Gesture and motion control, to become “vital” for certain forms of human-computer interaction in coming years, will ship in 492 million devices by 2020, up from 128 million at the end of this year, said a Juniper Research report Monday. Smartphone-based virtual reality will be particularly important in driving usage, Juniper said. Advances in development of gesture and motion interfaces from companies including Leap Motion and Thalmic Labs will lead to 50 percent penetration in all wearables and nearly all VR devices by 2021, said the report, but usage will remain low, less than 5 percent, in established categories such as PCs and smartphones, it said. The arrival of motion control for smartphone VR in 2017 will lead a “shift towards multimodal computing,” where users adopt peripherals and motion and gesture control, said Juniper. “VR and wearables have shown the way that gesture and haptics can provide fresh ways to interact with technology,” said analyst James Moar. “The game changer for other platforms will be when technology firms are brave enough to reinvent their [user interfaces] to incorporate gesture and motion control, rather than considering it an optional add-on.”

The U.S Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit upheld a decision against Byrd Telcom requiring the company to pay a $7,000 fine under the 1970 Occupational Safety and Health Act after two workers were killed on a cellular tower by a falling, improperly rigged gin pole. An administrative law judge earlier upheld the fine, the court said. “We affirm because substantial evidence on the record as a whole supports the ALJ’s findings,” the 5th Circuit decided Friday. The incident happened in 2013 on a tower in Mississippi. “The standard industry practice for the rigging of gin poles involves the use of two chokers connected together with a shackle,” the court said. But a week before the accident, Byrd employees used a carabiner, saying they didn’t have a shackle available. “The carabiner is designed for fall protection, not for hoisting large objects,” the 5th Circuit said.

Revised rules on wireless emergency alerts are to take effect 60 days from Tuesday, after expected publication in the Federal Register. “By this action, the Commission adopts rules that will improve Alert Message content in order to help communities communicate clearly and effectively about imminent threats and local crises,” an FCC notice said. “It also adopts rules to meet alert originators’ needs for the delivery of the Alert Messages they transmit and creates a framework that will allow emergency managers to test, exercise, and raise public awareness about WEA.” FCC members approved the revised rules in September over a partial dissent by Commissioner Mike O’Rielly (see 1609290060).

Verizon is using drones to provide network coverage and inspect cell towers and venues, it said in a Monday blog post. One remotely controlled drone "successfully" acted as a small cell site to deliver 4G LTE network coverage at Cape May Airport in New Jersey during an emergency management and disaster recovery exercise, the company said. Verizon said the 165-pound, 17-foot wingspan drone, which is owned and operated by American Aerospace Technologies, provided live imagery from 3,000 feet and below, though federal regulators approved flight up to 7,500 feet. The drone can fly 12 to 16 hours at a time, the post added. Another small drone was used to inspect cell sites in North and South Carolina after Hurricane Matthew about three weeks ago (see 1610110038). The company said a drone -- carrying two smartphones -- was used to measure network coverage at an Austin racetrack in advance of a major event. That inspection cut down testing by about 50 percent, compared with walking through the venue, Verizon said.

The Center for Democracy and Technology, Electronic Frontier Foundation and New York University School of Law's Brennan Center for Justice filed briefs with the Supreme Court, asking it to decide whether law enforcement agencies need a warrant to get cell site location information (CSLI), wrote CDT fellow Natasha Duarte in a Friday blog post. "The briefs argue that the Fourth Amendment protects CSLI, which can generate a 'comprehensive record of a person’s public movements' and reveal sensitive information such as political, religious, and sexual associations," she wrote. Four appellate courts have basically concluded in cases, including Graham v. U.S. (see 1606010057), that a warrant isn't need to get CSLI information about a user from a service provider, basing decisions on what Duarte called outdated "third-party doctrine." That doctrine says a user can't have a reasonable expectation of privacy when information is voluntarily given to a third party, she said. "These petitions present the Supreme Court with a timely opportunity to reconsider the applicability of the third-party doctrine to digital data -- and in particular, to CSLI," wrote Duarte. She said other courts have found the "concept of voluntary conveyance is a bad fit for CSLI" and clarification for third-party doctrine's scope is "overdue" since almost all digital data are disclosed to and held by third parties. Moreover, the Fourth Amendment should protect CSLI since it's sensitive data.

Consumers expect to spend more on electronics this holiday season, said a survey of online shoppers done in August by marketing platform company HookLogic, which Criteo is buying. Eighty-eight percent said they'll spend the same or more as in 2015. Calling 2016 a “leap year,” HookLogic said Tuesday that millennials will invest in interactive virtual reality gaming, primed by the augmented reality phenomenon ushered in by Pokemon Go (see 1609300029). Millennials will get their “first drone,” it forecast. And “Grandma” will upgrade to the iPhone 7, HookLogic said. More product detail web pages are looked at in videogaming and smartphones than in other categories, reflecting competition and the amount of information consumers want, said the study.

The top 20 tech gifts this holiday season include drones, gaming devices and smartphones, Best Buy announced. Apple had four picks including the iPhone 7 and Apple Watch 2. Samsung mentions included the Galaxy S7 smartphone, Sony a PlayStation virtual reality gaming headset and Google the Chromecast Ultra streaming media device. Best Buy cited a CTA forecast saying nearly 70 percent of consumers will buy tech gifts this season (see 1610120044).

The Competitive Carriers Association is committed to making indoor wireless calls to 911 more accurate, it said in a meeting with staff from the FCC Public Safety Bureau. “CCA described how its members continuously work to improve location accuracy technology and access to information in times of emergency for the benefit of all consumers and emergency authorities,” said a filing in docket 07-114. CCA said it supports the FCC’s goal of evaluating location technologies “by acquiring live 911 call data from nationwide and non-nationwide providers.” The group also made suggestions for promoting uniform reporting. For example, the association said it supports a CTIA proposal on a consistent format for reporting relevant data.

The Competitive Carriers Association said it flagged some potential problems with how the FCC collects Form 477 data, in a meeting with Chief Jon Wilkins and other Wireless Bureau staff. The data are key to the FCC’s look at the need for a new mobility fund (see 1609300057), Wilkins said recently. “While the Commission has portrayed the analysis derived from the Form 477 data as resting on a ‘uniform nationwide collection methodology,’ the agency permits each carrier to choose the propagation model, loss assumptions and performance levels necessary to determine mobile broadband coverage,” CCA said in a filing in docket 12-264. “Even small variations in the model used or the assumptions on which the model relies can result in dramatic changes in predicted coverage.” While Form 477 indicates carriers “should” use a common resolution of 100 meters, “carriers appear to have employed a wide variety of resolutions in presenting their mobile broadband coverage data to the Commission,” said the group. “Low-resolution images are problematic because they appear crisp at a national level, but reveal pixelation and other flaws that distort results at the state and county level where mobile broadband coverage data is most relevant.” Representatives of U.S. Cellular and ClearSky Technologies also attended.

Analog Devices is working with ARM to provide ultra-low-power microcontrollers that ADI said enable more secure and energy-efficient IoT-based devices, the companies said in a Tuesday announcement. By combining ADI’s mixed-signal technology and ARM’s Cortex-M33 processor with TrustZone technology, ADI is addressing a growing need for data security in power-constrained IoT applications where securing every node is “critical to extending the growth of IoT adoption,” it said.