Panasonic is combining Viera Cast with Viera Connect Internet services as it builds a base of third-party software application developers, Merwan Mereby, vice president of interactive content and services group, told us.

SAN DIEGO -- The TV industry has gotten into a “precarious position,” and is facing “interesting challenges heading into the next decade,” said Paul Gagnon, director of North America TV Research for DisplaySearch at the Flat Panel Display Conference last week. Consumers have gotten used to “rapid declines” in flat-panel TV prices and manufacturers have offset the price declines by launching new features and introducing larger screen sizes to “to keep price erosion at bay,” he said. But the prospects for “revolutionary transitions” such as those to HD or from CRT to flat-panel TVs are “weaker,” he said, and manufacturers and retailers will have to lure customers back through more evolutionary features.

Blockbuster’s bankruptcy takes another turn this week as creditors gear up for a hearing in their opposition to the chain’s proposed $290 million sale to Cobalt Video. Cobalt, comprised of lenders including Monarch Alternative Capital, took the lead in establishing a stalking horse bid in Blockbuster’s proposal to hold an auction. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Burton Lifland, New York City, adjourned a hearing last week amid opposition to Cobalt’s proposal from 45 creditors including Disney Co., Universal Studios and Yahoo. A hearing on creditors’ motion is set for March 10.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Zynga is “always looking at new platforms” but the social game company has “no specific plans” to make titles for any of the console or handheld videogame platforms, Chief Game Designer Brian Reynolds told us Wednesday at the Game Developers Conference (GDC).

SAN FRANCISCO -- Microsoft is “seeing early signs” that its Kinect motion sensor is broadening the Xbox 360 user base “to more than just hardcore gamers,” Chief Financial Officer Peter Klein told a Morgan Stanley conference Wednesday. “How big that can be is anybody’s guess,” he said. Over the past year, Microsoft has “really expanded” the 360 business, Klein said. The company shipped a new slim version of the console just after E3 in June last year, and that “really started our momentum in the business, and it really, really accelerated with Kinect,” released in late 2010, he said.

Kopin will deliver its Golden-i head-mounted display (HMD) software development kit to Motorola Solutions with a goal of bringing product to market in first-half 2012, Kopin executives said Thursday on an earnings call. Golden-I combines Kopin’s 0.6-inch LCD microdisplay with 800x600 resolution with Microsoft embedded 6.0 software, Texas Instruments OMAP processor, and Hillcrest Labs’ six-axis position tracker in an HMD. SDKs will be released by month’s end with plans for Motorola to start HMD production by year-end, Kopin Chief Financial Officer Richard Sneider told us. The software will be built into TI’s OMAP processor, he said.

Despite showing “strong interest” at CES in Green Plug’s Green Power Processor (GPP), CE makers “still remain skeptical” because any cost “is too much cost,” a Green Plug executive said. The GPP is an advanced system-on-chip that enables CE makers to design digital power adapter architectures that save energy by easing communication between the power source and the connected device, the company said. Green Plug had more than 40 meetings with CE executives at CES at which no one denied “the fact that digital control will replace analog control,” said Paul Panepinto, the company’s vice president of ecosystem development. “The question is at what point in time."

SAN DIEGO -- Facing pressure from low-priced passive 3D TVs and inexpensive polarized glasses from LG and Vizio, Panasonic will introduce sub-$100 active-shutter glasses this year, Jim Sanduski, senior vice president of sales at Panasonic, told us after a TV panel at the DisplaySearch Flat Panel Display Conference Wednesday.

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- The complexity of content licensing deals is among factors slowing the rollout of TV Everywhere services from the pay-TV operators, panelists said at the OTTCON Wednesday. “If you're an HBO customer in a house that you own in Connecticut, but you're a Qwest customer at your ski lodge in Vail, are you going to be entitled to have HBO to Go in Vail even though” the local pay-TV operator isn’t getting a portion of that subscription fee, asked David Price, vice president of cable vendor Harmonic. “We have a boundary issue, which is really causing some consternation around the business modeling,” he said at the conference on over-the-top video.

SAN FRANCISCO -- About 80 million HD consoles were sold to date by Microsoft and Sony, and about 8 million Kinects and 4 million PlayStation Moves sold for those consoles, Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello told the Morgan Stanley conference Tuesday. “That’s meaningful,” he said, although the data he cited were somewhat dated.