dealerscope

  Sony Electronics has announced its latest projectors, which the company is touting as the “world’s smallest WUXGA 3LCD laser projectors.” The models are the  VPL-PHZ61 and the VPL-PHZ51 , and both come outfitted with 4K projection and 55 percent vertical shift capabilities. The VPL-PHZ61has 6,400 lumens and the VPL-PHZ51 has 5,300. Throughout the press release, as well as on the projectors’  webpages , it appears that the intended use cases lie in conference rooms and classrooms. “Many of our customers struggle to find display solutions that provide both exceptional high brightness and sophisticated features that can enhance their content and overall user experience,” said Rich Ventura, Vice President of B2B, Sony Electronics, in a press release. “We don’t want our customers to compromise on any of these asks, which is why we’ve built upon our existing legacy in developing feature-rich laser projectors, to provide compact and advanced projectors to the market. These pro...

  Acer’s new Swift Edge laptop is the company’s venture into the  portable OLED space , which is currently occupied by only a few other tech companies. The Swift Edge comes in at only 2.58 lbs despite having a decently large 16-in. screen. Its thickness is impressive, too, coming in at only 12.95mm thick. It has a 3840 x 2400 screen resolution, displays in 4K HDR, and has an AMD Ryzen 7 6800U eight-core processor. And with a number of other high-end features, like Wi-Fi 6E compatibility, the  Swift Edge  could be a formidable product in the growing portable OLED field. It starts at $1,499.  In other news, Amazon has announced that it is  scaling back its Scout delivery program . For those that don’t know, Scout is the company’s sidewalk-based delivery system which uses cube-shaped, wheeled robots to deliver packages. While not ending the program all together, Amazon will be ending field tests for the delivery bots. This announcement comes as Amazon’s drone ...

  Coffee and tea enthusiasts have probably at some time come across the company  Fellow . It’s a popular maker and seller of high-end brewing equipment, such as kettles that hold their precisely set temperatures for extended periods of time, and  today it has announced  perhaps the most high-end — and high-tech — of electric kettles. The new Stagg EKG Pro can adjust for altitude so the water inside doesn’t boil over, schedule a set time to begin heating and set presets for various types of coffee or tea. The Stagg EKG Pro Studio Edition does all that with a fancier, metal-and-glass design. Launching this month, the EKG Pro starts at $195 and the EKG Pro Studio Edition starts at $225. In other news, yesterday the European Parliament approved a law that will  require devices to use a USB-C  charging port by the end of 2024. While some devices already charge using USB-C, one of the most talked about companies that will have to adapt to this law is Apple. Apple...

Google has announced its Nest Wifi Pro, which is a high-speed router. It supports tri-band Wi-Fi 6E, is equipped with dual-band 802.11ac capabilities, and can connect to 100 devices per router. There is no backwards compatibility with Wi-Fi features as this new Nest Wifi is built differently. Another interesting feature of the new Wifi Pro is that it can act as a Thread border router, which allows for smart home connectivity and even the ability to act as a Matter hub later this year. There are a  number of other features  and specs to this new Wifi Pro, and it will cost $199 for a single router.  In other news, the audio brand House of Marley has announced the  Get Together 2 XL Bluetooth Speaker . The speaker is designed with sustainability in mind, and using bamboo and reclaimed and recycled fabric in part for its build, it manages to be both water and dust resistant with an IP65 rating. It has two 4-in. woofers, 1-in. tweeters and dual-passive radiators, and can ...

  A recent survey conducted by the U.S. Department of Commerce found that the United States is facing a daunting shortage of semiconductor chips , which are used to manufacture cars, electronics, medical devices, and other products. At the moment, median inventory among chip consumers in the U.S. is down to just five days from 40 days prior to the start of the pandemic. This means that if something unforeseen were to happen to current chip production, such as another COVID-19 outbreak, most companies would only be able to manufacture products for 5 days before being forced to shut down.  Between 2019 and 2021, demand for chips has grown a whopping 17 percent while the supply of chips saw no relative growth. Increasing chip-making capacity is a process that requires significant amounts of lead times and financial investment. For example, Intel has announced that it is investing $20 billion to create chip plants in Ohio, but the factories are only set to begin...

  The onset of the pandemic set off a huge move towards eCommerce, since that’s all that was available for a huge chunk of time in 2020 and some of 2021. That’s led to some fascinating and innovative new forays into online shopping experiences. Even so, brick-and-mortar is far from dead, and some are doing intriguing, nontraditional things — everything from VR to NFTs to the metaverse — with their online and in-store retail presences. That’s the takeaway from “ Experiential Retail ,” a CES 2022 panel on Thursday that took place live and in-person in Las Vegas and was also streamed on the event’s digital. ces.tech streaming portal. It began with a presentation by NPD Group Chief Commercial Officer Tim Bush, who was clear about one thing: “Brick and mortar is not dead.” Bush listed several reasons why: Stores have “raised their digital game,” while instituting such omnichannel practices as buying online and picking up in-store (BOPIS). This has especially become the case as eCommerc...

  Situated in the heart of New York City, on a Midtown block on 46th St. off Fifth Ave. that is normal l y populated by a constant pedestrian stream of office workers and tourists, is  Audio46 , a  Dealerscope   2021 Retail Excellence Award honoree. But while the pandemic has somewhat affected  in-store retail  foot traffic these past 18 months, Tony Aama, Audio46’s vice president, says business is healthy and booming. That, he says, is due to both his many loyal, longstanding customers who appreciate the huge selection of pro and consumer headphones and other audio gear he carries, and to the store’s formidable online domestic and international presence. Audio46 started out primarily as a B-to-B  brick-and-mortar store  focused on  cameras , and then took a different turn in the aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis, when Aama added online sales capability in 2009. And in 2013, he continues, “we noticed another shift — we were gettin...