Retail drone sales soared 224 percent over the past year as more features such as 4K resolution cameras, Bluetooth and built-in GPS are being offered, the NPD Group said in a Wednesday news release. The research firm said sales for the year ending in April grew to almost $200 million, with DJI, Parrot and Protocol as top sellers. Drones with 4K cameras were more than a third of dollar sales, while devices with built-in GPS generated about 64 percent of revenue, said NPD. Drones costing more than $500 were 56 percent of revenue in the 12 months ending in April, the firm said. "The average drone sold for more than $550 in April, giving drones one of the highest average prices of all categories in technology at retail." Unit sales during the 2015 holiday season grew 445 percent over the prior-year season, with December sales alone increasing 273 percent, NPD said. The firm said the Federal Aviation Administration's requirement to register drones weighing between 0.55 pounds and 55 pounds (see 1601060045 and 1602190012) "seemingly" didn't affect demand. "Consumer research indicates drone purchase expectations remain high, especially among younger consumers," NPD industry analyst Ben Arnold said in the release. "This points to continued growth and healthy demand for the category.”

About 51 percent of surveyed security professionals believe their companies have altered their security approaches because of changes in IT operations, CompTIA said Tuesday in a report. CompTIA surveyed 500 security professionals. “Far more than half of all companies have adopted cloud computing and mobile devices,” said Seth Robinson, CompTIA senior director-technology analysis, in a news release. “This suggests that many companies are embracing new technology solutions without taking the corresponding actions necessary to build a proper defense. This poses huge challenges for the IT security professionals tasked with security responsibilities.” Ninety percent of IT professionals said their companies take security more seriously than two years ago, but many companies still need to improve their actual practices, CompTIA said. “Simply placing a higher priority on security may not lead to improved measures,” Robinson said. “Companies may not fully understand the nature of modern threats. It’s incumbent on the IT pros to adequately communicate the requirements for modern security; the potential cost of weak defenses; and the specific actions that should be taken.”

Lord & Taylor will be barred under a final consent order from deceiving customers about any paid online articles and Instagram posts passed off as independent or objective, the FTC said in a Monday news release. The commission's 3-0 approval of the final order, following a public comment period, comes after a settlement was announced in March with the national retailer that faced commission allegations for failing to publicly disclose paid native online advertisements and other endorsements. The commission alleged Lord & Taylor edited and placed a paid article in online pop culture and fashion publication called Nylon in March 2015 without telling consumers it was an ad. The publication also posted a photo of a dress from the retailer's private-label Design Lab collection on Instagram, also without saying it was a paid promotion, the commission said. During the same time, the retailer gave 50 select fashion "influencers" a free dress from the collection and paid them between $1,000 and $4,000 each to post a photo of it on Instagram or another social media website without disclosing the payments, said the FTC's prior news release about the settlement. The commission issued policy and guidance in December aimed at protecting consumers from intentionally misleading native online ads, which several industry representatives said was a precursor to enforcement actions against potential violators (see 1512290010). Lord & Taylor said in an emailed statement it "never sought to deceive" customers. "In the FTC's consent order, there is no finding of wrongdoing whatsoever," it added. "A year ago, when it came to our attention that there were potential issues with how the influencers posted about a dress in this campaign, we took immediate action with the social media agencies that were supporting us on it to ensure that clear disclosures were made." The retailer said it has cooperated fully with FTC's investigation and will uphold the commission's guidelines, including educating its teams and ensuring that outside agencies and partners follow them, too.

Henry Schein Practice Solutions will pay $250,000 for claims it falsely advertised an industry-standard level of encryption that would protect patient data, under a final consent order approved 3-0 by FTC commissioners after a public comment period. In a Monday news release, the FTC said the dental office software provider will also be "prohibited from misleading customers about the extent to which its products use industry-standard encryption or the extent to which its products help ensure regulatory compliance or protect consumers’ personal information." The company settled commission allegations in January that it made "deceptive claims" for two years that its Dentrix G5 software provided a strong level of encryption as required by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (see 1601050038). Schein also will have to notify all customers who bought the software during the two-year period that the company made misleading statements about the product's encryption level, and give the FTC ongoing reports about such notifications, the commission said. The company didn't comment.

Walmart is making progress “against several of the necessary capabilities we need to win in e-commerce, but we're still working on a few others,” CEO Doug McMillon said on a Thursday earnings call. “We need them all to come together to see stronger growth,” McMillon said. For example, “it takes time to build the assortment” at Walmart’s online store “to the point where customers realize the depth of assortment,” he said. There are now more than 10 million SKUs available in all product categories at Walmart.com, “and we're growing that number through a combination of first-party and third-party items,” he said. “It makes sense that perception will trail reality, and we will work on both during the course of this year.” In all, Walmart is pleased with its e-commerce operating system, and is “happy to have our new e-commerce fulfillment centers operational,” McMillon said. “Those are necessary building blocks. I'm excited about the ways we're using technology to deepen our relationship with customers.”

The ZigBee Alliance said it's added 38 members from 15 countries this year -- including startups and major brands -- bringing the total count to more than 425 companies. “ZigBee 3.0 is generating explosive interest” via its “consolidated approach” to the IoT market, said alliance CEO Tobin Richardson Thursday. Board members are Comcast Cable, Itron, Kroger, Landis+Gyr, Legrand Group, Midea Group, NXP Semiconductors, Philips, Schneider Electric, Silicon Labs, SmartThings, Texas Instruments and Wulian. Chairman John Osborne cited General Electric’s recent buy of Daintree Networks by Current and Qorvo’s GreenPeak acquisition as indicators of the industry’s “large-scale investment in ZigBee technologies.”

The increasing use of IoT-based home automation technology “has the potential for substantial energy savings and greenhouse gas emissions reductions,” CTA said in a study released Thursday. Widespread adoption of home automation products such as temperature, circuit and lighting control, if used for energy savings purposes, “could collectively avoid up to 100 million tons of CO2 emissions and reduce total residential primary energy consumption by as much as 10 percent,” CTA said. The research “proves the innovation consumer technology delivers into our hands and homes through the Internet of Things can significantly reduce our carbon footprint -- whether that’s the household energy we use on our own or the carbon emissions our country produces,” CTA President Gary Shapiro said in a statement. The study is “the first of its kind” to show how “our increased use of several types of connected devices and systems can decrease our overall home energy use,” said Douglas Johnson, CTA vice president-technology policy. “While the concept and practice of home automation have been around for decades, the continuous reduction of installation costs means more and more consumers are able to access and benefit from this technology. And home automation tech delivers potential benefits to utilities as well, such as enhanced demand response capabilities and the intelligent segmentation of homes -- both of which would eventually lower consumers’ costs.”

FTC Consumer Protection Bureau Director Jessica Rich said last week's federal court ruling upholding the commission's summary decision against John Fanning, who operated the now-defunct Jerk.com, made it clear his "misrepresentations in this case were harmful to consumers." Rich said in a Wednesday statement the FTC "will closely monitor the defendant’s compliance with the order, as we do in all our cases.” The First U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston said May 9 it agreed with the commission's findings that the reputation website -- which passed off content as user-generated when it actually collected and misused content from Facebook -- misrepresented the source of its content and membership benefits (see 1404080080 and 1503250067). The FTC issued a summary decision in March 2015 against the site and Fanning, including barring him from making further deceptive statements, requiring him to keep advertising and marketing records and notifying the commission of any complaints about the misleading and deceptive statements. The federal court struck down parts of the remedial order's compliance monitoring provisions for Fanning, saying they were "overbroad." The court said the FTC order required Fanning to inform the commission of his future business affiliations and employment even if it's unrelated to the unlawful activity. The ruling said the commission acknowledged at oral argument that the "provision would ostensibly require Fanning to report if he was a waiter at a restaurant." Fanning, who is a Napster co-founder, did not comment in response to a direct message sent to his Twitter account.

The ICANN board voted to move its ICANN 57 meeting to Hyderabad, India, and reschedule it for Nov. 3-9, it said Tuesday in a blog post. ICANN said the board chose to move the meeting to Hyderabad from San Juan, Puerto Rico, in response to concerns about the Zika virus outbreak. ICANN rescheduled from the original meeting dates, Oct. 29-Nov. 4, because of limited space availability in Hyderabad on those dates. ICANN previously decided to move its June 27-30 policy forum from Panama City to Helsinki in response to the Zika outbreak (see 1602080015). The U.S. Centers for Disease Control reported 669 cases of Zika in Puerto Rico as of May 11 that the agency believes were caught within the U.S. territory. “This decision was based on available research and information and the fact that Puerto Rico has declared a state of emergency” related to the Zika outbreak, ICANN said. “We believe that the Zika virus poses a significant enough threat that we need to postpone going to Puerto Rico for the health and safety of our community and our ICANN team,” just as ICANN did when it relocated its ICANN 52 meeting in 2014 from Marrakech, Morocco, to Singapore due to concerns about that year's Ebola outbreak. ICANN 57 will be at the Hyderabad International Convention Centre, ICANN said.

NTIA is seeking input on what priorities the U.S. should pursue during the ITU's World Telecommunication Standardization Assembly this fall, Office of International Affairs Deputy Associate Administrator Venita Harris said Tuesday in a blog post. NTIA is working with the State Department to develop the U.S.'s formal positions for the quadrennial WTSA, which is to be Oct. 25-Nov. 3 in Yasmine Hammamet, Tunisia. NTIA also seeks input on “what role if any the ITU should play in setting technical standards related to such issues as cybersecurity, Internet governance, Internet of things, intellectual property, and over-the-top services,” Harris said. NTIA “wants to ensure that its contributions to the U.S. preparatory process result in proposals to the WTSA that accurately reflect the views and concerns of U.S. businesses and consumers about the Internet and the digital economy and ... We also want to ensure that the work plan agreed upon at the WTSA related to the upcoming ITU-T work does not duplicate the standards development processes of other bodies.” Comments are due June 16, NTIA said.