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TCL & Sony Execute a Definitive Agreement; TCL To Be Majority Owner of Sony Video & Audio Biz

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TCL partners with Sony to take over its TV & Audio business

‘Sony’s Home Entertainment Products Will Be Transferred to TCL’

In a huge deal between two power tech players – Japan’s Sony Corporation and China’s TCL Electronics Holding Limited – TCL is set to become the majority owner of Bravia, Inc., a new holding company that will consist of Sony’s TV and audio business units. It is a deal that may ripple through the industry, as other brands may seek to mimic Sony’s move to jettison its hardware properties in order to transform themselves into a more profitable software, content, and services company.

Learn more about TCL taking over Sony’s TV and audio businesses…

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Congrats to Kaleidescape! Company Celebrates 25 Years of Delivering High-Fidelity Movies

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Kaleidescape, the industry’s leading provider of high-fidelity movies and high-performance movie streaming devices, is celebrating its 25th Anniversary. Since 2001, the company has excelled in providing movie lovers with the best-looking and sounding movies. It’s a remarkable milestone when you consider that over that time, the company flirted with its survivability as the industry initially strongly resisted the idea of allowing homes across America to copy digital copies of movies to home servers.

But the company eventually found a legally safe path forward, overcoming the controversies and becoming the leading provider of high-fidelity movies at home.

Read more on Kaleidescape’s 25th anniversary…

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Liaison: Doctor Diagnoses Custom Integration as Needing a New Kind of Operation

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Liaison website

Dr. Steve Weber was building a home in Colorado, and he needed an integrator to design and install the home’s automation system. Although he didn’t know it at the time, the result of that experience would alter the course of his career.

Learn all about Dr. Weber’s journey into a new career

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NY Times Lead Tech Reporter Says, Even with an ‘A.I. Reboot’, the Smart Home ‘Still Doesn’t Work’

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The NY Times tested an A.I.-enabled smart home system and was disappointed

This week, I ran across yet another in a long line of critical articles about the unreliability of Smart Home technology. This one, from the New York Times, stings a little more, as it updates the well-worn path of complaints about home automation technologies, with a still-uncomplimentary perspective on new A.I.-enabled versions. The blunt conclusion: the Smart Home “Still Doesn’t Work.”

See why the Times says that Smart Home is still a ‘Dud, But With A.I.’

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Meta is Planning Sweeping Layoffs of as Much as 20% ‘or More’ of the Company

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A sign on the Meta campus

The Reuters News Agency is reporting that Meta, the company formerly known as Facebook, is preparing plans to lay off as much as 20% – “or more” – of the entire company. These plans are being made at the same time that the company has said it is preparing to spend at least $600 billion on data centers by 2028 to facilitate its growing artificial intelligence (AI) business.

Read more on the huge disruption at Meta…

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The Goal of New Sonos Play & Era 100 SL: Simply to be Entry Points into a Sonos System

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Sonos is focused on driving system sales

Sonos, a company that has recently scaled back its research and development team as part of a companywide austerity program to improve earnings, is resorting to some old “tried and true” methods of launching “new” and “innovative” products…by updating previous models. CEO Tom Conrad called it “…building on what already works.”

As such, it has introduced the “new” Play and Era 100 SL models. Will this strategy attract new users???

See more on the latest ‘new’ models from Sonos…

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Video Projector Maker Barco Acquires Audio Company VerVent, Owner of Focal and Naim

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[Photo: Barco]

In a move that has some of Strata-gee’s sources perplexed and scratching their heads, high-end commercial and pro video projector and display manufacturer Barco (Euronext: BAR) announced this week that it has reached an agreement in principle to acquire VerVent Audio Holding (“VerVent” and “Vervent”). VerVent itself was created by the merger of French loudspeaker maker Focal and British high-performance audio electronics manufacturer NAIM some years ago.

See more on the merger of Barco and VerVent…

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WiiM Dramatically Expands Presence in U.S. CI Channel by Adding Multiple Rep Firms

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WiiM product

WiiM, maker of a line of digital audio and streaming products that make a premium high-fidelity audio experience accessible to all, announced today that it is dramatically expanding its salesforce network in the U.S. It is doing this via the addition of at least six new independent manufacturer representative firms across the country.

Learn more about WiiM’s salesforce expansion…

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Masimo Acquired by Danaher: Is This the Conclusion to an Epic Saga?

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Danaher Corp has acquired Masimo Corp

Four years ago, in February 2022, Masimo Corporation (Nasdaq: MASI) acquired the major audio company Sound United from Charlesbank Capital Partners in a transaction valued at $1.025 billion. That was a momentous time for Masimo and Sound United, which was about to embark on a crazy sequence of events that would see Masimo’s stock value crash, the company attempt to enter consumer health, the emergence of an activist investment group, a huge lawsuit ensue with Apple, a massive change in the governing Board, founder Joe Kiani quit (or was fired, depending on who you ask), a major cyberattack, and three years later, Sound United sold to Harman International Industries in a deal worth $350 million.

What was also momentous in February 2022 was that Strata-gee began its coverage of Masimo and took that wild and crazy ride along with them. But why am I writing about Masimo now? They’re back by popular demand…

Read all about the latest developments at Masimo…

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Emerald to ‘Indefinitely Postpone’ the Total Tech Summit

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Group photo from a previous Emerald Total Tech Summit

Emerald Expositions (NYSE: EEX), owner of the CEDIA Expo, CEPro, Commercial Integrator, and more, has formally announced on its website that it has decided to “indefinitely postpone” the Total Tech Summit. Quite a buzz erupted on social media as word of this decision spread among those in the custom integration industry.

See more on the postponement of the Total Tech Summit…

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