This year Extron celebrates 30 years of business.

Extron started in 1983 with a single product that was designed to solve a specific problem. The RGB 100 interface converted non-standard CGA graphics card signals to an analog video format compatible with existing projectors and monitors.

From this one product to the thousands produced today, Extron is still solving AV problems. To back these solutions, Extron grows its global presence: when the remaining offices open in 2013, the company will have more than 30 offices worldwide.

“We are at a very exciting time of growth here at Extron,” says Andrew C. Edwards, president and owner of Extron Electronics. “In recent years we’ve embraced digital AV with hundreds of new products, broadened our control line to include sophisticated touchpanels, and designed fiber optic, twisted pair, and streaming technologies that have transformed the industry. Plus, with the addition of many new global offices, our customers have more convenient access to training and the latest in Extron technologies. For three decades, Extron has been characterized by our S3 Service, Support, and Solutions. S3 remains at the core of what we stand for—today, and for the next 30 years.”

Fiscal 2012 sees Sony  posting the 1st annual profit in 5 years-- even if said return to black is less the result of CE sales and more of property sales, belt-tightening measures and a weak yen.

Thus in the year ending 31 March 2013 the company makes net profits worth $436 million from $68.4 billion in sales (with 4.7% growth), a contrast from the $4.6 billion losses seen in 2011.

“We set out this year with the aim of doing everything we can to get back in the black,” Sony CFO Masaru Kato says. “This year, we absolutely intend to make a profit in electronics.”

The escape from the red is due to various streamlining efforts, such as the dissolving of flat-panel TV making ventures with Sharp and Samsung, the dropping of its chemical product business and various asset sales (including the company's New York U.S. HQ) worth nearly $2.5bn.

The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) kicks off the R7.8 Working Group 2-- a group busy working on "a new standard to enable home electronics to communicate energy use data to smart energy management systems and apps."

Called CE-Energy Usage Information (CE-EUI), the standard will, at least so far, conform to the N. American energy standards (NAESB-EUI) forming the basis of the national Green Button initiative.

“Product manufacturers already understand how much energy a device will use during operation, based on its design,” the CEA says. “By programming that information into the device and enabling the device to calculate how much energy it uses over time, manufacturers can help homeowners accurately capture the data for their energy management systems and applications.”

The DECT Forum, the international wireless home and enterprise communication industry association, forms the ULE Alliance, an non-profit organisation for the promotion global Ultra Low Energy (ULE) technology adoption.

ULE is a DECT-developed control network ecosystem for home and building applications demanding reliable in-house communications.

The Alliance will focus on 3 initial application segments-- home automation, security and climate Control.

“ULE is the best-of-class technology which represents the next evolution in home networking. ULE will revolutionize the connectivity between home appliances and will put control in the hand of the end user to significantly reduce the energy consumption”, ULE board member Andreas Zipp says. “We believe that ULE will bring new growth opportunities in a sizable market with many exciting applications.”

Making the Alliance founders are the DECT Forum, Dialog Semiconductor, DSP Group, Gigaset and Vtech. Further members include Aastra, AVM, Binatone, Dosch&Amand, Sri Lanca Telecom, Swissvoice, and RTX.

Go ULE Alliance

Sharp Corporation of Japan says it is selling off its 9.2% shareholdings in Pioneer Corp.

Currently Sharp is the largest shareholder on record in Pioneer with 30 million shares of Pioneer valued at 6.3 billion yen or US$63.80 million.

Back in 2007, the two firms made a partnership to jointly develop consumer electronics products. Now that seems like a luxury to Sharp, a luxury they can’t afford. So Sharp is looking for a buyer. The proceeds of the sale would help pay off Sharp’s corporate debt of $2.14 billion which is the equivalent to a Mt. Everest of LCDs.

Pioneer would continue to retain ten million shares or 0.8% shareholdings in Sharp.

Even with the divestment, the two companies would continue to partner on a smaller scale in fields such as optical discs.

Go Sharp Wants to Sell Pioneer Stake

As part of their theme at ISE (and to celebrate their 50 years of solving the puzzles of how to mount displays and projectors), Peerless-AV organised a Rubik’s cube challenge at ISE 2013 to find the quickest “problem solver” in the AV industry….

Open to all visitors on the Peerless-AV booth, the trial to complete this classic 80’s puzzle was proving to be beyond the ability of most –until the arrival of Karl Savage, Business Development Manager at Saville Audio Visual.

Karl completed the challenge with the cube behind his back, without looking, and considerably quicker than any other entrant.

Turns out that Karl is no stranger to this particular puzzle. He has taken part in a number of Rubrik’s Cube-related charity events (including one where 1414 school-children twisted their way into the Guinness World Record books by solving the Rubik’s Cube, at the same time in the same place).