Qualcomm Technologies is using NRF 2022, the retail industry trade show at New York’s Javits Center, to showcase “how IoT technologies are helping retailers digitally transform their environments and processes,” blogged Art Miller, global head-retail IoT. “Our solutions improve in-store experiences by bringing the best of ‘online’ to the offline world, reducing friction at each stage of the retail journey and providing inspiration and advice to consumers, ultimately enhancing their shopping experience.” Examples include deploying robots for cleaning store floors, or using augmented-reality devices for training store employees, said Miller on Friday. NRF 2022 was to open Sunday and run through Tuesday.

“Baseline” forecasts for e-commerce growth through 2026 “exceed anything seen in the prior six or more years,” reported ABI Research Thursday. It’s projecting global e-commerce revenue will reach $8 trillion in 2026, from $560 billion in 2020, noting the “explosive” growth potential “underscores the need for supply chains to become more flexible and agile to address future disruptions and create more resilient value chains.” The COVID-19 pandemic exposed the weaknesses of “fragmented, regionally dependent, and inflexible supply chains,” said ABI analyst Susan Beardslee. “Even as current challenges subside, new, and potentially unforeseen challenges will become the norm, and companies will need to ensure supply under a more volatile business landscape.”

CTIA announced the launch of its 5G Security Test Bed (STB), which is designed to verify recommendations by the FCC’s Communications Security Reliability and Interoperability Council for 5G networks. It’s based at the University of Maryland, and CTIA, AT&T, Ericsson, T-Mobile, UScellular, Mitre and the school are its founding members, CTIA said Wednesday. “5G is the most secure generation of wireless technology, with enhanced protections built into it from the ground-up,” the group said: “The STB was created to build on this foundation, testing use cases, making recommendations, and further bolstering 5G’s security.” It will start as a 5G network with a 4G core, then change to a stand-alone network.

CTA filed four nearly identical applications Friday to trademark a logo for promoting awareness of consumer radar products and "the importance of such products meeting certain performance standards,” Patent and Trademark Office records show. The proposed trademark consists of the word Ripple, alongside what the applications call a “stylized fish design.” CTA announced Ripple on the opening day of CES 2022 with little fanfare as a new industry standard for radar system development "that will enable hardware and software interoperability for general purpose consumer radar across industrial, automotive and medical applications." A working group formed in 2021 with the participation of Aptiv, Blumio, Ford, Google, Infineon, NXP and Texas Instruments devised the standard to "accelerate the growth of low-power, general purpose radar," said CTA. Ripple's framers envision "a number of possible use cases including non-invasive wellness monitoring, occupancy detection, human activity, and touchless gesture controls," emailed a CTA spokesperson Tuesday. "At this point, we are not planning on having a certification logo for product compliance," he said. The goal of the first release of Ripple's open application programming interface "is to accelerate the growth of applications" by enabling interoperability across various types of radar hardware implementations, he said.

CTA's first in-person CES during the global pandemic drew “well over” 40,000 before the abbreviated show closed Friday after a three-day run, it announced. That's about 23% of the “total verified attendance” at CES 2020, according to that show’s audit report. International visitors made up some 30% of CES 2022's audience, said CTA. Virtually all who commented about low show attendance said they used this to personal advantage, such as enjoying shorter taxi, monorail or concession lines and the ability to engage in deeper conversations with clients, customers and friends they hadn’t seen face to face in two years.

Consumer technology sales will decline 5% this year, after rising 9% in 2021 to $127 billion, said NPD Thursday. The researcher expects declines of 4% in 2023 and 1% in 2024. Near term, NPD expects “slowing demand from the extraordinary rates we have been seeing over the last two years” due to COVID-19 pandemic lifestyle changes, said analyst Stephen Baker.

Smartphone OEMs procured 634 million AMOLED panels globally in 2021, worth $379 billion in revenue, reported Display Supply Chain Consultants Monday. Unit volume increased 27% year over year, and revenue was up 22% from 2020, it said. Flexible AMOLED smartphone panels increased by 28% to generate a 56% unit share and a 73% revenue share, said DSCC. The segment dominated due to the expected Q3 and Q4 “lift” from Apple for the iPhone 13 series and more brands launching flexible AMOLED smartphones to focus on premium smartphones in light of chip supply shortages, it said.

Wearable tech will be the top fitness trend for 2022, an American College of Sports Medicine online survey of 4,500 health and fitness professionals found. “Tech advances have made it easy for users to collect important health metrics and work with fitness professionals and health care providers to develop healthy lifestyles and increase quality of life,” said Walter Thompson, past president and lead author of the study. “Though wearable tech has been dominating the fitness industry for some time now,” said ACSM, “it is no surprise that it is also increasingly finding a place within people’s fitness routines.” Of the seven global markets in which health and fitness professionals were canvassed, China was the only country in which wearable tech didn’t place in the top 20 trends for 2022, said ACSM.

Eyewear company Vuzix signed an agreement with Verizon leveraging the carrier’s Ultra Wideband 5G and edge computing technologies for augmented-reality smart glasses for sports and gaming, said Vuzix Monday. They will focus on advancing the development and commercialization of delivering “immersive” AR “training experiences,” it said.

COVID-19 pandemic-fueled growth will continue next year for the wearables and wireless headsets sectors, but 5G millimeter-wave smartphone shipments won’t reach “critical mass,” reported ABI Research Tuesday on top tech trends for watch in 2022. “With more time being spent at home, the pandemic has seen an uptick in the use of wireless headsets, driven by the need for personalized audio experiences that minimize external distractions and achieve high-quality sound,” said ABI. It forecasts that wireless headset shipments will reach more than 1 billion units globally in 2026 and will lead the smart accessories market, it said. “Ecosystem momentum” for 5G mmWave “is gathering pace as a number of regions are targeting deployments,” said ABI. But even with “tangible indicators” that mmWave is beginning to appear in more smartphone models, it will be less than 5% of global sales in 2022, it said.