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NBC Studios, a division of General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE), will be using the upcoming Beijing Olympics as a huge testbed to determine how consumers' appetites for consuming such coverage are changing. In other words, where are all the viewers? Will they be online watching on the web? How about live coverage? How about viewing on your mobile phone? How about tape-delay coverage due to the time difference between the U.S. and China? Will DVRs play a large part in how viewers will see the Summer Olympics this year?

NBC is considering the Beijing Olympics to be a "billion-dollar research lab" that will give it insight into how people are going to consumer Olympic coverage. In a sense, this will prove to the advertising community the value of different forms of advertising across different types of media. It's good to see a major studio get on board with this. As many of us know, online advertising is taking revenue away from radio advertising (and to a degree, television advertising). Knowing exactly how consumers are consuming media is, you know, kind of important these days. Right?

NBC will provide about 3,600 hours of Olympic coverage through its various television networks -- and 2,200 hours of streaming video via NBCOlympics.com as well, in addition to video streaming for mobile phones with high-speed data capability. NBC will also be asking 500 consumers each day throughout the entire 17-day Olympics coverage period detailed questions about how they are consuming Olympics content. By the end of August, NBC's largest media consumption experiment should show some neat results. I look forward to hearing what it came up with.

Toyota Motor Co.'s (NYSE: TM) Prius hybrid is by far the world's most successful hybrid vehicles, with sales numbering over one million units. In addition to the great gas mileage these gas/electric vehicles provide, could these cars become even more efficient? According to Toyota, that's already in the works.

The Japanese automaker was featured in Japan's Nikkei newspaper yesterday as saying it will begin installing rooftop solar panels on its next-generation Prius vehicles. Starting with the high-end model, these solar panels will be used to power the air conditioning systems of the car. According to the Nikkei report, these solar panel arrangements may start showing up as next spring.

If Toyota can pull this off, it will mark yet another milestone in automotive history: including solar panel technology in a mass-produced car. It could also set off a trend to power automotive subsystems directly from solar power instead of internally generated power from the gas engine/alternator system or the onboard electric motor. Solar power is abundant and free -- why not use it as much as possible?

Now, where are the other automakers with this? General Motors (NYSE: GM)? Ford Motor (NYSE: F)? A show of hands, please.

IndyMac Bancorp Inc. (NYSE: IMB) is continuing to see problems with raising enough money to stay in business. In fact, the bank has ceased taking loan applications. In addition to not taking new lending business, the company will lay off more than half of its workforce, about 3,800 employees.

The problem is that IndyMac hasn't lined up any new financing or capital investment and doesn't expect to recover until the mortgage market begins recovering. In other words, the rest of 2008 is going to be pretty harsh for the once high-flying mortgage lender. CEO Michael Perry said that U.S. banking regulators have asked IndyMac to submit a business plan that will show how the struggling lender will get back on its feet.

The retail and wholesale loan divisions will be closed to new business as the company tries to build its reverse mortgage business while maintaining the existing loans in its portfolio. Perry went on to say that "These are the largest and most difficult staff reductions we have ever had to make" in reference to IndyMac's looming layoffs. He also requested that IndyMac's board cut his $1 million annual salary in half (no word on bonus cuts). At least one banking CEO has a conscience, right?

Will investors soon get over worries about losses from subprime mortgages? As Doug indicated this morning, the answer for now is "nope." Today overseas markets are definitely paying attention to renewed fears about credit markets. The Dow was down over 56 points yesterday and today, Asian market sectors including banking, brokerage and insurance took a plunge as well. Francis Lun with Hong Kong's Fulbright Securities told MarketWatch, "After the drop on Wall Street, people are wary about further write-downs related to subprime mortgages."

With earnings season just kicking off today with Alcoa's second quarter results after the close, should we also be bracing for worse-than-expected reports from banks and brokerages? Today hat's the sentiment in Hong Kong and other Asian markets, where the Hang Seng index fell 3.2% in overnight trading and the Nikkei lost 2.5%.

Asian regional markets were sitting on the same worries pressuring U.S. markets, according to David Cohen with Action Economics. He posited that most Asian indexes were under pressure "from the same forces weighing upon markets globally, hostage to oil prices, and fears of stagflation." This morning at least, investors are bracing for U.S. markets to get worse before they get better.

When Dell, Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) released its latest Inspiron and Studio laptop PCs over the last year, the colorful lidbacks it made available were a great idea to entice consumers tired of the same-old boring black and charcoal laptop PC designs. Dell's idea wasn't anything new really -- Apple, Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) has had this idea for years with its iPod music players and practically invented the idea with the original iMac design (one computer - many colors). The trick for Dell was allowing all these color choices while at the same time trying to enter retail at a furious pace. How can a retail store stock all those different colors and ensure they all sell? That's a conundrum.

While Dell still sells its Inspiron and Studio computers direct from its website, I've found that the prices generally can't match what a retailer would be offering. Take any regular Sunday newspaper ad and you'll see it -- low, low prices on many entry-level laptop PCs from all the major PC makers -- and Dell is right there with them. Competition does bring prices down for the consumer. The problem with Dell is that it can't keep all those lid colors in stock at any retailer without the possibility of a few colors not selling as well and the retailer asking for credit due to clearance sales or anything else it has to do to move out older, non-moving product from shelves.

Dell's IdeaStorm consumer feedback website is really a neat model for taking suggestions from its customer base. After reading this consumer thread, I have to wonder -- why can't Dell design its consumer laptops that accept the capability of "snap-on" color lid covers? Perhaps even keyboard-surround color changes as well? These molded plastic parts would be very cheap to have made, and offering them for free for three months would be the best (and cheapest) PR to get consumers used to the idea that they could instantly transform that new Dell laptop into a color of their choice within a few seconds. This concept worked incredibly well with the cellphone -- why not the laptop PC?

When Ask.com's mapping service was just getting up to speed as a very workable product, the company decided to jettison its in-house mapping service and instead install Microsoft Corp.'s (NASDAQ: MSFT) own mapping service. Ask.com company parent InterActive Corp. (NASDAQ: IACI) apparently decided to cut some costs in the day and age of hyper-competition with Google, Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) and Microsoft and just outsource a great product that was taking up too many resources with too little to show for it.

Microsoft's Virtual Earth technology is now powering Ask.com mapping service. It should not be seen as defeat for Ask.com, as Microsoft's offering is superior in almost every way from my experience (and most likely, cheaper to license instead of maintaining an in-house product). This brings up an important question: is Ask.com in cost-cutting mode temporarily or permanently? The search engine and portal has seen its global market share sit pretty idle for the last year, as has Microsoft. Google, meanwhile, has slightly increased its search marketshare, Let's face it -- Ask.com, like those others, makes it's money in search (with smaller peripheral income sources of course).

Where is Ask.com's future revenue going to come from? Search advertising? Shopping commissions? All of the above? If Yahoo, Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) is possibly going to outsource its search to Google, what is stopping Ask.com from using Google's technology as well? That would literally pit Microsoft and Google as bulls racing towards each other. But if Ask.com is fretting over the continuance of its mapping product, search can't be that far behind. Then, the Ask.com brand will be the only thing left.

Family Dollar Stores, Inc. (NYSE: FDO), along with the other dollar stores, may begin to see many more non-traditional customers who are aching to save every penny in the face of increasing energy and food costs. The first strike at that concept was from Family Dollar, which reported a 7.1% increase in net income for its latest quarter.

While sales grew at Family Dollar, stores that target affluent or higher-income shoppers saw flat or negative growth. This all points to one thing: customers are seeking out bargains wherever they can to offset rising prices in other areas of their lives. This sounds like it should have happened last summer as the credit freeze was beginning, but with summer in full swing and gas prices at $4 a gallon levels, the reality of the dollar store is setting in for millions of Americans.

With the typical Family Dollar customer being the "mom who makes less than $30,000 per year," it's not hard to imagine all the dollar-type retailers starting to see increasing fortunes in the near future. Every worker in the U.S. who drives has easily seen their last performance increase fade away. In fact, many have actually experienced a large financial demotion due to high gas prices and food costs. It's hard to think of it that way for many, but that is what it is. Inflation and energy costs can wipe out that raise pretty fast, yes? With that in mind, you may want to venture into a dollar store soon. Most likely, you'll be pleased with the price levels you find on almost every product.

Google, Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) may be a company based on reality after all. In addition to the company's search market share and increasing brand awareness worldwide, its lavish employee perks and working conditions have earned it an enviable position among IT and software workers. Free bus rides to work, free food and drink and other nice perks are part of working for the internet giant. Just don't ask about its daycare facilities.

Google announced last week that it would be raising the prices of its infant care services by almost 75%. This after bringing in employees to tell them of the change in advance and gauge their collective feedback. Although many parents were left in awe (as in, how could Google do this!), the company decided to implement the plan gradually over five quarters and reduce the price increase. The annual daycare costs for two kids would have risen from $33,000 per year to $57,000 per year (it's not clear how much the increase was reduced). Is Google doing evil here? Nope -- just joining reality.

The comedown from employees as Google starts implementing policies that most (if not all) public companies already have will be harsh. If you are a Google shareholder, do you like all that dough being used to pamper Google employees with all those freebies? Does it make the company more competitive and allows workers to be as productive as possible? In many ways, it does. Google doesn't do things like this out of the goodness of its heart. It's all about wringing the best work from each worker. If those perks start getting stripped away, Google may join the ranks of "normal" public companies. Its workers don't want that.

Welcome to the 67th installment of The Wal-Mart Weekly, a column dedicated to bringing you insight, wit, facts, results, opinions, and just a bit of everything else when it comes to a very hot topic these days: Wal-Mart.

This week, I'll be taking a look at Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT) entry into the world of locally grown produce and fresh food. The world's largest retailer has already conquered mass-produced food and produce (and fresh meat products), so why not enter the domain of locally grown food to find growth?

Finding ways to support local growers is never a bad way to ingratiate oneself into a community and find more avid fans of your operation. Wal-Mart has never shied away from strategies geared to grow its user base, and with the retailer in good fortunes now with the U.S. economy in a slump, it's never been a better time to find unique ways to grow. Can it succeed, though?

When Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) releases a new line of jeans next month from Levi Strauss, the eyes of the apparel industry will be tightly fixed on the world's largest retailer. The new denim jeans, which will be from the "Totally Slimming" line of Strauss's "Signature" line of jeans made specially for Wal-Mart, will promise to be comfortable yet produce a tummy-tightening fit for you ladies out there.

Now, these type of jeans have been available from department stores for a premium price for a while now. They're designed to automatically change that figure (no lipo required) while not feeling like a 19th-century corset. Wal-Mart's contribution to the process will, of course, be it's sub-$20 pricetag. Expect these jeans to fly off the shelves, literally. Even in the face of an economic downturn in the U.S., Wal-Mart has plodded along just fine. Products like these -- with prices like these -- will only reinforce the retailer's staying power in uncertain times

Levi's new product is designed to hold in thighs and lift the butt, among other things. As usual in full-service discounters, you can buy all the ice cream and potato chips that will bulk up the cellulite, then find the clothing solution to hide that nastiness right in the next aisle. Wal-Mart's new Totally Slimming product was tested by Wal-Mart women shoppers last November and proved a large success. For $20 a pair, these will draw even more women into Wal-Mart stores. If the retailer is smart, it'll build a large ad campaign around this product.

Much has been written about Sprint Nextel Corp.'s (NYSE: S) follies in recent quarters. The third-largest wireless carrier in the U.S. has lost millions of customers to larger and more successful competitors like Verizon Wireless and AT&T, Inc. (NYSE: T). But, with the launch of an extremely successful iPhone competitor (among other things), the company is showing signs of stemming its huge customer defections from past quarters.

The word of support initially came from Verizon Wireless President Denny Strigl , who told investors that Sprint's performance had picked up in the last months -- although Verizon still didn't consider Sprint to be a threat to Verizon Wireless' current results. Still, any improvement for Sprint is a good thing. Sprint CEO Dan Hesse, a wireless industry veteran with a largely successful track record, is the right person to be leading Sprint as well. So, are all the cards lined up for Sprint to become a resurgent force in the U.S. wireless industry?

It's stock has rebounded in a decent way, closing up from mid-March's $6/share to $8.91 recently (it closed yesterday at $8.94/share). Although Sprint lost over a million customers in the first quarter of 2008, the numbers should not be that bad in the second quarter. Sprint also won't be sold any time soon. Verizon Wireless, which just bought Alltel from its private owners, is the only company that could have made a merger work in buying Sprint Nextel. It would be disastrous to have another company come in and try to emulate what Sprint attempted with Nextel back in 2005, which has turned out to be a complete disaster and has led to tens of billions in write-offs (do you hear me now, Deutsche Telekom?).

Sprint has the chops to turn itself around in 2009 with some solid management and good decisions, but it still won't be easy. Spinning off the Nextel network (oops, I mean selling the spectrum off) and migrating all those customers to Sprint's network -- along with heavy retention incentives -- may be Hesse's biggest bet yet. That is, if he has the cahones to do it.

When Google, Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) purchased wireless software development company Android years ago, its founder asked Google's co-founder Larry Page, "Is this interesting to Google?" It sure turned out to be, although the mobile phone operating system environment was announced almost a year ago and nothing concrete has shipped in a customer device yet. My bet is that Google isn't delaying development to fine-tune its software -- it's had years to do that and the money to boot.

The problem is the wireless environment in the U.S., for starters. The competitive landscape is so tightly controlled that Google's mantra of "open access" just won't sit well with wireless carriers used to telling customers what they can and cannot do with their phones. If you think U.S. consumers have control over their wireless lifestyles, a quick trip to Europe will dispel that notion pretty fast.

If Google really wants to make Android the ubiquitous, free and open mobile operating system it wants it to be, what are the alternatives to having partnerships with mobile carriers who will, of course, be afraid of Google? Google has bid on wireless airwaves before (only to have the goal of allowing open devices accessible to closed networks), but this time, I see it going down the mobile virtual network operator route, plain and simple. Although the MVNO model has largely failed in the U.S., Google doesn't have a national wireless network to operate. But with its large pockets, it sure can buy wholesale from the existing carriers and place its Android customers with service -- and then, give them anything they want. Like, mobile search results with ads next to them.

Sometimes a major CEO seems like a foolish child more than a competitive leader. And sometimes the head of Verizon Communications, Inc. (NYSE: VZ), Ivan Seidenberg, has said things that make many of us scratch our collective heads. With Apple, Inc.'s (NASDAQ: AAPL) 3G iPhone about to hit the street (but not the Verizon network), Seidenberg must have been driven by jealousy to say something silly.

In response to the impending release of the 3G iPhone, Seidenberg said: "There goes the conspiracy again. You're declaring them a winner before they've earned it on the field." This in response to a reporter's question about the new iPhone achieving mass market appeal due to the lower entry price of $199. The iPhone does not have a huge market share when all sold phones are considered, but the new $199 price tag could sure put the Cupertino company in a position to ramp up that share pretty fast. This apparently concerns Seidenberg.

Sometimes waiting out the competition is a strategy that doesn't involve much R&D. Seidenberg went on to say, "Steve Jobs eventually will get old . . . I like our chances." Instead of trying to find some innovation to provide to the Verizon customer, maybe Verizon (along with all the other wireless carriers) will just try to wait out Apple's wireless offerings until Steve Jobs retires. Doesn't sound like a recipe for success to me. But then again, Seidenberg has said some pretty clueless things before. Maybe this is just another example of a corporate leader who's out of touch with his industry.

You would think that companies making standalone GPS devices would be making bank right now. The devices that never let you get lost when driving are important to many travelers, especially when you don't want to fumble with maps, let alone get lost and waste a bunch of expensive gas getting back on track. Garmin Ltd. (NASDAQ: GRMN), one of the leading GPS makers, though, has seen tough times recently. Its shares have declined 56% recently. Why I'm not sure. I do know that it has nothing to do with Apple, Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL)'s iPhone that's about to be released in a few weeks.

Apple's new 3G iPhone will have embedded GPS, which will make the gadget all the more useful. Regardless, though, will consumers be using their iPhones as replacements for full GPS devices in all those vehicles? Unless there is a decent vehicle mount kit available, it's hard to believe so. The iPhone does have the best chance at displacing more units from Garmin and other GPS makers like TomTom in the car navigation arena, but the entire GPS experience is what some folks probably forget about.

If you've ever used a GPS navigation program installed on a normal cellphone or smartphone, does it works seamlessly like a standalone product? Can you take and make calls while the GPS continues working in the background, giving you all those voice directions? What makes standalone GPS devices so valuable is that they work even when we're multitasking with phone calls. That's the kicker: the first time you miss a direction by voice because you're busy chatting on the phone, a GPS solution on top of a cellphone -- at least for driving purposes -- would become useless to the average consumer. I doubt Apple's upcoming solution will be this drab, but I continue to see a bright future for standalone GPS device manufacturers (although profits will continue to dwindle). Apple, as always, is not the only game in town. It will still be big for non-driving GPS uses, though.

Doug pointed out recently that the new Samsung Instinct most likely could not save Sprint Nextel Corp. (NYSE: S) from its current financial and customer woes. He's right -- one phone does not resurrect a company. However, the Instinct -- which looks and functions very similar to an Apple, Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) iPhone -- is still selling like hotcakes. My guess? It's all due to Apple, not Sprint.

The Instinct, which apparently has become Sprint's best-selling 3G phone product ever in a very short time, is an impressive device. Feature-for-feature, it's right there with the upcoming 3G iPhone about to be released in a few weeks. Independent research that counted the movement of Instinct phones at 100 Sprint stores around the country report that it's selling out fast. Sprint contends that the smartphone is the fastest-selling phone in Sprint's history up to this point.

But, to those customers of Sprint (new and old) who just can't see themselves joining AT&T, Inc. (NYSE: T) just to get an iPhone, the Instinct is apparently turning out to be a perfect equivalent. If Apple had never released the original iPhone, the Instinct may have never been born. Apple, as usual, has made other hardware companies realize that hardware needs to be elegant, and software needs to be way elegant. The clumsy designs and complex cellphone interfaces may soon be extinct, thanks to Apple. And, Sprint's sales of the Samsung Instinct will at least owe partial credit to the iPhone maker.