Klipsch veteran Mark Casavant will steer the course of the reimagined Jamo International brand, said parent company Voxx Thursday. Voxx CEO Pat Lavelle referred on a May earnings call (see 1705160025) to a “complete makeover” of the Jamo brand this year with new designs for sound bars and indoor and outdoor speakers. Casavant, managing director of Jamo, is building an internal team to drive growth of the brand in a “scalable, sustainable” way, said the company. Jamo introduced several new speakers over the past year, including its first sound bar and landscape speakers, the company said. With Jamo, Casavant, who will retain the title senior vice president-global brand and business development for Klipsch Group, is initially focused on the home theater and custom installation markets, said the company.

Nokia and Xiaomi are collaborating on a multiyear patent agreement to cross-license each company’s cellular standard essential patents, said the companies in a Wednesday announcement. Xiaomi also acquired patent assets from Nokia as part of the transaction, they said. Under the agreement, Nokia will provide network infrastructure equipment for web providers and data center operators, and the companies will work together on optical transport solutions for data centers, they said. The companies will explore opportunities for further cooperation in IoT, augmented and virtual reality and artificial intelligence.

Panasonic will use the Evolta robot to demonstrate capabilities of its Evolta Neo dry-cell batteries Friday in a fjord climb in Lysefjord, Norway, it announced. The robot will attempt a 1,000-meter vertical climb to test the “durability and power” of two AA Evolta Neo batteries. The product launched in Japan in April. The company will livestream the event.

Anuva Automation received funding from Charleston Angel Partners and changed its name to TiO Home to boost brand recognition, said the startup Thursday. The name change “brings more clarity to TiO’s mission of creating innovative, simple-to-use home automation solutions for consumers,” it said. TiO stands for “turn it on.” Last month, The Launch Place invested $250,000 in TiO, said the company. Charleston didn't disclose the amount of its investment.

Asus began shipping the ZenBook 3 Deluxe laptop, billed as having a 14-inch thin-bezel display under a 13-inch laptop chassis. The 0.3-inch display bezel maximizes the screen area, offering a 77 percent screen-to-body ratio, said Asus, and the all-aluminum chassis is made from a single block of aluminum. The $1,699 laptop has an Intel Core i7 7500U processor, 16 GB RAM, a 512 GB solid-state drive and three USB-C ports, two with Thunderbolt 3 connectivity, said the company. The 2.4-pound ZenBook 3 is 0.5-inch thick and cooled by liquid-crystal-polymer fan blades and a copper-alloy heat pipe system that expels warm air via hidden vents in the hinge, it said. The audio system boasts Harman Kardon tuning.

Adobe launched a cloud-based TV advertising solution Monday that covers all versions of TV: live linear, addressable, connected, VOD and over the top, it said in a Monday announcement. The platform, said to reach 95 percent of U.S. households, builds on Programmatic TV from TubeMogul, which Adobe recently acquired. TV ads aren’t having the impact they once did, said Adobe, citing research saying only 26 percent of Americans believe TV ads they see are relevant to them. The new ad cloud capabilities integrate with Adobe Analytics Cloud, enabling brands to use first first-party audience data to better target linear TV ads, it said. Marketers can plan and buy TV ads against audiences that already have demonstrated intent through online searches, and additional datasets from pay-TV providers, MRI and TV manufacturers boost marketers’ ability to plan, target, buy and measure discrete audiences, it said. Adobe Advertising Cloud TV enables brands to better target audiences “regardless of which device a viewer happens to be watching on,” said Brett Wilson, general manager, Adobe Advertising Cloud.

Clarifications: (1) It’s not “precise” in our Kaleidescape report (see 1706020023) that STMicroelectronics stopped producing the chip for Kaleidescape's Strato 4K Ultra HD Movie Player, Kaleidescape representatives emailed us Monday. STMicroelectronics supplies the SoC to major set-top manufacturers in Europe, they said. Kaleidescape can get supply, it’s just that STMicroelectronics decided to exit the set-top business, “which means no further innovation,” they said; (2) That backup Raid-K drives protect customers against hard drive failures is true only of the 1U+ Movie Server, not the Terra Movie Servers, Kaleidescape said.

Toshiba is relaunching branded TVs in Europe, five years after stopping production in Japan, via the licensing deal it announced with Turkish CE and appliance giant Vestel at last year’s IFA show in Berlin (see 1609020024). “It’s a fresh brand approach,” Matthew Lang, managing director of Vestel U.K., told a London media briefing Thursday. “With the relaunch of Toshiba TVs in Europe, we are combining Toshiba’s engineering and design prowess with Vestel’s manufacturing capacity.” The new Toshiba-branded TVs will play “in the market space between the high-end and low-cost sectors,” where “the customer does not have much choice or many options,” said Lang. “The market is crying out for more choice in the middle ground. Vestel has been working with Toshiba for 10 years and we now have a new licensing deal and have built a strong, small tightly effective team that will attack the mid-section with great technology at affordable prices.” Lang sees the arrangement as “a win-win,” he said. The company isn't now disclosing prices. The relaunch covers all markets in Europe, with no plans yet for elsewhere, Marketing Manager Dave Flintoft told us at the briefing. “This relaunch is across Europe. The USA would be a great opportunity and we are not saying no. That may be the next step.” Toshiba representatives didn’t comment Thursday. When Toshiba pulled the plug on its North American TV business two years ago, it said it would cease TV development and sales operations and license the North American TV business to Taiwan’s Compal Electronics, the original design manufacturer with which Toshiba has had a longstanding supply relationship (see 1501290047).

As media reports swirled Thursday about the prospect of Apple launching an Echo-like music speaker based on the Siri digital assistant at its Worldwide Developers Conference starting Monday, Apple instead focused on promoting revenue gains from its app business. A Thursday news release said its app developers have brought in more than $70 billion from the App Store since it launched in 2008. The App Store’s active paid subscriptions are up 58 percent year over year, and the subscription business model is available to developers across 25 app categories, Apple said. It highlighted popular apps, including Netflix and Hulu for video streaming, the mobile-first Tastemade cooking network, and photo editing apps Over and Enlight. Developers create apps for customers in 155 countries, with gaming and entertainment top-grossing categories, Apple said. Lifestyle and health and fitness apps had 70 percent growth in gross earnings in the past year, and photo and video apps jumped 90 percent during the period, it said. Downloads have grown more than 70 percent in the past 12 months, Apple said, with “hit” apps including Pokemon Go, Super Mario Run, CancerAid, Space by Thix, Zones for Training with Exercise Intensity, Vanido, Ace Tennis and Havenly, it said. The company didn't comment on reports of a Siri-based speaker.

Konica Minolta and Pioneer formed a 50-50 joint venture to pursue business opportunities in OLED lighting, the companies said in a Thursday announcement. The new JV, which will begin operations July 1 and have 80 employees at the start, “will take charge of business and product planning, product development, production technology development and marketing functions of both companies’ OLED lighting business,” they said.