Downloading TV programs, watching online videos and making online phone calls posted the biggest year-to-year percent increase among adult Internet users, according to new data from Mediamark Research & Intelligence.

E-mail, news gathering and paying bills online continue to be among the most widely used Internet activities by U.S. consumers ages 18+, the MRI data show.

According to responses from MRI's just released Fall 2008 Survey of the American Consumer, 3.2% of adults said they had downloaded a TV program in the last 30 days. That represents a year-to-year increase of 141.4%. The number of adults who reported they watched online video increased 35.4% during the same period, to a total of 23.3% of the adult population, while 4.0% of respondents reported they had made an online phone call, an increase of 32.0%.

Happy Earth Day! I just wanted to give everyone a heads up about another website we've been working on. Going Green Matters helps individuals find green products, going green tips and information for your home, work, and community to become eco-friendly. Checkout Going Green Matters today and find out how you can 'go green' not just on Earth Day but every day!

Aided by the major motion picture studios, Sony’s Blu-ray format has emerged as the undisputed technology for high-definition DVD video, but according to new market data released by ABI Research, Blu-ray cannot rest on its laurels. A bright future for high-definition DVD is not a foregone conclusion.

One of the primary challenges facing Blu-ray, says principal analyst Steve Wilson, is that many consumers are not fundamentally dissatisfied with the quality delivered by their conventional DVD players, when “upconverted” to play on high-definition TVs. “We are starting to see an increase in the number of DVD players with built-in upconverters, and the video processing is getting better with each new generation,” he says. “Today about 35% of all DVD players sold include upconversion. ABI Research expects that figure to climb to about 60% by 2013.”

Toshiba has undertaken a thorough review of its overall strategy for HD DVD and has decided it will no longer develop, manufacture and market HD DVD players and recorders. This decision has been made following recent major changes in the market. Toshiba will continue, however, to provide full product support and after-sales service for all owners of Toshiba HD DVD products.

HD DVD was developed to offer consumers access at an affordable price to high-quality, high definition content and prepare them for the digital convergence of tomorrow where the fusion of consumer electronics and IT will continue to progress.

A net-neutrality war is stirring in Washington as broadband companies sharpen their spears. Recent complaints against Comcast deliberately slowing consumers Internet connections has prompted Washington to look at broadband providers favoring some Internet traffic over others. Net neutrality has been brought to the foreground partly because of online video downloads causing companies to change their pricing models.

This has also lead to Time-Warner recently announcing a trial of a capacity-based pricing plan in Texas. "It's not set up to be a punishment of people's responsible Internet usage," Time Warner spokesman Alex Dudley said. "This is an attempt to get the high-end users to think differently about how they consume their Internet usage."

The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) blames 'human error' in its miscalculation against college students and online piracy. Originally the MPAA provided statistics two years ago blaming college students for more than 40 percent of all illegal downloads. When in reality college students only account for 15 percent of the piracy occuring against the film industry.

AT&T has lit the nation's first coast-to-coast network connections over new-generation IP/Multiprotocol Label Switching technology. The new-generation backbone network carries data at 40 Gbps without the need for multiplexing . AT&T has deployed 40 Gbps technology on more than 50,000 wavelength miles of its U.S. IP/MPLS backbone network to date, connecting major U.S. cities with the fastest available transport technology. This includes 18,000 miles of recently enhanced optical ultralong haul routes capable of eventually carrying customer voice and data traffic at speeds up to 100 Gbps with minimized latency. By year's end, more than 40 percent of the IP traffic carried over the company's backbone network will ride on this new-generation platform.

SmugMug launches bigger photo display sizes and astounding video capabilities. Holidays bring crazy, funny, once-in-a-lifetime moments that we shoot and record as a vivid chronicle of our most treasured times. Now SmugMug displays these photo and video memories in all their glory, giving customers SmugMungous XLarge, X2Large, and X3Large photo viewing options and up to 1280x720x24p HD video.

Following landmark Black Friday promotions through major retail chains, the North American HD DVD Promotional Group announces that sales of dedicated HD DVD players exceeded the 750,000 mark. The data is based on retailer reports and other point of sale data, and includes standalone set-top players as well as the Xbox 360 HD DVD player.

"HD DVD continues to gain momentum and market share with consumers," said Ken Graffeo, executive vice president of HD strategic marketing for Universal Studios Home Entertainment, and co-president of the HD DVD Promotional Group. "With more than four weeks left for holiday shopping, HD DVD is turning out to be a perfect consumer electronics gift."

TiVo and NBC Universal have entered into a multi-year strategic partnership to leverage the strong content brands of NBCU with the unique advertising, promotional and audience research capabilities enabled by TiVo DVRs. As part of the agreement, NBC Universal’s 14 television networks and 10 NBC owned-and-operated TV stations will be able to sell TiVo Interactive Tags in combination with other NBC products and will subscribe to TiVo’s Stop||Watch second-by-second commercial ratings service. The announcement was made today by Tom Rogers, President and CEO, TiVo and Mike Pilot, President, NBC Universal Sales and Marketing.

Just weeks after Blockbuster embraces Blu-ray DVDs, Paramount Pictures and Dreamworks announce they are going exclusively with the HD DVD format.

Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks Animation each announced that they will exclusively support the next-generation HD DVD format on a worldwide basis. The exclusive HD DVD commitment will include all movies distributed by Paramount Pictures, DreamWorks Pictures, Paramount Vantage, Nickelodeon Movies and MTV Films, as well as movies from DreamWorks Animation, which are distributed exclusively by Paramount Home Entertainment.

In the not-too-distant future, many digital cameras, media players, and portable game devices will access the Internet from anywhere with mobile broadband coverage. The recent announcement by Sprint Nextel and Clearwire of a partnership to provide mobile WiMAX services to most of the US population should be greeted with enthusiasm by the consumer electronics manufacturers that are looking to introduce mobile broadband-enabled CE products to the North American market.

Much of DOCSIS 3.0 and additional key elements of the PacketCable 2.0 specifications have been given “consent” status by a study group of the International Telecommunications Union placing the technologies on a pathway to become international standards. The meetings of Study Group 9 occurred in mid-June in Singapore and were chaired by CableLabs President and CEO Dr. Richard R. Green.

“The June meetings were very important. Once again the world has embraced innovative technologies that were originated by North America’s cable industry with strong support from other countries and made them standards for the world to implement,” Green said. The elements that were agreed upon by SG9 now will be forwarded to full ITU-T membership for acceptance as ITU Recommendations.

If you have some time to kill, be sure to read an article by Jay Black at TV Squad where he internally debates (in a Jekyll and Hyde type way) how technology has provided us with an ocean of choice but killed the "Shared Experience" that can bond a community.

Well, maybe unless you were one of the 30 million people who watched The Landlord.

If nothing else, it is an entertaining read.

In some offbeat news on the HD DVD vs Blu-ray battle, Blockbuster said today that it is rolling out an expanded Blu-ray disc inventory for rental to 1,700 Blockbuster stores by mid-July. This announcement comes as a major setback to the rival HD DVD format and its supporters, which includes Toshiba, Universal, Microsoft, Intel and others. Blockbuster said that Blu-ray has been more popular with its customers and significantly outpaced rentals in the HD DVD format. Matthew Smith, SVP Merchandising for Blockbuster, said "Obviously, when customers are ready we can expand the Blu-ray offering into more stores and add HD DVD to more locations if that's what customers tell us they want. We'll continue to work with the movie studios to ensure we have the right assortment of products."