Allowing audio, visual and touch senses through a virtual-reality headset and its accessories “are crucial to the immersive experience of VR,” said Strategy Analytics in a Monday report. “The ability of a user to interact with items in a VR world using their own hands heightens the sense of immersion that user feels,” said the firm. That “drives emotional engagement with VR content by stimulating the tactile sense,” it said. “Full-hand tracking should be considered the ideal solution in the future as it is the most natural way of reaching out and grabbing objects, and would enhance the levels of interaction with a VR world with things such as finger tracking.” But achieving “total sensory engagement” through use of a VR headset “is not without risk,” said the report: “The inability to hear things in case of an emergency, combined with the inability to see what's going on in the immediate surroundings, can prove hazardous. Options need to exist that allow users to maintain spatial awareness of their surroundings, such as quick exit from games.”

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross will speak at a National Technical Information Service event Tuesday on how government can better manage data and deliver public services, the Department of Commerce said in Monday news release. The meeting will focus on agency data priorities including achievements and challenges, according to the event details.The 8:30 a.m.-5 p.m. event will be at 1401 Constitution Ave. NW.

Z-Wave devices receiving certification require uniform adoption of a new security protocol, said a Z-Wave Alliance announcement Sunday. The board voted in November to require mandatory implementation of the Security 2 (S2) framework to give devices “new levels of impenetrability,” the release said. The alliance, which developed the security standards with chipmaker Sigma Designs, said by securing communication locally for home-based devices and in the hub or gateway for cloud functions, S2 “virtually removes the risk of devices being hacked while they are included in the network." The group cited a 2016 AT&T study that said 58 percent of companies weren’t confident about the security of connected devices.

The FTC won't block CA's acquisition of Veracode, said the commission in a Wednesday notice. CA said in a March 6 news release it agreed to buy Veracode, which secures web, mobile and third-party applications, for $614 million in cash. It said then the transaction was expected to close Q1 in fiscal 2018.

Internet security is a “big deal and is underappreciated,” Control4 CEO Martin Plaehn told us at the Home Technology Specialists of America spring meeting (see news item in the March 30 issue of this publication) Thursday in Coronado, California. Security is part of the connected home’s network layer that Control4 sought to bolster when it bought network and cloud management company Pakedge last year (see 1602050037). The home automation industry is on a “journey to make ourselves more impenetrable,” Plaehn said, but that’s happening slowly. Hackers for the most part are doing it out of “peer sport,” Plaehn said. Plaehn has long maintained that anything in the home that runs on AC power or batteries will eventually be connected. OneVision Resources meanwhile is pitching the custom integrator channel on a technical support strategy that could be the answer to its long-sought but elusive recurring revenue model, banking on the so-called disconnected home. “If you consider that the connected home is a reality and that the Internet of Things is inevitable, then what’s also inevitable is the internet of broken things,” founder Joseph Kolchinsky told us at HTSA Friday. “There needs to be an entire profession around this and there needs to be a whole service model around it,” said Kolchinsky of tech support. Kolchinsky compared the tech support revenue challenge that electronics integrators face with the challenge newspapers and magazines experienced with the rise of the internet: Consumers don’t want to pay for it.

Panasonic isn't disclosing the total capitalization of Panasonic Ventures, the company’s new venture capital firm, spokesman Jim Reilly emailed us Thursday. Panasonic Ventures will be headquartered in Cupertino, California, under the direction of President Masahiro Kinoshita, whose “most recent assignment” was as director-M&A business creation at Panasonic AVC Networks North America, based in Newark, New Jersey, Reilly told us. The new firm “will invest in start-up companies mainly in the United States, with initial investments of around $100 million,” Panasonic said Thursday. “Panasonic has invested in Silicon Valley start-ups with cutting-edge technologies for nearly 20 years since 1998,” the announcement said. The charter of Panasonic Ventures will be to “spearhead Panasonic's investments in start-ups that have unique business models or products and services not bound by the company's existing business fields,” the company said. “Through these investments, as well as collaborating with these firms to explore new business opportunities, Panasonic looks to create new businesses that will drive its future growth.”

Protecting against data loss (57 percent), threats to privacy (49 percent) and breaches of confidentiality (47 percent) were the top three cloud computing security concerns based on an online survey released Wednesday by Crowd Research Partners. The survey of more than 1,900 cybersecurity executives, managers and IT practitioners in January and February said unauthorized access was the biggest threat to security (61 percent), followed by hijacking accounts (52 percent). The researcher said 53 percent of respondents want to train and certify their current IT staff to address new security challenges, while 30 percent want to partner with a service provider, 27 percent want to use software to address the problem, and 26 percent want to hire dedicated staff. Seventy-five percent said traditional security tools don't work or have limited functionality in the cloud, and 33 percent of organizations expect security budgets to increase over the next 12 months.

Rob Krug, senior systems engineer at internet firewall company SonicWall, showed a cartoon during a presentation on internet security at a Home Technology Specialists of America meeting: A salesman in an electronics store asked, “Can I interest you in a firewall for your toaster?” All "laughed” a few years ago, said Krug, “but now you actually need a firewall for your toaster because you want to keep the porn off your fridge.” He showed a picture of a connected refrigerator that was on display at a Home Depot and hacked to show pornography. “If you can’t keep the bad guys off of your fridge, how do you keep them out of your networks?” he asked Tuesday in Coronado, California. “It’s a problem we all face,” HTSA President Franklin Karp told us. Change passwords on a regular basis, use two-step authentication, don't use English words for passwords and use nonsensical answers to personal questions as protective measures, Krug advised: “Your favorite color can be sushi.”

Akamai Technologies is buying digital performance management company Soasta, which is expected to give the cloud services provider's customers more insight into the performance of their websites and applications, Akamai said. The all-cash deal will close early in Q2, Akamai said in a Wednesday news release. Ash Kulkarni, the company's general manager-web performance and security, said customers will get "new ways to measure, optimize and validate the business impact of their web performance strategies."

Onkyo will ship two midrange receivers in May with support for Chromecast built-in, DTS Play-Fi, Spotify Connect, AirPlay and Bluetooth on the streaming side, and high-resolution audio support, the company said Tuesday. Pandora, Tidal, TuneIn and Deezer are available via the controller. The units have Blackfire FireConnect multiroom audio technology, operating over 5 GHz/2.4 GHz Wi-Fi.