Samsung wants a court to "compel" a California man to resolve his grievances over the safety of the Galaxy S7 Edge through binding arbitration. Daniel Ramirez claims his S7 Edge overheated while it was in his pants pocket, injuring him, said Samsung’s complaint (in Pacer) in U.S. District Court in Youngstown, Ohio. Ramirez sued for liability and negligence in New Jersey Superior Court, but withdrew the action Wednesday with announced intentions to refile, said Samsung. “Through his purchase and use of his S7 Edge, Ramirez entered into a binding arbitration agreement.” Compelling arbitration in such cases is "routinely rejected in multiple federal courts,” Ramirez attorney Andrew Felix emailed us Monday. “Samsung seeks to deprive all consumers of their right to a jury trial based solely on obscure arbitration provisions that are intentionally hidden behind shrink wrap, inside the product box and buried in the manual.” Though Samsung does not comment on pending litigation, "we have established a dispute resolution procedure for some of our products, which has been enforced by numerous courts, to enable consumers to have a fast, fair, easy, and efficient resolution through the arbitration of any claims or issues they may have,” a company spokeswoman emailed us Monday. Samsung's U.S. headquarters is based in New Jersey; Ramirez was injured while working in Ohio.
EY estimates Foxconn will spend $5.57 billion to build a plant in Wisconsin (see 1707270018), half for construction supplies and equipment paying no sales taxes, the state Department of Administration reported Thursday. The plant is expected to reach full employment in 2021, with average salaries approaching $54,000. The report analyzed legislation introduced last week in the Assembly, and referred to its Jobs and Economy Committee, to authorize the state to grant Foxconn about $3 billion in incentives to coax the contract manufacturer to complete construction and begin producing display panels within four years. The legislation, which received its first hearing Thursday, incorporates terms of a July 27 memorandum of understanding that CEO Terry Gou signed with state officials. EY representatives didn’t comment further Friday.
Digimarc is working on methods of harnessing Amazon’s traffic in online retailing to redirect it to brick-and-mortar stores using concealed “steganographic” encoding on the screens of smartphones and desktop computers, said a U.S. patent application (20170221121) published Thursday at the Patent and Trademark Office. “The experience begins with the consumer going to an online retailer's website (e.g., Amazon) to search for a product,” said the application, which is unusual for its plain wording. It named “Walmart and/or Best Buy,” as online rivals. “With a mobile phone camera-scan of the product page, relevant information is transferred to the consumer's phone. From there, the consumer can interact with the options on the mobile phone to be directed to the nearby brick and mortar store of choice carrying that product at the price they want." Four inventors from the Portland, Oregon, area are named in the application, filed Feb. 8. At least three of the listed inventors hold key positions at Digimarc, based in nearby Beaverton. Amazon and Digimarc representatives didn’t comment Thursday.
Tesla is “on track” to complete its first “coast-to-coast” autonomous drive from Los Angeles to New York by year-end, said CEO Elon Musk on a Wednesday earnings call. Tesla’s autonomous-driving platform, Autopilot, is “very centrally about vision and image recognition,” using “effectively narrow” artificial intelligence, said Musk. Every car the company made since October “is capable of full autonomy,” using Autopilot, he said. Tesla’s website describes Autopilot as enabling safe, “full self-driving capability."
Dish Network’s “dream” in a wireless connectivity network buildout “would be to go to the tower one time and build out all our spectrum in 5G,” said CEO Charlie Ergen on a Thursday earnings call. “There’s tremendous cost savings in doing that.”
When Univision and Northwest Broadcasting in June joined the ATSC 3.0-based broadcaster spectrum consortium started by Sinclair and Nexstar (see 1706200084), it brought the consortium’s “reach” to 90 percent of the U.S., said Sinclair CEO Chris Ripley on a Wednesday earnings call. “The consortium’s mission is to promote spectrum aggregation, innovation and monetization, and we are continuing to invite other broadcasters to join, as we enhance our industry’s ability to compete in the wireless data transmissions sector.” Sinclair also is working with Nexstar to “coordinate the transition” to 3.0 in 97 designated market areas, he said. That work is “an important step to ensuring a speedy rollout of the next-generation advanced services for our viewers and advertisers,” he said. “More broadcasters will be added to this planning process” as they join the spectrum consortium, he said. Sinclair is “quite excited” about the prospects for FCC "relaxation" of local media ownership rules, Ripley said in Q&A. “Overall, we think the industry needs to consolidate to two or three large broadcasters and really just one to two strong local players in each market,” he said. “In some of the larger, and even medium-sized markets, you’ve got anywhere from three to five local players,” and that “doesn’t make sense,” he said. “If there’s relaxation, there’ll be a consolidation at the local level, greater scale at the national level, and there’s significant savings to be had putting local content players together on a local level.” That will give way to “stronger local content producers, which will be able to spread their content and their resources across multiple platforms,” he said. “We see that as the evolution of the industry as dereg sets in here, and you end up with more consolidated, stronger local content players that are more efficient, and so the economics will be great and the strategic output will also be great.”
Vizio landed a U.S. patent Tuesday that describes a device and method for “correcting lip sync problems on display devices,” Patent and Trademark Office records show. “Maintaining synchronization” between audio and video on a modern TV “is dependent on a number of variables,” said the patent (9,723,180), which lists Chief Technology Officer Matthew McRae as the inventor, based on a January 2014 application. “The sensor creates timestamps for each of the video and audio, and then calculates a difference between those timestamps.” Those differences are then sent to the external device, “which then compensates for the difference.” Company representatives didn’t comment Tuesday.
Components supplier Integrated Device Technology thinks wireless charging will move “from early adopters to mainstream usage starting late this calendar year, and that this trend continues throughout 2018,” said CEO Greg Waters on a Monday earnings call. “Wireless charging is probably kind of in an in-between phase right now, but we do see a meaningfully increase” in consumer adoption coming later in 2017, he said.
Foxconn’s memorandum of understanding to build an LCD display fab on a 20-million-square-foot “campus” in Kenosha, Wisconsin, (see 1707270018) was “just an announcement of an intent to build something,” rather than a statement of “concrete plans,” Paul Gagnon, IHS Markit director-TV sets research, told us. Gagnon called last week's announcement surprisingly “pretty vague to pin anything on.” Foxconn CEO Terry Gou's mentions at a White House event of plans to produce 8K product in Kenosha ties in with "something that the panel industry itself has been really pushing,” said Gagnon, "4K is largely commoditized already, so if you’re just going to pump out 4K panels, well, there’s a lot of oversupply.” For Gou to talk so prominently about 8K was also surprising because “there’s no ecosystem” to deliver it and likely won’t be until “way beyond” 2020, he said. “Certainly, 8K has a lot of applications in medical or specialty display-type applications, but not in the consumer entertainment space.” Foxconn representatives didn’t comment.
SiriusXM is “on track” to launch its “360L” connected-car platform with a “major automaker” in early 2018, said CEO Jim Meyer on a Thursday earnings call. SiriusXM expects “to reveal the final product with this OEM” at January CES, he said. The company sees 360L as “a game-changer for us,” he said. “It gives us data on customer usage,” and allows the company “more control” of a “much-improved” user interface, he said. Features include one that “enables personalized content recommendations, and gives us the ability to convert and upsell customers on-screen directly in the vehicle,” he said. On the company's impending $480 million investment in Pandora (see 1706090005), Meyer underscored Pandora’s “permanent free offering” in contrast to SiriusXM’s trials and discount offerings. “If you don't want to pay for our service, we don't have a place for you,” and that’s what Pandora brings to SiriusXM, he said. But he moderated his stance on entering the free radio market, saying, “the jury is still out” on whether the Pandora ad-based offering can deliver cash flow. The investment in Pandora “will help us find an answer and give us a great toehold in this area on advantageous terms,” he said. Through Pandora, SiriusXM will learn more about the subscription interactive business “and how our two companies might work together in the future, be it on upselling, cross-selling, sharing content, or sharing technology,” Meyer said. Cautioning on pending government approval and a minority investor role, he said the investment “is not predicated on any kind of cooperation or synergies.” More information will be available after the agreement closes later this year, he said. Also, Meyer said, SiriusXM is working with OEMs on new “consumer-focused features” that add value to a vehicle subscription, including Alexa integration. “Think, 'Alexa start my car and turn on the air conditioning,'” he said.