Rebecca Day

Kaleidescape would not likely be required to shut down DVD servers already in the market if the tentative judgment issued last month by a California appeals court in DVD CCA’s lawsuit against Kaleidescape becomes final, said Stephen Watson, chief technology officer of Kaleidescape. “It would be very unusual for anybody to do anything to systems out there belonging to customers,” Watson told us.

The CE business, including digital TV and home theater, will be down in 2012 at Silicon Image, but at a slower rate than in 2011, CEO Camillo Martino said Thursday in the company’s Q4 earnings call. The company’s CE revenue was “challenged in 2011, and we expect to see these trends continue in 2012,” Martino said, but the company is banking on market trends, new technologies and its investment in Sibeam for 60-GHz wireless technology last year to drive CE revenue in 2013, Martino said.

Dolby continues to focus on its “other markets” business, including mobile, automotive, VIA and gaming, as traditional consumer electronics and PC businesses show declines, said CEO Kevin Yeaman during the fiscal Q1 earnings call Tuesday. For the quarter, Dolby reported revenue of $233.4 million, down from $242.7 million in Q1 2011. Income dropped to $73.2 million, from $86.4 million, it said.

Sharp slashed its fiscal 2011 outlook Wednesday, swinging from a projected surplus of 6 billion yen to a projected net loss of 290 billion yen for the year ending March 31. The statement from Sharp in Osaka, Japan, said: “Even after a revision of the financial results forecast on Oct. 27, 2011, the harsh business environment continued, with more-than-expected price declines” in LCD TVs and solar panels and a “heightened sense of caution regarding an economic slowdown arising from a prolonged strong yen and the European debt problem’s spreading across the globe."

Kaleidescape, the media server company waging an eight-year court battle with DVD CCA over a licensing agreement related to ripping and archiving DVDs, told dealers last week it intends to keep up the fight, despite a tentative judgment from the Santa Clara County Superior Court on Jan. 9 that supports DVD CCA’s claims. Kaleidescape also told Consumer Electronics Daily it has pushed aside plans to launch a streaming video store in Q1 (CED Sept 20 p1). “We will not be launching the store in Q1 2012,” CEO Michael Malcolm told us in an email. “We're focused on making it great, and we won’t open the store until it’s fully ready."

Samsung and Sony responded this week with expected support for the decision by the National Advertising Division (NAD) of the Council of Better Business Bureaus recommending that LG discontinue advertising claims made at the expense of its 3D rivals for the company’s Cinema 3D TVs and 3D glasses. “We are pleased with NAD’s careful review of the facts, and agree that its recommendations are appropriate,” a Samsung spokesman said. A Sony spokesman told us that the company had nothing to add to the NAD decision, which, he said, “stands on its own.”

LCD panel demand in 2012 is likely to remain “stagnant” on concerns over the global economy and oversupply, Samsung said in its Q4 earnings release Friday. Samsung’s Display Panel business posted an operating loss of 0.22 trillion Korean won on revenue of 8.55 trillion won in Q4, the company said.

In response to our story on CES demos by the Wireless Speaker and Audio Association (WiSA) (CED Jan 20 p5), the industry group promoting a high-end wireless speaker standard for connectivity between TVs and speaker systems, a Sharp spokesman told us Thursday that the company is working on development of a wireless speaker system, but he did not commit to WiSA as the standard. “Sharp believes that a wireless speaker system is important to include in our future product line-up,” the spokesman said. Sharp is “working on development of such products, taking WiSA into consideration as we move forward,” he said. Since the company is in the development stage, product details and availability are not available at this time, he said.

Some customers trying to install a patch for Sonos 3.6.1 software have bumped into installation problems since the update was announced Tuesday, according to the Sonos Facebook page. Sonos sent out a notice to users Tuesday informing them to “update your system as soon as possible.” The patch fixes a bug that Sonos said “in rare cases, could allow someone to access the usernames and passwords of services used on your Sonos.” According to the notice, signed by Andrew Schulert, vice president of quality for Sonos, a wireless home music system, the company was not aware of any customer data being compromised. Customers who were affected were instructed to contact customer service. Several frustrated customers over the past couple of days reported difficulties installing the fix, with complaints including “All menu options on my Play:5 are disabled, and looks like my Play:5 is no better than a paper weight as of now,” “Crashed the player every time it reached the end of the update on Sony Vaio laptop” and “The update software is saying that I need to update the iPad app and directs me to the iTunes Store, which says I have the latest version installed.” A Sonos customer service rep instructed one of the Facebook visitors to contact the support team and the issue had been resolved 2 hours later, according to the user. Questions to Sonos to find out the source of the problem, how the company became aware of the situation and whether any users have reported data breaches weren’t responded to by our deadline.

Weakness in webcam and remote control product portfolios, retail market conditions and devaluation of the Euro led Logitech to lower its outlook for fiscal 2012 for the fourth time, acting CEO Guerrino De Luca said in the company’s Q3 earnings call Thursday. For fiscal 2012, ending March 31, Logitech now expects sales of about $2.3 billion and operating income of about $60 million, compared with $90 million of operating income in its previous estimate.