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.

Vivint Smart Home announced compatibility with Google Assistant voice control on Google Home in a Tuesday release.

Consumer optimism toward tech spending and the overall economy took hits in March but remained above their March 2016 levels, CTA said in a Tuesday report. “Despite an aggregate decline around sentiment to buy tech, respondents are showing a higher inclination to spend more on tech in the coming months than they reported last March,” said Chief Economist Shawn DuBravac in a statement. That the stock market “lost some momentum” in recent weeks appears to be the factor that's lowering consumer optimism toward the overall economy, DuBravac said: “While respondents aren’t indicating they expect the economy to be worse off in the near future, a weak equities market coupled with other indicators are likely holding back overt optimism.”

Google’s dispute with Symantec over the validity of Symantec-issued certificates “imposes considerable costs on a range of companies that have no legal relationship with Google,” said Ariel Rabkin, an American Enterprise Institute Center for Internet, Communications and Technology Policy visiting fellow, in a Tuesday blog post. Google said last week its Chrome web browser will begin applying special scrutiny to Symantec-issued certificates because it no longer has “confidence in the certificate issuance policies and practices of Symantec.” Symantec-issued certificates didn’t accurately identify the certificate’s owner in some cases, Google said. Websites with Symantec certificates “will need to pay for more renewals and perhaps will need to switch to certificates from another vendor,” Rabkin said. “Symantec itself will doubtless have increased costs or lost business.” Google “has no evident legal obligation to trust Symantec’s certificates. Manufacturers have no general duty to make interoperable products,” Rabkin said. “When Apple changes its laptop design and previous third party add-ons no longer work, the add-on vendors cannot sue for lost business.” Congress and the FTC shouldn't impose a standard of care on certificate authorities in response to the dispute because “the technology ecosystem changes too quickly, the level of harms here are fairly small, and the cost of regulation is potentially high,” Rabkin said. The companies are having "an ongoing discussion, and we look forward to continuing our conversations with Symantec about this issue," a Google spokesman said. "We want to enable an open and transparent assessment of the compatibility and interoperability risks, relative to potential security threats to our users." Symantec didn’t comment.

“The story of Google Fiber seems more or less over,” MoffettNathanson said in a research note Monday. The analyst firm looked at the ISP’s pay-TV subscription data through Q4, as released by the Copyright Office. “The data reveals a sharp deceleration, not only in new markets but in existing ones as well,” it said. Year-over-year growth across all markets slowed to 57.7 percent from 78.8 percent one year ago, and Google Fiber still has only 0.1 percent of the U.S. pay-TV market, MoffettNathanson said. In the past six months, Google Fiber added only five video subscribers in Stanford, California, and the company has fewer than 3,000 in Provo, Utah, the firm said. In Greater Kansas City, the company added 19 percent fewer customers over the past six months than the previous period, with its six-month growth rate slowing to 17.4 percent from 27.4 percent, MoffettNathanson said. The firm said the data shows only linear video subscriptions. But a Google Fiber spokeswoman painted a brighter picture, saying Fiber service is available to nine metropolitan areas, with three more planned or under construction: "Demand for Fiber speed continues to grow, as more consumers move toward over-the-top streaming and skinny TV offerings.”