Royole, which launched the foldable phone market last fall, looked to get a bit of the spotlight Thursday following Samsung’s splashy Fold announcement. Royole said it will demonstrate for the first time at Mobile World Congress next week its “fully flexible displays” including it wearable FlexPai smartphone integrated in a top hat and shirt. It will also show the RoWrite smart writing pad. Royole sensors have a bending radius of 1-3 mm and are operational after 200,000 bends, the company said. Samsung said Wednesday its device will fold at least 200,000 times.
Global smartphone sell-through to end users “stalled” in Q4, rising just 0.1 percent to 408.4 million units, reported Gartner Thursday. Apple recorded its worst quarterly decline since Q1 2016, it said. IPhone sales fell 11.8 percent to 64.5 million units, it said. Apple saw iPhone demand weaken in most regions, except North America; the biggest decline was in China, where iPhone’s market share dropped to 8.8 percent in Q4 from 14.6 percent in year-earlier quarter, it said. The weak iPhone demand prompted Apple CEO Tim Cook to issue his rare earnings warning early January, sending shares plummeting to a 52-week low (see 1901030036).
TiVo will be Sky Mexico’s primary metadata provider for its next-generation platform, TiVo said Wednesday. The TiVo platform will improve search and recommendations, it said. Sky Mexico previously had relied on multiple vendors for metadata.
Cirrus Logic announced Tuesday a smart power amplifier it said will improve the audio listening experience for mono and stereo applications on mobile devices, while conserving battery life. The CS35L41 supports stereo audio in smartphones and portable devices and is said to boost audio clarity and loudness with advanced power management. It’s half the size of other digital signal processing amps, said the company.
Samsung bowed its next-generation tablet Friday, first to incorporate Bixby voice control, as an “ideal hub” to control smart home devices. Samsung highlighted the tablet's smart home functionality, including scene creation through Quick Command, which enables a user to flip on lights and a TV simultaneously with one voice command. The Tab S5e has a 10.5-inch edge-to-edge display, is 0.2-inch thick and weighs 14 ounces. Battery life is given as 14.5 hours. An accessory keyboard is an option. The four speakers have auto-rotate stereo technology that adjusts to portrait or landscape orientation. Sound is by Harman brand AKG and the mobile device integrates Dolby Atmos sound. Spotify is preloaded and users get a free premium subscription to the streaming music service for three months. The Wi-Fi version will be available in Q2 at $399 with a cellular model due later in the year. Samsung also announced it’s expanding its experience stores, opening locations Wednesday in Los Angeles; Garden City, New York; and Houston. Like the company’s first experience center in New York City, the stores won't be shopping destinations. They're designed to educate visitors about Samsung TVs, SmartThings products, wearables, smartphones and tablets; offer support and walk-in repair service for mobile devices; and provide hands-on experiences. The centers feature virtual reality and 8K demos, 4K gaming lounges and stations for visitors to create AR emojis, it said.
InnoPhase's single-chip wireless IoT platform cuts "the power cord" and is "battery-based with a DTIM3 specification at least half that of leading lowpower Wi-Fi solutions." It has a transceiver for MAC/PHY and embedded ARM processor, said the fabless chipmaker Wednesday. Teknique likes being able to have Wi-Fi connectivity without a wireless hub, said that customer company's CEO, Ben Bodley.
Amazon agreed to buy smart home mesh network company eero, it said Monday. Tuesday, an eero three-pack, priced at $362 at Amazon vs. $399 at eero’s website, included an eero and two beacons billed as a tri-band mesh Wi-Fi system to replace traditional routers and Wi-Fi range extenders. An optional $99 yearly eero subscription brings recurring revenue potential. The eero website says the device plus subscription includes an ad blocker, a “SafeSearch” feature for Google search results, content filters, accounts for security apps and priority support. Dave Limp, senior vice president-Amazon Devices and Services, said eero’s team invented a Wi-Fi solution “that makes connected devices just work.” Customers can set up a system in under 10 minutes, share the network, program parental controls and run speed tests from the app. Eero communicates with the cloud to receive instructions and is “self-updating” and “self-fixing,” Amazon said. All employees will reportedly receive an offer to join Amazon.
Industry shipped nearly 105 million units of wearables globally in 2018, a 10 percent increase from 2017kiiiiilo, reported Futuresource Consulting Monday. Average selling prices are rising at a faster rate than unit growth on increasing demand for upscale smartwatches and the “parallel stagnation” of lower-priced activity trackers and sports watches, it said. Google’s recent $40 million buy of Fossil’s smartwatch patents (see 1901170054) leaves "the market anticipating a hardware release from Google or potential revamp of its Wear OS platform,” said Futuresource. It expects wearables shipments to exceed 145 million worldwide in 2022, driven "predominantly by replacement sales and the ongoing uptake of smartwatches and wireless watches.”
Copper could be used for more than just casing or circuit board material in future smartphones. Researchers at the University of Southern California, funded by Universal Display, found a way to replace iridium, a rare element, in OLED screens, with cheaper copper, said a Friday Science article. “The current technology that is in every Samsung Galaxy phone, high-end Apple iPhone and LG TV relies on iridium compounds for the colors and light on OLED screens,” said Mark Thompson, chemist at USC, in a Friday news release. Iridium, found primarily in South Africa and parts of Asia, is used for its efficient light emission, but researchers have been looking for an alternative more abundant source, Thompson said. Previous attempts failed because copper complexes used weaker structures, and molecules were “unstable” with shorter life cycles than the iridium compounds. Researchers’ new copper complex is a more-rigid molecular complex, he said. The new compound’s rate of light emission also matches iridium’s, so the energy is converted efficiently into light and color, which could also improve blue light performance in OLEDs, described by researchers as a “bane” of OLED technology due to the short lifetime of blue emissive OLEDs. Rasha Hamze, the study’s lead author, said achieving efficient blue emission out of copper compounds “opens up entirely new possibilities for tackling the problem of short lifetimes.” The USC team submitted a patent application; next, it will test its ability to create more energy-efficient lighting, Thompson said.
Thirty-five percent of U.S. broadband households with home or renter's insurance are interested in proactive communication of potential risk situations in a connected home, blogged Parks Associates Thursday. A service that repairs damage is the most appealing, but interest is “strong” in proactive services enabled by smart home devices and artificial intelligence capabilities to detect and prevent risk situations, said analyst Brad Russell. Changes in trends in consumer expectations, combined with the data derived from IoT solutions, are opening market opportunities for the insurance industry, it said.