With Thanksgiving in the rear-view mirror and Christmas and New Year’s rapidly approaching the entire technology industry is trying to button up their 2025 activities. Keeping pace with this end-of-year pace, KMB Comm has its weekly roundup of technologies stories for the week of Dec. 8-12.
Headlining the week’s news cycle, Residential Systems has announced its 2026 Companies to Watch list. Several KMB Comm clients were represented in the list, including Apex Technologies, Daisy, Global Wave Integration, HYPERSUB, Quantum Media Systems, RoseWater Energy, Somfy, Sonos, Torus Power, TPI Aerospace, and Wall-Smart.
In addition, Residential Systems named KMB Communications as a company to watch for its work within the smart home community helping its clients to meet the media goals.
The complete list can be found here.
Over in the world of audiophiles, the Audioholics website posted an item on Integra’s latest high-performance amplifiers.
The new Professional Series of Amplifiers offer a choice of models with features that include DSP capabilities that are highlighted by presets for Klipsch loudspeakers.
Check out the Audioholics item here.
Also, in the world of residential technologies, the popular data and research company Parks Associates released a study on the multi-family, multi-dwelling (MDU) category. The firm posted the item on LinkedIn and a couple of takeaways from the data include people are delaying moving and the spending of their disposable income.
Other findings in the report include that 14% of those polled in the study pay a technology fee, and more importantly, Parks Associates emphasizes, 84% of those paying this fee, which averages $75 per month, state the fee is worth the price.
The Parks Associates study can be found here.
One of the most difficult categories in the home technology market to navigate is power. Helping to shed some light on what some of these products and systems offer from this often-misunderstood category, RoseWater Energy has a nice summary of the differences between the solutions.
RoseWater Energy in its latest blog summarizes power terms such as solar power, battery backup, power conditioners, surge protection, and more.
The new RoseWater Energy blog can be found here.
KMB Comm Technology Week in Review’s Look at Commercial AV Happenings
Some of the best usage cases for video technologies can be found with 3D video walls and more specifically 3D billboards.
SCN’s AVNetwork website has an item this week on Disney+’s promotion of the second season of its “Percy Jackson” series. The billboard is located on the corner of Hollywood and Vine, and the story notes the second season, which the 3D billboard is promoting is based on the second book, “The Sea of Monsters.”
The story also explains that underneath the billboard is a pool that catches splashing water from a water tank that supplies the exhibit to add the fun factor to the advertisement.
To see the 3D billboard in action and to learn more, click here.
Noteworthy National News
One of the big news items from the prior week was Netflix’s bid to acquire Warner Bros. Following this news, numerous reports suggest the acquisition is now under scrutiny over concerns of antitrust regulations.
For more on these reports, check out this LinkedIn post.
The KMB Comm Technology Week in Review also has another LinkedIn item. This post focuses on Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell’s comments on U.S. employment figures. The story goes on to assert the economy is entering a time of uncertainty led in part to statistics that may not be accurate.
Here’s more on Powell’s comments.
One last story from LinkedIn on Apple and how the tech giant handles AI. The story points out that Apple shares have increased 35% since mid-year based on some its competition perhaps moving too quickly with their AI plans, while the Cupertino, Calif.-based company has taken a more measured approach.
See the Apple AI post here.
KMB Communications hosts a podcast called AV Trade Talk. Listeners can check out the podcast to learn about the latest happenings in the custom installation electronics industry. To listen to the KMB AV Trade Talk Podcast, click here.