On July 12, the Office of Foreign Assets Control made the following changes to the Specially Designated Nationals list [reason for addition in brackets]:
Japan PS Vita sales soared to 25,600 units in the week ended July 1, from 13,600 the prior week (CED July 2 p5), driven by Sony Computer Entertainment’s shipment of a “crystal white"-colored SKU, according to the latest Media Create data. Vita sales also likely were helped by the release of Konami’s Metal Gear Solid HD Edition, which reached No. 8 on Japan’s videogame software chart in its first week, moving 20,100 copies. But the 3DS remained the country’s best-selling videogame system. The Vita inched up one to No. 2 and its Japan installed base grew to an estimated 804,700 units. Sales of the 3DS dipped to 66,400 from 68,100 and its estimated Japan installed base inched up to an estimated 6.4 million. The PS3 fell one to No. 3, but sales improved to 17,300 from 15,700. The PSP repeated at No. 4, but sales grew to 10,700 from 9,000. The Wii remained No. 5, sales growing to 7,000 from 6,100. The PS2 inched up one to No. 6, sales increasing to 1,300 from 1,100. The Xbox 360 dipped one to No. 7, sales inching up to 1,200 from 1,100. The DSi remained No. 8, but sales fell to 800 from 900. The DSi LL was again in last place, sales flat at 700. Sales of the 3DS were again likely helped by strong demand for the DS titles Pokemon Black 2 and Pokemon White 2 from Nintendo’s Pokemon Company division. The titles were collectively No. 1 on the Japan videogame software chart again despite sales tumbling to 420,800 copies in their second week from 1.6 million in week one. The best-selling new release was Gust’s Atelier Ayesha: The Alchemist of the Land of Twilight for the PS3, No. 2 with 60,500 copies sold. There were only two other Vita games in the entire top 50: Persona 4: The Golden from Atlus, which tumbled to No. 11 in its third week from No. 3 as sales slipped to 15,500 from 29,300; and Namco Bandai’s Mobile Suit Gundam Seed Battle Destiny, which fell to No. 28 in its fourth week from No. 19. All weekly sales estimates were rounded to the nearest 100.
The FCC should reject a Harris petition (http://xrl.us/bm9s7q) asking the agency to hold that equipment manufactured for public safety use must meet the more stringent H-mask, rather than the B-mask, Alcatel-Lucent said. The request is “unnecessary, repetitive and anticompetitive,” Alcatel said in comments (http://xrl.us/bndo65). Alcatel said the petition appears related to Harris’s unhappiness that Alcatel won a contract to provide communications equipment to New Jersey Transit. “The Harris Petition is simply one of Harris’s many filings in WT Docket No. 11-69, representing a collateral attack by Harris on NJT’s selection of Alcatel-Lucent’s proposal to meet the communications needs of NJT using PowerTrunk’s digital land mobile radio solution in the 800 MHz band,” Alcatel said. “From the moment NJT chose Alcatel-Lucent’s proposal as best meeting NJT’s needs with respect to price and functionality, Harris has explored every angle to block that decision to no avail, including by incorrectly claiming that the Commission rules did not permit NJT’s proposed operations.”
ERF Wireless has developed a GPS-based E911 solution for use in the oil and gas industry, the company said Friday. “The majority of the Company’s revenue is derived from providing terrestrial wireless broadband communications, including VoiP telephone service, to oil and gas rigs operated in remote areas of the United States,” ERF said. “These rigs operate in areas that many times do not have marked roads, highways or streets with the only access being a pathway across open ranch land or at best a road newly scraped out of the rocks and sagebrush.” The system “uses GPS coordinates, associated with the VoIP telephones [at] the drilling site, to locate the appropriate 911 call center and to dispatch emergency personnel who are suitably GPS equipped to specific geographic locations rather than physical street addresses,” ERF said.
The Basel Action Network said it wants to hire an independent contractor to run the e-Stewards certification program. BAN is seeking proposals by July 15 and will pick a winner by Sept. 1 so the program can get its independent launch by Nov. 1, it said.
The Telecommunications Industry Association got support from the Association for Public-Safety Communications Officials (APCO) , Motorola Solutions and Land Mobile Communications Council (LMCC) for a petition asking the FCC clarify as OK the continued certification of 25 KHz equipment for use in the T-band. Public safety agencies that use the band, at 470-512 MHz, got a waiver from the FCC so that they didn’t have to overhaul their systems by the Jan. 1 narrowbanding deadline. Unless the commission offers clarity, these agencies won’t be able to replace equipment operating in the T-band, TIA warned. Under February’s spectrum law, the FCC is required to auction the public safety portion of the T-band within nine years, with public-safety licensees having to move to other spectrum within 11 years.
Surface transportation trade between the U.S. and its NAFTA partners Canada and Mexico, totaled $79.8 billion in April , a 8.2 percent increase from April 2011, said the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) of the U.S. Department of Transportation.
The New Mexico Public Regulation Commission denied state USF money to Sacred Wind Communications in a 5-0 vote Tuesday. Sacred Wind had applied as a means to fund “the extension of high-speed telecom and Internet capabilities to underserved areas,” specifically in the rural Navajo Nation land, but the Commission said it was concerned these USF funds “might be used for things like investor profits instead of consumer benefits.” Sacred Wind “lacked the proof necessary to show that underserved consumers will be connected,” said Commissioner Theresa Becenti-Aguilar in prepared remarks. The commission held an extended hearing on the case in February. Sacred Wind serves “approximately 2,200 residential customers spread over 3,600 square miles of Navajo Reservation and near-reservation lands in remote, rural areas of New Mexico,” the company said earlier this year(http://xrl.us/bnc4pg).
Saying there may be “needless secrecy and over-classification of documents” relating to the ongoing negotiations over a potential Trans-Pacific Partnership Free Trade Agreement (TPP-FTA), more than 130 members of Congress wrote U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk urging him to “engage in broader and deeper consultations with members of the full range of committees of Congress whose jurisdiction touches on the wide-ranging issues involved.” The USTR should also ensure “there is ample opportunity for Congress to have input on critical policies that will have broad ramifications for years to come,” they said.
The first products based on Texas Instruments’ (TI) OMAP 5 processor will hit the market in early 2013, targeting smartphones and tablets, but also expanding to include industrial and automotive devices, Avner Goren, general manager for OMAP strategy and platforms, told us Tuesday at CE Week’s 6Sight imaging conference in New York.