The D+M Group, owner of Denon, HEOS and Marantz, gets a new owner in the shape of Sound United, the parent company of US hi-fi brands Polk and Definitive Technology.

Financial details of the deal are not available, but it extends a previous distribution partnership formed by the two companies back in 2014. Sound United is the largest loudspeaker supplier in N. America, but is still to make inroads in Europe. Post-acquisition the consolidated company will retain the Sound United name, with D+M Group CEO Jim Caudill remaining on board as advisor.

Control4 buys more audio capabilities with Triad Speakers, the maker of advanced audio technology with customisable speaker solutions. The price? Approximately €9.07 million.

“Entertainment is integral to the connected home and our Control4 dealers are designing end-to-end experiences for family room entertainment, home theatres, and indoor and outdoor multi-room music for their customers.” Control4 CEO Martin Plaehn says. “The acquisition of Triad brings proven premium-acoustics experience and innovation to our company, enabling us to immediately deepen our entertainment offering and develop new integrated-audio experiences for the future.”

Scientists at Disney Research present what one can describe as room-scale wireless power delivery-- a prototype living room housing 10 objects, all powered without need for cables.

Dubbed "Quasistatic Cavity Resonance for Ubiquitous Wireless Power Transfer," the technology is free roaming, meaning one can move around the room and their smartphone will immediately start charging, with no need to be close to a wireless charging pad. It is also very efficient (around 40-95%, depending on the receiver's position in the room) and can deliver 1900W of power before the specific absorption rate (SAR) becomes dangerous for human beings.

However, like all things sounding too good to be true, the technology comes with a caveat-- it requires a purpose-built room, with walls, ceilings and floor built out of aluminium panels. A long copper pole runs in the middle of the room, and half-way down the pipe is a small section housing a ring of 15 capacitors. Outside the room are a signal generator and a power amplifier linked to the capacitors, which together with the copper pipe produce quasistatic cavity resonance (QSCR), the process behind the wireless power transfer technology.

Voice-based control is becoming increasingly important in connected devices-- leading MIT researchers to develop a low-power chip designed specifically for automatic speech recognition.

According to the researchers, a smartphone running speech-recognition software uses around 1W of power. In comparison, the chip requires between 0.2 and 10 milliwatts, depending on the number of words it has to recognise, leading to power savings of 90-99%. This means it can bring about voice-based control in wearables, as well as the power-constrained devices making the Internet of Things (IoT).

The chip uses a simple "voice activation detection" circuit to monitor ambient noise and determine whether it is speech. If the answer is yes, the chip fires up a more complex speech-recognition circuit. It also can compress data and evaluate a small audio section within onboard memory in order to keep energy consumption low.

Integrated Systems Events states ISE 2017 is the biggest edition of the show yet, with 1192 AV equipment vendors and suppliers showcasing the latest in digital signage, unified communications, audio, smart building, residential and education technology.

“ISE 2017 has been the biggest and best year yet for CEDIA. We expanded our education offering and doubled bookings to more than 800,” CEDIA CEO Vin Bruno says. “ISE 2017 also gave us a great opportunity to connect with so many of our members from around the globe. Our booth was continuously busy especially during the CEDIA Talks. The show was a huge success and we can’t wait for next year.”

Registered attendees were also at an all-time high at 73413, an 11.% increase over 2016. Visitors came from 150 different countries, while almost 600 registered attendees came from the press and media. The actual show took place over 14 halls in the RAI Amsterdam, and involved four days of product launches, press briefings, awards, seminars and networking events.

The European Commission (EC) launches an investigation to determine whether Asus, Denon & Marantz, Philips and Pioneer are manipulating online retail prices.

According to the press release, the companies are accused of breaking EU competition rules by stopping online retailers from setting own prices for "widely used" CE products such as notebooks, hi-fi products and household appliances. Making the situation worse is pricing software automatically adjusts retail prices to those of the leading competition, bringing a wider impact to overall online prices for CE products.

Philips says a preliminary probe has been going on since 2013, and it is "[continuing] to engage and cooperate fully with the European Commission."