Boca Raton, Fla. - Pinnacle Speakers is replacing its reference speaker line with a new line of eight in-room speakers priced from $159 each to $2,000 each.

Savant Systems LLC has announced the introduction of three premium keypad styles called Metropolitan, Circa and Echo.

 

These offerings replace Savant's existing products in the keypad segment and will compliment the company's Apple iOS control solutions. 

 

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Scarsdale, N.

Arlington, Va. - Consumer confidence in technology increased in May, while consumer confidence in the overall economy dropped, according to the latest CEA Index released today from the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA).

The CEA Index of Consumer Technology Expectations (ICTE) reached 88.2 in May, an increase of nearly four points from last month. The ICTE, which measures consumer expectations about technology spending, is up seven points from this time last year.

Santa Barbara, Calif. - Sonos will offer a wireless subwoofer for the first time for its wireless multi-room audio system.

The Sonos Sub will be available in mid-June in high-gloss black-lacquer finish for $699 followed by a black-matte version in October at $599.

Minneapolis - Best Buy interim CEO Mike Mikan pulled no punches in assessing the company's status during his first earnings call with investors this morning.

In an opening statement, Mikan acknowledged that Best Buy was caught "flat-footed" by a rapidly evolving marketplace and that its stores no longer "wow" customers or provide a unique shopping experience.

"Right now we're not even close to good enough," he said.

Denver - Pentax Ricoh Imaging Americas introduced this week the weather-resistant K-30 DSLR featuring a 16-megapixel CMOS sensor with FullHD 1080/24p and 30p video capture.

Seoul, South Korea - LG Display said it broke ground Tuesday on a Gen 8 thin-film-transistor LCD panel plant in Guangzhou, China.

The new plant is expected to begin mass production in the second half of 2014 to strengthen the company's business competitiveness in China -- the world's largest LCD TV market.

Basking Ridge, N.J. - Verizon Wireless is expanding the number of 4G LTE devices that can roam in an expanded number of countries.

 The carrier announced May 24 availability of its second LTE-equipped USB modem with global roaming capability and announced that four LTE Android smartphones will get over-the-air updates sometime during the summer to give them global-roaming capability.

SpeakerCraft announced the retirement of Jeremy Burkhardt, president of SpeakerCraft LLC, effective May 25. 

 

 

Burkhardt joined SpeakerCraft in 1991, recasting the company from an installer of custom audio systems into an innovative manufacturer and founding the SpeakerCraft brand of architectural speakers in 1994. As president, Burkhardt led SpeakerCraft's reinvention based on a common vision of innovation, best of class products, business training and close partnerships with their retailers.