Comprehensive state privacy bills marched forward in Indiana and Washington state. The Indiana Senate passed SB-358 in a unanimous 49-0 vote Tuesday, and a Washington House panel narrowly cleared an amended HB-1850 Wednesday. Elsewhere, a Virginia Senate panel cleared edits to its 2021 law and a Maryland committee heard testimony on a biometrics privacy bill.
AARP warned members of the risk of AT&T’s pending shuttering of its 3G network, and the later shutdown of Verizon’s and T-Mobile’s, in a Thursday webinar. Carmen Group’s Bill Signer, lobbyist for the Alarm Industry Communications Committee (AICC), asked viewers to contact the White House and ask the administration to pressure AT&T to delay the sunset. The California Public Utilities Commission would pass the buck to DOJ on Dish Network’s dispute with T-Mobile over its March 31 3G shutdown, under a proposed decision released Wednesday in docket A.18-07-11.
Spotify shares plunged 16.8% to $159.76 Thursday after the company’s Wednesday Q4 earnings report and analyst Q&A. Overall revenue grew 24% year on year to $3.1 billion. It's forecasting $2.97 billion revenue in Q1, said the shareholder letter.
Sony Chief Financial Officer Hiroki Totoki deflected questions Wednesday about the impact to Sony’s PlayStation 5 business from Microsoft’s proposed $68.7 billion Activision Blizzard buy (see 2201180009). “In terms of the acquisition by our competitor, we're not in a position to make any comments,” Totoki told a Tokyo media and analyst briefing convened to disclose that Sony’s games and consumer tech franchises took heavy hits in fiscal Q3 ended Dec. 31 from the global semiconductor shortage.
The Home Technology Specialists of America buying group plans a three-day dealer educational event Feb. 22-24 on lighting integration, it said Wednesday. The event will include eight hours of lighting fundamentals training, 16 hours of lighting design workshops, eight hours of panels and “nearly 24 hours” of manufacturer training sessions, said HTSA Director-Technology Initiatives Tom Doherty.
Demand continues to “significantly outpace our supply,” said Silicon Labs CEO Matt Johnson, leading his first earnings call since Tyson Tuttle's retirement in December. Design wins in 2021 grew by nearly 45%, and the company’s sales funnel entering 2022 is about $14 billion, more than it was before the divestiture of the Infrastructure and Automotive business last spring, he said.
Senate Commerce Committee leaders were hoping to meet with Senate leadership Tuesday or Wednesday to establish chips legislation negotiations, ranking member Roger Wicker, R-Miss., told us Tuesday. Chair Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., addressed the possibility of moving to informal conference negotiations to speed up the process.
SiriusXM’s buy of AudioID, announced Monday, is expected to simplify ad buys for satellite radio, streaming music and podcasts, said SiriusXM CEO Jennifer Witz on the company’s Tuesday Q4 earnings call, commenting on the AdsWizz solution's "listener identity solution."
The House Rules Committee was still considering several telecom- and tech-focused amendments Tuesday to the America Creating Opportunities for Manufacturing, Pre-Eminence in Technology and Economic Strength Act (HR-4521), for a potential floor vote on the measure later this week. The measure mirrors some elements of the Senate-passed U.S. Innovation and Competition Act (S-1260), including $52 billion in subsidies to encourage U.S.-based semiconductor manufacturing (see 2201260062). Many proposed amendments aim to make changes to the chips language.
The 1974 Trade Act and the 1946 Administrative Procedure Act (APA) “impose obligations of opportunities to comment by stakeholders and reasoned decision-making” by the federal agencies involved, said attorney Joseph Palmore of Morrison & Foerster on behalf of amici CTA, the National Retail Federation and five other trade associations in Section 301 oral argument Tuesday before the U.S. Court of International Trade. The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative “complied with neither” statute in the Lists 3 and 4A tariff rulemakings, Palmore told the court's three-judge panel.