Belkin’s connected things division is selling face masks to address personal protective equipment shortages during the pandemic, said the company Thursday. The single-use, disposable masks provide “reliable and comfortable” cover for the nose and mouth and follow Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines for safety, it said. The expandable masks have a nose clip to reduce air gaps. A box of 50 is $49.95 at Belkin.com. A ComfortFit Face Mask, with loops designed to reduce pressure on the ears, will be available in coming months in 30-packs for $19.99. The company is donating 25,000 masks to frontline workers in Los Angeles, it said.
Target will require customers to wear masks or face coverings beginning Aug. 1, it said Thursday. The new policy is in keeping with "guidance" from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention "on the role masks play in preventing the spread of the coronavirus," emailed a spokesperson. Target will exempt young children and customers with underlying medical conditions. This "builds on the more than 80% of our stores that already require guests to wear face coverings due to local and state regulations," said the spokesperson. Store employees already wear store-provided masks. Target will provide disposable masks at store entrances. It will add signage and overhead audio messages and station team members at entrances to remind customers to wear masks. The retailer will steer shoppers to its "no-contact fulfillment options, including Drive Up, Target.com and Shipt, if they’d prefer," she said. Walmart and Best Buy announced customer such requirements this week (see report, July 16).
COVID-19 focused worldwide attention on drones, speakers said during an Akin Gump webinar Wednesday. The pandemic “created an environment … we have not seen before,” said Ruby Sayyed, International Air Transport Association acting director air-transport movement infrastructure. The need for remote access to facilities for security, inspection or disinfection “increased because of the pandemic,” but safety is critical for the public to accept more use of drones, she said. “When we look at integrating drones into the supply chain, it’s going to take more than just technologies to enable that and to make that scalable to different locations and regions,” Sayyed said. Mark Wuennenberg, Drone Delivery Canada vice president-regulatory affairs, said his company trialed delivery of supplies to a remote first-nation community on an island. The normal mode of delivery is by helicopter with a cost of $1,300 hourly, he said. Drones can reduce that 80-90%, he said. The island community’s goal is to have zero COVID-19 cases because of limited healthcare services, Wuennenberg said. “They can very quickly become overwhelmed and the best method to address the threat is simply not have contact” with outsiders, he said. The company wants to enter the U.S. market and is seeking more harmonization with rules here, he said. “That will do wonders for the U.S. industry.” Building trust with government is important to getting regulations right, Wuennenberg said, noting Canada has been looking at drone rules for six years. “It was important to start early so we understood the box in which we were operating,” he said. Since March, Kenya-based Astral Aviation has been delivering COVID supplies to 26 countries in Africa using manned flights, said CEO Sanjeev Gadhia. Africa is made up of 54 countries, which is a challenge, he said. The “good news” is that after a three-year process, Kenya has rules, which are being harmonized with other nations in East Africa, he said. Drones are being used in Africa for broadcasting the importance of social distancing and spraying hot spots, he said. Once vaccines are developed, a challenge will be getting them everywhere, especially since they have limited shelf life, Gadhia said. Drones can help with last-mile delivery, he said: “We believe Africa is the perfect testing ground. This is the place where we have the worst infrastructure and a lot of challenges with accessibility and connectivity.”
Back-to-school spending may exceed records, reported the National Retail Federation Wednesday. Students and their families anticipate buying more laptops and computer accessories “in anticipation that at least some classes will take place online” due to COVID-19, it said. NRF canvassed 7,500 consumers in early July, finding parents with kids in elementary through high school plan to spend $789.49 on average, topping the previous record of $696.70 last year. College students and their families expect to spend $1,059.20 on average, which would top last year’s record of $976.78. NRF projects total back-to-school spending to reach $101.6 billion, topping the $100 billion mark for the first time. Slightly more than half of respondents said they expect their kids will take at least some of their classes at home this fall. Of those, 36% expect to buy laptops, 22% computer speakers or headphones, 21% other accessories and 17% printers.
Though pandemic “consequences” remain a challenge for the global economy, TomTom revenue is “on the road to recovery from the lows that we experienced in April,” said CEO Harold Goddijn on a Q2 investor call Wednesday. The GPS and mapping device supplier had “a very good upward trend in the second half of the quarter, both for automotive and for retail products,” he said. The June 30 quarter started with “factory and retail closures impacting trading conditions for automotive and consumer,” said Chief Financial Officer Taco Titulaer. The quarter got progressively better with the reopening of automotive factories and “the return to retail activity,” he said. “June was by far the strongest month and contributed about half of the quarter's operational revenue,” though it was down 47% from a year earlier, he said.
Key Digital is targeting the remote learning market with the Presentation Solutions product family. The “app-ready” system includes a video camera, HDBaseT, HDMI, audio and control customized for the education sector, said the company. Educators can use the tools from a classroom or from home. Teachers can move around their classrooms as they would in a room full of students, and the camera will adjust positioning to capture lessons, said Jonathon Ferry, national training manager.
The content industry even before the COVID-19 pandemic was “moving towards software-based systems, virtualization, cloud” and IP, Michael Koetter, WarnerMedia senior vice president-technology strategy, told an SMPTE webinar on media production in the coronavirus era. With stay-at-home mandates in place since March, “it’s been difficult to sustain normal workflow,” he said. “I think we’ve all jumped into the deep end of the pool with these technologies. We’ve pushed this technology adoption curve forward probably by two years.” And “we have not just remote contributors, but remote production operators, remote engineers -- everyone’s remote.” The “crazy thing” about that environment is “we’re not just surviving, we’re thriving,” he said. “The technology is incredibly empowering. Not only have we managed to keep our production going, but we have done everything from taking hours of commute off people’s days to reducing pollution.” The new normal doesn’t just apply to news or sports, “but also to traditional film and TV production,” he said.
New America’s Open Technology Institute urged the FCC to act on a proposal to allocate part of the 5.9 GHz band to Wi-Fi (see 2004300032). “As the 5.9 GHz band remains stuck in idle, Wi-Fi’s use of the neighboring 5 GHz band has accelerated to the point that the unlicensed bands on which nearly all Americans rely for affordable connectivity, particularly indoors, have become increasingly congested due to more devices, more high bandwidth applications, and more off-loading of mobile carrier traffic onto fixed networks,” OTI said in a paper, posted Wednesday in docket 19-138. Dedicated short-range communications is “outdated, costly to implement, and at this point the amount of spectrum allocated two decades ago … is not being used, nor is it necessary to achieve the critical vehicle safety communications functions that justify the allocation," it said.
Deteriorating job prospects and “rising anxieties” about personal finances drove a record decline in global consumer confidence in Q2, reported the Conference Board Wednesday. Nielsen canvassed 33,000 consumers online in 68 countries in May, finding consumer confidence dropped to 92 points in Q2 from a “near-historic” high of 106 early in Q1, before the COVID-19 pandemic “significantly expanded beyond China,” it said. A score above 100 shows optimistic consumers outnumber pessimistic people. A reading below 100 shows the opposite. The 14-point Q2 drop was the largest “period-on-period decline” since the launch of the index 15 years ago, said the board. The latest decline also was twice that of the largest drop during the 2008 global financial crisis, it said: “Early signs of economic rebound in several markets do not necessarily portend a quick recovery in consumer confidence in the coming months. Countries vary in their approaches to containing the pandemic, managing the direct impacts on employment and income, and the trust populations have in their governments.”
With tech industry eyes trained on the fate of the Jan. 6-9 CES 2021 in Las Vegas amid COVID-19, CTA with little fanfare announced Monday it was canceling all CES Asia shows. The pandemic forced the mid-March cancellation of the 2020 CES Asia that was set for June 10-12 in Shanghai (see 2003110036). “We evaluate our events in light of the changing needs of our industry and the priorities of our members and exhibitors,” said CTA. “Given the pandemic, the economy, and our visible role as an American trade association, we have decided to focus on other CES related programs.” The State Department issued a "China -- Level 4: Do Not Travel" advisory June 4 for U.S. nationals. The Shanghai government mandates a 14-day quarantine for foreign visitors.