Government shouldn’t use campaign advertising guidelines to regulate Facebook user speech on “divisive” issues, FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr tweeted Thursday (see 1904010055). He responded to comments from CEO Mark Zuckerberg in an interview with ABC News. Zuckerberg denied the notion that he was suggesting a “policing” of the First Amendment. “Any regulation around what someone says online is protected. But I think that that’s clearly not right today,” Zuckerberg said.
As the automotive industry moves toward electrification, automation and connectivity, embedded navigation with HD maps becomes increasingly important, Navigant Research reported Wednesday. Street-level road maps are insufficient for the upcoming mobility paradigm, it said: highly automated vehicles require detailed HD maps to enable “precise localization” so vehicles can navigate. Next-generation maps will be targeted more to electronic control systems running vehicles than to drivers, said analyst Sam Abuelsamid. Several manufacturers have begun using topographical information as an input to powertrain control, and others are using road contour information to manage speed in partially automated driving systems, he said.
NTIA and the Food and Drug Administration are partnering with domain name industry groups “to curb online availability and sales of illegal opioids,” Administrator David Redl blogged Wednesday. Neustar, which manages .us domains, announced it will “step up enforcement of those who violate its existing ban on the sale or distribution of illegal opioids,” Redl wrote. The FDA and NTIA also will work with Verisign and Public Interest Registry, which respectively manage .com and .org domains.
A third-party app exposed more than 540 million Facebook user records for an unknown period, including comments, likes, reactions, account names and user IDs, UpGuard Cyber Risk reported Wednesday. The security firm linked the breach to Mexico-based media company Cultura Colectiva. Another app, At the Pool, exposed plain text Facebook passwords for 22,000 users, UpGuard said. Both data sets were stored on separate Amazon S3 buckets, which allow public downloads. “The data exposed in each of these sets would not exist without Facebook, yet these data sets are no longer under Facebook’s control,” the report said, arguing millions of app developers are responsible for securing the information. Facebook policy prohibits storing information in public databases, a spokesperson said: “Once alerted to the issue, we worked with Amazon to take down the databases. We are committed to working with the developers on our platform to protect people's data.”
Consumer familiarity with video doorbells grew 57 percent in 2018, and the devices have the fourth-highest adoption rate among smart home products in the U.S. market, blogged Parks Associates Tuesday. A quarter of broadband households plan to buy a smart video doorbell in the next 12 months, said analyst Patrice Samuels. A competitive market -- energized by new products from Ring, SimpliSafe and Netatmo late last year and new products from others -- will drive sales of 4 million units this year, said Parks. It predicts a 5 million-unit market by 2023.
NTIA plans a multistakeholder meeting on software component transparency, 10 a.m. April 11 at the American Institute of Architects, the agency said in Monday's Federal Register (see 1807190048).
The global market for smart home devices will grow 26.9 percent to 832.7 million shipments in 2019, IDC projected Friday, increasing through 2023 to 1.6 billion devices as consumers adopt multiple devices and availability of products and services increases. Last year was about “getting products into consumers’ homes,” led by Amazon and Google with low-cost smart speakers and bundles across device categories, said analyst Jitesh Ubrani. This year, industry will focus on “tying the various devices together” to create a more cohesive experience and “layering in additional services,” he said. Amazon and Google will dominate the smart home market, but Apple is expected to gain traction, said IDC. Samsung “is worth watching” as its products extend into more categories, and the company continues to invest in Bixby and Tizen, said analysts. An important trend to watch is how smart assistants become integrated in the home, said analyst Ramon Llamas. "Smart assistants will act as the point of contact with multiple smart home devices and essentially become the cornerstone of the smart home experience,” Llamas said, noting the experience consumers have with smart speakers today “will eventually move on to appliances, thermostats, and all sorts of video entertainment."
Thirty-one percent of U.S. broadband homes have a smart speaker and more than a quarter of them use the voice assistants to control a smart device, said Parks Associates Thursday. Voice control, and its promise to simplify the user experience, could help overcome consumer confusion that has inhibited smart home adoption, said analyst Brad Russell.
Facebook violated the Fair Housing Act by “encouraging, enabling and causing housing discrimination” through its advertising platform, the Department of Housing and Urban Development alleged Thursday. Stemming from Secretary Ben Carson’s August complaint, HUD said the platform “unlawfully discriminates based on race, color, national origin, religion, familial status, sex, and disability” by limiting viewership of housing-related ads. The platform “mines extensive data” to determine which users can views certain ads. “Using a computer to limit a person’s housing choices can be just as discriminatory as slamming a door in someone’s face,” Carson said. A U.S. administrative law judge is expected to decide the charge, unless either side opts for a court. The company faces damages related to discrimination, attorney fees, public interest fines and punitive damages. “We're surprised by HUD's decision, as we've been working with them to address their concerns and have taken significant steps to prevent ads discrimination,” a company spokesperson said. “While we were eager to find a solution, HUD insisted on access to sensitive information -- like user data -- without adequate safeguards.” The company cited agreements with the National Fair Housing Alliance, American Civil Liberties Union and others for changing housing, credit and employment ads. Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., urged an end to such practices, tweeting, “Our personal info is being used in harmful ways that affect Americans’ wellbeing and livelihood -- from housing to employment.”
Demand for wired home networking devices is rising, ABI Research reported Wednesday. Increasing household device counts and multimedia and smart home applications drive a need for high data throughput, and ABI predicts Multimedia over Coax Alliance 2.5 or G.hn specification network node shipments will reach 8 million units this year. Wi-Fi has high penetration because of convenience, and newer standards and mesh networking have improved Wi-Fi home coverage, but wired connectivity can improve stability and throughput, said analyst Khin Sandi Lynn. Live video streaming, gaming and virtual reality may boost demand for reliable coverage of home networks, said the analyst, and service providers should integrate wired network devices with Wi-Fi.