Sennheiser will launch its Sound Tour this summer, beginning July 2 at the Milwaukee Summerfest, a music festival. 

The company will send two teams of six people (one group of men, one group of women) to place as many pairs of Sennheiser headphones on concert-goers as possible —“Sennheiser-ize” them. Whatever antics that ensue will be recorded and posted on www.sennheisersoundtour.com. Consumers can follow the action on that site, as well as via Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.

After the Milwaukee Summerfest, the two teams will embark on journeys in Sennheiser logo-sporting vehicles and will visit retailers and other music and arts festivals. 

The high-definition disc format war may be over, but the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) apparently is still defending its turf from the ghost of its dead and moldering rival.

On Thursday, the group issued a response to a recent Harris Interactive poll that found “lukewarm” demand for HD movie disc players in general, while showing stronger sales for the gone-but-not-forgotten HD DVD format than for Blu-ray Disc players in recent months.

Representatives from Harris had not returned requests for comment as this was posted.

Sirius XM’s new iPhone App received more than 500,000 downloads in its first four days on the iTunes App Store according to an Orbitcast report quoting an internal Sirius memo.

While Sirius is not speaking publically on the veracity of the report, the Sirius app is now the third most popular free application on the iTunes App Store for all categories.

Analysts say it remains to be seen how popular the app, launched June 18, will become after users cycle through its 7-day free service trial. After that, users...Read More

Despite the pleading of a popular ’70s Paul Simon song, Kodak announced Monday that it is taking your Kodachrome away.

The photo giant said that after fading sales and the shuttering of processing labs capable of handling the 74-year-old color film stock, it expects to run out of the final rolls by early this fall.

The one-time king of color film so revolutionized the business of its day it became ingrained in American culture, and was used by the top professional photographers to capture some of the world’s most memorable images.

Back in the old days, around when the iPhone first came out, the launch of a Sirius iPhone app would have caused panic in the car A/V retail business. But now, like the tree in the forest, it was barely heard falling.

Retailer business in satellite radio has fallen off so sharply in the past two years that the response to the Sirius XM iPhone app released Thursday was a rousing, “Eh. It might have some impact.”

On the plus side, it might drive an iPhone customer into a car A/V store so he can connect his phone or iPod Touch to his car radio, leading Car Toys merchandising senior VP Dan Jeancola to note, “There may be some increased demand … but, little impact overall....Read More

Retailers routinely take jabs at their competitors in ads, but the references tend to be oblique.

Not so Best Buy’s latest TV spot in its "True Stories" series of Blue Shirt testimonials, which takes dead aim at Bentonville.

In it, sales associate Rachel Munoz from store  No. 1473 in McAllen, Texas, recounts the time a shopper called from inside a Walmart with questions about flat-panel TVs.

“You’re obviously calling us because we’re knowledgeable,” she tells him...Read More

If there is a group of people in the world who can come up with entries for a David Letterman Top Ten list regarding the digital TV transition, it would have to be TWICE.com readers.

“The Late Show” has a running bit where viewers can submit Top Ten ideas for an online contest and this week the topic is: Top Ten Side Effects of the Transition to Digital TV.

So, if you are feeling particularly funny today, go to “The Late Show” site and put in your witty answer. 

Feel free to include your ideas in our Comments box below. At least this way your comedic genious will see the light of day.

The DTV transition has followed into history other do-nothing scares such as the Y2K Bug, Avian Flu, Trans Fats and every other Nostradamus-level prediction that expected chaos to ensue when analog television signals ceased.

There was no terror in the streets in the U.S., except in Los Angeles where fans decided burning cars was a good way to celebrate the Lakers’ NBA championship, and, try as I might, I could not connect those foolish actions to the lack of an analog signals permeating the air over America. But you never know.

Here’s a roundup of some recent announcements in the world of flash memory:

Eye-Fi has introduced the Eye-Fi Pro ($149 suggested retail, currently available), a wireless SDHC memory card for digital cameras that is said to let users automatically upload images straight from their camera to their computer and the Web. It includes RAW image support and peer-to-peer connectivity for a direct connection between the camera and a computer; no router or Internet connection required, said the company.
 

Eye-Fi also said users can now select which photos or videos they want to wirelessly transfer from their camera to their computer or the Web by using the new Selective Transfer feat...Read More

Dash, as many know, spent eight months last year selling an Internet-connected personal navigation device (PND) that could track the road speed of its users and then create live traffic reports that were broadcast to other Dash users. Unfortunately, few retailers picked up the product, and it was pulled from the market.

But Dash was collecting more than just traffic information, as it turns out. It was creating live, up-to-the minute maps: live maps — ...Read More

Here is a little info that I will label “For What It’s Worth.”

Parks Associates came out with a study indicating the higher a person’s educational level and salary, the more he will spend on a PC or laptop. That seems pretty obvious, but the more interesting take-away point in the study, to me at least, was this:

“The prices consumers pay for PCs and laptops are remarkably elastic, especially when compared to products such as DVD players, game con...Read More

Wal-Mart has finally achieved its goal of becoming the No. 1 destination for CE.

There is, however, a caveat: According to BIGresearch’s most recent Retail Ratings Report, covering the month of May, the discounter was only tops in electronics among households with incomes less than $50,000. Specifically, 28.7 percent of consumers in this income stratum who were surveyed cited Wally World as the go-to place for CE.

Best Buy came in second place for this segment, with a “consumer preference share” of 26.5 percent, down from 27 percent a year ago.

But the electroni...Read More