The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development joined the Christchurch Call campaign combating social media extremism (see 1905150047). This advances OECD’s work, said Secretary General Angel Gurria Wednesday: OECD is committed to “like-minded governments, in consultation with experts from business, civil society and academia, collaborating to improve the evidence base and help to build better policies for better lives.”
U.S. cloud infrastructure spending rose 29% in Q1 to a record $18.6 billion on “digital transformation” spurred by the COVID-19 pandemic, reported Canalys Tuesday: Increases were also fueled by economic recovery and restarting delayed projects. The U.S. had 44% of global spending; China was 15%. Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud accounted for 69% of total spending. The relevance of digital services is increasing due to remote working and learning, content streaming, gaming and e-commerce, it said, and enterprise digital transformation is returning “with renewed economic confidence.” There's a proposed $1 billion Technology Modernization Fund (see 2104090041), it noted.
Top U.S. cable and wireline ISPs gained 1.02 million net broadband subscribers in Q1 vs. 1.17 million in the year-ago quarter, reported Leichtman Research Group Tuesday. Cable had 73.77 million of 107 million total subscribers, adding 935,000 subs. Telcos had 33.3 million customers, adding 85,000 vs. a net loss of 60,000. Losses among telco non-fiber subs were more than offset by over 400,000 fiber adds, bringing fiber-based telco broadband subs to about 14.6 million. Over the past year, there were about 4.7 million net broadband user adds vs. 2.8 million the prior year, said Principal Bruce Leichtman.
Washington, D.C., Council members set a Sept. 16 hearing on a bill to require a plan to upgrade internet in neighborhoods with slow speeds and address affordability gaps. The Government Operations and Facilities Committee hears B24-0200 at noon, said Monday's notice. Ten council members supported the measure last month (see 2104060063).
The National Institute of Standards and Technology plans a virtual workshop June 2-3 on developing standards and guidelines for software supply chain security, as directed by President Joe Biden’s recent executive order (see 2105130065). The EO directs NIST to help lead two pilot labeling programs to inform consumers about IoT device security.
Cisco said Friday it's buying Kenna Security. Combining Kenna’s “vulnerability management” expertise with Cisco’s SecureX “threat intelligence” platform can help reduce the cyber risk “attack surface” and the time it takes to detect cyberattacks and respond, it said. “As we shift to a work-from-anywhere model, employees are connecting to the network with company-owned and personal devices and are increasingly reliant on cloud technologies,” said Cisco. “These trends have significantly expanded the attack surface and increased the complexity of security.” The transaction is expected to close in fiscal Q4, said Cisco.
An Amazon Photos services outage that began Tuesday prevented North American accounts from “uploading and viewing photos and videos through our apps,” the company emailed customers Thursday. “Our services are now fully restored. Please be assured that your content is safe and secure.” Amazon didn’t respond to questions about what caused the outage.
The Commerce Department, National Institute of Standards and Technology and FTC will lead a pilot consumer labeling program to educate the public on the security of IoT devices under President Joe Biden’s cybersecurity executive order. Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., and Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., praised the IoT provision in the EO, saying it follows their legislation, the Cyber Shield Act. The EO directs Commerce to develop cyber benchmarks for devices like baby monitors, home assistants, smart locks, cameras, cellphones and laptops, the lawmakers noted.
Cisco is buying Socio Labs for its event technology platform, it said Wednesday, citing the hybrid event model emerging from the pandemic. Combining Socio Labs’ platform with Cisco’s Webex will enable large-scale, multi-session hybrid events and conferences with livestreaming, sponsorship, networking and advanced analytics. The Socio Labs team will join the Webex customer experience team (see personals section of this issue). The deal is expected to be completed in Cisco’s fiscal Q4 ending in July.
Zigbee Alliance rebranded as Connectivity Standards Alliance and renamed Project Connected Home over IP as Matter. Silicon Labs jumped on Tuesday's announcement, saying its wireless technologies are available for development of Matter products that support Thread, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.