Google affiliate Loon received an FCC Office of Engineering and Technology experimental license for continued testing of parts of LTE bands 20 and 28 using balloon-mounted directional antennas to relay communications between mobile handsets and fixed ground terminals. Approval came Monday. Loon said the test area would remain within an 11 kilometer radius in Nevada.

Apple landed a two-year FCC experimental license Tuesday to test GPS functionality indoors in California at five locations in its Cupertino headquarters and one in Sunnyvale, Office of Engineering and Technology records show. Apple applied Dec. 6, saying the indoor tests are part of the “continued exploration of utilizing GPS technologies" in consumer devices "to provide innovative applications and continue to provide safe products.” The company will use the know-how it gains in the tests for “further design, development and enhancement of existing GPS applications to provide greater efficiency and more effective means of utilizing GPS derived information,” it said. Apple didn’t comment Wednesday.

Cablevideo Digital of Argentina and Ziggo of the Netherlands joined CableLabs, said Tuesday's Federal Register.

Sales in Dell’s Client Solutions Group, which includes commercial and consumer PCs, increased 10 percent for the year ended Feb. 1, as the company “significantly outperformed the industry,” said Jeff Clarke, vice chairman-products and operations, on a Q4 call Thursday. Dell’s PC unit shipments for the year grew 5.6 percent, while the overall industry declined 0.4 percent, he said. “We have now increased our PC share for 24 consecutive quarters and have gained one point of unit share worldwide for the year.”

Sonos unexpectedly adjourned its annual shareholder meeting Wednesday to correct for a “recently discovered technical issue” involving mailing of proxy materials to “certain beneficial owners” of common stock, said an 8-K SEC filing. Adjournment came “without opening the polls” on the agenda items scheduled for a vote, it said. “The adjournment is intended to ensure that such beneficial owners have sufficient time to review” the correct proxy materials before the meeting is reconvened March 15, it said.

TiVo will be Sky Mexico’s primary metadata provider for its next-generation platform, TiVo said Wednesday. The TiVo platform will improve search and recommendations, it said. Sky Mexico previously had relied on multiple vendors for metadata.

Samsung bowed its next-generation tablet Friday, first to incorporate Bixby voice control, as an “ideal hub” to control smart home devices. Samsung highlighted the tablet's smart home functionality, including scene creation through Quick Command, which enables a user to flip on lights and a TV simultaneously with one voice command. The Tab S5e has a 10.5-inch edge-to-edge display, is 0.2-inch thick and weighs 14 ounces. Battery life is given as 14.5 hours. An accessory keyboard is an option. The four speakers have auto-rotate stereo technology that adjusts to portrait or landscape orientation. Sound is by Harman brand AKG and the mobile device integrates Dolby Atmos sound. Spotify is preloaded and users get a free premium subscription to the streaming music service for three months. The Wi-Fi version will be available in Q2 at $399 with a cellular model due later in the year. Samsung also announced it’s expanding its experience stores, opening locations Wednesday in Los Angeles; Garden City, New York; and Houston. Like the company’s first experience center in New York City, the stores won't be shopping destinations. They're designed to educate visitors about Samsung TVs, SmartThings products, wearables, smartphones and tablets; offer support and walk-in repair service for mobile devices; and provide hands-on experiences. The centers feature virtual reality and 8K demos, 4K gaming lounges and stations for visitors to create AR emojis, it said.

Universal Electronics is streamlining operations to be more efficient and to free resources for “strategic investments,” said the company Wednesday. The remote control maker is relocating engineering, supply chain and customer support functions from its Hong Kong regional office to its facilities in Panyu and Suzhou, China. The process began in late 2018 and is expected to be completed over the next three to six months. In response to higher tariffs for its China-made products, the company is moving production to its UEM facility in Monterrey, Mexico, and to a newly assigned contract manufacturing partner in the Philippines. It's “actively upgrading its manufacturing footprint outside China,” while optimizing its China operation “to continue to meet the needs of customers in other international markets.” Also as part of the restructuring, UEI is relocating finance and administration services from Santa Ana, California, to Scottsdale “to stem the rising cost of finance and administration services in Southern California,” management said. It expects to complete transactions this quarter. The company's California-based core engineering and software operations are “a successful equation that is unlikely to change in the future,” it said. The company highlighted Nevo Butler, a voice-enabled smart home hub with a “white label” digital assistant and QuickSet, nevo.AI, and smart home sensors it launched last month. It described QuickSet Cloud as a monitoring and control assistant for the home, designed to allow service providers and CE brands to bring voice-enabled services to customers “while remaining in control of the consumer relationship.” Dougherty & Co. analyst Steven Frankel said the moves “are designed to deliver on management's promise to hold expenses at 2018 levels through 2020.”

Osram is providing the high-tech LED lighting for Red Bull’s Crashed Ice event at Fenway Park in Boston Friday and Saturday. Osram’s DMX-controllable LED lighting will be embedded in the ice, highlighting a track to guide riders downhill and over jumps and other obstacles, said the company. Osram is also outfitting a rider with controllable LED-embedded clothing, it said.

Sony globally sold 3.8 million TVs in Q3 ended Dec. 31, a 35.7 percent increase sequentially from Q2, but a 9.5 percent decline from Q3 a year earlier, said the company Friday. Sony left unchanged the October forecast that it will sell 11.5 million TVs in the fiscal year ending March 31, which would be a 7.3 percent decline from a year earlier. Q3 TV sales declined on the “strategic decision not to pursue scale in order to focus on profitability,” said Sony. Overall Q3 sales in the Home Entertainment & Sound sector, which includes TVs and other core consumer electronics products, declined 9.5 percent to 388.8 billion yen ($3.57 billion), it said. Operating profit in the sector jumped 2.8 percent to 47.5 billion yen ($436.1 million) on the “improvement” in the TV “product mix,” reflecting a “shift to high value-added models,” it said. Sony’s overall Q3 sales were down 10 percent, but operating income jumped 7 percent.