Sources are reporting that Apple is in talks with several major networks to begin offering 99-cent TV show rentals on the iTunes platform. Talks with News Corp. are apparently barreling ahead, while deals with CBS and Disney are looking solid as well. This new arrangement could be part of Apple's announcement at the annual Fall iPod event expected to be held next month. 

If successful, these deals would offer users of Apple's iTunes ecosystem to access a much larger catalog of content on a rental basis. The files are expected to be available for purchase within 24 hours of air date, and will be commercial free. Amid the rumors of a $99 Apple TV relaunch (maybe called iTV), this new pricing structure could be very tempting for many consumers. 

With options like Netflix working hard to expand selection for a flat rate, do you think a rental system like this will succeed?

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Netflix announced last week a deal with Epix valued at $900 million to bring more premium content to their streaming service. While this is great news for users, don't expect any of the high-quality shows from Time Warner owned HBO to end up on Netflix anytime soon. HBO Co-President Eric Kessler recently explained, "There is value in exclusivity. Consumers “are willing to pay a premium for high quality, exclusive content.”

HBO has plans to launch a streaming service of thier own called HBO Go in the next six months. A Netflix spokesperson expressed their desire to work with HBO saying, "Compete with us or collaborate with us, but we would much rather work with them.” It seems HBO feels they can adequately compete with Netflix, having already secured content deals for their online service with Comcast and Verizon.

No word yet on how much HBO Go would charge, but it's probably going to be more than Netflix's rock-bottom $8.99 per month (the minimum account with full streaming access). How much would you pay to access HBO shows like True Blood and The Sopranos?

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Chalk it up to successful marketing or a genuine desire to consume 3D content in the home, goofy looking glasses be damned, but according to DisplaySearch, 2010 will come to an end having seen 3.4 million shipments of 3D TVs. And that's just the beginning. By 2014, that number will skyrocket to 42.9 million, more than a 12-fold increase.

"TV manufacturers have managed to launch products very rapidly. We have seen a full range of 3D TVs in sizes from 40 inches to 63 inches already available, and without a doubt, there will be another wave of new products at the IFA show in Berlin in September," noted Paul Gray, DisplaySearch Director of TV Electronics Research.

DisplaySearch feels pretty confident this is much bigger than a passing fad and predicts that the 3D TV market penetration will grow from 5 percent of total flat panel TVs in 2010 to 37 percent in 2014. That's more than a third of all flat panel TV shipments.

"Based on early indications, the launch of 3D TVs is similar to Samsung's rollout of LED LCD TVs at the beginning of 2009, albeit at a slightly slower pace," said Paul Gagnon, Director of North America TV Research at DisplaySearch. "This would be in line with our forecast of just over 2 million 3D TVs shipped in North America for 2010.

Despite all this, DisplaySearch points out that the electronics industry is outpacing content availability, which so far is limited to a handful of movies and sports events on pay TV.

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Remember that study that told you to pull the plug on your kid’s gaming corner if you didn’t want him/her to have the attention span of a dog with its head stuck out a car window? Well, it’s kind of wrong. Or at least, the experimenters in question blew their study way out of proportion and conducted some seriously sloppy research. So say Christopher Ferguson of Texas A&M and T. Atilla Ceranoglu of Harvard Medical School.

First off, the two point out that the study paid next-to-no attention to studies that have found videogames beneficial to attention and cognition. Apparently, it also overlooks "a number of recent studies that contradict their views on the relationship between videogames and aggression." Convenient, no?

Worse still, the study’s measurement system is fatally skewed, only using reports from teachers and completely ignoring outside factors that could contribute to a lacking attention span like home environment, poverty, and parental education.

"All standardized regression coefficients for children in the study are less than .10. This indicates that the overlap in variance between media use and attention is less than 1%. Even taking these findings a face value (setting aside concerns about measures and control variables), these are weak effect sizes without practical significance, effectively no different from zero," Ferguson and Ceranoglu explained.

"In sum, these findings are unable to support the weight that Swing et al. (2010) attempt to place on them, and give no cause for concern to clinicians, educators or parents."

So basically, it sounds like a few researchers wanted to make a splash, but ended up belly-flopping instead. Turns out, the scientific method isn’t composed of a single step that says “tailor your study to give you whatever results you’re looking for,” and the scientific community isn’t composed of blind idiots. So yeah, don’t expect any “This is your brain. This is your brain on videogames” PSAs any time soon.

Not that we’re too surprised, mind you. Any community that can count grinding for experience points/boar tusks for hours on end as one of its main hobbies has to have developed a pretty serious attention span – probably out of necessity, if nothing else.  

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