Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., acknowledged Thursday it will be “especially hard” to complete his push to stop a controversial DOJ alteration to Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 41 from taking effect but urged privacy advocates not to be discouraged by Congress’ quickly narrowing legislative window. The rule change, which would expand federal judges’ ability to issue warrants for remote searches of computers outside their jurisdictions, will take effect Dec. 1 if Congress doesn’t act (see 1604290057). Wyden filed the Stop Mass Hacking Act (S-2952) in May to block the tweak. Reps. Ted Poe, R-Texas, and John Conyers, D-Mich., bowed a House companion (HR-5321) to S-2952 soon after Wyden (see 1605190021 and 1605250045).
FirstNet, which is moving toward becoming a business, hired a chief customer officer, officials said during a series of board committee meetings Wednesday, with the full board to meet Thursday. Richard Reed, formerly director of state planning at FirstNet, got the post. The network recently closed out the application window for companies, or more likely groups of them, that will work with the authority on the network with a choice expected later this year (see 1605310058).
The U.S. transportation network could significantly benefit from the IoT by alleviating traffic congestion, reducing cargo shipping delays at ports, monitoring rail and pipeline infrastructure safety, and helping policymakers better focus limited resources in maintaining roads and bridges, said Senate Surface Transportation Subcommittee Chairwoman Deb Fischer, R-Neb., during a Tuesday hearing. Fischer said the Developing Innovation and Growing the Internet of Things (Digit) Act (S-2607) she sponsored with Sens. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., Cory Booker, D-N.J., and Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii (see 1604270025), could further help the transportation sector since the bill calls for a nationwide strategy to accelerate IoT innovation and use. Booker, the subcommittee's ranking member, said society is in the "stone age" of the IoT. If government doesn't get its act together, it won't help the commercial sector to "flourish" but actually "drag them down" because agencies would be working in silos "tripping up and undermining innovations," he said. Doug Davis, head of Intel's IoT group, testified that by "converting vast amounts of data into meaningful actionable intelligence" The IoT will help improve transportation safety, efficiency and mobility and address infrastructure issues. He pointed to autonomous vehicles as one area that will benefit through the IoT. "The average American commuter spends 38 hours per year stuck in traffic, which collectively costs [the] U.S. economy about $121 billion per year in just wasted time and fuel," he said, using Census Bureau statistics. Intel recommends the government work with the tech and transportation sectors to develop an "ambitious national strategy" that prioritizes safety and security, promotes a technology neutral platform, encourages open global standards and invests in public-private partnerships, he said.
The FCC set a pleading cycle on the proposed sale of Inmate Calling Solutions from Centric Group to TKC Holdings. Comments are due July 1, replies July 8, said a public notice in docket 16-188 listed in Monday's Daily Digest. ICS is an institutional telecom services provider that has contracts in 38 states, the PN said.
The White House is attributing sluggish jobs numbers from May in part to the recent Verizon worker strike (see 1605310032). “The economy added 38,000 jobs in May, considerably below both expectations and the pace of growth in recent months, with volatility in monthly data and a temporary strike in the telecommunications industry contributing to the disappointingly low number,” said Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Jason Furman in a blog post Friday. “The decline of 37,200 jobs in the telecommunications industry in May in part reflects the effects of this strike. In the past, strikes in this industry coinciding with the survey reference period had a noticeable negative effect on monthly estimates of changes in industry employment ... . However, these downturns reversed once the strikes were resolved, leading to a jump in employment that almost perfectly offset the apparent job loss.” Furman said a “portion of the slowdown in job growth in May” is “likely to reverse in June” due to the strike’s end.
The ZigBee Alliance said it's added 38 members from 15 countries this year -- including startups and major brands -- bringing the total count to more than 425 companies. “ZigBee 3.0 is generating explosive interest” via its “consolidated approach” to the IoT market, said alliance CEO Tobin Richardson Thursday. Board members are Comcast Cable, Itron, Kroger, Landis+Gyr, Legrand Group, Midea Group, NXP Semiconductors, Philips, Schneider Electric, Silicon Labs, SmartThings, Texas Instruments and Wulian. Chairman John Osborne cited General Electric’s recent buy of Daintree Networks by Current and Qorvo’s GreenPeak acquisition as indicators of the industry’s “large-scale investment in ZigBee technologies.”
On his first earnings call since his return to the helm at Pandora, CEO/Founder Tim Westergren envisioned a thriving music economy “actually coming true,” with the company surviving “when almost no one did.” The company’s strategic position, based on personalization, “is not obvious to the outside world,” he said. “You have to look under the hood.”
Wednesday’s Senate Commerce Committee markup may portend well for the FCC Reauthorization Act (S-2644) and less well for the FCC Process Reform Act (S-421), Communications Subcommittee ranking member Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, told us. Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune, R-S.D., said last week he’s trying to keep FCC reauthorization narrowly focused (see 1604210057) and emphasized that goal again Tuesday when telling us of his goals for a hotline. The markup is 10:15 a.m. Wednesday in 253 Russell. Senate staffers contended with at least 39 amendments filed for the FCC Reauthorization Act and at least eight filed for the FCC Process Reform Act.
Some 65 percent of U.S. TV homes have at least one TV connected to the Internet via a videogame system, Wi-Fi, Blu-ray player or streaming media player, said a Leichtman Research Group report. That’s up from 44 percent in 2013 and 24 percent in 2010, LRG said. Connected TV devices in U.S. households now outnumber pay-TV set-tops, LRG said. Among connected TV households, 74 percent have more than one device, averaging 3.3 per household, it said. Ease of use perception ranks high among connected TV households, with 74 percent of respondents giving an 8-10 ranking on a scale of 1-10, compared with 12 percent who disagreed that connected TV devices are easy to use, it said. Pay-TV households average 2.2 pay-TV boxes, the report said, and 77 percent of the TVs in pay-TV households are connected to the provider’s set-top box, it said. Across all households, the mean number of connected TV devices per household is 2.1, compared with 1.8 pay-TV set-top boxes per household, LRG said. On cable provider-supplied set-top boxes, 42 percent of subscribers agreed (8-10 ranking) the boxes' features add value to the TV service, while 16 percent disagreed, LRG said. Twenty percent of cable subscribers with pay-TV set-tops (8-10) think the boxes are a “waste of money,” while 44 percent disagreed. Other findings: 38 percent of adults with a pay-TV service watch video via a connected TV device at least weekly, compared with 48 percent of viewers who aren’t pay-TV subscribers; a third of non-4K Ultra HDTV owners have seen one in use, up from 10 percent in 2014; and 25 percent of consumers who have viewed a 4K HDTV are interested in getting one vs. 9 percent who have not watched a 4K HDTV, it said. The survey of 1,206 adults ages 18 and older in continental U.S. TV households was done in February and March.
Consumers in 24 countries, including the U.S., are increasingly worried by how their personal information is being managed by companies and governments, said a Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI)-commissioned global survey released Monday. Done by research firm Ipsos, the survey of 24,153 users Nov. 20-Dec. 4 found 57 percent of people globally were more concerned about their online privacy than a year ago. Only 30 percent of respondents said they thought their government "is doing enough" to keep personal data secure and safe from companies, the survey said. The poll found 38 percent didn't think their Internet activities were being monitored, while 46 percent thought their activities weren't being censored. "Internet users are expressing a clear lack of trust in the current set of rules and, more importantly, in the actors that oversee the sharing and use of personal data online,” Fen Hampson, director of Canada-based CIGI’s global security and politics program, said in a news release. But 70 percent of respondents said law enforcement agencies should have a right to access people's online communications for "valid national security reasons," including 64 percent of Americans, the survey said. It also said 63 percent of respondents don't want companies to develop technologies preventing law enforcement from accessing content of people's online conversations.