Cybersecurity still isn’t a priority for the U.S. government, and it may take a major attack to wake people up, cyberspace experts and industry executives said Thursday at the University of Nebraska College of Law’s Space and Cyber Conference. Some said a cyber attack could potentially cause as much havoc as an atomic bomb, at least in terms of damage to the economy.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission has published notice of the following voluntary recalls:
The European Customs Information Portal reminds the trade that the transition period for the European Union’s pre-departure information submission requirements for inbound and outbound cargo (security data) will end December 31, 2010.
Broadcasters’ arguments against the use of an indoor antenna standard to determine significantly viewed signal eligibility are “all either non-existent or easy to resolve,” Dish Network and DirecTV said in reply comments with the FCC. The two DBS companies get congressional intent wrong when they seek to change proposed FCC rules implementing STELA so indoor antennas can be used, a wide array of broadcasters said in docket 10-152. Broadcasters and DBS disagree whether indoor antennas can be used to test if a subscriber can’t receive terrestrial signals from a local TV station and so is eligible to get a distant station affiliated with the same network (CD Aug 26 p2). The law requires the commission to act by Nov. 23.
The Foreign Trade Zone Board has issued the following notice:
Panasonic’s ties to the 3D production equipment used in filming Avatar have yielded it an exclusive 3D Blu-ray bundle starting in December with its Viera 42-, 50-, 54-, 58- and 65-inch plasma TVs, company officials said. The promotion, which will include TV advertising, “will go on for some time, certainly more than two weeks,” said Victor Carlson, vice president in Panasonic Consumer Electronics marketing group. Carlson said details haven’t been finalized. Sony is said to have landed a similar deal with the Walt Disney Co. for Alice in Wonderland 3D that’s expected this fall. A Sony spokesman declined comment. Samsung has had a similar exclusive bundle for DreamWorks’ Monsters vs. Aliens 3D for much of this year. And Samsung will have similar 3D bundles this fall with DreamWorks’ How to Train Your Dragon and all four Shrek movies.
Alaska launched its first statewide broadband availability map, announced Commissioner Susan Bell of the Alaska Department of Commerce, Community and Economic Development in a webcast by Connect Alaska late Wednesday. The web-based map, funded by an economic stimulus grant, could be key to better broadband access and adoption, Connected Nation officials said.
Tests in Boulder, Colo., are studying questions raised as public safety systems make sure of LTE for the first 700 MHz network deployments, the manager of the National Institute of Standards and Testing’s Public Safety Communications Research (PSCR) program said Tuesday in a speech at the FCC. Dereck Orr also said the program will run a second set of tests in Washington to examine a public safety network in a real city. NIST will also consider a permanent “testbed” in Boulder to take up problems as they appear, he said.
Accessories supplier iGo received its second U.S. patent (No. 7,779,278) for its “novel approach” to reducing wasted standby “vampire” power, the company said. The company estimates its green technology can automatically reduce vampire power loss up to 85 percent.
The FCC made good on a commitment to launch an Office of Native Affairs and Policy to promote communications services in tribal lands, the agency said Thursday. Those areas “suffer unacceptably low levels of communications services, especially broadband,” said Chairman Julius Genachowski. Increasing connectivity in those areas is one of the FCC’s top priorities, he said. The office, to be headed by Geoffrey Blackwell, will be part of the Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau. The opening of the office is one of the central objectives in the National Broadband Plan, said Commissioner Michael Copps. “In so many places where Native Americans live, poverty endures, unemployment is at levels no society should tolerate, education languishes, and basic public safety falls far short of what people have a right to expect,” he said. The office will work to increase federal-tribal dialogue and consultations on regulations and policies, Blackwell said in an interview. It’s a challenge to overcome economic, geographic and demographic obstacles, and come up with sustainable business models, he said. The office will work directly with tribal and native communities and fill the need for an educational role for state regulators and industry providers seeking to serve tribal communities more effectively, he said. It will also work on increasing inter-agency coordination on broadband for native Americans, he said.