In an update to the article “The Internet of Things – By Satellite”, published earlier this month, Tooway have confirmed that its consumer plans do not allow the ports on the modem to be opened up for external access to services in the home, such as smart thermostats. This makes Tooway a much less compelling option for the home, as remote energy management takes on ever greater importance.

Steve Petrie, Northern European Director for Tooway, said this week: “"In principle, there is no technology [sic] reason why the Tooway service and the KA-SAT satellite cannot be used for remote control over the internet of remote devices in the home. However … the ports on the consumer modem are locked down to allow consumers to use the service without having to implement additional security applications, such as firewalls, to prevent unauthorised external access to their modem/network.

20th Century Fox Home Entertainment president Mike Dunn proposes what he believes is a simpler means for customers to access and manage media content-- a Blu-ray player with enough storage for content in HD and even 4k/UHD resolutions.

Described as a "Digital Bridge," such a device would not only store content downloaded from the cloud on terabytes of HDD space, but also make movies and TV shows available to any device in the home.

“Consumers would have the ability to copy their physical discs and store and manage their entire digital library in one centralized location... in the living room,” Dunn says in his keynote at the CEA Industry Forum 2013.

Mitsubishi says sayonara to the front-projection product and large-format LCD display market, shutting down operations to focus solely on the profitable display wall market, bringing about the end of the Mitsubishi presence in consumer displays.

How come? Growing losses and declining sales, of course.

The exit is worldwide, and will take place once the company sells off all remaining TV, monitor and projector inventory. The only display products Mitsubishi will continue making include rear-projection cubes, LCD flat panel display walls and printer imaging products.

Registrations open for what promises to be the biggest AV and IT systems integration trade show yet-- ISE 2014 takes place on 4-6 February at the Amsterdam RAI.

The 2013 show hosted around 45000 attendees and over 900 exhibitors.

Launched in 2004, ISE is the annual marketplace for the professional AV and electronic system integration industries, with a focus on not only business but also networking, educational and technological innovation.

Gefen founder Hagai Gefen leaves the company sharing his name in order to "pursue other interests," with leadership duties taken over by Nortek Group president Sean Burke.

Joining Burke is global sales and business development VP Kevin E. Weiss.

"This is a natural evolution that we have all been anticipating for some time now," Burke remarks.  "We have worked very closely with Hagai and his executive team at Gefen to ensure a smooth and effective transition. Best of all, our new team is extremely excited about the opportunities to propel the Gefen business into the next generation of premium AV solutions."

Toshiba plans to slash 50% of TV unit employees and stop production at two of its three overseas factories by end 2013 Reuters reports, since the company continues seeing losses from the ailing division.

Over 60% of the 3000 lost jobs are overseas positions, while the company does not say which of its three factories in China, Indonesia and Poland are to close. To make up for lost production Toshiba will depend even more heavily on outsourced production. According to Reuters the company will up outsourcing from 40% to 70%.

Such measures are in the hopes of swinging the TV division back in the black by H2 2013, following two years in the red due to the combination of European sales slowdown and dropping domestic demand.