Meredith is launching businesses in audio content, QR codes and direct-to consumer products, the company announced at CES Monday. The new unit is called Meredith Innovation Group, and includes Meredith Product Studio, the voice AI-focused-Meredith Voice Network, and Meredith Smart Codes, which uses QR codes on magazine pages to gather “ad performance and attribution data for advertisers,” said the broadcaster/publisher.

Nationwide service provider InstallerNet announced partnerships Monday with eBay for add-on automotive installation services to eBay shoppers and with smart home startup Brilliant. EBay shoppers will be able to add installation service during the checkout process for standard car stereo, car alarm and backup installation services. Brilliant customers have access to professional installation through InstallerNet's network of 2,500 trained and certified installers. With online scheduling, customers can make appointments through the website, or they can call customer service directly to schedule a job. The company will select a trained local installer from the area and coordinate the service experience. Brilliant products are designed for do-it-yourself customers, but “we know that not everyone will have the time or desire to do it themselves,” said Michael Williams, Brilliant vice president-marketing

DoorDash and General Motors will begin testing food deliveries using autonomous vehicles in San Francisco, they said Thursday. The pilot is looking to solve questions about autonomous delivery around technical and infrastructure challenges; impact on merchants, delivery people and customers; and quality of automated deliveries vs. the current experience. A runner system will move orders from the merchant to the AV, with the customer notified when the vehicle is approaching. GM’s Cruise Automation has been testing AVs in San Francisco for three years.

Gracenote announced Thursday its next-generation descriptive metadata feature for TV and movie discovery. Gracenote Video Descriptors is the first of the company’s advanced discovery products, designed to improve user engagement for pay-TV providers, over-the-top video services and connected device manufacturers. TV content providers are bolstering catalogs of original and licensed TV shows and movies and developing voice-driven capabilities to meet changing technology, but existing recommendation offerings rely on traditional genre descriptors such as action, comedy and drama that lack personalization, Gracenote said. That puts the onus on viewers to sort through the 40,000 TV episodes and movies to find programing relevant to them, Simon Adams, Gracenote chief product officer, emailed us. The latest Gracenote solution is said to enable clearer understanding of content and more personalized video picks. Genres have been expanded to include mood, theme, scenario and characters, and structured keyword sets for individual shows and movies describe content in progressively more granular terms, Adams said. When the new discovery will appear in consumer products will depend on customer development cycles. TV providers are “fast-tracking” new search and discovery products due to intense competition and pressure to “maximize viewer engagement,” said Adams. The descriptors are available today and can be delivered via IP-delivered software updates. They're powered by machine learning, but Gracenote employs human editors with entertainment knowledge “to train smart algorithms to analyze content at scale,” apply structured descriptors and establish correlations between related TV shows and movies, he said.

SiriusXM signed Scott Greenstein to a new employment agreement on Christmas Eve that extends his run as president-chief content officer through May 2022, said an 8-K Wednesday at the SEC. SiriusXM raised Greenstein’s annual base pay by 7 percent to $1.6 million and gave him the chance to earn yearly bonuses targeted at up to $2.4 million -- 150 percent of his annual base salary -- if he meets set “performance goals,” it said. It also granted Greenstein options to buy 3.2 million SiriusXM shares at $5.51 a share, plus roughly 2 million time-based and performance-based restricted stock units that vest on specified dates between December 2019 and May 2022, it said. Shares closed unchanged Thursday at $5.73.

Headsets maker Plantronics agreed to pay a $36 million fine to settle SEC allegations that former employees of its Polycom subsidiary in China violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, said the company Wednesday. The alleged violations took place before Plantronics bought Polycom in July for $2.2 billion in cash and stock, and all the Polycom employees involved had left the company by the time the acquisition was complete, it said. About $31 million of the fine, to be paid from an escrow account set up as part of the Polycom buy, represents the profits Polycom gleaned from its “illegally obtained contracts in China,” said a DOJ letter summarizing the settlement terms. DOJ won’t prosecute the employees involved despite the bribery they committed and Polycom’s “knowing and willful causing of false books and records” to be reported, it said. It based the decision on Polycom’s “prompt, voluntary self-disclosure of the misconduct,” and its “full cooperation in this matter,” including firing eight employees involved, “disciplining” 18 others and terminating the company’s relationship with one of its “channel partners,” it said. Nothing in the settlement agreement provides "any protection against prosecution of any individuals, regardless of their affiliation with Polycom," it said. DOJ also "may reopen its inquiry" if it "learns information that changes its assessment" of the case, it said.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai tweeted Wednesday he had met with David Friedman, U.S. ambassador to Israel, as part of his trip there. “We had a wonderful, wide-ranging conversation about everything from #Israel's tech sector to art to telecom litigation over the years,” Pai said. Pai also met with the team from Gilat Satellite Networks (see 1812180054), he noted. “They're providing satellite backhaul to wireless carriers, connectivity to planes through companies like @Gogo, & emergency comms in places like #PuertoRico,” he said. “Appreciated hearing about the opportunities & challenges ahead.” The U.S. Embassy tweeted about a presentation Pai made to students at Tel Aviv University. The chairman “discussed his work at the @FCC, the promise of #5G and efforts to bridge the digital divide,” it said.

CBS has grounds to terminate former CEO Les Moonves for cause for “willful and material misfeasance,” violating company policies and failing to cooperate with the investigation, the board said Monday. He won't get severance. Moonves stood to collect $120 million in severance had the board determined he was fired without cause (see 1809100026). The investigation showed CBS’ policies “have not reflected a high institutional priority on preventing harassment and retaliation,” the company said, though it said harassment and retaliation aren’t “pervasive." CBS has appointed new chief people officer Laurie Rosenfield (see 1810110052) and retained “outside expert advisors” to develop initiatives to promote workplace “dignity, transparency, respect and inclusion,” it said.

Apple announced a $1 billion expansion of its North Austin, Texas, campus; plans to build new sites in Seattle, San Diego and Culver City, Cal.; and its intent to expand in Pittsburgh, New York and Boulder, over the next three years. The 133-acre Austin campus will accommodate 5,000 more employees, with capacity to grow to 15,000, it said. The company plans to invest $10 billion in U.S. data centers over the next five years, including $4.5 billion this year and next. Centers in North Carolina, Arizona and Nevada are being expanded, and preparations are underway for a center in Waukee, Iowa, all run on 100 percent renewable energy, it said. The company supports more than 2 million jobs in the U.S., it said, counting workers at 9,000 suppliers and manufacturers, with the App Store ecosystem responsible for more than 1.5 million.

Goodbye, Cable One, hello, Sparklight, as the cable ISP said Tuesday it will rebrand itself with the new name starting next summer. It said its corporate name will remain Cable One. It said new residential internet service plans and pricing will accompany the rebrand.