About 15 million to 16 million public school students, or 30%, live in households either without adequate internet connections or a device for distance-learning at home, and about 9 million students have neither, reported Common Sense and Boston Consulting. They also estimated Monday that 300,000 to 400,000 K-12 teachers live in households without adequate internet connectivity, about 10 percent. The study said it would cost $7 billion-$12 billion to close these groups' digital divide. "The #homeworkgap is the cruelest part of our digital divide," FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel tweeted, regarding the report.

Amazon agreed to buy self-driving vehicle company Zoox to bring “autonomous ride-hailing to reality,” it blogged Friday. Amazon’s financial muscle will “markedly accelerate” Zoox’s path to market with “safe, clean and enjoyable” autonomous vehicles that deliver a "revolutionary passenger experience," said Chief Technology Officer Jesse Levinson. Zoox CEO Aicha Evans and Levinson continue in their roles. This follows Amazon’s autonomous vehicle investments in Aurora and Rivian, with Amazon saying it would order 100,000 Rivian delivery vans for rollout next year, Cowen's John Blackledge wrote investors. Though Zoox is focused on ride-hailing, “the technology could ostensibly be repurposed for Last Mile package delivery,” said the analyst. He cited a big area of Amazon investment “as it scales over time and focuses on 1-Day delivery for Prime members.”

The President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology meets Tuesday virtually starting at 11 a.m. EDT to discuss industries of the future and other topics, the Office of Science and Technology Policy announced Friday. OSTP Director Kelvin Droegemeier and Chief Technology Officer Michael Kratsios will speak, along with representatives from the private sector, including IBM.

With broadband growth flat, the next ISP revenue growth opportunity is value-added services, blogged Parks Associates' David Drury Thursday. Adoption rate for stand-alone internet service grew from 34% in 2017 to 42% in Q1, said the analyst. Average service rates grew 36% from Q1 2012 to Q3 2019 to $60 monthly. That compares with average monthly rate growth from $107 to $127 for TV and internet service. “Providers have generally used [value-added services] VAS as a marketing tool to attract and retain subscribers," said Drury, so for them to successfully make the transition to a revenue-producing source, "companies need a clear understanding of the gaps in consumer satisfaction and demand for strategic and successful VAS deployments." VAS has little impact on ISPs’ average revenue per user because speed is the primary driver of ARPU, said Drury.

Antitrust enforcers should investigate whether Google is violating antitrust law through exclusive contracts making the platform the default search engine for cellphone manufacturers and online content providers, Public Knowledge wrote DOJ and state attorneys general Thursday. “Lack of competition in search harms consumers and advertisers, as well as other search providers and potential entrants,” PK wrote. “Years of stagnation caused by a lack of competition have likely had harmful effects that are broad and difficult to quantify.” DOJ, Google and the office of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) didn’t comment. Paxton, who PK addressed in the letter, is helping lead an antitrust investigation of Google (see 2004220067).

Mercedes-Benz and Nvidia partnered for an in-vehicle computing system and artificial intelligence computing infrastructure, they said. The upgradeable systems will be standard in Mercedes vehicles in 2024. The Nvidia Drive platform includes a system software stack designed for automated driving AI applications, which the companies will jointly develop, they said Tuesday.

Global hyperscale data center bookings will be up sharply in 2020, said Wells Fargo’s Eric Luebchow in a Wednesday note to investors. Hyperscalers, including Microsoft, AWS, Facebook and Google, “are taking down meaningful capacity in the U.S. and Europe and shifting more toward third-party leasing given the demand spikes on their platforms,” he said, noting Northern Virginia leased more capacity this year than in all of 2019. “While several private operators have won significant new hyperscale deployments, we think the broad increase in activity will benefit the operators that have these hyperscalers as existing customers,” Luebchow said: “Pricing in competitive U.S. markets remains at or near historic lows, but appears to have stabilized.”

Apple’s announcement this week it's moving away from Intel microprocessors in Mac computers by year-end, switching to its own processors used in the iPhone and iPad (see report, June 23), could be part of a larger shift in information technology leadership, blogged Bret Swanson, American Enterprise Institute visiting fellow. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp. -- the largest contract manufacturer of chips for “fabless” semiconductor firms, such as Apple, Amazon, Qualcomm and Nvidia -- announced plans to build a $12 billion chip fab in Arizona, which could help alleviate a supply-chain worry: overdependence on Taiwan for chip manufacturing, Swanson said Wednesday. Though the U.S. is home to tech firms that design 65% of the world’s fabless chip volume, it has 10% of worldwide foundry capacity for manufacturing, he said. TSMC was first to reach the 7 nanometer process threshold, while Intel’s similar effort is reportedly delayed. Intel has an additional challenge: Apple and Amazon are using the alternative ARM architecture, not Intel’s x86, the dominant desktop and server architecture since the late 1970s, Swanson noted. TSMC’s Arizona investment provides not only “supply-chain resilience but also an overall boost to America’s bleeding-edge info-tech leadership,” he said. An Intel spokesperson emailed Wednesday that its 7-nanometer process "remains on track" with first products due by the end of 2021. On Apple's decision to move to its own processors, she said: "Apple is a customer across several areas of business, and we will continue to support them. Intel remains focused on delivering the most advanced PC experiences and a wide range of technology choices that redefine computing. We believe Intel-powered PCs -- like those based on our forthcoming Tiger Lake mobile platform -- provide global customers the best experience in the areas they value most, as well as the most open platform for developers, both today and into the future."

The EU general data protection regulation is generally a success but needs more work, European Values and Transparency Commissioner Vera Jourova said at a Wednesday briefing. The European Commission's two-year assessment found that fears the privacy framework would be "the end of the world" didn't materialize, she said. Seventy percent of Europeans have heard of the regulation but more awareness is needed, she said. The review found the EC approach was correct, with more companies using privacy by design as a competitive advantage, and the one-continent, one-law philosophy enabling more businesses, particularly small and mid-sized ones, to operate in Europe's single market. It included a "serious to-do list," Jourova noted. One key issue is the resources available to national data protection authorities (DPAs). There was a 42% increase in staff and a 49% hike in budgets between 2016 and 2019, but the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) and DPAs must boost cooperation to provide a pan-EU data protection culture, Jourova said. The EC is monitoring DPA resources, said Justice Commissioner Didier Reynders. It's possible some national authorities, such as Ireland and Luxembourg, that handle complex cases involving big tech companies might need more capacity and cross-border cooperation, he said. "Consistent and efficient enforcement of the GDPR remains a priority," said European Data Protection Supervisor Wojciech Wiewiorowski. He proposed creating a shared pool of experts in the EDPB to help DPAs in complex and resource-heavy cases. The EC review was "thorough but critical," said Computer and Communications Industry Association Europe Senior Policy Manager Alex Roure: Two years after becoming law, companies and consumers still "lack clear guidance from enforcers which too often take diverging, national actions." The GDPR "has failed to live up to its promise," proving to be a "complicated, burdensome drain on Europe's digital economy," said Center for Data Innovation Senior Policy Analyst Eline Chivot. The review shines an "unflattering lights" on many shortcomings, yet the EC "seems determined to double down by layering on even more rules."

Pass the Justice in Policing Act, which rejects “qualified immunity" for police, nearly 700 artists, actors, musicians, and music and entertainment groups asked House leaders Tuesday. RIAA, Motion Picture Association, Spotify, the Songwriters Guild of America, Elon Musk and the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers signed.