Given 5G's variety of uses, "environments and requirements, no single connectivity technology or standard can adequately serve" all, so development of multiple 3rd Generation Partnership Project cellular technology standards can help, 5G Americas President Chris Pearson said Wednesday. "3GPP is keeping up with the growth of IoT to address the market demand.” The group's paper said 5G will support growing markets for wearables, healthcare, connected vehicles and other parts of the IoT and listed various 3GPP specs.

Facebook previewed a kids messaging app to mixed reviews Monday. The stand-alone app, Messenger Kids, can be controlled from a parent's Facebook account and would let children video chat. Common Sense Media CEO James Steyer said the service lacks "clear policies about data collection" and opens questions of platform trustworthiness. The Center for Digital Democracy blogged guarded support, saying "additional safeguards are necessary to protect young people from powerful new forms of commercial surveillance in the Big Data and Internet-of-things era."

AT&T is working with Amazon Web Services to develop an order button that runs on AT&T’s LTE-M cellular network. Via the AT&T LTE-M Button, set for Q1 availability at $29 to the first 5,000 buyers, consumers will be able to press the button to have a product delivered to their home, said the carrier. Other use cases, said AT&T: connected trash cans can trigger an alert when full and workers can order tools and supplies from a job site lacking Wi-Fi coverage. Amazon, meanwhile, offers Dash, a virtual button on its app for products customers reorder frequently.

GAO released a trio of reports Thursday critical of agencies' tech policy-related practices, calling for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs to take further steps to enforce equal employment opportunity and affirmative action in the sector. The report, sought by Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va., found EEOC and Labor made progress in enforcing those goals but need to go further. GAO reported the percentage of Hispanic workers in tech remains low and that of black employees hasn't risen in a “statistically significant” way. The report recommended the OFCCP require more specific placement goals for racial minorities and women by qualifying contractors. “Without taking steps to address these issues, OFCCP may miss opportunities to hold contractors responsible for complying with affirmative action and nondiscrimination requirements,” the report said. EEOC neither agreed nor disagreed with the recommendations, and OFCCP said there need to be regulatory changes for it to push further improvements. The Department of Transportation should “develop a comprehensive plan to better manage departmental initiatives related to automated vehicles,” said another report. The department has made some progress in this area, including issuing voluntary guidance in September that suggests a framework for industry-led safety testing, the report said: Without a comprehensive plan, “it is unclear whether DOT’s efforts are adequately tackling automated vehicle challenges.” DOT agreed with the recommendation. Meanwhile, DOD should update its cyber incident coordination training and maintain a list of officials trained in the National Incident Management System, said in a third report. That's necessary given President Donald Trump's decision to elevate the U.S. Cyber Command to a unified combatant command, GAO said. It will help DOD as it continues to plan how to support civil authorities in responding to cyber incidents, the report said.

The FCC should begin tracking growth of IoT devices that are high bandwidth or rely on unlicensed spectrum, GAO suggested. A report released Tuesday, based on interviews with officials from the FCC, NTIA and private sector stakeholders, found availability of spectrum and managing interference are the primary spectrum IoT market challenges. Any rapid increase in the use of high-bandwidth IoT devices could echo the same rapid overwhelming of networks that occurred during the rise of smartphones, GAO said. Managing interference is becoming more difficult as the number of deployed IoT devices grows, especially on unlicensed bands, it said. The FCC will ask its Technical Advisory Council (TAC) to periodically review and report on IoT's growth but doesn't believe the recommendations on more active IoT-related tracking are necessary, said Office of Engineering and Technology Chief Julius Knapp and Wireless Bureau Chief Donald Stockdale in a letter responding to the findings. “Since most of the projected IoT growth is expected to occur in unlicensed bands that are not protected from interference, we continue to believe that FCC should place a greater focus on tracking IoT devices in these bands,” GAO said. “The TAC may also be well positioned to help FCC track unlicensed IoT devices.” The report noted France, Germany, the Netherlands and South Korea took steps “similar” to those by the U.S. to prepare for the rise of IoT but found that only one -- South Korea -- is actively monitoring possible spectrum congestion.

Dish CEO Charlie Ergen, in meetings with Chairman Ajit Pai and the four FCC members, said the company is on track for 2018 deployment of its narrowband (NB) IoT network. In a docket 17-183 ex parte filing posted Thursday, the company said it finalized development contracts with radio access equipment vendors and expects to sign a chipset vendor within weeks. It said it's negotiating with vendors to provide the core for its NB IoT network and last month issued a request for proposals to tower companies to start negotiating lease agreements. It said ultimately all its terrestrial spectrum, including its 600 MHz licenses, will be part of a 5G network. The company urged the commission to act on a MVDDS 5G Coalition petition (see 1604260068) to initiate a rulemaking designed to permit multichannel video distribution and data service licensees to use their 12.2-12.7 GHz spectrum to provide a two-way 5G mobile broadband service.

The Senate Commerce Consumer Protection Subcommittee plans a Nov. 14 hearing on the potential benefits of advancements in agricultural technology and the collection and utilization of data in farming. The hearing will begin at 2:30 p.m. in 253 Russell, Senate Commerce said Tuesday.

Building and deploying the IoT market in rural areas will be the focus of a Tuesday hearing, Senate Communications Subcommittee Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., announced Wednesday. Witnesses will be Michael Adcock, executive director, Center for Telehealth, University of Mississippi Medical Center; David Armitage, CEO, Cartasite; Timothy Hassinger, president, Lindsay Corp.; and Michael Terzich, chief administrative officer, Zebra Technologies.

An advisory committee would create new data security standards for certifying IoT devices, under legislation proposed Friday by Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., and Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif. The voluntary program would identify and promote IoT products that meet the committee's standards and best practices. The Cyber Shield Act "will help ensure consumers can reliably identify more secure products and rewards manufacturers that adopt the best cybersecurity practices," Markey said in a statement. Government and tech companies need to "build more transparency around the security of our favorite devices," Lieu's statement said. The Massachusetts Tech Leadership Council endorsed the legislation for giving tech companies room to innovate while giving policymakers tools to protect consumers, said CEO Tom Hopcroft. “Our goal should be establishing IoT device best practices that are understood by both consumers and manufacturers,” said a statement from Shane Tews, visiting fellow, American Enterprise Institute. The goal of the voluntary program is developing a type of recognizable seal of approval, similar to the Energy Star designation for appliances, to help consumers identify manufacturers that comply with the voluntary cyber and data practices, Tews said. The Center for Democracy & Technology supported the bill in a statement urging Congress to take up the measure.

Samsung announced at its Developer Conference Wednesday systems-on-modules and services for its Artik IoT platform that are said to strengthen edge security. The Artik platform now delivers device-to-cloud security for companies to build, develop and manage secure, interoperable and intelligent IoT products and services in smart homes and other IoT applications, it said. The Artik platform, along with Samsung’s SmartThings Cloud, will give companies a way to quickly develop secure IoT products and services including production-ready hardware, software and tools, cloud services and a partner ecosystem, said the company. The secure IoT modules bring device-level protection for safe data exchange, interoperability and secure access to Artik services including device onboarding, orchestration, management and over-the-air updates, Samsung said. The modules will be available Nov. 30.