Tech Roundup

Too lazy to use the remote control to turn on the TV? Can't figure out which one to use? Ask Alexa, starting June 21. That's when Amazon will begin selling its first voice-activated device — a 4K Ultra HD set-top box that operates TVs and set-top boxes, along with other electronics, by using voice commands.

Plans have been finalized for a memorial service and reception honoring the life of Byron St. Clair, who died May 20 following a battle with brain cancer. The service will also honor St. Clair's wife of 71 years, Julie, who passed away following Byron's death by a matter of days.

A 24-year broadcast industry veteran whose resume includes stints as the Northeast Regional Sales Rep for Canon USA's Broadcast Equipment Division and decades of sales experience in the broadcast and production industries has been tapped as Director of Business Development for Joseph Electronics.

A new phone application for remote broadcasting that saw its unveiling at the 2018 NAB Show in Las Vegas is now available for iOs-based systems and Android-powered. Introducing the FieldTap app from Comrex. It uses the Opus audio encoder to deliver studio quality audio from a mobile phone, with little delay​.

The Golden Gate Bridge. Coit Tower. The Transamerica Pyramid. Sutro Tower. These are some of the architectural icons of the City by the Bay, and the latter is the structure that houses many of the San Francisco market's radio and TV station antennas. Now, Sutro Tower has installed a Dielectric DCR-S Series FM radio antenna on its 977-foot high steel structure.

Are radio station owners overreacting in their glee and strong belief that the smart speaker is the single most-important technology debut since the FM car radio adapter? Not at all, if new research from eMarketer is to believed. They say smart speaker use is increasing far faster than they ever imagined.

Here's something you're definitely going to want to put in your calendar today: Albert Shuldiner, Chief of the FCC's Audio Division, will appear at the 2018 IEEE Broadcast Symposium. The event will be held in Roslyn, Va., minutes away from Reagan National Airport and Capitol Hill.

The podcast content production universe just got a little bit smaller. YEA Networks parent High 5 Media has taken a majority stake in Spoke Media, an audio content firm with an international footprint.

Wazee Digital's portal designed to help rights holders maximize the value of their premium content by connecting with customers who need "iconic video" has just been relaunched. The provider of cloud-native video management and licensing services now has a whole-new Wazee Digital Commerce tool.

Many tech companies are focusing so strongly on cloud deployments that it almost seems that the answer is "cloud" ... with no one sure of the question. In this Media Information Bureau column, Telestream CMO Chris Osika tackles "the $64 million question for the broadcast industry: How should cloud figure in to the future?"

"GDPR," or the General Data Protection Regulation, is now law within the European Union. You may have received an email or two about receiving emails from various companies, as part of a sweeping rule that some U.S. businesses -- including yours -- may be concerned about. Why? Some wonder if it could happen here. AEI visiting scholar Roslyn Layton has some ideas that are definitely worth your time.

Futuri Media, the SaaS technology working to drive audience and revenue growth for its broadcast media clients, has added the TopLine-MapIt feature to its TopLine system. The tool creates custom maps showing stations’ geographic reach relevant to a potential client’s business.

The association for broadcast and multimedia technology professionals and the Advanced Television Systems Committee has launched a cooperative effort to develop a new Specialist level of SBE certification that will benchmark an individual's proficiency in the ATSC 3.0 System standard.

Triveni Digital spent last week in the Nation's Capital not to lobby members of Congress. Rather, it went to Washington, D.C. to demonstrate an end-to-end, real-time, scalable HEVC workflow with a compression solutions leader at the ATSC Annual Meeting in Washington D.C.

Artel Video Systems is welcoming a Key Accounts Manager. He was previously a senior network engineering and operations manager at Verizon and has more than two decades of industry experience.