Norway’s decision to become the first country to begin the “forced turn-off” of analog FM (see 1701090023) “is causing not just static, but outright anger,” said NAB Chief Operating Officer Christopher Ornelas in a Thursday blog post. “The angst stems from the fact that the shutdown could leave tens of thousands of people without access to some of their favorite free and local radio stations.” Norway’s example “has prompted a smattering of press reports suggesting that America may eventually follow suit,” said Ornelas. His “bottom line” response is that “no way will America go Norway’s route and ‘turn off’ FM radio,” he said. “It’s just not going to happen, in my lifetime or yours.” Norway uses the Eureka-147 digital audio broadcasting system, but “we in the U.S. chose a different path to digital radio,” he said. The HD Radio system in the U.S. “uses identical spectrum and the same channels for both analog and digital services,” he said. “Thus, there's no cost-saving advantage to shutting down analog FM services in America,” as there is in Norway, which requires “two separate swaths of spectrum for radio” to run analog and digital services with the same content, he said. “Turning off analog FM is apparently seen by the Norwegian parliament as a cost-saving efficiency -- even though actual radio listeners in Norway are quite unhappy about losing this service.”

The federal government can reduce its operational costs by more than $1 trillion over the next decade by adopting cognitive computing systems and cloud technologies to improve efficiency, the Technology CEO Council said Thursday in a report aimed at the transition team for President-elect Donald Trump. TCC's paper aims to demonstrate that agencies' adoption of current technologies will improve government cybersecurity, efficiency and responsiveness to citizens. “We are living through a period of profound change, where cognitive computing systems and the efficiency of the cloud are transforming entire industries,” said IBM CEO Ginni Rometty in a TCC news release. “Advanced information technologies are providing dramatic competitive advantages to businesses in virtually every industry imaginable,” said TCC Chairman Mark Durcan, CEO of Micron Technology. “We see clear and proven implementation paths where our federal government can take advantage of these same efficiencies. Modernizing our infrastructure is critical to our future as a nation.”

Facebook announced an initiative with news organizations to help develop news products and provide training and tools for journalists and the public that include ways to fight news hoaxes. The Facebook Journalism Project, wrote Director-Product Fidji Simo in a Wednesday blog post, will involve deeper collaboration between news organizations and the company's product and engineering teams on developing current storytelling formats such as Live, 360 and Instant Articles. She said it will also mean creating new formats like presenting packages of stories to their most engaged readers on the social media platform. She said Facebook is interested in better supporting local news, promoting independent media and helping organizations boost revenue. In one example, Facebook said it's working with German tabloid Bild to provide free trials to engaged readers from within Instant Articles. The company also is providing e-learning courses on Facebook products, tools and services for journalists and free tools like CrowdTangle that measure the performance and influence of stories. It's also working with news and technology coalition First Draft to verify the authenticity of image and video content (see 1701040025). The Poynter Institute said in a release it's working with Facebook to develop a training certificate program for journalists that will use courses on Facebook and Instagram. Simo said her company will work with third-party organizations, including Arizona State University's journalism school, to promote news literacy and help people "make decisions about which sources to trust." The company, which has been the focus of accusations that it's helped spread fake stories, also reiterated efforts to curb such hoaxes (see 1612130030).

Sprint's Virgin Mobile said Wednesday its U.S. headquarters will now be One Kansas City Place in downtown Kansas City, Missouri, and it plans to hire up to 100 people. “Kansas City is a national hub of entrepreneurial spirit and sophisticated start-ups, which is the perfect backdrop for our new office as we evolve the Virgin Mobile brand and elevate it to new heights,” said Dow Draper, CEO of Virgin Mobile, in a news release. "This innovation district is a natural setting for a bold brand like Virgin, which does things differently and changes business for good.” Virgin Mobile is operating from a temporary office in One Kansas City Place at 1200 Main St. and is starting renovation of nearly 11,000 square feet of vacant office space on a separate floor. Sprint corporate headquarters is in nearby Overland Park, Kansas.

Norway this week becomes the first country to begin a hard switch off of FM transmissions to complete the transition to Eureka-147 digital audio broadcasting radio services, said Digital Radio UK, the group that’s promoting a DAB switchover in the U.K. During a Wednesday ceremony in the Arctic city of Bodø, at precisely 11:11 a.m. local time, a giant dial will be moved from FM to DAB to signify the moment of the transition, the group announced Monday. The Norwegian switch off will be implemented region by region across six regions, ending in the northern regions of Troms and Finnmark Dec. 13, it said. DAB digital radio services launched in Norway in 1995, and now cover 99.7 percent of the country, it said.

Governance of a mobile in-app viewability measurement technical tool, introduced into the market last year and originally conceived by Integral Ad Science (IAS), will be assumed by the Interactive Advertising Bureau Technology Laboratory, wrote Alanna Gombert, the lab's general manager, in a Friday blog post. The Mobile Verification Open-Source Software Development Kit will permit app publishers to measure their mobile inventories without needing to integrate multiple SDKs from different partners, she wrote. It "will also improve user experience by reducing the load time necessary to run verifications against numerous SDKs," she said. IAB Tech Lab will work with IAS and other partners including Google, InMobi and Lenovo, to further develop the tool, with a first version expected to be released sometime in the next six months, said Gombert.

Release of the Department of Energy’s first energy-efficiency standards for uninterruptible power supplies (UPSs) could mean billions of dollars “in savings for American consumers and businesses, while reducing energy waste and pollution that damage our health and environment.” So said Pierre Delforge, director of the high-tech sector energy efficiency, energy and transportation program at the Natural Resources Defense Council, in a Thursday blog post. DOE estimates the new standards will save 87 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity over the next three decades, “which in turn will save consumers and businesses up to $3 billion on their electric bills,” said Delforge. “This represents an energy savings of 15 percent relative to the electricity consumption of these products in the absence of an efficiency standard.” The DOE standards don't “prescribe how manufacturers should make their products more efficient,” he said. They allow manufacturers “the flexibility to innovate and make even better products for consumers as we've seen time and time again from efficiency standards,” he said. “These results will appeal to all political persuasions, and is another demonstration of smart policies that harness American innovation to save consumers and businesses money.”

ProSource added six custom integrator members and elevated four others, it said in an announcement. Starpower Home Theater, Dallas, was promoted to Pro member, and Wipliance, Bellevue, Washington; Natural Sound, Framingham, Massachusetts; and Audio Video Intelligence, North Easton, Massachusetts were named Power members. The six new custom integrator members are AV Lifestyles, Charleston, South Carolina; Audio Video Solutions of South Florida, Miami; IGS Homeworks, Magnolia, Texas; Home Definition, Sioux Falls, South Dakota; N Genius Solutions, Chicago; and SoundCheck, Southfield, Michigan. ProSource Pro members generate a minimum $10 million annually, Power CI dealers generate a minimum $4 million and custom integrator members generate $1 million minimum per year, said the organization. ProSource plans its Summit in Orlando March 5-8.

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler won’t be at CES next week, but all three commissioners expected to be at the agency Jan. 20 are planning to attend, aides to all three confirmed. Wheeler withdrew from going to Las Vegas for the chairman’s annual interview with CTA President Gary Shapiro, usually the regulatory highlight of every CES. Past chairmen have used the keynote appearance as an opportunity to make news. An FCC spokesman said Wheeler had another commitment. FCC Commissioners Ajit Pai, Mignon Clyburn and Mike O’Rielly are expected to appear with FTC commissioners on a 2017 preview panel Thursday. FTC Chairwoman Edith Ramirez is scheduled to hold a one-on-one session with Shapiro.

CTA President Gary Shapiro can’t sit back and placate critics of President-elect Donald Trump who “would have me spend the next four years just waiting for a new president,” he said in a Tuesday LinkedIn post in which he expressed hope that Trump's acumen as a business leader will be the "silver lining" of his presidency. To help the tech industry succeed, “we need the right public policies in place,” Shapiro said. “So I must identify opportunities to work with the incoming Trump administration to promote innovation, grow the economy, create high-wage jobs and collaborate on pro-tech policies.” Shapiro, after months of harshly criticizing Trump the candidate (see 1611090038), said he has been surprised “at the vitriol on social media” expressed about his public tweets and commentaries warming to “the positive actions a Trump presidency can produce,” he said. “America has voted, and I choose to be optimistic and see a positive path forward, especially regarding the economy.” Shapiro “genuinely” wants to work with the Trump administration “to foster our industry and build products and services that change our world for the better,” he said. Trump’s Dec.14 outreach to tech leaders in which the president-elect struck a conciliatory tone (see 1612140060) “underscores his commitment to working with our industry -- not against it,” Shapiro said.