With the delayed Matter specification now pushed to an expected fall release, IoT industry companies remain hopeful the standard will bring compatibility, ease of use, reliability and security to the disparate smart home space, said panelists on a recent Matter webinar sponsored by Silicon Labs.

New York state could soon have the nation’s first digital electronics right-to-repair law, after the legislature passed on a bipartisan basis a proposal (S-4104/A-7006) Friday to require OEMs to provide parts, tools and repair documentation to consumers and independent repair shops. Advocates celebrated their first state victory on an electronics repair bill after years of trying to overcome tech industry lobbying against the legislation.

Blue state New York could soon join red states Texas and Florida in seeking to regulate social media companies. Despite opposition by tech and civil liberties groups, Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) is expected to sign a measure, passed Thursday by the Senate and Wednesday by the Assembly, to require social platforms to provide reporting mechanisms for hateful conduct. Also, the Assembly was expected to vote later Thursday on a Senate-passed measure that could make New York the first state with a digital right-to-repair law.

GameStop set out 12 months ago to “transform a decaying brick-and-mortar retailer into a technology-led organization that meets customers' needs through stores, through e-commerce properties and through emerging digital marketplaces and online communities,” said CEO Matt Furlong on an earnings call Wednesday for its fiscal Q1 ended April 30. Furlong joined GameStop as CEO last June after a nine-year career at Amazon, following a string of interim CEOs after Paul Raines left for medical reasons in November 2017 (see 2203180017).

Same-store sales tumbled 9.5% in Q1 at Conn’s for the FY ’23 quarter ended April 30, due to lapping stimulus comparisons, the “challenging macroeconomic environment" and continued third-party lease-to-own tightening, said CEO Chandra Holt on a Wednesday earnings call. CE sales slid 13.5 to $33.6 million, said the earnings release.

HP, like most PC vendors, expects it will continue to have strong commercial PC demand for the rest of calendar 2022, with “some softening of the consumer businesses,” said CEO Enrique Lores on an earnings call Tuesday for fiscal Q2 ended April 30. Revenue in HP’s Personal Systems segment grew 9% to $11.5 billion -- “our highest Q2 revenue ever, reflecting the durability of PC demand,” he said.

IEEE is taking a broad view of how 5G and the path to 6G are affected by broader trends in its International Network Generations Roadmap (INGR), speakers said during an IEEE webinar Wednesday. The program featured leaders of several of the working groups developing the road map. Experts agreed there are no easy answers and the challenges will require years of work to resolve.

The Supreme Court’s slim margin blocking Texas from enforcing a social media law surprised some court watchers. The action via a 5-4 emergency ruling Tuesday in NetChoice v. Paxton barred the law from being enforced while under consideration by the lower courts. Questions remain about where justices would stand in a case on the law’s merits, with Tuesday’s opinion shedding light only on three dissenting members’ views, said observers in interviews.

The tech industry and state officials were waiting Friday for a potential Supreme Court decision that could prove significant for social media content moderation practices. Various court decisions issued throughout the week raised questions about interpretation of Communications Decency Act Section 230 that some want the Supreme Court to settle.

While cable's video subscriber numbers continue their downward slide, cable operators and watchers see video still having a long tail, with major providers not reaching a tipping point anytime soon.