The Fish and Wildlife Service issued a public notice on Sept. 23 advising the trade community that it will no longer allow importers of seized merchandise to contest forfeiture both administratively through a petition for remission and in the courts through judicial forfeiture proceedings. Effective Oct. 7, the agency is amending the instructions on its Notice of Seizure and Proposed Forfeiture to remove language that suggested importers can pursue both remedies.
Sony Electronics in Park Ridge, New Jersey, and its Tokyo parent are jointly patenting technology for a TV, set-top box or DVR that suppresses broadcast or recorded TV commercials and claims to do so much more effectively than current systems. Sony’s system, described in U.S. application 2014/0064705 filed in November 2013, names Brant Candelore of San Diego as the inventor. “Most every business entity advertises to promote products or services, and often pays significant sums of money on such activities to broadcasters and service providers,” said the patent. But consumers “are generally less entertained by advertising,” it said. “To most, an advertisement is an unwanted pause in a program with generally increased volume, and therefore, a significant inconvenience.” Current ad suppression systems, which mute the sound, change the channel or turn the TV off during a commercial are “laborious and prone to error given that a user must guess as to when the commercial break will end,” said Sony. “Despite the ability to fast-forward through commercials, users must still deal with undershoot and overshoot problems.” Thus, despite the advantages of time-shifting over viewing in real-time, “commercial suppression in recorded content is still a manual and laborious task that is prone to error, thereby exacerbating the annoyance and inconvenience brought by commercials in the first place,” it said. Instead, the patented system relies on downloading and storing a library of templates of known commercials, the Sony document said. Downloading is automatic and ongoing, by Internet connection, and the templates contain both audio and video information on the ad’s content and duration, it said. The program being watched is continually compared with the stored templates, and when a match is found, the sound is automatically muted or playback fast-forwarded and the screen blanked until the template signals the end of the ad and switches the set back to normal viewing mode. Attempts to reach inventor Candelore were unsuccessful. Sony representatives didn’t immediately comment.
Sony Electronics in Park Ridge, New Jersey, and its Tokyo parent are jointly patenting technology for a TV, set-top box or DVR that suppresses broadcast or recorded TV commercials and claims to do so much more effectively than current systems. Sony’s system, described in U.S. application 2014/0064705 filed in November 2013, names Brant Candelore of San Diego as the inventor. “Most every business entity advertises to promote products or services, and often pays significant sums of money on such activities to broadcasters and service providers,” said the patent. But consumers “are generally less entertained by advertising,” it said. “To most, an advertisement is an unwanted pause in a program with generally increased volume, and therefore, a significant inconvenience.” Current ad suppression systems, which mute the sound, change the channel or turn the TV off during a commercial are “laborious and prone to error given that a user must guess as to when the commercial break will end,” said Sony. “Despite the ability to fast-forward through commercials, users must still deal with undershoot and overshoot problems.” Thus, despite the advantages of time-shifting over viewing in real-time, “commercial suppression in recorded content is still a manual and laborious task that is prone to error, thereby exacerbating the annoyance and inconvenience brought by commercials in the first place,” it said. Instead, the patented system relies on downloading and storing a library of templates of known commercials, the Sony document said. Downloading is automatic and ongoing, by Internet connection, and the templates contain both audio and video information on the ad’s content and duration, it said. The program being watched is continually compared with the stored templates, and when a match is found, the sound is automatically muted or playback fast-forwarded and the screen blanked until the template signals the end of the ad and switches the set back to normal viewing mode. Attempts to reach inventor Candelore were unsuccessful. Sony representatives didn’t immediately comment.
Sony Electronics in Park Ridge, New Jersey, and its Tokyo parent are jointly patenting technology for a TV, set-top box or DVR that suppresses broadcast or recorded TV commercials and claims to do so much more effectively than current systems. Sony’s system, described in U.S. application 2014/0064705 filed in November 2013, names Brant Candelore of San Diego as the inventor. “Most every business entity advertises to promote products or services, and often pays significant sums of money on such activities to broadcasters and service providers,” said the patent. But consumers “are generally less entertained by advertising,” it said. “To most, an advertisement is an unwanted pause in a program with generally increased volume, and therefore, a significant inconvenience.” Current ad suppression systems, which mute the sound, change the channel or turn the TV off during a commercial are “laborious and prone to error given that a user must guess as to when the commercial break will end,” said Sony. “Despite the ability to fast-forward through commercials, users must still deal with undershoot and overshoot problems.” Thus, despite the advantages of time-shifting over viewing in real-time, “commercial suppression in recorded content is still a manual and laborious task that is prone to error, thereby exacerbating the annoyance and inconvenience brought by commercials in the first place,” it said. Instead, the patented system relies on downloading and storing a library of templates of known commercials, the Sony document said. Downloading is automatic and ongoing, by Internet connection, and the templates contain both audio and video information on the ad’s content and duration, it said. The program being watched is continually compared with the stored templates, and when a match is found, the sound is automatically muted or playback fast-forwarded and the screen blanked until the template signals the end of the ad and switches the set back to normal viewing mode. Attempts to reach inventor Candelore were unsuccessful. Sony representatives didn’t immediately comment.
Google is drastically overvaluing its economic impact, said a soon-to-be-published economic analysis from Allen Rosenfeld, a senior vice president and economist at M+R Research. Google estimated it generated $111 billion in 2013 economic activity (http://bit.ly/1dw69hE). “Wishful thinking,” Rosenfeld told us. Google’s methodology flies in the face of commonly accepted economic theory, he said. Rosenfeld’s best guess is $8 billion in economic activity.
Plantronics continued its march on the consumer headphone market Wednesday with the launch of its first premium model, the $249 BackBeat PRO wireless Bluetooth active noise-canceling headphones. The company’s first full-size headphone is targeted at the mobile professional, Greg Miller, Plantronics’s category director-mobile entertainment solutions, told Consumer Electronics Daily on a press tour in New York Wednesday.
Swedish headphone manufacturer Degauss Labs announced dual-driver in-ear headphones with a three-button microphone for Android devices. The $79 earphones enable users to talk, play, pause, set volume up/down and skip tracks using the microphone. Each earpiece contains two separate speakers -- one for high and mid frequencies and one for bass -- for higher quality sound, Degauss said Tuesday.
LG Electronics will ship a networked multiroom audio system to European markets after IFA in early September, the company said. LG said Music Flow is the first system in its category with 24-bit/192 hi-fi playback across multiple interconnectable devices. A company spokesman said details haven’t been set for the increasingly crowded U.S. space, which includes market leaders Bluesound, Bose, Denon, Samsung and Sonos. LG’s Music Flow system for Europe includes three speaker models, a soundbar, a network bridge and a companion smartphone app. With Music Flow, users can centrally manage a complete digital music library, including music stored across multiple devices, and control all Music Flow units in the home, LG said. The Music Flow app can recommend songs and playlists, provide access to Internet radio stations and function as a smartphone music player outside the home, it said. Music Flow is based on mesh network technology and dual-band Wi-Fi for uninterrupted high-quality music playback “unlike competing systems that rely on a single access point which causes music interruptions and pauses whenever the signal level drops,” the company said. Music Flow uses LG’s proprietary Automatic Loudness Compensation Algorithm that’s said to ensure “audio strength and clarity across all frequencies.”
In the final days before the end of the reply period for the selection of the Local Number Portability Administrator Friday night, Neustar is trying to hold on to the contract by arguing there could be national security risks should the FCC award it to rival Telcordia. The FCC should pause and issue another NPRM to examine how well equipped the companies are in protecting the security of the network from infiltration and in working with law enforcement, Steve Edwards, Neustar senior vice president-data solutions, told us. He noted that Telcordia’s parent company, Ericsson, is a Swedish company. “Foreign ownership increases the risks,” said Edwards, who added that it “raises the potential that software codes could be written by employees and consultants overseas.” In the interim, Neustar should continue as the LNPA, he said.
The U.S. and China are edging closer to a negotiated settlement in a high-profile solar dispute years in the making, but the details of an agreement and expected industry reception remain largely unclear, industry attorneys said in recent interviews. The Chinese government on Aug. 15 told the Commerce Department it is “interested” in an agreement that would suspend the U.S. antidumping investigation currently underway. Commerce Department officials preliminarily determined in late July Chinese and Taiwanese exporters dumped crystalline silicon photovoltaic (PV) products into the U.S. market (see 14073011). Commerce is scheduled to make a final determination in December.