No less a tech geek than Isaac Newton said that for every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction.  The electronics industry is no exception to this law of physics, and the rise of e-commerce has been precisely mirrored by the fall of brick and mortar electronics stores.  Finally, a major retailer has asked manufacturers to help them fight back.  Is it too little, too late?

This week, Target sent out a letter to its suppliers asking for a joint solution to the problem of "showrooming."  You know what this is -- if you're like most people, you've done it yourself.  You go to the store to check out a product, find what you like, then go online to buy it cheaper. Free delivery, no tax, no lugging a big TV into your car or renting a van.  You save money and hassle, what's the problem?

If you're Target -- or Best Buy, or Sears, or any number of big retailers with expensive stores and warehousing, paid sales staff and customer service -- well, that is the problem.  It's essentially unfair -- how can a retailer carrying all this overhead possibly compete with another that doesn't?

Many consumers feel that's the way the cookie crumbles and the way things work in a consumer economy -- the customer is king, right? But there's more to be lost here than a few big chains.  If retailers can't compete, some will go away and there will be fewer places to buy.  That means more power to fewer retailers, and that's never been a winning formula for consumers.

Target's requested solution is for manufacturers to build new products that have been made expressly for Target, that can't bought anywhere else.  This is not a new solution -- derivative models for the likes of Wal Mart, Costco etc have been manufactured for years.  You didn't really believe that the $800 plasma at Best Buy and the "same" $600 plasma at Wal Mart were really identical, did you?

With retailer-specific derivative models, customers can't compare products before shopping, and can't cross-shop for a better price elsewhere.  It's a way of rigging the game that's been a lifeblood for the big mass merchandisers and discount clubs.

But once that genie's out of the bottle what's the next step?  Fewer models? Fewer retailers?  Less choice?  None of this is good for you the consumer, or for the health of the electronics industry.

How about you?  Do you "showroom" a product and buy elsewhere later?  How's that working out?

As Hollywood and its associates continue their transition from DVD and Blu-ray discs to streamed entertainment, the word transition is worth remembering.  This is still early stage technology and there are bugs.  Rest assured there will be more bugs to come.

The problem is moving all the heavy digital data that movies require around the Internet cleanly, and it manifests itself by all sorts of unwanted imperfections in the video you're watching.  With a problematic stream, you might see blurred motion, or a sudden drop in picture sharpness.  The dialogue might go out of sync with the picture.  In some cases, the action pauses or drops altogether.  This is not the experience you were expecting.

Where does the problem lie?  Hard to say, and that's the real problem.  In many cases, it's simply network traffic jam somewhere on the Internet -- again, movies take up a lot of digital bits.  That jam could be happening a mile away from your home or a continent away.  Or it could be extremely local traffic -- if you're on a cable modem, for example, your Internet and streaming performance is affected by who else is using bandwidth on your own street.  It might even by your own Internet Service Provider (ISP).  Not all  ISPs provide the same performance for streamed movies, as this chart from Netflix demonstrates.

Comparison of ISP Speeds for Netflix Streaming (graphic: Netflix)

Then again, the problem might just as easily be occurring inside your home.  You could have a glitch or a traffic jam in your own wi-fi network.  Some wireless wi-fi routers are faster and more capable than others.  And wi-fi is subject to interference from many household appliances, such as microwave ovens and cordless phones -- not to mention your next door neighbors' wi-fi networks!

Delivering a consistent streaming experience is still a very inexact science for providers like Netflix and Amazon.  On Thanksgiving evening, when much of America was home watching TV, I experienced interrupted and eventually unwatchable streams from both these services -- we ended up abandoning two different streamed movies and finally settled on a (reliable) disc.

The folks who are streaming boosters believe the problem will get better as the infrastructure of our data networks get better.  High speed services like Verizon's FIOS and ATT's U-Verse are certainly capable of the performance needed for effective streaming movies.

On the other hand, as time goes by, more people will be streaming movies, creating greater data demands everywhere and the likelihood of even more traffic jams.  You can experience this problem today when you try to use wi-fi on an airplane or train.  Sure, the signal is there and it's strong. Unfortunately, a lot of other folks are streaming at the same time you are, and the results can be very unsatisfying.

None of this changes the fact that streaming media is the future.  But at present, that road is still a bit bumpy.

There's a new TV technology on the horizon, one that promises better performance and a viable alternative to the growing market domination of cheap and increasingly underwhelming video displays.  Is OLED the answer to the market doldrums, or simply a question that nobody asked?

OLED stands for "organic light emitting diode" and it's a way of producing video images on a very thin layer of carbon-based material that's been electrically charged.  The results can be strikingly vivid -- sharper and more detailed than today's technologies, with better color and better motion response for fast-action movies and sports.  All this from a platform that's thinner and more energy efficient than conventional LCD, LED and plasma TVs.

LG 55" OLED TV prototype (image: LG Electronics)

The reason for introducing this new technology has less to do with performance, however, than it does with economics.  Thanks to factory oversupplies and a glutted market, today's TV prices can be shockingly low.  While this is a great boon to consumers, it's a disaster to the companies that make and sell TVs.  The hope for OLED is not only that it gets people excited about buying a better TV, but also that it restores some precious profitability to this product category.

While not uncommon for small displays on smartphones and other devices, OLED  in sizes big enough to serve for home theater has been a while in coming.   The technology  will be making  a big-screen splash in the US at the upcoming Consumer Electronics Show in January.  LG Electronics has already promised to show a 55" OLED model, and since Sony and others have also been working on this technology for some years, they will likely stage their own OLED introductions.

Will better picture quality be enough to make consumers pay more for an OLED TV?  Tough to say, since nobody knows just how much more - yet.  With OLED likely to be making headlines at the big electronics expo next week, the answer will be coming sooner than later.

3D television has been touted as the next big thing pretty much since there's been TV, but now that it's actually on the market, how's 3DTV doing?

A recent announcement from the Digital Entertainment Group says that people who've bought 3DTV feel overwhelmingly positive about their experiences. Being a a trade group of TV manufacturers and content providers, the DEG obviously has its own motivations for reporting lots of happy 3DTV customers. But how happy are they really? Would they buy another one? Recommend 3DTV to friends?

The DEG study, which was undertaken by a market research firm, looked at the first-hand experiences of over 3000 people who had a 3D compatible TV. While previous research from the DEG centered on consumers' preconceptions about 3DTV, this was the first commissioned study to focus on the experience of actual 3DTV owners.

The respondents were asked to assess a number of questions about life with a 3DTV, including picture quality, viewing satisfaction, content preferences, and reaction to 3D glasses.

While the report touted the overall satisfaction most owners felt about their 3DTV, the actual numbers from the respondents gave a much more nuanced story. There are still a lot of people who can't adjust themselves to 3D glasses, or who can't see 3D correctly in the first place. While most respondents said they would watch more TV in 3D, many of them were indifferent to 3D and a sizeable percentage still prefer 2D, even though they own a 3D set.

3DTV is still in its early market stages, and will certainly get better. There will certainly be more 3D content available as time goes by, and perhaps soon 3DTV that doesn't require glasses will be mainstream -- this technology already exists.

So far, 3DTV is fighting an uphill battle of technology, cost and real consumer interest. If you've been wondering about whether you'd be interested in 3DTV yourself, you can read a positive spin on the story here, a neutral news report here, or a skeptical look at the results here.