The Entertainment Merchants Association and Entertainment Software Rating Board criticized comments by the Parents Television Council (PTC) about the findings of the PTC’s latest mystery shopper survey. Videogame retailers sold M-rated titles to minors 19 percent of the time in the survey taken in October, “only a slight improvement over the 20 percent failure rate reported” by the FTC in 2008, the PTC said.

E-waste and energy efficiency will remain on Capitol Hill’s radar even if Republicans regain control of one or both houses of Congress, officials from the CE industry and environmental groups agree. But some of those officials who lobby at the state and local level said a Republican takeover will mean less emphasis on regulation and more stress on market incentives.

A term sheet on NAB’s performance royalty position adopted by its radio board late Monday and approved Tuesday by the TV board drew criticism from other industry groups. The NAB sent the term sheet to the MusicFirst coalition Monday night and said it would only support legislation to institute a performance royalty for terrestrial radio broadcasters that mimicked it. The coalition said it differed from an agreement the groups had reached over the summer. But NAB CEO Gordon Smith said no such agreement had been reached as talks between the parties continued (CED Aug 16 p5).

Sigma Designs will ship a new home networking chipset in 2011 combining new and current standards for sending data over coaxial cable, telephone and power lines as it seeks the upper hand in developing ICs for the new ITU G.hn standard.

The Wi-Fi Alliance said it has begun certifying products that can make device-to-device connections as Wi-Fi Certified Wi-Fi Direct. Wi-Fi Direct is expected to appear as a proprietary feature in laptops by year-end, and it will have a heavy presence at the 2011 CES, Sarah Morris, marketing manager for the alliance, told Consumer Electronics Daily. She said Wi-Fi Direct functionality will roll out broadly to consumer electronics products in 2011.

Amazon disputed Kindle-related claims in patent-infringement suits against the company by Olympic Developments and Positive Technologies. Amazon said in a 10-Q filing at the SEC that it plans to “vigorously defend” itself in the cases. Olympic sued Amazon on Sept. 28 in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, claiming that aspects of the e-tailer’s technology, including the Kindle e-reader, infringe two patents it owns: U.S. Patent No. 5,475,585 for a “Transactional Processing System” and 6,246,400B1 for a “Device for Controlling Remote Interactive Receiver.” Apple, Barnes & Noble.com, DirecTV, Microsoft, Nintendo of America, Sony Computer Entertainment America, Sony Electronics and game developer/online distribution company Valve were also named in the suit.

SAN FRANCISCO -- With broad implementation of the smart grid some 10 years out, CE and appliance companies are grappling with issues of infrastructure, customer interface and distribution that will impact how products and standards evolve during ramp-up, experts said last week on a CEA Industry Forum panel.

Conn’s slashed 400 jobs and has begun fully outsourcing home delivery services in two markets, moving to cut costs amid a sharp decline in sales, executives said Friday on an earnings call. The job cuts in late August were spread across the company, leaving it with 2,500-2,600 employees, and were in proportion to employment levels, Chief Financial Officer Michael Poppe told us. Conn’s had a sales staff at its 76 stores of about 1,300 prior to job cuts, he said. Conn’s also has reduced operating hours at six locations and outsourced home delivery to third-party companies in Austin, Texas, and Lafayette, La., Poppe said. It has previously used third-party delivery for parts of the Houston, Texas market, Poppe said.

NCR’s direct distribution pact with Universal Studios is the first of “several” agreements it will sign in the next few weeks for Blockbuster Express DVD and Blu-ray rental kiosks, NCR’s CEO Bill Nuti said on an earnings call.

Canadian company ISee3D, formerly International Telepresence, is promising 3D from a single-lens camera, webcam or phone, thereby avoiding the cost and complexity of conventional twin-lens devices, and the time-consuming and expensive optical calibration needed to get good results from them. The newly promoted idea dates back to 1994 when International Telepresence filed patents on methods to get 3D images from a single-lens endoscope camera during minimally invasive “keyhole” surgery, our patent search has found.