Rebecca Day

Facing strong competition from tablets, Intel is pushing convertible Ultrabook PCs for the “pretty near future” that bring the functionality of PCs and the convenience of tablets into a single form factor, Bryan Deaner, brand manager, told us Tuesday at a press event in Manhattan. The company launched 35 Ultrabook designs this week with “about a hundred in the pipeline,” Deaner said. That’s an increase from the 70 Intel said at CES that it would deliver this year, and more than 50 are currently in the market, he said.

San Antonio-based AV specialty retailer Bjorn’s collected 40,000 pounds of electronics Saturday in its first recycling event, Kris Dybdahl, IT and marketing manager, told Consumer Electronics Daily. The store had to turn about 20 cars away after staff members of Corona Visions, a local recycling company, suffered effects of heat exhaustion in 96-degree temperatures, he said. The customers were redirected to Corona’s warehouse, where customers could still donate their electronics for free as an extension of the event.

Tessera said Monday it will seek more than $125 million in royalties from Amkor following an interim award by an arbitration court of the International Chamber of Commerce in favor of Tessera in its license dispute with Amkor Technology. Tessera filed a complaint in U.S. District Court in Wilmington, Del., Friday for injunctive relief and damages. “We continue to seek royalties for use of the Tessera, Inc. patent portfolio, which has delivered over $1 billion in revenue during the past decade,” said Richard Chernicoff, president of Tessera Intellectual Property Corp.

Hhgregg will open its first stores west of the Mississippi River in late summer when it opens four stores in the St. Louis area, Jeff Pearson, senior vice president-marketing, told Consumer Electronics Daily. One store will be in Gravois Bluffs, a 300-acre retail, office, and entertainment mall in Fenton, Mo., that once housed Ultimate Electronics, before the chain went into bankruptcy last year, as well as an American TV and Appliance store that shut with three others last year as part of a “pre-emptive strike” to close unprofitable locations in the St. Louis area (CED June 6/11 p2). Pearson said hhgregg didn’t have “anything to share at this time” about opening date and square footage of stores but said in general hhgregg stores are about 25,000-30,000 square feet. Each store typically employs about 50 people including store management, sales associates, customer service reps and warehouse staff, Pearson said. The company has previously said it would leverage its investment in its distribution center in Chicago, as part of the company’s long-term goal of being a national retailer. Pearson didn’t comment on further plans for expansion in the western U.S. The retailer currently operates 210 stores in Alabama, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia.

GreenPeak Technologies, supplier of the ZigBee chip inside Comcast-issued set-top boxes, announced availability last week of its GP510 communication controller chip that supports communication between ZigBee RF4CE-enabled devices and a set-top box or home gateway. The GP510 was developed to be a low-cost solution for next-generation ZigBee set-top boxes, CEO Cees Links told us, and is currently rolling out in set-top boxes from Comcast in select markets, according to a schedule the cable provider announced at CES earlier this year. Comcast uses GreenPeak chips in all its set-top boxes, Links said, but he wouldn’t disclose its five smaller MSO customers, citing nondisclosure agreements.

Amid reports that Apple is readying a scaled-back mini iPad to compete in the 7-8-inch tablet segment for possible delivery this fall, the impact will be felt not only on the obvious competitors -- suppliers of Android and Windows-based tablets -- but PC peripherals and software makers as well, said a report released Thursday by Digital Tech Consulting. Apple didn’t respond by deadline to questions about the rumored mini iPad.

Tablet shipments, the growth driver for the mobile PC market, will surpass notebook shipments in 2016, DisplaySearch said in its latest quarterly mobile PC shipment report. Overall mobile PC shipments, including tablets, will grow from 347 million units this year to more than 809 million units by 2017, DisplaySearch said. Notebook PC shipments are projected to grow from 208 million units in 2012 to 393 million units by 2017, according to the report, while tablets are expected to jump from 121 million units to 416 million units for the same period.

One-Red LLC, spun off six months ago from Philips as patent licensing agent for DVD Video, DVD-ROM, CD Audio and CD-ROM, is offering a mandatory per-batch licensing program at the request of shareholders Philips, Sony, Pioneer and LG, it said Monday. Under the new program, which took effect Sunday, licensees pay a royalty that’s roughly 20 percent less on a “per batch” basis than the previous license issued to each manufacturer, Ben Beune, executive vice president of One-Red, told us. The royalty rate for a DVD player is $3.60 under the standard licensing program, and it goes down to $2.80 per player under the new plan, he said. Companies fully compliant with terms and conditions of the license agreement receive the lower rate “as a reward for being compliant licensees,” he said. Licensed products can be tracked under the batch approach, where a manufacturer receives a license status confirmation document, enabling customers and customs authorities to confirm that shipped products are licensed, he said. Philips has been offering a per-batch option in the past, but it’s now mandatory, Beune said. Under previous manufacturer license agreements, when a licensee becomes “non-compliant and sells products to the market without paying royalties, there’s nothing you can do downstream to collect royalties,” Beune said. By setting up a per batch license, manufacturers have to apply for a license for every shipment and they “become liable for the payment of those royalties,” he said. The majority of Red-One employees, roughly 80-90 percent, are ex-employees of Philips’ Optical Storage Licensing Program, Beune said. The group is a standalone company owned by Philips, Sony, Pioneer and LG, and is “open to become the licensing agent for other companies for all kinds of technologies,” Beune said. There are now no specific future plans for other technologies, he added. The group is also the licensing agent for Blu-ray players and discs.

Dolby held private listening sessions at CE Week where it previewed a version of Dolby Digital Plus that’s optimized for tablets and smartphones. Tablets and poorly positioned speakers, facing to the back or where a user’s hands would typically be, along with inexpensive amplifiers, have produced a sub-par entertainment experience for movies and music in the first two years of the tablet market, Kevin Brennan, Dolby director of marketing, e-media, told us. The next iteration of Dolby Digital Plus, expected to hit tablets in time for the holiday season, will bring characteristics of Dolby Digital surround sound for the 10-foot living room experience to the seven- and 10-inch tablet, he said.

CEA announced at CE Week festivities Wednesday the launch of CEA Foundation, whose mission is to link seniors and people with disabilities with computer, video and Internet technology that can help them in their daily lives. Audiovox founder John Shalam told us the initial endowment of the charitable foundation is $1 million, and the first grant for $250,000 was awarded to Selfhelp Community Services, an eldercare service organization based in New York. Selfhelp’s Virtual Senior Center uses technology to allow homebound seniors to connect with friends and take virtual classes in art, cooking and other activities, said Leo Asen, vice president of senior communities at Selfhelp. Asen cited research indicating technology “may help blunt the colossal emotional, physical and financial costs of isolation that tens of thousands of seniors deal with on a daily basis.” Also during CE Week, CEA CEO Gary Shapiro said that Kazuhiro Tsuga, newly appointed President of Panasonic Corp., will deliver the opening keynote address at International CES 2013. The keynote is scheduled for 8:30 a.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 8 at the Palazzo Ballroom in the Venetian hotel, Las Vegas, Shapiro said. Investor Larry Richenstein is vice chairman of the foundation and Veronica O'Connell of CEA is secretary and treasurer. Sunday is “Independence Day for the nearly 30 million blind and visually impaired Americans” because it marks the start of FCC rules for the top-five cable networks and some TV stations to begin providing four hours weekly of video description, said CEO Diane Johnson of Descriptive Video Works, a company providing such audio narration services. Video description was mandated by the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act, for which CEA lobbied.