The EPA last week released draft “conditions and criteria” for recognition of accreditation bodies to certify labs for Energy Star testing, as the agency moved to tighten rules for qualification and verification testing for the program. The move follows a GAO investigation that found Energy Star was prone to fraud and abuse. The agency also released a timeline for putting into effect the new qualification testing rules.

Panasonic expects “unpredictable” business conditions in the year ahead “despite a recovering world economy,” the company said Friday. Still, despite the uncertainty, Panasonic issued robust forecasts for the year ending next March 31, saying it expects total sales to jump 19 percent and operating profit to rise 31 percent. Panasonic wants to be the world’s top green CE company by 2018 when it marks its 100th anniversary, the company said.

Rovi gained design wins for its TotalGuide interactive program guide (IPG) and expects the first Blu-ray players and TVs containing it will ship Q1 2011, senior executives said on an earnings call. Rovi has said it would transfer the IPG’s source code to CE partners in Q2 (CED Feb 16 p2).

About 35 employees have resigned from Infinity Ward since parent company Activision Blizzard fired the studio’s president and CEO in March, and “it is likely that a few more people will leave as well,” Activision Blizzard CEO Robert Kotick said in an earnings call, marking the first time Activision said how many people left Infinity Ward. But the number was in line with the number believed to have resigned when several current and former employees sued Activision Blizzard (CED April 29 p6).

The public interest benefits of allowing the major studios to use selectable output controls (SOC) to beam first-run movies to pay-TV homes before their release on DVD or Blu-ray, “outweigh the limited impact on consumers who rely on unprotected outputs on the set-top box,” the FCC’s Media Bureau said Friday. It granted the MPAA’s request for waiver of SOC rules with conditions, as had been expected (CED Dec 1 p5). “We believe that providing consumers with the option to view films in their homes shortly after those films are released in theaters will serve the public interest,” the bureau said.

The departing head of FCC’s broadband work crew said the agency doesn’t need a permanent czar to ensure that the commission stays focused on high-speed Internet service even after execution of the National Broadband Plan wraps up. Blair Levin sees changes to the Universal Service Fund and intercarrier compensation as linked and thinks they need to be done together, he said in an exit interview Friday. He remains confused why broadcasters are publicly resisting the plan’s recommendation to create a market for other uses of TV spectrum and said that, despite much speculation about what he'll do next, he himself doesn’t know.

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. - PRO Group members are deploying an array of tactics to combat the continuing recessionary sales slump and further differentiate themselves from ever-expanding national chains, dealers said at PRO’s annual meeting here.

January CES will showcase for the first time “smart” household appliances that use technology to communicate with one another and the grid, CEA said Wednesday. The show, scheduled to open Jan. 6 in Las Vegas, will have a “Connected Home Appliances TechZone,” sponsored by CEA and the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers, among others,the groups said.

Despite remaining the best-selling handheld and home videogame systems, shipments of DS and Wii hardware and software tumbled in Nintendo’s fiscal year ended March 31 compared to the prior year, hurting its revenue and earnings, it said Thursday.

Ahead of a rumored Apple announcement on a streaming component to iTunes, which could follow Apple’s planned shutdown of Lala.com at month’s end (CED May 3 p7), Warner Music Group is playing down any possible tension with the digital-music powerhouse. WMG CEO Ed Bronfman told analysts in a Q2 earnings call Thursday that Apple’s dominance in digital downloads had actually promoted greater competition in the broader music-technology industry. Major labels are thought to be opposed to the incorporation of Lala’s upload-and-stream-anywhere business model into iTunes, at least at the royalty rates Apple pays them now.