BMW Group, Intel and Mobileye said 40 autonomous BMW vehicles incorporating their technology will be in trials on roads by this year's second half. In an announcement in Las Vegas at CES Wednesday, the companies said trials in the U.S. and Europe will be under “real traffic conditions.” The companies are seeing cost and time savings by sharing development expenses and pooling resources, said Intel CEO Brian Krzanich.

The market for advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) and autonomous vehicles will reach $144 billion in global revenue by 2025, said Juniper Research in a Tuesday news release. The market research firm said ADAS adoption is expected to increase rapidly over the next five years, though it still lacks significant mass market penetration. Several factors will account for this: reduced hardware costs, especially sensors; more governmental interest in self-driving cars due to safety and environmental reasons, with commercial companies such as ride-sharing providers leading the way; and stricter safety "specifications" for "vulnerable road users such as pedestrians."

Consumer spending on digital devices, services and content will rise on average 4.7 percent annually, reaching $3.4 trillion worldwide in 2020, IDC said in a Tuesday report. Total consumer digital spending is going up, but “the nature of the spend is changing,” it said. “Just as consumers shift spending towards digital content, consumers worldwide are moving digital spending towards online media and away from entertainment devices.” Regions outside the U.S. will account for most of the change in consumer habits, it said. In developing countries, “consumer spending on digital content and services, versus devices, is still gaining, while online media spending also increases in wallet share,” it said.

More investment in "hybrid infrastructure" -- tying physical structures with technology such as water mains embedded with internet-connected sensors to detect leaks or smart traffic lights to create more efficient transportation -- is "likely to have bigger productivity payoffs than simply pouring more concrete or laying pipe," the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation said in a Tuesday report. Written by Peter Singer, a policy adviser at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Washington office, the ITIF report said studies showed "investments in IT-enabled infrastructure can have 60 percent greater productivity impacts than investments in roads alone." The report said a smart infrastructure is one part of an "innovation infrastructure" that President-elect Donald Trump, who emphasized investing in physical infrastructure during his campaign, should adopt. That means expanding public and private R&D investments, advanced technology like exascale computing, scientific infrastructure and advanced manufacturing, it said.

Most on-demand or sharing economy companies like Airbnb, Lyft, TaskRabbit and Uber "haven't caught up with the rest of the tech industry in safeguarding user data against unwarranted government access demands," wrote Electronic Frontier Foundation analyst Karen Gullo in a Thursday blog post. In a review of 2016, she said most of the companies "aren't promising to stand by their users" when the government comes asking for user data. The group released a report in May saying most of the companies aren't meeting industry best practices for privacy and transparency (see 1605050038). She said Lyft and Uber were better than other sharing economy companies, but Gullo said Uber recently made a change in iPhone app policy that undermined user privacy (see 1612210039). "Unfortunately the Uber location tracking change is part of a disturbing trend among software makers that we saw continue in 2016 to take away, or at least limit, the ability of users to opt out of functionality that automatically gobbles up your personal information -- such as location data and browsing history." Two other examples of this, she said, are Microsoft's Windows 10 data collection (see 1608170057) and note-taking app Evernote's new privacy policy that permits some employees to read user content to improve machine learning technology. "Want to avoid the company’s prying eyes? Apparently there’s no clear way to do so if you want to continue using service," Gullo added.

U.S. advertisers spent $17.6 billion on digital ads in Q3, the highest third quarter on record, said the Interactive Advertising Bureau in its latest revenue report for internet advertising, which was prepared by PwC. In a Wednesday news release, IAB said the Q3 spending was a 20 percent jump over the same period in 2015 and a 4.3 percent increase from Q2 this year. “The momentum of advertising in mobile, digital video, and other innovative formats is undeniable,” said IAB Chief Marketing Officer David Doty. “These record-setting third quarter revenue figures reflect marketers’ trust in the internet’s power to connect with today’s audiences.” IAB said the Q3 revenue is estimated based on a sample of overall survey respondents. The survey includes online ad revenue from websites, commercial online services, free email providers and others.

Accountants, attorneys, doctors and others who hold state licenses or certifications should be on the lookout for "official-looking" emails that warn professionals their licenses will be suspended unless they pay past due fees, but are designed to install malicious software, said the FTC in a Wednesday blog post. The commission has been warning consumers about government imposter scams for years, but FTC senior attorney Lesley Fair wrote that scammers now send emails that say a complaint has been filed against professionals, prompting them to click a link that installs the malware on the consumer's computer. "Of course, State Bars and Boards regularly communicate with members via email -- and yes, we all have to pay our annual dues," she wrote. "But if the circumstance is so serious that a person’s professional license is on the line, the first they’ll hear about it won’t be in email like that." Fair recommended professionals call their bar or board directly using the phone number on a membership card. If it's a scam, professionals should report it to the FTC and warn others, she said.

​Samsung will use CES to unveil its first ever “Wind-Free” wall-mounted smart air conditioner, following the “huge success” of a floor-standing model in South Korea, the company said in a Christmas Day announcement from Seoul. Its Wind-Free models give users “a cooler indoor climate and optimal energy efficiency without the discomfort of direct cold airflow,” Samsung said. They disperse cold air through 21,000 “micro air holes,” it said. A two-step cooling system first lowers temperatures in “fast cooling” mode before switching automatically to the “Wind-Free” mode that creates “still air” once the desired temperature is reached, it said. The AR9500M wall-mounted model to be shown at CES is Wi-Fi-enabled so it can be controlled from anywhere in the home through Samsung’s Smart Home app, it said. “Users can remotely regulate temperature, adjust settings, receive real time updates about performance and daily energy usage, as well as troubleshoot solutions when a repair is needed,” it said. Samsung applied Sept. 9 to register “Wind-Free” as a trademark for air conditioners and other smart appliances, including air purifiers, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office records show. But the agency preliminarily refused the application in a Dec. 2 letter on grounds that “Wind-Free” as a trademark would be “merely descriptive” and therefore cannot be allowed. PTO gave Samsung six months to appeal the refusal.

From the FBI's legal fight with Apple to allegations of Russian interference into the U.S. election, 2016 was a "big year for government hacking," said the Electronic Frontier Foundation in a blog post this week. The Obama administration blamed the Russian government for a series of hacks of U.S. political institutions, though it's unclear if those hacks changed the outcome of the presidential election, said EFF. "But paranoia about Russian hacking has successfully sown confusion all over the world" with the U.S. reviewing foreign-based attacks seeking to disrupt the elections, and European governments "reportedly bracing for Russian interference in next year's elections in France, Germany, and the Netherlands," the Monday post said. EFF also said certain types of Chinese government hacking may be declining, possibly due to a 2015 U.S.-China agreement not to support cyber-enabled intellectual property theft. The post also noted the FBI's court fight to force Apple to unlock an iPhone used in the 2015 San Bernardino, California, shooting (see 1603290059) and changes to the Rule 41 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure that allow the FBI to get a warrant from any jurisdiction regardless of where a device may be located (see 1611220013).

The ICANN board selected San Juan and Barcelona as the host cities for two of its three 2018 meetings, the organization said Thursday. San Juan will host the ICANN meeting March 10-15. Barcelona will welcome the meeting Oct. 20-26, ICANN said. San Juan was originally to be the site of ICANN's November meeting, but the organization moved it to Hyderabad, India, in response to concerns about the Zika virus outbreak (see 1605180029). ICANN hasn't selected a city for its June 18-21, 2018 meeting.