The “common framework” for ATSC 3.0 audio “provides immersive and personalizable sound for television,” and is “not compatible with the audio system used” in the current ATSC 1.0 service. So said the first of three documents describing the “common elements” of ATSC 3.0 audio “intended to be used in conjunction” with the Dolby AC-4 codec summarized in the second document, and MPEG-H described in the third.
Nine companies with which Vizio may have shared data from its Inscape viewer-tracking feature were named as co-defendants in the latest complaint (in Pacer) against the smart TV maker. Two dozen class-action suits alleging violations of the federal Video Privacy Protection Act and other offenses have been filed against Vizio since November. The so-called “data partners” that were named for the first time in the latest suit are advertising and marketing analytics firms that have collaborated with Vizio to track, receive, exchange and/or repackage the personally identifiable information of Vizio customers, alleged the April 20 complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in Santa Ana, California, the same court in which the other class-action complaints against Vizio were recently “centralized” (see 1604150001). Named as co-defendants with Vizio in the April 20 complaint were Alphonso, AudienceXpress, Interpublic Group, iSpot.tv, Lotame Solutions, Tapad, TubeMogul, WPP Group USA and Xaxis. Representatives of the various defendants didn’t comment, nor has Vizio.
The detonated implosion of the first of two Riviera Las Vegas hotel towers looms in mid-June, and that will set into motion the first stage of an ambitious plan for much of the next decade to renovate and expand the Las Vegas Convention Center (LVCC) in a much-needed "overhaul." So said Terry Jicinsky, senior vice president-operations at the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA), in a recent interview. The project's long-term benefits for CES -- LVCVA's largest annual customer -- are uncertain, said CTA's top CES strategist. Karen Chupka, CTA senior vice president-CES and corporate business strategy, told us “we’re one of the few shows that’s using all three convention centers,” of the CES exhibit space at the Venetian-Sands and Mandalay Bay, in addition to LVCC. “As we even are starting to look now for 2018 and 2019, there isn’t additional exhibit space to grow,” she said. Other conferences in the communications area held in Las Vegas include the NAB Show; NAB said attendance at last month's convention topped 103,000 (see 1604210070).
About two dozen Ultra HD Blu-ray titles were introduced Q1 in the U.S. to support Samsung’s release of the industry’s only Ultra HD Blu-ray player, and consumer demand was “impressive,” the Digital Entertainment Group said in a Friday quarterly report. Consumers bought more than 80,000 Ultra HD Blu-ray discs “in their first weeks of launch,” DEG said. That’s twice the number of discs sold in the comparable period after the Blu-ray launch, it said. Samsung’s Ultra HD Blu-ray players also were “quickly purchased,” but “with only one manufacturer in the market place, the DEG cannot report sales figures,” it said in a footnote. Total U.S. spending on home entertainment content declined 1.8 percent in Q1 to $4.55 billion, DEG said. Sell-through of packaged goods fell 13.2 percent to $1.38 billion, but total spending on digital content delivery jumped 13 percent to $2.48 billion, led by the 19 percent increase in spending on subscription streaming, to $1.41 billion, DEG said.
The rationale last month for creating Ford Smart Mobility as a new subsidiary "to design, build, grow and invest in emerging mobility services" (see report in the March 14 issue) was to allow the new unit “to have the organization and the structure to face off with some of the tech and mobility companies in terms of acting really fast,” yet still be “connected” to Ford’s “core operations,” CEO Mark Fields said. But “it's still way too early” to discuss Ford Smart Mobility’s work in much detail, Fields said in Q&A on an earnings call. With the new subsidiary, Ford will be “very focused” in the future “on where to play and how to win” in the mobility space, he said Thursday. “We are generally using experiments and pilots to, not only test technology and customer preferences, but very importantly test the business models, because at the end of the day, you want to make money on these things. And we're doing that before we make what I would call major bets on investments, whether it's internally or externally.” Fields promised the company will have “more to say about this as our Ford Smart Mobility strategy progresses this year.” Fields thinks global automakers will reach “an inflection point as an industry over the next number of years, given the technology that's available, not only in the product itself, but how to serve the customer,” he said. But “there's a lot of cars here in the U.S.,” and “it's going to take a long time, even with breakthrough technologies, where people will change that over,” and adopt autonomous, semi-autonomous or connected cars, he said. “Just the math will show you that will take a good amount of time.” Fields thinks “it's too early to tell” what technological trends will take over, “but we're really looking at this as vehicle miles traveled,” he said. Future autonomous vehicles “will be used 24/7, they'll rack up miles sooner,” which in turn will drive “more service revenue and, ultimately, more car sales,” he said. “Our strategy, very clearly, is to continue to make the investments on the technology side and the investments on the mobility side so that we can participate in both of those revenue streams.”
Few companies “have more impact on the enjoyment of television than Rovi and TiVo,” Rovi CEO Tom Carson said Friday on an investors call to detail his company’s TiVo buy for $1.1 billion in cash and stock. The announcement of the deal, which is expected to close in Q3, came about a month after reports surfaced that TiVo was in “advanced negotiations” to be sold to Rovi (see 1603240070).
SiriusXM, through the fledgling SXM17 interactive platform it’s developing with the major carmakers (see 1504280044), is “fully embracing the connectivity that is coming to vehicles,” CEO Jim Meyer said on a Thursday earnings call. In future connected cars using SXM17, “we will be able to offer even more new services to consumers, from nonlinear content like on-demand shows and personalized music, to interactive program guides, with personalized recommendations,” Meyer said.
Sony landed a U.S. patent Tuesday for a “method and apparatus for transmitting a-priori information in a communication system,” Patent and Trademark Office records show. A-priori information is that which is based on scientific deduction rather than observed, empirical data. The patent (9,326,295) is based on a December 2014 application and lists as its inventor Luke Fay, senior staff engineer at Sony Electronics in San Diego. Fay is chairman of ATSC’s S-32 specialist group that framed ATSC 3.0's physical layer, which is now before the FCC as an authorization petition (see 1604130065). Fay also is vice chairman of ATSC’s Technology Group 3, which is supervising development of the overall ATSC 3.0 standard. “During the last decade, terrestrial broadcasting has evolved from analog to digital,” Fay’s patent says. “There exist several wideband digital communication techniques depending on a broadcasting standard used,” including OFDM, which is “a method of encoding digital data on multiple carrier frequencies and is used in applications such as digital television and audio broadcasting, DSL Internet access, wireless networks, power line networks, and 4G mobile communications,” the patent says. Though the patent doesn’t say so, OFDM is the modulation system used in ATSC 3.0 and has been used for years by Europe’s DVB consortium. “Current digital broadcasting systems use fixed knowledge of a channel bandwidth at a receiver,” the patent says. “In addition to the specific information about the communications technology used, the receiver needs the channel bandwidth or a sampling frequency to demodulate received signals. Due to technical advancements, the channel bandwidth and the sampling frequency may change over the years. As recognized by the present inventor, there is a need to facilitate changes in channel bandwidth and/or sampling frequency.”
The announcement Tuesday that Google has joined with Ford, Uber and others to form the Self-Driving Coalition for Safer Streets to promote the deployment of autonomous cars drew a predictably negative reaction from the consumer group that recently accused Google of trying to skirt an "open and accountable process" on driverless cars with an expedited one "that will favor the tech giant's business and marketing plans at the expense of consumers” (see 1604070013). Consumer Watchdog finds it “absolutely outrageous that this group would purport to be for safer streets, when some of its members just aren’t releasing the basic details about their testing activities on public roads,” John Simpson, the group’s privacy project director, told us Tuesday. “That’s very problematic.” He called the coalition “just a lobbying group that’s going to push their self-interests, using a catchy name to try to claim that they’re really for safety,” Simpson said. “They could do some real things to show that they’re really for safety,” such as releasing publicly the “technical data” they have compiled on the safety of driverless cars, he said. On the appointment of David Strickland, the former top official of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, as the coalition's counsel and spokesman, Simpson said: “I’m also really troubled by the fact that the guy who’s going to be their spokesman is a former administrator. That’s just an outrageous situation. Business as usual now seems to be the revolving door in Washington.” Coalition representatives didn’t comment. NHTSA Wednesday in California plans to hold the second of two public meetings to gather input for the development of operational guidelines on driverless cars the agency has said it hopes to release this summer (see 1604080037).
Samsung Research America of Mountain View, California, seeks registration of “Marix” as a trademark for a class of “computer software for controlling, monitoring and restricting access to televisions, desktop computers, and portable and handheld electronic devices,” said its April 19 application (serial number 87006511) at the Patent and Trademark Office. The subsidiary also wants to use the trademark for computer software to “remotely manage” those conditional-access “settings,” as well as for parental control software, the application said. Samsung representatives didn’t comment Monday.