Italy is the most TV-watching of major European nations, though Italians' screen time pales compared with Americans' TV consumption, IHS said Wednesday in a study of European and TV viewing habits. Last year saw British TV viewing roughly three hours a day, down 14 minutes from 2013 and at a record low, while French and German viewers each averaged close to 3.5 hours a day in 2014 -- down about 10 minutes for French viewers and holding steady for Germans, IHS said. Average daily consumption of broadcast TV was up in Italy in 2014, to roughly four hours 20 minutes a day; including online and pay TV, it was at four hours 37 minutes. In Spain, average TV viewing was 242 minutes a day, IHS said. In the U.S., average TV watching was 351 minutes a day. That big difference between American and European consumption habits is due in part to the fact Americans often turn on the TV for background noise, while Europeans use radio, said Dan Cryan, IHS senior director-media and content.

Security company AVG said 72 percent of U.S. parents with children aged 3-17 say their children received their first connected mobile device before seventh grade, and one in two “connected” children received his or her first device before first grade, citing findings from a poll conducted by Harris for AVG. Parents are “on the right track” in talking about Internet security with their K-12 children, but they “can do better,” AVG said. Some 72 percent of parents with children aged 3-17 have proactively spoken to their children about the dangers of the Internet, but only 56 percent know the passwords to their children’s connected devices, said AVG. Forty-one percent have installed a parental block on the mobile devices, it said. Some 51 percent of parents said they check their child’s activity at least weekly and one in five monitored the activities less than once a month or not at all, said the survey. "The numbers suggest that many parents are not engaged in knowing what their children are really doing on their devices,” said Tony Anscombe, AVG senior security evangelist. The security company recommends parents have an ongoing discussion on the potential dangers of the Internet with their children and use parental features and other safety measures on the devices. It also encouraged parents to be sure devices are protected from malware. The survey was done online in the U.S. by Harris Poll Aug. 5-12 among 893 parents of children ages 3-17.

A startup company financed by NAB created an online engagement platform for mobile and Web content, NAB said in a news release Monday. The company, Antenna, was financed by NAB Labs, the technology division of NAB, and created tech that allows users to offer substantial feedback to online content -- “much more than just a ‘like’ or a ‘heart,’ said NAB Chief Technology Officer Sam Matheny. Fifty-five publishers are using the free Antenna platform, including Perez Hilton and Dlisted, said the association.

Apple and Cisco said they’re partnering to optimize Cisco enterprise networks for iOS devices and apps. To address the increasing demands on corporate infrastructure, Cisco networks and iOS devices will be optimized so that they work together more efficiently and reliably, the companies Monday said. Apple and Cisco also are working together to make iPhone “an even better business collaboration tool in Cisco voice and video environments, with the goal of providing employees with a seamless experience between iPhone and their desk phone,” they said. With Apple’s support, Cisco will deliver experiences specially optimized for iOS across mobile, cloud and premises-based collaboration tools such as Cisco Spark, Cisco Telepresence and Cisco WebEx, they said.

CEA CEO Gary Shapiro and Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International CEO Brian Wynne released a joint statement Thursday opposing passage of California SB-142, which they said would restrict the flight of unmanned aerial systems, including drones. Shapiro and Wynne said the bill is an “unnecessary, innovation-stifling and job-killing proposal.” Privacy issues should be addressed, they said. But SB-142 would “open the door to a new class of frivolous lawsuits in California and create inconsistencies with federal law,” they said.

“Strong end-user privacy and security controls, such as device encryption and firmware passwords, not only protect personal information from unwanted access -- they can also make it easier to recover lost or stolen devices,” wrote FTC Chief Technologist Ashkan Soltani in a blog post Thursday. Soltani said that during a family trip to the West Coast last month, his personal laptop was stolen from a rental car. “I backup regularly and always enable disk encryption” to protect the information stored on the hard-disk from “unwanted access” with the exception of that by very sophisticated adversaries, he said. “I had also set a firmware password, which is an end-user control that essentially prevents the machine from being booted up or reset without knowing the password.” A few weeks later, he received an email from Apple reminding him of an upcoming visit to an Apple tech at an Apple Genius Bar and realized the thief likely needed help unlocking the computer. He notified law enforcement and Apple. Soltani received a call from Apple notifying him it was working with law enforcement to return the computer to him. The moral of the story is “strong end-user controls like device encryption and firmware passwords not only protect sensitive info stored on the device, they also prevent criminals from utilizing stolen property,” Soltani said. “The more devices feature strong end-user controls, the less likely thieves can profit from their theft on the open market.”

Licensing of specs has been launched, albeit two months late, on the Vidity platform for the delivery and "locally stored playback" of Ultra HD, HD and standard-def movies across multiple devices, the Secure Content Storage Association said Wednesday. Licensing of the specs was to have begun in June for the commercialization of compliant devices and content that will bear the Vidity logo, SCSA said in late May (see 1505200049). Unlike other services, Vidity doesn’t require users to log into accounts or connect to the Internet for playback, SCSA said. “Compliant products will offer consumers the freedom and flexibility to store, copy, play and share downloaded digital files on a wide range of devices, such as laptop computers, mobile phones and tablets.” Vidity “delivers the highest quality digital entertainment experience in the marketplace today” through its Ultra HD and high dynamic range support, SCSA said, though backers of Ultra HD Blu-ray would argue that Ultra HD Blu-ray may give SCSA's claim a run for its money when it’s introduced later this year. Fox Home Entertainment, SanDisk, Warner Home Entertainment and Western Digital are founding members of SCSA, whose website now lists 40 contributing members.

The woes about pay-TV subscriber losses are overblown, since over-the-top (OTT) competition isn't providing a good alternative, TDG Research analyst Alan Wolk said in a blog post Thursday. "Unless you’re an infrequent TV viewer, the cord-free experience quite frankly sucks" and the growth of OTT services "seems to have exacerbated the problem rather than ameliorated it," Wolk said. Pay-TV market research firms have pointed out in recent days the declining numbers of multichannel video programming distributor customers reported in Q2 (see 1508200024). While the 13 largest MVPDs lost about 500,000 subscribers, the top nine -- which have close to 90 percent of the cable pay-TV customer base -- had about half the customer losses they had in Q2 2014, while Q2 2015 saw the smallest Q2 losses since 2008, Wolk said. Meanwhile, an OTT system that's as robust as a cable package isn't much cheaper, and adding on streaming services, kids-and-sports programming and a premium subscription service like HBO or Showtime results in a package that "may well be as expensive [as]the one you were getting from Comcast," Wolk said. An OTT-centric experience also is more cumbersome because "going from app to app may work on your phone, [but] it’s not a particularly expedient way to watch television," Wolk said. But he said "pay-TV’s current advantages may not last forever. While a cloud-based universal program guide for OTT may still just be a pipe dream, it’s not in the same league as flying cars" and a good customer experience with better features could be a selling point for an OTT system even if it has fewer channels, he said. While OTT resellers that bundle various services together could emerge, "We're not likely to see a massive exodus anytime soon" from pay-TV, Wolk said.

The Q2 drop in pay-TV subscribers was the biggest it ever tracked, Strategy Analytics said Thursday in a report. But average revenue per user continues its long climb, Strategy Analytics said, with Time Warner Cable APRUs up 1.4 percent year over year, Dish Network up 4.5 percent, Charter Communications up 4.6 percent and DirecTV up 6.5 percent; AT&T now owns DirecTV. The top 20 pay-TV operators in the U.S. combined lost 479,000 subscribers, while Canada lost 53,000. Despite the subscriber losses, "there are clear opportunities for the pay TV providers as they begin to roll out over-the-top video services" like Dish's Sling TV, said Jason Blackwell, director of Strategy Analytics' service providers strategies, in a statement. CenturyLink, Comcast and Verizon are debuting over-the-top services this year, and AT&T seems likely to do so, having acquired DirecTV, Blackwell said. Earlier this week, Leichtman Research Group said that the cable industry's Q2 broadband subscriber gains mainly came at telco ISPs' expense (see 1508180028).

Iris by Lowe’s joined the AllSeen Alliance “to bring a more diverse and useful set of solutions and products to consumers,” said Mick Koster, Lowe's general manager-Iris Home Systems. Lowe’s participation in the alliance will allow it to deliver “better value and ultimately offer consumers the best possible technology and breadth of products for their home,” Koster said. Radialpoint, a technical support services provider, also joined AllSeen, along with CESI Technology, the Continental Automated Buildings Association, Energy Mashup Lab and ULE Alliance. The AllSeen Alliance also announced keynoters and the full program for its second annual AllSeen Alliance Summit to be held Oct. 19-21 in Seattle. Some 600 attendees are expected to attend the summit, which will include business and technical sessions and hands-on workshops to encourage collaboration on AllJoyn technologies in the areas of smart home, connected lighting, cloud connectivity, application development and developer tools, said the AllSeen Alliance.