SAN DIEGO -- A senior Energy Star official from the EPA faced polite hostility from CE executives at a CEA Industry Forum workshop on green labeling Tuesday over what the executives described as unfriendly directions the Energy Star program has taken over the last year. Several in the audience, for example, said they were unhappy that Energy Star’s CE ratings were trending toward including far more green “attributes” than just the energy efficiency criteria for which the program was conceived.
Nintendo of America will ship a new bundle Nov. 6 at $169.99 that it said will include a DSi XL handheld system and “a free copy” of its game Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Mini-Land Mayhem. The DSi XL will come in a choice of metallic rose or midnight blue SKUs. NOA now fields the DSi XL on its own for $169.99. The Mario game cartridge costs $29.99 on its own now. NOA didn’t immediately comment Tuesday on whether DSi XL sales had slowed since the company slashed the price of the 3DS handheld 3D game system by $80 to $169.99 (CED July 29 p6).
Google will create ads based on search terms during a new “dynamic search ads” beta test, Baris Gultekin, director of AdWords Product Management, said on Google’s AdWords blog. The product aims to fill in the gaps for advertisers whose purchased keywords may not match their up-to-the-minute site content and thus whose websites aren’t being found by searchers on Google, he said: “User search behavior can be a moving target -- each day, 16 percent of searches that occur, Google has never seen before.” The system complements keyword-targeted ads by querying a “fresh index of your inventory using Google’s organic Web crawling technology,” and dynamically generating an ad with a headline based on the query “and the text based on your most relevant landing page,” he said. It only kicks in when Google can’t find an “eligible keyword-targeted ad” from the advertiser to display. In limited testing, participating advertisers have seen a 5-10 percent increase in clicks and conversions with “satisfactory” return on investment, he said, and one site in particular -- ApartmentHomeLiving.com -- has seen its conversions increase nearly 50 percent with a cost-of-conversion 73 percent less than its traditional search ads. Advertisers can choose to have Google target their entire site, specific product categories, or pages with certain words or URL strings, he said. They can sign up for the beta at http://goo.gl/Mjy07.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued the following news releases:
Representatives of the state of Hawaii urged the FCC to adopt a definition of tribal lands for purposes of its Universal Service Fund and intercarrier compensation proceeding that includes the Hawaiian Home Lands (HHL), they said in an ex parte filing. The FCC has previously included the HHLs in its tribal land definitions for purposes of USF, but the agency, without explanation, omitted the HHLs from its definition of tribal lands in its National Broadband Plan, the filing said. Meanwhile, many elements of the draft USF/ICC plan don’t address the challenges in highly remote and insular areas like Hawaii, it said. The representatives also urged the FCC to explore those challenges in a further rulemaking.
The public media industry must work to be more innovative and inclusive to expand its influence in the digital world, public media professionals said Tuesday at a Free Press event. One of the biggest challenges for public broadcasters is defining what public media looks like in the digital age, said Josh Stearns, Free Press associate program director. The need for public media couldn’t be bigger and support couldn’t be broader, “but we're still spending pocket change,” said Craig Aaron, Free Press president.
The FCC’s Universal Service Fund reform plan, of which many still await details, could hurt rural and tribal operators and investment in rural broadband, speakers said at a Broadband Breakfast Club panel Tuesday. Meanwhile, many broadband projects funded by the Rural Utilities Service are on track, said Undersecretary of Rural Development Dallas Tonsager.
A large number of federal agencies make use of more than 3,000 frequency assignments in the 1755-1850 MHz band, NTIA said in a report Monday, summarizing the agency’s recent work on the administration’s 10-year plan to make more spectrum available for wireless broadband (http://xrl.us/bmgdqi). The 1755-1780 MHz portion of the band is carriers’ top target for reallocation. The list of agencies using the wider band includes the departments of Defense, Homeland Security and Commerce, but also less well known users including the U.S. Capitol Police and the Postal Service, the report said. The report lists 12 different categories for how the spectrum is used, from Unmanned Aerial Systems to air-to-ground telemetry to land mobile robotic video functions such as explosive ordnance disposal. NTIA officials have said repeatedly that clearing the band won’t be easy. NTIA is getting set to issue long-awaited recommendations for the band. “By September 9, 2011, agencies submitted reports providing timelines, estimated costs, and prerequisites to accommodate relocation of their operations,” the report said. “NTIA will summarize the results of its analysis of the 1755-1850 MHz band study and provide recommendations in a separate report this fall.” NTIA also worked with other agencies and the FCC on a proposal for a broadband wireless access agenda item for the proposed World Radiocommunication Conference in 2015 on making additional international allocations of spectrum for wireless broadband, the report said. “The U.S. proposal seeks additional allocations to the mobile service on a primary basis and places no limitations on the frequency bands to be considered.”
The General Services Administration is announcing its intent to distribute a Final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) on the potential impacts of the construction and operation of a new land port of entry in International Falls, Minnesota. GSA is proposing, at the request of Customs and Border Protection, to construct and operate a larger and improved land port of entry which meets CBP needs and GSA design requirements. GSA has identified one plan as the best alternative and, following a 30 day period, it will publish a Record of Decision.
Cable pioneers John Malone and Ted Turner are the top two owners of U.S. land, and this year Malone’s acquisition of 1 million-plus acres in New England pushed him to the top of the list, The Land Report said. Malone’s holdings total about 2.2 million acres now, while Turner has about 2 million acres, it said.