Calrec Audio, Ericsson, Rohde & Schwarz and Xilinx joined the Alliance of IP Media Solutions, the group said in a news release Tuesday. Other members of the trade group -- which promotes IP broadcast standards -- include 21st Century Fox, CBS, NBCUniversal, Panasonic and Sony, according to its website.

Consumer intentions to buy TV sets remained steady in October compared with September, according to preliminary data in the Conference Board’s monthly survey. Nielsen canvassed 5,000 consumers for the Conference Board through Oct. 13, and found 12.7 percent said they plan to buy a TV set in the next six months, unchanged from 12.7 percent in September, but down from 13.6 percent in August and up slightly from 12.4 percent in October 2015, the board reported Tuesday. But the Consumer Confidence Index declined in October after back-to-back gains in August and September, it said: “Consumers’ assessment of current business and employment conditions softened, while optimism regarding the short-term outlook retreated somewhat. However, consumers’ expectations regarding their income prospects in the coming months were relatively unchanged. Overall, sentiment is that the economy will continue to expand in the near-term, but at a moderate pace.”

IoT gateway shipments are on the rise, forecast to exceed 64 million units in 2021, ABI Research reported Monday. Home automation and security market components will be well over half of all IoT gateway shipments over the next five years, and mobility, transportation, industrial and infrastructure segments will generate the most revenue, ABI said. The home automation and security market, which relies on gateways for aggregating and orchestrating communications between home sensors and cloud services, will be just 30 percent of the market’s five-year value because home gateways don’t have the same requirements for ruggedness, antenna design and processors as those used in industrial and commercial settings, said analyst Dan Shey. The industrial and infrastructure market segment relies on traditional markets such as smart grid and video surveillance, and in the future will benefit from applications in smart cities and manufacturing industries, he said.

The number of mobile banking logins exceeds internet banking logins in many markets, Juniper Research reported Tuesday. Banking app logins in the U.K. reached a record 11 million per day last year, compared with 4.3 million internet banking logins, it said, and 65 percent of mobile banking customers in the U.S. and the U.K. use an app for banking. Banks are becoming increasingly concerned their market position is being undermined by tech companies and pure-play vendors entering the market, enabled by technology and regulations, said the researcher. By 2017, banks in the EU will be required to open their application programming interfaces, resulting in innovative new data-based products that create attractive financial services for customers, Juniper said.

The National Retail Federation sees U.S. holiday sales rising 3.6 percent this year to $655.8 billion, it said in a Tuesday forecast report. That increase would be “significantly higher” than the 10-year average of 2.5 percent and above the seven-year average of 3.4 percent since the economic recovery began in 2009, NRF said. “All of the fundamentals are in a good place, giving strength to consumers and leading us to believe that this will be a very positive holiday season,” said President Matthew Shay in a statement. Holiday sales in 2015 increased 3 percent from a year earlier, NRF said. “Consumers have seen steady job and income gains throughout the year, resulting in continued confidence and the greater use of credit, which bodes well for more spending throughout the holiday season,” said Chief Economist Jack Kleinhenz. “Increased geopolitical uncertainty, the presidential election outcome and unseasonably warm weather are the main issues at play with the greatest potential to shake consumer confidence and impact shopping patterns. However, the economic spending power of the consumer is resilient and it should never be underestimated.”

Consumer spending for wireless speakers enabled by virtual personal assistants (VPAs) like Amazon’s Alexa, Google Assistant, Apple's Siri and Microsoft's Cortana will reach $2.1 billion globally by 2020, from $360 million in 2015, Gartner said in a Monday report. VPA speakers, especially those that are wall-powered, allow for multiple devices to be owned by a household and installed in a home, said the research firm. “The value of the device is derived from the ease of use and the natural, intuitive interaction model,” it said. “If this value is recognized by all household members, it will drive the desire to have terminal access throughout the entire house, not just in one room.” Today's VPAs have limited vocabularies, “but they will improve in the future,” Gartner said. Gartner expects that by 2020, “a natural-language interaction could be delivered that satisfies users and creates scenarios with significantly improved value,” it said. “Adoption of VPA interaction, especially in commercial applications, will occur and drive unit sales for VPA speakers.”

Health and fitness tracking using a mobile app, fitness band or smartwatch is popular among one in three internet users globally, GfK said in a Thursday report. Men globally are more likely than women to use a fitness tracker, but five countries -- Australia, Canada, China, France and Russia -- “stand out” as having a higher percentage of their female online populations using a tracking app or device, it said. Overall, fitness trackers are most popular among adults age 20-39, it said. Only a quarter of teenagers 15 and older now track their fitness activity, but many more said they did so in the past, the report said. “This suggests potential for bringing this significant number of past users back into the market” with the right messaging or promotional offers from retailers and manufacturers, it said.

Seventy-three percent of U.S. broadband households have at least one entertainment device connected to the internet, an increase of 11 percentage points over early 2015, said a Parks Associates report Thursday. Smart TVs are on track to surpass connected gaming consoles as the No. 1 streaming device in the home, though purchases are largely part of the standard replacement cycle as new TVs “are likely to be smart,” said analyst Barbara Kraus. Some 32 percent of broadband households with at least one connected streaming device use a gaming console as the primary means of streaming media, a 27 percentage point drop in two years, while smart TVs are the streaming device of choice in 28 percent of households, she said. “New owners of smart TVs will try out the smart functionality in the new TV and continue to use it if it meets expectations.” Smart TV ownership in the U.S. grew to 45 percent of broadband households in Q1, said Parks. A quarter of broadband households are using a tablet to access online video content and 20 percent do so using a smartphone, it said. Nearly 90 million streaming media players will be sold globally in 2020, said Parks, with most growth coming from the Asia-Pacific region for the stick form factor.

On average, three-quarters of mobile internet users have made a purchase on their smartphones or tablets in the past six months, said an Interactive Ad Bureau survey report Tuesday on the global perspective of mobile commerce. IAB commissioned researchers to canvass 3,800 adults during July and August in 19 global markets, including the U.S., to gauge what items they bought on their mobile devices, how often they purchased and how much they spent. In a typical month, mobile purchases and payments made by those canvassed were 31 percent of total monthly purchases, “whether that be purchasing directly via their mobile device or by paying in store using their mobile,” the report said. “Convenience” and “value” are the features that drive most mobile purchases, and “overall satisfaction” is as high as 80 percent, which bodes fell for the future, it said. More than six in 10 (62 percent) plan to buy more products and services via their smartphones or tablets in the next six months, said IAB.

Consumer intentions to buy TV sets declined sharply in September, according to preliminary data in the Conference Board’s monthly survey. Nielsen canvassed 5,000 consumers for the Conference Board through Sept. 15, and found 11.2 percent said they plan to buy a TV set in the next six months, down from 13.6 percent in August, 12.5 percent in July and 13.1 percent in September 2015, the Conference Board said in a Tuesday report. However, the Consumer Confidence Index increased in September for a second straight month to reach its highest level since the recession, it said. “Consumers’ assessment of present-day conditions improved, primarily the result of a more positive view of the labor market. Looking ahead, consumers are more upbeat about the short-term employment outlook, but somewhat neutral about business conditions and income prospects. Overall, consumers continue to rate current conditions favorably and foresee moderate economic expansion in the months ahead.” CTA had a somewhat more negative take about September consumer confidence toward tech spending and the overall economy. The association’s Index of Consumer Technology Expectations, which measures consumer expectations about technology spending, decreased in September, as did its Index of Consumer Expectations, which measures consumer sentiment about the U.S. economy as a whole, CTA said in Tuesday announcement. “Decline in economic sentiment is primarily driven by lower expectations about the broader economy,” CTA said. “The economy has seen meager growth -- up only one percent through the first half of the year -- which has put general downward pressure on wage growth and consumer sentiment.”