The consumer virtual reality hardware market will be a $5 billion global business opportunity by 2023, said ABI Research Thursday. It views 2018 as a “significant year” for augmented reality, with “with new entrants in the market, new smart glasses launched, new and improved platforms and portfolios, and generally more enthusiasm and curiosity from the public to explore the technology." Heavy market “fragmentation and scarcity of content” is plaguing consumer VR hardware growth, but it’s confident “this is decreasing over time.”

The lawyer who filed companion lawsuits alleging Apple and Samsung are shortchanging the public on the screen-resolution specs on which they market their smartphones won’t rule out targeting additional manufacturers. “That depends on what comes to us,” attorney C.K. Lee told us Monday, when asked if he plans more lawsuits. The iPhone X, XS and XS Max smartphones lack their “advertised” screen resolutions and screen sizes in violation of consumer protection laws in all states, alleged last week's complaint (in Pacer) in U.S. District Court in San Jose (see 1812140052). Nearly three dozen models of Samsung smartphones dating to 2010 were marketed with “nominal” screen resolutions that “misleadingly count false pixels,” said the complaint against Samsung (in Pacer) in U.S. District Court in Manhattan. Apple and Samsung didn’t comment.

The global consumer IoT market for mobile services providers (MSPs) will be $6.6 billion by 2023, reported ABI Research Wednesday. “Consumer IoT is a nascent and fragmented market where connectivity is an essential enabler,” it said. “MSPs can play a key role in driving the growth of the consumer IoT market from tracking applications to the connected car.” By launching consumer IoT products with “flexible” business models, MSPs can help generate customer demand, which will attract more OEMs to produce more consumer IoT devices, it said: Tech companies “have been slow to target this nascent market.”

Global smartphone unit shipments are expected to decline 3 percent this year to 1.42 billion before returning to low-single-digit growth in 2019 and through 2022, said IDC Tuesday. It’s forecasting 2.6 percent year-over-year shipment growth in 2019: “Shipments are forecast to reach 1.57 billion units in 2022.” In China, the largest smartphone market, shipments are expected to decline 8.8 percent this year. Chinese growth will be flat in 2019 before returning to “positive territory” through 2022, the researcher said. The U.S. also is forecast to return to positive growth in 2019 with a 2.1 percent year-over-year increase, after experiencing a decline in 2018. "With many of the large global companies focusing on high-end product launches, hoping to draw in consumers looking to upgrade based on specifications and premium devices, we can expect head-to-head competition within this segment during the holiday quarter and into 2019 to be exceptionally high," said IDC.

The FTC is proposing amendments for improving “organization and clarity” of EnergyGuide labeling requirements that leave TV labeling rules virtually unchanged under Department of Energy TV test procedures, said a rulemaking notice Monday. One change would make it easier “to identify relevant covered products” under categories of appliances, furnaces and central air conditioners, lighting and plumbing, and will be “particularly” useful for categories like lighting, “which contain several different product types and exemptions,” it said. Another amendment would simplify the EnergyGuide label formatting and content rules for six classifications of appliances. A third change would remove "obsolete references" to rules on products marketed "decades ago" but no longer available. Comments will be due 60 days after Federal Register publication.

Eighty-three percent of smart TV owners connect their set to the internet, up from 70 percent four years ago, Parks Associates reported Tuesday. Smart TV ownership grew from 34 to 53 percent. “Rise of direct-to-consumer offerings and the blurring of lines between pay-TV and [over the top] are leading to increased fragmentation in the viewing experience, where consumers are having to face complex self-curating systems,” said Anthony Smith-Chaigneau, Nagra senior director-product marketing, ahead of a Parks video conference in Marina del Rey, California, next week. Service providers should embrace the cloud, act as aggregators and leverage data, he said.

January CES will feature a "whole new” exhibit area “focused on resilience,” CTA President Gary Shapiro told the American Legislative Exchange Council Thursday (see 1811290015). “Say what you want about whether you believe in climate change or not, but the fact is people are facing more challenges in terms of their environment,” he said. “More things are happening.” The two-hour Las Vegas Convention Center blackout last CES (see 1801110030) “incentivized” CTA's decision on resilience, as did an executive board meeting in Napa Valley held “in the dark,” he said. “Cold coffee, no telephone service and no electricity,” he said. “That’s when I decided we had to focus on resilience and redundancy a little bit.”

Building on a 2012 connected vehicle cloud partnership, Ericsson will provide its Connected Vehicle Cloud platform for Volvo Cars to enable digital vehicle services in 120 markets for five years, they said Thursday. The agreement covers connected digital services such as telematics, navigation and infotainment. The platform, via geographically distributed centers, conforms to global legal, security and privacy obligations, they said.

Machine learning startup Phiar got a $3 million seed funding round to develop a computer vision and deep learning navigation app for smartphones, with a 2019 launch date. It displays a driver’s real-world surroundings augmented with a colored path, said the company. Augmented reality overlays, based on computer vision and deep-learning artificial intelligence, can boost surroundings rather than distract users.

Ooma plans CES announcements for its residential phone service and smart security solutions, said CEO Eric Stang on a Tuesday evening quarterly call after results exceeded some analyst forecasts. Ooma sees a big “competitive advantage” looming in smart security from a “wider range of use cases and alerts in combination with more flexible and controllable sensors and a more intuitive integrated overall solution,” he said. The smart-security market opportunity in North America could be 50 million homes, he said. Wednesday, the stock closed up 15 percent at $15.60.