Comcast added multilingual English and Spanish language support for its Xfinity X1 voice remote. The company processes more than 6 million Spanish-language commands monthly for customers who set their primary X1 language as Spanish, blogged Lead Engineer Raul Guerra Paredes Wednesday. “Unlike a personal electronic device like a phone, which can just be set to a mode where it only takes Spanish-language inputs and gives only Spanish responses, we knew that many of our Spanish-speaking customers lived in homes where both English and Spanish are spoken interchangeably.” Human speech patterns add complexity, Paredes said. Comcast engineers built technology so that when a customer makes a command, the voice platform queries English and Spanish voice databases simultaneously, he said. “We make manual changes to ensure we are capturing the most popular commands and train our [artificial intelligence] and machine learning algorithms to continuously improve." Some 23 million Xfinity customers have used voice remotes, issuing more than 3.5 billion voice commands in the first half of 2018. In both languages, requests for free movies top the list of voice commands, it said.
AT&T plans to launch a streaming service in Q4 2019 as a result of combining with Time Warner, it said Wednesday. An SEC filing with few details said it would represent "a new choice for entertainment with the WarnerMedia collection of films, television series, libraries, documentaries and animation."
The Competitive Enterprise Institute is taking its failed FCC fight over conditions on Charter Communications buying Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Those conditions, and the agency's order last month rejecting CEI's petition for reconsideration of those conditions (see 1809100048), are contrary to longstanding policy, said a notice of appeal to be filed with the D.C. Circuit. The FCC didn't comment. Chairman Ajit Pai dissented on the conditions in 2016 (see 1605100050), saying they put the agency ever closer to banning usage-based pricing and "micromanaging where, when and how ISPs deploy infrastructure." That likely won't affect the agency's position in court since it won't want to encourage other parities to come in and challenge conditions on other mergers, a longtime media lawyer said. Common Cause Director-Media and Democracy Program Yosef Getachew said the agency denying under Pai the recon petition points to it defending those conditions despite the chairman's previous criticisms. He said CEI could face a challenge in its appeal since the reasons for the petition denial -- all on procedural grounds -- appear solid. The commission under Pai in 2017 rolled back some of the broadband overbuild conditions on New Charter (see 1704030039).
Vizio would change privacy disclosures and menu options beyond refinements the FTC required under a February 2017 consent decree, said the proposed $17 million class-action settlement agreement (in Pacer) to end complaints the “smart interactivity” function violated the Video Privacy Protection Act (see 1604060039). Cases had been consolidated in U.S. District Court in Santa Ana, California, where plaintiffs filed an “unopposed” motion (in Pacer) asking Judge Josephine Staton to convene a Dec. 7 ratification hearing. In the new deal versus the FTC one, the manufacturer will delete about another year of consumer viewing data, will add more on-screen disclosures and will let customers know about the settlement via announcements on their smart sets and by social media ads. Average settlements will be $13-$31.
Atlantic Broadband finalized its buy of FiberLight's south Florida fiber network, it said Wednesday. The deal -- giving Atlantic an additional 350 miles route miles -- was announced in January (see 1801250033).
The FCC Media Bureau is doing 2018 equal employment opportunity audits, and mailed out its third set of audit letters to MVPDs Thursday, said a public notice. The FCC randomly audits 5 percent of all stations and MVPDs each year.
With the New Jersey Division of Rate Counsel having withdrawn its nine separate applications for review of various determinations of effective competition in different communities, the applications for review are dismissed, the FCC Media Bureau said in an order Thursday.
More than nine in 10 over-the-top video subscribers are members of Amazon Prime Video, Hulu or Netflix, Parks Associates said Monday. Though new online pay-TV and premium channels pushed into the OTT space last year, they haven’t made a dent in the top three’s market position due to “strong viewer loyalty,” said analyst Brett Sappington.
Comcast should “discontinue” claiming in broadcast ads that DirecTV is unreliable in bad weather, recommended the National Advertising Division. The recommendation results from a DirecTV challenge of a Comcast ad that shows a DirecTV antenna being struck by lightning and mentions weather can cause satellite signals to pixelate. DirecTV said the commercial doesn't explicitly state service interruptions from severe weather are typical, but "the advertisement strongly implies it,” the group said. Comcast argued the ad was similar to other Comcast commercials that NAD found to be substantiated. NAD said Comcast should “avoid conveying the message” that the satellite provider offers no free shows or “movies on the go,” but rejected a DirecTV allegation Comcast made false claims about the number of free shows and to-go movies in its introductory package. DirecTV is appealing the latter ruling, and Comcast is appealing the rulings against it.
Video entertainment devices are expected to reach 457.5 million units shipped by 2022, a 10.9 percent compound annual growth rate, IDC reported Monday. Devices including Apple TV, Fire TV, Chromecast and Roku will serve as the gateway into the smart home ecosystem, leading to “immense competition” in content and price, the researcher said. It expects the worldwide smart home device market to grow 31 percent this year over 2017 to 643.9 million shipments, reaching 1.3 billion by 2022. Smart speakers are expected to post the fastest growth.