Buying a TV “is not a priority for most people” during the COVID-19 pandemic, said Omdia analyst Peter Su Tuesday. TV display unit shipments are expected to fall 13% year on year in Q2, and 3% sequentially. For 2020, Omdia forecasts a TV panel shipment drop of 9.9% from last year to 261.7 million units. “While China is now recovering from the crisis and production is back on track in the second quarter, COVID-19 continues to impact the market as consumer demand has weakened worldwide,” said Su. LCD and OLED TV panel shipments are in sharp contrast to notebook PC displays, which are seen increasing 9% year on year in Q2 and jumping 35% vs. Q1, as lockdown conditions in many regions are spurring a surge in demand for small-screen productivity devices. Consumers “increasingly need to buy computers, tablets and monitors so they can work from home or attend online school,” said Su. After a 4% year-on-year drop in overall shipments of thin-film transistor displays over 9 inches in Q1, Omdia predicts a 5% increase in Q2, driven by IT device demand. For 2020, Omdia forecasts notebook panel sales will grow 3.4% to 196.2 million units, monitor panel sales will rise 7.8% to 154.9 million and tablet display sales will swell 16.4% to 116.1 million.
The Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) and the Transportation Research Board said Tuesday they have reconfigured the annual Automated Vehicles Symposium, scheduled to be held in San Diego at the end of July, as a fully interactive virtual event July 27-30. Citing COVID-19 as the reason for the change, AUVSI CEO Brian Wynne said attendees will have access to networking opportunities and content about future research, development and deployment of automated vehicles. Registration fees have been reduced "to reflect the virtual nature of the event."
May sales at electronics and appliance stores jumped 50.5% from April but declined 30.9% from 2019, reported the National Retail Federation Tuesday. Online and other non-store sales were up 9% from April and 25.3% from May 2019, it said. Overall May retail sales jumped 17.7% from April but were down 6.1% year over year, it said. That followed a 14.7% month-over-month drop in April. The report was “very encouraging news at a time when we need to focus on what will happen as retail doors open once again,” said NRF CEO Matthew Shay. “For a sick economy, there is no better medicine than retailers responding to consumers who are ready to safely return to stores.”
Fitbit launched Ready for Work, a COVID-19-inspired health-monitoring solution for employers to help staffers determine whether to go into the workplace. It shows trends in users' Fitbit-tracked health metrics along with self-reported symptoms so they can assess their health from home, said the company. Changes in resting heart rate, heart rate variability and breathing rate are shown in a dashboard alongside self-reported symptoms including temperature and COVID-19 exposure, it said.
Planning for the first COVID-19-era CES is “in full swing” for a physical show in Las Vegas with a digital online component, said CTA Monday. “Though we do expect the show to be smaller, many of the world's leading tech brands are confirmed to showcase the latest technologies, and we will be announcing soon the tech luminaries who will speak on our CES stages.” Registration for the Jan. 6-9 event will open “later in the fall,” said CTA: “We all face new considerations about attending conferences, conducting business and traveling to meetings.”
Communications Subcommittee ranking member Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, and Commerce Committee Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., led a letter Monday with 28 other senators to “make permanent” language included in the Coronavirus Aid Relief and Economic Security Act and other COVID-19 bills from the Creating Opportunities Now for Necessary and Effective Care Technologies for Health Act. HR-4982/S-2741, refiled in October (see 1910300023), aims to expand telehealth services through Medicare. Language from it increased access during the pandemic (see 2003250046). “Americans have benefited significantly from this expansion of telehealth and have come to rely on its availability,” the senators wrote Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. “Congress should expand access to telehealth services on a permanent basis so that telehealth remains an option for all Medicare beneficiaries."
CEDIA is resuming in-person technology and business summits this fall “based on the best information we have today and the guidance and resources that have been put out by each city and state that we have an event planned in,” a spokesperson emailed Monday in response to our questions on COVID-19 preparedness. Those guidelines will also determine the number of individuals each event can accommodate, she said, adding that the trade organization will be “nimble to any changes that would affect our ability to safely put on the event.” CEDIA plans to hold eight tech summits from Sept. 22-Dec. 3 at the Crowne Plaza Atlanta Perimeter at Ravinia; the Sheraton DFW Airport Hotel, Irving, Texas; the Hilton Houston Post Oak, Houston; the Toronto Airport Marriott; Renaissance Newark Airport Hotel, Elizabeth, New Jersey; Melville Marriott, New York; Warner Center Marriott, Woodland Hills, California; and the Irvine Marriott, California. New procedures put in place in response to the coronavirus include masks provided at check-in and possible temperature checks: Anyone with a fever of 100.4 or higher won’t be admitted. Mealtimes will be assigned to sponsors and attendees at registration to maintain proper social distancing and food safety, she said. There will be increased distance between sponsor displays, in aisles and in defined traffic patterns to avoid overcrowding, she said. A new virtual event has been added for Sept. 24. CEDIA added a keynote by Google to be streamed at the fall events and a two-part cybersecurity course to the programming. All keynote attendees will receive a Google Nest Mini, CEDIA said.
With content production still in widespread global lockdown from the COVID-19 pandemic, “strategic” diagnostic testing for the coronavirus “is critical for a safe return to work” for cast and crew, said “guidelines” published Friday by four unions in the film and TV industry. Without testing, “cast and crew would be asked to work each day in an environment of unknown risk,” said the Directors Guild of America, the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, the Teamsters and the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of TV and Radio Artists. They propose that productions set up a system of A, B and C protective “zones.” Zone A is a “bubble encasing closely vetted vulnerable people,” including performers and crew, with no social distancing or masks. Zone B “is everywhere the production has a footprint that is not Zone A,” they said. Zone C is “the outside world,” they said. “No one can be allowed access to Zone A or Zone B for the first time unless they have been tested and cleared within the last 24 hours.”
Adobe “successfully transitioned” last month’s canceled Adobe Summit in Las Vegas to an “exclusively digital event,” said CEO Shantanu Narayen on a fiscal Q2 call Thursday. Holding the summit virtually “enabled us to engage a far larger audience than an in-person event and set the bar for virtual events,” he said. The conference “engaged” more than a half-million visitors, he said. Though it was difficult pre-pandemic to imagine conducting business only virtually with chief marketing and information officers, “a side benefit of everyone working at home is that we are able to schedule and engage with far more customers across multiple continents,” he said. “In all these discussions with business leaders, it is clear that investments in digital and specifically customer experience are more important than ever.”
House Commerce Committee Chairman Frank Pallone, D-N.J., and Communications Subcommittee Chairman Mike Doyle, D-Pa., pressed the FCC Friday for “additional transparency” in the $200 million COVID-19 telehealth program. The FCC said Wednesday it has approved $104.98 million (see 2006100046). “While the FCC has posted weekly updates of funding awards, we are troubled by the lack of transparency regarding the health care providers who have applied but have not yet received an award,” Pallone and Doyle wrote Chairman Ajit Pai. “We have heard reports that many health care providers are facing issues obtaining funds, particularly those serving tribal lands. Similarly, health care providers report they have been unable to receive funding for some important telehealth equipment.” Pallone and Doyle want by June 19 a weekly updated “docket that includes all the applications the Commission has received” plus which applications have been approved and when funding is disbursed. They seek “a summary of any uses or devices that were not approved.” The agency “has been administering this program in a transparent manner,” a spokesperson emailed. “We have been providing weekly announcements of all of the funding applications that have been approved along with the details of those approved telehealth projects provided by the applicants.” The FCC’s “website contains a list of all of the approved applications sorted by state,” the spokesperson said. “Our focus has been and must continue to be on processing all of the applications quickly and carefully, an effort that could be undercut if we turn our attention to creating a new system for posting pending applications.”