National Highway Traffic Safety Administration voluntary guidelines for safe deployment of autonomous vehicles, released Tuesday by Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, put a lighter touch on federal oversight of self-driving cars than the guidance NHTSA issued a year ago under the Obama administration. The new report, called "Automated Driving Systems 2.0: A Vision for Safety," makes DOT “processes more nimble by creating a flexible framework to help match the pace of private-sector innovation,” Chao told a ceremony webcast from the Mcity autonomous vehicle test center at the University of Michigan.
Chairman Ajit Pai said when people call 911, they need to be able to get through and the FCC will do what it must to guarantee that occurs. Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel said the FCC must do a complete report on hurricanes Harvey and Irma and communications failures seen in both storms. Both spoke Monday as the FCC marked the 16th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks with a workshop on improving situational awareness during 911 outages. It took place as Irma battered parts of the Southeast and as Florida started to deal with the damage inflicted by the massive storm. Public safety answering points and communications towers took a big hit, the FCC reported.
SAN DIEGO -- Intel, having built its name on powering personal computers, sees its road to the smart home through voice-control devices, Miles Kingston, general manager-smart home, told us at the CEDIA show last week. The Intel booth was built around Amazon Echo devices in lifestyle scenes, with a focus on the Echo Show, powered by the Intel Atom x5-Z8350 processor.
CBP will push back the mandatory use date for e214 foreign-trade zones admissions in ACE to Dec. 9, Acting CBP Commissioner Kevin McAleenan said at the National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America Government Affairs Conference on Sept. 11 in Washington. The delay of the deadline, previously set for Sept. 16, comes in response to concerns from industry, McAleenan said. The agency planned to make a formal announcement on Sept. 11, he said.
Emergency-911 reliability suffers from using pre-internet infrastructure and from institutional complexity, insufficient staffing and funding, experts said in interviews. Next-generation 911 won’t prevent outages and adds new challenges, they said. Over time, the IP-based network should be more reliable and will help detect and fix problems faster, they said. Funding NG-911 and ending state diversion of 911 fees would speed improvements.
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai released the proposed agenda and draft items for commissioners’ Sept. 26 meeting. The list is as expected and includes the annual, always contested mobile wireless competition report and a media modernization item (see 1709050079 and 1709060073). Pai is dubbing September “modernization month.” Ex-officials predicted the competition report will be the biggest fight at the meeting.
Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Brock Long names Field Operations Directorate Assistant Administrator Michael Byrne federal disaster recovery coordinator for Storm Harvey-hit (see 1709010042) areas ... Utilities Technology Council hires Rob Thormeyer, ex-aide to then-Federal Energy Regulatory Commission member Colette Honorable and before that at NARUC, as its first director-communications and advocacy ... Last Mile Communications CEO Peter Kahelin, a founding partner, retires effective in Q4, and will be non-executive chairman ... Cox Media Group moves up Paul Curran to market vice president-Orlando.
Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Brock Long names Field Operations Directorate Assistant Administrator Michael Byrne federal disaster recovery coordinator for Storm Harvey-hit (see 1709010042) areas ... Utilities Technology Council hires Rob Thormeyer, ex-aide to then-Federal Energy Regulatory Commission member Colette Honorable and before that at NARUC, as its first director-communications and advocacy ... Quantum Corp. board names Chairman Raghu Rau executive chairman on a temporary basis and starts a Strategy Committee led by Alex Pinchev as chairman, with Adalio Sanchez, Marc Rothman and Rau as members ... Text IQ appoints Aaron Crews, ex-Walmart, general counsel/vice president-strategy ... ECurrency Mint names Stefan Carlsson chief financial officer and Mitch Cohen, who has advised the company, chief security officer.
Among those FCC names to Communications Security, Reliability and Interoperability Council (see 1709010025) groups: Transition Path to NG911 chair is Mary Boyd, West Safety Services; and members are Laurie Flaherty, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration; Mark Fletcher, Avaya; and Trey Forgety; for Comprehensive Re-imagining of Emergency Alerting, chair is Farrokh Khatibi, Qualcomm Technology; William Check, NCTA; Edward Czarnecki, Monroe Electronics; Susan Miller, Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions; Harold Price, Sage Alerting Systems; and Kelly Williams, NAB; and Network Reliability and Security Risk Reduction chair is Travis Russell, Oracle; and members are Charlotte Field, Charter Communications; Mohammad Khaled, Nokia Bell Labs; Jason Livingood, Comcast Cable; Jennifer Manner, EchoStar; Robert Mayer, USTelecom; and Miller of ATIS.
NAFTA talks probably will extend past the U.S.’s hoped-for deadline of Dec. 31, as major differences among the three parties involved start to emerge and the U.S. lacks political direction on several fundamental issues, trade analysts said Sept. 5. The U.S. during the second round of renegotiations Sept. 1-5 in Mexico City floated domestic content requirements for automobiles under NAFTA, but didn’t put forth a definitive threshold, a trade lobbyist said. U.S. negotiators have bandied about the possibility of a 35 percent to 50 percent requirement for U.S. automobile content, and are likely to go to the third round in Ottawa with a more specific proposal, the lobbyist said.