Energy management solutions and expanded audio and video features for webcams are new areas that Schlage will focus on for its Z-Wave-based home management system in 2011, Dwight Gibson, general manager for the company’s Connected Home Solutions group, told us in a pre-CES briefing last week. Schlage’s 2011 product plan includes energy monitoring and management, he said. The company wants to give consumers the ability to see their “complete energy profile,” Gibson said, so they can better control those costs. Lighting, appliances and HVAC systems drive more than 80 percent of energy consumption in homes, “and that’s where consumers’ actions can make a meaningful difference,” he said.

Virgin Media will “pace” the U.K. rollout of its TiVo service in the first half of 2011 but turn it into a “major weapon” for attracting customers and generating revenue in the second half, CEO Neil Berkett said Friday at a New York analysts conference. The launch last week of a Motorola-built, TiVo-equipped HD/DVR generated “unparalleled” interest, but the demand is “unproven” in the U.K. and “we'll have to see how it lands,” Chief Operating Officer Andrew Barron said.

Conn’s CEO Tim Frank thinks TV makers are being more promotionally active than normal for a holiday selling season to generate sales and market share gains, he said Thursday on an earnings call. “Certainly I believe that to be the case,” Frank replied when an analyst asked him whether he’s seeing an unusually high level of activity among TV vendors “offering more funding incentives to drive interest in the category."

Electronic Arts is driving toward $750 million annual revenue from digital business, Eric Brown, chief financial officer, said during a webcast from the Credit Suisse Technology Conference in Scottsdale, Ariz. The company generated $430 million from digital content in fiscal 2009 and that grew to $570 million in fiscal 2010, driven largely by downloads for extra content including micro-transactions for free-to-play games, social network games from Playfish, and map packs for Xbox 360 and PS3 video game players, Brown said. Full-game downloads have also been a key driver for the company’s revenues for fiscal first half 2011, which ended Sept. 30, he said.

DirecTV will ship a five-tuner HD/DVR receiver in 2011 capable of streaming three 1080p video feeds as it expands the base of home networking and Internet-connected devices, Chief Technology Officer Romulo Pontual told us Thursday at the company’s analysts meeting in New York.

SEATTLE -- Having made its name beating Apple in the desktop wars, Microsoft is now taking cues from its consumer-savvy Cupertino rival in more closely managing the various Windows platforms, tech pundits said late Wednesday on a panel hosted by the Puget Sound Business Journal’s TechFlash blog.

PC peripheral maker Logitech is looking at the tablet PC market as an opportunity, not a threat, chief financial officer Erik Bardman said Wednesday in a session webcast from the Credit Suisse 2010 Technology Conference in Scottsdale, Ariz. While Logitech’s bread-and-butter mouse and keyboard business is “still growing,” Bardman forecast that it will “grow a little slower” over the next five years with growth dropping to 10 percent. “If people do replace laptops with tablets,” he said, “there’s a productivity element there, and we're very good with productivity input.”

TV and Radio broadcast groups are increasingly working with online companies to offer daily coupons, getting in on a craze highlighted this week by Google’s reported $5.3 billion bid for Groupon, industry executives said. “We're not sure if this is white hot for the next six months or the next six years, or even the next six days,” but “we love the space,” said Kerry Oslund, vice president of digital media for Schurz Communications, which owns TV and radio stations and has a daily deal going in one market. Radio stations have long offered half-off deals of the sort that have driven sites such as Groupon and Living Social to popularity, but the offers are newer territory for TV broadcasters, Oslund said.

Rovi is developing TotalGuide direct-to-consumer software applications and will make parts of the IPG available to MSOs as an upgrade to current set-top boxes, Rovi executives said on a conference call. The company, which signed a licensing agreement with Apple, demonstrated an iPad application earlier this fall that connects the tablet PC to TotalGuide-enabled and non-Rovi guide set-tops, CEO Fred Amoroso said.

Reversing a trend, the number of Google searches for Black Friday deals did not hit new highs Thanksgiving week -- but they did increase the week before and early this week, according to a report delivered via webcast by CEA research director Shawn DuBravac.