By Samantha Nevels, Policy Communications Coordinator

Summer is almost here, and with summer, comes more sun. It’s time we put the sun to work for us and our electronics. How, you ask? Fortunately, many products have been created to use the sun’s rays to charge and power our electronics.

Going on a hike and need to charge your phone at the top of the mountain? Use a product like the Nomad 7 Solar Panel, or the Guide 10 Plus Adventure Kit, both by Goal Zero. The Nomad 7 can collect up to seven watts of power from the sun to charge your phone for up to two additional hours of battery life.

If you’re looking for something just a little more comprehensive, the Guide 10 Plus is for you! It can power your tablet for up to 25 percent longer battery life, AND charge four AA or AAA batteries for use in other electronics. Not only do these products help support your electronics, but they’re slim, simple and easy to carry.

Want something a little smaller to snap onto the back of your iPhone? Eton has created a solar panel charger case that fits right on the back of your iPhone. The Eton Mobius can extend the battery life of your phone for up to five hours of talk time, or eight hours of Internet use. When you’re at that picnic in the park, or bringing your kids to the playground, simply turn your phone upside down and let it charge in the sun. The iPartner is another great on-the-go charger. Simply charge it and attach to the back of your iPhone for extended battery life.

The sun isn’t the only thing that can help power your electronics. Your physical movement can charge that phone of yours. The nPowerPEG uses the energy you generate while hiking, walking, or performing any other activity. It stores the energy for when you need a backup charger for your electronics. Just stick it in your backpack or purse and go.

And remember, while you’re out and about soaking up the sun, be sure to unplug any chargers in your home to save energy and lower your electricity bill. For more information on how to be green this summer, check out GreenerGadgets.org.

To see these products up close, watch the video below!

I could have predicted some trends on display at CTIA (put on by the Washington-based trade association of the same name) without stepping away from my desk. Yes, there’s still an enormous market for add-on chargers and battery packs. Yes, phone screens haven’t finished getting bigger–although at least the plus-sized displays on Samsung’s 4.8-in. Galaxy S III and HTC’s 4.7-in. One X come surrounded by narrow bezels that help these devices look somewhat svelte.

But other developments had some surprises and subtlety to them and deserve a closer look.

LTE is how we’ll spell “wireless”

The exit sign from the current, confused state of “4G” mobile broadband looked a lot closer at CTIA. Where today AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon Wireless use the term to refer to three different standards, all are now coalescing around the most honest definition of 4G, LTE (Long Term Evolution). Verizon’s deployment of LTE is well along, AT&T’s is picking up speed, and Sprint and a reinvigorated T-Mobile will be launching LTE networks later this year.

Just as important, the first smartphones using long-awaited, integrated 3G-plus-LTE chipsets (for instance, the One X) are coming on the market. By not needing a separate component for LTE, these phones shouldn’t be pleading for a recharge as often as current LTE models. That’s an innovation I could use much more than battery-draining bandwidth.

Carriers are also taking steps to move voice calls to LTE. Qualcomm outlined a road map to move to widespread “VoLTE” support by 2014; that should help free up bandwidth, although carriers will still be asking for more spectrum and working to offload more traffic to WiFi.

mAh is the new MHz

The most relevant number on a new smartphone isn’t its screen size, storage, or camera resolution–it’s the battery capacity. More milliampere-hours (mAh) are better, but you may have to click through to a fine-print specs page to see this data point.

How much is enough? After trying too many Android phones that couldn’t make it through a full day on a battery in the 1,500-1,800 mAh range, buying anything with less than 2,000 mAh of capacity seems foolish. (Other smartphone operating systems, such as Apple’s iOS and Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7, have been a little more efficient and can get by with lower-capacity batteries.)

I invite–no, I beseech manufacturers to get into a bidding war over this specification. Even if it means making a phone a fraction of an inch thicker.

The smartphone as subscription revenue source

Now that we’ve all gotten used to spending money in smartphone app stores (even if Android users lag behind), you can expect to see more pitches from carriers, manufacturers and developers to sign up for one subscription after another. It’s the same basic concept as the calling-plan options (say, paying extra for ext ended night calling hours) that carriers once put a great deal of effort into selling.

Security software will probably be one popular option. Even if the actual threat from viruses hasn’t been that bad, there’s still a market for find-my-phone services and child-safety tools. Sprint, for example, plans to offer a bundle of those utilities, based in part of Lookout’s security software, for $9.99 a month, and AT&T used the show to pitch a forthcoming “Digital Life” home-automation and home-security service.

Who’s going to keep the iPhone and Android honest? 

The predictable no-show of Apple and the less-expected near-absence of Microsoft and Research In Motion at CTIA’s exhibits made this show a blurry lens through which to see who might give that operating system and iOS some needed competition.

People who saw Research In Motion demonstrate its new BlackBerry 10 software at a conference in Orlando earlier this month seemed impressed, but it will be months before hardware ships–and RIM didn’t have a demo of that operating system at CTIA to distract attendees from the competition.

Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7–a system I’ve liked on phones such as Nokia’s Lumia 900–seems on more solid ground. But while WP7 is becoming an increasingly affordable option, thanks to budget-priced phones like AT&T’s $49.99 Samsung Focus 2, its selection of apps remains far behind. And as I realized from using a loaner Nokia 900 during the show, the quality of such individual apps as Twitter and Evernote also lags.

I had plenty of Android phones to paw over at CTIA, but I can only guess which ones will receive the most consistent software updates. So while I saw one or two enticing possibilities to replace my sad, old phone, I’m not quite ready to say if they’ll get my business.

At the end of the 2011 holiday season, one-third of all shopping visits ended with an average of $125 left unspent. For retailers and brand owners, this is a troubling statistic. Experts have hypothesized that this was driven by a decrease in the overall retail experience, including store associate assistance. Case-in-point: 55 percent of retail associates believe their shoppers are better informed about product information than they are themselves.

What was once an immersive experience has now become more about processing a transaction.

However, consumers still want more from their in-store experiences, and both retailers and brands are trying to reboot this engagement. We all remember the hype around the QR code. But what you might not know is that less than five percent of the American public has ever scanned a QR code. While QR code awareness and inclusion in marketing communications efforts has increased exponentially over the past year, the statistics speak to the disconnect between providing “transactional information” rather than an “emotional connection.”

Today’s consumers are needy, and they require persistent engagement and continually nurtured relationships. To account for this, brand owners – particularly in the consumer electronics (CE) industry – are shifting budgets away from traditional advertising channels into social media. According to Nielsen, Internet ad spending grew by 24 percent over last year. And Forrester Research predicts that online ad spends will finally outpace television by 2016. While marketers excel at providing this experience effectively online, they’re losing sight of the in-store experience.

As we continue to see explosive growth in “hybrid” retail channels (think of kiosks, pop-up shops, social media “stores,” and even online viral campaigns), crafting the right consumer engagement will become even more intricate. These channels – and others that might not even exist yet – will be opportunities to purchase products and even more important, to connect consumers with brands. As the consumer shops across all these channels, it will be increasingly difficult to unify fragmented connection points into an overarching brand experience.

So how do you connect with shoppers authentically within this new dynamic? How do you convert a transaction into an immersive brand experience? And, most important, what marketing platform will be most effective?

I believe that part of the answer is through consumer packaging.

Think of it this way: 100 percent of your brand’s consumers interact with your packaging. No other form of marketing communications can make that claim. All aspects of that interaction need to be finely crafted to become a moment to make a brand impression. How a consumer holds it, opens it, uses it, stores it, reseals it, and finally disposes of it are all opportunities to reinforce the connection between brand and consumer. And we find that in the CE space especially, consumers hang on to a product’s packaging for a much longer time than other product categories.

Packaging is literally the physical manifestation of the brand experience and sits squarely in the middle of the relationship between brand equity and repeat purchase behavior. It literally needs to “make good” on all the brand’s promises and connect with the consumer to drive repeat purchase behavior.

By Gary Shapiro, President and CEO, CEA

By now I’m sure you and your team have been getting calls asking you to showcase your new products at CEA Line Shows. This fast growing media event serves as the headquarters of CE Week – June 25-29.

So I wanted to add in my two cents. You should know why CEA is helping lead this event.

It’s about innovation. It’s who we are as leaders in the new economy. For decades, CEA has promoted the business of innovation, through the International CES in Las Vegas every January, and through public policy and research.

If ever there was a crucial time to make a statement about innovation, and your company and our industry, it is now. We are seeing big changes and growth in our industry and membership. Indeed, our industry is radically changing how home entertainment and information are consumed anywhere/anytime.

What does that have to do with a show in New York in June? There is a simple, strategic value to our industry making some noise about itself mid-year when the media and analysts are listening. The goal is to use all forms of media to make a collective shoutout on behalf of those innovators large and small that need their story heard. With CE Week, we’re creating a straightforward and highly affordable way for all of us to remind consumers that today’s CE industry is a collection of brilliant hardware and software designers working together to make the best possible products.

This event has grown exponentially over the past five years. Last year’s CE Week attracted 2,300 members of the trade along with more than 650 media/analysts – making it one of the CE industry’s biggest annual events. More than 200 companies and 17 event partners converged to showcase the best new products for back-to-school and the holidays.

We have made it as flexible as possible for you to take part. Reserve a booth or simply hold a dinner, party or press conference. That’s why we’re saying BYOB (Bring Your Own Business) to New York in June. Come and showcase or simply come and hang out. If you have something exciting to show off or communicate – that much the better.

If we can provide you with more details about this important event, please contact Shari Sally,
at ssally@ce.org.

See you in New York in June.
Gary Shapiro

I still remember the rush I got when my grandparents gave me one of the best birthday presents I have ever received- a Sony CD portable Walkman (complete with the Spice Girls debut album “Spice”).

I knew I couldn’t be the only one wistful for the gadgets of yesteryear – so I reached out to my coworkers to find out what technologies they miss the most!

I’d really like to be able to once again play Super Mario Bros., Paperboy and Double Dragon on the original Nintendo Entertainment System (only after blowing into the cartridge first, of course). In a fit of nostalgia, I bought one on eBay a few years ago but gave it to my sister. It might be time to reclaim it.
-Jack Cutts, Senior Manager, Member Programs

10+ years ago I got rid of my original (still working) Apple IIe and all of the original software.  I still regret that decision. 

I bought my first laptop in 1995.  Laptop is long obsolete, but I still have the cable I used to chain it to tables in my college’s library on many late nights.

My 1983 boombox was the first electronics device I took apart.  It was not the last to never quite get put back together.
-Shawn Dubravac, Chief Economist and Senior Director of Research

Hands down, the old school electronics device that I miss the most is the original Nintendo! My brother and I used to play like that thing was going out of style (and hey, look what happened)! Has there been a game invented since as fun as DUCK HUNT!? I don’t think so! And the very first Mario Brothers….. I was the champion of squishing those bad-boy mushrooms! The simplicity of the control was key… A, B, up, down and call it a day!
-Allie Fried, Manager, International Communications

The Walkman introduced me to music. I’ll never forget that.

I also loved my parent’s old turn table. It was like magic. Digital things lack soul (that being said, you’ll never find me without my iPhone). But, the older, more analog stuff pulls at my heart strings.

And the original GameBoy and NES. I’m not nostalgic for them because I use them on a weekly basis.
-Lindsay Bianco, Manager, Member Programs

I really miss Nintendo 64, specifically Mario Kart Racing.  Nothing beat a 3 hour 4-player racing session after school and while snacking on pizza bagel bites.  I was always Yoshi!!!
-Amanda Whitt, Senior Coordinator, Conferences

The most nostalgic gadget growing up for me was the Sony MiniDisc Walkman.  While the format did not reach a high adoption rate within the US, I loved the portability and sound quality.  The MiniDisc was most certainly a predecessor to the modern MP3 player and enabled the digital transfer of multiple albums onto a single media disk.  Sony’s offering provided a handy in-line remote control with track information, allowing the user to carry the player in your pocket while on the go.  I enjoyed mine enough to purchase a second NetMD player a few years later.  I still power it up on occasion.
-Bobby Baulmer, Senior Sales Coordinator

Are there any old electronics you’re still pining for? If it’s time to part with some of your outdated electronics, don’t forget to check out our Greener Gadgets database to find eCycling locations near you!

Almost five and a half years later, I don’t know of any current U.S. phones or tablets that ship with this feature.

You can’t blame that on a lack of effort. If anything, there’s been a surplus of it–too many companies pursuing different implementations of the inductive charging concept.

This diversity is good for the lab but bad for the mass market. If I buy a cordless-charging phone, I want to know that the battery icon on its screen will light up when it’s on or near any charging surface (as seen in the photo of a demo at this year’s CES), not just one with the right logo.

But even as we’re getting closer to widespread deployment, this technology keeps hitting potholes on the road to standardization.

That’s an old problem. After years of wireless-power purveyors sniping at each other in the press, I’ve grown accustomed to dueling presentations at CES from the two leading contenders, Powermat Technologies and a newer industry group called the Wireless Power Consortium,

(The recent announcement of an optional cordless-charging center console in 2013 Dodge Darts involves neither contender; Chrysler is using a proprietary system from Sterling Heights, Mich.-based JVIS-USA.)

Last summer, these rivals looked set to end this destructive conflict. Powermat joined the WPC, whose ranks already include LG, Motorola, Samsung, Sony and Toshiba, and said it would make its hardware compliant with the consortium’s Qi (pronounced “chee”) standard.

But Powermat has since left the WPC. Powermat communications vice president Scott Eisenstein said the company exited because it didn’t see progress towards a unified standard “as quickly or as constructively” as it had hoped, although it was still open to making Qi- and Powermat-compatible products for other firms.

That leaves WPC and Powermat working separately on similar tracks. Each aims to move cable-free charging from an add-on–usually, in the form of a replacement phone battery, back or case–to a built-in component. Each also needs to build out an infrastructure of charging surfaces, especially in places like airports.

Powermat, which has historically specialized in the add-on market (last year, it began selling accessories under the Duracell name), is now touting a cheap, compact reference design for an inductive-charging module for smartphones..

Its more high-profile moves, however, have aimed at the other end of the charging equation. Back in 2011, it showed off a charging pad incorporated in the center console of a Chevy Volt and expects to see that ship in early 2013. (A GM publicist didn’t answer e-mails asking for details). And this January, Powermat signed a deal with Madison Square Garden to install charging surfaces in the arena beginning later this year.

WPC continues to refine its standard with tweaks such as an extension of its maximum charging distance (PDF) from 5 mm to 40 mm, or about 1.5 inches. But it already seems off to a solid start in Japan. There, Qi-compatible tables and counters have begun showing up in airports and coffee shops, and its products list includes not just phones from vendors like NTT Docomo but even a Panasonic Blu-ray recorder.

(Why no such thing exists in the States is something I’ll have to address in a future post here.)

But on this side of the Pacific, Qi support in mobile devices has yet to break out beyond add-ons like the $29.99 charging back that Verizon Wireless sells for some Android phones.

Except for some Palm webOS phones, nobody has even tried to make inductive charging a major selling point in a mobile device here. And in that case, it wasn’t enough to rescue a flawed smartphone platform.

Will anybody change that this year?

NPD Group analyst Ross Rubin suggested keeping an eye out for Samsung. “It has the volume to move the needle, is not adverse to implementing more fringe technologies such as styli, is serious about the accessories potential for its phones, and it has a strong interest in differentiation.”

At the time he sent that e-mail last week, Samsung was a WPC member. But a press release sent today reveals it’s also a founding member of yet another cordless-charging group, the newly-formed Alliance for Wireless Power.

In the same e-mail, Rubin also noted how not just cost but marketing has held back this technology so far: “it’s difficult to command a premium for something that consumers use when they’re generally NOT using their handset.”

I hope to have a clearer sense of this technology’s prospects by the time CES 2013 rolls around. But one thing already seems assured: Eight months from now, I’ll still be charging my phone with a cable.

I also recap some of my recent posts and outline what’s next on my schedule. (If you guessed that it would involve smartphones–well, that shouldn’t have been too hard to guess.)

Rob’s April Podcast!

Click if you missed January, February, or March’s podcasts!

Mobile computing and connectivity are top of mind for many Americans, as they increasingly desire online access anywhere they go. There’s no doubt that the excitement over entertaining and useful mobile apps on smartphones and tablets are also driving the demand in the devices on this list. We’re even beginning to see apps on televisions, which may explain the high demand for HDTVs and larger TVs in this year’s study.

Ownership rates for a couple of these most-wanted devices have risen dramatically over the past year. The household penetration rate of smartphones rose from 39% in 2011 to 46% in 2012, while the rate for tablets jumped from 8% of households in 2011 to 22% in 2012. We predict that smartphone and tablet penetration rates could reach 51% and 31%, respectively, in 2013.

The study also shows that 14% of households are planning to purchase Bluetooth headsets, indicating greater attention to solutions for safer driving. Thirty-four percent of households reported owning Bluetooth headsets at the time of the study.

And what do I plan to buy? I’m looking to purchase a new set of stereo speakers for my A/V system, putting me in the 8% of Americans who plan to do so this year. What’s on your CE shopping list?

These are just a few of the products covered in the 14th Annual CE Ownership and Market Potential Study. We measured consumer ownership and interest for over 50 electronic products This consumer research data is available for free to CEA Members and on the CEA Store for non-members. For more information, contact Rick at info@ce.org.

When I arrived at the event mid-day, they had already filled up half of an 18-wheeler with old gadgets and were sorting through several carloads that people had just dropped off. A couple of people were tasked with destroying hard drives with a hydraulic compressor, which looked like a heavy duty hole-puncher. The crushed drives looked quite unusable by my standards; I don’t think we have to worry about that data anymore.

One participant today told me that her company was able to bring dozens of computers that had been sitting in the office after a recent round of PC upgrades. She was very happy that this event was free and that her company was able to responsibly discard the computers.

Spring is a common season for electronics recycling events such as these, so watch for something similar in your area. You can also find a local recycler at GreenerGadgets.org. There are 7,500 recycling drop-off locations in the U.S. run by members of our eCycling Leadership Initiative.

The Power Purge & Shred was sponsored in part by the Consumer Electronics Association.

That doesn’t make it another SOPA or PIPA. But the progress of the first major tech-policy bill to come up since January’s successful campaign against those two copyright-enforcement proposals show how tech policymaking can still be a mess in Washington.

CISPA (H.R. 3523) aims to help companies and the government cooperate to detect and defeat hacking attempts against the nation’s core information infrastructure by sharing confidential information about vulnerabilities and threats. That is a serious risk–more so than the predictions of file-sharing doom waved about by SOPA proponents.

CISPA competes with a rival bill in the House, the Promoting and Enhancing Cybersecurity and Information Sharing Effectiveness Act of 2011 (H.R. 3674, “PRECISE Act”). On the Senate side, the Strengthening and Enhancing Cybersecurity by Using Research, Education, Information, and Technology Act of 2012 (S. 2151, “SECURE IT” for short) and the Cybersecurity Act of 2012 (S. 2105) plow the same ground.

But for now, the attention is on CISPA, which could pass the House by the end of the week.

In that bill’s early form, that would have been bad news. CISPA’s first draft (PDF) employed an extremely broad definition of cybersecurity that included not just threats to transportation, power and telecommunications systems but also the “theft or misappropriation… of intellectual property”–which invited “CISPA Is The Next SOPA” headlines.

It would have then encouraged (but not required) companies to share information about online threats against those targets with each other and with the feds. It promised a blanket exemption of civil or criminal liability for good-faith efforts–”Notwithstanding any other provision of law” that might protect the rights of individual citizens.

CISPA also put few restrictions on what the government could do with this shared data or what agencies could get a crack at it, then included fairly weak accountability provisions.

The question that never seems to have informed that first draft is the one any designer of a complex system should ask upfront: When (not if) part of this breaks, how will the whole thing fail? Is it brittle–will catastrophic damage result–or will it come apart somewhat gracefully?

(Here, I’m borrowing a analytical framework that security expert Bruce Schneier–my personal candidate to run the Transportation Security Administration–has used for years.)

CISPA 1.0 fails that test. It takes little to imagine one careless company or one overly-inquisitive government employee’s actions resulting in the National Security Agency sifting through records of your private online activity.

But so have many other pieces of tech policy. SOPA would have allowed copyright holders to drive sites out of business and deform the basic routings of the Internet–but they would never abuse that authority, would they?

A similar trustworthiness underlies the Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s “anti-circumvention” provision, which has been used in attempts to quash inventions that threaten business models more than copyrights. The possibility that copyright owners might abuse a provision that so easily outlaws individual programs or gadgets apparently escaped the DMCA’s authors.

Similarly, the patent system–especially as shaped through court rulings over the past 20 years–shows little grasp of the steep costs of patent lawsuits, the near-impossibility of confirming upfront that a new product doesn’t infringe on existing software patents and the time needed to overturn wrongly-granted patents.

Fortunately, CISPA has been getting the “how badly could this break down?” discussion it deserves after an increasing volume of critiques at tech-oriented sites and then in more traditional media outlets.

In mid-April, the White House took an uncharacteristic swat at it without referring to the bill by name, calling for “robust safeguards to preserve the privacy and civil liberties of our citizens.”

A week later, the Electronic Frontier Foundation published an open letter decrying CISPA from dozens of security professionals (led by Schneier), telecom experts, Internet entrepreneurs and authors.

I’ve been pleasantly surprised since then to hear tech-industry representatives say that CISPA’s authors, led by Rep. Mike Rogers (R.-Mich.) have been responding to their concerns. Amendments to the bill posted Tuesday deleted the intellectual-property provision, limited its liability waiver and cut down on what the government can do with shared information, among others.

Those changes were enough to briefly swing the Center for Democracy and Technology–an early opponent–to a we-can-work-with-this stance, although CDT still opposes how the bill allowed information sharing on matters beyond strictly-defined cybersecurity and makes it too easy for that data to flow to the NSA. The bill’s “notwithstanding any other provision of law” clause also remains.

But then the White House issued a veto threat Wednesday afternoon, saying the revised bill’s privacy protections were still too weak, its liability protection was too broad and it failed to keep the Internet and telecom infrastructure “civilian spheres.” A few hours later, CDT said it, too, opposed the bill, citing a refusal to consider amendments it had suggested.

So this story seems nowhere near over.

A policy debate that assumes tech-industry and digital-rights advocates should be heard represents one big shift from the SOPA state of affairs. But that’s not the same thing as tech-policy legislators remembering upfront that the people who will enforce and employ their handiwork won’t all be as fair and informed as they are.

To restore our economy, we need to do everything we can as a nation to attract the best and the brightest to come and stay in the United States. Innovative immigrants have always been – and will continue to be – central to America’s growth, job creation and global competitiveness.

You can join them. TAKE ACTION TODAY and support the passage of Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren’s (D-CA) Immigration Driving Entrepreneurship in America (IDEA) Act (H.R.2161) as well as H.R. 43, introduced by Congressman Darrell Issa (R-CA), which would amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to eliminate the diversity immigrant program and to re-allocate those visas to certain employment-based immigrants who obtain an advanced degree in the United States.

Both approaches highlight the value of foreign-born innovators. Bygiving green cards to immigrants with advanced degrees in science, technology, engineering and math, and making it easier for students in those areas to get visas, we can keep the best and the brightest doing business in America.

Contact your representatives today by clicking the option below and tell them to support passage of the IDEA Act and the Immigration and Nationality Act.  Contact your Representative or Senator by email here.

2. CONTACT YOUR CONGRESSIONAL REPRESENTATIVES BY FACEBOOK AND TWITTER

You can also contact your representatives through social media, a powerful and effective way to make your voice heard on this critical issue!
Contact your Representative or Senator via social media here.

3. Spread the word on Facebook and Twitter

Encourage your friends and followers to take action and support foreign-born innovators by using the following posts:

Facebook:

I just told my member of Congress that we need to do everything we can as a nation to attract the best and the brightest to the United States. Foreign-born innovators have always been – and will continue to be – central to America’s growth, job creation and global competitiveness. Please join me http://bit.ly/HF4NMV or http://bit.ly/JsSghI

Twitter:

I just told my Rep to support foreign-born innovators. Join me and RT: http://bit.ly/HF4NMV

You have the opportunity to support these efforts on Capitol Hill no matter where you live! Take Action today and spread the word to your family, friends and coworkers.

For many lovers of the performing arts, a new application of technology and broadcasting has brought about a welcome new trend: arts at the movies. Several of the world’s most beloved performing arts companies are bringing productions to the many that previously were available only to the few.

My first experience with arts at the movies was attending a live broadcast of the Metropolitan Opera’s Lucia di Lammermoor last year with my opera-loving parents. Not only could we eat popcorn and drink soda during the performance, but because it was a live broadcast, during the performance intermission The Met: Live in HD brings viewers backstage, showing the scenery changes, talking to the performers, interviewing costume directors, and other behind-the-scenes goodies that those attending the live performance do not get to see. Ever better? A single ticket to the Met costs about $200. A ticket to Met at the Movies? $20 bucks.

I also had a fun experience of seeing New York’s Roundabout Theater’s Tony Award-nominated production of Oscar Wilde’s hilarious The Importance of Being Earnest as well as London’s National Theater’s sparse and affecting King Lear with the legendary Derek Jacobi in the title role, both broadcast live to my local theater. Now audiences everywhere can see the exciting Gustavo Dudamel conduct the L.A. Philharmonic, or the celebrated Bolshoi Ballet perform Swan Lake. Next month, Academy-Award winner Christopher Plummer will appear in Shakespeare’s The Tempest. Originally performed in Canada, now people everywhere will be able to enjoy it, along with a Q&A with the actor himself. You can bet I’ll be among those lining up for that one.

And it isn’t only “high art” available though this medium; Metallica and Red Hot Chili Peppers have broadcast concerts live as well, in full HD and ear-popping surround sound. Fathom Events even broadcasts wrestling.

I still frequent live performing arts. I’m fortunate enough to live in a city that abounds with great theater, dance, and music of all sorts, and I treat myself to these pleasures as often as I can. But besides giving me access to things I wouldn’t ordinarily be able to see without traveling, what I love most about the ‘arts at the movies’ trend is how accessible it is. You no longer have to live in New York, or Moscow, or London to enjoy these spectacular performances, nor do you need to be able to afford the exceedingly high price of entry. For the cost of a night at the movies, people everywhere can enjoy what was once only available in limited quantities to a limited audience and be delighted all the same.

Something fascinating is afoot in the consumer electronics industry. It’s about recycling, it’s about business, and it’s about the environment.

About a decade ago manufacturer and retailer involvement in recycling consumer electronics (CE) was an alien concept. It was something done by local governments, or charities, but it wasn’t something CE manufacturers and retailers did.

Then state legislators started creating mandates for manufacturers to arrange for recycling of old CE. For CE manufacturers, electronics recycling became a compliance issue to manage and a cost to be minimized.

And then, over several years, things started getting interesting. CE companies began to look at this as a broader resource management issue. Manufacturers like Sony and Samsung announced voluntary take-back programs that went beyond these state mandates. Other CE manufacturers jumped into the game. And then Best Buy rolled out a collection program in all their stores, not because any government official made them do it, but because they found a way for it to make sense for their business – and for the environment.

Last November, Best Buy dropped all consumer fees for their recycling program. And now other retailers are getting into the game. There are now nearly 7,500 locations nationwide that recycle old electronics responsibly; find one near you at GreenerGadgets.org. To find out more about the CE industry’s recycling efforts, please go to CE.org/ecycle.

This weekend Samsung is sponsoring a four-day recycling drive for consumer e-scrap at retailer chain HHGregg. From April 20 to 23, consumers can bring their old electronics to any of 208 HHGregg locations and have it recycled at no cost. To find one of those stores, please click here.

Samsung is also sponsoring an ENERGY STAR Pledge Drive at all these locations. Any customer can pledge to consider ENERGY STAR when purchasing CE products, and their pledge forms will be entered into a sweepstakes drawing for one of five Samsung 40-inch LED televisions.

So what’s going on here? No government is forcing Samsung or HHGregg to do this. These companies are finding new ways to make consumer e-waste recycling a part of their business. They care about the environment, and they know consumers do too.  As companies make recycling a part of their business model it brings the power of the CE industry to bear on this environmental challenge. For those of us who have been working on this issue for along time, that is a very interesting – and laudable – development! Stay tuned.

Did you know you could save energy by replacing your old TV with an energy efficient model?

To celebrate Earth Week, CEA is running a contest to educate consumers about the energy efficiency of today’s televisions. Follow CEA’s Facebook page to learn how you can win a 75” LaserVue® DLP energy efficient TV courtesy of Mitsubishi Electronics or a LED LCD Cinema 3D Smart TV courtesy of LG Electronics USA.

If you haven’t entered, it’s not too late! We will announce our next winner on Earth Day, Sunday April 22.

CEA beat out several other environmental campaigns by major national brands including American Airlines and Bayer AG. CEA’s eCycling Leadership Initiative was also awarded an honorable mention in the recycling category.

To raise awareness of electronics recycling, in April 2011, CEA launched the eCycling Leadership Initiative, an electronics industry-wide effort aiming to recycle one billion pounds of electronics annually by 2016. Program execution included a launch press event at the Magnolia Theater of a Washington, D.C., Best Buy store, featuring a Plexiglass box full of e-waste that weighed 387-pounds, which is the amount of e-waste Best Buy collects every minute at its stores nationwide. The campaign also included extensive consumer and media outreach and education, including the launch of GreenerGadgets.org, a website to help consumers find electronics recycling locations near them.

We are excited to win this prestigious honor, and we are thrilled about the progress of this initiative and its associated consumer education campaign. Earlier this week we reported a stellar first year of results. Specifically, participants of the eCycling Leadership Initiative arranged for the responsible recycling of 460 million pounds of consumer electronics last year, a 53 percent increase over the 300 million pounds recycled in 2010. Additionally, electronics manufacturers and retailers increased the number of recycling drop-off locations for consumers nationwide to nearly 7,500 from just over 5,000 a year ago.

To find out more about the initiative’s accomplishments, check out the First Annual Report on the eCycling Leadership Initiative.

Learn more by watching the video below and reading the First Annual Report of the eCycling Leadership Initiative.

First Amazon was the innovator, liberating us from paper with its Kindle. Then Apple was going to upend things with the iPad’s iBooks app and store. Now the Department of Justice says that the real problem is an unholy union of the publishers and Apple.

In an antitrust lawsuit announced last Wednesday, the DoJ charged Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins Publishers, Simon & Schuster, Macmillan, Penguin Group and Apple with conspiring to fix prices, to the disadvantage of consumers and Amazon.

The first three publishers have already agreed to a settlement that will block “most-favored nation” clauses that prevent e-book stores from discounting titles while allowing them to place other limits on the sale of their work. Meanwhile, Macmillan, Penguin and Apple continue to fight the suit.

It’s an immensely complicated issue, colored to a large degree by who you think is more evil. Is the problem the big publishers targeted by the DoJ’s suit, who allegedly colluded over dinners in expensive Manhattan restaurants? Or is it the gigantic Seattle retailer, which both controls a huge share of e-book sales and has been getting into the publishing business itself?

(A CEA press release posits a third foe, quoting association president Gary Shapiro calling the lawsuit “another sad milestone in our government’s war on American companies.”)

But the basic issue at stake here is not complex: ensuring vigorous competition in e-books that eliminates the need for court battles and consent decrees. And in that context, you can’t ignore how publishers have not just given Amazon a tool to build a monopoly but required its use.

This is the “digital rights management” restrictions required by publishers on e-book titles sold through all of the major online outlets–not just Amazon’s Kindle Store but also Barnes & Noble’s Nook store and Apple’s iBookstore.

DRM is supposed to stop unauthorized copying and sharing by making a copyrighted work playable, readable or visible only on authorized products. It’s not always a huge annoyance: DVDs and Blu-ray discs employ standardized–if easily circumvented–DRM that doesn’t limit you to player hardware or software specifically approved by a movie studio.

But in the world of digital downloads, DRM usually locks the “buyer” of a DRMed item into using only one vendor’s hardware or software.

(The scare quotes are necessary because the license agreements for many DRMed items stipulate that you don’t actually own those downloads.)

If you want to keep your future hardware and software options open, this favors doing business with the e-book store that offers the most DRM-compliant reading options.

That store, by a hardcover-thick margin, is Amazon. Beyond its growing family of Kindle reader devices, including last year’s Kindle Fire tablet, it also ships reader apps for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux (via a “Cloud Reader” Web app) iOS, Android, Windows Phone 7, BlackBerry and even HP’s now-abandoned webOS.

Barnes & Noble, by contrast, only provides Nook reader apps for iOS, Android, Windows and OS X. And Apple limits iBooks to its iOS devices.

Considering that evidence, where do you think somebody ought to shop?

So long as DRM stays part of the plot, every Kindle reader sold, every Kindle app installed and every Kindle title purchased will strengthen Amazon’s hand.

DRM can’t solve this problem, any more than any form of DRM tolerable to home users can abolish copyright infringement. But ditching it would erase the equation. If you could buy an e-book in a standard format that, like an MP3 music file, would be playable on current and imaginable future hardware, it wouldn’t matter which store sold it. There would be no lock-in; each sale would would not weigh so heavily on the next.

(As I wrote last spring, not having to worry about DRM-induced obsolescence would also vastly increase the odds of me buying e-books at all.)

The music industry figured this out years ago. Giving up on the DRM dream enabled a thriving competition between Apple, Amazon and other vendors of digital downloads, with no lock-in beyond the relative difficulty of syncing music from iTunes to a non-Apple device.

Other observers of the e-book business have been making the same call on personal blogs and on tech-news sites. One publisher, Hachette, may even be paying attention, as PaidContent reporter Laura Hazard Owen wrote last month.

But in much traditional-media coverage of digital content, DRM remains the lock that dare not speak its name. You can read a thousand-word piece about the slow market for movie downloads that notes a “lack of interoperability” without ever explaining why–or even using that three-letter abbreviation. Many of last week’s stories about Amazon, Apple and book publishers miss this point just as badly. And if we can’t properly identify this issue, we certainly can’t fix it.

By Megan Sigel, CEA Member Relations Coordinator

80 degree weather and beach days are right around the corner so in preparation for the spring and summer months, I found some outdoor friendly gadgets.  Whether you plan to hang out at the beach, have a back yard BBQ, or go camping, these will fit in with many a summer occasion.

ReVIVE Series Solar External Battery

Whether you’re looking for a green-friendly tech product or always on the go, the ReVIVE Series Solar External Battery from Accessory Power will keep you (and your phone) from slowing down. The sleek compact charger is not only savvy looking but easy to use. Stuck inside on a rainy day? You can also charge the pack through any USB adapter. And, the product not only juices up cellular phones. It can also be used on the Kindle or any product with USB port.  For more information visit Accessory Power’s website.

iHome iHM79 Portable Multimedia Speakers

One of my favorite products for on-the-go sound is the iHM79 portable speakers. These little speakers offer high quality sound and can draw sound from your phone, iPod, computer, or any product with a 3.5mm headphone jack. Perhaps the coolest thing about these mini speakers is their ability to collapse, connect, and become a single speaker. Check out the photos! They also come in some pretty fun summer colors. Find out more on the iHome website.

Pelican i1015 Case

When going to the beach the last thing you want to worry about is your phone getting sand in or drenched in salt water. After some investigation, I found the perfect solution – the Pelican i1015 case. This case fits a slew of cellular phones and is not only water resistant, but crushproof and dust proof.  It even has an opening to plug in your headphones or adjust phone volume. Click here for more information and pricing.

By Samantha Nevels, Policy Communications Coordinator

Today here at CEA we are excited to conduct an SMT, also known as a Satellite Media Tour. What exactly is a Satellite Media Tour you ask? It is like a traditional TV or radio interview, but done live and remotely. From our own brand new studio here at CEA headquarters, we will connect with nearly 20 different broadcast outlets across the country to talk about environmentally friendly electronics. Each interview will be conducted by a different station, both local and national, including; Little Rock, New Orleans, Albuquerque, and Philadelphia. For our SMT today, we are focusing on what we like to call “Greener Gadgets” otherwise known as emerging trends in environmentally-friendly gadgets.

Tim Doyle, Senior Manager of Policy Communications for CEA, will be helping viewers understand how technology innovations have led to efficiency gains and smaller devices. He’ll discuss the big trends in home energy management systems, trends in more efficient gadgets and even how easy it is to clean out the clutter and recycle our old gadgets and technology products.

Along with efficiency gains, consumer electronics are more eco-friendly – smaller, lighter and more efficient than ever before. For instance, the amount of power needed for LCD TVs fell 63 percent from 2003 to 2010, and declined 41 percent for plasma TVs from 2008 to 2010. At the same time TVs got smaller and lighter. TV manufacturers reduced the weight of TVs 82 percent and volume 72 percent from 2004 to 2010.

Some of the products being featured on today’s SMT include: a Motorola energy efficient set-top box; the EverSense, which allows the Allure Mobile iOS app to control the temperature of your home while away; the Nest, a home energy management system; and a Guide 10 Plus portable recharger and Nomad 7 solar panel, great for charging handheld devices like iPhones, iPads, GPS systems and cameras on the go.

For more information on energy efficient electronics, and how to recycle your old electronics, please visit www.GreenerGadgets.org.

Join Rob Pegoraro as he puzzles through all this from noon to 1 p.m. Eastern on Friday, April 13.

Click here to join the Live Chat!