Microsoft says that it is on track to sell more than 5 million Kinect gesture control units by year end, after reporting sales of 1 million in its first 10 days. It has high hopes that the biggest selling day of the year, Black Friday in the US Thanksgiving holiday, will give Xbox Kinect big US sales numbers. Previously Microsoft said it might sell as many as 3 million Kinect devices, but since then sold out early on all of its pre-orders. The Kinect and the Sony Move motion controller are pushing down sales of the Nintendo Wii, which made the first games motion controller. Kinect for Xbox costs $150 in the US.
Vivendi reported its third quarter with Activision Blizzard up 14.8% in revenues to €2,280 million, and a 69% increase in EBITA to €686 million, Universal Music Group revenues fell 1.7% to €2,927 million while cellco SFR grew revenues by 1.6% to €9,379 million. Canal+ revenues were €3,464 million up just 2.9% over last year.
Apple has finally given its seal of approval to Google Voice running on the iPhone after a wait of 16 months and attention being called to the application at the FCC. It all comes a bit late since Google had been offering a web based version of the application for the iPhone since January offering free domestic calling and cheap long-distance, plus comprehensive messaging and an answerphone shared across multiple numbers.
A new report from The Diffusion Group reckons that iPad owners are more likely to cut the cord with their paid TV services. It said that 33% of iPad owners said they were likely to cancel within six months and around 13% of these said they were highly likely to cancel.
Motorola Mobility’s investment arm Motorola Ventures said this week it would invest in BlackArrow, an advanced advertising technology firm which offers ads systems for new TV platforms. Terms were not announced but this could put Motorola right into the advertising fight between Google and Apple, especially on TV based App stores. BlackArrow’s system focuses on VoD, DVR, mobile viewing and internet viewing.
Nuance Communications said this week that its XT9 predictive touch input is entering the living room, with new expanded support for interactive, connected TV and will come first to market via the TVBLOB BLOBbox. This is OTT connected TV software, which blends traditional TV with the Internet.
Finally Apple thought that it had changed the world once again when it brought the Beatles to the iTunes platform through the Apple recording company which controls their songs, and EMI. Single albums will cost $12.99 each, double albums $19.99 each and individual songs for $1.29 each.