In the wake of a last week’s ruling that the Federal Trade Commission can prosecute its antitrust suit against Meta Platforms, it is now reported that the FTC and multiple state attorneys general are scrutinizing the company’s virtual reality unit — formerly known as Oculus Quest but renamed Meta Quest — for potential anti-competitive practices. New York, North Carolina and Tennessee are among the states that, in addition to the FTC, are said to be investigating whether the Meta Quest app store discriminates against app developers whose goods compete against Meta’s own products. Continue reading Meta Quest VR Unit Faces Antitrust Probe by FTC and States

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) says it will increase production capacity by up to 47 percent for 2022 as demand continues to surge amid a global chip shortage. To support the increase and technology upgrades, the world’s largest contract chipmaker plans to set a company record for capital expenditure in 2022, with spending at $40-44 billion (compared to $30 billion in 2021). Speaking at an investor conference, company CFO Wendell Huang said about 70-80 percent of the 2022 capex will fund development of advanced 2nm, 3nm, 5nm and 7nm processors as TSMC fights to maintain its dominant market share while rivals step up. Continue reading TSMC Earmarks Up to $44 Billion in Competitive Chip Sector

Alphabet’s Google continues on a path of global dominance, announcing during CES 2022 earlier this month that the total number of monthly active Android TV devices has grown to 110 million in the world. Since May alone, 30 million devices were added, a growing number of them featuring the company’s new Google TV platform, with TCL reporting that it is moving about 10 million television sets a year with the Google TV interface. Seven of the world’s top 10 smart TV OEMs are currently using a Google UI on their TVs, according to Google TV director of product management Rob Caruso. Continue reading Google TV Aims to Build Its Own Identity Among TV Platforms

To understand speech visually, by reading lips, in addition to aurally, is an advantage for which AI has been waiting, according to researchers at Meta Platforms (formerly Facebook). The company says it has developed a framework that learns by watching — Audio-Visual Hidden Unit BERT (AV-HuBERT) — and that it is 75 percent more accurate than competing automated speech recognition systems on several metrics. Meta claims that AV-HuBERT outperforms the former best audiovisual speech recognition system with only one-tenth the inuput, which makes it potentially useful with languages with little or no audio data. Continue reading Companies Turn to AI for New Approaches to Audio Solutions

Consumer mobile app spending hit $170 billion in 2021, according to the State of Mobile in 2022 report released by App Annie. Charting expenditures across iOS, Google Play and third-party Chinese Android app stores, the figure represents 19 percent year-over-year growth, almost flat (down from 18 percent growth in 2020). While last year, consumers installed more apps than ever, the growth rate itself is slowing. Last January, App Annie reported year-over-year download growth of 7 percent from 2020, which has dropped to 5 percent for 2021. However, in all, consumers downloaded a record 230 billion apps in 2021. Continue reading Consumers Downloaded a Record 230 Billion Apps Last Year

Samsung is sharing more specifics about its Gaming Hub and HDR10+ Gaming standard, unveiled at CES 2022. Samsung’s high-end 2022 TVs, including the Neo QLED line-up (Q70 and above) and gaming monitors will support what Samsung Electronics Visual Display Business executive vice president and head of R&D Seokwoo Yong calls “a game-changing experience,” with richer, life-like images, variable refresh rates (VRR) of up to 120Hz, automatic HDR color correction on a game-by-game basis, as well as an in-menu streaming hub with access to the Nvidia GeForce, Google Stadia and Utomik cloud libraries. Continue reading CES: Samsung Targets Gamers with Monitors and Smart TVs

Startups enjoyed record venture capital funding last year, raising $621 billion globally and seeding several new tech hubs around the world, although Silicon Valley remains ground zero, according to research firm CB Insights. The U.S. accounted for roughly half of the funding raised globally, with stateside startups raising roughly $311 billion. Bootstrappers in Silicon Valley and New York retained the leading positions in terms of most money raised and number of deals completed, says CBI. Early-stage funding accounted for 63 percent of Philadelphia’s startup deals. Los Angeles and Dallas also grew early stage numbers, to 62 and 55 percent respectively. Continue reading Global Startups Raised $621 Billion in 2021, Breaking Record

A federal judge has allowed a Federal Trade Commission antitrust lawsuit against Facebook to proceed, denying dismissal, a major victory for the agency as it gears up to take on Big Tech. The FTC claims the company, which since renamed itself Meta Platforms, accrued monopoly power and abused it by harming competition through an acquisitions strategy described as “buy or bury.” The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruling is seen as a warning to tech behemoths like Amazon, Apple and Google and the armies of lobbyists and lawyers employed to protect their interests. Continue reading Judge Rules That FTC Can Proceed with Meta Antitrust Case

New York-based Take-Two Interactive has agreed to buy social game developer Zynga in a deal valued at $12.7 billion in cash and stock. The move is seen as a bid by the company behind “Grand Theft Auto” and “NBA 2K” to boost its mobile portfolio with Zynga assets like “Words With Friends” and “FarmVille.” Take-Two described the acquisition as a “clear path to bring Take-Two’s console/PC games to mobile,” a category the company’s CEO Strauss Zelnick said on an investor call this week holds “tremendous untapped potential,” citing “Zynga’s leading development, publishing, and live operations teams.” Continue reading Take-Two to Purchase Mobile Gamer Zynga for $12.7 Billion

Matter was a big player at CES 2022. Built around the premise that smart homes need a single, unifying interface standard that makes devices “secure, reliable and seamless to use,” the Matter alliance now has more than 220 member companies, including Apple, Comcast, LG and Samsung. Amazon announced developers can add Frustration-Free Setup on Matter-certified devices using the Matter SDK, and Google declared its Fast Pair simple setup is supporting Matter. As companies build new smart products, Matter believes that users should merely plug them in to make them operational on the home network. Continue reading CES: Support for Matter Helps Drive Smart Home Momentum

During CES, Canon introduced two new software-based collaborative tools it has in development: AMLOS, a video meeting platform based on gestures, and the VR platform Kokomo, a social VR platform for immersive video calls. Under the theme “Together Next,” Canon enlisted actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt and his online collaborative media platform HitRecord to demonstrate using the new hybrid collaboration technology in a virtual, real-time writers’ room. In addition to operation through gesture control and connectivity with Microsoft Teams and other collaboration apps, AMLOS will allow a single camera to capture multiple angles when it debuts later this year. Continue reading CES: Canon Solutions for New Reality of Virtual Work and Life

TCL, the No. 2 TV-maker in the world after Samsung, raised the curtain on a new flagship model at CES 2022. The X925 Pro is a super-thin, 85-inch, 8K Google TV powered by the company’s own flavor of Mini-LED, featuring OD-Zero technology. Measuring just 10mm thick — half that of some competing models — the 8K display has local dimming, QLED color, a built-in webcam for video chats, 120Hz refresh rate and, to make gamers happy, variable refresh rate (VRR). The Google TV OS enables hands-free “Hey, Google” voice commands. The X925 Pro touts numerous high-end touches and has a $10,000 price to match. Continue reading CES: TCL 8K QLED X925 Pro Comes in a Very Thin Package

TVs continue to gain computer functionality as Sony borrows a page from the monitor playbook by adding camera functionality to models in the 2022 Bravia XR lineup introduced at CES 2022. The Z9K Mini-LED (8K) and A95K HDR OLED (4K) will ship with Bravia Cam, which adds video chat and gesture control. The camera will also help with brightness settings, dialogue emphasis and sound balance by tracking the viewer’s position with regard to the screen. Bravia Cam is an option on other 4K models, including the X95K Mini-LED series, A90K and A80K OLED models, and the X90K LED. Continue reading CES: Sony Touts 8K, QD-OLED TVs, Bravia Cam for Gestures

Samsung announced a dazzling lineup of TVs at CES 2022, including the ultimate MicroLED, which one writer called “110 inches of entertainment insanity,” with a $150,000 price tag to match. The Neo QLED line and Lifestyle TVs also impressed. But one model generating a lot of attention wasn’t introduced as part of the company’s 2022 lineup. Rather, the Samsung Electronics QD-OLED that quietly earned the company a CES 2022 Innovation Award launched speculation as to whether Samsung was about to enter a race with Sony to get the first consumer QD-OLED to market. Continue reading CES: Samsung Promises QD-OLED Details in ‘Several Weeks’

Canadian electronics and app firm Nuvyyo has introduced an ATSC 3.0-compatible over-the-air DVR that also receives existing OTA signals. The Tablo ATSC 3.0 Quad HDMI hybrid DVR records up to four channels simultaneously and accepts external hard drives of up to 8TB. The Tablo connects to any TV antenna and television, monitor or modem with an HDMI port. However, unlike other Nuvyyo network DVRs this Tablo model does not support the live streaming or sharing to other displays of recorded OTA content. Nuvyyo says for optimum performance the Tablo ATSC 3.0 Quad should be connected to a 4K HDR television. Continue reading CES: Nuvyyo Showcases Its New Tablo ATSC 3.0 Quad DVR