The U.S. machine-to-machine (M2M) market is 10 percent of all mobile connections in the automotive and utilities sectors, a GSMA report said (http://bit.ly/1sV4bsb). The U.S. had 35 million connections, or 19 percent of all global M2M connections at the end of 2013, GSMA said in a news release Monday (http://bit.ly/1v04KEw). The U.S. is expected to reach 41 million connections this year, it said, driven by advances in the automotive, utilities, and oil and gas sectors. The U.S. M2M market is still in its early stages of development and needs to address significant challenges to fulfill its potential, GSMA said. The market lacks standardization, and there is little cooperation between the private and public sectors in many parts of the M2M economy, it said.
Google is pulling its financial support from the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) because of the group’s denial of climate change, Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt said during a Monday interview on NPR’s The Diane Rehm Show (http://bit.ly/1mpFfMD). “The facts of climate change are not in question anymore,” he said. “Everyone understands climate change is occurring and the people who oppose it are really hurting our children and our grandchildren and making the world a much worse place. And so we should not be aligned with such people -- they're just, they're just literally lying.” Google shareholders had previously voted down a measure to disclose more information about Google’s funding for groups such as ALEC, which advocate for issues Google doesn’t actively support (WID May 16 p11). In a statement, Forecast the Facts, which advocates for the existence of climate change, said, “We hope Google will also take this opportunity review its over $699,000 in contributions since 2008 to another group that is ‘just literally lying’ -- climate change deniers in Congress."
Iridium said it will provide global emergency tracking technology to the aviation community for free. Through its subsidiary Aireon, Iridium will offer the Aireon aircraft locating and emergency response tracking (ALERT) service, letting rescue agencies request the location and last flight track of aircraft flying in airspace currently without surveillance, Aireon said in a news release Sunday (http://bit.ly/1mCF9RX). The service will work with aircraft equipped with 1090 MHz automatic dependent surveillance broadcast (ADS-B) receivers, it said. ALERT will be available after the Aireon air traffic monitoring system is fully deployed, it said. Iridium plans to launch the first payloads in that system next year.
An FCC webinar on how applicants for rural broadband experiment funding should fill out Form 5610 will take place Sept. 29 at 2 p.m., said the Wireline Bureau in a public notice (http://bit.ly/1odsujG) in Monday’s Daily Digest. More information on the webinar is forthcoming, the PN said. It said the form requires applicants to provide identifying information and attach proposed project bids.
ICANN opened a public comment period on Neustar’s request (http://bit.ly/1v0d86Z) to allow the registration for all country and territory names for its .neustar domain, said an ICANN news release Friday (http://bit.ly/1Dtsx4I). “Registry Operators are required to reserve the country and territory names, but may propose their release, subject to review by the Governmental Advisory Committee and approval by ICANN.” Comments are due Oct. 10, replies Nov. 8.
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."
FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler was right to highlight in a recent speech (WID Sept 5 p3) the harm of a lack of competition in the last mile, Comptel said in a letter to the agency calling for “expeditious” action on special access reform. “Unjust and unreasonable terms and conditions” imposed by incumbent LECs “effectively lock-up competitors, preclude them from using facilities/services of other carriers (to the extent such an alternative exists) and disincentivize them from building their own facilities,” said Comptel’s Sept. 10 ex parte filing posted Monday in docket 05-25 (http://bit.ly/1mpmVD7). It said the lock-up plans “have impeded competition in the multi-billion dollar special access market and undermined investment in broadband networks, contrary to the Chairman’s and Commission’s goals of increasing consumer choice."
White House Cybersecurity Coordinator Michael Daniel urged the private sector Friday to “work as a community to strengthen our collective defenses to make it harder for those who wish to cause harm.” That collaboration includes differentiating between what the government can do and what the private sector can do to strengthen cybersecurity, he said in a blog post. That differentiation will help both sectors determine how to respond to cyberattacks and “from that understanding would flow the information requirements to take those actions, and it would define who needs to provide what kind of information to whom on what timeline,” Daniel said. The private sector can also collaborate with the Department of Homeland Security to build better networks “that can adapt rapidly based on the threat we jointly face,” he said. Daniel also encouraged the private sector to file comments with the National Institute of Standards and Technology on its use of the Cybersecurity Framework. Comments are due Oct. 10 (http://1.usa.gov/1C6cQyN).
Greenpeace is accepting bitcoin donations via BitPay, said a BitPay news release Monday (http://bit.ly/1wFXrlE). Greenpeace doesn’t accept money from governments or corporations and relies mostly on individual donations for financial support, said Ben Kroetz, Greenpeace online strategy director-USA. The move to bitcoin should increase such donations, he said. BitPay has partnered with electronics e-retailer Newegg (WID July 2 p14), Warner Bros. Records (WID June 12 p16) and others. BitPay raised $30 million in May (WID May 14 p14).
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. The latter event ran this weekend 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, and the New York version 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, and then creators buy “shells” online to give the robot personality, look and feel, Trossen said. “Everybody’s going to want to do something different.” Some will want an interactive robot, some will care about the face and arms and some will want to mount sensors, he said.