Twitter users were largely unmoved Friday by Apple’s apology for slowing down performance of iPhone 6 models. The apology was a “sorry not sorry" move, 1patricksanders said, noting the battery price cut will be temporary when it kicks in late in January.
Shares in wireless charging company Energous soared 168 percent Wednesday, closing at $23.70, after Tuesday’s announcement the company received FCC certification of its first-generation mid-field transmitter that sends focused, RF-based power to devices at distances up to three feet.
Two Alexa-enabled products -- Amazon’s highly discounted Echo Dot and Fire TV Stick -- were the top-selling products at Amazon this holiday season, said Amazon Tuesday. Amazon sold “millions more” of its branded devices vs. the 2016 holiday season, it said, without breaking out numbers. A spokeswoman said the company couldn’t provide more specifics “at this time.” Amazon cut the price of the Dot, its entry-level Alexa device, from $49 to $29 through the holidays. It shaved the Fire TV Stick tag to $24 over Black Friday weekend, raising it to $39 after Cyber Monday (see 1711280053). Echo Spot, Echo Dot and Echo Buttons sold out this holiday season, Amazon said.
Amazon announced a workaround to not having access to Google Chrome and YouTube on the Echo Show and Fire TV (see 1712060058 and 1712200044). Amazon Fire TV users can now browse the web on TV via Fire TV using Firefox and Silk browsers, Amazon said Wednesday, listing Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo, reddit and others. Amazon is “open to other browsers," a spokeswoman said. “We hope to resolve this with Google as soon as possible.” Google didn’t comment. On how Amazon ensures security via browsers, the spokeswoman said Fire TV doesn’t allow downloads. Silk and Firefox “both respect user privacy,” she said, and browsing history is kept “private and secure.” Neither stores personal identifiable information data, she said. Alexa controls some functions, but during playback, viewers use the Fire TV remote for play, pause, fast forward and rewind functions, said the spokeswoman.
Silicon Labs' buying Sigma Designs (see 1712080056) is a “significant and positive move” for Z-Wave and its vendor supporters, ABI Research's Jonathan Collins told us. Silicon Labs is a “well-established provider of silicon” across various protocols that compete with Z-Wave, the analyst said, and the chipmaker “may well look to try to move Z-Wave toward some silicon level harmony with 802.15.4-based protocols ZigBee and Thread.” Z-Wave revenue dipped slightly this year, said Parks Associates' Tom Kerber. It's not "the must-have in the way it once was,” said Collins. Increased competition from rival protocols led large service providers to roll out “Z-Wave-free systems,” with providers turning largely to Zigbee, while Bluetooth 5 gains momentum, he said.
Streaming devices and nimble services are setting the bar for video user experience, causing MVPDs to play catch-up, said Chris Thun, TiVo vice president-product, on a Parks Associates webcast Tuesday. The over-the-top video experiences consumers are interacting with “are the bar" they expect, Thun said. Devices, content distribution options and competitors that didn't exist 10 years ago were joined by changes in the past 18-24 months in user experience trends, challenging MVPDs, said Parks analyst Brett Sappington. Deeper focus on TV viewing is needed to make voice navigation successful for video viewing, said Thun. On the top challenges facing MVPDs, Thun said TiVo research finds in testing video services, consumers inevitably bring up Netflix functionality, and a typical comment might be: “I don’t see those in my pay-TV experience.” Sappington and Thun said more MVPDs are using Google Android TV apps to improve user experience. A typical video customer might interact with two or three pay-TV interfaces over a three-to-five-year period compared to “dozens, perhaps even hundreds” of mobile app experiences, he said: That creates a “much broader landscape” influencing consumer perception of where innovation is happening and how fast. MVPDs looking to new infrastructure are hampered by costs of repurposing their networks' spectrum, replacing set-top boxes, developing software and running separate networks for different delivery mechanisms, said Sappington. Costs aren’t trivial to a “massive transition,” which musn't alienate consumers, Sappington said. “They have to do it in a way that the consumer doesn’t feel it at all because if subscribers end up feeling the pain of transition, they’ll just go somewhere else.”
Silicon Labs' buy of Sigma Designs and its Z-Wave business for $282 million is contingent on Sigma selling its smart TV unit, said executives from the acquirer on a Friday investor call. If certain closing conditions aren’t met, Silicon Labs will buy Sigma’s Z-Wave business only for $240 million, subject to Sigma shareholders’ approval, it said. On any divestiture of Sigma's set-top box business, Silicon Labs CEO Tyson Tuttle said the company is “quite comfortable” with the stability and profitability of the broadcast business over time. “While that is something that was discussed, that’s not something that’s in the cards,” he said. Sigma is in discussions to divest its media connectivity business comprising G.hn solutions, HomePlug AV and HomePNA, which Silicon Labs Chief Financial Officer John Hollister called a “covenant and imperative,” not a condition. Silicon Labs is evaluating Sigma Designs’ mobile IoT initiative, said Hollister. The CEO said IoT, the connected world and home automation devices with voice control have "a large tailwind.” The Z-Wave protocol is “sub-gigahertz,” while ZigBee, Thread and Bluetooth are 2.4 GHz, he noted.
Hilton is beta-testing Connected Room, a “first-of-its-kind" for guests to control a stay from mobile devices, it said Thursday. It's being beta-tested in the Hilton Garden Inn Memphis/Wolfchase Galleria, a spokeswoman told us. The model will begin to scale “rapidly” to hotels in the U.S. next year, the company said. Guests can load streaming media and other accounts to in-room TVs. A video in the news release shows CNBC, ESPN, Food Network, Showtime, YouTube and TuneIn. Consumer acceptance of digital room keys shows guests want connected capabilities that are simple, the representative said, and conventional controls must "remain functional at all times."
NFL opens a New York venue Friday with eight interactive experiences, we found on a tour Wednesday. D-Box in-seat motion technology is synchronized with on-screen content, with seats and chair backs rumbling according to on-screen action. An NFL film was projected onto a wraparound “4D” screen comprising the front and side walls and half the ceiling. During clips of wintry games, a blower mounted to the ceiling spewed artificial snow, described as a vegetal foam produced from tree sap that’s kosher and gluten-free. We were speckled with snow that melted, leaving no trace by the time credits rolled. The center lacks virtual reality setups because of logistics and hygiene, content developer Thinkwell Chief Operating Officer Francois Bergeron told us. “They can do that at home.” In augmented reality, visitors can see themselves projected into a postgame interview and respond to announcer questions.
Holiday sales aren't disappointing, particularly on mobile, with U.S. Cyber Monday sales of $6.59 billion setting a record as expected (see 1711270057) as the highest volume online shopping day, Adobe said. Mobile shopping spend exceeded $2 billion for the first time Monday, Adobe said, with smartphones having become the “de facto device” for mobile shopping, with 37 percent of retail visits and 21 percent of revenue, Adobe said. The Nov. 1-27 holiday period brought in $50 billion in online shopping revenue, also up 17 percent like Cyber Monday sales. Conversion rates on smartphones were 3.5 percent, up 10 percent from last year. The National Retail Federation reported 63 percent of smartphone owners used mobile devices to make holiday decisions, and 29 percent used their phones for purchases.