Sprint will release the LG G Pad F 7.0 tablet March 13 and is offering several bundled promotions that give the tablet to customers who commit to LG smartphone contracts. New and existing Sprint customers with an active smartphone account can get the G Pad F for free in select retail channels with a new two-year service agreement, Sprint said. For $90 per month for 24 months and no money down, customers can lease the G3 smartphone with unlimited data, talk and text while on the Sprint network and get a gigabyte of data on the G Pad, the carrier said. Customers can buy the LG Flex2 smartphone for $95 per month for 24 months and $0 down for unlimited data, talk and text and get a gigabyte of data per month on the tablet. The tablet can also be purchased separately for $0 down, no finance fees and 24 $10 monthly payments, Sprint said. The 7-inch tablet has a WXGA IPS display and is built on a Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 1.2GHZ quad-core processor.
Cox Media and TubeMogul are partnering to create a cross-device video advertising initiative to give marketers a new way to reach local and regional consumers, a news release from Cox Media said Friday. The partnership offers programmatic digital video ad inventory alongside local TV inventory across many screens including mobile, tablets and on traditional TV sets. The service is available to marketers in all of Cox’s designated market areas.
Following an announcement earlier last week that CinemaNow would stream content in DTS-HD (see 1502240057), DTS said Friday that M-Go will be the first streaming service to offer DTS Headphone:X as part of a rollout of DTS-HD. DTS didn’t give a timetable for implementation of Headphone:X surround sound, saying only that the Headphone:X experience will be available in “future applications” via M-Go on “any set of headphones.” While DTS-HD via CinemaNow is limited currently to Samsung TVs and Xbox One consoles -- along with Blu-ray players, AV receivers and soundbars with DTS-HD decoders -- DTS-HD programming from M-Go will launch on a “wide variety of connected devices, including smart TVs, consoles, set top boxes, and Android and iOS mobile devices” and “is not limited to just Samsung and Xbox One,” a DTS spokesman told us. Headphone:X, which provides a surround sound experience for headphone users, is delivered by the DTS-HD stream, he said. DTS Headphone:X is shipping on Qualcomm Snapdragon 810-based mobile devices and will also be deployed through the M-Go apps on Android, Windows and iOS in the coming months, he said. According to the Qualcomm website, 60 “premium-tier” mobile devices based on the Snapdragon 810 will be in the market over the next few months, including the LG G Flex2. Qualcomm didn’t mention DTS technology under the audio section of the Snapdragon 810 page, but it did say the processor supports “professional quality audio” via Dolby Atmos and “up to 24-bit/192kHz music playback.” Meanwhile, DTS told us at CES the company was eyeing a March debut of its object-based audio technology, DTS:X (see 1501070021). The spokesman would only say the company will “announce plans soon” about DTS:X, which figures prominently in the proposal DTS submitted to vie for selection as a certified audio codec for the next-gen ATSC 3.0 broadcast standard (see 1501210023). The ATSC’s call for proposals (CFP) for the ATSC 3.0 audio system (see 1412090019) included a March 9 deadline for “detailed system descriptions" from candidates. ATSC will inform “certified proponents” through letters of acceptance by March 20, according to the CFP.
The Open Interconnect Consortium (OIC) announced a liaison agreement with the Industrial Internet Consortium Thursday to share information that will help streamline interoperability for the Internet of Things. With the use of 4.9 billion connected devices expected in 2015, “the need to create industry standardizations in IoT is increasing rapidly,” said an OIC news release. “Through this formal liaison, the Industrial Internet Consortium will share its use cases and architectural requirements focused on the industrial market,” the release said. “In turn, OIC will ensure that its specification and associated open source project (IoTivity) will deliver the necessary features in an IoT communication framework to meet the requirements and make the use cases not just real, but also easy to implement.” OIC members include Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Honeywell, Samsung and Siemens.
The IT Alliance for Public Sector saw a 25 percent increase in membership over the past few months with the addition of companies such as Adobe, Boeing, Honeywell and Lenovo, said a blog post Thursday from parent group Information Technology Industry Council. ITAPS, which began in late 2013, represents more than 30 tech entities.
Barnes & Noble will separate its educational operation and its retail and Nook business into two independent, publicly traded companies, the company said Thursday. The separation, which is expected to be completed by the end of August, “will allow each business to optimize its strategic opportunities,” the company said in a statement. “As more focused companies with differing potential growth profiles, capital needs and market dynamics, each company will benefit from strategic clarity and separate management and Board focus. The separation will also allow investors to assess each business more clearly as a stand-alone company.” Through the separation, the company also will be able “to better capitalize on improving industry trends and merchandising initiatives” within its core retail business, it said. The Retail and Nook businesses “will be able to leverage a more integrated technology infrastructure for improved efficiency and to better serve digital customers,” it said.
Corrections: Phoenix Center's Larry Spiwak, not Wilkinson Barker's Russell Hanser, said that the FCC order granting petitions to pre-empt municipal broadband laws in North Carolina and Tennessee contained logic that would let state utility regulators pre-empt laws created by their state legislatures and likely will face legal challenges that will send the FCC legal view on Telecom Act Section 706 authority “crashing down” (see 1502250069) ... NARUC General Counsel Brad Ramsay, not Hanser, said that the Supreme Court’s Nixon v. Missouri Municipal League was based more on how pre-emption clashed with the 10th Amendment than with language in Communications Act Section 253 (see 1501220063).
Dolby said it will release with cinematic virtual reality (VR) company Jaunt three VR apps -- "Live and Let Die" by Paul McCartney and clips from the films Kaiju Fury! and Black Mass -- that will be available in Dolby Atmos via the Google Play Store in coming weeks. In a Thursday news release, Dolby said immersive audio is “critical to storytelling in VR” because it enhances the sensation of presence and “directs people where to look at critical moments in the virtual environment.” Dolby Atmos allows content creators to guide viewers through a VR experience with “lifelike" audio that complements the 360-degree experience, said the company. Viewers of Jaunt's 360-degree, 3D content can experience a level of realism that’s like “being there," it said. The McCartney concert performance and both films were recorded using Jaunt's 360-degree stereoscopic 3D cameras and sound-field mics, the companies said. The audio was mixed and encoded using Dolby Atmos tools, and Jaunt's applications decode and render the object-based Dolby Atmos experience, they said. The Jaunt app will be available for select mobile devices, and Dolby will demonstrate the technology at Mobile World Congress next week.
Texas Instruments introduced a new SimpleLink platform of ultra-low-power wireless microcontrollers for Internet of Things connectivity that helps OEM customers “go battery-less with energy harvesting or enjoy always-on, coin cell-powered operation for multiple years,” it said Wednesday. The platform is an “industry-first technology” that gives OEMs “the flexibility to develop products that support multiple wireless connectivity standards using a single-chip and identical RF design,” it said. The platform supports Bluetooth Smart, 6LoWPAN, Sub-1 GHz, ZigBee and ZigBee RF4CE, as well as “proprietary modes” up to 5 Mbps, it said. The CC2640 for Bluetooth Smart and the CC2630 for 6LoWPAN and ZigBee will be the first devices introduced on the new platform, TI said. “Leveraging this multi-standard support, customers can future-proof their designs and configure their chosen technology at the time of installation in the field.” Additional devices on the new platform will become available later in 2015, TI said.
Premium iOS universal remote control app company Roomie updated its software to support additional devices and features. Version 3.1 adds control of the Amazon Fire TV network, Apple TV media guide, Apple TV iTunes guide, Denon Heos media guide, Dish Network DVR recording and scheduling, Dune HD/Mede8er + Kodi media guide and the LG TV network and media guide, Roomie said. It also added control of timer and time-based triggers, it said.