Global smartphone shipment growth will be “nearly flat” in 2019's second half compared with a year earlier, while the market declines 2.2 percent for full year, said IDC Monday. That would make 2019 the third straight year of “global contraction,” though IDC expects shipment growth to recover in 2020, rising 1.6 percent. "The global smartphone market and relevant supply chains remain uncertain, largely due to fluctuations in U.S-China trade negotiations, making future planning even more challenging than normal," said the researcher. Consumers continue holding on to their devices longer making upgrade and replacement sales “difficult for the vendors and channels alike,” it said. “Expectations of aggressive promotions and offers in the second half of 2019 aimed at helping to clear out any channel inventory and get consumers excited about the next wave of smartphone technology should steer the market back toward renewed growth." IDC sees 5G as “a ray of hope” for the smartphone business: Though 2019 is “very much an introductory year at best,” 2020 looks to be the year in which “5G begins to ramp up.” It estimates 5G models will be 8.9 percent of smartphones shipped globally in 2020, growing to 28.1 percent share by 2023. "We don't think 5G will be the savior in smartphones, but we do see it as a critical evolution in mobile technology,” said IDC. “We expect the 5G ramp on smartphones to be more subtle than what we saw with 4G.”

The BBC began experimenting with how future audiences might watch TV using new hologram-based augmented reality smartglasses, blogged Cyrus Saihan, head-digital partnerships. “With recent advances and heavy investment in smartglasses from well-funded companies, there is now a chance that these types of heads-up digital display experiences could go mainstream.” The smartglasses that the BBC tested “let us see into a possible future, one in which we might be watching TV, accessing the news and learning about new subjects in a far more immersive way than has ever been possible before,” said Saihan Thursday. “If smartglasses do take off, our digital world and our real-world could combine in a way that has never been possible before, potentially transforming the future of media.” Early results have been successful, he said. “When you put on the smartglasses and walked around, the digital objects felt so realistic that you wanted to reach out and touch them, believing that they are actually in the room with you. What made the experience even more realistic is that, as in the real-world, the closer that you get to a digital object, the more detail you could see on it.”

Zens will bow at IFA this week the first wireless charging stands with a lightning connector, said the company Wednesday. Filling in for Apple’s promise of the ill-fated, tri-charging AirCharge wireless charging pad, the Zens ZEDC07 ($139) simultaneously charges an iPhone, Apple Watch and AirPods. Rather than charging from a pad, the ZEDC07, with a total 20-watt output, has a lean-back Qi charger for the phone and charges an Apple Watch from a customized charging transmitter mounted to a horizontal aluminum bar; the AirPods connect to the base of the unit via lightning. The watch module and lightning connector are Apple MFi-certified, it said. A built-in USB port enables charging for a fourth device. Zens also is launching the ZESC13 wireless charger ($59), with 10-watt output for a single Qi device, and a 2.4-Amp USB port that allows wired iPad fast-charging. The 20-watt ZEDC06 ($99) wirelessly charges two devices simultaneously; a built-in USB port charges a third device, said the company.

The Wireless Power Consortium revealed its wireless charging standard for small kitchen appliances, Ki Cordless Kitchen. Philips will demonstrate at IFA this week a blender/food processor, juicer and air fryer, emailed Hans Kablau, chairman-WPC Kitchen Work Group. The Ki logo indicates safety and interoperability for wireless power for cordless kitchen devices up to 2,200 watts, said WPC. The standard allows Ki transmitters to be placed beneath countertops and in new induction cooktops, it said. The Ki standard draft specification is available to Wireless Power Consortium members; they'll determine their commercialization timetable, a WPC spokesperson emailed. Communication between the appliance and transmitter is handled by near-field communication, said Kablau. NFC controls the amount of power transferred and enables smart features. It prevents a smartphone from inadvertently overheating when placed on a coil, the spokesperson said. Ki's “essentially the same technology” as the magnetic induction wireless charging method used by Qi, she said, though Ki coils are much larger. Another difference is that Ki only transmits energy that’s consumed as power vs. Qi technology, which transmits energy that’s stored by the receiver so it can power a phone on the go. Since a Ki receiver doesn’t store power, when appliances are removed from the transmitter, power transfer ceases and the appliance shuts off, she said.

Via an update, Digiarty software can reduce the size of 4K UHD videos by 90 percent, said the developer Friday. A one-hour, 30-frame-per-second 4K GoPro file uses about 26 GB, and an iPhone about 23 GB to shoot an hour of 4K HEVC video at 60 fps, it said, noting large 4K video files can mean slow upload speeds and choppy playback errors.

A “pessimistic outlook” on the world economy from the U.S.-China trade war led to a 3.5 percent production drop in global worldwide smartphone assembly shipments in June, reported IDC Wednesday. More of the same is forecast for July and August: IDC expects smartphone original device manufacturer and electronics manufacturing services' assembly volume to shrink due to Samsung and Huawei lowering regional market targets, high inventory and the U.S.-China trade war, said analyst Sean Kao. Overall in Q2, worldwide smartphone assembly shipment volume grew 12 percent year on year to 332.6 million due largely to lower inventories in Q1 and increased competition, IDC said. Assembly shipment volume from Chinese smartphone ODMs and EMSes rose to 51.3 percent in Q2 from 40.7 percent in Q1, said Kao.

The sluggish smart augmented reality glasses market is “picking up pace” in industrial and enterprise segments, but mass consumer adoption is “elusive, if not years away," reported Tractica Monday. It cited “growing pains,” as the technology has fallen short of end-user expectations, but projects the market will grow from 101,000 units in 2018 to 19.7 million units annually by 2025. The form factor could replace tablets and other handheld devices on the manufacturing floor, said analyst Sherril Hanson. Compelling mixed reality glass technology, compact form factors, wider field of view and immersive capabilities will help smart glasses break through across multiple segments, including consumer, said Hanson.

Stepping down as HP president-CEO “to tend to a family health matter” (see personals section of this issue) was a decision Dion Weisler made “following a great deal of reflection” and was “among the hardest choices I’ve ever had to make,” said Weisler in opening HP's fiscal Q3 call Thursday. “There is nothing more important to me than my family.” Serving as HP’s first CEO after the 2015 separation from HP Enterprise “has been the honor of my career,” he said. The HP board “has had a rigorous succession-planning process since day one of our company," he said. The process. he said, "led the board to exactly the right leader” in Enrique Lores, president of HP’s imaging and printing business, who becomes CEO in November. The stock trended 6.2 percent lower after hours Thursday at $17.75.

Hardware could play a pivotal role in streaming music growth, blogged Futuresource. At mass adoption in many places, its next frontier is to win over radio and casual listeners, said Alexandre Jornod. Spotify, recently surpassed in listeners in the U.S. by Apple, could rely on partnerships with smart speaker makers to grow vs. Amazon and Google, which add free versions of their music services to their Echo and Google Home smart speakers, said the analyst. Though Apple has HomePod, it expanded by making Apple Music the default streaming app on the iPhone: in markets where Apple Music has 3 million-plus subscribers, including the U.S., the company has at least 30 percent of the smartphone market, Jornod noted this week.

Apple announced availability of its virtual credit card Tuesday. The virtual card, which has no annual or late fees, is stored in the Wallet app on an iPhone; a "titanium" hard version with a chip can be used at locations that don't have Apple Pay, but it doesn't have identifying information. Users who want to use Apple Card to buy an item online will find their card number, PIN and expiration date in the Wallet app on their phone. Because of the security and privacy architecture created for its credit card, Apple “does not know where a customer shopped, what they bought or how much they paid,” said the company, which is using Goldman Sachs as its issuing bank and Mastercard for its global payments network. Owners of iPhone 6 and later phones can apply for the card via the Wallet app. Users can reach customer support 24/7, said Apple, which uses machine learning and Apple Maps to tag transactions to merchant names and locations in Wallet.