Amazon bowed its next-generation Fire HD 10 tablets Tuesday. It touted faster performance from an octa-core processor, a brighter 1080p display, 50% more RAM (3 GB) and a 2-megapixel front-facing camera. There are also new kids’ tablets, with a one-year subscription to Amazon's Kids+ content.
Jabra introduced meeting room cameras designed for the “new normal” workspace. The PanaCast 50, with the form of a sound bar, has a meeting "director" that intelligently adjusts the video stream to follow the action, the electronics maker said Tuesday.
So “historic” has been the growth in consumer tech sales during the pandemic that the U.S. installed base of connected goods now numbers more than a billion computers and mobile and connected-TV devices, reported NPD Monday. It canvassed 5,000 U.S. adults Jan. 25-Feb. 11, finding ownership of TV-connected and mobile devices increased by 100 million units from a year earlier. The average U.S. internet home owned 9.5 installed and connected devices in February, up from 8.5 in February 2020. Stay at home orders "played a part in the tremendous growth we saw in TV-connected and mobile devices last year as consumers looked for new or different ways to consume content,” said analyst John Buffone. “This influx of newer hardware and the growing installed base will continue to facilitate the accelerated growth in free and subscription streaming video.”
Some 43% of multidwelling unit residents owned a smart home device in 2020, vs. 30% in 2019, reported Parks Associates Monday, saying manufacturers seek to drive overall smart home market adoption via MDUs.
Skyworks Solutions is paying $2.75 billion for Silicon Labs’ Infrastructure & Automotive business. Silicon Labs initiated a sale process last fall to address the “massive opportunity” in IoT, said CEO Tyson Tuttle. The segment “requires focus” and investment and has been Silicon Labs’ area of concentration for the past decade, now representing 60% of revenue, Tuttle told investors Thursday. IoT offers the largest and fastest growth opportunity, he said, and it's a “high quality” portion of the business due to the company’s ability to “control the integration path” by integrating components inside single devices, then differentiating with software, solutions, cloud and AI. Chief Financial Officer John Hollister said such growth areas include Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. Silicon Labs closed Friday up 6.9% at $154.60. Skyworks gained 4.1% to $190.92. The deal is expected to close in Q3. Silicon Labs also made some personnel moves. (See the personals section of this issue.)
DSP Concepts launched TalkTogether, adding full-duplex voice capability to its Audio Weaver platform. It's an alternative to third-party, black-box voice solutions, allowing for customized engineering designs. TalkTogether works for near-field to far-field voice calls “in the new hybrid global workplace," said the company Friday. The technology can be applied to Zoom calls, has wind suppression and speaker tracking, and is certified for Alexa.
Consumers are “avoiding iPhone mini and SE,” preferring larger models, reported Consumer Intelligence Research Partners Thursday. Apple’s four iPhone 12 models were 61% of U.S. phone sales in Q1, while the iPhone 11 had the largest single-model share at 24%. The iPhone 12, 12 Pro and 12 Pro Max all had “decent share"; the priciest, the iPhone 12 Pro Max, had 20% of sales, said analyst Josh Lowitz. In the year-ago quarter, the comparable model, the iPhone 11 Pro Max, had 13%. The iPhone 12 mini and SE had the smallest shares of all models, both falling from the December quarter. CIRP surveyed 500 U.S. Apple customers who purchased an iPhone, iPad, Mac computer or Apple Watch in Q1.
DTS announced what it called the first neuromorphic driver monitoring solution (DMS) to detect gaze tracking, head pose, identification and eyelid opening. AutoSense, which includes a DMS and an occupancy monitoring solution, is projected to be on the road in 2021, said the company Wednesday. It uses a raw feed from Metavision’s event-based Vision sensor. Neuromorphic sensors capture information at an equivalent frame rate of 10,000 per second without requiring active illumination, enabling sufficient low-light performance for driver monitoring features and capabilities such as rapid eye movement or micro-expressions, DTS said. The training data set was based on Xperi’s computer vision infrastructure, “reusing ground-truth from the visible and near infrared spectrums,” it said. “Being able to instantaneously detect the subtlest, almost imperceptible, face and eye motions can be lifesaving,” said Xperi Chief Technology Officer Petronel Bigioi.
Harman announced Tuesday the Ignite Store Developers Portal, a hub that gives Android Automotive developers access to toolkits, technical documentation and application programming interfaces to create apps for a Harman's Ignite store. Carmakers can more easily “infuse technology, control experiences and implement digital revenue generators” through a curated store with apps Harman pre-certifies, said the company. The portal connects Android developers with carmakers “to increase the effectiveness and availability of in-vehicle applications on the cloud,” said Sripriya Raghunathan, SBU senior vice president-automotive services. Android developers can more easily engage their target audience, OEMs have a streamlined way to drive new experience opportunities around their brands, and consumers can enjoy what Harman calls “enhanced experiences per mile” with access to their favorite content, she said. OEMs can benefit from digital revenue streams and “minimize traditional costs associated with pursuing new technology solutions,” said the company. Search and delivery platform Audioburst on Tuesday announced availability of its app at Harman’s Ignite store. Through the app, drivers and passengers can say what they want to listen to, and Audioburst generates relevant and personalized podcast and digital radio playlists, it said. The company’s APIs give OEMs user analytics for content consumption, which can be used to inform subscriptions or ads, creating new revenue opportunities, it said. The company’s AI technology constantly listens to thousands of podcasts and radio stations, analyzing and indexing millions of minutes of long-form content, then cutting it into short-form audio clips called “bursts,” it said. Keywords, entities, sentiment and other metadata are extracted to ensure accurate topical segmentation. The bursts are grouped together into playlists to provide listeners with a recommended content stream based on trending topics, past behavior and defined keywords and interests, it said. Categories can be broad, such as technology, or specific, such as a sports team.
Aging devices created healthy Q1 demand for smartphone upgrades, which, combined with a 5G push by Chinese vendors, drove a 24% shipment increase year on year, reported Strategy Analytics Monday. Top-five vendors took 76% share vs. 71% a year ago. Chip shortages and supply side constraints didn’t have an impact in Q1 among the top five brands but will be a concern for smaller vendors over the next few quarters, said analyst Linda Sui. Samsung shipped 77 million phones, up 32% on sales of affordable A series 4G and 5G phones and the flagship S21 series, it said. Apple shipped 57 million units, No. 2 with 17% share. No. 3. Xiaomi shipped 49 million, 15% share.