Indian multiplex theater chain PVR said it will install Dolby Atmos sound systems in 50 screens over the next two years, making it one of the largest Dolby Atmos screen rollouts in the country. PVR’s existing properties equipped with Atmos have received “tremendous response” from customers, it said Tuesday. The deal covers properties across India including Delhi, Bangalore, Gurgaon, Kochi and Mumbai.
Cineplexx and Dolby Laboratories will open Dolby Cinema theaters at six locations in Austria over the next two years, the companies said Tuesday. The first two Austrian Dolby Cinema sites combining Dolby Vision laser projection and Dolby Atmos sound will open in Linz this year, said the companies. Additional locations will open in 2016 and 2017, they said.
The Thread Group bashed a GreenPeak white paper, issued last week, stating that “it will be a real challenge for Thread to rise to the level of being a strong contender against ZigBee 3.0.” In the white paper, GreenPeak CEO Cees Links cited ZigBee 3.0’s “years of experience in many application domains,” including lighting control, home automation, building automation and retail, and he said that more than 1,000 ZigBee products have been certified. “Next to the application framework layer, there is a battle going on at the networking level,” Links said, “and the clear contender is ZigBee 3.0 with Thread as the challenger.” A spokeswoman for the Thread Group told us that the GreenPeak white paper “seeks to compare two different technologies with very different functions, and contains a significant number of inaccuracies.” The GreenPeak white paper referred to Thread as “still under wraps today,” although the spokeswoman noted that the Thread spec has been released to members, technical white papers have been released to the public and the Thread certification program will go live this fall, led by UL (see 1507140064). The Thread Group announced “a collaborative partnership with ZigBee in April, and membership in Thread does not preclude participation in ZigBee, nor vice versa,” the spokeswoman said. “Because Thread is application layer-agnostic, a future version of ZigBee's application layer protocol could very well run on top of Thread networks, and Thread expects to announce more similar relationships in the future.” As recently as last month, GreenPeak issued a news release announcing peaceful co-existence with Thread. “As ZigBee is the dominant communication technology for wireless sensor networks and Thread will quickly become a prevailing player in the same IoT communication space, application developers and device manufacturers need a future-proof solution that can combine both communication protocols for connected home applications," Links said in that news release (see 1506300013). He positioned GreenPeak's GP712, capable of supporting multiple protocols in normal operation, as such a solution. “Both ZigBee and Thread will be dominant in the Smart Home and IoT,” Links said, and the GP712 would support "concurrent, transparent and complimentary ZigBee and Thread network application processing, all in the same design, at no extra cost.”
Amped Wireless is taking pre-orders for the Athena HighPower AC2600 Wi-Fi router ($279) with MU-MIMO (multi-user, multi-input), it said. The router is aimed at “high-activity households” with multiple connected devices, said the company. With a Qualcomm 1.4 GHz dual core processor, the AC2600 has enough horsepower to manage music downloads, video chats, 4K streaming and gaming simultaneously, said the company. Features include four high-gain dual-band antennas that can stream four simultaneous Wi-Fi streams including 5 GHz signals up to 1733 Mbps and 2.4 GHz signals at up to 800 Mbps, Amped said. The company claims Wi-Fi speeds up to three times faster than previous generation routers.
Redbox will continue distributing DVDs and Blu-rays from Fox Home Entertainment, maintaining a 28-day window, through June 30, 2017, under a new two-year agreement announced Thursday.
Qualcomm Atheros bowed new 802.11ac Wave 2 products combining multi-user multi-input/multi-output (MU-MIMO) support for 160 MHz channels and 4x4 antenna configurations that are said to deliver higher performance and more-efficient Wi-Fi connectivity. The QCA9984 home router supports up to four simultaneous streams -- 160 MHz contiguous and 80+80 MHz non-contiguous 802.11ac channels -- while also supporting 5/10 MHz narrow channels for public safety applications, Qualcomm said. Additional features include the ability to move seamlessly between channel widths on a packet-by-packet basis to achieve better spectrum efficiency and throughput, the company said, and compatibility with QCA998x and QCA999x solutions for a seamless transition from existing designs. Qualcomm Atheros also launched a hybrid wireless range extender with HomePlug AV2 (HPAV2) multi-input/multi-output (MIMO) powerline and 802.11ac Wi-Fi technologies. A new HomePlug AV2 single-input/single output (SISO) system is said to bring reliability to mainstream broadband equipment. Both powerline technologies are based on the HomePlug AV2 standard, Qualcomm said. The REH152 range extender combines the HomePlug AV2 chipset, said to improve current HomePlug performance by a factor of two to three, with 802.11ac system-on-chip technology to create a dual-band, dual concurrent wireless hot spot anywhere it's plugged in, it said. The REH152’s gigabit ethernet port provides a wired connection to nearby stationary devices, and can be used as an energy-efficient repeater to increase coverage, the company said.
Physical disc sales remain buoyant in France, our mystery shopper visit to a large Fnac store in the historic old city of Lille in the northern part of the country found during Victory in Europe celebrations last weekend. Physical media accounted for 57 percent of prerecorded music sales in France last year, the IFPI said last month in its annual report. Our visit found prices are holding up and there was a wide selection of titles and long line at the multistation checkout for customers buying CDs, LPs, DVDs, Blu-rays and games. But we saw surprisingly few UltraViolet "digital locker" Blu-rays, and only a very small selection of Pure Audio high-fidelity Blu-rays, and those mainly of French artists. Fnac’s stylish stores now dominate the home entertainment market in France. Its branch in Lille extends through two large modern stores, one for music, books and Kobo e-books, and one for consumer electronics including Apple hardware. The two stores are closely adjacent and tastefully constructed inside grand old building shells in the ancient city center. The selection of music and movie titles is generally similar to the HMV store in London, albeit with more emphasis on French artists. Exactly as was the case when we last visited a Fnac store in Nice, France, two years ago, selected CDs in Fnac Lille cost 7 euros (about $7.90) each or four for 20 euros ($22.50), with the option of a digital copy. Perhaps because Lille has its own Opera House, we found a wide selection of classical music CDs and DVDs, often little-known and hard-to-find titles. Pricing of Blu-rays ranges between 15 and 25 euros ($17-$28). Despite the large and wide selection of movie Blu-rays we saw only a very few with the UV “digital locker” label. Another surprise was seeing only one small rack of Pure Audio high-fidelity Blu-rays, given that we were in a country where the new format has been hailed a success. Apart from standard fare, such as a Nina Simone recording for 20 euros, we noted that many of the Pure Audio titles were by French or Belgian artists such as Carla Bruni, Eddy Mitchell, Jacques Brel and Johnny Hallyday, with prices around 25 euros each. A boxed Pure Audio set of Georg Solti’s complete Ring Cycle was priced at 90.26 euros ($101).
A month after Roku got voice control for its Roku 3 and well after Amazon launched Fire TV with search by voice capability, Comcast said Tuesday that users of its X1 platform can now navigate “thousands” of shows and movies with voice commands. In addition to searching for programing by shows, movies and networks, Comcast subscribers set DVR recordings by voice, get recommendations for viewing and navigate Xfinity On Demand, said the company. Calling the remote “smart, fast and intuitive, Sree Kotay, Comcast’s chief software architect, said, “You don’t have to learn a new language or speak like a robot” but instead press a blue button and it “appears on screen.” The remote recognizes hundreds of popular movie quotes, so users who can’t remember Forrest Gump can search by “Life is like a box of chocolates,” Comcast said. Subscribers can pick up a remote at a Comcast location or order one online. The new Comcast remote is backlit for use in the dark and works with RF communication that doesn’t require line of sight transmission, it said.
The Z-Wave Alliance announced a competition Monday designed to spur IoT innovation on the Z-Wave platform. Called Z-Wave Labs, the program is open to startups and “disrupters” looking to bring Z-Wave products to market, said Mary Miller, Sigma Designs' senior director-corporate marketing and Z-Wave board member. The global competition is open to private companies of any size and individuals 18 years of age or older who submit a Z-Wave product innovation application online. A Labs winner will be selected monthly for 12 months based on innovation, functionality, engineering and design style, ingenuity, breadth of applicability, marketability and ease of use, said the alliance. Suggested product categories are residential, commercial, automotive, healthcare, energy, security and aging-in-place, it said. Applications are due before the 15th of each month and winners will receive access to Z-Wave IoT 500 series development kits from Sigma Designs and a full year of Z-Wave Alliance membership, it said.
Vinyl recordings "have seen a revival" in the past few years, with sales increasing by 54.7 percent in 2014 to $346.8 million, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) said in a report Friday. The U.S. is the leading market for vinyl sales, IFPI said. Sales in the U.S. in 2014 jumped 52.8 percent from a year earlier to $181.6 million, it said. Australia, where sales climbed 127 percent from 2013 to $6 million, was the top-10 market with the highest growth rate, it said. But vinyl remains “a comparatively niche part of the global recording industry,” with only 2 percent of the industry’s $14.97 billion revenue in 2014, it said. “The recording industry is a portfolio business, offering music in formats from vinyl to streaming,” IFPI CEO Frances Moore said in a statement. “Critics thought vinyl would disappear as a format, but many music fans around the world seem to be falling in love with it again. With the accompanying artwork and liner notes, vinyl records really can be a work of art and a collector’s delight.” IFPI said it released the data on vinyl sales to commemorate the global Record Store Day festivities that were set to take place Saturday. Now in its ninth year, Record Store Day was conceived “as a way to celebrate and spread the word about the unique culture” of 1,400 independently owned record stores in the U.S. and “thousands of similar stores internationally,” its organizers’ website said. There are Record Store Day participating stores on every continent except Antarctica, the organizers said.