The FCC will again stop it’s 180-day “shot clock,” in its review of the Comcast-NBC Universal merger, FCC officials said . NBCU and Comcast had not fully complied with the instructions of the FCC’s information requests, Media Bureau Chief William Lake wrote separate letters to their lawyers. The shot clock will be paused as of June 11, the day the responses were due, Lake said. As of Thursday, the clock was at day 50.
Vizio will field active-shutter and passive polarized 3D TVs as a hedge against a market where a 3D system hasn’t emerged yet as a clear-cut winner, Vice President Ken Lowe told us Tuesday at CEA LineShows in New York. The 65-inch passive 3D LCD TV will ship late this year at $3,000-$3,500 as the first in what’s expected to be a line of sets, Lowe said. The TV uses an AU Optronics 1080p panel, though the 3D resolution will likely be lower because of the polarized film applied to the screen. The polarized film adds about $200 to the cost of the set, Vizio officials said. The passive 3D TVs will be packaged with Sensio glasses that sell separately for about $30, Vizio officials said.
A Silicon Valley firm says it wants to eliminate the promotional paper trail in retailing. MoBeam, a new Cupertino, Calif.-based division of technology company Ecrio, is trying to stir interest in a keychain-based device that it dubs “the first practical digital wallet.” The company will demonstrate its “numi” key at the “CEA Line Shows” conference this week in New York with the hope that its LED-based technology will find interest among CE manufacturers and retailers.
Broadcast mobile video network operators could benefit if more wireless carriers adopt mobile broadband usage limits as AT&T has, industry executives said. That’s because services like Qualcomm’s MediaFLO and the TV broadcasters’ mobile DTV don’t consume any bandwidth on the carriers’ network. But some are concerned consumers might avoid mobile video altogether if they're worried about exceeding the limits and don’t understand the distinctions between various mobile video services.
A backlog of more than a million indecency complaints pending at the FCC has the agency considering whether to dispose of some, and others have expired because the time for action elapsed, agency and industry officials said. Staffers such as those at the Office of General Counsel are aware of the need to act to trim the backlog, a commission official said. Another agency official said the regulator could dismiss complaints against non-broadcast shows, such as those on cable, that aren’t subject to indecency rules.
The ongoing fight over whether broadband should be reclassified as a more heavily regulated “telecom” service has resulted in chaos for the broadband industry, FCC Commissioner Meredith Baker said Thursday at the annual Broadband Policy Summit, sponsored by Pike & Fischer. Baker also said work on the “third way” reclassification plan by FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski has distracted attention from the National Broadband Plan. Another danger is that increased FCC regulation of the Internet could lead to more government control of the Internet in other nations, she warned.
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski is expected to face increasing pressure from Congress this summer to back down from a proposal to partially reclassify broadband as a Title II service, in favor of seeking compromise with industry. Even members of Genachowski’s own party have expressed reservations about the “third way” reclassification plan he proposed a month ago (CD May 7 p1), which would reclassify broadband transport from a lightly regulated information service under Title I of the Communications Act, to a common carrier service under Title II and forbear from all but six of that title’s 48 sections.
ESPN 3D’s initial start on cable has been limited by some operators’ reluctance to carry the network as they weigh the costs associated with it against the limited number of 3D TV sets in the market and the technical challenges related to acquiring the programming, industry executives said. Comcast will carry the network, but others are still making up their minds.
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski is expected to face increasing pressure from Congress this summer to back down from a proposal to partially reclassify broadband as a Title II service, in favor of seeking compromise with industry. Even members of Genachowski’s own party have expressed reservations about the “third way” reclassification plan he proposed a month ago (WID May 7 p1), which would reclassify broadband transport from a lightly regulated information service under Title I of the Communications Act, to a common carrier service under Title II and forbear from all but six of that title’s 48 sections.
ESPN 3D’s initial start on cable has been limited by some operators’ reluctance to carry the network as they weigh the costs associated with it against the limited number of 3D TV sets in the market and the technical challenges related to acquiring the programming, industry executives said. Comcast will carry the network, but others are still making up their minds.