Ericsson plans to buy Microsoft's MediaRoom IPTV business Bloomberg reports-- an acquisition potentially worth up to $1 billion that could be announced in a few weeks' time.

MediaRoom appears to be fairly fairly solid unit, performance-wise, with steady annual sales of around $350 million for the past 3 years according to Raymond James & Associates.

Why would Ericsson want to acquire an IPTV unit? Being the biggest wireless network maker around, the company wishes to cater to carriers competing with cable, satellite and web-based providers. It also boost investment in software and services amid accelerating hardware competition. "[The acquisition] would make sense for Ericsson as it provides for a more complete offering," Exane BNP analysts tell Bloomberg. "Still, the technology started to get hyped about 10 years ago and may have reached its peak already, so [we] don’t see this as a growth market."

Jeremy Burkhardt needs to watch out if bad luck comes in threes…

First his altercation with Nortek drives him from Speakercraft. Now his acquisition of Soundcast has fallen through.

Although he sounded genuinely enthusiastic about the purchase, Burkhardt let a 90-day deal-or-no-deal deadline pass by without completing the deal.

Sources say Burkhardt had the money to close the deal, but the owners got nervous (and perhaps greedy for independence as well as money). While the deal was going down, their first two Bluetooth products got a good reception without Burkhardt’s intervention.

At the 55th annual Grammy Awards, singers were told by organizers not to dress “sexy” in an attempt to stop the arms race of music porn that decorates MTV today. Needless to say, that mandate felt limiting to many of the stars used to flaunting it as part of their act.

One singer found a different route: Oklahoma country music superstar Carrie Underwood, who recently celebrated her 17th No. 1 song.

Underwood came on the Grammy Awards stage in a big, flowing gown and stood the whole time fixed in the same spot. It immediately seemed slightly awkward to fans who had expected an animated performance with Underwood wandering the stage.

Before the fans had time to react, something spectacular happened to her dress: the white gown lit up with a series of striking changes, changing into a brilliant blue, a fire-engine red, and even patterns of roses and more.

As anticipation builds up for this year’s CEDIA Awards, the Oscars of installation, CEDIA announces the sponsors: exclusive Platinum sponsor AMX, gold sponsors Crestron and Control 4, and Kaleidescape and Rako as Silver sponsors

All will have a presence at the event on Friday 28 June at The Pavilion, The Tower of London.

This year’s venue by itself is worth the visit. Her Majesty's Royal Palace and Fortress, more commonly known as The Tower of London sits on the north bank of the River Thames in central London. It was erected at the end of 1066, part of the Norman conquest of England.

The White Tower, which gives the castle its name, was built by William the Conqueror in 1078 and one can imagine it won many installation awards of its own at The Norman Custom Install ceremony of that year. (And if it didn’t, well, off with the heads of the judges!)

The European Audiovisual Observatory reports digital switchover is complete in 22 out of 27 EU member states, as well as in the non-EU states of Croatia, Switzerland, Norway and Iceland.

According to the pan-European Yearbook survey 2012 was "a significant watershed for digital terrestrial TV in the EU," with pay DTT services available in 17 EU and 21 European countries. 86 DTT channels launched in 2012, with HD channels available on DTT networks in 22 European countries.

Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Macedonia and Greece are to complete switchover by 2013, with Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina to follow in 2014 and the remaining countries (Albania, Montenegro, Romania, Russia and Turkey) in 2015.

End 2012 is the recommended EU deadline for analogue switch-off (ASO).

The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) publishes a new American National Standard-- the ANSI/CEA-2045 Modular Communications Interface for Energy Management.

The standard specifies a modular communications interface (MCI) for energy management signals and messages sent by devices (such as sensors, thermostats and appliances, as well as energy management hubs, controllers and residential gateways) within home and smart-grid systems.

The result of a CEA cooperation with SGIP (the public/private Smart Grid Interoperability Panel), ANSI/CEA-2045 specifies a plug-in module with a wired connection between residential devices and external communication links of the power line carrier (PLC) and radio (RF) variety.

The MCI also passes ClimateTalk, generic IP, OpenADR, SEP and USNAP application message between communications module and end-device.

Users can install the MCI plug-in module into smart-grid ready products-- but again, only in the US, at least so far.

Go CEA Announces New Modular Communications Interface Standard for Energy Management