The Telecommunications Industry Association told Congress that telehealth should be a covered benefit. TIA had joined other groups, including the American Telemedicine Association, the App Association, Intel, Panasonic and Qualcomm, to submit a letter Friday to the House Commerce Committee on its 21st Century Cures initiative. “Congress has the responsibility to take necessary steps to help Americans realize the benefits of these solutions,” they said (http://bit.ly/1wREE73). “Congress should immediately address restrictions in Section 1834(m) of the Social Security Act, which have resulted in arduous constraints on telehealth services, particularly via its geographic and originating site limitations. Restrictions in the law such as those in 1834(m) significantly limit patient access to new technologies, effectively discouraging providers from utilizing advanced [information and communication technology] ICT solutions in their practices and depriving millions of Americans the benefits of cutting-edge care available today.” They submitted other recommendations and said lawmakers should request a Congressional Budget Office study of “the costs and benefits associated with the expanded use of telehealth during 4Q 2014.”
DisplaySearch estimated the flexible AMOLED display in the Apple Watch costs several times more to make than equivalently sized LCD displays, and more than the more-established glass-based AMOLEDs currently used in smartphones, the company said Monday (http://bit.ly/1rycJZz). DisplaySearch estimates it costs $7.86 to produce the display for the Apple Watch, which is believed to use a 1.5-inch-diagonal AMOLED fabricated on a plastic substrate, protected by a proprietary thin and flexible solid-phase plastic seal. The touch panel interface, cover lens and other items add $19.55 to the total, DisplaySearch said. Accounting for the panel yield rate and other manufacturing costs, the total display system costs are estimated to be $27.41, it said. “Although production costs are higher, the benefits of adopting a plastic AMOLED panel include a display module that is approximately 65 percent thinner and lighter than an LCD display and 50 percent thinner and lighter than a conventional AMOLED display.” The display system’s total cost “is highly dependent on yield rates throughout the manufacturing and assembly process,” it said. “Producing high-resolution flexible AMOLED displays is challenging, due to the additional process steps required to coat the flexible substrate on a carrier glass, as well as encapsulation, and laser-lift off, which also further complicate the module manufacturing process. While current costs for the flexible AMOLED display are high, costs are forecast to continuously decline, due in large part to improving yield rates.” Apple’s choice of a plastic AMOLED as the display medium for its Watch “reflects not only its strategy of emphasizing quality, but also suggests increasing confidence in flexible displays as an enabling technology for wearable computers,” it said. The smart watch craze “is expected to spur tremendous growth in OLED display shipments this year,” DisplaySearch said. It forecasts that worldwide OLED smart watch display shipments will exceed 11 million units in 2014, for a year-over-year increase of 450 percent. Shipments of AMOLED panels for the Apple Watch alone are expected to reach 8 million units this year, as Apple builds up inventory for the 2015 launch, it said.
The U.S. Department of Labor gave Virginia State University a $3.25 million grant to help develop a training program for the wireless workforce of the future, with $750,000 set aside for PCIA to help create “nationally recognized competencies and credentials in the field of wireless infrastructure deployment,” PCIA said Monday in a news release. The grant will help VSU, an historically black university, “strengthen a new program aimed at building a network of colleges to train students for high-wage, high-skilled careers in wireless infrastructure,” PCIA said (http://bit.ly/10fxY8i). The grant runs through 2018, PCIA said. The department announced $450 million worth of “job-driven training grants” Monday, including the award to VSU (http://1.usa.gov/1qOZGhd).
Parties to the Information Technology Agreement should come together in the coming weeks to broker an expansion deal before the November Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in Beijing, said associations in a Sunday statement (http://bit.ly/1pCRhwU). Groups including CEA, the CompTIA, Consumer Electronics Retailers Coalition, DigitalEurope and Entertainment Software Association said the expansion deal would eliminate tariffs on more IT products, and “help restore confidence” in the World Trade Organization, following the recent collapse of the Trade Facilitation Agreement. The U.S. and China are two of the 70 nations involved in the expansion talks, but each side blames the other for not putting appropriate concessions on the table. “For the past several years, APEC leaders have repeatedly called for swift conclusion of a balanced and commercially significant outcome to these negotiations,” said the statement. “Product expansion of the ITA, as well as expansion of geographic scope of the agreement would yield immediate and substantial benefits, removing tariffs on a vast array of tech products.” Despite many IT industry developments in recent years, the ITA hasn’t broadened its list of duty-exempt products since its launch in 1996. U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman has called for the expansion talks to wrap up by November. The location of the APEC meeting may help break the U.S.-China deadlock, said John Neuffer, senior vice president-global policy at the Information Technology Industry Council, in a blog post Sunday (http://bit.ly/10fsbiV). “As host to APEC this year, China will likely want to trumpet noteworthy trade deliverables when the leaders meet in Beijing this November,” said Neuffer. “And China should want to reaffirm its support for the WTO. ITA expansion stands out as the most likely -- and most significant -- among the potential trade deliverables.” CEA President Gary Shapiro said in a statement Monday that 82 signatories globally, representing tens of thousands of businesses, “are rallying together to support trade negotiators from all member economies in the ITA.” It marks an “opportunity now to come together, bridge gaps and finalize this negotiation so that a huge win may be announced in Beijing at the November APEC Leader’s meeting,” Shapiro said. The ITA hasn’t been updated since its creation 16 years ago, CEA said. An expanded ITA “could remove tariffs on an estimated additional $800 billion in information and communication technology trade globally,” it said.
A one-stop-shop HEVC Portfolio License covering essential High-Efficiency Video Coding patents owned by 23 companies and entities is now available from MPEG LA, the consortium said Monday. “The market is ready for an HEVC License,” MPEG LA CEO Larry Horn said in a statement (http://bit.ly/1vq4gH8). MPEG LA’s objective “is to provide worldwide access to as much HEVC essential intellectual property as possible,” it said. “Therefore, MPEG LA welcomes any party that believes it has patents that are essential to the HEVC standard to submit them for an evaluation of their essentiality by MPEG LA’s patent experts and inclusion in the License if determined to be essential.” The license is royalty-free for a licensee that ships under 100,000 units HEVC-compliant products annually, said an MPEG LA license summary (http://bit.ly/YD51lm). A royalty of 20 cents per unit is assessed at volumes over 100,000, the summary said. The annual royalty cap is $25 million for “present coverage during the first License Term,” which runs through the end of 2020, it said. The license is renewable for successive five-year periods “for the life of any Portfolio patent on reasonable terms and conditions,” it said. Royalty rates or annual caps won’t increase by more than 20 percent at each five-year renewal, it said.
The New York Public Service Commission (PSC) should consider, in its review of Comcast’s planned buy of Time Warner Cable, whether the cable companies adequately serve the state’s Jewish community, said 15 Democratic members of the New York Legislature in a letter posted Monday. The two senators and 13 assembly members said they believe the companies have underserved the Jewish community because they provide The Jewish Channel, a New York-based Jewish news and public affairs cable channel, only on an a la carte basis. Comcast/TWC would represent “at least 75 percent of Jewish households, and perhaps as many as 90 percent or more” in the U.S., the legislators said. “We are concerned that allowing a single cable television provider to represent so much of the Jewish community would allow it to be unresponsive to the community’s needs, as it would face little competition from other providers” (http://bit.ly/10f2YVZ). A Comcast spokeswoman disputed the legislators’ claims, noting in part that post-merger “we'll reach a much smaller percentage of Jewish homes across the country than DirecTV or Dish do -- they reach almost 100 percent of Jewish homes.” The companies agreed to let the PSC delay its ruling on Comcast/TWC until the commission’s Nov. 13 meeting. The PSC will issue a final order based on that ruling by Nov. 19 under that agreement, Comcast and TWC said Friday (http://bit.ly/1uW4GV6). The PSC launched its review of Comcast/TWC in May and had originally anticipated it would take about four months to complete. The PSC review is being viewed as more stringent than most states’ reviews and is seen more likely to produce stronger public interest conditions (WID Aug 14 p2).
Movie theater subscription service MoviePass raised $2.2 million in a funding round, a company news release said Friday. The financing round was led by Chris Kelly, former Facebook chief privacy officer, and Structure Capital, it said. MoviePass members pay a monthly fee to see movies at partner movie theaters, which have increased their attendance by 60 percent, it said.
Intel will invest up to $1.5 billion for 20 percent ownership ofthe Chinese holding company Tsinghua Unigroup to expand the adoption of Intel-based mobile devices in China, Intel said Thursday (http://intel.ly/1okrHNU). Tsinghua Unigroup owns Spreadtrum Communications and RDA Microelectronics, Chinese fabless semiconductor makers that produce mobile chipsets for smartphones and other CE products, Intel said. “China is now the largest consumption market for smartphones and has the largest number of Internet users in the world,” said Intel CEO Brian Krzanich in a news release. The partnership with Tsinghua Unigroup will “enhance our ability to support a wider range of mobile customers in China and the rest of the world by more quickly delivering a broader portfolio of Intel architecture and communications technology solutions,” he said. To begin, Intel and Spreadtrum will jointly create a line of Intel-based system-on-chips for smartphones that both companies will sell starting in 2015’s second half, Intel said.
FBI Director James Comey is frustrated with Apple and Google over security measures meant to bar law enforcement access to data even with a court order, according to comments made to reporters and later confirmed by a bureau spokesperson. The FBI is meeting with the two companies to discuss the issue, Comey said. “What concerns me about this is companies marketing something expressly to allow people to hold themselves beyond the law.” Apple and Google have been public about increased encryption measures they added since revelations about government surveillance programs. Apple also promoted a feature on its recent iOS 8 update that makes the company unable to comply with government requests to turn over user data (WID Sept 19 p9). Apple and Google did not comment.
After finding that about half of the roughly 180,000 Connect America Fund, Phase II challenges filed with the FCC were without merit, the Wireline Bureau in a public notice (http://bit.ly/1BhCtul) Friday sought comments on the remaining tens of thousands of challenges over whether Census blocks should be eligible for Connect America Fund, Phase II funds. Responses to the challenges are due in docket 10-90 by Nov. 10. Of the 42,520 challenges that Census blocks deemed unserved by a broadband provider should really be considered served and not be eligible for funding, the bureau said only 24,225 of them made a prima facie case for further consideration, according to FCC figures. Of 135,815 challenges saying an area considered served should be considered unserved and eligible for funds, the bureau found 70,868 met a prima facie standard, the figures said. The challenges were seen as a high-stakes battle in which companies were trying to protect their own turf from competitors, or to be able to tap into the $9 billion pot to move into other areas.