Google said it’s launching emergency location service (ELS) for Android in the U.S., in combination with RapidSOS, T-Mobile and West, to bring more accurate location more quickly to 911 call centers. “Accurately locating someone during an emergency call is critical for reducing response time and can be the difference between life and death,” said a Wednesday Google blog post. “More than 80 percent of emergency calls come from mobile phones, but locating these phones can be challenging as traditional emergency location technologies can fail indoors or have a radius that’s too big to be useful.” ELS “provides a more accurate location both indoors and outdoors by using a combination of GPS, Wi-Fi, mobile networks and sensors -- the same high-accuracy location you see when using Google Maps,” the company said. Apple said in June it's working with RapidSOS on similar technology (see 1806180003). Google already launched ELS in the U.S. Virgin Islands through a partnership with West and Viya, a regional carrier.

It’s not too early to think about 6G, said FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel last week, making her the first FCC commissioner, by her account, to discuss sixth generation. “A few months ago, Google Trends rated the term 6G as the 17th most looked-up word in its search engine,” she said at Mobile World Congress Americas. “The minister of industry and information technology in China has already made the official pronouncement that the nation ‘will be first in 6G.’” A looming problem is how the U.S. government treats spectrum, scoring auctions and valuing licensed spectrum for the money it brings in to the Treasury, Rosenworcel said. “Over time, it will be especially challenging for unlicensed spectrum to make it through this filter.” Rosenworcel wants the FCC to make more use of incentive auctions, including for the 2.5 GHz band. She said the regulator’s overall approach on auctions must change. “We need to consider how the size, duration, and set of rights that come with a license can increase the range of actors willing to participate in our auctions. We need to put a premium on auctioning multiple bands at once, rather than offering them to market piecemeal, one at a time.” She expects many lessons to come from the 3.5 GHz citizens broadband radio service band once sharing starts there. Pandora CEO Roger Lynch said in a Friday keynote that AM/FM remains a “potent force,” with $15 billion in annual advertising revenue, but in the future many more people will stream their music than get it over the air. “The big change” to come is in terrestrial radio, with advertising shifting to streaming services, he said. Dominique Delport, president-international of Vice Media, told MWC that for the first time, Apple is pricing its new iPhones at a higher price point than iMacs. “Mobile is the first screen,” he said. “Facebook is a mobile company, with 92 percent of their revenue linked to mobile advertising. The shift happened.” Mobile is “the way we share our news, our lifestyle,” Delport said: “Social media is media” for younger people.

DOJ appeal of a lower court decision allowing AT&T's buy of Time Warner hasn't notably affected how New AT&T operates, WarnerMedia head John Stankey said at an analysts' presentation Thursday. He said the appeal is "a weak case." Over the months since the close on TW, the focus has been on getting management teams in place and on more cooperation between the TW operating divisions that traditionally operated more as silos, Stankey said.

Charter Communications' mobile service, Spectrum Mobile, is now available across the company's footprint for Spectrum internet subscribers, after a soft launch earlier this summer, it said Tuesday. Pricing is $45 a month per line for unlimited data or $14 per GB shared across all lines, it said.

The FTC is mailing 499,105 checks totaling more than $14.4 million to people who bought Lights of America brand LED light bulbs, saying the company overstated light output and life expectancy. The FTC sued Lights of America, Usman Vakil and Farooq Vakil for “violating federal law by overstating the light output and life expectancy of their LED bulbs, and falsely comparing the brightness of their LED bulbs with that of other light bulbs,” said the FTC. A U.S. District Court ordered the defendants to pay $21 million to the FTC to provide refunds and banned them from misrepresenting “material facts about lighting products.” People who bought Lights of America LED light bulbs between 2007 and 2011, and do not receive a check, can apply for a refund at www.ftc.gov/lights, it said. The deadline to apply for a refund is Oct. 26; the average check amount is $28.86.

University of Idaho law professor Annemarie Bridy said it's not clear what role notices from copyright holders would play in cases involving Digital Millennium Copyright Act Section 512(A) providers like ISPs since they aren't subject to the notice-and-takedown framework that 512(C) providers are (see 1808020009).

CEDIA revealed Thursday finalists for best new product awards to be announced Sept. 6 at CEDIA Expo. Finalists are Access Networks for custom networks; AirTV; Atlona’s OmniStream AV distribution platform; Barco’s Prometheus III projector; Cleerline fiber cable; Inneos’ InvisiCable; the iPort LuxePort; LumaStream’s Idol down light; Lutron’s Palladiom shade system; Metra Home Theater Group’s Gigabit Accelerator; the NAD Masters M17 V2 preamplifier; Nexus 21’s Transcend Pro Surface motorized mount; Peerless-AV’s outdoor sound bar; MSE Audio's Phase Technology OS-440 smart outdoor amplifier and Cherry Bomb speaker; Samsung’s Wall, the Savant Multistat touch-screen thermostat; the Seura Smart mirror; SnapAV routers, streaming sound bar, Binary Media over IP transmitter and Lutron RA2 repeater; Sonance's VP52R UTL speaker; the sonnen ecoLinx smart energy management system; Sony’s VPL-VW885ES 4K laser projector; and XBR-65A8F 65-inch Bravia OLED TV; Trinnov Audio's Altitude 16 room optimizer; WyreStorm Technologies’ Software Defined Video over Ethernet cable; and Yale’s Assure Lock for Andersen patio doors.

In an opinion piece in The Hill Wednesday, FCC Commissioner Mike O'Rielly wrote that the ITU is suffering from mission creep and staffing problems, and a failure to take seriously the candidacy of Doreen Bogdan-Martin as director of its Telecommunication Development Bureau "would be a grave mistake" and could boost the case of those who want the U.S. to leave the ITU or limit its financial support. O'Rielly said many ITU member states are trying to make it a global regulator of new technologies, such as the internet, that are outside its core mission or jurisdiction. A possible fix would be allocating a minimum of 80 percent of all ITU spending or events to spectrum policies, he said. O'Rielly also said there's too little oversight of staffers, leading to them picking the projects to pursue, hiring technical consultants and framing debates, and there needs to be better procedural safeguards and more detailed budgeting information. He also said more decisions should be made by member states rather than on a delegated basis. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai and NTIA Administrator David Redl endorsed Bogdan-Martin (see 1803130029).

Only 34.5 percent of nearly 500 professionals involved in general data protection regulation (GDPR) compliance efforts say their organizations can defensibly demonstrate compliance with the new data privacy rules today, according to a Deloitte online poll released Tuesday. One-third of respondents (32.7 percent) hope to be compliant within 2018, it said. And 11.7 percent plan to take a "wait and see" approach amid uncertainty over how EU regulators in various countries will enforce the new regulation. "That the GDPR effective date has come and gone and many are still scrambling to demonstrate a defensible position on GDPR compliance reflects the complexity and challenges as the world of privacy rapidly changes," said Rich Vestuto, a Deloitte Risk and Financial Advisory managing director. The poll of more than 490 professionals involved in their organizations took place June 22. GDPR took effect May 25.

Having soft launched its mobile service June 30, Charter Communications plans to ramp up features and marketing this summer, expanding mobile devices supported and letting customers transfer handsets, CEO Tom Rutledge said in a Q2 call Tuesday. Rutledge said company labor issues in New York City "politicized the actions" of the state Public Service Commission, which revoked approval of the TWC takeover (see 1807270027). "We're in compliance with the plain reading and the buildout requirements that the state imposed on us in merger conditions and we have a very strong legal case and ability to defend ourselves," he said. "It could play out over a lengthy period of time, if required. If necessary, we'll litigate." Asked about T-Mobile/Sprint, Rutledge said Charter wasn't one of the parties interested in Sprint (see 1807310042). "It doesn't mean in the future mobile assets might be priced right and that natural convergence would occur," he said. The chief said 91 percent of the footprint is all-digital and 6 percent of legacy Time Warner Cable customers had a full analog video lineup. He said about half of the Bright House Networks footprint is analog, and the all-digital shift started in June. He said the whole company will be fully digital by year's end and plans to launch a cloud-based DVR later this year. Rutledge said 62 percent of residential TWC and BHN customers were moved to Spectrum pricing and packaging, up from 55 percent at the end of Q1. He said Charter offers 1 GB service in about 60 percent of its footprint and it raised its minimum Spectrum to 200 Mbps in about 40 percent of its footprint. Charter has 16.2 million residential video customers, down 1.8 percent year over year; 23.1 million residential internet customers, up 4.8 percent; and 10.3 million voice customers, down 0.5 percent. The stock closed Tuesday up 3.6 percent to $304.58