With the FCC order set to take effect March 5 authorizing voluntary deployment of ATSC 3.0 (see 1802010025), MPEG LA is encountering “a great deal of enthusiasm for an ATSC 3.0 pool license,” said spokesman Tom O’Reilly. Having announced in August a call for patents essential to the 3.0 suite of standards (see 1711010054), “to facilitate creation of a joint license for ATSC 3.0,” MPEG LA held two meetings on forming a patent pool “and will hold our third meeting next month,” said O’Reilly. “Fifteen companies are participating so far.” He gave no timeline for when a 3.0 patent pool might be operational. MPEG LA runs 15 patent pool programs, including one for nine licensors for some essential patents embedded in ATSC 1.0. The two largest joint-license programs MPEG LA administers in terms of the number of participating licensors are those it runs on behalf of 38 companies in the AVC/H.264 pool and 36 companies in the HEVC/H.265 pool. The FCC 3.0 order released Nov. 21 said the commission will use the first five years of 3.0 deployment to "monitor" how the marketplace handles royalties for essential patents, electing for now not to impose licensing rules on 3.0's rollout (see 1711210004).
RALEIGH -- Capitol Broadcasting remains “on the fence” whether to use 4K or 1080p in the transition to ATSC 3.0, Pete Sockett, head of engineering and operations, told us Monday, repeating comments he made at May’s ATSC conference (see 1705160044). Sockett spoke at a demonstration that Capitol organized with partners, including NBCUniversal, NAB, LG, Samsung and the Korean government-funded Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI), to showcase 3.0's capabilities. In addition to showing 3.0 as a carrier for Ultra HD video, the demo also previewed 3.0-capable advanced emergency alerting on an LG TV and showcased a prototype 3.0 home gateway for interactive content developed by NAB Pilot.
The Patent and Trademark Office granted the UHD Alliance’s petition to “revive” the group's application to register the Mobile HDR Premium logo as a certification mark for qualifying smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices, said the agency in a Wednesday notice. PTO declared the application dead in late December after an agency examiner rejected it for several flaws in May and the alliance failed to respond to the rejection by the six-month deadline (see 1801140001). The alliance “has firsthand knowledge that the failure to respond to the Office Action by the specified deadline was unintentional,” said the group's Tuesday petition. Despite PTO’s abandonment of the application, alliance President Mike Fidler said his group has “absolutely no intention” of ditching the Mobile HDR Premium logo (see 1801180031). Mobile World Congress (MWC) opens Feb. 26 in Barcelona, where Fidler told us Thursday the alliance plans to promote the logo, having unveiled it officially for the first time at last year’s MWC (see 1702280045).
Himax is working with Android smartphone makers to launch 3D sensing on “premium” handsets, said Jordan Wu, CEO of the display imaging components supplier. Himax thinks 3D sensing “can have a broad range of applications” in virtual reality, face recognition, IoT and robotics, he told investors Tuesday. Collaboration between Himax and Qualcomm, announced in August, yielded “the only solution to offer face recognition for secure online payment, a must-have feature for high-end smartphones of the future,” said Wu. Development of a stereoscopic 3D sensing “total solution” for face recognition and 3D in smartphones is underway, said Wu.
Tech interests had feedback on EPA examining its Energy Star process (see 1712150033), including CTA, Juniper Networks and Samsung. CTA said the agency in 2011 imposing mandatory third-party certifications of consumer electronics products qualifying for Energy Star “is significantly more expensive and time-consuming to manufacturers than the successful self-certification system which existed previously.” It's "superfluous in light of the government’s post-market verification programs which are much more meaningful and impactful,” the group commented, as posted Thursday at the Energy Star website. The association has sought a new process to allow CE companies with a good record of compliance to earn their way out of the third-party certification requirement (see 1711080025). Agency representatives tell us they fear that would again leave Energy Star vulnerable to fraud (see 1604220027). The Natural Resources Defense Council, overall satisfied with the process, said that "to help continually improve transparency in the procedures it follows and to better engage with a wider body of stakeholders, EPA should make it as straightforward as possible for stakeholders to become involved in the specification setting process.” Samsung thinks EPA runs Energy Star “effectively through its notice and comment procedure with a clear timeline.” Juniper said the large network equipment program's low adoption "indicates a need to remove requirements that do not advance energy efficiency but do limit product design options."
Reports on global smartphone shipments agreed Q4 volumes declined but differed on magnitude. Smartphone vendors shipped a total of 403.5 million units in Q4, a 6.3 percent decline from the same quarter a year earlier, said IDC Thursday. The worldwide smartphone market shipped a total of 1.47 billion units in 2017, declining less than 1 percent, IDC said: “Developed markets such as China and the United States both witnessed a decline during the quarter as consumers appeared to be in no rush to upgrade to the newest generation of higher-priced flagship devices.” Strategy Analytics pegged the global Q4 decline higher -- at 9 percent to 400 million units -- the “biggest annual fall in smartphone history.” It blamed a “collapse in the huge China market,” where demand fell 16 percent due to longer replacement rates, fewer operator subsidies and “a general lack of wow models.” Global smartphone shipments last year grew 1 percent, topping 1.5 billion units for the first time, said SA. IHS Markit “preliminary data” showed global unit shipments declined 4.5 percent to 387.5 million smartphones, said Gerrit Schneemann, senior analyst-mobile location and mobile devices. Shipments for the year grew 3.1 percent to 1.44 billion units, Schneemann wrote Friday: “Of the leading handset brands, only Xiaomi and Motorola experienced shipment growth" in Q4.
The “amended and expanded” long-term licensing agreement Qualcomm signed with Samsung is contingent on Samsung withdrawing its opposition to Qualcomm’s appeal of the South Korean Fair Trade Commission’s decision fining Qualcomm $865 million for violating South Korean competition laws, said Qualcomm CEO Steve Mollenkopf on a Wednesday earnings call. Qualcomm’s separate “multiyear strategic agreement” with Samsung applies to “various technology areas and across a range of mobile devices,” said Mollenkopf. “This agreement expands the companies’ long-standing relationship as technology and business partners into 2018 and beyond as we transition to 5G.” On 5G, Qualcomm is “working with a number of OEMs to have smartphone launches in the first half of 2019,” said President Cristiano Amon in Q&A. There’s “high” motivation among the smartphone OEMs to stage 5G product launches in 2019's first half, and “we’re marching towards that date,” he said. Amon doesn’t see 5G becoming “a significant contributor of volumes” until 2020, but “early launches in ’19 are very important” because they “define your competitive position and the ability to have a mature product, so you can ramp volumes in premier devices” starting in 2020.
A “completely redesigned” SiriusXM app for iOS and Android devices is beta testing and will debut in Q2, “providing the springboard” to launch streaming-video content on the service, said CEO Jim Meyer on a Wednesday earnings call that also saw much discussion of increased royalties and coming price hikes. “There’s no reason we can’t begin to acquire larger numbers of streaming-only subscribers.” The "plan is to launch video, first with Howard Stern in the second quarter, and then follow up later in ‘18 with additional short-form content from around the SiriusXM bundle,” added the executive.
Corning’s target is to double its sales of glass for mobile devices over the next several years, said CEO Wendell Weeks on a Tuesday earnings call. “Flagship” smartphone models from Samsung and others “now feature glass on the front and the back,” and glass backs “double the area we sell for phones and also support new innovation opportunities,” he said.
Balloting concluded last week on revisions to the CTA-2037 standard on measuring TV power consumption, Brian Markwalter, CTA senior vice president-research and standards, told us Monday. “The revised standard, called CTA-2037-B, should publish this week,” said Markwalter. Working group members tasked with revising CTA-2037 wanted to be sure the revised standard measures TV power in the way consumers typically watch TV, meaning not only the content, but also the TV settings that consumers typically use, said Markwalter in September when work began (see 1709250043). How to measure TV energy use by up-to-date standards became a hotbed of discussion during the EPA’s effort to draft its Energy Star Version 8.0 TV spec in a proceeding that remains open and unresolved 18 months after it began (see 1801010001).