Roku promoted its position in the smart TV streaming market as Seiki, Westinghouse Electronics and Element Electronics will begin shipping this year 4K Ultra HD TVs with Amazon Fire TV. In a Tuesday news release, Roku said its TVs accounted for 13 percent of all U.S. smart TV sales. At CES in Las Vegas, Roku TVs will be demonstrated in Dish Sling TV and other booths. In Amazon's deal, its Prime customers get unlimited access to Prime Video and “thousands of movies and TV episodes” with membership. They can get HBO, Showtime, Starz, PBS Kids and other subscription video services, paying “for the channels they want -- no cable required, no additional apps to download, and easy online cancellation,” said the companies.
Roku General Manager Chas Smith said streaming hours on the Roku platform increased 60 percent year on year. Roku is constantly upgrading the platform, said Smith, and will add two channels in the next few weeks: a Comcast Xfinity app and DirecTV Now. He spoke Wednesday at CES in Las Vegas.
Harman, which Samsung is buying for $8 billion (see 1611140030), unveiled products Wednesday (see here, here and here) focused on connected cars and other technology, at CES in Las Vegas. Cleared by the FTC last month (see 1612210031), Samsung/Harman is expected to close by mid-2017. One new platform has 3D maps, IoT integration with home-to-car transfers of preferences and connected services, and an Advanced Driver Assistance Systems monitor. An intelligent vehicle cockpit supports an integrated digital assistant, car-to-home IoT functionality and augmented reality navigation.
LAS VEGAS -- Voice control is shaping up to be a top feature of 2017 consumer technology, led by Amazon’s Alexa digital assistant. The promise of voice control is to simplify operation of increasingly complex technology. Apple, Google, IBM and Microsoft will be part of the mix.
Sensor technology and connectivity have blown open the possibilities of everyday consumer products, and CES 2017 will be staging ground for some of them, we found in preshow teasers.
Despite its waning importance in recent years, Green Monday sales from PCs rose 15 percent year on year to $1.62 billion, comScore reported. That’s an “encouraging sign” for the last major buying week, said CEO Gian Fulgoni Wednesday. It was the No. 5 online spending day. Analyst Adam Lella told us high spending on Nov. 29 can be attributed in part to extended Cyber Monday deals that some retailers offered, along with “natural spillover from the biggest promotional day of the year." Green Monday used to be the No. 1 holiday spending day, before Cyber Monday came to the fore, he noted.
The IEEE Computer Society predicted the IoT, self-driving cars and artificial intelligence are among the top technologies that will reach broader adoption next year. Self-driving will see expansion beyond Silicon Valley to constrained geographic areas, it reported Wednesday. Improved processors makes it easier to write domain-specific apps that can adapt and process complex situations, said IEEE. Although 5G isn’t likely to see broad 2017 adoption, standards are being developed, and early use deployments are being pursued.
Comcast added two lighting partners to its Xfinity Home partner program, it said in a Thursday announcement. Jasco and Sengled join Lutron as lighting partners in the Works With Xfinity Home partner program of “curated” devices that have been tested for reliability, integration and technical support, Daniel Herscovici, general manager of Xfinity Home, told us. Other third-party devices in the Xfinity Home portfolio are August smart locks, Chamberlain MyQ garage door controllers, Lutron Caséta wireless controllers and dimmers and Nest smart thermostats.
Apple launched chip-based Bluetooth AirPods earphones, originally due in late October, with limited availability. Early Tuesday, the Apple website said customers would receive orders by Dec. 21; when we checked back before noon, delivery time stretched to four weeks. AirPods will ship in limited quantities to retailers and select carrier stores next week, Apple announced. The smartphone maker's stores will receive regular shipments of the product, which connects automatically with all of a user's Apple devices. The company didn’t respond to our questions.
The home automation and alarm monitoring markets are seeing a jump in cloud-based solutions, Imperial Capital reported, saying the market worth $23 billion could grow to $61 billion by 2024. The analysts forecast 50 million homes will have such services or devices by 2024, up from 20 million now, with growth led by cable. Products like those from AT&T and Comcast had 5 percent market penetration (942,261 homes) at the end of 2015 and are projected to represent 19 percent penetration (6 million homes) by year-end 2020 and 27 percent (13 million homes) by year-end 2024.