Smart speaker household penetration surged 40 percent between June and November, according to comScore data, and comScore predicts 15 percent penetration by January after holiday gifts have been connected. That’s considered an inflection point for the end of a product’s “early adopter phase, said analyst Susan Engleson on a webcast last week, predicting smart speaker demographics will shift after the holiday season to a wider customer based on broader product selection and dropping prices. American households with smart speakers, currently about 13 percent of internet homes, are significantly more likely to be using other smart home devices, said Engleson. Smart speakers are the largest IoT device category in the home, with substantial growth and “more growth ahead,” she said.
Congress is unlikely to pass "meaningful" privacy or data breach legislation in a midterm election year, blogged Davis Wright. States may revive efforts to pass online privacy laws targeting ISPs as some attorneys general challenge the FCC's order eliminating net neutrality rules (see 1712210034), the firm said. Updates to state data breach notification laws also could be expected in 2018, it said, and outlook for security is grim as the firm sees data breach and ransomware threats likely to grow, putting pressure on legal and IT departments to develop coordinated defense strategies. Palo Alto Networks warned that the dangers of hackers skillfully manipulating data rather than just stealing it "are only just becoming clear," in a blog. Widespread denial-of-service attacks to block access to systems are fairly commonplace now, but the new -- and harder to manage -- threats come when intruders penetrate a system and modify data to cause reputational damage, invalidate data or steal for financial gain, said Palo Alto security expert Sean Duca. Every organization needs to inspect and verify who is accessing data and applications, said Duca. "Based on recent events, it’s foreseeable that someone will come looking for your information, but it’s up to you to manage the risk," he said.
Samsung announced Open Connectivity Foundation (OCF) 1.3 certification for its Artik 05x series of system-on-modules. Artik 05x enables companies to build Wi-Fi-enabled edge products that meet OCF interoperability standards, ensuring they will work with other OCF-certified IoT devices regardless of form factor, operating system or service provider, Samsung said. The pre-certified Artik modules include processors, memory, communications, security and software to enable companies to “jump start development” of products ranging from sensors and controllers to home appliances, healthcare monitors and smart factory gateways, it said.
Google is trying to reach agreement with Amazon to give consumers access to each other’s products and services, a Google spokeswoman said. “But Amazon doesn't carry Google products like Chromecast and Google Home, doesn't make Prime Video available for Google Cast users, and last month stopped selling some of Nest's latest products. Given this lack of reciprocity, we are no longer supporting YouTube on Echo Show and Fire TV," she said. "We hope we can reach an agreement to resolve these issues soon.” The statement was in response to questions on Amazon’s Wednesday announcement (see 1712200047) it's adding Firefox and Silk browsers to Fire TV. Amazon warned Fire TV owners they won’t have access to the YouTube app as of Jan. 1. Users are expected to be able to access YouTube via browser. The companies have gone back and forth for months denying customers access to the other’s products. An Amazon spokeswoman said it hopes to resolve the YouTube app issue with Google “as soon as possible.”
NPD plans to launch a subscription video tracking service in May that will measure consumers’ “actual TV and movie viewing behavior at the title and episode level” on Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Hulu, said the company. The service will offer insights into what subscribers are watching on various devices, including the viewers of specific content, how valuable individual titles are to overall viewing rates and “longitudinal viewing trends,” said NPD.
The move toward platform neutrality regulation "is anything but neutral," and what's emerging are rules to force companies to behave in ways that achieve policy goals, blogged American Enterprise Institute visiting scholar Roslyn Layton Wednesday. Sens. Al Franken, D-Minn, and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., "brandished" platform neutrality principles, which Layton sees spanning a "grab bag of concepts such as hate speech, fake news, safe spaces, brand safety, content take down, the right to be forgotten and market power." Another goal of platform neutrality regulation is preventing users "from consuming information that leads them to make the 'wrong' choice at the ballot box." Complexities of regulating tech markets are illustrated in the recent Amazon-Google spat over connected devices and YouTube streaming (see 1712060013 and for related news Wednesday 1712200060 and 1712200061), AEI visiting fellow Bret Swanson wrote earlier this month.
The front-facing camera is the major driver of positive ratings for the iPhone X, Strategy Analytics reported. The camera enables Face ID, the phone’s security feature that replaced the fingerprint sensor used for security in recent iPhone models. Consumer sentiment about the TrueDepth camera, which also enables augmented reality features with Face ID and Animojis, is “extremely positive,” the researcher said Tuesday.
New malware reached an "all-time high" of 57.6 million new samples in Q3, a 10 percent gain over the previous quarter, McAfee Labs said Monday. New ransomware rose 36 percent, boosted by an increase in Android screen-locking threats. Top Q3 data breaches tracked included Equifax; a Verizon customer support supplier using a compromised server; and Apache Struts, a component of many websites and which experienced a coding vulnerability. The "Faceliker Trojan" malware, which manipulate Facebook to artificially "like" content by infecting users' browsers when they visit malicious websites, which McAfee first reported in September, also showed a Q3 gain.
Internet-connected toys and smartwatches continue to pose privacy concerns the FTC should address, consumer and privacy groups told the agency Monday. The My Friend Cayla and i-Que Intelligent Robot toys are of particular concern, said the Consumer Federation of America, one of several groups that asked the FTC to look into the threat in October (see 1710180021).The FTC said Monday it received the letter but had no further comment. Several major retailers have stopped selling the products "with the exception of Amazon," the groups said, though Walmart's website Monday displayed a listing for a reduced price version of the doll. Amazon didn't comment. The Cayla doll is listed in U.S. Public Interest Research Group's 2017 Trouble in Toyland list. “Connected toys raise serious privacy concerns,” said Marc Rotenberg, president of Electronic Privacy Information Center. “Kids should play with their toys and their friends, and not with surveillance devices dressed as dolls.”
EBay supports net neutrality and opposes the FCC order (see 1712140039) that will allow ISPs to potentially block, slow or otherwise discriminate against user access to web content, it blogged Monday. "We expect this new order will be challenged in court," eBay said, promising to keep users updated. Other net neutrality news Monday: Legislators are debating whether to roll back the deregulation 1712180047 while some state attorneys general consider whether to join a coming multi-state AG lawsuit 1712180039.