Sennheiser revamped its corporate design and visual language to reflect its “continued forward motion,” said a Monday announcement. The company will roll out the new look over the course of the year, with the HE 1 headphones to be the first product to carry the new look, it said.

Panasonic North America created a new subsidiary company, Panasonic Media Entertainment, to specialize in “serving the needs of the sports and entertainment industries,” it said in a Friday announcement. Headquartered in Newark, New Jersey, Panasonic Media Entertainment “will develop and sell proprietary technological solutions that incorporate high-performance projectors, large screen LED display systems, broadcast-related equipment, professional audio systems, and energy-saving lighting equipment to diverse customers in the entertainment business including theme parks,” Panasonic said. The subsidiary's president, Masaharu Nakayama, previously headed Panasonic System Communications of North America, and will lead a workforce of about 140 employees, including those at offices in Denver, Los Angeles, Orlando and Coppell, Texas, Panasonic said.

Panasonic isn't disclosing the total capitalization of Panasonic Ventures, the company’s new venture capital firm, spokesman Jim Reilly emailed us Thursday. Panasonic Ventures will be headquartered in Cupertino, California, under the direction of President Masahiro Kinoshita, whose “most recent assignment” was as director-M&A business creation at Panasonic AVC Networks North America, based in Newark, New Jersey, Reilly told us. The new firm “will invest in start-up companies mainly in the United States, with initial investments of around $100 million,” Panasonic said Thursday. “Panasonic has invested in Silicon Valley start-ups with cutting-edge technologies for nearly 20 years since 1998,” the announcement said. The charter of Panasonic Ventures will be to “spearhead Panasonic's investments in start-ups that have unique business models or products and services not bound by the company's existing business fields,” the company said. “Through these investments, as well as collaborating with these firms to explore new business opportunities, Panasonic looks to create new businesses that will drive its future growth.”

Ericsson said it's realigning its business strategy to focus on a few key areas, including “networks” and technology for 4G, 5G and the IoT. The firm also said it will have to write down $1.8 billion-$2.4 billion in charges as part of its turn-around strategy. Ericsson “will pursue a more focused business strategy to revitalize technology and market leadership, improve group profitability and enable customer success,” the company said in a Tuesday news release. “The overall strategy is to enable service providers to expand their business across industries and into new profit pools. We will drive the development of market-leading solutions, fully leveraging the potential of 5G, IoT and cloud. Restoring profitability is key and we will start by focusing the portfolio to fewer areas and securing effectiveness and efficiency in operations.” The changes were announced by CEO Borje Ekholm, who took over in January. Ekholm was chosen to lead the company by the Wallenberg family, which is the largest shareholder in the company through its Investor AB. Also, the company named an executive team as part of what it said was simplifying its organization (see the personals section of this publication.)

Looking to expand the Atmos platform, Dolby introduced an integrated media server for the cinema market that combines audio and image processing in one unit, it said in a Thursday announcement. The combination of the server, a Dolby multichannel amplifier and the company’s SLS Express speakers creates what Dolby called a complete, cost-effective integrated system. The scalable solution allows cinema owners to start with Dolby 5.1 or 7.1 surround sound and upgrade to Dolby Atmos on their own schedule, said the company.

Sony retailers began taking preorders Tuesday on the 55- and 65-inch OLED TVs that Sony introduced at CES (see 1701050004), the company said in a Tuesday announcement. Sony is pricing the 55-inch at $4,999 and the 65-inch at $6,499 for sale beginning in April, it said. Left unpriced was the 77-inch model with no delivery date. Actual pricing on the 55- and 65-inch models is significantly higher than pre-CES reports forecast (see 1612300020). Our check of BestBuy.com showed the 65-inch would be available in five to six weeks at Sony’s listed $6,499 price. The site showed no offering of the 55-inch model. Sony’s OLED TV line will support Dolby Vision and HDR10 high dynamic range out of the box and hybrid log-gamma HDR through a firmware update to be available by year-end, the firm said.

Despite blizzard warnings posted for most of the New York metropolitan area, Samsung Electronics America late Monday was forging ahead with its 2017 Home Entertainment launch event in Manhattan scheduled for 1 p.m. Tuesday, Samsung representatives said. Samsung's newly introduced 2017 line of QLED TVs is expected to figure prominently at the event. National Weather Service forecasters told New Yorkers to expect up to two feet of snow Tuesday, accompanied by wind gusts exceeding 50 mph and whiteout conditions. Authorities took the rare measure Monday morning of closing New York City schools Tuesday, 24 hours in advance. because of the storm's expected severity.

LeEco is expanding its retail footprint through new partnerships with BrandsMart and Fry’s Electronics and a larger presence at Best Buy, the supplier said Friday in an online message to consumers. “Your list of places to purchase LeEco products just got longer,” said the message. “Here at LeEco, we not only want you to interact with our products seamlessly, we want you to get them easily too. While you can continue to shop through our own site, we have been working to expand our national retail partnerships to make these products even more accessible for you.” BrandsMart will sell LeEco’s Le S3 and Le Pro3 smartphones in store and online, starting immediately, said the supplier. Fry’s will begin selling LeEco smartphones Super4 X65 smart TV in stores and online “in the coming weeks,” it said. Best Buy, which began carrying LeEco products in the fall in a small assortment of its stores and online (see 1611290021), will raise its LeEco commitment to additional locations “over the course of the next few months,” it said, without being specific on store count. LeEco products also will be available through a new partnership with HSN. The shopping network’s Electronics Connection segment will feature LeEco Super4 X55 and Super4 X65 smart TVs, it said. Those models, plus the 43-inch Super4 X43, also will be sold at HSN.com, it said.

After ZTE agreed to enter a guilty plea Tuesday in connection with the illegal sale of wireless and wireline technology to Iran (see 1703070042), CEO Zhao Xianming in a statement acknowledged ZTE's mistakes and said the company "remains committed" to positive change. It will pay the U.S. $892.4 million, under the impending guilty plea and settlement agreements reached with the Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security and Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control, DOJ had announced. New "compliance-focused procedures" and significant personnel changes have been top priorities, and the settlement agreements will allow the company to move forward in a stronger position than before, the smartphone company said. Among recent changes are spinning off a new compliance department from the firm's legal department, an expanded export control compliance manual, and creating a CEO-led Compliance Committee with the authority to "significantly change" policies and priorities and provide better oversight of the compliance initiatives, it said.

Amalgamated Bank will ask fellow shareholders at Amazon and Netflix to vote for resolutions at the companies’ next annual meetings that would direct their boards to issue reports on 2030 greenhouse gas reduction targets, said the green group As You Sow on Wednesday in its annual Proxy Preview summary of forthcoming shareholder actions. Amalgamated wants Amazon shareholders to demand a report that evaluates the “feasibility” of the company achieving by 2030 “net-zero” emissions of greenhouse gases from all aspects of the business, including its supply chain, As You Sow said. The Netflix proposal says much the same thing, the green group said. Amalgamated chose those companies because “they represent a variety of strategic options and challenges for meeting the targets,” it said. “These companies to date have not published sustainability reports that could inform shareholders on their strategies in this area generally. They also are highly visible and have corporate leaders accessible to the public and to many young consumers who will carry the greatest burden of a disrupted climate.” Amazon’s annual meeting is in May, and Netflix’s is in June, the green group said. Amazon and Netflix representatives didn’t comment Thursday.