Overshadowed by a Tesla blog post Thursday disclosing a fatal accident involving a Tesla Model S in autopilot mode, BMW, Intel and Mobileye announced plans Friday to bring autonomous vehicles to streets by 2021. In a joint presentation in Munich, the three companies said they together will develop systems for “highly and fully automated driving to bring these technologies into series production” in five years.
Cable, telco and other companies ramping up smart-home security face challenges, analysts said this week. Some cited a limited market and more competition. Alarm.com last week agreed to buy the ADT Pulse business and Piper DIY system from Icontrol for $140 million, and Comcast said it's buying other Icontrol assets (see 1606230073). "There are still a lot of uncertainties” in the business, said Imperial Capital analyst Saliq Khan, citing nascent systems and apps. "There already is competition.” Some predicted telcos and cable companies would “disintermediate the entire security industry within several years,” said Khan, who doesn’t believe that. It's unknown what impact “strong, proprietary providers” such as AT&T, Verisure and Vivint, various cable companies and Google's and Apple's plans for premises control will have, he said. Reports showing security systems are driving the smart-home market may point to a short-term trend, ROC-Connect Senior Vice President-Business Development Kevin Meagher told us. A recurring revenue model appeals to companies like AT&T and Comcast, said Meagher. The reason U.S. monitored home security penetration hasn’t grown above 21 percent “is not for lack of trying,” said Meagher, but because there’s a limited number of people willing to spend $30-$50 per monthly for it.
Master Quality Authenticated (MQA) has the attention of many in the recording industry, said panelists at CE Week last week in New York. Moderator Marc Finer, senior director-Digital Entertainment Group, cited the role MQA can play in boosting sound quality of streaming music. MQA is important for addressing “what the consumer wants” in the digital music age, said Howie Singer, chief strategic technologist at Warner Music Group. That historically came at the price of quality as compression reduces music files to manageable sizes for portable players while discarding useful music information. Universal Music Group is enthusiastic about MQA as a recording technology, said Jim Belcher, vice president-technology and production, global digital business. “We’re looking at it as a transport solution.” Sony Music’s Mark Piibe, executive vice president-global business development, said he would “love to see MQA in the market” for the positive impact it could have on digital music quality.
Comcast is buying a portion of Icontrol that Alarm.com isn't purchasing in its $140 million deal. Icontrol is the behind-the-scenes platform company powering Comcast’s Xfinity Home service and ADT Pulse, among others.
Samsung CEO Oh-Hyun Kwon pledged $1.2 billion Tuesday to U.S.-based “Human-Centered IoT” R&D over the next four years. Kwon keynoted the company’s “Internet of Things: Transforming the Future” forum in Washington, which is part of Samsung’s recently launched public affairs platform, Vision for Tomorrow, for cross-sector collaboration on issues affecting the policy dialogue in the U.S. and globally.
Under a “speakeasy” theme, Pepcom’s Digital Experience news-media event last week in New York featured IoT technologies from a range of companies. Among those was EchoStar's Hughes, showing its first connected home product. The Sage by Hughes security and smart home system, launched at CES 2015, hit stores in early March. Sage is in a “slow rollout,” a company spokeswoman told us. It was designed to be do it yourself and is available from www.sagebyhughes.com, she said. The hub communicates with ZigBee, Z-Wave, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth devices to give the product a “long road map,” said the spokeswoman. It has a 911 feature that directly links customers upon alert to their home's emergency call center regardless of the homeowner's location. Other companies at Thursday's event were Savant and Uber.
Dolby and Lionsgate are partnering to release new and catalog titles mastered in Dolby Vision and mixed in Dolby Atmos, the companies said Thursday. On an investor conference webcast Wednesday, CEO Kevin Yeaman underscored Dolby’s involvement in the content chain “working side by side” with content creators for delivery via Blu-ray, over the air, pay TV and streaming. Five years ago, “it wasn’t unreasonable to ask whether Dolby was going to be relevant to the streaming of entertainment,” Yeaman said of the shift from packaged media to streaming. Yeaman cited Dolby’s relationship with “all the streaming media providers." For audio, Yeaman cited Amazon, Apple, Google Play and Netflix in the U.S. and Alibaba in China and Amazon, Netflix and Vudu for Dolby Vision. Mobile devices account for 10-11 percent of Dolby licensing revenue, said Yeaman, and that’s expected to increase from the Apple win, he said.
The role of technical support is changing amid connected homes, said Parks Associates analyst Patrice Samuels on a webcast with Emily Rickman, Support.com vice president-services sales and account management. An increasingly competitive landscape is making support a bigger priority to brands, Samuels said Tuesday. Some companies let customers use smartphones for diagnostic purposes, said Rickman of Support.com, which has customers including Comcast and Staples. Cable connections with smart TVs have benefited from smartphone diagnostics, said Rickman. “Sometimes, it takes putting eyes on it. Using the camera to quickly and easily do that is by far a better customer experience than having to schedule a truck to come out to the home -- and in some cases days, later, with a four-to-five-hour window" of a consumer's day, she said. Ease of getting to a tech support agent is an area where consumers aren't satisfied, said Samuels. A start is with “self-healing” options on desktop PCs and mobile devices, said Rickman. Although data breaches have gotten attention from high-profile hacks of Home Depot, Target and others, Rickman said, “Very few customers changed their shopping habits because of them.” Customer onboarding can help overcome “inertia,” she said, providing steps people can take to improve security.
Centralite’s move to the direct-to-consumer channel (see 1606090059) is complementary to its cable customers rather than a competitive move, Sean Bryant, Centralite vice president-sales and marketing, told us. Centralite supplies connected devices to cable customers including Comcast, Charter, Cox and Rogers, but the providers don’t necessarily want to carry Centralite’s full 30-product line, said Bryant. Giving consumers access to the lineup independently allows them to have the products and features they want to expand their smart home systems, while bringing in more revenue for Centralite and giving providers a way to offer their customers an upgrade path without having to expand offerings themselves, said Bryant.
Lenovo unveiled the first consumer smartphone with Google’s Tango augmented reality technology, at Tech World 2016 Thursday. Lowe’s will sell the Tango-enabled Lenovo Phab2 Pro, the companies said. Dolby Audio 5.1 Capture technology will debut in the Phab2 Pro, enabling users to record in surround sound, said Lenovo. The Moto Z and Moto Z Force smartphones, in an all-metal design, have low-light camera performance, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 820 processor and Moto TurboPower charging. The Moto Z is said to be the thinnest premium smartphone. Lenovo also demo'd concept technologies: flexible screens and components, as well as smart footwear technology, with wireless charging, based on Intel’s Curie module. Lenovo CEO Yuanqing Yang cited the company’s three pillars of future technology: device innovation, device plus cloud connectivity and infrastructure. He said that interconnected devices will allow “rich interactions” such as a “seamlessly linked smart home with custom environment and entertainment options."