The National Institute of Standards and Technology's National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCOE) sought comment Wednesday on its draft cybersecurity practice guide for mobile device security. The draft guide notes how existing technologies can help companies improve security of sensitive data stored on employee-used mobile devices. The guide includes a “typical” IT scenario that “shows organizations how to configure a device so that it can be trusted, as well as how to remove the device from systems" if it's stolen or lost, or when an employee leaves a company, NIST said. The guide also includes instructions for installing and integrating security solutions into existing IT infrastructure. “Mobile devices extend or eliminate the notion of traditional organization boundaries, posing challenges that nearly all businesses regardless of sector or organization size” face, said NCCOE Deputy Director Nate Lesser in a news release. Comments on the draft guide are due Jan. 8, NIST said.

Lease-to-own chain Aaron’s in the past week began offering smartphones online and through about 80 percent of its 2,100 stores, President Steven Michaels said on an earnings call Friday. That's a reversal of the chain’s policy announced in July of putting off launching smartphones until 2016, Michaels conceded. “We believe in the smartphone category, as we did back in the summer when we announced our delay,” Michaels said. “Our customers are asking for these devices and it continues to be the category that gets searched most often on Aarons.com.” The chain wanted to address several “issues” before it felt “comfortable” jumping into the category, he said. For example, Aaron’s has partnered with a third-party service vendor to “ensure a proper wiping and refurbishment on the phones as they come back off of lease,” he said. “We've got a tight and narrow device lineup of current-generation phones that we feel good about. And we're going to be conservative in our inventory positions and continue to pay attention to the industry and make sure we're reacting and dunk it home.” Aaron’s plans to partner with a “national” wireless carrier in 2016, he said. But for now, customers who walk into Aaron’s stores can procure “unlocked GSM-capable devices,” he said. “We've asked the stores to partner with local stores to get the activation on from a prepaid standpoint, assist the customer in doing that,” he said. “We are talking to carrier partners, and we do think that activation is a key component of the program, and we do intend to have a second phase in 2016 via a national partner carrier and that will help provide us some additional margin through the activation and refill of the airtime.”

The FCC proposed to change hearing aid compatibility (HAC) rules for both wireline and wireless handsets. The commission in an NPRM released Friday proposed in the wireline arena to: (1) adopt an industry standard developed by the Telecommunications Industry Association that "appears likely" to help people with hearing loss select phones “with sufficient volume control to meet their communication needs and provide greater regulatory certainty for the industry”; and (2) apply the agency’s phone volume control and other HAC requirements “to handsets used for VoIP services, pursuant to the Twenty-First Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2010 (CVAA).” For wireless, the FCC sought comment on a proposal to set a standard for handset volume control “to ensure more effective acoustic coupling between handsets and hearing aids or cochlear implants.” The commission also proposed to require manufacturers to use exclusively a 2011 wireless standard developed by an American National Standards Institute (ANSI) committee “to certify future handsets as hearing aid compatible; and eliminate the power-down exception if manufacturers are required to test and rate handsets exclusively" under that standard. Finally, to implement a CVAA provision and simplify the process for achieving handset compliance with HAC requirements, the FCC sought comment “on a process for enabling industry to use new or revised technical standards for assessing hearing aid compatibility compliance, prior to Commission approval of such standards.” Commissioner Mike O’Rielly said he supported most of the notice but partially dissented due to concerns that FCC proposals to implement CVAA Section 701(c) on standard setting and HAC compliance “may lead to an overly expansive interpretation of the statute,” permit “inappropriate Commission intervention in the standards process” and allow “excessive delegation to Commission staff.”

The Competitive Carriers Association, CTIA and the Telecommunications Industry Association jointly proposed hearing aid compatibility (HAC) rules to the FCC as an alternative to a proposed requirement that all devices be HAC ready. “This proposal provides the wireless industry with the flexibility needed to overcome continuing design and other technical challenges, as well as access to handsets for smaller service providers,” the groups said in a Wednesday letter to the agency in docket 10-254. “The wireless industry has significant concerns about the proposal to require HAC of all wireless handsets offered by service providers and manufacturers.” Under the joint industry proposal, the FCC would require that 66 percent of handsets from Tier 1 carriers and manufacturers be HAC compliant. For smaller carriers, the requirement would be 66 percent or at least 10 models, under the proposal. The associations also said the FCC should require service providers to report on their devices on a biannual basis while maintaining manufacturer’s annual reporting requirements. The FCC also should encourage “continued dialogue between the wireless industry and advocates for people who use hearing aid devices about ways to improve education and awareness about the significant availability of HAC wireless handsets, and consider ways to address call clarity concerns and other usability issues for people with hearing loss, including collaboratively reassessing in five years whether these requirements continue to reflect market realities and address the needs of people who use hearing aid devices,” the groups said. In February, groups representing the deaf and hard of hearing said the HAC requirement should apply to all handsets offered by carriers (see 1502230045). The industry associations said they opened a discussion with the Hearing Loss Association of America: “While we recognize that HLAA has and will express support for the proposal to require HAC of all wireless handsets offered by service providers and manufacturers, the wireless industry will continue to seek a consensus-based proposal through an on-going dialogue with HLAA and other stakeholders.”

Motorola launched two Droid smartphones Tuesday with the bold claim that the screens are shatterproof due to a five-layer shield. The company is offering a four-year guarantee for the display and embedded lens. Scratches aren’t covered, according to the fine print, and the phone is “not shockproof or designed to withstand all damage from dropping,” it said. The Moto ShatterShield has a rigid aluminum core said to provide “structural integrity” and durability, and it’s topped with an AMOLED (active-matrix organic light-emitting diode) flexible display that allows the screen to flex during a drop rather than break, Motorola said. The dual touch-layer redundancy provides a backup touch layer if a drop causes the first touch layer not to function, it said. An interior lens provides a clear protective shield that won’t crack or shatter, Motorola said, and an exterior lens has a hard coat finish to protect the lens against normal wear and tear. Droid Turbo 2 has Motorola’s highest-resolution camera, a 21-megapixel sensor with a 5-megapixel front-facing camera, the company said. The Turbo 2 uses a Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 processor, has expandable microSD storage up to 2 TB and comes with new material options including soft grip, ballistic nylon or pebbled leather. Customers who buy by Dec. 31 can refresh their design once within two years for free, Motorola said. The Droid 2 Maxx is said to deliver 48 hours on a single charge and has a 15-minute turbo power charge mode that supplies power for up to eight hours' use, the company said. The camera has 21-megapixel resolution and storage is up to 128 GB via microSD card, Motorola said. Price for Droid Turbo 2: $26 per month for 24 months ($624 retail price) or $30 per month for 24 months ($720 list) with design refresh, the company said. Price for Droid Maxx 2: $16 per month for 24 months ($384 list).

The FCC said it will provide weekly data on consumer complaints about unwanted calls from telemarketers. The agency said the promise of a weekly release builds on its declaratory ruling clarifying its interpretation of the Telephone Consumers Protection Act approved at the June 18 meeting (see 1506180046). In June, the FCC “gave the green light for do-not-disturb technology, clarifying that there are no legal barriers to service providers offering robocall-blocking technologies to consumers,” the agency said in a Wednesday news release. “While such services are available today as apps on some smartphones and on VoIP phone systems, work is still underway for many carriers and third-party providers to offer consumers these tools on traditional landline networks.” The initial data dump lists basic information on 9,803 complaints made to the FCC about unwanted calls. “This data will help improve do-not-disturb technologies” so providers can offer “the best service for consumers,” said Alison Kutler, chief of the Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau.

HTC announced the HTC One A9 Tuesday that’s available for pre-order at its website for a $399 limited-time promotional price. The HTC One A9, running Android 6.0 from a Qualcomm Snapdragon 617 processor, has edge-to-edge 2.5D Corning Gorilla Glass 4, a Full HD AMOLED screen, a 13-megapixel camera with optical image stabilization and RAW capture mode, 24-bit/192-kHz audio and fingerprint authentication, the company said. HTC BoomSound, integrated into the headset, includes Dolby Audio surround processing, HTC said. The phone will be available unlocked and on the AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile networks in November, it said. Qualcomm Quick Charge 3.0 charging functionality is “coming soon,” HTC said.

Most Americans now use PINs or passwords to protect their smartphones, according to a survey by Harris Poll, paid for by CTIA. With the amount of personal data stored on phones increasing, Harris found that 61 percent of wireless consumers use PINs/passwords, up 20 percent from a survey in 2012. The survey also found that 40 percent installed anti-virus software on their smartphones, up 29 percent from the 2012 survey. The new survey also found that more than one-third of consumers installed locks and wipe apps, and 12 percent said they had lost devices in the past year. Almost 50 percent of those said they used a program to locate their phones and nearly 40 percent contacted their carriers. “These results demonstrate that the consumer education programs developed by the wireless industry and by individual companies are improving Americans’ cybersecurity behaviors,” said CTIA Vice President-Technology & Cybersecurity John Marinho. Harris did an online survey with more than 1,500 respondents.

AT&T said it will be the first carrier to sell the Kyocera DuraForce XD, a 5.7-inch phablet with military-grade durability and the first phablet in AT&T’s lineup of rugged devices. DuraForce XD supports Enhanced Push-to-Talk and was designed to withstand dust, water and drops of less than four feet, the carrier said. Pricing and availability will be announced in coming weeks, it said.

Overall consumer satisfaction with smartphones equipped with displays five inches and larger is “typically higher” than that for smaller smartphones, J.D. Power said in a Thursday report. Moreover, the gap in satisfaction between owners with larger smartphones and those with the smaller devices among all brands is 40 points, up from 32 points in a similar study done six months ago, the research firm said. Its study, now in its ninth year, measures customer satisfaction based on performance, features, physical design and ease of use, it said. "Satisfaction is clearly higher among owners of larger smartphones, based on a number of reasons surrounding the physical display size and latest technology capabilities," the firm said. "It's important for the wireless providers that offer these devices to realize that spending on new service rises when subscribers upgrade smartphones. Also, when customers are more satisfied with their smartphone selection, OEMs and carriers can benefit through increased customer loyalty and repurchase intent."