The EPA released draft criteria for labs picked to test for Energy Star qualifications, as the agency moved to strengthen qualification and verification rules for the program. The requirements include those for in-house labs that the agency is considering allowing for certain product categories. Comments on the Draft Conditions and Criteria for Recognition of Laboratories are due May 28, the agency said.

Wal-Mart’s Sam’s Club wasn’t “positioned optimally” in TV inventory in Q1 as it struggled with an industrywide shortage of flat-panel sets, Sam’s Club President Brian Cornell said on a conference call. Sam’s Club’s assortment of LED-backlit models also was lean as manufacturers transitioned to new models, Cornell said.

The FTC must give CE makers and retailers flexibility to choose the “appropriate attachment mechanism, location and color scheme” of energy use disclosure labels as it devises labeling requirements for TVs, CEA said in comments at the agency. The FTC started a rulemaking on EnergyGuide labels for TVs and other CE products so consumers will have more information on their energy use. “The goal must be to maximize consumer accessibility to the label, while recognizing the varied ways TVs are displayed for sale,” CEA said.

Lower prices than a year earlier and rivals’ liquidation sales hurt Hastings Entertainment results for Q1 through April, the chain said Monday. Profit fell to $1 million, 11 cents a share, from $1.7 million, 17 cents, a year earlier. But significant improvement in videogame comparable store sales and more modest growth in comparable store movie and electronics sales helped Hastings report a 4.9 percent uptick in total comparable store sales. Total revenue inched up 2.7 percent to $129.1 million.

Audiovox swung to a $6.5 million Q4 profit from a $70 million loss a year earlier as it benefited from strong sales of FLO TV products and acquisitions of Invision Industries and Schwaiger accessories, the company said. Revenue rose to $150 million from $115 million, as Invision and Schwiager added $11.2 million to sales, Chief Financial Officer Michael Stoehr said on a conference call.

The long-awaited Interphone study, looking at whether heavy cellphone use causes central nervous system tumors, produced no conclusive results, according to a report to be released Tuesday in Geneva. Wireless industry groups said the results largely confirm what other studies have shown.

A 10-year-old record label is morphing into a download store and social network that aims to recreate the environment of the rapidly disappearing brick-and-mortar record store.

SAN FRANCISCO -- A radio station executive offered a bleak outlook Monday for his industry against Internet radio, and the founder of webcaster Pandora said the arrival of online programming in car dashes threatens Sirius XM. To illustrate a point about how far behind the curve terrestrial radio is in technology, Joe Barham, music director of KSAN(FM) San Francisco, asked how many in the audience at the SF MusicTech Summit had heard of HD Radio, which he called the industry’s big advance in recent years. Hardly any at the music technology conference had, and even fewer had listened to it.

Negotiating 3D distribution rights for live TV events such as sports has become a complicated task as content owners, licensees, traditional distributors and new distributors seeking them all are at the table, industry executives said in interviews. “In terms of rights?” said Terry Denson, vice president of content strategy and acquisition for Verizon. “It’s cloudy. It’s real cloudy."

A grant to Dish Network of a rare full-court review of a ruling of a DVR patent infringement ruling it lost to TiVo hinges on whether a redesigned satellite receiver/DVR should be subject to new infringement proceedings, analysts said. In granting an en banc review, the U.S. Appeals Court for the Federal Circuit ordered that four additional briefs be filed by September. That set the stage for oral argument this fall, analysts said.