Rebecca Day

Comcast’s announcement last week that it’s advancing its Xfinity Home Security business from a trial program that launched in the Houston market last summer to six more metro areas in Q2 -- and more by the end of the year -- is part of a technology shift that’s reshaping the home automation industry. ABI Research forecasts that the home automation market, once split into extremes of do-it-yourself hobbyists on the low end and expensive, custom-installed systems for luxury homes at the other, will reach 12 million shipments worldwide in 2016, from just 1.8 million in 2010.

Panasonic Automotive and AT&T are partnering on a multi-stage test program to explore the technological, business and social aspects of a community of connected commuters. The three-year program will launch in Q3 this year in Peachtree City, Ga., just south of Atlanta, where Panasonic Automotive runs a plant, and will be open to additional partners including car makers, fast-food restaurant chains, media and real estate companies, universities and local service providers, Hakan Kostepen, director of planning, strategy & innovation for Panasonic Automotive, told Consumer Electronics Daily. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Amazon added 410,000 titles to its e-book library in the past year, CEO Jeff Bezos said during the company’s annual shareholder webcast Monday. The Amazon library grew from 90,000 when the first Kindle was launched in November 2007 to 950,000 in May 2011, he said. The number doesn’t include “millions” of out-of-copyright, pre-1923 books available for free, he said. The growth rate for print books is still positive, and Amazon e-books are now outselling print books, resulting in the highest book sales growth rates in more than 10 years, he said.

HDBaseT, the single-wire connectivity standard that supplements the functionality of HDMI with data, control and power, faces a challenging road moving from niche applications to the mainstream market, said industry observers polled by Consumer Electronics Daily on the platform’s one-year anniversary. Developed by Israel-based Valens Semiconductor, HDBaseT sends protected uncompressed audio and video signals, control codes, data and power up to 328 feet over a low-cost Cat 5e or Cat 6 cable. That makes it a blessing for the custom electronics market, which uses long cable runs to carry high-quality audio and video signals, its backers said. But whether HDBaseT can expand beyond niche applications for large-scale commercial and luxury home installation is a question mark roughly a year after the initial spec was released, observers said.

The wireless charging market will surge 616 percent this year, said research from IHS iSuppli. The appeal of charging portable electronics without cords and bulky adapters is driving growth, with revenue expected to reach $885.8 million in 2011, up from $123.9 million in 2010, IHS said. Demand is driving manufacturers to offer wireless charging solutions “despite various technological and standardization issues slowing mass-market adoption,” said Tina Teng, senior analyst. Last year was the first of “meaningful growth” for the category, when revenue expanded 60 percent. Next year’s incline is forecast to be 276 percent, significant but less than half the growth in 2011, IHS said. Growth will taper off to 48 percent in 2015, when revenue is forecast to reach $23.7 billion, IHS said.

Panasonic announced an educational partnership Friday with UNESCO World Heritage Centre to promote sustainable development. Under the two-year agreement, Panasonic will sponsor the monthly “World Heritage Special” to be shown on the National Geographic Channel in 183 countries. The program will run the second Friday of every month featuring different episodes on World Heritage sites, a spokeswoman for National Geographic Channel told us. In its announcement, Panasonic said it will sponsor educational initiatives involving “the provision of Panasonic 3D-related video and audio equipment and technical support.” The spokeswoman for National Geographic Channel referred us to Panasonic regarding queries about future use of Panasonic 3D equipment when we asked if any of the programs would be shot in 3D -- either for use on a future National Geographic 3D channel or for DirecTV’s Panasonic-sponsored 3D channel. The announcement came out of Panasonic headquarters in Japan, and a U.S. spokesman wasn’t able to respond by deadline to our 3D query.

Consumers continue to view 3D TV “with some hesitation,” according to ABI Research’s survey of 2,024 U.S. consumers aged 14-64 about CE products they own and future purchase intent for technology. Factors limiting 3D TV appeal include a lack of interest in 3D content, which ABI said could be “due to limited availability,” along with high price, aversion to 3D glasses and lack of consumer education. The largest segment of survey respondents, 46 percent, planned no CE purchases over the next six months, the survey said.

Nearly 80 million TVs will be Wi-Fi Direct-enabled by 2015, as “the main display” in most homes will be a key target for Wi-Fi Direct technology, according to In-Stat. Wi-Fi Direct -- which connects Wi-Fi devices directly for printing, sharing and display rather connecting to a router or hotspot -- will have a “marginal” effect on overall penetration of Wi-Fi, which is “already doing very well” with high penetration rates in PCs, PC peripherals, CE devices, and mobile phones, In-Stat said. Wi-Fi Direct will have the most impact in portable CE devices where Wi-Fi penetration is limited, it said. According to In-Stat, every PC, CE device and mobile phone that ships in 2014 with Wi-Fi silicon will be Direct-enabled and mobile PCs will adopt Wi-Fi Direct more quickly than other applications. Wi-Fi Direct-enabled device shipments are forecast to reach 173 million this year. Other applications for the technology include PCs and peripherals, digital cameras, camcorders, set-top boxes, digital photo frames and e-readers, it said. The Wi-Fi Alliance lists nearly 50 certified Wi-Fi Direct products from LG across various categories and 19 mobile phones, a laptop and adaptors from Samsung as Wi-Fi Direct certified. Sony is listed with two Bravia display wireless LAN products, an adapter and an internal Wi-Fi Direct card.

Citing NPD revenue and unit sell-through data, Samsung said it was the plasma sell-through market leader in the U.S. with 41.3 percent of TV units sold from January through April this year. That’s a bump of 2.8 percentage points over the comparable 2010 period, it said. Samsung also held a leading 45.2 market share in dollars, it said. Samsung’s 2011 lineup includes 19 plasma models across eight product series, its broadest selection of plasma TVs to date, it said.

Consumers who scoured the aisles or webpages of major electronics retailers last weekend for hot Memorial Day weekend deals were likely disappointed and sometimes confused by the offers, we found in a scan of websites Friday.