Sony Corps’ struggling film division, which hasn’t seen a major hit movie in a long while, has finally forced the company to take a writedown against third quarter earnings of a substantial $1 billion. The difficult decision was necessary to adjust or right-size the value of their operations and will mostly be booked against goodwill – to reset the value of the various film-related divisions.
Tech Trends
Control4 Beefs Up Routers with Built-In Cloud Monitoring Solution
Control4 Corporation announced today that it has launched a line of routers that are upgraded with their BakPak cloud-based remote monitoring and performance assessment capability built-in. The company says this is a “first for the industry.”
See more on this interesting new launch from Control4… [Read more…] about Control4 Beefs Up Routers with Built-In Cloud Monitoring Solution
Strata-gee Editor on Latest ResiWeek Podcast
ResiWeek, a podcast from AVNation.tv focused on the residential audio/visual market, once again invited Strata-gee editor Ted Green to participate on this week’s episode, recorded on Monday, January 9 and hosted this week by AVNation founder Tim Albright. The show, which has a strong bias towards the integration community, is known for its at-times vigorous and at-times humorous conversations with a rotating series of guests commenting on the topics of the day.
See what we talked about and view the episode below… [Read more…] about Strata-gee Editor on Latest ResiWeek Podcast
Sony Makes It Official – We Are OLED
It was a strange press conference as compared to those held by Sony in the past – only one speaker (Kazuo Hirai) who methodically gave a summary of the new models the company was launching at this CES. The whole press event lasted a mere 24 minutes. No Hollywood movie stars…no musical performances…no custom video clips…no movie clips…no cars driving on the stage. Just the Sony CEO calmly listing the new models. In fact, at one point, Hirai introduced Sony US President Mike Fasulo who stood and waved to the audience – then was told to sit down and not steal Hirai’s spotlight. Strange…
But there was one really big star of the conference – the company announced the new Bravia OLED TVs, a major expansion of the OLED camp.
See more on Sony’s OLED announcement…and other new models… [Read more…] about Sony Makes It Official – We Are OLED
GoldenEar Reaches Higher – Launches Triton Reference
GoldenEar Technology, a manufacturer of more affordable high-end loudspeakers, has announced a new top-of-the-line model that takes speaker performance to an even higher plane. The company calls this new model the Triton Reference, and has positioned it above its highly acclaimed Triton One tower speakers.
Learn more about GoldenEar and the remarkable Triton Reference speaker system… [Read more…] about GoldenEar Reaches Higher – Launches Triton Reference
Thiel Launches Multiple New Products at CES
Thiel Audio, in a series of press releases on their website, announced multiple new products to be launched at this week’s CES in Las Vegas. Some of these new products are being launched under the Thiel brand name, while others are being offered under the Aurora brand – a brand that was originally created for a 4K music venue at the company’s headquarters in Nashville, TN.
This launch represents what the company hopes will be the next chapter in the troubled brand’s long-running saga.
See more on Thiel’s new models… [Read more…] about Thiel Launches Multiple New Products at CES
LG Display Signs Deal to Supply Sony with OLED Panels
This Could Mean War with Samsung’s Quantum Dot Tech
Korea’s ETNews network is reporting this week that, after weeks of negotiation, LG Display and Sony have signed a comprehensive deal for the supply of OLED panels to be used in new Sony OLED TVs. The deal has been rumored for several weeks now, but ETNews has confirmed that a supply contract has been signed between the parties.
This could mean good things for OLED TV market share… [Read more…] about LG Display Signs Deal to Supply Sony with OLED Panels
Apple Wins Holiday Smartphone Wars
In new research from Flurry Analytics, Apple clearly won the battle for holiday shoppers smartphone dollars. Based on activations of smartphones and tablets during the period of 12/19-12/25, Apple took a healthy 44% bite out of the market…well ahead of second place finisher Samsung (21%), who has struggled in the wake of a battery-blowup scandal. But when compared to last year…some surprises emerge.
See more on this research, released just days after the holiday season… [Read more…] about Apple Wins Holiday Smartphone Wars
Want an Amazon Echo? Sorry…All Sold Out for Christmas
We’ve been reporting lately on the growing popularity of voice control. Driven largely by the introduction of Amazon’s Echo in 2014, which featured a dramatic improvement in performance over previous hands free systems like Siri, voice control has been picking up momentum with consumers and attracting new competitors like Google with its Home model, and soon Microsoft with Cortana.
But news services are reporting that Amazon has sold out of the Echo right in the heart of the holidays. Not good…
Amazon running out of Echo shows the difficulty in predicting inventory needs… [Read more…] about Want an Amazon Echo? Sorry…All Sold Out for Christmas
Voice Control: Time to Jump In…or Wait?
In Wake of CEDIA, Industry Debates How Hot Voice Control Is
One of the keynote presentations at CEDIA 2016, was from Amazon – the monster online retailer. Amazon executive Charlie Kindel introduced the custom integration attendees to the Amazon Echo, Tap, and Dot…essentially Internet appliances that all feature their Alexa voice control technology. Then, late in the presentation, Kindel announced the company has developed a way for Alexa to interface with home systems – and even forged integration partnerships with Lutron, Crestron, Control4 and others.
