Verizon said it will invest more than $200 million more toward “providing immersive next-gen technology, teacher training, STEM [science, technology, engineering and math] curricula and connectivity to under-resourced students across the United States.” Verizon already had invested $200 million, and said it's giving schools "access to 5G" plus exposing students to "skill-building in augmented reality, machine learning, coding, 3D printing and more."

The Milo whole-home Wi-Fi distribution product that ParkerVision introduced in the fall continues to be a learn-as-one-goes experience for the loss-ridden tech company, said CEO Jeffrey Parker on a Thursday earnings call. ParkerVision launched Milo in mid-October through Amazon Prime and its own online store. “We learned where Milo is doing a great job for consumers” but also where it “needed to be tuned a bit to deliver” on how some customers want to use the product, said Parker. Milo qualified for Amazon Prime’s “fulfilled by seller program,” which allows ParkerVision to “reach out” to market the product to Amazon Prime customers, “while still able to keep costs down by fulfilling those orders from our own facilities rather than through an Amazon distribution center,” said Chief Financial Officer Cindy Poehlman. ParkerVision's stock risks a Nasdaq delisting because the company doesn't meet its $35 million minimum "market value of listed securities" and because its shares are trading below "the $1 minimum bid price requirement," she said. The company nevertheless is “now geared up and taking Milo to the next steps,” including marketing the product to internet service providers through a broad “direct sales campaign,” said Parker. It’s also “actively pursuing” a direct-to-consumer “channel partner” that's offering “to take Milo on a comprehensive direct national TV, radio, newspaper and PR campaign,” he said. “This is a firm that has decades of experience in taking consumer products right to market in very successful campaigns.” The company’s goal is “to launch on air with them in late spring to early summer this year,” he said.

Southwire recalled in-wall Wi-Fi switches sold under the WiOn name due to fire hazard, said the Consumer Product Safety Commission Thursday. The switch lets consumers control and monitor lights and appliances at home with a smartphone from anywhere by app. Consumers should contact Southwire to receive $4 to purchase a non-Wi-Fi replacement switch. The recall affects about 24,000 switches sold in home improvement and hardware stores nationwide, at Amazon.com and Walmart.com. No incidents or injuries were reported.

Clarification: LG Electronics USA promoted Chris Hamdorf to vice president-home entertainment, national accounts (see 1803120042).

Amazon recalled six versions of AmazonBasics portable lithium-ion battery chargers/power banks after receiving 53 reports of the chargers overheating in the U.S. Reports included chemical burns due to contact with battery acid and four property damage incidents, including fire and smoke damage, said the Consumer Product Safety Commission Tuesday. Recalled products are the B00LRK8EVO, B00LRK8HJ8, B00LRK8I7O, B00LRK8IV0, B00LRK8JDC and B00ZQ4JQAA; product IDs are printed on the back of the units, it said. Specifications are 16,100 mAh; 10,000 mAh; 5,600 mAh; 2,000 mAh with micro USB cable; 3,000 mAh; and 3,000 mAh with USB micro cable. The rubberized or metallic power banks are black, rectangular and measure about 3 x 1.4 x by 0.9 inch. The power banks were sold with or without a USB charger cable and a carrying pouch, said the company. The products, manufactured by GuoGuang Electric, in China, were sold at Amazon.com, Amazon bookstores and Amazon pop-up stores from December 2014 through July 2017 for between $9 and $40, it said.

It was a “record holiday season” in the consumer business for Dell Technologies, said Jeff Clarke, vice chairman-products and operations, on a Thursday earnings call. Dell’s premium notebooks grew by double digits in the fiscal year ended Feb. 2, as did “demand for gaming and rugged notebooks,” he said. In calendar Q4, Dell “delivered our 20th straight quarter of year-over-year worldwide PC unit share gains,” he said. “That said, our growth premium has slowed the past two quarters, so we're focused on driving higher relative unit growth in a consolidating market while maintaining profitability” in the fiscal year ending February 2019, he said. An IDC report in January on global PC shipments for Q4 ranked Dell third behind HP and Lenovo at 15.7 percent share, roughly the same share it had in the same quarter a year earlier. The report estimated that the PC market in Q4 achieved its first positive holiday-quarter shipment growth in six years -- albeit only a 0.7 percent increase from Q4 a year earlier.

Panasonic formed a joint venture, BeeEdge, with Scrum Ventures to identify underused technologies within Panasonic and create independent startups to develop them commercially, said the companies Friday. The BeeEdge accelerator will analyze opportunities and bring products to market, they said. Panasonic has been increasing its investment to create next-generation CE experiences and businesses, and Scrum will bring expertise to advise the startups, they said. Companies in Scrum’s portfolio include clothing company Le Tote, learning platform company Kidaptive, sports live streaming company LiveLike, and Realtime Robotics.

Hasbro will team with Netflix to create toys and games for kids under its Playskool brand, based on Netflix’s original preschool series, Super Monsters, Hasbro said in a Friday announcement. Super Monsters is an animated series about a group of preschool-aged kids who are descendants of the world’s most famous monsters. Hasbro’s Super Monsters product line will include collectible figures of the core cast, plus “role play products” and other gear, it said. The product line will debut in the fall in the U.S., with additional markets to follow in 2019, it said. Hasbro and Netflix partnered last year for a collection of games based on the Netflix show Stranger Things.

The right-to-repair advocacy site iFixit is running a “Dare to Repair” sweepstakes challenging contestants to fashion replacement parts for common consumer products using 3D printing. The contest “is an exercise in cutting-edge innovation, but your participation will also help real people fix real problems in their real lives,” blogged the company Thursday. Submissions, which are open through May 14, will be judged on their creativity, the broadness of their appeal and their usefulness in solving common problems, said the company. A panel of judges from HP, Ikea, Philips and others will pick the winners vying for the grand prize of a $5,000 Visa gift card, it said. Winners will be announced June 1, it said.

Amazon is “making headcount adjustments across the company” as part of its annual planning process, a spokeswoman responded to our questions Monday on an article in the Seattle Times about "rare" layoffs of “hundreds of corporate employees” in its Seattle headquarters. She described the layoffs as “small reductions in a couple of places and aggressive hiring in others” but didn't give a head count. Amazon plans to find “holes” in the areas where it's hiring for affected employees, she said, and the company is continuing to grow “pretty aggressively” in Seattle and the U.S. overall. The company has 3,900 corporate jobs open in Seattle and 12,000 worldwide, and it created 130,000 jobs last year, she said. It had more than 560,000 employees at the end of 2017, she said.