Toys R Us launches website sell kids' movies

Toys R Us, which for years has done a big business selling videotapes and DVDs of children's movies, is launching a sales plan for the digital age, a website where parents can rent or purchase more than 4,000 kid-friendly movies and television shows.
The website, ToysRUsMovies.com, went live Thursday, and the movies and television shows will initially be available for streaming and downloading on personal computers, Macs and Adobe Flash-enabled devices. Toys R Us plans to expand availability to tablet devices, TVs and Blu-Ray players later this year.
The application for the site will be loaded onto the Tabeo, a tablet device Wayne, N.J.-based eevee plush  R Us created as its exclusive version of a tablet computer for kids.
Toys R Us is entering the $750 million video-on-demand market with the launch, going up against established online movie sites like Netflix and the digital download services from Apple Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. Analysts and industry experts called the launch a logical move for Toys R Us, and said it could attract parents who want to use a site that offers only safe family fare.
"Even for families that have access to Netflix and other services, this looks like a nice way to get to curated content," said Sean McGowan, a toy industry analyst for Needham & Co. Unlike Netflix, which itself announced a Just for Kids dedicated site for Xbox, ToysRUsMovies users will not have to pay a subscription fee, which is a plus, McGowan said.
"It's a nice, logical add-on for the tablet, but they've (consumers) got to buy the tablet first," said Chris Byrne, a toy consultant and writer known as The Toy Guy. "It's going into a crowded and challenging market. More and more parents are giving up their cable and switching to Apple TV or some mechanism for downloading movies."
Shelby Cunningham, an associate analyst for Digital Tech Consulting in Dallas, said the success of the Toys R Us movie site will depend on whether the company gives people something different. "Parents can already go on iTunes or the Disney site and download movies," she said. "They have to make it easier for people and unique in some way."
The asset for Toys R Us, Cunningham said, is "they have an audience. Toys R Us has been around forever. That helps, having a built-in audience to sell to."
Michael Scharff, senior vice president, new ventures, at Toys R Us, said the company has been discussing creating such a website for some time, as "we've seen the DVD business shift to digital, much like music and books have over the years." The ToysRUsMovies website has been in the works for about a year, he said.
The company will be promoting the new website as part of its store advertising campaigns, and also will promote it on its social media sites and with in-store displays. Movies will be priced starting at $2.99 for a 24-hour rental and $5.99 for a digital download. Most television shows will cost $1.99.
Scharff said Toys R Us hopes to eventually use the site to offer exclusive content through partnerships with movie studios.

Developing next generation of batteries for improved mobile devices

Steven Arnold Klankowski, a doctoral candidate in chemistry, La Crescent, Minn., is working under Jun Li, professor of chemistry, to develop new materials that could be used in future lithium-ion batteries. The materials look to improve the energy storage capacity of batteries so that laptops, cellphones, electric cars and other mobile devices will last longer between charges. Additionally, lithium-ion batteries that can store energy and deliver power more rapidly will be a more viable alternative power source for vehicles and machines powered by alternative energy, Klankowski said. For example, solar- and wind-powered technologies could switch to the battery in the evening when there is a lack of wind or sunlight to produce energy. "The rechargeable batteries market is moving very fast these days as everyone is trying to get an advantage for their electric vehicles and cellphones," said Klankowski, who also has a background in materials engineering. "As our devices get smarter, so must our methods to supply greater amounts of portable electrical energy to power these devices." For his research, Klankowski is developing and testing a high-performance nanostructure of silicon coated onto carbon nanofibers for the use as an electrode in lithium-ion batteries. The electrodes, which look like a dense brush, give the battery greater charge capabilities and storage capacity. This is anticipated to replace current commercial electrodes that are made from simple carbon-based materials. The material being developed and improved by Klankowski helps the electrode store roughly 10 times the amount of energy as current electrodes—giving the batteries a 10-15 percent improvement in current battery technology.
"We're trying to go for higher energy capacity," Klankowski said. "To do that we're looking at if we can store more energy per the electrode's size or mass, and if we can use that energy more quickly to make the battery like a capacitor. Batteries and capacitors are on opposite sides of the energy storage field. We'd like to move them both closer together." In the lab, Klankowski looks at how the characteristics of the lithium-silicon-alloy material differ with each production cycle and how those characteristics can be improved to move lithium-ion batteries closer to capacitors. The material is also studied for its ability to store energy. Tests, which simulate a battery's operation, repeatedly charge and discharge the material with energy. According to U.S. Department of Energy's requirements, a battery must remain at 80 percent capacity after 300 charge-discharge cycles. "A battery today tends to die after 400-500 cycles or three years," Klankowski said. "One of the things we'll want to improve on is that lasting performance. It won't be much of an advantage if your phone's battery can last for 36 hours for the first few months but then only two hours after that. With the progress we are seeing, I hope one day to drive from Manhattan to my folks' house in Minnesota on a single battery change." A patent application for the material has been filed with Kansas State University Research Foundation. The foundation is a nonprofit corporation responsible for managing technology transfer activities at the university. Klankowski was one of five doctoral students at Kansas State University to recently earn a scholarship from the research foundation to help him further develop his research.