SAN FRANCISCO -- Software developers making applications for smartphones and new platforms need to keep in mind the looming bandwidth caps and usage-based billing models of network operators, executives said at the Appnation conference late Monday. Wireless bandwidth caps are inevitable, said David Zilberman, a principal at Comcast Interactive Capital, the cable operator’s investment arm. The app developer “ecosystem needs to evolve a bit in the way they build applications and deliver content to devices,” he said.

Best Buy’s Q2 operating margin jumped 130 basis points to 25.7 percent on strong sales of smartphones, accessories and services at Best Buy Mobile, the chain said Tuesday. But U.S. same-store sales in core CE products fell 6.7 percent from Q2 a year earlier on “overall weakness” in TVs, it said.

Nuage Nine, named after the French word for cloud, is one of several start-up IT companies heading to CEDIA next week with a new cloud-based automated monitoring system for home entertainment and control systems. CEO Vaughn Petraglia told Consumer Electronics Daily that the transition to digital systems based on software and firmware has created a need for residential maintenance systems akin to those protecting corporate IT systems.

Consumers are being “panicked” into adopting digital radio by biased industry groups, a U.K. government panel said Tuesday. The Consumer Expert Group, formed to advise officials on digital switchover, issued a report on what benefits there are for consumers to use the new technology. The government planned to make the transition in 2015, but the CEG said setting a firm date will scare consumers into switching before numerous concerns are addressed. Industry groups criticized the report for being overly cautious and seeking to rewrite policy.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Intel announced Tuesday near-term moves from apps partnerships with big CE players to smart TV technology. “Consumer electronics is really an exciting space for Intel,” said Vice President Doug Davis, general manager of the company’s embedded and communications group.

The FCC is no longer proposing 2012 as the year for all of the thousands of low-power TV stations to make the digital transition (CED June 10 p5), under recent changes to a draft rulemaking notice that’s likely to be made public soon, agency officials said. They said a recent draft of the item seeks comment on a transition for all low-power stations of 2012, 2015 as proposed in the National Broadband Plan, or other proposed dates.

Sony agreed to pay SRS Labs $900,000 to settle a dispute over virtual-surround sound audio technology, SRS said in an SEC filing. Sony also will license three SRS patents granted between 1989-1999, including one covering a stereo enhancement system that processes a difference signal component from left and right signals to create a broader stereo image through two speakers. The dispute erupted in 2007, when Sony, an SRS customer, sued the company, saying 14 virtual surround sound patents were invalid. SRS had written Sony arguing that Sony’s S-Force technology in flat-panel TVs appeared to infringe multiple SRS patents.

Toys “R” Us revenue for Q2 ended July 31 was flat with Q2 last year at $2.6 billion, it said, citing weak sales of entertainment products including videogame hardware and software. Same-store sales increased 0.6 percent in the U.S., but fell 3.2 percent in other regions as growth “in most categories were offset by a decline in videogames,” it said. There was “a slowdown in demand for videogame systems,” while videogame software sales were hurt by “fewer new software releases,” it said in a 10-Q filing at the SEC.

Increases in the productivity and energy-efficiency of Intel processors continue apace, Intel CEO Paul Otellini said Monday. The company is “on track to deliver” 22 nanometer process chips in the second half of 2011, he said in a keynote at the Intel Developer Forum.

Mobile platforms are starting to hurt the sales of conventional handheld videogames, analysts said Friday, a day after NPD reported further DS and PSP sales declines in August. U.S. videogame industry sales were the worst for any August since 2006, NPD analyst Anita Frazier said, despite the strong performances of the Xbox 360 console and the latest entry in the Madden NFL football game series from Electronic Arts (EA).