Rebecca Day

Apple will lose 10 percent market share in tablets in 2011, but its 73.4 percent share of worldwide tablet sales, down from 83 percent in 2010, is still projected to total 46.7 million units, compared with 11 million for Android tablets, 3 million for Research in Motion’s QNX and 2 million for WebOS tablets, according to recent data from Gartner. Because of Apple’s “superior and unified user experience across hardware, software and services,” Gartner predicts the iOS platform will control more than 50 percent of the tablet market until 2014.

ISee3D was in New York Thursday to promote developments in its single-lens 3D technology that the company hopes to sell to CE manufacturers of webcams, digital still cameras and camcorders. The technology is expected to launch in a camcorder line from DXG next month, according to a spokeswoman for DXG, but pricing and product details weren’t available by our deadline. DXG currently sells a dual-lens 3D camcorder, the DXG-5D7V, for $599.

Headphone company Fanny Wang launched its second wave of over-ear headphones targeting the premium fashion-based segment of the headphone category made popular by Monster’s Beats line. Fanny Wang introduced its first product late last year after identifying an opportunity in the fast-growing headphone market, CEO Tim Hickman told us on a press tour in Manhattan. “We noticed that overall revenue in the space doubled from 2009-2010, and the top three market-share leaders all lost share,” he said, naming Sony, Bose and Sennheiser. Fanny Wang’s latest headphones, active noise-cancellation over-ear models ($299) are based on a chipset from Maxim. The headphones use four RF-shielded microphones, two inside and two outside, which Hickman said sets the phones apart from other active noise-cancellation models. Among the Fanny Wangs’ call-out features are 50mm titanium drivers, an auto shut-off feature that powers off the phones after 15 minutes if a signal isn’t sensed, pass-through circuitry that enables the phones to work in non-noise-canceling mode if the batteries lose juice and a dual jack that allows users to share music with a friend, Hickman said. A switch on the headset allows users to select a bass boost mode that adds 6 decibels at the low end, he said. The headphones are packed in a pod with a carabineer that can hook onto carry-on luggage or a backpack, he said. Fanny Wang made headlines last December when it was sued by Monster for patent and trade dress infringement and unfair competition. According to the suit, filed in the U.S. District Court in Northern Calif., Fanny Wang headphones were “knock-offs” of Monster’s Beats Studio and Solo headphones, and Monster sought court action to prevent Fanny Wang from exhibiting at CES 2011. A judge ruled against the injunction. The trial is set for March 2012, Hickman said. Fanny Wang phones sell at Amazon, Sears.com and Buy.com, and direct from the company website.

RadioShack will begin selling Barnes & Noble Nook e-readers Oct. 3 in 3,000 stores and at radioshack.com, the companies said Wednesday. The agreement includes the 6-inch Nook Simple Touch Reader ($139) and the 7-inch Nook Color ($249), the companies said. RadioShack currently sells $99 and $149 e-readers from Ectaco, $109 and $129 e-readers from Aluratek, and Amazon’s Kindle in-store only ($139), according to its website. Barnes & Noble also said Wednesday that the Federal Trade Commission has granted early termination of the waiting period for Liberty Media’s $204 million investment in the company. Barnes & Noble announced last month that Liberty Media bought preferred stock, convertible into about 12 million shares -- or 16.6 percent of the Barnes & Noble common stock -- for $17 per share, with a dividend rate of 7.75 percent per year to be paid quarterly. Under terms of the investment, Barnes & Noble expanded its board of directors to 11 members to include Gregory Maffei, Liberty Media CEO, and Mark Carleton, senior vice president. Liberty had originally planned to buy out Barnes & Noble for $1 billion. With Barnes & Noble sales having improved in recent months following closing of Borders stores across the country, Liberty and Barnes & Noble believed Liberty investing in the bookstore chain was a better option than buying it, analysts said last month when the $204 million investment was announced (CED Aug 22 p8). Meanwhile, Barnes & Noble has added iOS storybook apps Kung Fu Panda 2, How to Train Your Dragon and The Smurfs to its content library. The apps are available for $2.99 each. The two storybooks include original images and character voices directly from the movie for an “immersive story experience,” according to publisher iStoryTime. The apps are designed for kids two-years and up, and pages can be turned automatically or manually depending on the age and preference of the user, iStoryTime said. According to Kristy Cox, head of worldwide publishing at DreamWorks Animation, the tablet market continues to be “a very important part of ensuring that fans of our movies can enjoy our stories and characters whenever and however they want to.”

Rite-Aid stores in New York City recently installed banks of lockers built around a touchscreen that reads “Amazon Locker.” The lockers will apparently enable customers to have purchases shipped to a nearby location for pickup if they can’t easily get packages at home or at work.

Second-quarter inventory problems led to a year-over-year shipment decline of 20 percent at Acer, which lost its number-three rank and was the only top five PC maker to post a sales decline for the period, according to IHS iSuppli. IHS called Acer’s drop to fourth place “a stunning reversal of fortune for a company that was the No. 2 PC brand in the world during a three-quarter period in 2009 and 2010.” Lenovo, meanwhile, swapped spots with Acer, moving into third place with shipments of 10.2 million PCs in Q2, up 23 percent from Q2 2010 and up 25 percent from first quarter of this year, IHS said. HP, which shipped 15.4 million PCs, up 2.8 percent, and Dell, shipping 11.1 million, up 3.9 percent, continued to hold the number one and two positions in the quarter, it said. Apple advanced 13.8 percent to 3.8 million, and Samsung posted the largest percentage gain of top ten PC makers at 31.3 percent, IHS said. Samsung unit shipments were 3.1 million, up from 2.4 million during Q2 2010, IHS said. Apple’s product appeal propelled the company despite the “weaker consumer demand environment,” said analyst Matthew Wilkins. Apple is now less than a percentage point from entering the top five PC makers, he said. Asus broke into the top five, overtaking Toshiba with shipments of 5.3 million units for Q2, a gain of 8.4 percent year-over-year and 4.6 percent from Q1 2010, it said. “Asus delivered strong growth in emerging markets” including Eastern Europe and Asia-Pacific, Wilkins said. After pulling back sequentially and in Q2 2010, the global PC market rebounded in Q2 2011, growing 3.7 percent to 85.6 million shipments, IHS said. Strong demand was driven by IT departments refreshing hardware, it said.

Some 90 hardware, service, software and accessories companies displayed their holiday offerings at Pepcom’s annual Holiday Spectacular media event in New York Wednesday. Among the highlights were new tablets, including previews of ViewSonic models due out in October.

Bose Thursday took the wraps off a wireless portable audio speaker system designed to work with smartphones and tablets. A company spokesman cited the 2 billion iTunes songs downloaded worldwide last year and the 400 million smartphones, tablets and laptops sold as potential pairing partners for the speakers, which operate over Bluetooth in a 30-foot range. He also noted the range of Internet radio streaming services available on portable devices. “People have all this content on their portable devices,” a spokesman said, “but they need something else to be able to share it."

Polk Audio became the latest company to join the headphone fray Tuesday evening when it launched a line of sports headphones. The line of four sports models is the beginning of a major push into the general headphone category, CEO Jim Minarik said. “More people listen to music through headphones than any other way,” he told us, saying the 30-year-old company “needs to be in this space.” Within 5-7 years, Polk’s headphone business will be as big as its loudspeaker business, Minarik said.

IDC raised its forecast for worldwide e-reader and tablet sales for second half 2011 after Q2 performance passed expectations by 9 million units. Worldwide media tablet shipments rose by 88.9 percent sequentially in Q2 and 303.8 percent year over year, to 13.6 million units, IDC said. For the year, IDC now expects 62.5 million units to ship, up from a previous forecast of 53.5 million units, it said.