures and emoticons to their top contacts as well as calls, texts and emails.
The Galaxy Note 5,
Apart from having a flat screen and a stylus that pops out of the bottom, the only real difference is that the Note 5 is ever so slightly bigger and heavier (153.2 x 76.1 x 7.6mm, and 171g).
The mid-August launch puts Samsung’s new smartphones on the market ahead of arch-rival Apple’s next iPhones.
The US Company is reportedly preparing for its largest initial production run for new phones so far by the end of the year.
While the Note 5’s screen size stays the same at 5.7 inch, but it gets slightly skinnier than the Note 4.
Both phones get their RAM upgraded to 4GB, up from 3GB. The Edge+’s application processor stays the same with Samsung’s internally-developed 64-bit, quad-core Exynos 7420 built on a 14-nanometer node. The Note 5 gets a processor upgrade with the Exynos 7420 from the Qualcomm Snapdragon 805 processor found in the Note 4 (or the Exynos 5433 found in Korea version of the Note 4).
The Edge+ packs a larger battery of 3,000 mille-ampere hour, over the Edge’s 2,600 mAh. The Note 5, however, gets a battery downgrade, going from 3,220 mAh in the Note 4 to 3,000 mAh in the Note 5.
The Note 5 uses higher-quality materials. Instead of a plastic back, it’s now glass. This is bad news for Samsung consumers who liked the removable back that allowed them to switch out the battery or expand their phone’s storage capabilities.
Similar to the S6 Edge, the Edge+ packs a 16-megapixel camera on the back and a 5-megapixel on the front.
But some of the more important changes are coming in software.
A new feature called App Edge gives users quicker access to their favourite apps from any screen on the Edge+. The menu can appear anywhere the user decides to place it along the side of the Edge+. It works similar to the People Edge feature on the Edge, where users can get quick access to their top five contacts. This makes it so the user doesn’t constantly have to be pulling up the home screen to get to their favourite app.
The Note 5’s S Pen stylus gets a little more useful. Without even having to wake up the screen, users can start writing on the Note 5 and take notes like on a piece of paper. The S Pen’s air command features have been improved. Air commands lets users hover the S Pen over the screen and a menu pops up. In the new version, users can add their favourite S Pen apps. The S Pen’s performance has also been boosted with decreased latency between when the screen is touched and when the markings start showing up on the screen.
The new devices also improve Samsung’s SideSync, which syncs a user’s phone together with a PC or TV. The 4.0 version makes it easier to connect. As soon as a user gets home, their phone starts syncing up with their computer if they’re on the same network. SideSync will allow users to do anything they want on their phone directly on their computer (respond to texts, take phone calls), as well as drag and drop files from either the PC or the phone. The software will also be available on the Mac soon.
The two phones also give users the ability to scroll capture the images on their screen. That means users can grab and save a long web page from top to bottom in case they want to save it for later. This could be useful if the user wants to save directions to go somewhere for later when they might not have a data connection.
Samsung is putting more effort into kick starting Samsung Pay, its effort in the mobile wallet space.
Right now, it’s being piloted in the South Korea and it plans to launch in the U.S. in September.
Currently Samsung Australia executives are talking to financial institutions and retailers about a Samsung Pay system in OZ.
Samsung’s devices use both MST (Magnetic Secure Transmission) and NFC (Near Field Communication) technologies, so users don’t have to wait until stores roll out NFC-enabled point of sale terminals to pay for goods with their phones. For Apple Pay, users have to wait for this roll out.
Finally, perhaps one of the quirkiest new software features on the two new phones is the ability to live broadcast video directly to YouTube. In both phones’ camera app, there’s a live broadcast mode where users will be able to immediately start broadcasting. “The benefit of that is that it’s accessible to any platform,” said Drew Blackard, director of product marketing at Samsung. “Users can play it back on a phone, laptop, TV, anyone with access to YouTube.”
While the big standouts will be some of the software improvements, it makes sense Samsung is focusing on hardware updates for its S6 Edge device and not the S6. Although sales figures weren’t released for either phone, Samsung apparently didn’t anticipate how much demand there would be for the S6 Edge. Consumers had been wanting to buy the Edge, but they were not always finding it in stock.
“Samsung recognizes that the curved screen on the Edge is a differentiator for them,” said Charles Golvin, founder of Abelian Research. “It’s different from the iPhone. It has unique functionality.”
But will this be enough? Even though Samsung is trying to get ahead of Apple in the competitive launch cycle, the iPhone 6’s larger screens really hit Samsung’s advantage in the premium smartphone market.
“Samsung is putting effort into software to extend their differentiation in other ways,” said Golvin. “They’re continuing to iterate and fine tune. But it doesn’t make a big difference. There’s not a lot to differentiate these devices these days.”
Under siege supermarket group Woolworths who also own BigW and the struggling Masters Hardware chain has suffered a 12.5 per cent slump in its full-year net profit to $2.15 billion.
Total group sales were down 0.2 per cent to $60.7 billion and earnings before interest and tax plunged 12 per cent to $3.3 billion.
BigW is fast becoming a train wreck despite the mass retailer expanding their consumer electronics offerings. Sales slumped 5.7% from $4.3 Billion to $4.1 Billion.
Comp sales were down 7.2% while the cost of doing business rose 167bps.
The losses from Masters also continued to grow, blowing out to $245.6 million for the full year on sales of $930 million. Last week, the rival Bunnings hardware chain who have recently started to add brands like Belkin in an effort to attract home automation customers, unveiled a record $1.1 billion profit result, from an 11.6 per cent jump in sales to $9.5 billion.
Woolworths also said chairman Ralph Waters would step down on September 1, to be replaced on the same day by Mr Cairns.
The appointment of former Lion Nathan chief Gordon Cairns as chairman is seen by analysts as a vital step in preparing the ground for the appointment of a new chief executive to replace the retiring Grant O’Brien.
This is the first full-year net profit drop in 19 years (excluding one-offs), as it battles to fend off a sustained price attack from Aldi and Coles and as they struggle to stem losses from its Masters Hardware operation and turn around Big W.
The Daily Telegraph wrote of thew Woolies saga, ‘Watching Woolworths is increasingly the corporate equivalent of car crash TV. There’s the sudden departure of Big W boss Alistair McGeorge after complaints about his “workplace behaviour”, the ongoing “leadership” of lame duck CEO Grant O’Brien and a series of PR disasters (the “Fresh in our Memories” Anzac social media campaign, anyone?) just for starters’.
Ice TV the Company that is still trying to sting consumer $99 for a TV Guide despite most TV’s delivering a guide for free is now trying to slug consumers $499 for a Personal Video Recorder or $599 for ad skipping software that does not work all the time.
Called the Skippa because it skips advertisements in 30-second increments the device is three years late, the catch is that if you want an Ice TV program guide you have to pay an additional $100.
Back in 2012 the CEO of Ice TV Colin O’Brien told ChannelNews that he was about to release a personal video recorder that was being taken up by mass retailers, the only problem was that when ChannelNews checked not one single retailers was able to confirm the ranging of an Ice TV box.
When O’Brien was asked to nominate which retailers were set to stock the new device he said “it’s confidential”.
Even now the Skippa box is only being sold online via the Ice TV web site.
The device which competes head on with other products from Beyonwiz, Humax, Strong, Topfield and UEC, or computer-based PVRs such as Windows Media Centre and Elgato EyeTV is expensive when compared to what’s on offer from other media centre devices. It also has no Netflix, Stan, Presto or other mainstream streaming services, though it does deliver HBB TV.
It features three high-def MPEG-2/4 digital TV tuners and has a 1TB drive which is standard in several PVR’s.
A big disadvantage is that if you one records a series of shows the device will not add padding either side of the show similar to what one can do with the new Foxtel iQ3 or the Fetch TV box.
Nor can you set Series recordings to only keep a certain number of episodes before deleting them to save space.
An IceTV subscription costs $99 per year or you pay $599 to get a lifetime subscription when you buy a Skippa which retails for $499 without the Ice TV guide.
You also get stung $49 per year for the auto ad-skipping features if you don’t pay for lifetime subscription.
Fairfax Media said after reviewing the product “AutoSkip can’t work its magic while you’re watching a live broadcast. Nor does it work if you’re watching on a slight delay because it needs time to process the recording, which takes about as long as the length of the show. It doesn’t delete the ads, it simply marks where they start and finish”.
They added “The AutoSkip feature is surprisingly good but not foolproof, IceTV says it’s around 90 per cent accurate”.
Ruslan Kogan is out spruiking again, after failing in his predictions that Apple was set to dump their retail partners the mouth from the south (Melbourne) is now claiming that he wants to branch out of consumer electronics and take on the likes of David Jones, Myer, Target and K Mart.
In other words, his sales of CE products and the related margins are slowing and he now needs to find new markets to flog cheap gear
He claims that he doesn’t want cheap televisions to define his business any more.
Speaking to Fairfax Media he said “I had a guy at my place to fix the air conditioner a few weeks ago and he walks in and was like ‘oh, so you’re Kogan, the guy that sells the TVs’.
“I was like ‘we’ll there’s 30,000 products on our site right now and TVs are just a portion of that’.”
Recently his Company has moved into categories as diverse as fashion and outdoor goods but now he wants to flog as many categories as possible.
“From a financial perspective, they’re industries that have much-higher margins than consumer electronics, so it gives us the ability to really smash the competition,” Mr Kogan said.
Kogan has quietly rolled out private-label brands of sports equipment, power tools, Manchester, travel goods and even pet supplies in the past year.
When asked how he would approach the new categories he said “We’ll think ‘Is there a demand for towels’? and we’ll take a look at the number of Google searches for towels, then we’ll look at how much we can get them manufactured for,” he said.
“Then we’ll look at how much we can get them delivered to the customer for, see what the other price in the market is, and then say ‘go’.”
Core to his success is a back-end bidding system that manufacturers and suppliers use to compete for contracts.
“What Amazon is letting the customer do at the front end, we’re doing at the back end,” Mr Kogan said.
“You could go onto Kogan and order an iPhone a week, and over the space of a few months one would arrive from France, one would arrive from Hong Kong, one would arrive from the US, one from Singapore.
Kogan who owns his company won’t reveal customer numbers or sales figures.
