- Commentary -

January 7, 2010 (FinancialWire) (By Bob Farley) — Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) and television network Discovery (NASDAQ: DISCA) are reminding me of coaches for children’s sports teams: they’re giving  us more than we can do right now, but not so much that we can’t accept that eventually it’ll be possible.

Apple is giving us a new tablet computer; Discovery is joining  a small group of producers getting in on the 3-D fad, this time in television. Even though no one thinks these things will take off immediately, if they’re anywhere as good as their press, they’ll make inroads in much the same way as Amazon’s (NASDAQ: AMZN) Kindle.

With children, coaches teach kids what they can do, repeat as necessary, and when it’s over, the child can reproduce the skill by second nature. Now and then, though, coaches give the kids something more to think about, a skill they won’t be able to reproduce in one training session, but one that by the end of 12 practices, they’ll be able to accomplish. Maybe not in a smooth way, but in a way. And the next year, when the kids come back, they’ll have that skill set into their brain synapses.

I’ve seen this in gas prices. I remember when $2 a gallon was hideous. The next summer, it was $3 that was hideous. The year after that, anyone would have been happy to pay that $3 rather than the $4 we were confronted with. Now, anything under $3 barely causes a raised eyebrow.

So it is with 3-D television and the Apple tablet. Given the stress of the current economy, I can’t see either of these being so necessary that they’ll be more than a blip on economic radar screen. But like the Kindle, if prices come down and if people grow to like them, we’ll have our dimensionalized TV and magic tablet.

[Go to http://www.financialwire.net/?s=bob+farley to see more commentaries and articles by Bob Farley.]

The FirstAlert(tm) Economics Calendar lists Chain Store Sales for December, Initial Jobless Claims (8:30 a.m.), Treasury announces 30-year bond auction (9 a.m.), Treasury announces 3&10-year notes, 10-year TIPS (11 a.m.).

FirstAlert(tm) Website of the Day: http://www.americanheart.org/

Quote of the Day: “Now I am happy I did ‘Gone With the Wind.’ I wasn’t when I was 28, but it’s part of black history. You have no idea how hard it is for black actors, but things change, things blossom in time.” Butterfly McQueen

Today is: International Programmers’ Day.

Happy Birthday: Millard Fillmore, Butterfly McQueen, Kenny Loggins, David Caruso, Katie Couric, Nicolas Cage, Natalie Gulbis.

Today in History: Fire destroyed Jamestown, Virginia, in 1608. Galileo Galilei observed the four largest moons of Jupiter for the first time in 1610. The first American commercial bank, Bank of North America, opened in 1782. W.K. Dickson received in 1894 a patent for motion picture film. First transatlantic telephone call, from New York City to London, was made in 1927. The Harlem Globetrotters played their first game in 1927. President Harry Truman announced in 1953 that the United States has developed a hydrogen bomb. President Jimmy Carter authorized in 1980 legislation giving $1.5 billion in loans to bail out Chrysler Corporation.

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