Sony Pictures Home Entertainment set for Monday the debut of its 4K Ultra HD movie streaming service, Ultra, for owners of qualified Sony Ultra HD TVs, it said in a Tuesday announcement. Ultra, which Sony announced at CES, will offer a variety of movies for purchase and playback in 4K Ultra HD, with many including high dynamic range, it said. Films available on Ultra for $30 each will include new releases like Concussion, The Night Before and The Walk, and library titles such as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Ghostbusters, it said. Consumers who buy eligible Sony 4K TVs with Ultra this summer will receive four free movies when they sign up for the service, it said.

The FTC approved a final order Tuesday, resolving a complaint against Oracle that it deceived customers about security updates to the Java platform, standard edition (Java SE) software (see 1512210028), the commission said in a news release. The commission approved the order 4-0 after a public comment period. FTC announced the settlement in December when the commission said Oracle was aware of "significant security issues" with older Java SE versions -- installed in more than 850 million personal computers -- that support browser-based features such as calculators, online gaming, chat rooms and 3D images. FTC's complaint said Oracle didn't tell customers that software updates may have left older versions intact. The complaint said hackers could exploit the flaws in the older versions, potentially giving them access to consumers' usernames and passwords to financial accounts and enabling them to launch phishing attacks. The order requires Oracle to notify customers of any older versions on their computers during an update process, inform them of the risks and give them the choice to uninstall them. "In addition, the company will be required to provide broad notice to consumers via social media and their website about the settlement and how consumers can remove older versions of the software," the FTC release said.

Wall Street met news of management changes at Pandora with a 12 percent cut in stock value Monday, but analyst firm Dougherty & Co. maintained an outperform rating on the No. 1 music streaming company. Pandora replaced CEO Brian McAndrews Monday with co-founder Tim Westergren while Chief Financial Officer Mike Herring added the president title and Chief Strategy Officer Sara Clemens was tapped as chief operating officer. “We continue to think that Pandora's long-term strategy will drive profitability,” Dougherty analyst Steven Frankel said in a research note. Frankel compared Pandora’s strategy to invest in on-demand subscription service, live events and international expansion to that of Netflix with one exception: “Netflix has little control over its content costs, and Pandora has relatively well-settled pricing for its content.” New Copyright Royalty Board rates “set a benchmark” for negotiating international and on-demand content rights, while Pandora's three-tier offering (commercial-supported and commercial-free Internet radio plus on-demand listening) gives it “a competitive advantage over virtually every other service,” Frankel said. It could take a year or more for the strategy to show results, he said. Shares closed at $9.60 Monday.

The revelation last week that Netflix allegedly throttled its own stream on AT&T and Verizon devices for five years (see 1603250050) isn’t a net neutrality violation, but could have other policy implications, said Guggenheim Partners analyst Paul Gallant Monday in a note to investors. The FCC last summer fined AT&T $100 million for insufficient disclosure that unlimited data service was slowed after reaching 5 GB a month, Gallant noted. “Netflix has a sensible rationale -- reducing Netflix's churn with AT&T and Verizon wireless subscribers, who might otherwise drop Netflix due to higher data charges,” he said. “But getting ‘caught’ doing this may put Netflix on its heels in Washington at a time when important [over-the-top] policies like interconnection pricing and zero rating are fluid and could go either way.” The revelation also shows the power of edge providers, he said. “ISPs have long complained that they are being unreasonably singled out for regulation within the Internet ecosystem,” Gallant wrote. “This Netflix report may highlight for government officials the leverage possessed by large Internet companies. Slowing streams to specific wireless [operators] implies a range of steps a large edge provider ... could take to disadvantage an ISP relative to its competitors.”

Harman spotlighted its automotive technology on display in vehicles debuting at the New York International Auto Show Friday, running through April 3. The Maserati Levante uses Harman’s advanced platform with a multi-touch 8.4-inch SVGA screen and voice control system. In-vehicle add-ons include dual Bluetooth pairing and Harman’s Aha connected services that offer GPS and radio support, Harman said. The Porsche Macan features a 7-inch widescreen TFT touch screen and connects to the iPhone over Wi-Fi via Apple’s CarPlay and to other smartphones over Bluetooth, Harman said. The Macan navigation system supports real-time traffic information, Google Earth, Google Street View, 3D city maps and landscape representation, and it has automatic zoom for a clearer view of intersections, real-time traffic information and dynamic route guidance, Harman said. Mercedes bowed the GLC Coupe and AMG GLC43 at the Auto Show, and its Command online hub uses Harman connectivity and infotainment solutions for access to Google Street View; Google Earth, including 3D cities; local search; and real-time traffic information, said Harman. Users can stream music from smartphones via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi via the vehicle’s wireless hot spot, Harman said.

ICANN's ombudsman is continuing to conduct a confidential investigation into allegations of sexual harassment during ICANN’s meeting earlier this month in Marrakech, Morocco. The group does “not condone any such conduct, and there should be zero tolerance for it within the community,” said acting CEO Akram Atallah in a blog post Friday. “ICANN’s staff and Board takes the issue of harassment or other improper conduct at its meetings very seriously.” The behavior standards that ICANN stakeholders are expected to follow during ICANN meetings don’t specifically address sexual harassment incidents, but they do “provide our global, diverse multistakeholder community with a set of high-level guidelines for interacting with one another, which encompasses harassment and other improper treatment of others,” Atallah said. The ICANN board is “looking at whether it makes sense to enhance this language” in light of the incident in Marrakech, he said. ICANN also wants the community to lead any changes to its policy for handling sexual harassment complaints, Atallah said.

Hulu’s virtual reality (VR) app will offer surround sound for movies and TV shows via Fraunhofer's Cingo immersive audio headphone rendering technology for mobile devices, Fraunhofer and Hulu said in a Thursday announcement. Immersive audio is “crucial for virtual reality experiences to create a full sense of presence,” they said. Users of Hulu’s VR app will benefit from movies and TV shows streamed using the HE-AAC surround sound audio codec and rendered for headphones through Fraunhofer Cingo, they said. HE-AAC, deployed in more than 8 billion devices, is the native surround sound audio codec for Android, the underlying operating system of Samsung phones paired with Gear VR, the companies said. Android’s HE-AAC implementation includes support for loudness and downmix metadata known from the broadcast TV world, as well as other features that allow the sound to be tailored for an optimum user experience in any environment, they said. Consumers can experience Hulu with surround sound by downloading the Hulu VR app from the Oculus Gear VR Store, and Cingo is available from Fraunhofer as a product-ready software implementation for mobile device manufacturers, chip set vendors and providers of multimedia services, they said.

NTIA’s April 8 meeting of its multistakeholder process​ group on vulnerability research disclosure will be at the Westin Chicago River North in Chicago, NTIA said in a notice to be published in Friday’s Federal Register. The meeting, to run 10 a.m.-4 p.m. CDT, “will build on stakeholders’ previous work” on vulnerability research disclosure, NTIA said. Stakeholders further revised the scope of their work during a December meeting, with work to increase adoption of disclosure best practices generating the most debate (see 1512020063).

A National Institute of Standards and Technology analysis of comments on the Cybersecurity Framework indicates stakeholders affirm the framework’s current uses but also indicates that NIST should provide more guidance on framework use, NIST said Thursday in a blog post. Stakeholders disagreed on when NIST should form a multistakeholder process to update the Cybersecurity Framework, though they agreed on the need for a collaborative update process that would be similar to NIST’s original 2013-2014 development process, NIST said in its analysis. Major industry interests had told NIST not to pursue a major framework revamp in the near future (see 1602240065). Parties said they’re comfortable with NIST’s current leadership of framework guidance but continue to believe that a neutral third-party organization should eventually take the reins of framework stewardship, NIST said. “These comments provide strong input for the framework’s future and revealed that the number of organizations using the framework is growing,” Matthew Barrett, NIST program director-Cybersecurity Framework, said in a statement.

ABI Research sees global tablet shipments sinking below 140 million units in 2021, from 207 million in 2015, it said in a Wednesday report. Demand for branded tablets in advanced market economies is decreasing “due to saturation, slow replacement cycles, greater influence of business purchases, and substitution,” the research firm said. China and other Asian markets have decreased demand for white box tablets due to shifts to branded tablets and reliance on smartphones and phablets, it said. "China is evolving, moving away from white box products to support local and global brand manufacturers," it said. "As this behavior continues across other markets in Southeast Asia, Central and Eastern Europe, and Latin America, the potential for white box tablets to remain viable will all but go away." Though advanced markets had two-thirds of all branded tablets shipped in 2015, “this will soon flip,” ABI said. The firm predicts that by 2021, 57 percent of branded tablet shipments “will come from emerging and developing economies."