Chicago - Regional carrier U.S. Cellular plans May 21 availability of its first 4G mobile hot spot, the 4G LTE Samsung SCH-LC11 mobile hot spot.

The limited-time price is $49 after $50 mail-in rebate and two-year data-service contract.

It will be available through the carrier's stores and indirect agents in the carrier's current LTE markets and in markets launching LTE by year's end, when 54 percent of the population within U.S. Cellular's footprint will be able to access 4G service. The device is already available on uscellular.com.

New York - Samsung's parent company may have let the cat out of the bag on the launch of three NX-family mirrorless interchangeable-lens cameras a couple of weeks ago, but the U.S. sales and marketing team pulled out all the stops to give the NX20, NX210 and NX1000 a proper retail send-off Thursday.

NEW YORK – Six leading national retailers all reported net profits in the first quarter – although some were lower than the prior year and Sears was in the black based on the sale of some operations.

Wal-Mart Stores reported net sales for the first quarter, ended April 30, were $112.3 billion, an increase of 8.6 percent from $103.4 billion in the first quarter last year. Consolidated net income for the quarter was $3.7 billion, up 9.2 percent from the first quarter last year.

MINNEAPOLIS – The disarray at Best Buy headquarters hit a crescendo last week with the surprise resignation of company chairman and founder Dick Schulze.

But his succession at next month’s annual meeting by board member Hatim Tyabji, for failing to disclose a relationship between former CEO Brian Dunn and a subordinate, could help usher in a new era for the No. 1 CE chain as it struggles to find its place in a changing retail landscape.

NEW ORLEANS – The leaders of the nation’s four largest wireless carriers took to the stage here at CTIA Wireless 2012 to promote agendas ranging from an urgent need for more wireless spectrum to a need to rehabilitate the industry’s reputation among consumers.

During their shared keynote session, some of the executives also pointed to a need for carriers to offer creative services to consumers, not just fast network speeds.

New York – AMD has reiterated its plan to enter the tablet processor category, stating that the company will have a low-watt processor ready when Windows 8 tablets begin to ship later this year.

Leslie Sobon, AMD’s product platform marketing VP, said tablets are the obvious future growth area for processors. The company announced its intention of entering the tablet category in February, but it had not stated before when this might happen.

Washington - To borrow from T.S. Eliot, April was the second cruelest month for major appliances this year.

Following a solid start to 2012 with consecutive 4.7 percent and 5.1 percent gains in January and February, factory shipments fell off the cliff in March, stumbling nearly 16 percent.

The free-fall subsided somewhat in April, data from the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers (AHAM) show, as wholesale volume decreased 7.6 percent, to just under 4.9 million units.

San Francisco -Dolby has developed a way to improve the sound quality of lossless Blu-ray soundtracks played back through home theater systems.

The company is incorporating Meridian-developed 96kHz upsampling technology into Dolby Media Producer, a post-production product that encodes Dolby TrueHD bitstreams for use on Blu-ray discs. The technology creates 96kHz Dolby TrueHD soundtracks from the 48kHz-PCM mixes that the movie industry creates for movie theaters, which use 48kHz playback equipment.

Hauppauge, N.Y. - Acoustic Research said it has begun shipping its PW1000 Home Theater Power Station with SpeedPass, along with a new line of power solutions for home-theater and home-office users.

The AR PW1000 Home Theater Power Station with SpeedPass features the company's PureCurrent power conditioning and surge protection, and its SpeedPass front-panel connectivity. It also has a five-port Ethernet switch. Suggested retail is $249.