Austin American Statesman

Parks Associates, an international research firm sponsoring a Smart Energy Summit in Austin for three days, focused on how the industry — from retailers to utilities to appliance makers — can encourage consumers to embrace technological changes coming to the home energy market.

The deployment of smart meters, the widespread use of broadband and the - ...read more

Research firm Parks Associates said in a blog post last year that app-based remotes do have a market. "We find that one-third of consumers in U.S. broadband households are highly interested in such a feature," the company posted in a blog entry on its site. "So, yes, - ...read more

Pietro Macchiarella, a research analyst for Dallas-based market research firm Parks Associates, said the industry is changing in a number of unique ways.

Social gaming, which passed $1 billion in revenue last year will grow to $5 billion in 2014, said Macchiarella, who is speaking on the topic at the conference.

And - ...read more

Kurt Scherf, principal analyst with Dallas-based market research firm Parks Associates, said Netflix and others simply adapted to changing trends - ...read more

Safeguards must be built in by phone service providers, said Heather Way, a research analyst with Parks Associates, a Dallas-based marketing research - ...read more

In the future, there might be little differences between virtual worlds, video games and social networks, said Michael Cai, an analyst with Parks Associates in Dallas. "We're obviously seeing a lot of convergence of - ...read more

The changing ways that people are using computers and TVs are driving the innovations in the $100 billion display industry, said Kurt Scherf, vice - ...read more

In December, Apple and Intel also quietly helped launch a new tech industry consortium designed to create new standards to improve the flow of content between TVs, computers and other devices.

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"Manufacturers can put so many more functions on a single chip now than they ever could," said Kurt Scherf, principal analyst at - ...read more

Set-top boxes have a big advantage over media center PCs that are struggling for a toehold in the business, said John Barrett, an analyst at - ...read more