Harman’s recent success in landing automotive infotainment design wins “validates our message around the central role that embedded solutions play in the connected car environment,” CEO Dinesh Paliwal said Thursday on an earnings call. In the past quarter alone, Harman won $3.2 billion in automotive contract awards, including infotainment deals with BMW and Daimler and a contract for its next-generation car audio platform with BMW, he said. Harman recently closed on its acquisitions of Symphony Teleca and Redbend, giving Harman “immediate scale in software services” and better positioning the company to “capitalize” on the IoT’s “rapid growth,” he said. “We can now deliver more powerful solutions at the intersection of cloud, mobility and analytics for our core markets of automotive and consumer electronics and also diversify to a wider range of industries, such as enterprise, telecommunications, media and retail.”
The government of Canada recently issued the following trade-related notices for April 24 (note that some may also be given separate headlines):
The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said a zoning board in Paramus, New Jersey, violated federal law in denying a wireless tower siting application jointly submitted by Sprint and T-Mobile, agreeing with the federal district court in the District of New Jersey. The "effective prohibition" of wireless service violated the Communications Act, the 3rd Circuit panel said in an April 20 opinion in case number 14-2954. A "significant gap in wireless coverage existed within the area presented, the monopole proposed would adequately fill that gap, and [the carriers] had adequately considered alternative sites before arriving at the ones proposed." A distributed antenna system would be insufficient because it would be susceptible to outages, less flexible and cover a smaller gap, the court said. The wireless carriers don't bear the burden of proving that every potential alternative is unavailable, it said. The zoning board's denial of Sprint and T-Mobile's zoning variance violated the act's “effective prohibition” language, and wasn't based on “substantial evidence” required by the act and Municipal Land Use Law, so the 3rd Circuit affirmed the District Court. T-Mobile had urged the 3rd Circuit to affirm, in all respects, the lower court's judgment, Wiley Rein said Wednesday.
Raytheon received a $103 million Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) contract to supply a space-based system that will make air travel more efficient and safe, Raytheon said Tuesday. The Raytheon system will be part of the FAA's Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS), which improves GPS signal accuracy for use by general and commercial aircraft, it said. WAAS will allow more access to remote landing sites, direct flight routing and precision landing, without dependence on ground-based infrastructure, it said. Raytheon will develop a payload that will be included in a new geostationary (GEO) satellite and ground uplink stations to support the WAAS system in U.S. airspace, it said. The GEO 6 and 5 system, which was awarded to Raytheon in 2012, will replace two WAAS GEO payloads at the end of their service leases, it said. The WAAS GEO 6 payload will be launched in Q2 of 2017, and the system will enter a 10-year operational phase in 2019, Raytheon said.
Raytheon received a $103 million Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) contract to supply a space-based system that will make air travel more efficient and safe, Raytheon said Tuesday. The Raytheon system will be part of the FAA's Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS), which improves GPS signal accuracy for use by general and commercial aircraft, it said. WAAS will allow more access to remote landing sites, direct flight routing and precision landing, without dependence on ground-based infrastructure, it said. Raytheon will develop a payload that will be included in a new geostationary (GEO) satellite and ground uplink stations to support the WAAS system in U.S. airspace, it said. The GEO 6 and 5 system, which was awarded to Raytheon in 2012, will replace two WAAS GEO payloads at the end of their service leases, it said. The WAAS GEO 6 payload will be launched in Q2 of 2017, and the system will enter a 10-year operational phase in 2019, Raytheon said.
That NAB regularly has communicated with regulators its concerns about the low rate of FM chip activations in smartphones doesn’t mean NAB has changed its position and is now seeking FM chip mandates, Skip Pizzi, NAB senior director-new media technologies, told us at the NAB Show. Rather than seeking mandates, NAB’s aim is to convince the FCC to use “its good offices” to encourage wireless carriers to activate the FM chips already embedded in most new smartphones and to endorse the NextRadio FM smartphone app, Pizzi told us. A just-completed NAB analysis released at the NAB Show found roughly two-thirds of the smartphones sold in the U.S. in 2014 with FM chips embedded weren't activated, and of those, 75 percent were iPhones (see 1504120004). NAB previously stated its policy of not seeking a mandate on FM chips in smartphones last month when it said FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler erred in House testimony when he suggested broadcasters were seeking such mandates (see 1503200031). Pizzi's denial that NAB was now seeking mandates came amid several references he made in his NAB Show talk that NAB has conferred regularly with regulators over the FM smartphone chip activations issue. Moreover, NAB President Gordon Smith, in his NAB Show opening keynote, juxtaposed expressions of NAB support for the NextRadio campaign on landing more FM chip activations in smartphones with the promise that "winning our legislative and regulatory battles on Capitol Hill and at the FCC ensures broadcasters will be able to capitalize on these innovations."
That NAB regularly has communicated with regulators its concerns about the low rate of FM chip activations in smartphones doesn’t mean NAB has changed its position and is now seeking FM chip mandates, Skip Pizzi, NAB senior director-new media technologies, told us at the NAB Show. Rather than seeking mandates, NAB’s aim is to convince the FCC to use “its good offices” to encourage wireless carriers to activate the FM chips already embedded in most new smartphones and to endorse the NextRadio FM smartphone app, Pizzi told us. A just-completed NAB analysis released at the NAB Show found roughly two-thirds of the smartphones sold in the U.S. in 2014 with FM chips embedded weren't activated, and of those, 75 percent were iPhones (see 1504120004). NAB previously stated its policy of not seeking a mandate on FM chips in smartphones last month when it said FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler erred in House testimony when he suggested broadcasters were seeking such mandates (see 1503200031). Pizzi's denial that NAB was now seeking mandates came amid several references he made in his NAB Show talk that NAB has conferred regularly with regulators over the FM smartphone chip activations issue. Moreover, NAB President Gordon Smith, in his NAB Show opening keynote, juxtaposed expressions of NAB support for the NextRadio campaign on landing more FM chip activations in smartphones with the promise that "winning our legislative and regulatory battles on Capitol Hill and at the FCC ensures broadcasters will be able to capitalize on these innovations."
LAS VEGAS -- Apple has been the biggest challenge in broadcasters’ efforts to win more activations of FM chips in smartphones (see 1504120004) because “they hang their heart on being innovation leaders,” Paul Brenner, chief technology officer at Emmis Communications, the prime mover of the NextRadio FM smartphone app, told us Tuesday at the NAB Show.
LAS VEGAS -- Apple has been the biggest challenge in broadcasters’ efforts to win more activations of FM chips in smartphones (see 1504120004) because “they hang their heart on being innovation leaders,” Paul Brenner, chief technology officer at Emmis Communications, the prime mover of the NextRadio FM smartphone app, told us Tuesday at the NAB Show.
LAS VEGAS -- Apple is the biggest challenge in broadcasters’ efforts to win more activations of FM chips in smartphones, said Skip Pizzi, NAB senior director-new media technologies, Sunday at the NAB Show.