Zoran landed at least four design wins for its SupraHD 741 decoder among suppliers of coupon-eligible DTV converter boxes, Dave Pederson, vice president of corporate marketing, told us at CES.
The Journal of Commerce reports that the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach have decided to postpone consideration of the employee-driver mandate in their Clean Air Action Plan due to questions raised by the Federal Maritime Commission and the Maritime Administration. (JoC, dated 01/07/08, www.joc.com)
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued an ABI administrative message announcing that the Port of Charlotte was scheduled to open at 10:00 am on January 17, 2008. The delay in opening was due to an ice storm. (Adm: 08-005, dated 01/17/08, available at http://www.brokerpower.com/admmsgs/2008/08-0005.html)
Work on a mammoth five-year farm bill (HR-2419) probably will start next week, as conferees are named after the Senate returns. USTelecom said Wednesday it is pleased that so many of its suggestions are reflected in the bill. The group praised a Senate provision making Connect Kentucky, a state broadband program, the model for a national effort.
Work on a mammoth five-year farm bill (HR-2419) probably will start next week, as conferees are named after the Senate returns. USTelecom said Wednesday it is pleased that so many of its suggestions are reflected in the bill. The group praised a Senate provision making Connect Kentucky, a state broadband program, the model for a national effort.
Second Life is cutting off in-world “banks” that don’t provide an “applicable government registration statement or financial institution charter,” as of Jan. 22, owner Linden Lab said on the Second Life corporate blog. “Since the collapse of Ginko Financial in August 2007, Linden Lab has received complaints about several in-world ‘banks’ defaulting on their promises” of annual returns as high as 60 percent. The policy covers anyone offering a direct return on investment, in Linden dollars or real-world currency. Without a change, banks offering “unsustainably high interest rates” likely will collapse and “lead to the destabilization of the virtual economy,” and it’s unclear what their duties are to depositors, the company said. “There is no workable alternative,” least of all Linden “acting as a banking regulator.” The company will start removing virtual ATMs or any other objects facilitating banking Jan. 22, and if banks don’t “settle up” with depositors by then, Linden may suspend or terminate their accounts or take their in-world land. Financial organizations in Second Life who merely provide “marketing or education,” but don’t take payments, are exempt.
On December 12, 2007, U.S. Customs and Border Protection issued a Request for Information (RFI), technical requirements, and other documents for conveyance security devices (CSDs, commonly referred to as container security devices). (See ITT's Online Archives or 12/14/07 news, 07121405, for BP summary of the RFI.)
U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials have confirmed that the recently enacted Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2008 (Public Law (P.L.) 110-161) contains a provision which delays the implementation of the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative until June 1, 2009.
Reuters reports that major West Coast shipping ports such as Seattle and Long Beach will be the first targets of the Consumer Product Safety Commission's new import surveillance program, which will permanently assign agency personnel to key ports full-time. The new tracking system will give CPSC personnel data about shipments bound for the U.S. even before they leave foreign ports, with a focus on high-risk products. (Reuters, dated 01/07/08, available at http://www.reuters.com/articlePrint?articleId=USN0742025720080107)
The FCC gave Verizon a landing license to run a new Trans-Pacific Express submarine cable system in the U.S., the company announced Friday. Verizon said the “next-generation” undersea optical-cable system will directly link the U.S. and mainland China and completion is expected by August, “in advance of the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.” The cable is being built by a consortium of Verizon, China Telecom, China Netcom, China Unicom, Korea Telecom and Chunghwa Telecom of Taiwan. It can support the equivalent of 62 million simultaneous phone calls, more than 60 times the capacity of the cable that now links the U.S. and China, the company said. It will start out with a capacity of up to 1.28 terabits a second but that can be increased to 5.12 Tbps to support Internet growth and advanced applications. Verizon finished the cable landing site in Nedonna Beach, Ore., Nov. 14, under temporary FCC authority. The company now is building out network facilities in Oregon to connect the cable to Verizon’s domestic network, it said. At the same time, “numerous cable-laying ships are in the Pacific Ocean” at work. Verizon said it has stakes in more than 18 other cable systems in the Asia-Pacific region.