Origin Acoustics partnered with CEDIA's Government Affairs program to help monitor changing legislation to protect the rights of small low-voltage businesses, it said Wednesday. “We need to work together as an industry to make sure that we are protecting the rights of small low-voltage businesses everywhere or we could risk serious repercussions,” said Origin Legal Counsel Brent Sonnek-Schmelz. The company will sponsor a complimentary breakfast Sept. 29 at 7:30 a.m. CDT, before the opening of the show floor on the first day of CEDIA Expo, it said.

Origin Acoustics and its co-founder, Jeremy Burkhardt, announced $25,000 in funding for a water conservation project in Red Rock Canyon, outside Las Vegas, where Burkhardt resides. Origin is working with Save Red Rock Canyon and the Desert Research Institute to fund a cloud seeding program designed to augment precipitation in the Spring Mountains to replenish aquifers within the Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area, the company said Friday. The “Make It Rain” campaign has a goal of raising $150,000. Save Red Rock and DRI will host a webinar on cloud seeding Thursday at 1 p.m. EDT.

The “pending” release of the USB4 Version 2.0 spec update enabling up to 80 Gbps of data performance via the USB Type-C cable and connector, was announced Thursday by the USB Promoter Group. The USB Type-C and USB Power Delivery specs also will be updated to enable that higher level of data performance, said the group. It expects all the spec updates to be published before November, it said.

The Work from Home showcase of the Interactive Multimedia and Collaborative Communications Alliance will be featured at CEDIA Expo for the second time, said show owner Emerald Wednesday. The showcase will feature mock home offices with interactive demonstrations highlighting lighting fixtures and control, sound controls, video and audio technology, collaboration software and hardware, and home office furniture. IMCCA will provide educational programming, "resimercial" technology insights and an interactive activation, it said. CEDIA Expo runs Sept. 29-Oct. 1 in Dallas.

CompTIA CEO Todd Thibodeaux used his state of the industry remarks at the ChannelCon 2022 conference in Chicago Wednesday to unveil Project Agora, a CompTIA initiative to support “anyone interested in starting, staying and succeeding in a career in technology,” said the association. "Our challenge is to convert more career intent people to tech intent," said Thibodeaux, a former CTA executive. "We need to tell better stories, more consistently, about how truly great it is to work in tech. The way we get the talent we need is by fighting for it." A CompTIA job-seeker trends survey found one in four U.S. workers was actively seeking a new job or pursuing other career options during Q2 2022, said the association. “While tech is among the top five industries job seekers were considering, it ranked behind several other sectors, including sales, real estate, healthcare, hospitality and finance,” it said. “A lack of confidence in technical skills, concerns about the cost and the time it will take to learn those skills and perceptions about the tech industry culture are factors that contribute to reluctance to consider tech as a career option.”

Onkyo’s parent company in Osaka withdrew its UHD Alliance membership, as did Arcadyan Technology, the Taiwanese manufacturer of broadband wireless gateway products, the association told DOJ and the FTC in simultaneous “written notifications” June 7, said a notice for Monday’s Federal Register. UHDA membership "remains open," and the association "intends to file additional written notifications disclosing all changes," said Suzanne Morris, chief-premerger and division statistics in DOJ’s Antitrust Division. The notifications are required to extend UHDA members antitrust protections under the 1993 National Cooperative Research and Production Act, said Morris.

The IBC2022 show picked Omdia as its “exclusive research partner,” said the analytics company Thursday. The designation will give International Broadcasting Convention audiences access to Omdia’s upcoming report on how the trends in free ad-supported streaming TV services, ad-supported VOD and connected TV advertising "are changing the TV and video landscape," it said. Innovations in AVOD, FAST, CTV advertising and hybrid subscription models “will make advertising the fastest-growing premium TV and video segment over the next five years," with global revenue increasing by more than 20% to exceed $320 billion in 2027, said Rob Gallagher, vice president of Omdia’s media and entertainment practice. Omdia analysts will present findings from the report as part of the IBC2022 conference program, said the company. IBC2022, its organizers’ first in-person show since 2019, runs Sept. 9-12 in Amsterdam.

DOCSIS 4.0 field trials could start by year's end, said Asaf Matatyaou, vice president-solutions and product management in Harmonic's cable access business, in a Light Reading webinar Thursday. He said the DOCSIS specifications and technology are ready, but the actual upgrades of cable operators' plants to allow 10G service will be a multiyear effort. Teleste Intercept Director Steve Condra said the time frame for 10G rollout varies from operator to operator. Some in particularly competitive marketplaces with high-end users "need it now," while in others could go for years before there's a critical need, he said. He said operators need to start upgrading equipment now in preparation. DOCSIS 4.0 will play a big role in the 10G rollout, but 10G is a platform requiring multiple technologies and cable operators have to have a systemwide perspective on planning, said Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers Chief Technology Officer Chris Bastian. Mike Whitley, ATX Networks vice president-access network products, said there should be lab and initial trials later this year and into 2023 of some DOCSIS components such as amplifiers, with more products coming to market in the next six to nine months.

CEDIA Expo, slotted for Sept. 29-Oct. 1 in Dallas, will have more than 150 sessions, including the CEDIA Expo conference, manufacturer product training and show-floor stage sessions, said the trade show Monday. The CEDIA Advocacy Town Hall, a free session covering the legislative and regulatory items facing the home technology industry, will debut at this year’s show, it said. More than half of the Expo's sessions are new, including a wellness track that will cover the design, verification and customer positioning of wellness technology, plus a lighting track, it said.

Former NAB President Gordon Smith, the ex-Republican senator from Oregon, was among eight self-described “political conservatives” signing their names to a report Thursday on the results of their investigation that they say debunks “every claim of fraud and miscount put forward” by former President Donald Trump and his advocates about the 2020 election. “Our conclusion is unequivocal: Joe Biden was the choice of a majority of the Electors, who themselves were the choice of the majority of voters in their states,” said the 72-page report, titled "Lost, Not Stolen: The Conservative Case that Trump Lost and Biden Won the 2020 Presidential Election." Trump and his supporters have failed to present evidence of fraud “on the magnitude necessary to shift the result in any state, let alone the nation as a whole,” it said. “In fact, there was no fraud that changed the outcome in even a single precinct. It is wrong, and bad for our country, for people to propagate baseless claims that President Biden’s election was not legitimate.” The eight, including three retired appeals court judges, urged “our fellow conservatives to cease obsessing over the results of the 2020 election.” Trump’s office didn’t respond to requests for comment.