Google Assistant can control more than 5,000 smart home devices, up from 1,500 in January, blogged Michele Turner, director-smart home ecosystem. Every major device brand now works with Google Assistant in the U.S., Turner said Thursday. Later this month, Dish Network's Hopper DVRs, also compatible with Amazon’s Alexa, will be voice-controllable via Google Assistant, Turner said, as will next-generation TVs.

A Florida company settled FTC allegations it deceptively advertised, through TV and online, the quality of a sound amplifier product geared toward elderly consumers, the agency announced Wednesday. Global Concepts Ltd. and subsidiaries deceptively advertised MSA 30X to consumers in violation of the FTC Act, said the agency. The wearable sound amplifier, which was available in CVS, Walgreens and Walmart, generated $47.2 million in sales. The company’s ads, which claimed it lets users hear up to 30 times better, weren't backed by adequate scientific evidence, the commission said. The order imposed a $47.2 million judgment against the company, partially suspended with a $500,000 payment, the agency said: “If the defendants are later found to have misrepresented their financial condition to the FTC, the total amount of the judgment will become due.” The company didn’t comment.

Legacy pay-TV operators need to "stress test" their business models and work on liquidity and cost-cutting plans now, before the next economic downturn, The Diffusion Group senior adviser Joel Espelien blogged Tuesday. He said subscriber loss trends show the industry is unequivocally unhealthy, with declines to come regardless of whatever steps -- like promotions, discounts or bundles -- management takes in response. But the industry "is barely treading water" now in a strong economy with low unemployment, and today's manageable subs losses will likely accelerate -- perhaps to levels like 250,000 per quarter -- in the next serious downturn, he said: That could leave some weaker or heavily indebted pay-TV companies facing bankruptcy or insolvency.

Seventeen percent of U.S. broadband households own an internet-connected entertainment device and a smart home device, Parks Associates reported Tuesday. Thirteen percent own a connected health device and a smart home device. "Adoption of multiple connected devices alters consumer behavior as connectivity opens opportunities for adjacent use cases, new means of control, and extension of preferred interfaces," said analyst Brad Russell.

The Media Bureau granted permanent waivers of FCC user interface accessibility rules for rear entertainment systems in Honda Acura MDXs built for the model years 2017 through 2020, said an order Monday. The bureau last year granted Honda temporary waiver that was to expire in August (see 1710200021), but the company said last July it would be unable to meet that deadline because of technical and bureaucratic complications in giving existing MDX entertainment systems the capability for audio input. “The current Acura MDX rear entertainment system hardware does not have the required speed, memory, and human machine interface to allow for audio feedback and, thus, the hardware would have to be redesigned entirely,” the order said. An investigation by the bureau determined the automaker wouldn’t be able to achieve that redesign until 2020 at a cost of over $11 million, and in that same year, the current generation of MDX vehicles will be replaced with the next version, which is already slated to feature a compliant entertainment system, the order said. “Honda’s waiver is in the public interest because the alternative would be the removal of rear entertainment systems from current generation Acura MDX vehicles when the current waiver expires, which would be detrimental to consumers.”

The needed updates to carriage election notice rules should include standardizing cable and satellite default elections to retransmission consent, NAB staffers told FCC Media Bureau Chief Michelle Carey, recounted a docket 17-105 filing posted Wednesday. The association said broadcasters should be able to satisfy the notice requirement by putting elections in their online public files.

Amazon's new Echo Dot for kids with a subscription service includes skills from Disney, Viacom and others, and parental controls including explicit song filtering, bedtime limits and disabled voice purchasing, it said. And there's positive reinforcement for "please.” Teaching politeness is a topic on social media as “please” isn’t part of voice commands. The product also responds with jokes and other appropriate content when a child says, "Alexa, I'm bored."

Streaming music revenue, driven by 176 million paid subscribers, jumped 41 percent in 2017 to $6.6 billion, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry reported Tuesday. Streaming generated 38 percent of recorded music revenue, offsetting a 5.4 percent decline in physical revenue and 21 percent decline in download revenue, IFPI said. Globally, revenue from vinyl sales grew 22 percent, to 3.7 percent of the total recorded music market last year. Overall global recorded music revenue increased by 8 percent to $17.3 billion, it said, for the third consecutive year of growth after 15 years of revenue declines, it said. Total digital income last year accounted for more than half of all revenue, 54 percent, for the first time, said IFPI. Despite the recent uplift, revenue for 2017 was 68 percent of the market’s peak in 1999, it said. Copyright infringement remains a “widespread and evolving problem,” with stream ripping becoming the latest issue facing the music community, said the trade group. The value gap remains “the most significant roadblock on the path to sustainable growth, where certain online user upload services exploit music without returning fair revenue to those that are creating and investing in it,” it said.

Streamed, live news is popular, Roku found by surveying its customers, Shubhada Hebbar, Roku TV director-product development, told us Tuesday, demonstrating added content discovery features. "We’ve worked with a few networks” to bring live news and video feeds to the service, she said. The company is adding “live and linear” news content to the free, ad-supported Roku Channel, including the 24-hour ABC News Live stream, as well as “news feeds” from partners Cheddar, PeopleTV and Newsy.

Many of the same content companies pursuing video piracy claims against streaming media player company TickBox (see 1712290026) and streaming media device company Dragon Box (see 1801110031) jointly sued the parties behind the Setvnow app and set-top box, claiming it's also an overt means to mass copyright infringement. In a docket 2:18-cv-03325-SVW-E complaint (in Pacer) Friday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, Amazon, Columbia, Disney, Netflix, Sony, Twentieth Century Fox, Universal and Warner Bros. said Florida-based Set Broadcast -- doing business as Setvnow -- has many hallmarks of an authorized streaming service such as a user-friendly interface, but the intent is subscribers "use Setvnow overwhelmingly to stream infringing performances" of the plaintiffs' copyrighted TV and movie content. Setvnow didn't comment Tuesday. Also named as defendants are Florida residents Jason Labbosiere, owner of Set Broadcast, and Nelson Johnson, an employee. Dragon Media -- doing business as Dragon Box -- in a docket 2:18-cv-00230-MWF-AS answer (in Pacer) filed last week in response to the complaint denied urging its subscribers to infringe copyright.