Best Buy at the Nov. 3 close of its Q3 had $1.9 billion available for future stock buybacks
of the $5 billion its board authorized in February 2017, said the retailer Friday in a 10-Q. It spent $168 million of that remaining money between Nov. 3 and Dec. 5 on an “incremental” buyback of 2.5 million shares, it said.

Ultra-miniature laser-display and sensors supplier MicroVision priced its 7 million-share common-stock offering at 60 cents a share, said the company Friday. It expects to use the $3.7 million net proceeds for general corporate purposes, it said. Shares closed 14 percent lower Friday at 57 cents, matching their 52-week low. MicroVision said on its last quarterly earnings call in October that it’s on track to deliver its first consumer lidar products next year.

Salamander Designs and Screen Innovations partnered on a solution for projectors combining short-throw credenzas and made-to-order motorized screens. Matching the two in a “place-projector-here” housing eliminates guesswork and time, requiring no electrician or outside labor, said the companies. Credenzas have an aluminum support chassis, projector cavity and active cooling system covered by louvers that vent warm air. The SI Solo Pro screens are available in two motor options -- lithium-rechargeable or low-voltage -- and are available up to 100 inches.

Amazon repeated as No. 1 brand in net favorability with a 78.7 rating, Morning Consult reported Tuesday. The brand most people told friends about was Netflix, with 74 percent “very likely” to recommend it. Of 18-21-year-olds and millennials, 77 percent would be “very likely” to recommend the streaming service vs. 75 percent of Gen Xers and baby boomers (69 percent). Of retailers, 69 percent of survey respondents across household income levels said they had bought or were very likely to buy something from Walmart. Survey questions were fielded with over 1.5 million U.S. adults Q1 to early Q4.

FotoNation's portrait enhancement technology is included in the DJI Osmo Pocket handheld camera gimbal announced Thursday, said FotoNation parent Xperi. The portrait enhancement technology is said to provide realistic skin textures and consistent preview and capture for smooth editing. DJI is taking preorders for the 4-inch-tall Osmo Pocket ($349), which takes 12-megapixel images and 4K video and is due in stores mid-December.

The Sonos board’s compensation committee gave CEO Patrick Spence a 57 percent increase in his annual base salary to $550,000 and granted him several options, including the right to buy 875,000 shares of Sonos stock at an exercise price of $15.44 a share, redeemable over the next four years, said an 8-K filing Wednesday at the SEC. The committee also gave Spence and three other top executives cash bonuses of $52,500-$56,250 for achieving “financial objectives and milestones” in the year ended Sept. 29, said the filing. Sonos reduced its operating loss for the year by 43 percent to $8.9 million on a 15 percent sales increase to $1.1 billion, including 27 percent Q4 revenue growth due largely to the success of the Sonos Beam sound bar (see 1811160031). Shares closed 3.8 percent lower Friday at $12.15.

New York State’s $1.5 billion incentives package luring Amazon to build a new headquarters campus in Long Island City, Queens (see 1811130013), “is a lightning rod for the political rhetoric on both extremes,” wrote Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) Monday. The New York Post, “representative of extreme conservatives,” was “factually baseless” for editorializing the deal as a billion-dollar giveaway, said Cuomo. New York “gave Amazon nothing,” except for tax incentives that have been “operational for decades” with bipartisan support, he said. Rupert Murdoch's Post “is being totally hypocritical,” because companies that Murdoch controls “have aggressively sought and received hundreds of millions in government tax incentives from New York State,” he said. Murdoch's News Corp. didn't comment. Of “socialists” who blasted the deal as a billion-dollar giveaway to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos when the money should have gone instead to the poor and needy, it's "a politically appealing argument,” but also wrong, said Cuomo: “We give Amazon nothing and their revenues give us approximately $900 million annually.” Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a democratic socialist whose district borders the site where Amazon will build the campus, tweeted that the deal was “extremely concerning to residents here” because New York communities "need MORE investment, not less." Cuomo countered that Amazon’s presence will bolster the region’s tech sector. ”There will be a new school in the community, new residential apartments, investments in public transit, a tech incubator, a partnership with the local housing authority to create employment opportunities and myriad other local benefits,” he said.

JetBlue rolled out the first biometric self-boarding gate at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport Thursday for passengers flying to select international destinations, after trials at Kennedy, Boston Logan International Airport and Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport. The program is in partnership with Customs and Border Protection. The airline also announced a partnership with the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority for one-step biometric boarding for customers flying to Nassau, Bahamas, from Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. No preregistration is required; customers step up to a camera for a photo match before boarding the airplane, JetBlue said. It plans to expand biometric boarding for more international flights from Kennedy, Boston and Fort Lauderdale airports and will pilot a biometric bag drop station at Kennedy early next year.

UBreakiFix exclusively will perform in- and out-of-warranty repair services for Element Electronics, its first partnership with a TV maker, said the service provider Tuesday. Customers can bring their Element TVs to any uBreakiFix store for authorized support and repair, it said. UBreakiFix runs a U.S. network of hundreds of franchised stories

Best Buy’s decision last spring to phase out Roku support on Insignia smart TVs and partner with Amazon in an exclusive multiyear arrangement to sell Insignia- and Toshiba-branded Fire TV Edition smart sets in the U.S. and Canada (see 1804180002) won’t crimp Roku’s relationship with Best Buy, said Roku CEO Anthony Wood on a Wednesday earnings call. Despite the Amazon-Best Buy deal, “we expect the number of Roku TVs to be sold at Best Buy this year to actually increase versus last year,” said Wood. “Best Buy is an important partner for us. We sell a lot of TVs there.” Cord-cutting “continues to alter the TV landscape,” said Wood. “We believe the trend will accelerate as more consumers understand the choice and value that streaming offers.” With 24 million “active accounts,” the “scale” of Roku’s customer base “now rivals large traditional U.S. cable and satellite companies,” he said. “While they are losing video subscribers, we continue to grow quickly.”