Al Baker, chief operating officer at technology startup Playtabase, sees home health as a largely untapped market for wearables, he said on a media tour in New York. The company is launching an Indiegogo campaign next month for Reemo, a wrist-based wearable designed to help users control their environment through gestures using point-and-control technology. Playtabase was one of 10 companies out of a field of 400 selected for the Microsoft Ventures Accelerator program for technology startups.

Wireless carriers are pressing the FCC for a waiver of the agency’s former defaulter rule, operating on a quick timeline as deadlines approach for the AWS-3 auction, agency officials told us. If Chairman Tom Wheeler agrees, the agency would have to pivot slightly from the approach proposed by Wheeler Aug. 1, when he circulated a competitive bidding NPRM, seeking comment on designated entity (DE) rules, joint bidding rules and proposing changes to the former defaulter rule (CD Aug 4 p1).

Media General is divesting stations in five markets to get regulatory approval for its $2.59 billion buy of LIN Media (CD March 24 p6), said the companies in a news release Wednesday (http://bit.ly/1tqM8fr). The divestitures include Media General and LIN swapping three stations with Sinclair (http://bit.ly/1oSguJd), Media General and LIN each selling a station to Hearst Corp. (http://bit.ly/1tilKWU), and LIN selling a station to Meredith Corp. (http://bit.ly/1mmV69a), according to news releases from the companies involved. The deals are contingent on approval of the Media General/LIN deal, the releases said.

Sprint and Sharp are taking a decidedly mid-market approach to the U.S. smartphone market that’s dominated in the U.S. by Apple and Samsung, according to comments executives made at the launch of the Sharp Aquos Crystal smartphone in New York Tuesday. The phone, available on subsidized two-year contract plans for zero down and $10 per month over 24 months -- or $149 on a prepaid plan from Boost Mobile or Virgin Mobile -- was launched along with value-oriented data pricing plans from Sprint.

ICANN Board Chairman Steve Crocker expressed support for ICANN’s proposal (http://bit.ly/1tlFgjg) to increase its board’s voting threshold requirement for rejection of the advice of the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC), at the Technology Policy Institute conference in Aspen, Colorado, Tuesday (http://bit.ly/1pOEcVC). The proposal, which would require a two-thirds vote to reject GAC advice rather than the current simple majority, has been derided by some ICANN stakeholders (CD Aug 20 p3). Obama administration officials and Internet governance experts cautioned against assigning all Internet governance-related matters to ICANN. ICANN’s most critical task is developing its accountability process alongside the transition of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), said Lawrence White, New York University economics professor.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST) Cybersecurity Framework still has a mixed legacy for the critical infrastructure sectors to which it was targeted, more than six months after the agency released the framework’s “Version 1.0,” industry participants said Wednesday during a joint Industrial Control System Information Sharing and Analysis Center (ICS-ISAC)-DCT Associates webinar. NIST released the Version 1.0 framework in mid-February, simultaneous with the start of the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) voluntary Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity Community (C3) program to encourage industry use of the framework (CD Feb 13 p5).

The nearly 200 challenges filed with the FCC over whether thousands of individual census blocks should be eligible for Connect America Fund Phase II funding were fueled in part by attempts by companies to protect their own turf from competitors, or to be able to tap into the $9 billion pot to move into other areas, said industry lawyers in interviews this week. Resolving all the challenges struck one attorney as “a big job.” But an FCC spokesman said the agency still believes it will be able to move ahead with its plans to begin making offers to companies to serve high-cost areas in their state in return for funding toward the end of the year.

In Samsung’s recent debut of its new high-end Galaxy Alpha smartphone, buried beneath the publicity about its “sophisticated” new metal frame and ultra-thin 6.7-mm chassis was the company’s claim that the device could deliver “UHD 4K” video (3840 x 2160) at 30 frames a second. But the Galaxy Alpha is not a “true 4K/UHD” smartphone “by our definition,” Tina Teng, chief smartphones analyst at DisplaySearch, told us.

ICANN’s proposal to increase its board’s voting threshold required to reject the advice of the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) -- from 50 percent (plus the vote of an additional board member) to 66.6 percent -- has been roundly rejected in public comments (http://bit.ly/1oXwOCq). ICANN sought public comment on the proposal Friday (http://bit.ly/1tlFgjg). The comment period ends Sept. 14; replies are due by Oct. 6. The proposal is an “outgrowth of a broader Internet governance discussion” and is the “beginning of what will likely be a longer conversation” about the role of governments within ICANN, said CEO Nao Matsukata of FairWinds Partners, a domain consultancy, in an interview.

New Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure said the carrier will slash prices in a move aimed at customers who want more data at lower prices. Claure replaced longtime Sprint CEO Dan Hesse Aug. 11, promising in a news release announcing his new position to make the carrier more competitive (http://bit.ly/1pY1wPO).