MediaTek launched MediaTek Labs, a global initiative that allows developers “of any background or skill level” to create wearables and Internet of Things devices, the chip maker said Monday (http://bit.ly/1wGFNhL). Its launch will open up “a new world of possibilities for everyone -- from hobbyists and students through to professional developers and designers -- to unleash their creativity and innovation,” the company said. “We believe that the innovation enabled by MediaTek Labs will drive the next wave of consumer gadgets and apps that will connect billions of things and people around the world."

Though details “are not yet clear" for President Barack Obama’s forthcoming executive order on privacy concerns about commercial drones, it’s expected to “task” the NTIA with convening a multistakeholder process to develop privacy guidelines, “likely either in the form of best practices or a voluntary code of conduct,” said Wiley Rein lawyers Kathleen Kirby and Ari Meltzer in a blog post Friday (http://bit.ly/1poKN4V). “Best practices generally are not enforceable,” they said. “A voluntary code of conduct, however, is legally enforceable against companies that affirmatively commit to follow it. While the decision to adopt a code of conduct is voluntary, a public pledge to follow the code generally would amount to a representation enforceable by the FTC under its consumer protection authority.” There are incentives to adopting voluntary codes of conduct, as NTIA has done in its previous proceedings, they said. “Companies build consumer trust by engaging with consumers and other stakeholders in multi-stakeholder processes and by adopting privacy codes of conduct developed during those discussions,” they said. “Enforceable codes of conduct provide the public clear, understandable baseline protections and offer businesses greater certainty about how agreed upon privacy principles apply to them. Indeed, in any enforcement action based on conduct covered by a code, the FTC likely would consider a company’s adherence to such a code favorably. In the absence of a generally agreed upon code of conduct, the FTC could enforce privacy guidelines on a case-by-case basis, with less predictability and thus greater risk for businesses."

"Europe needs to reform and forge a true digital single market,” said Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt in an essay published on the European Commission’s website (http://bit.ly/1ylRKhy). If Europe establishes a digital single market, “the macroeconomic benefits would be enormous,” he said. Citing European Policy Centre research (http://www.epc.eu/dsm/1/), Schmidt said a single digital market in Europe could raise EU GDP by at least 4 percent by 2020, generating 250 billion euros of “additional growth.” But European companies have lagged in technology adoption, partially due to hesitancy about obtaining individual licenses to operate in each of the 28 EU countries, he said. “If regulatory barriers are removed, startups could directly access half a billion European consumers, a market that’s larger than the US, where technology companies have the ability to achieve scale before they expand internationally.” The essay was posted on the site for Neelie Kroes, a European commissioner and head of the EC’s digital agenda. Kroes has made a single digital market a top priority of her tenure, but Google has faced ongoing pushback from EU antitrust officials.

"Essentially all” audio features of the current Blu-ray format “will be rolled over into the new extended UHD format,” Ron Martin, vice president of the Content Solutions Center at Panasonic Hollywood Lab, told us Friday in an email. “Although not formally included in the format, it includes the capability to accommodate any specific proprietary solutions,” just as the current Blu-ray format does, said Martin, a technical spokesman for Blu-ray Disc Association. For audio, current Blu-ray players are required to implement Dolby Digital, DTS and linear PCM, but may optionally implement Dolby Digital Plus and DTS-HD High Resolution Audio, plus lossless formats Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio. The BDA’s current target is to have licensing documents ready for the new format by spring or summer 2015, which would let companies introduce products commercially in time for 2015 holiday selling season, the group has said (CED Sept 17 p1).

A robot based on a $1,600 do-it-yourself kit, a Braille printer, 3D printed shoes and clothes, and a smart construction helmet were some of the Intel-powered projects demoed at a private pop-up Maker Faire Friday in New York before World Maker Faire New York, running Sept. 20-21 in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park in Queens, New York, site of the 1964-65 World’s Fair. Maker Faire is one of 100 such shows around the world, with the New York version alone expected to draw 80,000-90,000 attendees. Intel CEO Brian Krzanich said the company’s goal with a Maker Faire sponsorship “is to provide the tech tools” that allow makers to create or invent fun or useful products that could be commercialized down the road. Matt Trossen, CEO of Trossen Robotics, showed a commercialized product, the Endoskeleton, which will begin shipping in January. The goal of the kit is to lower the bar of entry for robotics, Trossen said. Building a robot requires mechanical and electronics engineering, along with computer science and software programming skills. Trossen aims to have that “low-level” work done so developers can work on robotics at a high level. Intel’s Edison chip provides the processing power, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth integration that “allows us to take care of all of the plumbing underneath” so people can program on tablets, PCs and smartphones and then write “high-level” languages, he said. Kit owners could be running “and programming life into a robot in a matter of weeks rather than a year,” he said. Creating a robot typically takes a year to figure out how to control servos and other aspects of robotics when many developers “just want to create life and do fun stuff,” he said. The kit brings the price of creating a robot to levels never reached before, Trossen said, and then creators buy “shells” online to give the robot personality, look and feel. “Everybody’s going to want to do something different,” he said. Some will want an interactive robot, some will care about the face and arms and some will want to mount sensors, he said.

Six years ago, when Qualcomm collaborated with Google on the first Android smartphones, “I remember people telling us, ‘This will never be successful,'” Qualcomm CEO Steve Mollenkopf said Thursday in a keynote webcast on the Qualcomm website (http://bit.ly/1wwRXcX) from his company’s Uplinq 2014 developers conference in San Francisco. Fast forward to 2014, Mollenkopf said, and more than a billion smartphones cumulatively have been shipped with Qualcomm Snapdragon processors built in. “So it’s really been an incredible, incredible thing, and it’s just the beginning,” he said. “If you look at the scale of what we're working on today, last year, calendar year 2013, we shipped a little bit shy of 750 million chipsets. That’s more than twice the number of worldwide PCs. It’s incredible scale that happens in mobile.” Qualcomm estimates there are more that 1,350 models of Snapdragon-equipped devices announced or commercially available throughout the world, Mollenkopf said. “But what we're excited about is that scale is actually going to go into a number of adjacent markets and adjacent categories. We look at every area of consumer electronics, and it’s leveraging all the scale and technology that we're developing and others are developing in mobile.” For example, Qualcomm views tablets as “a scaled-up smartphone,” Mollenkopf said. “They use the same ecosystems. It’s not a secret as to why they use the same chipsets and the same technology.” As for computing, it’s “definitely about mobile computing today,” and “it’s going to be about wearable computing and pervasive computing in the future,” he said. In cars, they're “really all about trying to get connected now,” he said. “You have people that are trying to decide when to buy their car based on what type of modem is actually going to be included in the car. It’s incredible.” If one looks at the Internet today, “the really interesting things” are no longer happening “on your desk,” he said. They're happening “in your pocket through the phone, and where they're really going is that all these different devices are going to be connected together.” Qualcomm predicts that more than 8 billion new smartphones will ship globally in the next five years, he said. “And in the developed world, many of those smartphones are going to be connected to a sea of many other devices, and those devices are not only going to be connected to the smartphone, but connected to each other.” As a result, Qualcomm sees “an enormous amount of innovation and experimentation that comes [into] play when people start to innovate at the edge of the network,” he said.

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., suspects his trio of wireless proposals will be on hold for the short term, as November midterm elections approach. He introduced two bills this year dealing with such issues -- one on reallocation of spectrum (S-2473) and one on spectrum sharing in the upper 5 GHz band (S-2505). He has indicated interest in introducing a third bill that would kill infrastructure barriers for carriers, whether at the level of state and local regulation or federal agency delays. He alluded to new leadership of the Commerce Committee depending on the outcome of the November midterm elections, widely expected to be either Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., or current ranking member John Thune, R-S.D. “My hope is realistically, it’s probably going to have to be something we tackle in the new Congress, in the new Commerce Committee, with either Sen. Nelson or Thune as the chair,” Rubio told us at the Capitol Thursday. “I've been working with them, trying to talk to them a little bit, getting them excited about it.” The Wireless Innovation Act (S-2473) has no co-sponsors, and the Wi-Fi Innovation Act (S-2505) has one co-sponsor: Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J. “I'm still looking for a Democratic partner to work with me for all the pieces I've got,” Rubio said.

Both chambers of Congress have now approved the E-Label Act, which has received industry praise. The Senate unanimously approved S-2583 Thursday before breaking for recess. It had cleared the Commerce Committee the day before and the House approved a companion bill in July. It would let manufacturers display electronic approval labeling digitally rather than physically on a device.

LCD TV panel makers this month have been increasing prices on sizes that are in tight supply, particularly 32-, 40- 48- and 50-inch screen sizes, DisplaySearch said Friday in its “PriceWise” spreadsheet panel shipment update (http://bit.ly/1BUBwtW). Larger sizes like 55-inch also “are in short supply for some top brands,” it said. “Some leading TV brands are aggressively pursuing market share by lowering prices, and this is putting pressure on TV profit margins industry-wide. That pressure is expected to get even tougher during the upcoming promotional season, so TV makers are negotiating prices that are flat or only slightly higher.” The traditional peak in TV panel production August-October “has caused most TV makers, in particular the Korean brands and Chinese makers, to refill panel inventory,” it said. “The top Korean brands are aggressively building up production and demanding panel allocations. As a result, the panel supply constraint has become a continual issue for other TV makers.” As for smartphone displays, September demand has been increasing in preparation for the holiday selling season, “but not as strong as expected,” DisplaySearch said. “Orders for the developing regions improved, but there is more focus on displays with lower specifications, like those for feature phones,” it said. “In China’s domestic market, the end of smartphone set subsidies by telecom carriers is still having a major impact” by suppressing demand, it said. Moreover, “uncertainty surrounding when Apple will launch iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 plus in China may have an impact on open market demand in October,” it said. In tablets, “most brands are aggressively pushing” tablet panel shipments “to meet the schedule for upcoming holiday promotional sales in Q4,” DisplaySearch said. “White-box makers are planning to refill inventory for Q4 promotions,” but chipset supplies remain tight “due to rising demand for larger-size smartphones,” it said. Tablet panel prices “will trend downward due to lower specifications” from the higher mix of lower-priced, entry-level products, “but they will become more stable than before,” it said.

The Internet Association released a video Wednesday featuring House Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., with whom the group has disagreed on net neutrality. “We have a lot to showcase in that the Internet allows access to the market that’s frankly worldwide,” Upton said in the video, which also showed business leaders from a small business walking tour in Michigan (http://bit.ly/1uL6lxY). “These businesses may not be in business without the Internet. You don’t need to regulate the Internet -- it’s not a problem as long as it’s not regulated,” Upton says on the video.