DirecTV shareholders voted to approve AT&T’s proposed takeover of the DBS provider. More than 99 percent of votes cast were in favor of the deal at the DirecTV shareholder meeting Thursday, DirecTV said. AT&T will work with the various regulatory agencies reviewing the deal to gain their approval as well, an AT&T spokesman said in a statement.

Insteon said it added voice interaction to its home automation platform via an update to the Insteon app for Windows Phone 8.1 (http://bit.ly/1stZ1sy). Support for Cortana, Microsoft’s personal digital assistant, lets consumers control and monitor smart home products via voice commands, a “major development in the evolution of the home automation industry,” Steven Guggenheimer, Microsoft corporate vice president, said Thursday. Adding Cortana support to Insteon products enables users to turn on and dim lights, lock and unlock doors, and open a garage door by voice while inside or outside the home. Users also can activate scenes by saying, for instance, “Insteon, leaving the house,” which could set in motion a series of events such as turning off lights, setting a thermostat to a lower temperature and locking doors, Insteon said. Other features of the app include Visitor Mode, which restricts access to the system by children or guests; enhanced camera support for multiple, simultaneous camera views; multi-house support to control a second home or business; and a dashboard that provides a view of a home’s status, it said.

CSR, a supplier of Bluetooth Smart connectivity chipsets, is teaming with Universal Electronics to add infrared setup and control functionality to remote controls based on Universal’s QuickSet platform, the companies said Thursday (http://bit.ly/1xnHYdi). Manufacturers that use the CSR1011 chipset can deliver remote controls with long battery life and that are compatible with their existing entertainment products, removing the need for multiple remote controls, they said. QuickSet IR command upload capability will be integrated into CSR1011-based remote control software development kits, they said. Choosing the QuickSet option in the CSR remote SDK enables TV and set-top suppliers to take advantage of Universal’s device control database of entertainment devices, “which gives users access to many of the control functions for virtually all digital entertainment electronics devices in the world,” they said. By adding low-cost IR LEDs in a design, CSR1011-based remotes “can now seamlessly work with the QuickSet application to detect, identify and control compatible devices traditionally operated via IR remotes with minimal, if any, user setup,” they said.

DisplaySearch predicts Apple will ship 74 million iPhone 6 handsets and 42 million iPhone 6 Plus phones this calendar year, David Hsieh, vice president-Greater China market, said Thursday in a blog post (http://bit.ly/1u2xu0j). LG Display, Japan Display and Sharp are the LCD panel suppliers for the iPhone 6, while LG Display and Japan Display are supplying the panels for the iPhone 6 Plus, he said. “The panel makers need to ramp up production quickly, as we estimate that Apple has ordered more than 100 million iPhone 6 panels for 2014,” he said. That’s a strong indication that Apple “is clearly confident about iPhone 6 sales into 2015,” he said.

Public Knowledge kicked off a more formal campaign against the provision of the Satellite Television Access and Viewer Rights Act (S-2799) that would repeal the set-top box integration ban. The provision “would make it difficult for consumers to use devices like TiVo DVRs, which use CableCARDs to access video programming,” Public Knowledge said in a widely circulated email message Thursday. “No member of Congress should prioritize broadcast and cable company interests over the rights of the people using these services.” NCTA has strongly lobbied in favor of the integration ban repeal. Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., had proposed and withdrew an amendment during the bill’s markup session last week that would have changed the integration ban provision. He blocked the Senate’s Sept. 18 attempt to pass by unanimous consent a Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act bill that included the STAVRA provisions, prompting backlash from Senate Commerce leaders of both parties. That was the last day Congress was in session until mid-November, and STELA expires Dec. 31. Public Knowledge backs the Markey amendment and asked people to spread the following message on Twitter: “#STAVRA reauthorization must not hurt consumers, learn more: bit.ly/Yd6sGC @MarkeyMemo @publicknowledge.” The message links to a Sept. 17 blog post from senior staff attorney John Bergmayer blasting the STAVRA provision.

The number of consumers using tablets to watch TV shows and movies has skyrocketed, a survey by Altman Vilandrie & Co. found. Tablet ownership penetration increased to 50 percent last year, up from 40 percent in 2012, said the consulting firm Thursday. The portion of all consumers watching TV shows or movies on tablets on a weekly basis jumped from 17 percent to 26 percent last year, it said. More than 40 percent of consumers under age 35 use smartphones to watch TV or movies, it said. More than 70 percent of the consumers binge watch at least once a month, and 41 percent use their cable providers’ TV Everywhere service each month, it said. The survey also found that over-the-top use increased from 26 percent last year to 35 percent in 2014. The survey received input from more than 3,000 U.S. respondents. It was drawn from an online panel by Research Now, Altman Vilandrie said.

Scottish hi-fi company Linn adopted a radically new approach for products it debuts, unveiled at a London briefing Tuesday. Its new Akurate Exaktbox corrects for room acoustics and speaker positioning, not just with all Linn speakers, but other brands of speakers as well, Linn said. For the London event, Linn’s demonstrators used a pair of B&W Nautilus speakers and Linn’s new compact Akudorik units. They acknowledged that they could not recall ever before demonstrating Linn hardware with a competitor’s product. The Akurate Exaktbox is software-configured, with a dropdown menu that lists all suitable speakers. The original analog crossover in the speaker is bypassed and the Akurate Exaktbox performs the crossover digitally and optimizes sound for the room. The speakers are run actively, with separate amplifiers for each drive unit. Linn claims this eliminates magnitude and phase distortion. The 24-bit/192 kHz signal is carried by Cat 5 cable, using a proprietary protocol -- Exakt Link -- rather than Ethernet. Ten channels of digital-to-analog conversion handle a stereo pair of speakers with five drivers each. Exaktbox has 13 inputs, including an RCA phono jack, such as for a turntable. Exakt Akudorik is a new compact speaker with the Exakt electronics housed in its floor-standing column. A pair costs nearly $29,000. The London demonstration showed Exakt to provide a clearly audible improvement in bass and imaging when the speakers were moved from the acoustically ideal but family-unfriendly position that is away from a room wall, to an acoustically un-ideal, but visually neater, position that is close to a wall.

CES for the first time will carve out an exhibit area dedicated to commercial drones, beginning with the 2015 show that opens Jan. 6 for a four-day run, CEA said Wednesday (http://bit.ly/1rkusCi). The “Unmanned Systems Marketplace” will span about 6,500 square feet of exhibit space in the Las Vegas Convention Center’s South Hall, enough room for about 16 exhibiting companies, it said. CES estimates the global market for consumer drones will approach $130 million in 2015 and will “easily exceed” $1 billion in the next five years. “Drones and unmanned systems are being used to assist in a variety of applications, from aerial coverage for sports and real estate, to assistance in search and rescue and disaster relief missions,” said Karen Chupka, CEA senior vice president-CES and corporate business strategy.

The NFC Forum released a free white paper (http://bit.ly/1wLwwox) targeted to developers so they can give consumers “seamless access” to Bluetooth and Wi-Fi services using near-field communication (NFC), the group said Wednesday. The white paper describes the process for the connection handover capability built into the NFC technical spec that enables secure one-touch setup of NFC combined with high-speed, longer-distance communication of Bluetooth or Wi-Fi, the forum said. Use cases include situations where the amount of data to be transferred is too large to be sent over NFC or when data is to be streamed for a longer time, the forum said. Examples include enabling audio streaming between a smartphone and speaker or headset, streaming between a smartphone and TV or the transfer of a photo from a digital camera to a smartphone over Wi-Fi, it said. NFC spokeswoman Ruth Cassidy told us the NFC Forum and the Bluetooth Special Interest Group formed an alliance and jointly created a document that gives examples for simple, secure pairing of Bluetooth devices using NFC. “Wireless technology providers are increasingly turning to NFC to help ensure a positive user experience during device-to-device communications, whether pairing consumer electronics or enabling the Internet of Things,” said Koichi Tagawa, NFC Forum chairman, saying a revised application document will make it easier for developers to implement the two technologies. The NFC Forum also partnered with the Wi-Fi Alliance, and the latter recently added NFC to its Wi-Fi Protected Setup, which allows consumers to “tap-to-connect” to wireless networks using smartphones or tablets, Cassidy said. That capability enables devices including cameras, gaming devices, smart home appliances and thermostats to connect to networks with a single tap, she said.

Lawyers for Ford and General Motors and their respective suppliers Clarion and Denso got a 14-day deadline extension to Oct. 10 to answer recording industry allegations they violated the Audio Home Recording Act (AHRA) by shipping car infotainment systems with CD-copying hard drives without building the Serial Copy Management System into the devices (CED July 31 p5). Lawyers for the Alliance of Artists and Recording Companies, which filed the complaint July 25 in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, did not oppose the deadline-extension motion, which was filed Monday and granted Tuesday by U.S. District Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, court documents said (http://1.usa.gov/1pdd3Iu). “Good causes exist to grant this motion,” the documents said. They said more time was needed because Ford, Clarion, Denso and GM are trying to “coordinate in an effort to streamline their responses” to the complaint. The complaint “involves potentially complex issues of law” arising under the AHRA, and several lawyers for the defendants have only recently joined the case “and thus have been working to familiarize themselves with the claims and defenses in the action,” the motion said. It was the second time Jackson has granted the defendants more time to answer the complaint.