A new standard that allows higher density and lower-cost ethernet connectivity is available from IEEE. The IEEE 802.3bj standard is intended to support connectivity that also is more energy-efficient for rapidly growing ethernet applications like data centers and blade servers, said the IEEE Standards Association Wednesday in a news release (http://bit.ly/1rHrYLw). It’s an amendment to the IEEE 802.3 standard, it said. The features are “critical enhancements to the standard that are intended to both optimize and expand Ethernet’s options for physical connectivity,” it said.

After eight years of legal wrangling, the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) obtained two legal analysis memos on the “warrantless wiretapping” surveillance program done during the Bush administration, said an EPIC Monday blog post (http://bit.ly/1BnGK13). EPIC received the memos through a lawsuit after the government refused to provide them through a Freedom of Information Act request. The warrantless wiretapping program was part of a broader program, the now-discontinued “Stellar Wind,” that also included collection of emails, phone records and data, EPIC said. The two memos, one from May 2004 (http://bit.ly/1CKlXGN) and another from July 2004 (http://bit.ly/1nGyCki), describe how Stellar Wind related to Executive Order 12333, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and the Authorization for Use of Military Force following the 9/11 terrorist attacks. “The President has the inherent constitutional authority as Commander in Chief and sole organ for the nation in foreign affairs to conduct warrantless surveillance of enemy forces for intelligence purposes to detect and disrupt armed attacks on the United States,” said the May memo. “Congress does not have the power to restrict the President’s exercise of that authority.” It did say, though, that “electronic surveillance under STELLAR WIND must still comply with the requirements of the Fourth Amendment.” But the memo concluded that the program’s content collection activities “come within an exception to the Warrant Clause and satisfy the Fourth Amendment’s requirement for reasonableness,” and that “meta data collection does not implicate the Fourth Amendment.” The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board issued a report earlier this year, arguing that the current telephony metadata collection program was potentially illegal and unconstitutional. That report came days after President Barack Obama revealed plans to increase surveillance program oversight and transparency (CD Jan 24 p5).

At least 60 percent of the more than 1 million net neutrality comments to the FCC were form letters written by organized campaigns, the Sunlight Foundation said in a blog post (http://bit.ly/1oAFcYA) Tuesday about a study it did of the submissions. The form letters, while a majority of the comments, composed a smaller percentage of filings than in other high-profile dockets, including those of the State Department on the Keystone pipeline and the IRS on campaign contributions by social welfare organizations, in which the foundation said more than 75 percent of submissions were form letters. Among other key findings, the study found less than 1 percent of the FCC comments were clearly opposed to net neutrality, at least 200 were written by law firms, and about two-thirds opposed the idea of paid prioritization. Those statements of opposition included many individual comments, but also form letter campaigns organized by Battle for the Net, CREDO Action, Daily Kos, Free Press and the Nation, the study said.

The FCC Wireline Bureau and Office of Strategic Planning released an update Friday offering a better way to evaluate data on whether areas are eligible for Connect America Fund Phase II support. The update allows interested parties to download geospatial files for a selected census tract or county, the FCC said (http://bit.ly/1n4IDaK). “The downloaded file is specifically for use with desktop mapping software to display eligible census blocks, which should help users investigate potential areas for rural broadband experiments and assist parties participating in the Phase II challenge process.”

U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh rejected Apple’s bid for a permanent injunction against Samsung, according to a Wednesday night ruling from U.S. District Court in San Jose. Apple had won a $120 million judgment against Samsung for infringing on three Apple patents, according to Koh’s ruling (case No. 12-CV-00630-LHK). But Koh on Wednesday declined to stop Samsung from selling its products with features infringing on the patents. “Apple has not satisfied its burden of demonstrating irreparable harm and linking that harm to Samsung’s exploitation of any of Apple’s three infringed patents,” she said. “Apple has not established that it suffered significant harm in the form of either lost sales or reputational injury.” Koh said she didn’t think Apple proved “that the patented inventions drive consumer demand for the infringing products.” Apple didn’t comment. A Samsung spokeswoman welcomed the ruling: “We remain committed to providing American consumers with a wide choice of innovative products."

Americans are more comfortable having an in-person conversation about the government’s surveillance programs than via a social media platform, said a Pew Research Internet Project report released Tuesday (http://pewrsr.ch/1BYLb3Q). In a survey of 1,801 adults, Pew asked about individuals’ willingness to discuss the surveillance programs that came to light in 2013. Eighty-six percent of those surveyed said they would have an in-person conversation about the topic, but only 42 percent of Facebook and Twitter users said they would post about it on either platform. “Social media did not provide new forums for those who might otherwise remain silent to express their opinions and debate issues,” said a summary of the report. “Further, if people thought their friends and followers in social media disagreed with them, they were less likely to say they would state their views on the Snowden-NSA story online and in other contexts, such as gatherings of friends, neighbors, or co-workers.”

The automotive telematics market is projected to grow to $45 billion by 2019, a MarketsandMarkets report found. Telematics, the technology that transfers data between vehicles or devices through wireless networks, has the potential to convert vehicles “from just a simple mode of transportation to moving information stations,” said the report, released Friday (http://bit.ly/1mvOd5C). Demand for connected vehicles is driven by developments like collision warnings or remote maintenance “that provide safety and comfort to the driver and passengers,” it said. Telematics services are divided into the four major types of safety, information and navigation, entertainment and remote diagnostics, MarketsandMarkets said.

The FCC Wireless and Wireline bureaus gave limited, interim relief to Alaska telco Adak Eagle Enterprises and its Windy City Cellular subsidiary Thursday. An order said Adak will receive $33,276 monthly and Windy City will receive $40,104 monthly. That funding will last no more than six months or until the commission reviews the companies’ petition for reconsideration (http://bit.ly/1tpZLfD). Adak and Windy City had petitioned the FCC for reconsideration of its denial of the companies’ request for a waiver of caps on USF payments (CD Aug 16/13 p5). Executives from Adak and Windy City urged FCC staff in a meeting last month to provide a “permanent solution” the funding issues they have sought to relieve through the waiver (CD July 29 p14).

Radar will remain a key technology in the automotive space, but camera sensors and machine vision technology are poised to push advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) into the mainstream due to low cost, flexibility and multiple use cases, said ABI Research. Automotive camera sensor shipments are forecast to reach 197 million by 2020 from suppliers including OmniVision, ON Semiconductor, Sony, STMicroelectronics and Toshiba, it said. ABI described a “fusion of sensors” combining with radar for forward-looking obstacle detection, pedestrian detection, lane guidance and driver monitoring; with infrared cameras for night vision; and with ultrasonic sensors for automated parking. Advances in RF transceivers, microcontrollers and open platforms will lead to cost reduction by leveraging microcontrollers across multiple sensors, it said. The primary driver for the uptake of ADAS will be the arrival of autonomous driving, ABI said. ADAS is already becoming the subject of regulation, with the European New Car Assessment Programme including the presence of speed assistance systems, autonomous emergency braking and lane departure warning/lane keep assist as criteria to determine safety ratings, it said. In the U.S., similar initiatives are being discussed by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which recently proposed changes to its five-star safety program, ABI said.

The special access data collection effort announced by the FCC (CD Aug 19 p2) Monday could pose “longer-term concern for incumbent telcos,” said Paul Gallant, analyst at Guggenheim Partners, Wednesday in a research note. Noting the issue “has gone on for years,” Gallant wrote, “there is no assurance that it will actually result in rule changes. But should the FCC decide the data show incumbent pricing power and insufficient competition in certain areas, we do expect the agency to push forward with changes that could limit telcos’ special access prices in some way.” A final ruling is a ways off and “seems unlikely” before the first quarter of 2016, he said. Gallant said the FCC and congressional Democrats have long backed a special access inquiry, so Chairman Tom Wheeler will likely “closely evaluate whether to propose revised special access pricing rules for incumbent telcos.” What ultimately happens, he said, will depend on what the data show. If the findings are “inconclusive or not persuasive, the agency might decide that opening up a new policy battle with AT&T, Verizon, CenturyLink and others doesn’t pass the cost-benefit test,” Gallant wrote.