Pandora’s goal is to be available in the U.S. and worldwide “everywhere you would get traditional radio,” Paschel said, but the car holds particular promise. He cited the various phases of Internet radio in vehicles, breaking out phase one as connection of a smartphone via Bluetooth or auxiliary jack where data can’t show whether the smartphone is being used in a car or not. In phase two, where the 85 vehicles fit in, Pandora is integrated with the infotainment systems of car makers such as Cadillac’s Cue. Users still pair through the phone in the Cue setup, but GM’s future connected car through the AT&T 4G network that’s set to launch with 2015 vehicles will take Internet radio to phase three of integration, where Pandora “won’t require your phone” but will operate seamlessly over a 4G chip in the vehicle, he said.

LAS VEGAS -- Broadcast equipment supplier Thomson Video is using the NAB Show this week to showcase its “first implementation” of the High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) codec that the Motion Picture Experts Group approved in late January, Jean Macher, Thomson’s marketing director for the Americas, told us Monday at his company’s booth. “We don’t have it running live yet, but it’s coming very soon, probably in June,” Macher said.

LAS VEGAS -- Not all TV stations are worth the same. At least not when it comes to what the FCC will offer to pay them to participate in a reverse auction to prepare to offer their frequencies to the highest bidder, said the commission official leading such planning. Stations that would free up more spectrum by participating may be paid more, said the official, Gary Epstein. The Incentive Auction Task Force chief was answering a question from the audience at an NAB panel by Executive Director Preston Padden of the Expanding Opportunities for Broadcasters Coalition, which opposes such value scoring.

Small carriers who have complained to the FCC about the lack of interoperability in the lower 700 MHz band are poised to get more time to build out in the 700 MHz B block, under an order set to be handed down by the FCC Wireless Bureau, we've learned. However, the bureau does not provide more time for AT&T and Verizon Wireless, which also own B-block spectrum, to build out beyond the June 13 deadline. The notice is set to be released Wednesday.

House Intelligence Committee leaders plan to improve and clarify their cybersecurity information sharing bill, they said during a press call Monday. Their comments came ahead of the committee’s markup of the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) (HR-624) scheduled for 2 p.m. Wednesday (http://1.usa.gov/YdSCy7). They mentioned six of the amendments that the committee will consider, some of which are aimed at increasing privacy protections to curb the dissemination of personally identifiable information. The markup will be in room HVC-304 of the Capitol Visitor Center, which is considered a closed space and will not be open to the public or members of the press, a committee spokeswoman confirmed Monday.

Several progressive leaders slammed the influence of the American Legislative Exchange Council on U.S. state politics, at the Free Press meeting in Denver Saturday. One of the activist organization’s senior staffers framed the defeat of a 2013 Georgia House telecom bill as a triumph over ALEC, the 40-year-old organization that partners state legislators with industry representatives and develops model legislation on issues, including telecom. But ALEC denies involvement regarding the bill in question. Georgia legislators introduced House Bill 282 earlier this year, which proposed restricting municipally owned telecom networks. The bill failed in March (CD March 11 p7).

"The best way forward is to ensure that all parties have an explicit, upfront indication of their operating rights and responsibilities,” said de Vries, co-director of the Silicon Flatirons Center Spectrum Policy Initiative. “Such well-defined rights and responsibilities would give incumbents confidence in the level of protection they will receive, and new users a better understanding of the radio environment they are entering. It would make enforcing rules and determining liability in the event of interference a transparent and straightforward process."

The Department of Homeland Security outlined the ways in which it says it maintained the privacy of individuals in the course of its investigations and research between Sept. 1 and Nov. 30 of last year. The details came in a report to Congress dated March 31 but made public Monday (http://1.usa.gov/Zi4le4). The quarterly report is required under Section 803 of the 9/11 Commission Act and was sent to the chairmen, vice chairmen and ranking members of the Senate committees on Homeland Security, Judiciary and Intelligence and the House committees on Homeland Security, Oversight, Judiciary and Intelligence.

LAS VEGAS -- That News Corp. would consider making Fox a pay-TV network if Aereo is legally able to deliver that and other broadcast network stations’ signals to subscribers without paying retransmission consent caught some NAB attendees by surprise. “We're not going to sit idly by” with the upstart online service able to transmit stations to Aereo subscribers, News Corp. Chief Operating Officer Chase Carey said in a Q-and-A with NAB CEO Gordon Smith. “Clearly there’s a path available to us, that’s a business solution available to us, if we can’t get our rights protected in another way.” Making Fox a cable network isn’t Carey’s preference, he said Monday at the NAB show.

LAS VEGAS -- Broadcasters should give a close look to updating technologies, from better targeting ads to moving to a new terrestrial TV standard, NAB CEO Gordon Smith said at the start of the association’s annual conference. The rollout of mobile DTV is picking up speed, as evidenced by broadcasters adding more markets for the service (CD April 3 p10), he said Monday. Other technology updates may be needed to ward off competition from carriers and other rivals to broadcasters, he said.