Custom-channel dealers are itching to get back to in-person conferences but are in holding patterns about plans for the CEDIA Expo, scheduled for Sept. 1-3 at Indianapolis' Indiana Convention Center, buying group executives told us. Executives reported some pushback from members over the show's mandatory mask policy.
Disagreement on enforcement through private lawsuits threatens to derail two state privacy bills. The Washington state legislature ends regular session Sunday, and the Florida legislature closes April 30. Each state’s House supported including a private right of action, while their Senates seek only attorney general enforcement. Either state could become the third to pass a comprehensive law, after California and Virginia.
The ad-supported version of HBO Max is on track for June launch, said AT&T CEO John Stankey on a Q1 call Thursday, but he again refrained from discussing how AT&T would price the service. AT&T closed Q1 with 44.2 million HBO and HBO Max subscribers in the U.S., compared with 33.1 million in the 2020 quarter, before HBO Max launched May 27. AT&T doesn't break out HBO Max subscriptions from those of the legacy HBO service.
Apple and Google unfairly leverage their dominance over the app store market and engage in intimidation, representatives from Spotify, Match and competing companies told the Senate Antitrust Subcommittee Wednesday. Chairwoman Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and ranking member Mike Lee, R-Utah, detailed how the two companies’ unprecedented power lets them make arbitrary decisions that determine users and competitors' fate.
The U.S. will get another wireless network as Dish Network launches 5G, said Bob Paige, Vertical Bridge senior vice president-mergers and acquisitions. “There seems to be a need for a fourth network.” Dish will deploy next-generation 5G using a “green-field” open radio access network, he said. Others told Wednesday's Wireless Infrastructure Association event that, with this and C-band deployments, the outlook for the tower sector is bright, but questions remain.
Netflix missing its Q1 target on net subscriber additions by nearly 34% (see 2104200076) “really boils down” to COVID-19, said Chief Financial Officer Spencer Neumann on a quarterly earnings interview Tuesday. The pandemic continues to have a "big impact on the world," and for Netflix, "at a minimum, creates just some short-term kind of choppiness in some of the business trends that we see,” he said.
The first iMac and iPads to use Apple’s M1 chip, more powerful iPad Pros, a next-generation 4K Apple TV and a Tile-like location tag for the Find My network highlighted Apple hardware introductions during the company's virtual event Tuesday. Products go on preorder April 30 with late May availability, said presenters.
Over three-fourths of respondents in a year-end 2020 survey said they shopped more online due to COVID-19, and 86% of those plan to continue shopping online post-pandemic, said delivery management software company Metapack.
New York state will require all ISPs to sell a $15 monthly internet plan to low-income households. Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) signed a budget Friday including the affordable broadband program and spending $1 million on a statewide map measuring broadband availability, reliability and cost. The plan got praise from the state’s consumer advocate, but the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation said it might foreshadow more price regulation.
Target continues to see “surprising strength in stores” and “much more optimism” from consumers as COVID-19 vaccines are more broadly distributed, but it would be “false precision for us to apply any type of growth factor to stimulus in an environment that’s so rapidly changing,” said CEO Brian Cornell on a Thursday investor call.