Apple will ship 128-GB versions of the fourth-generation iPad with Retina display Feb. 5 at $799 for a Wi-Fi model and $929 for a SKU that adds cellular service, it said. The new SKUs offer double the storage capacity of the current highest-capacity models. The 64-GB versions of the fourth-generation iPad with Retina display cost $699 for the Wi-Fi SKU and $829 for the version adding cellular service. Like the current iPads, the 128-GB models will come in black and white SKUs. More than 120 million iPads were sold as of Tuesday, said Philip Schiller, senior vice president-worldwide marketing, in a news release. Apple updated iOS on Monday to version 6.1, adding LTE capabilities to 36 additional iPhone carriers and 23 more iPad carriers globally, it also said. To date, iOS users uploaded more than 9 billion photos to its Photo Stream service, sent more than 450 billion iMessages and received more than 4 trillion notifications, Apple said. IOS 6.1 is available as a free software update.
The Justice Department’s treatment of Internet activist Aaron Swartz relative to other people accused of Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) violations requires an explanation, House Oversight Committee leaders told Attorney General Eric Holder in a letter dated Monday. The prosecution of Swartz, who died of an apparent suicide Jan. 11 after a year and a half under indictment for allegedly downloading a huge archive of academic papers without authorization, may have been affected by his leading role in fighting “Internet-related censorship bills,” said the letter by committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and Ranking Member Elijah Cummings, D-Md. Swartz founded Demand Progress in 2010 to fight the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and PROTECT IP Act, many of whose supporters backtracked following coordinated blackout protests across the Internet. The congressmen also want an explanation for why Justice pursued the prosecution after JSTOR, the academic subscription service allegedly hacked, declined to pursue charges, and why the U.S. attorney in Boston filed a “superseding indictment” in September with 13 felony counts -- up from four in the original indictment. “It appears that prosecutors increased the felony counts by providing specific dates for each action, turning each marked date into its own felony charge,” and increasing Swartz’s “maximum criminal exposure” to up to 50 years in prison and $1 million in fines, the letter said. Press reports suggest prosecutors pressured Swartz to plead guilty to all 13 counts in exchange for seven to eight months in prison, in contrast to seven to eight years if he lost at trial, Issa and Cummings said. They want Justice to schedule a briefing with them no later than Feb. 4, to answer: (1) What factors led Justice to prosecute Swartz and make decisions around which crimes to charge him with and the superseding indictment’s filing. (2) Whether Swartz’s opposition to SOPA or association with advocacy groups affected Justice’s decisions. (3) What plea offers were made, and what factors went into them. (4) How charges against Swartz, sought penalties and plea offers compared to others in CFAA cases. (5) Whether the federal investigation revealed evidence of other hacking by Swartz. (6) Factors in sentencing proposals. (7) Why it was “necessary” to file the superseding indictment.
Clarification: The research note encouraging the FCC to reformulate several of its USF rules and hold a careful rulemaking proceeding on the transition to all-IP networks was written by John Staurulakis Inc., a sister company of JSI Capital Advisors (CD Jan 3 p7).
Boeing representatives discussed the FCC’s experimental licensing rules with Commissioners Mignon Clyburn, Jessica Rosenworcel, Ajit Pai and other FCC officials in a series of meetings last week, the company said in a filing posted Monday by the commission. “Most of the discussion was focused on reducing the incidence in which coordination and consent conditions are imposed on experimental licenses issued by” the Office of Engineering and Technology, the filing said (http://xrl.us/boc4vx). The FCC’s current rules say OET “may, at its discretion” impose coordination requirements on experimental licenses, Boeing said. “In recent years, however, coordination requirements have not been employed with discretion, but instead are routinely imposed on the experimental use of numerous spectrum bands regardless of whether coordination is warranted by the nature of the experimental operations.” Changes to the rules are slated for a vote at the commission’s meeting Thursday (CD Jan 25 p4).
Some pending court cases involving cable companies and online video distributors (OVD) could affect whether policymakers decide to rewrite the Copyright Act or reconsider how multichannel video programming distributors are defined, said Markham Erickson, executive director of the Open Internet Coalition. In a copyright infringement case brought by broadcasters against Aereo, Aereo argued that the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision allowing Cablevision’s DVR service applies to Aereo, too (CD Oct 23 p5). Aereo thought it could take the Cablevision precedent and apply it to Internet TV, Erickson said Monday during a webcast of a Practising Law Institute panel in New York. A judge ruled that Cablevision is the governing law in the 2nd Circuit decision and Aereo is within the law, Erickson said. Broadcasters appealed, claiming Aereo “is gaming the Copyright Act” to get around the rules, he said. “The problem is that it’s difficult to distinguish Aereo from a cable service.” The case against Dish Network’s AutoHop ad-skipping feature in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals also conjures up the Cablevision precedent, Erickson said. “If you look at the facts, it fits within Cablevision’s four squares.” Technology is at a warp pace, said Christopher Guttman-McCabe, CTIA vice president. It bypasses the regulations and the legislation, he said. “Whether it’s the fairly recently written copyright law or regulations that cable companies operate under, the world has changed so much in the last five years … these are just a few of the cases that we're going to see.” The panelists agreed that policymakers should decide whether to address whether entities should choose the type of regulations to operate under. For OVDs, “I don’t think we think we'll get to a place where we can choose to opt in” to be regulated like an MVPD, Erickson said. “Even if there is a choice created, there’s no way we think we're going to have a statute that allows us to take the benefits.” The issue doesn’t interfere with business decisions at Viacom, said Keith Murphy, senior vice president of government relations. “We ask for fairness and a level playing field, so on electing a status, I think the best result is one where like services are regulated the same.” Rick Chessen, NCTA senior vice president, said he supports a light-touch approach from the FCC. Just because a service may not be an MVPD, “that doesn’t mean there isn’t a competitive impact on those that are,” he said. “I think the FCC has got it right in taking a hands-off, light touch approach to what’s going on out there.”
Two groups representing those with vision problems want emergency alerts to “take priority over programming that is described,” the groups reported telling FCC Consumer & Governmental Affairs and Media bureau staff. “Lengthy alerts such as school closures can impede described content.” But TV stations’ contention that such alerts are transmitted by images and not text is “asserting that a device does not exist that would translate that image to” text and to speech, said the American Council of the Blind and American Foundation for the Blind. The groups disagree with that contention, said an ex parte filing posted Monday in docket 12-107 (http://xrl.us/boc5io). Broadcasters have sought three years to comply with coming FCC rules on making emergency information accessible to the disabled, but the industry had “ample time during the original negotiations for” a 2010 disabilities law and through an FCC advisory committee on the law “to come to grips with this technology,” the advocates said.
Three makers of consumer electronics lobbied the FCC to redo Internet Protocol captioning rules, so standalone, removable DVD players aren’t covered by the IP captioning order that CEA has petitioned the agency to reconsider. The order “requires current DVD and Blu-ray Disc players to incorporate additional closed caption decoder circuitry, even though such players are not designed to play” back video programming transmitted simultaneously with sound, Hitachi, Panasonic and Sony executives told Consumer & Governmental Affairs and Media bureau staff working on implementing a 2010 disabilities law. “The capability to decode and render closed captions would require significant hardware changes to provide additional processing capability which lower-cost, stand-alone removable media players currently do not have, and would add increased cost to basic DVD and Blu-ray Disc players,” said an ex parte filing posted Monday in docket 11-154 (http://xrl.us/boc4rv). “DVD players are a mature technology, and all physical media players ... face increasing competition from online streaming and pay-per-view services.” The three CEA members said that if the association’s request isn’t granted, “numerous manufacturers would have to reconsider whether to continue marketing such low-cost removable media products” in the U.S. The group and several members also recently met with some of the same commission staff to ask the agency exclude some video players from emergency accessibility rules (CD Jan 28 p22).
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Pat Leahy, D-Vt., said it’s “essential” to update the Electronic Communications Privacy Act to “ensure that this critical law keeps pace with new technologies and the way Americans use and store email today,” in a news release Monday about the importance of Data Privacy Day. Leahy said he looks forward to working with colleagues on House Judiciary to update the 1986 law “so that it keeps pace with the many new threats to our privacy.” The co-chairmen of the Congressional Privacy Caucus, Reps. Ed Markey, D-Mass., and Joe Barton, R-Texas, separately said “consumers should have the final say about how their personal information is used,” in a joint news release. “Companies should not track or collect personal data without user knowledge and consent. … Children deserve the strongest protections when they go online and we encourage parents to ensure appropriate online interactions,” they said. Industry groups used Data Privacy Day to encourage lawmakers to reform the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. Reforming the law “is the right thing to do for business, it is the right thing to do for innovation, and it is the right thing to do for civil liberties,” said Ed Black, president of the Computer and Communications Industry Association, in a statement. Additionally, the “outdated privacy laws are hampering the development of one of the few growing sectors in the American economy -- cloud computing,” as lacking protections turns people away from the “increased productivity, security, and cost savings that come with deploying cloud solutions,” he said. “Data stored in the cloud should receive the same protections as data stored at home on a PC,” said Daniel Castro, a senior analyst with the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, in a statement: “Policymakers concerned about privacy should make modernizing ECPA their top legislative priority.” Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., said it’s important for lawmakers to “work to strengthen privacy protections for consumers this year.” His comment came in a tweet Monday evening. House Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., and Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade Subcommittee Chairman Lee Terry, R-Neb., in a joint news release separately urged U.S. citizens to be “vigilant in protecting their online data and privacy.” “We held a number of hearings last Congress examining online privacy and consumer protection issues, and the committee will continue these efforts in the new Congress to protect consumers without harming innovation,” said Upton. Terry added: “Our challenge as lawmakers is to protect individual privacy without undercutting the Internet economy, innovators and application developers.”
The FCC Wireless Bureau sought comment on a Dec. 21 CTIA petition asking for an expedited rulemaking on rules for temporary wireless towers. CTIA sought an exception to the public notice requirements for towers that: “(1) will be in use for 60 days or less; (2) require the filing of a Form 7460-1 with the Federal Aviation Administration; (3) do not require marking or lighting pursuant to FAA regulations; and (4) will be less than 200 feet in height,” the bureau noted. Comments are due Feb. 25, replies March 12 (http://xrl.us/boc4kn).
The FCC Wireless Bureau approved Motorola Solutions’ proposal it be allowed to provide Missouri with VHF Public Coast (VPC) spectrum to build 24 base stations and operate associated mobile units as part of the state’s public safety and homeland security network. The spectrum is otherwise set aside for maritime safety. In 2007, the bureau approved an application by MariTEL to assign VPC spectrum to Motorola, and corresponding requests for waivers to permit Motorola to provide that spectrum to third parties to satisfy public safety and other first responder requirements. “We recognize the importance of interference-free maritime communications. We do not believe, however, that the record before us demonstrates that the State’s proposed operations pose a sufficient interference threat to warrant denying the request,” the bureau said (http://xrl.us/boc4ne). “The request is granted on the express conditions that no interference is caused to current or future marine communications.”