James (Jim) Tulley, 51, Sony Electronics vice president and 28-year veteran of the company, died suddenly Saturday at his Algonquin, Illinois, home of undisclosed causes. Tulley began his Sony career in customer service and rose through the ranks to regional manager, director and vice president. Sony Electronics President Mike Fasulo praised Tulley as “a constant inspiration” who will be remembered “for his enthusiasm, optimism, generosity, humor and visionary ideas.” Tulley’s “significant contributions to Sony, our industry and society at large are irreplaceable,” said Fasulo. Tulley’s wife and four children survive.
House Rules Committee ranking member Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y. and 88, died Friday, her office said. Slaughter had fallen at her Washington home last week and in recent days was hospitalized. She was co-chairwoman of the Congressional Arts Caucus and in recent years had taken an interest in music licensing, accessible communications and FCC regulation of wireless mics (see 1609290041, 1701110065, 1705010053 and 1705100057). House Commerce Committee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., was among lawmakers mourning Slaughter’s death.
Paul Otellini, 66, former Intel CEO, died in his sleep Monday, the company said. In eight years at the helm starting in 2005, the chipmaker got Apple's PC business and focused on "security, software and mobile communications." Otellini, a four-time CES keynoter, was "an incredible leader and visionary," said CTA President Gary Shapiro. Otellini is survived by his wife, son and daughter. Other details weren't available.
Mary Albert, 65, died unexpectedly this week at home in Washington, said officials at the Electronic Transactions Association, where she was director-regulatory affairs. Before joining ETA last year, Albert worked for a decade as assistant general counsel at Incompas. She also worked at law firms, was a staff attorney at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and was in-house telecom counsel, ETA said Wednesday. Albert is survived by a brother; other information on survivors and arrangements wasn't available.
Alan Pearce, 80, onetime FCC chief economist who also worked for the House Communications Subcommittee and the White House's Office of Telecommunications, died in Lexington, Va., July 10. Cause of death wasn't released. Born in Manchester, England, Pearce earned a doctorate in business from Indiana University, moving to Washington in 1970. After his government service he founded the consultancy Information Age Economics. Pearce is survived by his wife, three children and five grandchildren.
Blake Krikorian, 48, co-founder of Sling Media, died Wednesday during a surfing incident near San Francisco. Krikorian, a frequent traveler, got the inspiration for the Slingbox device because he was a rabid San Francisco Giants fan and wanted a way to watch the team's games on TV when he was far away from home, he told an interviewer. Sling Media, in a Thursday blog post, hailed Krikorian as “a true visionary who forever changed the content landscape when he envisioned the evolution of TV Anywhere capability over a decade ago with the founding of Slingbox.” In a Thursday statement, CTA President Gary Shapiro praised Krikorian, a former member of the association’s board of industry leaders, as “an extraordinary entrepreneur and imaginative mind, who envisioned place-shifting content via the Slingbox.” Krikorian’s “innovative work lives on with the millions of people who enjoy the video content they purchased, no matter where they are in the world,” Shapiro said.
Former Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., a member of the Senate Commerce Committee who focused on communications issues, died Thursday at his home in Billings at age 81. Burns was elected to the Senate in 1988 and twice re-elected before losing a close election to Democrat Jon Tester in 2006. Burns was a livestock auctioneer, traveling salesman and agriculture news broadcaster before turning to politics. NAB CEO Gordon Smith, who served with Burns in the Senate, noted his death. “Conrad's deep appreciation for local broadcasting -- based on his many years of service as a farm broadcaster in Montana -- was evident on the Senate Commerce Committee,” Smith said. The NG911 Institute said in a statement that Burns was a founding co-chair of the Congressional E911 Caucus. “Not only was he successful in his pursuit of improving the 911 system, but he did it in a bipartisan manner,” the group said. Burns is survived by wife and two children. Funeral arrangements are pending.
Alan E. Bell, digital rights management veteran who as onetime engineer at IBM’s Almaden Research Center helped broker the format-war compromise that led to the successful 1997 introduction of the DVD, died Monday in Cambodia from injuries sustained in a motorcycle accident while on a business trip. At the time of his death, Bell ran his Los Angeles-based consulting company and was on the board of WR Films Entertainment Group. Previously, Bell was chief technology officer at Paramount Pictures and executive vice president-technology at Warner. Bell held dozens of patents, including a September 2006 Warner application that bore his name (see 0609070159) for a “multilayer dual optical disk” that would bridge the warring HD DVD and Blu-ray formats, much as the dual-format players from LG and Samsung were designed to do. Bell was active on many standards bodies, including that of the Advanced Access Content System, which is the backbone of the Blu-ray format’s content protection platform. A memorial service is planned for Bell.
Michael Birck, 77, retired chairman and one of the co-founders of Tellabs, died July 6 of leukemia. He worked for Bell Labs, Continental Telephone Laboratories and Wescom before launching transmission and signaling equipment maker Tellabs. Survivors include his wife, two sons and a daughter. A funeral Mass is set for 10 a.m. Saturday at St. Isaac Jogues Church in Hinsdale, Illinois.
Ralph Roberts, 95, Comcast founder, died Thursday in Philadelphia of natural causes. The chairman emeritus of the No. 1 U.S. multichannel video programming distributor, now run by his son Brian, Comcast's chairman and CEO, Ralph Roberts founded Comcast in 1963 with the purchase of a 1,200-subscriber cable system in Tupelo, Mississippi. He helped oversee Comcast's expansion over the years, partly through acquisitions, including the 2002 AT&T Broadband buy that vaulted Comcast to No. 1 MVPD. Survivors include his wife, three other children besides Brian and eight grandchildren. A private funeral service is planned for the family and a ceremony celebrating Ralph's life will be held at a future time, the company said Friday. Statements of condolence poured in Friday, including from the American Cable Association, Cablevision, Charter Communications, C-SPAN, NCTA and TWC (see here, here, here and here). FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler learned from Roberts, Wheeler said. "He has left a lasting legacy on the communications landscape of America.”