Rebecca Day

Dolby Vision is a way for over-the-top (OTT) providers to “surpass broadcast and Blu-ray,” which have yet to prove a content pathway to next-gen premium content, said Pat Griffis, executive director-technology strategy in Dolby’s office of the chief technology officer, during a press demo at Dolby’s New York offices. OTT providers “are in a position to deliver this now,” he said of Dolby Vision, a suite of technologies designed for the video chain from content creation through playback on a TV.

Cirrus Logic began shipping voice processors with its next-generation SoundClear technology that are designed to boost voice recognition accuracy in smartphones, tablets and wearable electronics by eliminating background noise and echo, Carl Alberty, marketing director, told Consumer Electronics Daily. The technology could be in handsets for the holiday season, he said.

Security and camera support is a primary area of interest for Control4 in its pipeline of new development, said CEO Martin Plaehn on a Q4 earnings call Tuesday. Security and safety is an application area that’s important to homeowners and “highly relevant” to the emerging connected home, and the company is strengthening offerings in that category, he said. Software for security and camera support will be coming “quite promptly” from the company, he said. Control4 shares rose 16.2 percent in Wednesday trading to $23.41.

The Alliance for Wireless Power (A4WP) and the Power Matters Alliance (PMA) agreed to consolidate standards in the hopes of accelerating the growth of the wireless charging market. At the same time, WiTricity, developer of the resonant wireless power transfer technology behind PMA’s magnetic resonance efforts, joined A4WP as a board-level member company. A4WP President Kamil Grajski called that an “endorsement” of a “magnetic resonance pure play” that “adds a very credible, vocal and effective player to the A4WP team.”

LG cut the price again on its 55EA9800 curved OLED TV, which launched selectively at $14,999 last summer through a limited number of Best Buy Magnolia Design Center stores. LG and its retailers are likely eager to push out remaining inventory of the 55EA9800, which bowed with great fanfare last summer only to be trumped a month later when Samsung unveiled its KN55S9C 55-inch Curved OLED TV at $8,999. Both products are facing competition in the new TV technology department from the far less expensive 4K Ultra HD.

The Winter Olympics are expected to put a 4 million to 5 million rental dent in Redbox performance for Q1, said Chief Financial Officer Galen Smith on the company’s quarterly earnings call. Q1 performance is also expected to be affected by costs to build out the ecoATM business early in the year and the reversal of a $7 million benefit the company received from lower content amortization in Q4, Smith said.

Pandora launched an open music submission process designed to make it easier for independent artists to be discovered and heard on Pandora users’ personalized radio stations. Musicians can submit tracks for consideration using a three-step process at submit.pandora.com, it said. Pandora’s curators will listen to every album, EP or single that’s submitted, and artists can check their submission status online, the company said.

Luxury home builder Toll Brothers will offer Control4 home automation packages to buyers of select Toll Brothers homes throughout the U.S, the companies said Tuesday. The packages are expected to be available later this quarter, they said. Prospective home buyers will be able to choose from several pre-configured Control4 home automation packages that include lighting, thermostats, smart locks, touchscreens, and multi-room audio and video solutions with smartphone and tablet integration.

Netflix lost 1.3 million DVD subscribers in 2013, compared with a loss of three million DVD subscribers the prior year, bringing the total number of disc-by-mail subscribers to 6.93 million on Dec. 31, the company said in a 10-Q SEC filing. DVD revenue fell 20 percent to $911 million, Netflix said.

Google’s goal with the purchase of connected home device company Nest, which it agreed to buy earlier this month for $3.2 billion in cash, is to help build “scale,” said Google Chief Financial Officer Patrick Pichette on an earnings call late Thursday. Nest and Google share a “common vision” that “technology should be doing the hard work so that people can get on with their lives and do great things,” Pichette said. He called the acquisition a “terrific opportunity” to be able to use Google’s resources to reach broader audiences “and then scale internationally,” he said.