The UpStream

With such a competitive market for home movie-viewing, subscription services, such as Netflix, seem to be outshining them all. There were many doubts originally about streaming videos, but as we have seen, this method is creating the most revenue and is very economical is this unstable economy, for consumers. Fees can get expensive for these subscription services due to monthly charges, but overall, Netflix is doing much better, with 25 times more downloads then pay-per-download customers and producing 20 times the revenue. Obviously something must be working for them.

We all know RadioShack. Most of us in the technology world have even worked there at some point in our careers. In the PLuGHiTz World, that is how most of us ended up working together here (in fact, all current hosts of PLuGHiTz Live! Radio once worked together at a RadioShack). The image of the company has stagnated over the past decade or so. Despite several branding attempts, RadioShack still conjures up images of batteries, cordless phones and resistors to most people.

High definition televisions are finally starting to take over households in the United States! A recent report has shown that the sales of HD televisions have skyrocketed in 2009. Only 35% of consumers owned a HDTV in 2008, but this number has increased 51% (or 18% of the population) this past year, totaling 53%. More than half of U.S. households own a HDTV!

The number of HDTV owners using HD services also showed a 13% increase in the past year. Another area showing strong growth in sales, are large screen televisions-32 inches and larger, increasing 6% in 2009. HD televisions have by far increased the most in sales compared to other electronic such as PCs, Cell phones, DVD players, and video game systems.

This has been an interesting week for the technology business. Apple lost Google's CEO as a member of their board of directors. Now, GameStop has hired a new executive to head up a department that doesn't exist in a business space they have no ability to compete in. Gamasutra says:

Social networking seems to be a polarizing subject. Until just a few weeks ago, I had resisted the trend, but recently activated a Facebook page. PLuGHiTz Live! recently started using Twitter. On the other hand, several NFL teams have banned their players from using Twitter at all.

Following in the footsteps of the NFL, ESPN has banned their staff from using social networking sites in general to discuss anything ESPN or sports related. The New York Times writes:

A few weeks ago we told you that China was ending its use of electroshock to treat Internet Addiction. It turns out that is not the only thing they use to "treat" this problem. A 16-year-old boy was killed at a camp in Nanning by three supervisors who beat him to death.

The family of the student is obviously outraged, but not just over the fact that their son was murdered by camp officials. The parents said,