BlackBerry CEO John Chen acknowledges it was “a rough year for our share price and our equity value,” but he and the board are “extremely bullish about our going-forward plan,” he told the company’s annual shareholder meeting virtually Tuesday. The ambition is to become the “must-have software provider for endpoints,” said Chen. BlackBerry sees a $38 billion market opportunity in helping “people that build devices” for the smart home or smart city, he said. The compound annual growth rate of the software business has been about 20% the past four years, said Chen. “We're pretty pleased with that number,” but “we're working very hard to make it higher than that,” he said. The “technology lab” was created about a year ago, he said. “We’ve done a lot of good stuff,” including the automotive cybersecurity tech it demonstrated at CES to “predict certain fault conditions in the car,” he said. Shares closed 3.5% lower Wednesday at $4.92.

Vizio added the Movies Anywhere app to its SmartCast smart TV platform, it said Tuesday. Users can access movies purchased across platforms and digital retailer accounts through the app, it said. Participating studios are Sony, Universal (including DreamWorks and Illumination Entertainment), Disney (including Disney, Pixar, Twentieth Century Studios, Marvel Studios and Lucasfilm), and Warner Bros. Consumers can sync movie collections across Apple TV, Prime Video, Vudu/Walmart, Xfinity, Google Play/YouTube, Microsoft Movies & TV, FandangoNOW and Verizon Fios TV.

Global OLED panel revenue will increase 14% in 2020 to $31.8 billion, and will grow to $51.2 billion by 2025, reported Display Supply Chain Consultants Monday. It expects smartphones to “continue to dominate the revenue picture” for OLED panels, but its share will “slowly erode as other applications pick up,” it said. Smartphones were 81% of OLED panel revenue in 2019, “but we expect that share to decline to 67% in 2025,” it said. TV panel revenue will increase steadily, “as we expect innovation to push OLED TV to continued success in the premium TV space,” said DSCC.

With 30% of U.S. households using a smart speaker, consumers are gravitating toward an integrated ecosystem with a voice assistant at the core, reported NPD Thursday. Of those homes, the biggest increases in connected technology adoption are in home automation (+152%), smartwatches (+120%), smart TVs (+60%), smart gaming consoles (+60%), streaming media players (+44%) and tablets (+26%), it said.

SiriusXM said Wednesday buying podcast management platform Simplecast, combined with the acquirer's AdsWizz, lets creators publish and generate revenue. Simplecast and AdsWizz will form SiriusXM’s publisher solution business. Sirius has Pandora for Podcasters, it noted.

Samsung's AMOLED 5G phone costs $599. The Galaxy A71 5G begins selling Friday at T-Mobile, Sprint and Samsung.com. The 6.7-inch phone will be available through AT&T, Verizon Wireless and other carriers later this summer, it said. AT&T will begin preorders Friday with 5G availability in 327 markets July 10, said the carrier, pushing a $10 monthly plan with unlimited data.

Sonos CEO Patrick Spence slammed Google's alleging his company is stealing “substantial volumes” of Google’s patented technology in search, audio processing and streaming (see 2006110024). Google’s complaint (in Pacer) against Sonos Thursday in U.S. District Court in San Francisco came five months after Sonos alleged Google stole the technologies in five of its multiroom audio patents. Instead of addressing the “merits” of the Sonos allegations against Google, “and paying us what we're owed, Google has chosen to use their size and breadth to try and find areas in which they can retaliate,” said Spence in a statement Thursday: “We look forward to winning our original case, and this newly filed case as well.” Google “seems to have no shame in copying the innovations of smaller American companies in their attempts to extend their search and advertising monopolies into new categories,” said Spence. “We're mostly sad to see a once innovative company with the mission of ‘Do No Evil’ avoid addressing the fact they've infringed on our inventions, and have turned to strong arm tactics the robber barons of old would have applauded." A Google spokesperson declined comment Friday. We’re told Google for now won’t take its allegations to the International Trade Commission, as Sonos did against Google in January. The ITC’s Tariff Act Section 337 investigation into the Sonos complaint is in the discovery phase, where it reached an impasse over the remote review of source code evidence because in-person meetings aren't possible due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

South Korea’s Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy chose LG Display to lead its project to develop stretchable displays, said the company Thursday. Such displays will play a huge role in IoT, 5G and self-driving cars, said Soo-Young Yoon, head of LG Display Laboratory. Applications include “multi-foldable" smart devices, wearables and auto and aviation displays.

One in four smart homes in the U.S., Germany, France and U.K. has a video doorbell, said Strategy Analytics Wednesday. They're the fourth-most popular smart home device despite being on the market for far less time than smart thermostats, surveillance cameras and smart light bulbs, it said. The devices are installed in millions of smart homes, in spite of concerns about privacy and hacking, indicating perceived benefits outweigh risks, said the research firm. Ring was the most frequently mentioned brand in a survey, mentioned some 50% more often than second-place Nest. The two brands, owned by Amazon and Google, have influenced how video doorbells are sold, established the price points, determined primary selling locations and outlined installation processes, said analyst Jack Narcotta. The devices are on the way to becoming mass-market as prices have dropped and self-installation has become easier, said analyst Bill Ablondi. Feature gaps separating brands will close over the next few years, he said.

InnoPhase has low-power wireless SoCs for edge IoT products, including Wi-Fi and Bluetooth low energy. They're targeted to smart home battery-based, direct-to-cloud devices such as smart door locks, remote security cameras and connected sensors, said the company Tuesday.