WHY WE NEED OVER-THE-AIR- DTNS WEEKLY TECH UPDATE 01/12/2017

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This week I'll make my argument why we SHOULD keep over-the-air broadcasts around. But first a recap of the week's tech news.

NEWS

Yahoo filed a US SEC document Monday revealing that after Verizon completes its purchase of Yahoo, the remnant holding stock will be called Altaba. Five of Yahoo’s current board members will stay on with the holding company. CEO Marissa Mayer will move on to Verizon. The deal is not yet complete and the filing acknowledges that security breaches reported last year could still cause Verizon to terminate or renegotiate the acquisition. http://www.businessinsider.com/marissa-mayer-is-resigning-from-yahoos-board-2017-1 

Facebook has hired journalist Campbell Brown to lead its news partnerships team. Brown described her role as helping, “news organizations and journalists work more closely and more effectively with Facebook.” Facebook also announced the Facebook Journalism Project Wednesday describing upcoming features for publishers and readers. Facebook will make access to CrowdTangle, a tool that helps journalists monitor social trends, free for partners. Story packages allow news outlets to package related stories together and have users subscribe to notifications when future digests are released.  Instant Articles can now have a check box offering a free trial to a news organization’s paid subscription. Facebook also said it will invest in local news, hold publisher hackathons, produce public service announcements about news literacy as well as additional features for live video and training. https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/11/facebook-journalism-project/ http://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/06/business/media/facebook-campbell-brown-media-fake-news.html 

Tuesday, Chris Lattner, the developer behind LLVM and lead on Apple's Swift programming language, announced he was leaving Apple and Tesla announced he would become VP of Autopilot software. Wednesday, former Apple director of product design Matt Casebolt updated his LinkedIn profile to list himself as as the Senior Director of Engineering, Closures & Mechanisms at Tesla Motors. Casebolt left Apple in December. Casebolt worked on the mechanical design of several Mac products including the original MacBook Air. https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/10/tesla-hires-apples-creator-of-swift-as-new-vp-of-autopilot-software /

-- http://appleinsider.com/articles/17/01/11/apple-loses-mechanical-engineer-responsible-for-original-macbook-air-enclosure-to-tesla 

Alphabet’s Waymo announced its autonomous Chrysler Pacifica minivans will hit the road in Mountain View, California and Phoenix, Arizona by the end of the month. Waymo showed the cars at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit. Waymo announced it is building all the technology in house, meaning sensors that cost $8,000 off the shelf in 2009 cost $7500 for Waymo to build. Waymo insists it does not want to become a parts manufacturer, but rather strike partnerships with automakers. Waymo CEO John Krafcik said the company is looking into ride-hailing, logistics, personal transportation and last mile solution. http://www.theverge.com/2017/1/8/14206084/google-waymo-self-driving-chrysler-pacifica-minivan-detroit-2017 

Intel announced Compute Card, a 94.5mm by 55mm by 5mmm card computer with CPU, GPU, RAM, storage and wireless connectivity. The idea is to make it easy to upgrade the internals of smart devices— TV, fridge, blender— without having to replace the entire device. Chips with thermal design power up to 6W could fit inside which could include Core M and Y i5 and i7s found in laptops.  The card uses USB-C plus extension to connect to its device which gives access to USB, PCIe, HDMI, and DisplayPort. Specs, availability, and pricing will be announced in June. Partners include Dell, HP, Lenovo, and Sharp along with Seneca Data, InFocus, DTx, TabletKiosk, and Pasuntech. http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/01/intels-compute-card-is-a-pc-that-can-fit-in-your-wallet/ 

China’s top messaging app WeChat rolled out “mini programs” Monday. The apps are embedded in WeChat and require no separate download or install to use. There is no store but instead are discovered from friends or scanning QR codes. In Android WeChat mini programs can be pinned to the home screen. Mini programs center around tasks, for instance a food delivery startup might have one program for ordering lunch, another for coffee and another for pizza. WeChat claims around half of its users spend 90 minutes a day within the app. https://www.techinasia.com/wechat-mini-programs-launch 

The US FCC issued a report Wednesday saying AT&T’s DirectTV Now video service and Verizon’s FreeBee Data 360 service violate open Internet rules because of their implementation of zero rating. The report claims the telcos charge competitors too much for the same zero-rating the companies give their own products. T-Mobile’s Binge On service, which does not charge participants, was not found to be in violation. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler will step down next Friday. https://www.cnet.com/news/fcc-at-t-verizon-mobile-programs-violate-open-web-rules/#ftag=CAD590a51e 

The US Department of Transportation has lifted a requirement that airlines notify passengers that the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 is prohibited from being carried aboard US flights. The FAA notes there is a high degree of public awareness of the ban. Samsung says more than 96 percent of Note 7 devices have been returned so far. http://www.theverge.com/2017/1/11/14235468/galaxy-note-7-passenger-warning-requirement-lifted 

After Consumer Reports found battery life in the new MacBook Pros ranged from 3.75 hours to 19.5 hours Apple worked with it to find out why. Consumer Reports turns off browser cache for the browsing test on all laptops. In normal use Safari caches things like images to the hard drive. That practice triggered a bug in the way Safari loaded icons. That bug has been fixed. Consumer Reports says it will re-run its tests with the fix and update its recommendation accordingly. https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/10/consumer-reports-turned-off-safari-cache-for-their-macbook-pro-battery-tests/ 

HTC announced the 5.7-inch U Ultra and 5.2-inch U Play phones. Both phones have an all-glass exterior and come with the Sense Companion AI assistant. Both use USB-C for the headphones. The U Ultra has a 2-inch second screen at the top to the right of the front-facing camera for notifications and shortcuts. It also comes with a microSd card slot for up to 2 TB of extra storage and a 3,000mAh battery. The U Play has a 2,500mAh battery. The U Ultra with 64 GB of storage is up for pre-order at $749 in blue, black, white or pink, shipping to Taiwan by end of January and the rest of the world in March.The U Play will be available later this spring. A limited edition sapphire screen U Ultra with 128GB of storage was announced without pricing or release date. http://www.theverge.com/2017/1/12/14236978/htc-u-ultra-play-announced-price-release-date-specs-features 

LG announced a 5.7-inch QHD+ LCD screen with an 18:9 aspect resolution. The ratio allows a traditional 16:9 video alongside extra screen space for buttons or a virtual second screen. LG Display also claims lower power consumption and better outdoor visibility. The screen will be used in the next LG flagship phone, expected to be the G6 to be announced at Mobile World Congress in February. http://www.theverge.com/2017/1/10/14223800/lg-g6-aspect-ratio-qhd-android-smartphone-mwc-2017 

Microsoft will change how it presents privacy options in installations of Windows 10 starting with the Creators Update and coming soon won Insiders build. In place of Express Settings which required multiple clicks to increase privacy, will be a new screen with on-off sliders for location, speech recognition, Tailored experiences and relevant ads. A diganostics option will have a full-basic slider. The basic option will strictly send error reports not usage data. All those settings and more detailed controls will be under the privacy heading in settings after installation as well. http://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-tries-to-soothe-regulators-and-critics-with-new-privacy-controls/ 

The Wall Street Journal reports Apple is talking with veteran TV and movie producers about commissioning high quality scripted series and feature films. The Journals sources say the project would start with a handful of carefully selected shows and movies. No deals have been made and questions remain about how the shows would be distributed. Apple has some original content already with Carpool Karaoke, documentaries and an upcoming series based on the life of Dr. Dre. https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/12/apple-tv-2/ 

San Diego TV news anchor Jim Patton accidentally activated viewer’s Amazon Echos during a broadcast causing many of them to order dollhouses. Reacting to a segment, Patton said  “I love the little girl saying ‘X ordered me a dollhouse'." where X was the name of Amazon Voice Services assistant. Amazon Echo users can change setting to prevent automatic ordering and can cancel accidental orders at no charge. http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-38553643 

CLOSER LOOK - OVER-THE-AIR BROADCASTS

On Wednesday, Scott Johnson and I talked on DTNS about Norway beginning to close down FM broadcasting, and discussed the wider issue of whether we need traditional one-way broadcasts at all. 

Over-the-air broadcasts traditionally deliver entertainment and news and sometimes emergency information. The classic movie scenario is people gathered around a radio after a disaster listening for updates.

People who live in hurricane country, tornado country and earthquake country all know the reality of depending on that information. A smartphone can deliver lots more information but the service is perceived as less robust than broadcasts. 

And of course arguments can be made that people who can't afford mobile phone service can afford a TV or radio and enjoy free broadcasts.

So let's look at a few of these questions.

COVERAGE

First of all you may jump to the conclusion that more people can receive  an over-the-air broadcast than a data connection. Between radio and at least 2G service it's a tie. Both cover almost everyone. Broadcast television covers about 90% of the US population while video-capable LTE covers 81.3% and climbing.

So the difference at all levels here will soon be cost not availability. And over the air is cheaper. For now.

COST

There are some free mobile data services piloted out there like Freedom Pop or Free Basics by Facebook. But they are more limited than over-the-air broadcasts for now. For emergency situations they might work, but the fact is people generally are more likely to have a radio than a free mobile phone service. 

And the upcoming ATSC 3.0 spec for TV broadcasts allows for encryption which can lead the way to over-the-air broadcasts no longer being free. 

https://www.cnet.com/news/atsc-3-0-what-you-need-to-know-about-the-future-of-broadcast-television/ 

SPECTRUM

But let's talk about the airwaves. Certainly the big carriers would make better use of available spectrum than broadcasters who use up larger swaths to deliver less content and only in one direction. 

Yes and no. While carriers do want more spectrum it isn't always the spectrum that would be freed up by TV and radio. The FCC has had a hard time getting wireless companies to bid an amount satisfactory to TV license holders for freed up spectrum.  Take a look at the FCC's long auction to sell off spectrum freed by moving broadcasters out of certain airwaves to free it up. 

Broadcasters and wireless companies have been far apart in price, with forward auction bidders failing to move off their stage 1 price of a little over $20 billion even as broadcasters continued to drop their price from an initial $86 billion to the stage 3 price of $40.3 billion.

The FCC will restart Stage 4 January 18.

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/news/washington/fcc-targets-jan-18-forward-auction-re-start/162342 

WHY WE NEED OVER-THE-AIR (FOR NOW)

So that means we have a service that is relied upon habitually for emergency information, is available to those with the lowest income, and is occupying space not highly desired yet by other services.

In replacement we have mobile data which, lets be honest, is intermittent in its reliability, is costly and often comes with usage caps, and has yet to settle on a habitual way to share emergency information.

I think long term mobile data will; get fast enough, reliable enough and ubiquitous where it will easily replace broadcast. But that time is not this year or next. And I think Norway is jumping the gun retiring FM in favor of Digital Audio Broadcasts (DAB). When 2/3 of your country doesn't have the means to receive DAB you're doing more than encouraging adoption especially when adapters cost hundreds of dollars. 

http://www.theverge.com/2017/1/11/14235996/fm-radio-shut-down-norway 

My feeling is that governments should focus their efforts on insuring competition int he Internet space and fostering the rollout of faster and more reliable wireless data. Once that has grown into widespread use it will be obvious when it's time to shut down the transmitters. 

Let me know what YOU think!