Chinese social media and tech company Tencent incorporated DTS Stereo Plus in its Dingdang smart display speaker, said the audio company Thursday. DTS Stereo Plus post-processing audio is said to boost sound quality from stereo speakers located inside a single enclosure. The speaker begins shipping in China Monday.
Harman announced a firmware update for the Mark Levinson No. 519 audio player, making it Roon Ready and MQA-certified for playback and authentication of MQA audio files and streams. The No. 519 offers high-resolution digital decoding up to 32-bit, 192kHz from PCM and double-speed direct-stream digital content. Other enhancements in the update: support for up to 8 TB USB hard drives, support for Mac OS formatted hard drives, faster network discovery, a Wi-Fi signal strength indicator and improved user experience with streaming services, said the company.
IHome announced companion dock speakers for the Echo Input, a disc-shaped device that adds Alexa capability to standard loudspeakers. The “Made for Amazon” docking stations, each $49, include the iAV2v2 -- with a built-in clock and 1-amp USB port -- and the iAV5v2, with Bluetooth playback, rechargeable battery and color-changing lights. The speakers are also designed to work with the Echo Dot.
Baidu is collaborating with 3D developer Unity Technologies for a real-time simulation product with virtual environments for testing autonomous vehicles, said the companies Tuesday. The ability to conduct autonomous testing in a simulated environment allows “millions of simulations to simultaneously occur,” reducing testing costs, said Tim McDonough, Unity general manager-industrial.
Fitbit announced Monday the 3.0 operating system for its Ionic and Versa smartwatches. The latest generation OS adds more personal “data-at-a-glance,” including sleep info and an expanded exercise view. Quick logging for weight and water intake allows users to take action based on data from the device, said Fitbit, also announcing new apps for the platform: achu health, Couch to 5K, Genius Wrist, MySwimPro, FitBark, Gold’s AMP for Fitbit, Mindbody, Noonlight and TRX. A new Fitbit Exercise application programming interface and open-source developer tools are said to give developers faster, more efficient ways to build health and fitness apps and clock faces for Fitbit smartwatches, with new apps Alpine Snow and Skateboard launching Monday. Female health tracking capability will arrive early next year, it said.
Global shipments of wearable devices are expected to increase 8.5 percent this year to 125.3 million units, reported IDC Monday. The growing popularity of smartwatches and “greater wearables” adoption in emerging markets will produce an 11 percent five-year compound annual growth rate, with shipments jumping to 189.9 million units in 2022, said IDC. "The transition from basic wearables to smart wearables will continue over the next five years as the two approach parity in terms of market share by 2022," it said. Watches are forecast to reach 72.8 million units in 2018 with smartwatches generating roughly two-thirds of the total watch volume, said IDC. Total watch shipments are expected to reach 120.2 million by 2022 with a CAGR of 13.3 percent, it said. “Outside of smartwatches, hybrid watches and some basic kids' watches will also continue to ship in large volumes although growth for these types of devices will remain relatively flat throughout the forecast period.”
CES exhibitor Omron Healthcare will use the show to introduce a “retail-ready version” of HeartGuide, which it’s billing as the first wearable blood pressure monitor in the U.S., emailed a spokesperson Friday. The HeartGuide uses “oscillometric measurement,” the only FDA-approved method for accurate blood pressure monitoring at home, said the spokesperson. Omron’s CES booth is in Tech West at the Sands Expo Center.
The global consumer IoT market for mobile services providers (MSPs) will be $6.6 billion by 2023, reported ABI Research Wednesday. “Consumer IoT is a nascent and fragmented market where connectivity is an essential enabler,” it said. “MSPs can play a key role in driving the growth of the consumer IoT market from tracking applications to the connected car.” By launching consumer IoT products with “flexible” business models, MSPs can help generate customer demand, which will attract more OEMs to produce more consumer IoT devices, it said: Tech companies “have been slow to target this nascent market.”
More than 271 million audio-centric hearables will be in use by 2022, up from an estimated 62 million this year, with voice assistants and touch sensors among leading interface technologies, Juniper Research reported Wednesday. Audio-focused hearables will be more than half of all wireless headphones in use by 2022, 80 percent in the U.S. Apple’s AirPods, at an estimated 24 million shipments this year, lead the market, and the overall hearables market, including fitness-focused and hearing augmentation devices, is estimated to reach 417 devices in market by 2022. More than 75 percent of hearables in use will incorporate voice assistants by 2022, said the researcher. "In some cases, voice assistants will be the only ‘hearable’ feature of these devices," said analyst James Moar, saying premium manufacturers will need to provide other features -- advanced audio adjustments or innovative interfaces -- for market differentiation. Fitness hearables with custom voice assistants will be 10 percent of hearables in use by 2022, he said. Assistive hearables for the medical market will generate over $40 billion annually by 2022, said Juniper.
Firmware updates from Astell&Kern, due Wednesday, will add MQA support for the high-end audio company’s A&ultima SP1000M, A&futura SE100 and A&norma SR15 audio players, it said Tuesday. Owners of the players with Tidal Masters subscriptions will be able to stream thousands of MQA titles after the update, it said.