Roku is unfazed with Best Buy’s decision to phase out Roku support on Insignia-branded smart TVs under the exclusive multiyear partnership it announced with Amazon last month to sell Insignia- and Toshiba-branded Fire TV Edition smart sets in the U.S. and Canada (see 1804180002), said Roku CEO Anthony Wood on a Wednesday earnings call. Roku shares tumbled 12 percent the day of the announcement on speculation it would hurt Roku revenue, but Wood expects that Best Buy, Walmart and others will sell more Roku TVs this year than they sold in 2017.

The FCC is likely to address its current spectrum screen, especially in light of T-Mobile’s proposed buy of Sprint, some industry officials said. But a move to change the screen could face a backlash, particularly because of the pending wireless deal, they said. The screen was last updated in a June 2014 order under then-Chairman Tom Wheeler and uses a one-third criterion in all bands then considered suitable for mobile broadband deployment. It includes an enhanced screen below 1 GHz because of the “distinct propagation advantages” of low-band spectrum. Commissioners Ajit Pai and Mike O’Rielly dissented then, citing concerns about the enhanced screen (see 1405160059).

Amazon landed a U.S. patent Tuesday that describes techniques for 3D-printing “customized” shipping containers for delivering e-commerce goods to consumers. “Conventional techniques can make it difficult to optimize packaging of items for shipment, causing the merchant to pay more shipping costs than necessary,” said the patent (9,962,921), assigned to Amazon Technologies of Seattle and based on a December 2014 application. “Inefficient packaging of one or more items may lead to wasted space,” and “inadequate or inappropriate packaging may lead to items being damaged, or spoiled, while in transport,” it said. Using 3D-printing instructions generated when an item is prepared for shipping, the container can be fashioned to “include loops, hooks, mounts, or other surface textures to facilitate handling of the container” via forklifts, cranes or drones, it said. “In at least one case, the shipping container may be manufactured around the item resulting in a fully-sealed container with the item packaged inside,” it said. Information such “as whether the item is fragile or sensitive to temperature can also be captured and input” into a “data store” for ready retrieval when the item is purchased, the patent read. Giving the example of a fragile wine glass, it said the “3D shipping container engine may receive item information associated with the wine glass such as a height, a weight, a depth, a geometric shape description, and a composition material.” The container can then be 3D-printed “around the wine glass,” and shipped to the customer in the protective enclosure, it said. The company didn’t comment on commercialization plans.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai cited an order providing relief to a few tribal-oriented carriers, answering House members who asked the agency in March to act expeditiously to ease an operating expense limitation. The April order (see 1804050028) "will provide additional funding to these carriers to provide both voice and broadband services to their customers," he wrote in response to a letter (exchange in docket 18-5) from Commerce Committee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., ranking member Frank Pallone, D-N.J., and Rep. Ben Ray Lujan, D-N.M. "This was not the same Order I originally proposed in February 2017, a few weeks after I became Chairman. I would have extended support to even more carriers that serve Tribal lands. But in the interest of finally getting something done, I chose to find agreement with those commissioners who were willing to work in good faith on ways to help carriers serving Tribal lands," Pai wrote. "More needs to be done. That's why, for example, the Commission recently agreed to solicit public input on the adoption of a Tribal Broadband Factor, which would provide additional financial assistance to carriers serving Tribal lands."

Amazon landed a U.S. patent Tuesday that describes techniques for 3D-printing “customized” shipping containers for delivering e-commerce goods to consumers. “Conventional techniques can make it difficult to optimize packaging of items for shipment, causing the merchant to pay more shipping costs than necessary,” said the patent (9,962,921), assigned to Amazon Technologies of Seattle and based on a December 2014 application. “Inefficient packaging of one or more items may lead to wasted space,” and “inadequate or inappropriate packaging may lead to items being damaged, or spoiled, while in transport,” it said. Using 3D-printing instructions generated when an item is prepared for shipping, the container can be fashioned to “include loops, hooks, mounts, or other surface textures to facilitate handling of the container” via forklifts, cranes or drones, it said. “In at least one case, the shipping container may be manufactured around the item resulting in a fully-sealed container with the item packaged inside,” it said. Information such “as whether the item is fragile or sensitive to temperature can also be captured and input” into a “data store” for ready retrieval when the item is purchased, the patent read. Giving the example of a fragile wine glass, it said the “3D shipping container engine may receive item information associated with the wine glass such as a height, a weight, a depth, a geometric shape description, and a composition material.” The container can then be 3D-printed “around the wine glass,” and shipped to the customer in the protective enclosure, it said. The company didn’t comment on commercialization plans.

The FCC Public Safety Bureau granted a waiver and application from the city of North Miami Beach for a new Travelers Information Station (TIS), said an order Thursday. North Miami Beach needed a waiver of agency separation rules due to the geography of the area where the station is to be located and a lack of alternative frequencies, the order said. The bureau said the waiver wouldn’t cause interference problems because the new station’s signal will reach too close to existing stations’ only over water, the order said. “The separation of 19 kilometers to the contour’s closest point on land gives us confidence that the TIS station will not result in actual harmful interference,” the order said. The TIS station will serve the public interest by enhancing emergency communications, the order said.

The Enterprise Wireless Alliance said the Wireless Infrastructure Association is the only opponent of a Land Mobile Communications Council proposal that the FCC provide a six-month window to incumbent 800 MHz licensees to add expansion band (EB) and guard and (GB) channels to existing systems before opening the spectrum to new entrants. WIA said last month in docket 16-261 the FCC should “encourage competition in the EB and GB channels by continuing policies that do not give incumbent operators priority access to available EB or GB channels, which could bar new entrants and deter innovation.” WIA is wrong, EWA President Mark Crosby said in a Friday statement. “Incumbents are as likely to introduce innovation as are new entrants,” Crosby said. “WIA’s suggestion ignores the track record established by public safety, manufacturing, utility, aviation, pipeline, and other entities … demanding and deploying increasingly efficient and advanced technologies that enable them to provide services to the public and to remain competitive in an increasingly challenging worldwide marketplace.”

Telesat Canada objections to the C-band user consortium aspect of the Intelsat/Intel/SES band-clearing plan are attempts to ensure a bigger piece of a potential windfall from the band, but they shouldn't disrupt FCC moves toward allowing wireless access to the 3.7-4.2 GHz band, experts told us.

Telesat Canada objections to the C-band user consortium aspect of the Intelsat/Intel/SES band-clearing plan are attempts to ensure a bigger piece of a potential windfall from the band, but they shouldn't disrupt FCC moves toward allowing wireless access to the 3.7-4.2 GHz band, experts told us.

Seven technology brands landed in the top 25 of Morning Consult's Most Loved Brands 2018, a list based on data from Brand Intelligence that placed Google at number one. Amazon was 4, Sony 7, YouTube 9, Netflix 14, Samsung 9 and Microsoft 25. Rankings were determined based on 250,000 interviews between January and March with a national sample of adults covering 1,000 companies, with the average company surveyed over 12,000 times, it said. Respondents answered broad demographic questions, a battery of political tracking questions and questions about a randomized set of brands covering favorability, community impact and purchasing intent. Maximum margin of error for a given brand was +/- 2 percent.