Futuresource Consulting sees shipments of smart watches rising by more than 300 percent this year compared with 2013, though Q4 growth will be "slower than some initially forecast" because many early-adopter consumers will defer purchases and wait for the 2015 debut of the Apple Watch, market analyst Oliver Rowntree said on a Futuresource webinar Thursday.
LOS ANGELES -- Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) Coordination Group (ICG) members implored the ICG’s three operational groups during a panel Thursday to coordinate their proposal processes. The operational groups -- names, numbers and protocol parameters communities -- are those most directly affected by the IANA functions, and they're developing proposals that will be reviewed and consolidated by the ICG members. The operational groups are entering the substantive period of their proposal process and maintaining communication between those global parties will be critical to avoiding confusion when they submit their proposals to the ICG, said ICG members.
LOS ANGELES -- The transition of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) could be harmed if the U.N.’s 10-year review on implementation of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) moves in an intergovernmental direction, said ICANN stakeholders on a panel Wednesday. The threat of the Internet governance debate imploding during next week’s ITU Plenipotentiary or the WSIS review is unlikely, said At-Large Advisory Committee Chairman Olivier Crepin Leblond. The WSIS review will begin next year.
The FCC is expected Friday to approve issuing a further rulemaking notice on inmate calling services (ICS), said industry attorneys and inmate advocates Thursday. Sources representing three commissioners, a majority of the commission, also said their commissioners planned to back the item.
The debate over public performance royalties for pre-1972 sound recordings continued to move in favor of performers after a Tuesday ruling in a California state court against SiriusXM (see 1410090092). Like U.S. District Court in Los Angeles Judge Philip Gutierrez last month (see 1409240079), Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Mary Strobel ruled in favor of plaintiffs Flo & Eddie, who own the sound recordings of The Turtles, a 1960’s music group. Public performance royalties are expected to play a key role in music licensing debates on Capitol Hill next year (see 1410090092).
Encryption of mobile phones and other electronic devices could exacerbate problems for law enforcement when officials attempt to access data on those devices during court-ordered investigations, said FBI Director James Comey. He urged companies like Apple and Google that are operating in the communications and data space to rethink their approach to building default encryption into their devices. He also backed an update to the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) to require all telecom companies to comply with federal investigations.
What FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler and his team will propose on net neutrality remains unclear, industry and agency officials said in interviews this week. The officials agree the most likely proposal remains some iteration of Title II reclassification of broadband, possibly based on proposals by Mozilla and Columbia Law School professor Tim Wu, an early proponent of net neutrality.
Speakers strongly disagreed over whether the Telecommunications Act of 1996 requires a rewrite or, as some preferred to say, an update. Representatives from the New America Foundation’s Open Technology Institute and Computer & Communications Industry disputed the idea that any real overhaul is necessary, while an analyst from the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation insisted a full rewrite is warranted.
U.S. mobile device users increased their activity and accessed applications on mobile devices that they previously accessed on a computer or not at all, an NTIA report said (http://1.usa.gov/1phrfjT). Released Thursday, “Exploring the Digital Nation: Embracing the Mobile Internet” reported significant increases in mobile phone users 25 and older using their devices to download mobile apps, browse the Web, check email and use social networks, NTIA said (http://1.usa.gov/1qDvTZS). The data is based on a sample of more than 53,000 households surveyed from July 2011 and October 2012, it said.
The California Public Utilities Commission withdrew its consideration of whether to submit comments to the FCC on the federal body's net neutrality NPRM Wednesday, prompting outcry from several public interest groups at a CPUC meeting Thursday. The CPUC had been set to vote Thursday on whether to submit the comments to the FCC and whether to recommend that the FCC reclassify broadband as a Communications Act Title II service. The CPUC had held off on a vote on the comments at its Oct. 2 meeting at Commissioner Carla Peterman’s request (see 1410030047). The CPUC originally voted 3-2 in September to recommend Title II reclassification, but then placed the comments on hold after Peterman decided to change her vote in favor of Title II to an abstention (see 1409120054).