Summit Wireless changed its name to WiSA Technologies “to reinforce the brand of WiSA for the world and the consumer,” said CEO Brett Moyer Friday on the company’s Q4 earnings call.

Senate Homeland Security Committee ranking member Rob Portman, R-Ohio, supports cyber incident reporting legislation the House passed Wednesday in its omnibus package, he told us Thursday.

Though the consumer tech industry “condemns the use of forced labor” and “unequivocally supports” the Biden administration’s efforts “to end this scourge around the world,” there are concerns about the timing of import restrictions under the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA), commented CTA in docket DHS-2022-0001. Comments were due Thursday in response to a Department of Homeland Security notice in January on how best to comply with the UFLPA by preventing goods produced with forced labor in China from being imported into the U.S.

LAS VEGAS – Home technology vendors, squeezed by chip shortages and shipping logjams, are battling to meet continued dealer demand for home audio, networking gear and other products they need to finish custom projects, several told us at the ProSource spring Summit this week.

Three states’ privacy bills appeared to fail in one week as legislators struggled to find agreement before their sessions ended. Washington state legislation looked dead Thursday; it hadn’t received votes as legislators neared adjournment. Florida and Wisconsin bills also stalled, and an Indiana bill could also run out of time soon. Recent privacy bill defeats show “it's tough to get a bill passed on a big-ticket item like this,” said Husch Blackwell privacy attorney David Stauss in a Thursday interview.

President Joe Biden signed an executive order Wednesday outlining a national policy on digital assets and directing agencies to explore a U.S. central bank digital currency. Democrats welcomed the news, highlighting crypto-related financial inclusion issues and risks associated with the technology like money laundering. Republicans took a pro-innovation stance, urging Congress to pass legislation to avoid anti-innovation policies.

The global wearables industry shipped a record-high 171 million units in Q4, up 10.8% from the same 2020 quarter, as sustained demand for health and fitness trackers, plus hearables helped the market maintain its momentum, reported IDC Wednesday. Shipments for the full year 2021 totaled 533.6 million units, up 20% over 2020, it said.

Music labels claiming Cox Communications is liable for copyright infringement by its broadband subscribers faced seeming skepticism by a 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel of judges in oral argument Wednesday (docket 21-1168), as Cox appeals a U.S. District Court finding it liable and upholding a jury's $1 billion verdict (see 2101130025). Judge Allison Jones Rushing said the plaintiff-appellees are asking the court "to embrace an extremely broad theory of liability," and it's not clear why the lower court also agreed with it.

Japan and the U.S. are working together on open radio access networks as an alternative to the limited choice of network gear from non-Chinese providers, especially Huawei, speakers said during a Hudson Institute webinar Wednesday. Experts said many challenges remain to scaling up ORAN to make it more attractive to carriers.

LAS VEGAS -- The big picture for the chip supply chain is expected to improve midyear, but ProSource dealers are battling major shortages, we heard at the ProSource Summit here this week. Some have lost projects, and all have had to come up with workarounds to get product they need, often not the product originally specified.