Panasonic tried to energize shoppers with a sale promising “Black Friday prices all month.” The price of Panasonic’s 58-inch AX800 4K Ultra HD TV was shown Friday sale-priced down $1,500 to $2,299. A 60-inch LED-lit LCD smart TV, was cut by $500 to $1,199. The 4K AX800 is exclusive to Panasonic’s e-commerce site, but a comparison shopper could find a Toshiba 58-inch 4K Ultra HD model Friday on Amazon for $1,999, a discount of 71 percent, it said.

Rumors were rampant Friday about production delays for the iPhone 6 on accounts from supply chain sources. According to a Reuters report (http://reut.rs/1q0Nr5f), Apple suppliers are scrambling to get enough screens ready for the new iPhone 6 because a redesign of “a key component” disrupted panel production. Some accounts speculate that the thinness of the iPhone 6 is causing manufacturing headaches. An Apple news conference scheduled for Sept. 9 has many industry watchers pegging availability for Sept. 19, based on previous Apple roll-out schedules. A delay could threaten the number of phones available at launch, reports say, but rumors of delays for upcoming iPhones are as much a part of the annual runup to a new launch as “exclusives” about design and features. Retailers, meanwhile, continue to clear shelves of the soon-to-be-dated iPhone 5s. Walmart lopped $100 off no-contract 5s and 5c models on the Straight Talk plan. The prepaid 32 GB 5c is now $449 at Walmart, while a 16 GB 5s is $549. Two-year-old iPhone 4s smartphones have dipped, in turn, to $349, with bonus case, on Straight Talk and to $299 for an 8 GB on Net10, we found. On the contract side, Target has a temporary price cut to $99 on the 16 GB 5s on AT&T, Sprint and Verizon networks with a two-year contract. Best Buy cut the 16 GB 5s to $149 on Sprint, with Verizon and AT&T holding at $199. The trade-in market for the iPhone is active, too. Gazelle gave a trade-in price Friday of $305 for a 32 GB iPhone 5s in good condition, $320 in excellent shape and $100 for a broken model. In contrast, the 32 GB iPhone 4s reaped $70 in good condition, $80 perfect and $30 broken, we found.

The automotive telematics market is projected to grow to $45 billion by 2019, a MarketsandMarkets report found. Telematics, the technology that transfers data between vehicles or devices through wireless networks, has the potential to convert vehicles “from just a simple mode of transportation to moving information stations,” said the report, released Friday (http://bit.ly/1mvOd5C). Demand for connected vehicles is driven by developments like collision warnings or remote maintenance “that provide safety and comfort to the driver and passengers,” it said. Telematics services are divided into the four major types of safety, information and navigation, entertainment and remote diagnostics, MarketsandMarkets said.

The National Radio Systems Committee will mark its 35th anniversary with a breakfast reception Sept. 11 during the 2014 Radio Show in Indianapolis, said CEA and NAB, which co-own the NRSC, Thursday in a joint news release (http://bit.ly/1tunqux). Since its creation in 1979, the NRSC “has become a focal point for the U.S. radio industry’s development of technical standards and the advancement of broadcast radio technology,” they said. NRSC standards have been adopted as FCC rules “and have guided the manufacture of radio receivers and broadcast transmission equipment,” they said.

ChargeSpot Wireless Power announced the first wireless charger that’s compatible with both Qi and PMA wireless charging standards. The company called the product an “important step forward” for offices and public locations including hotels, cafes and airports that want to offer wireless charging for cellphone users “without the risk of having to choose between different wireless charging standards.” The ChargeSpot Pocket, designed for installation in public places, installs beneath a surface where it’s hidden from sight, the company said, making it suited to design-centric environments where hygiene and safety concerns come into play. ChargeSpot Pockets are currently installed in coffee shops, hotels and offices in Canada. ChargeSpot CEO Mark Goh told us a wireless charging solution for the Rezence wireless charging standard “is in the pipeline and we'll be there when the market’s ready for Rezence.”

Audio solutions provider Audivo launched the first system-on-module based on CSR’s VibeHub, the companies said Thursday. The Audivo Multiroom Audio Solution (AMAS) is available to developers to “quickly and easily enable multi-room networked home audio products,” they said. The system includes CSR’s SyncLock technology that’s said to enable interoperability with a wide range of wireless streaming protocols, including AirPlay, “which means that consumers aren’t limited to buying into a specific ecosystem,” CSR said. VibeHub supports analog input, input from UPnP and DLNA sources via Ethernet/WLAN, and Bluetooth with CSR aptX coding. Audivo’s AMAS builds on the CSR features with Internet, DAB radio and premium music services, while adding full-featured iOS and Android apps for smartphones and tablets, the companies said. VibeHub allows a networked home audio system to pull content from any local or cloud-based source and to offer “tightly synchronized” audio playback from multiple speakers in the home simultaneously so that there’s no audible delay when users walk between zones in the home, they said. In addition, it provides support for multiple controllers in a home to manage the Vibe network at the same time. The VibeHub platform, launched earlier this year, can be used to build wireless speakers, intelligent audio adaptors, networked audio amplifiers and a range of other connected audio products, according to CSR. VibeHub is designed to enable ODMs (original design manufacturers) to bring multiroom audio products to market “at a low cost of entry for the consumer,” it said. Together, the companies are creating a “flexible and open ecosystem” based around CSR’s SyncLock, enabling consumers to build home audio networks that suit their needs, said Anthony Murray, CSR senior vice president-business group. Audivo adds to the mix a module that’s easy to integrate, he said. According to Thomas Wolff, business development manager at Audivo, “The complex nature of networked audio can cause unnecessary delays to an ODM’s time to market.” By partnering, the two companies are “mitigating any risks and unforeseen costs” that ODMs might encounter when integrating networked audio into their products, he said.

Cirrus Logic said it completed the purchase of Wolfson Microelectronics, a supplier of audio signal processing components. The acquisition brings Cirrus new categories including MEMS microphones, along with a differentiated global customer base and end-to-end signal processing technology, including integrated circuits and software for portable audio applications, Cirrus said Thursday. Terms weren’t disclosed. Cirrus Logic will provide financial information for the combined company when it reports results for Q2 of fiscal 2015, which ends in September.

The global market for smart watches and other wearables will surpass $8 billion in 2018, based on an 18 percent compound annual growth rate the next four years, RNR Market Research said in a report. It estimated 130 million wearable devices will ship worldwide in 2018. The U.S. is the “single largest revenue base for this global market, and is expected to maintain its dominance” the next four years, it said. The global “ecosystem” for wearables, including components and materials for smart watches and other wearable devices, worth more than $4 billion, will surpass $14 billion by 2018, when market penetration of wearable devices will reach just under 50 percent, it said. It estimated current market penetration at just over 18 percent globally.

Taking a page from retailers’ books, Pakedge Device & Software developed a pick-up service located near its Hayward, California, headquarters that allows dealers to pick up orders within three hours of placing them. Dealers calling in orders between 6 a.m. and 3 p.m. Pacific time can pick them up from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., the company said. “Our local customers have asked us to help them remain agile and competitive against Internet-based suppliers,” said Nick Phillips, vice president-sales. With the Will Call service dealers can give clients a quote in the morning, pick up the equipment by noon and install it later in the same day, he said. Dealers also avoid delivery fees using the pick-up service, the company said.

Pandora’s global workforce had nearly equal parity between men (50.8 percent) and women (49.2 percent), its diversity report said Thursday (http://pdora.co/1q30AK2). Whites are 70.9 percent of Pandora’s U.S. employees; Asians, 12.3 percent, it said. Hispanics (7.2 percent) and blacks (3 percent) are just more than 10 percent of its U.S. workforce, it said.