IHS Markit estimates about a third of the vehicles on U.S. roads have connectivity through embedded telematics control units (TCUs), Colin Bird, senior analyst-automotive technology, told a Wednesday webinar on the cybersecurity vulnerabilities of connected cars. “Nearly every vehicle” in production “is being equipped with some sort of TCU,” so by 2023, 85 percent of “the entire vehicle parc will be connected,” said Bird of the registered U.S. fleet. “That’s really the holy grail of hacking.” Fiat Chrysler’s July 2015 recall of 1.4 million vehicles to install software to protect against data breaches was the first National Highway Traffic Safety Administration action taken “for cybersecurity-related issues,” and it was a “wake-up call” for the automotive industry, said Bird. “Since that happened, every RFQ for an infotainment unit or TCU has had a cybersecurity requirement,” he said of OEM requests for quotations. With the increasing “complexity” of in-car electronics, “there’s a lot of different ways to get into the vehicle, a lot of things to protect here,” he said. He cited an Audi A8, which is equipped with “more than 88 high-powered CPUs” and runs up to 30 million “lines” of binary code, including 4 million lines of code just in the “steering component.” IHS estimates more than half the total cost of a high-end vehicle, including R&D and “validation,” is “related to electronic components or software,” he said.
Netflix’s “partnering strategy” is on an “an evolving trajectory across all the markets that we serve in,” said Chief Product Officer Greg Peters Monday on the company’s quarterly earnings interview webcast. The “new wave” of partnerships Netflix started with MVPDs, ISPs and mobile operators is beginning to bear fruit, he said. “Based on what we've seen with these new bundle models,” through Comcast and others (see 1804130004), “we've seen the economics of those, if you take in the retention, the acquisition characteristics to be very, very beneficial,” he said. “We love the fact that we can work with these partners to access whole new groups of consumers, make it easy for them to find out about Netflix, to sign up and have a great way to access the service and watch more and more.” It’s “easier” than ever to “create a television network called an app,” said CEO Reed Hastings. “Think of all apps on your phone” as having “some form of video, or most apps will,” he said. All of that “mobile phone energy will spread to the television with operating systems like Roku’s,” he said. Netflix wants to be “one of the apps that nearly everybody has on their home screen, whether that's on the phone or on the television,” he said. Looking at the mobile phone “ecosystem, it's very rich, and we see television getting close to that,” he said. Despite all its recent successes, including easily beating forecasts on Q1 net subscriber additions (see 1804160065), Netflix's biggest challenge is that it still accounts for only "a fraction of the hours of viewing of YouTube," said Hastings. "We're a fraction of the hours of viewing of linear TV. We've got some great momentum, and we're very excited about that, but we have a long way to go in terms of earning all of the viewing that we want to." Netflix shares closed 9.2 percent higher Tuesday at $336.06.
Various models of iPhones and iPads violate three U.S. patents on fingerprint authentication technology held by South Korean company Firstface, alleged a complaint (in Pacer) filed Friday against Apple in U.S. District Court in San Francisco. One of the patents (8,831,557), issued in September 2014, was the basis of a federal complaint that Firstface also filed Friday against Samsung (see 1804140001). Two 2017 patents in the Apple complaint -- 9,633,373 granted April 25, and 9,779,419 granted Oct. 3 -- “are not at issue” in the action against Samsung, “but are in the same patent family as the '557 patent,” said Firstface lawyers in a notice of pendency (in Pacer) filed Tuesday with U.S. Magistrate Judge Joseph Spero in San Francisco. Apple didn’t comment Tuesday.
EPA finalized its “standard operating procedure” for revising or establishing Energy Star product specifications (see 1711080025), like those for TVs, “to increase transparency and facilitate more consistent opportunity for stakeholder input,” said a Friday cover letter. The procedure spurns CTA calls for EPA to reduce the role of third-party certifications in product testing. The agency also turned down CTA and others' requests it use the Federal Register for future communications; instead EPA will use its own website, which added a “dedicated web page” that will be “updated in real time, any time” an Energy Star product document is released for comment. CTA didn't respond Friday.
The ATSC 3.0 receiver “guidelines work” that CTA is conducting “is an open standards project,” Brian Markwalter, CTA senior vice president-research and standards, emailed us. “The working group, under our Video Systems Committee, develops recommended practices for ATSC 3.0 receivers (mirroring ATSC’s work on ATSC 3.0),” he said. “The recommended practices are being developed as a suite.” Documents addressing the physical layer, logical layer, video and audio are complete, and “others are in process,” he said. “We do not speculate on the schedule” for when work on the entire suite will be finished, he said. Markwalter, an ATSC board member, said in the fall the “pace of work” was accelerating on the CTA-CEB32 “family” of recommended 3.0 receiver practices that would consist of 11 parts plus an overview that will be “easily mapped” to the suite of 3.0 standards (see 1709050038). CTA “has an associated group, where they’re writing recommendations” for 3.0 receivers, said Winston Caldwell, Fox Networks Group vice president-spectrum engineering and advanced engineering, at an NAB Show workshop on maximizing 3.0's future business potential (see 1804100048). “We’ve been involved there just to make sure that those receivers support a lot of the capabilities that we’re interested in.”
LAS VEGAS -- ATSC 3.0 market tests won’t end with the model market project Pearl TV is running in Phoenix and Sinclair’s single-frequency-network trials in Dallas, Pearl Managing Director Anne Schelle said at a Tuesday NAB Show workshop on maximizing 3.0's future business potential. Phoenix and Dallas “are just the markets today,” she said.
LAS VEGAS -- Pearl TV and Sinclair used the early hours of the NAB Show to tout expansions of the ATSC 3.0 trials they're running in their two test markets. The Pearl-led Phoenix “model market” project (see 1711140053) announced the addition of nine more collaborating companies, while Dish Network, with Sinclair's urging, joined the Sinclair-led consortium of Nexstar, Univision, American Tower and Cunningham Broadcasting -- newly named the Spectrum Co. -- that’s running 3.0 single-frequency-network (SFN) trials at three sites in the Dallas area (see 1801170053).
LG Electronics is the first TV maker to join the ATSC 3.0 “model market” project in Phoenix (see 1711140053), said the company Thursday. It will supply the first 3.0 receivers for the project, which is being spearheaded by Pearl TV and supported by 10 TV stations in the market to show how the standard “can be deployed while maintaining existing digital TV service for viewers,” it said. LG receivers "will be tested by local broadcasters and consumer focus groups" as the model market project "ramps up this summer," it said. Though just before CES Pearl announced a “collaborative project” for the Phoenix model market with another TV maker, Sony Electronics, that was for the development of a 3.0 “channel navigation tool,” not TV receivers (see 1801050035).
It’s “time for quick action” for companies that want to sway the U.S. Trade Representative’s office against imposing Trade Act Section 301 tariffs of 25 percent on 1,200 classifications of goods imported from China in the list released Tuesday (see 1804040054 or 1804040023), said DLA Piper in an "international trade alert." Companies “have the opportunity to present their views on specific products listed under the proposal for higher tariffs before the list is finalized and the tariffs become effective, in an effort to seek the removal of a product from the final list,” said the law firm Wednesday. Written comments are due May 11, with an April 23 deadline for requesting to appear at a May 15 public hearing, it said. May 22 is the deadline for written comments to “rebut statements made at the hearing,” it noted. The USTR notice spells out how someone who wants a product removed from the list should file comments and what those comments should say, said the alert: Commenters “should explain why the inclusion of the specific product will not be effective in curbing China's actions that are targeted by this Section 301 action, and also how the tariff would negatively impact US persons (including the affected company and its customers)." USTR didn't comment Thursday on whether the May 15 public hearing at the International Trade Commission building will be streamed live. The agency's recent history has been to hold hearings "off-camera." U.S.-threatened sanctions and the Chinese response to "reciprocate" are likely stage setting for future negotiations, Merrill Lynch analysts emailed investors. "Despite the exchange of tariff threats, we believe there is still room for negotiation between the US and China," said Helen Qiao and Sylvia Sheng Tuesday. "We maintain our view that China will continue its 'carrot and stick approach,' threatening retaliation but also proposing to expand its imports of US products, cut the auto duty, and ease restrictions for US companies investing and selling in China," they said. "We expect the final version of both the US and China trade measures to be more toned down."
Frequent moviegoers “tend to own more key technology products,” MPAA reported. It estimated 12 percent or 32 million U.S. and Canadian adults classify themselves as “frequent” moviegoers, going to the cinema at least monthly in 2017 and accounting for 49 percent of tickets, said Wednesday's report. The association estimates 79 percent of frequent moviegoers own at least four different types of key technology products, compared with 61 percent of all adults. It said 93 percent of frequent moviegoers own a smartphone, compared with 89 percent of all moviegoers in general and 86 percent of the adult population. The survey also gauged ownership of computers, disc players, tablets, video streaming devices and videogame systems among frequent moviegoers, but not TVs. MPAA canvassed nearly 8,100 U.S. adults in December.