The federal complaint alleging the InfoComm 2014 show gave “safe haven" to HDMI trademark infringers (CED Sept 15 p4) “is the only suit that HDMI Licensing has ever filed against a trade show operator,” HDMI Licensing President Steve Venuti told us by email Tuesday. “HDMI’s intellectual property forms the backbone of our company and the continued development of our IP is fundamental to the success of our business, that of thousands of our licensees, as well as to millions of consumers who use and depend on our technology,” Venuti said. “Unfortunately, there are many infringers of HDMI’s valuable IP and we undertake a thoughtful effort to enforce our rights and to bring infringing behavior into compliance. When companies display infringing products at trade shows, we always work within the guidelines established by the trade shows to engage with these exhibitors.” As described in the complaint, InfoComm “prevented interaction with unlicensed exhibitors at InfoComm2014 in Las Vegas, thereby creating a platform for the marketing/sale of infringing products,” he said. “We brought legal action to ensure that InfoComm, like a swap meet or flea market that permits the sale of counterfeit goods, not be allowed to continue their behavior.” HDMI “has no plans to bring other legal action at this time” against organizers of other trade shows, Venuti said. InfoComm has said the HDMI Licensing complaint has no merit and that it plans to file counterclaims.

The reasons for not requiring DBS and IPTV systems to comply with separable security requirements no longer apply in the current market, said TiVo General Counsel Matt Zinn in a meeting with staff from the FCC chairman’s office, Media Bureau and AT&T/DirecTV deal review team Sept. 11, according to an ex parte filing posted in docket 97-80 Wednesday (http://bit.ly/1o3WCOw). CableCARD rules should remain in place until there’s a successor solution, Zinn told FCC staff.

To serve the growing implementation of 4K video capture in smartphones and tablets, SanDisk bowed what it’s calling the world’s fastest microSD UHS-I memory card. The 64 GB SanDisk Extreme PRO microSDXC UHS-I card has enough storage to “address consumers’ desire to generate high quality 4K Ultra HD content,” the company said Tuesday. With transfer speeds of up to 95 Mbps, “users can shoot like a pro and still experience world-class responsiveness from their smartphone, tablet or action camera,” it said. Ultra HD video capture “is being implemented in smartphones and ‘prosumer’ cameras and camcorders much more quickly than was the case when HD was launched,” the company said. “Features like 4K Ultra HD video recording, which were once only available on high-end devices, have quickly gained popularity and adoption,” it said. “There is no doubt 4K Ultra HD is a game-changer.” Performance won’t come cheap in the 64 GB memory card, which lists for $299, though there is a 16-GB version at $79.

Advocates of quantum dots have hailed the technology as capable of delivering OLED-like color performance to mainstream-priced LCD panels. Now, researchers from the University of Alabama in Huntsville and the University of Oklahoma have found a new way to control the properties of quantum dots, said an article published Tuesday in the Journal of Applied Physics (http://bit.ly/1t4Zgc1). A key property of quantum dots that makes them so useful is their fluorescence, the article said. But their ability to glow can deteriorate over time with exposure to light and air, it said. To probe how to better control how quantum dots react to their environment, researchers exposed several types of commercially available quantum dots to aluminum oxide, it said. They found that aluminum oxide made the quantum dots glow brighter and that the effect was much more significant for quantum dots without protective shells, it said. They also found that while quantum dots with binary (two types of semiconductors) and ternary (three types) cores shrink after reacting with the oxygen in air, ternary core dots placed on aluminum oxide glowed brighter despite the shrinkage, it said. This observation surprised the researchers, they don’t yet have an explanation for the difference, and they're continuing to study it, it said.

Dish Network and Scripps Networks renewed a deal that expands Dish subscriber access to the programmer’s entire content portfolio. It includes over-the-top multistream rights for live and VOD content, Dish said Tuesday. It also expands Dish’s distribution of authenticated live and VOD Scripps programming on Internet-connected devices, it said. “With this capability, the content will be available to an untapped segment of customers that is seeking a flexible, content-driven, Internet-accessible service.”

Global smartphone shipments will approach 1.2 billion units this year, up 19 percent from 2013, Juniper Research said Tuesday (http://bit.ly/1wnNdGq). Growth in emerging markets on the “continued surge” in sales of “economy” and “ultra-economy” smartphones priced under $75 will drive much of the increase, it said. “While Apple and Samsung continue to dominate the ultra-premium end of the market, these vendors are facing significant pressure from local players in the emerging markets,” it said. “These new players are beginning to build market share and achieve larger economies of scale, which eventually will enable them to expand their offering and challenge other smartphone sectors in the future.” Still, Apple and Samsung will have nearly 45 percent of the smartphones shipped globally this year, it said.

Pushing design and affordability, Sprint said Tuesday the HTC Desire 510 will be available Friday for postpaid and no-contract customers. Qualifying Sprint Easy Pay customers can buy the Desire 510 for no money down and 24 monthly payments of $8.34 (based on a $199 suggested retail price) with a service plan, it said. Sprint’s prepaid Boost Mobile unit will sell the Desire 510 in white for $99 beginning Sept. 23, and Virgin Mobile will sell a blue version for $99, also beginning Sept. 23, it said. The 4.7-inch phone has a Qualcomm 1.2 GHz processor and 5-megapixel rear-facing camera, Sprint said.

CEDIA reported attendance of 18,500 at its Expo last week in Denver, which drew 480 exhibitors from 82 countries. Attendance was up 3 percent and exhibitor square footage expanded by 14 percent from a year earlier, CEDIA said. The show had 100 first-time exhibitors and 17 startups that exhibited in a section called “Rookie Row.” it said. CEDIA Expo 2015 will be at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center in Dallas Oct. 13-17, more than a month later than the event’s customary run in mid-September.

CEA’s Video Division approved the use of “4K Ultra HD" as uniform terminology to describe “the emerging category of display products” with more than 8 million pixels, CEA said Tuesday. The change, which was made “to provide more consistency across the market,” updates the terminology CEA adopted two years ago when it agreed to call the technology “Ultra HD,” but dropped “4K” from the moniker to the apparent anger of a few member companies like Sony (CED Oct 19/12 p1). The new terminology will be reflected in two new logos -- “4K Ultra HD” and “4K Ultra HD Connected” -- that CEA also released Tuesday. “The new logos mark another important milestone as the inevitable evolution to 4K Ultra HD continues,” said CEA President Gary Shapiro. “These logos and consistent nomenclature will help consumers navigate the 4K Ultra HD marketplace and assist them in having a great experience at retail and at home.” Announcement of the CEA logos follows by nearly two weeks the IFA debut in Berlin of DigitalEurope’s pan-European “Ultra HD” logo (CED Sept 4 p4) that bears no resemblance to the CEA marks, though both logo programs support similar technical characteristics and were fashioned by many of the same member companies.

Sixty percent of U.S. consumers expect to have experienced a house that speaks or reads to them by 2025, said a study on the impact of technology commissioned by Intel’s McAfee. Seventy-seven percent of consumers think the most common device in 11 years will be a smart watch, and 70 percent believe overall wearable devices will be common personal accessories. Seventy-two percent of consumers expect connected kitchen appliances will be a household item by 2015, six in 10 expect their refrigerators to automatically add food to a running grocery list when items are running low, and 84 percent believe their home security systems will be connected to their mobile devices, McAfee said. Almost 70 percent of respondents expressed concern over the state of cybersecurity in 2025, with identity theft, monetary theft and fraud the leading issues. By 2025, 38 percent of U.S. consumers expect to unlock their mobile device by eye scan followed by a thumbprint, McAfee said. On mobile pay, a third of consumers believe they'll be able to pay for items using their fingerprint, while 22 percent expected to use their mobile device. Twenty-six percent of respondents said they planned to still pay by credit or debit card. The online survey was done Aug. 1-12 by MSI Research among 1,507 U.S. citizens ages 21-65, split evenly by age and gender.