Facebook Vice President-Communications and Policy Elliot Schrage is leaving, company confirms ... Arris names Ian Whiting president, Enterprise Networks segment, effective July 1, succeeding Dan Rabinovitsj, leaving company after leading integration into the company of Ruckus Networks, where Whiting worked ... Equifax taps Bryson Koehler, ex-IBM, as chief technology officer ... TechNet adds from Bloom Energy Christina Fisher as executive director-Massachusetts and Northeast.
Activision Blizzard hires from Twitter Kristin Binns as senior vice president-chief communications officer, effective in July ... Analog Devices adds Karen Golz, ex-Ernst & Young, to its board ... Equifax taps Bryson Koehler, ex-IBM, as chief technology officer ... TechNet adds from Bloom Energy Christina Fisher as executive director-Massachusetts and Northeast ... President Donald Trump to nominate Karen Evans, national director for U.S. Cyber Challenge, to assistant energy secretary-cybersecurity, energy security and emergency response.
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said automated speech recognition technology would improve IP captioned telephone services (IP CTS), speeding the delivery of captions to consumers with hearing loss. In remarks to the M-Enabling summit Tuesday, he said last week's ruling approving the technology made clear "that the FCC won’t approve any application to provide ASR unless the provider shows that it will meet our mandatory minimum standards for functional equivalency, including those relating to the confidentiality of IP CTS calls" (see Notebook at end of 1806070021). Pai highlighted actions to improve access for people with disabilities: implementation of video relay service interoperability and a centralized database to improve program accountability and fiscal responsibility; encouragement of direct video calling in customer call centers; a national deaf-blind equipment distribution program; improvements to 911 calling and other emergency communications; an increase of about 75 percent in the number of programming hours that must be video-described on certain channels; and efforts to spur the videogames industry to make communication services more accessible. Pai announced winners of the chairman's awards for innovations that advance accessibility (Chairman's AAA): Orbit Reader 20, Captioning and Description Editing Tool, Content Clarifier and Seeing AI.
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said automated speech recognition technology would improve IP captioned telephone services (IP CTS), speeding the delivery of captions to consumers with hearing loss. In remarks to the M-Enabling summit Tuesday, he said last week's ruling approving the technology made clear "that the FCC won’t approve any application to provide ASR unless the provider shows that it will meet our mandatory minimum standards for functional equivalency, including those relating to the confidentiality of IP CTS calls" (see Notebook at end of 1806070021). Pai highlighted actions to improve access for people with disabilities: implementation of video relay service interoperability and a centralized database to improve program accountability and fiscal responsibility; encouragement of direct video calling in customer call centers; a national deaf-blind equipment distribution program; improvements to 911 calling and other emergency communications; an increase of about 75 percent in the number of programming hours that must be video-described on certain channels; and efforts to spur the videogames industry to make communication services more accessible. Pai announced winners of the chairman's awards for innovations that advance accessibility (Chairman's AAA): Orbit Reader 20, Captioning and Description Editing Tool, Content Clarifier and Seeing AI.
PBS and America's Public Television Stations support improvements to the wireless emergency alert system that would allow delivery of multimedia content, but are concerned about increases to bandwidth requirements, they replied at the FCC in docket 15-91. Since public TV stations are using their spectrum to aid in public safety communications, they “must carefully guard bandwidth to ensure that these vital services remain available to communities and first responders,” APTS and PBS said. Multimedia content should be incorporated into WEA messages to “improve life-saving capability,” the National Weather Service said. Digital Broadcasting Technologies rejected arguments from CTIA (see 1806120043) that adding multimedia content would endanger the text portion of WEA alerts. Such alerts can be fully delivered using DBT's technology even if the packets in the messages are received out of order, DBT said. “The packets in DBT’s messages do not have to be received in sequential order, nor do they have to be contiguous.”
PBS and America's Public Television Stations support improvements to the wireless emergency alert system that would allow delivery of multimedia content, but are concerned about increases to bandwidth requirements, they replied at the FCC in docket 15-91. Since public TV stations are using their spectrum to aid in public safety communications, they “must carefully guard bandwidth to ensure that these vital services remain available to communities and first responders,” APTS and PBS said. Multimedia content should be incorporated into WEA messages to “improve life-saving capability,” the National Weather Service said. Digital Broadcasting Technologies rejected arguments from CTIA (see 1806120043) that adding multimedia content would endanger the text portion of WEA alerts. Such alerts can be fully delivered using DBT's technology even if the packets in the messages are received out of order, DBT said. “The packets in DBT’s messages do not have to be received in sequential order, nor do they have to be contiguous.”
The Trump spectrum strategy is expected to build on rather than replace Obama administration policies, and industry officials hope this administration’s push will mean bringing all parties to the table. NTIA held a symposium Tuesday as it starts work on the strategy (see 1806120056). The Commerce Spectrum Management Advisory Committee is expected to play a big role on some of the challenges, officials said. A potential complication is Paige Atkins, NTIA associate administrator-spectrum, last week told staff she's leaving in July, officials said. NTIA confirmed the departure.
Recent state enforcement activity for digital advertising transparency means Congress could potentially pass S-1989, the Honest Ads Act (see 1805080054) this year, said Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn. It’s “fascinating” Google announced last week it won’t run political ads in Washington state in response to a lawsuit from Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson, said the Senate Antitrust Subcommittee ranking member at Tuesday's Open Markets Institute (OMI) event.
Recent state enforcement activity for digital advertising transparency means Congress could potentially pass S-1989, the Honest Ads Act (see 1805080054) this year, said Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn. It’s “fascinating” Google announced last week it won’t run political ads in Washington state in response to a lawsuit from Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson, said the Senate Antitrust Subcommittee ranking member at Tuesday's Open Markets Institute (OMI) event.
Recent state enforcement activity for digital advertising transparency means Congress could potentially pass S-1989, the Honest Ads Act (see 1805080054) this year, said Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn. It’s “fascinating” Google announced last week it won’t run political ads in Washington state in response to a lawsuit from Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson, said the Senate Antitrust Subcommittee ranking member at Tuesday's Open Markets Institute (OMI) event.