The FCC Enforcement Bureau sought additional information from Snapchat, licensee of trunked land mobile radio station WQVZ814 in Santa Monica, California, on whether the company was properly monitoring its transmissions on output frequency 464.1975. The bureau said it investigated after a compliant. Snapchat didn’t comment.

The FCC Enforcement Bureau sought additional information from Snapchat, licensee of trunked land mobile radio station WQVZ814 in Santa Monica, California, on whether the company was properly monitoring its transmissions on output frequency 464.1975. The bureau said it investigated after a compliant. Snapchat didn’t comment.

Customs and Border Protection is focused on deploying new technologies and catching up with the massive growth in e-commerce as it moves toward the end of the decade, Commissioner Kevin McAleenan said at a CBP event in Atlanta. Beyond helping confront the “seismic shift” in the supply chain over the past several years, new technologies -- like RF identification and facial recognition -- will soon smooth trade across land borders, McAleenan said Tuesday. The growth in e-commerce “looks more like a rocket taking off than a plane,” he said. Small parcel shipments doubled 2016-17, and the agency doesn’t see the trend abating. CBP needs new legal and regulatory authority and partnerships so it can oversee new parties in the supply chain -- e-marketplaces like Amazon and warehousing operations for third-party sellers -- plus existing entities it has never regulated. Blockchain “may also be part of the answer,” giving CBP the ability to determine product origin and whether the product came from a trusted supplier, supply chain and e-marketplace, McAleenan said. Companies are looking at the technology from the perspective of “their ecosystem for their business model,” so one may use blockchain to ensure its provenance from the beginning of the supply chain while another may use it to add data that can ride along the blockchain and share more information about a shipment.

APCO conference attendees agreed numerous questions remain on FirstNet, in interviews there last week. APCO featured FirstNet and partner AT&T (see 1808090002). Many predicted FirstNet’s growth will be relatively slow and a large number of agencies will stick with their current providers. FirstNet is in the first year of its five-year buildout plan. The network is growing since it launched last year, with 110,000 subscribers at the most recent count, and board members expressed optimism during their meeting Monday (see 1808130063).

The market for augmented- and virtual-reality consumer headsets using eMagin’s OLED microdisplay technology won’t develop “as soon as we had hoped,” said CEO Andrew Sculley on a Thursday earnings call. Negotiations to land a big “mass-production partner” are also going “slower than we had hoped,” he said. The company is in licensing talks with “a number of parties,” he said. Those discussions “are complex and take time,” he said. Though eMagin still thinks the consumer AR/VR market will be a “substantial growth opportunity for us,” it’s not viewing it with the same “urgency” as it did last year, he said. “It is our assumption that many of the companies pursuing this market recognize that widespread consumer adoption will take more time and development work than originally contemplated,” he said. EMagin recently completed the “final design review” for its next-generation AR/VR microdisplay, and expects the first prototypes using its direct-pattern OLED technology will be available in early 2019, he said. The company’s ultimate goal is to fashion an OLED AR/VR microdisplay capable of 15,000 nits of peak brightness in full color, having “recently achieved” peak brightness at about half that level, he said.

The market for augmented- and virtual-reality consumer headsets using eMagin’s OLED microdisplay technology won’t develop “as soon as we had hoped,” said CEO Andrew Sculley on a Thursday earnings call. Negotiations to land a big “mass-production partner” are also going “slower than we had hoped,” he said. The company is in licensing talks with “a number of parties,” he said. Those discussions “are complex and take time,” he said. Though eMagin still thinks the consumer AR/VR market will be a “substantial growth opportunity for us,” it’s not viewing it with the same “urgency” as it did last year, he said. “It is our assumption that many of the companies pursuing this market recognize that widespread consumer adoption will take more time and development work than originally contemplated,” he said. EMagin recently completed the “final design review” for its next-generation AR/VR microdisplay, and expects the first prototypes using its direct-pattern OLED technology will be available in early 2019, he said. The company’s ultimate goal is to fashion an OLED AR/VR microdisplay capable of 15,000 nits of peak brightness in full color, having “recently achieved” peak brightness at about half that level, he said.

President Donald Trump said in a tweet on Aug. 10 that a deal with Mexico is nearly in hand. Canada will have to wait, and he plans to put heavy pressure on Canadian officials to make concessions, because "their Tariffs and Trade Barriers are far too high," he said. "Will tax cars if we can’t make a deal!"

ATLANTA -- CBP is focused on the related goals of deploying new technologies and catching up with the massive growth in e-commerce as it moves toward the end of the decade, CBP Commissioner Kevin McAleenan said in opening remarks at the agency’s 2018 Trade Symposium Aug. 14. Beyond helping CBP confront the “seismic shift” in the supply chain over the past several years, new technologies will soon also smooth trade across land borders and improve the agency’s targeting efforts, McAleenan said.

Federal judges blocked, for now, FCC restrictions on enhanced tribal Lifeline subsidies that bar resellers and residents of non-rural areas from the extra low-income USF support. The commission's 2017 order "will be stayed pending further [court action] insofar as the Order purports to limit eligibility for the Tribal Lifeline enhanced subsidy to 'facilities-based' service providers, and to limit eligibility for that program to 'rural areas,'" said the Friday ruling by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in National Lifeline Association v. FCC, No. 18-1026, and a consolidated case. They said petitioners showed a "likelihood of success on the merits" of their challenges, and that they'll suffer "irreparable injury absent a stay." Some said the decision further complicated an FCC proposal to ban resellers from Lifeline support in general.

Federal judges blocked, for now, FCC restrictions on enhanced tribal Lifeline subsidies that bar resellers and residents of non-rural areas from the extra low-income USF support. The commission's 2017 order "will be stayed pending further [court action] insofar as the Order purports to limit eligibility for the Tribal Lifeline enhanced subsidy to 'facilities-based' service providers, and to limit eligibility for that program to 'rural areas,'" said the Friday ruling by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in National Lifeline Association v. FCC, No. 18-1026, and a consolidated case. They said petitioners showed a "likelihood of success on the merits" of their challenges, and that they'll suffer "irreparable injury absent a stay." Some said the decision further complicated an FCC proposal to ban resellers from Lifeline support in general.