Starz Play was launched on Amazon Fire TV, including Fire TV Stick, said the cable programmer in a news release Friday. The app allows Fire TV users to stream TV shows and movies shown on the Starz network. Starz Play subscribers can also view a live stream of the premium channel on any Mac or PC, said Starz.

Consumers ages 18-35 will account for 65 percent of all over-the-top (OTT) video viewing in Latin America by 2025, said research released Wednesday by The Diffusion Group. It forecast that by the same year, OTT will make up 25 percent of all video viewed in Latin America, creating $8 billion in revenue annually.

The New York Audio Show is moving to the suburbs. New York Audio Show 15 will be at the Hilton Westchester, Rye Brook, New York, Nov. 6-8. Chester Group show organizers said the new location will make it easier for people from surrounding suburbs to attend; the venue can accommodate more events including seminars, guest speakers and live music; the show will have “sustainability” of tenure and data; and accommodation prices ($159 per night) are substantially lower than those in Manhattan. Rye is a 40-minute ride by commuter train to Manhattan. Demographics also played a role, said Chester.

CEA issued a call for speakers for the 2016 CES Jan. 6-9 in Las Vegas. Speaker proposals will be accepted through June 30, it said. Information, including titles and descriptions of eligible sessions and the speaker submission form, is available online. CEA expects more than 3,600 exhibitors and 165,000 attendees at next year’s show, which spokeswoman Allison Fried told us will be called 2016 CES rather than International CES. With the advent of CES Asia in Shanghai, CEA has decided to call the two trade shows CES and CES Asia, said Fried. The "international" has been dropped "to simplify the event name," she said, saying with some 45,000 attendees from outside of the U.S. coming to CES in Las Vegas, "we feel that the international aspect speaks for itself." CEA announced last month (see 1505130030) it will cap attendance at 176,000 by instituting $100 registration fees and tightening qualification procedures.

ProSource added 29 custom integrator dealers to its roster, including five Power CI members with minimum annual sales $4 million and 24 custom integrators producing $1 million or more annual revenue, it said Thursday. The five Power CI dealers are Acadian Custom Installations, Baton Rouge; BlueSpeed Audio Video, Tulsa; HomePro, Dallas; Maxicon, Miami; and Smart Systems Technologies, Irvine, California. The 24 custom integrators are Ahead Stereo, Los Angeles; Atlanta Home Theater, Atlantic Home Entertainment & Stereo, Costa Mesa, California; Audio Video Specialists, Ho-ho-kus, New Jersey; AV Performance Innovations, Peoria; Big Fish Automation, Draper, Utah; Carey’s Electronics, Spencer, Iowa; Custom Cinema and Sound, Fargo, North Dakota; Custom Electronics, Omaha; DeVance Electronic Lifestyle, Carrollton, Texas; Electronic Concepts, Rochelle Park, New Jersey; Eric Grundelman’s Cool AV, Mesquite, Texas; GreenLight Systems, Bismarck, North Dakota; Homedia Solutions, Shawnee, Kansas; Horner Networks, Mentor, Ohio; Media Design, Houston; Millennium Systems Design, Orlando; Moore Audio Design, Matthews, North Carolina; Precision Cellular & Sound, Stevens Point, Wisconsin; Prestige Audio Video, Saturday Audio Exchange, Chicago; Smarthomes Chattanooga; Stereo & Video Center, Tyler, Texas; and Whole House Audio & Video.

NAB Show organizers hired an independent research firm, Exhibit Surveys, of Red Bank, New Jersey, to verify attendance at the 2015 event by asking showgoers to self-certify in a one-question “yes” or “no” email questionnaire whether they actually made the trip to Las Vegas. “Your response is extremely important for the accuracy of this project,” said the canvassing email. “Our records indicate that you registered for the 2015 NAB Show which was held April 11-16 in Las Vegas. Please click on the link below to confirm whether or not you attended and to verify your registration demographics. If any information is incorrect or missing, please select the appropriate response.” The “preliminary registered attendance” was 103,042 for the 2015 NAB Show, organizers said in an announcement April 14, the third day of the show. “All numbers are based on pre-show and onsite registration and subject to an ongoing audit,” organizers said then.

The FCC Media Bureau granted TiVo’s request for a temporary waiver of the agency’s home networking digital interface requirement for cable operators that use the company’s set-top boxes, said an order in Friday's Daily Digest on docket 97-80. The waiver expires June 1, 2017, and though Verizon and NCTA had asked for the waiver to be industrywide, it applies only to companies using TiVo boxes, the order said. TiVo had argued that its set-tops already meet the intent of the home networking requirement by allowing consumers to send video content throughout their homes.

An equal number of cellphones, batteries and Bluetooth earphones included in the same container shipment but not packaged for retail sale isn't classifiable as a "retail set," said Customs and Border Protection in an internal advice ruling. Samsung Telecommunications America, the importer, argued that the merchandise is covered within general rules of interpretation 3(b) that describes "mixtures, composite goods, and goods put up in sets for retail sale." CBP disagreed with Samsung and said the goods should be sold separately rather than as a set. The Port of Dallas took issue with a 2013 Samsung entry of an "equal number of mobile phone handsets, batteries, and Bluetooth wireless earphones, imported in the same container, but segregated in separate shipping boxes by kind and not packaged for retail sale." The port questioned Samsung's classification of the goods as retail set and requested the internal advice. CBP headquarters found that because the merchandise isn't imported in a condition suitable for sale directly to users without repacking, 3(b) doesn't apply. The ruling dated Jan. 15 was recently released. Samsung representatives didn’t comment.

Nearly 150 privacy and human rights organizations, technology companies, trade associations and individual security and policy experts sent a joint letter to the White House Tuesday, defending Americans’ right to use strong encryption to protect their data and opposing the mandatory “backdoor” idea that would allow the government to access encrypted data. The debate over encryption was sparked by Apple’s announcement that new iPhones would be encrypted by default, the groups said. In response to law enforcement and intelligence officials, including FBI Director James Comey, who say Congress should legislate government access to encrypted devices, the letter said strong encryption is the “cornerstone of the modern information economy’s security.” It “protects billions of people every day against countless threats -- be they street criminals trying to steal our phones and laptops, computer criminals trying to defraud us, corporate spies trying to obtain our companies’ most valuable trade secrets, repressive governments trying to stifle dissent, or foreign intelligence agencies trying to compromise our and our allies’ most sensitive national security secrets.” They urged President Barack Obama to “reject” any proposal that would require U.S. companies to deliberately weaken the security of their products and to “focus on developing policies that will promote rather than undermine the wide adoption of strong encryption technology." Adobe, Apple, the Center for Democracy & Technology, Cisco, CEA, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Facebook, Google, Hewlett-Packard, Internet Association, Microsoft and New America Foundation’s Open Technology Institute were among the signees. “The President has been letting his top intelligence and law enforcement officials criticize companies for making their devices more secure, and letting them suggest that Congress should pass anti-encryption, pro-backdoor legislation,” even though “encryption backdoors are bad for privacy, bad for security, bad for human rights, and bad for business,” New America’s Cybersecurity Initiative co-Director Kevin Bankston said in a news release. “Even the White House Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies has joined with most leading security experts to agree that strong encryption of data is necessary to protect against hacking and other computer fraud and abuse,” said Computer & Communications Industry Association President Ed Black in a news release.

FCC suspension of the non-Class A low-power DTV transition deadline took effect Friday, said an agency notice in that day's Federal Register. The deadline was Sept. 1 (see 1504270043), the Media Bureau noted. "Until a decision is reached in the rulemaking and the Commission can determine the effect of the future incentive auction and repacking, LPTV and TV translator stations may delay completing construction of their digital facilities." Class A's must transition by Sept. 1, the bureau said.