Ericsson launched an open lab aimed at driving the move to virtualized 5G radio access network technologies, the company said Wednesday. It's located at Ericsson’s R&D site in Ottawa, Canada. Ericsson Open Lab “aims to help service providers pursue and realize new deployment and 5G use case scenarios, as well as create opportunities to increase automation and reduce manual intervention,” Ericsson said.

Panasonic and McAfee will partner on joint development of SoCs to enable commercialization of vehicle security monitoring services, said the companies Tuesday. The SoCs will be designed to protect connected vehicles worldwide against cyberattacks by enabling “accurate detection and early response” to threats, they said. “With the innovative development of autonomous driving, the advancement of digitalization, and the increasing number of connected cars, the risk of cyber-attacks against automobiles is increasing every year.”

ATSC signed an agreement March 2 with the Telecommunications Standards Development Society, India (TSDSI) as the first step toward deploying ATSC 3.0 broadcast services to mobile devices in India, said the groups Monday. ATSC President Madeleine Noland traveled in fall 2019 to the India Mobile Congress in New Delhi as a guest of the TSDSI, which participates in the 3rd Generation Partnership Project standardization body for 5G. She spoke about 3.0 and 5G “convergence” in India (see 1910110030). “They have 1.2 billion cellphones, so there are opportunities there that are unique,” said Noland then.

Vizio shares on their second day regained some of the ground they lost Thursday when they debuted on the New York Stock Exchange. Shares closed 8.4% higher Friday at $20.71, a few cents shy of the initial public offering’s proposed $21 opening. Unlike Thursday, when the stock plunged 17% as trading began midday and never fully recovered (see report in this publication, March 26), shares remained in positive territory throughout Friday.

Samsung Display took the top position in 2020's smartphone display panel market with 50% revenue share, reported Strategy Analytics Thursday. BOE and LG Display were Nos. 2 and 3, with 15% and 8% share, respectively, said SA. Smartphone display panel revenue rose 7% year over year, “driven by the expansion of OLED display technology in the supply chain of key smartphone vendors, leading to increased shipment of OLED panels to customers,” it said.

Fight for the Future, Public Citizen and 20 other groups urged six publications to “rescind” recommendations of Amazon’s Ring products. The “cameras surveil millions of Americans” and amid “the massive growth of this private network of cameras, the tech giant is aggressively expanding their police partnerships,” said Wednesday's letter to CNET, Consumer Reports, Digital Trends, TechRadar, Tom’s Guide and Wirecutter. “Putting Black lives in danger is part of Amazon Ring’s business model. The tech giant weaponizes racist, fear-mongering culture by using racially-coded language and dog whistles to promote Ring products and partnerships. ... Amazon marketed Rekognition to police with the full awareness of two damning facts: first, that police misuse facial recognition, and second, that Rekognition disproportionately misidentifies Black and brown people, transgender people, and women.” Ring surveils, intimidates and punishes Black Lives Matter protesters, the groups said, citing Electronic Frontier Foundation-released records showing Los Angeles Police Department detectives requested such footage of BLM protests. Amazon didn’t comment.

The global smartphone CMOS image sensor (CIS) market had $15 billion in 2020 revenue, growing 13% year on year, said Strategy Analytics Tuesday. Smartphone OEMs “aggressively adopted high-resolution sensors and higher sensor count across smartphone tiers in 2020," creating strong demand, said analyst Jeffrey Mathews. The expansion of multiple cameras and advanced photography capabilities in smartphones will fuel more demand that could be challenged by semiconductor shortages, said analyst Stephen Entwistle. Sony led with 46% share, followed by Samsung System LSI and OmniVision. The three chip vendors had about 85% of the market, but Sony’s market dominance will be threatened by increasing competition in the segment, said Mathews.

OneWeb and SatixFy, a British multibeam antenna and terminal design firm, will collaborate to develop an in-flight connectivity terminal that will work on OneWeb's low earth orbit constellation and on geostationary orbit satellite networks, they said Friday. They said SatixFy formed a joint venture with Singapore Technology Engineering to commercialize the terminal for commercial aviation markets.

Oppo joined the Alliance for Open Media at the promoter level and will work with other members to advance technologies in content creation and provision, video compression, and media delivery and consumption, AOMedia said Thursday. The company will help shape open and interoperable media streaming standards that power web-based video, AOMedia said.

Consumer demand for chips and faster mobile communications won't ebb soon, said executives at a major manufacturer of consumer electronics for other companies. "Things will be back to more normal conditions” in January-March 2022, said Jabil CEO Mark Mondello of semiconductor supply-demand balance. “We think this thing will start to show levels of relief” in fiscal Q1, ending late November, “and for sure as we get into calendar '22,” he said. Demand for semiconductors “has never been higher, with the accelerated convergence of technologies and the associated data generation and storage needs,” Chief Financial Officer Mike Dastoor told a call Tuesday for fiscal Q2, ended Feb. 28. “Nearly every part of the economy runs on silicon.” Jabil is seeing what “finally looks to be reasonable plans in terms of the 5G wireless rollout,” said Mondello. “That’s here to stay, not a number of months, but a number of years,” he said. “That’s going to have all kinds of tangents tied to it as well, once the 5G rollout gets underway, in terms of derivatives to other parts of our business.” The technology is speeding the “secular expansion of cloud adoption and infrastructure growth,” he said.