The International Moving Image Society's annual awards ceremony Tuesday in London offered rare insights into the world of nature photography and revealed the extent to which it now depends on declassified military technology. “Because animals can’t be directed like actors, we now shoot in 5K or better and pan and track within the frame area at the post-production stage,” said Julian Hector, who heads the BBC’s Natural History Unit (NHU). Very-long-focus telephoto shots from a helicopter are now possible only due to a recently declassified, gyro-stabilized camera pod, mounted outside the cabin and remotely controlled from inside, he said. The NHU is starting to use drones developed for military surveillance, and Ultra HD cameras are now small enough to be mounted on animals, he said. Since “nighttime is the right time for wildlife shooting,” the NHU uses declassified image intensifiers or thermal imaging cameras developed for nighttime military operations, but resolution is very poor, he said. Asked about the possibility of shooting color at night instead of the black and white captured by infrared image intensifiers or thermal imagers, Colin Jackson, innovation producer at the BBC, said: “It’s almost there, but I hope we don’t do it because what we humans see at night is monochrome.” Hector totally disagrees, he said. Color would “let us tell the story from the animals’ point of view,” he said.

Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood is asking Facebook to scrap its Messenger Kids app aimed at preteens. In a letter released Tuesday, CCFC said Messenger Kids, likely to be widely used by elementary school children, could "undermine ... healthy development" since youths "are simply not ready to have social media accounts." It said the app is likely to increase the amount of time spent by children on digital devices, but social media use by teens is linked to depression and overall dissatisfaction with life. In a statement Wednesday, Facebook said Messenger Kids is intended to be a messaging app between parents and children, "with parents always in control of their child’s contacts and who they can message." It said since December launch, "We’ve heard from parents around the country that Messenger Kids has helped them stay in touch with their children and has enabled their children to video chat with fun masks with family members near and far." It said it used an advisory committee of parenting and developmental experts, as well as family and National PTA feedback, when creating the app. "There is no advertising in Messenger Kids," it said.

Crestron will hold its Masters 2018 invitation-only programming training event April 10-12 at Mohegan Sun in Uncasville, Connecticut. Its European counterpart will be May 15-17 at the Mövenpick Hotel in Amsterdam. New this year are master technology architect courses for designers, said the company.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise is the HP-related member part of a group of companies meeting with the FCC on the 6 GHz band (see 1801260043).

What bothers CTA President Gary Shapiro about the net neutrality debate is that "both sides have exaggerated so badly” what they see as the likely impact of the FCC’s December vote to roll back 2015 rules (see 1712140039), Shapiro said in a CES-recorded interview on C-SPAN’s The Communicators to have been televised over the weekend. “We are in a position now where there's people who have such malicious intent toward the present chairman of the FCC,” said Shapiro of Ajit Pai. “His kids are being bothered, they’re getting death threats. This is not American to go after a public official, who frankly is a brilliant guy, doing what he thinks is right, with a lot of substance and nuance behind him.” Many “good people" on "both sides” of the debate can disagree, but “the fringes and the extremes on this issue are a reflection of a very bad direction that I believe that the country should not be going in,” said Shapiro. Pai withdrew from a planned visit to CES days before he was to sit down for a Las Vegas interview with Shapiro (see 1801030054).

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai responded to a September letter by Massachusetts' Ed Markey, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, N.Y., and seven other Senate Democrats who jointly urged Pai to start a notice-and-comment proceeding on more than 50,000 consumer net neutrality complaints the agency received ahead of the December net neutrality vote (see 1709210068). “The Commission grounded its decision to restore the bipartisan consensus on light-touch, Title I Internet regulation on a robust factual record,” Pai responded, posted Friday. “After conducting a thorough review of that record, the Commission addressed all significant issues that had been raised.” The FCC specifically addressed the 50,000 complaints referenced by the senators, he said. “Because the Commission did not rely on these informal complaints as the basis for its determination, it does not have an obligation to incorporate materials relating to those complaints into the record.”

The FCC should roll back or eliminate outdated children’s TV rules, Commissioner Mike O’Rielly blogged Friday. Kidvid rules require broadcasters shoehorn unprofitable children’s TV into their packed schedules and impose burdensome paperwork requirements, O’Rielly said. “With today’s dynamic media marketplace there are very little, if any, additional benefits provided by the Kid Vid rules.” Trimming such rules was a frequent request by commenters on the FCC’s media deregulation efforts (see 1707060060). O'Reilly said though the rules were intended to ensure the availability of children’s educational programming, the modern media market offers such content on streaming services, online video and MVPDs. Children’s TV is “booming,” O’Rielly said. “Where is the market failure to warrant the continuation of the FCC’s Kid Vid mandates?” The current rules caused broadcasters to move away from children’s programming shorter than its 30-minute mandate or non-regularly scheduled programming, such as after-school specials, O’Rielly said. By crowding out more in-demand programming, the requirement “depresses the value of broadcast stations and threatens their financial resources to create and air costly programming, like news and community specials” O’Rielly said. “It is high time the Commission consider whether the Kid Vid rules are still necessary,” he blogged. “At the very least, there are substantial portions of these rules that can be rolled back or reconsidered.” The rules are "one of television broadcasters’ last public interest obligations" remaining after the wave of deregulation under the Republican majority FCC, said Benton Foundation Executive Director Adrianne Furniss in a statement posted under the headline "Now They Come for the Children." The proposal "should be dead on arrival," Furniss said. "It is unthinkable that the FCC would turn its back on children -- and the law."

The Telecommunications Industry Association praised President Donald Trump's "efforts to advance U.S. leadership in the information and communications technology sector and to spur investment in communications infrastructure." CEO Wesley Johnston cited "corporate tax reform, rolling back unnecessary internet regulation, recent executive orders on broadband deployment and the planned rollout of an infrastructure legislative package that incorporates broadband," in a letter to Trump ahead of Tuesday's State of the Union speech. TIA backs policies to "remove regulatory obstacles to broadband deployment, adopt market-based regulation, increase spectrum availability, ensure global voluntary approaches to cybersecurity and critical infrastructure protection, provide market access for digital trade, foster the Internet of Things, and improve access to public safety communications."

The transition to 5G will need "fundamental changes" to the FCC's permitting and regulatory structures, including modernization of the local, state and federal regimes that govern infrastructure deployment, Commissioner Brendan Carr told the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Telecommunications and E-Commerce Committee Thursday, according to his prepared remarks. The current regulatory regime can't support the tenfold to hundredfold increase in small cells and millions of miles of new fiber that will be necessary, he said. Carr said in coming weeks he will lay out "concrete steps" for making regulatory structures "5G ready." And in a reference to the TV series The Office, Carr jokingly advocated the agency adopt a "Dunder Mifflin Rule" that a regulation that benefits only paper suppliers "is void ab initio."

Comcast's mobile service, Xfinity Mobile, ended 2017 with more than 380,000 subscribers signed up in its first seven months, 187,000 alone in Q4, executives said on an earnings call Wednesday. Comcast Cable CEO Dave Watson said the company is about to start packaging Xfinity Mobile with other offerings, such as broadband. NBCUniversal CEO Steve Burke said virtual MVPDs remain niche areas for NBCU: "We're talking about tenths of a percentage point." Burke said Google and Facebook dominate the growing digital ad sphere, but TV advertising "is roughly flat." He said Comcast's goal is more targetable TV ads, which accounts for the company's investments in BuzzFeed, Snap and Vox. Asked about deal prospects, company CEO Brian Roberts said there's "nothing we feel we have to acquire." Comcast said Q4 revenue rose 4.2 percent to $21.9 billion. It finished 2017 with 21.3 million residential video customers, down 185,000 year over year; 23.9 residential broadband customers, up 1 million; and 10.3 million residential voice customers, down 230,000.