ICANN said its initial release of label generation rules for the root zone (LGR-1) is “designed to be the first installment of a conservative set of rules to determine the validity and variants of labels for the [Domain Name System] Root Zone.” LGR-1 contains code prints, variants and rules for using Arabic script in domain names. As ICANN approves additional LGR proposals for other language scripts, it will release “new versions of the integrated LGR,” the nonprofit said in a Wednesday news release. “Once finalized, each version can be applied mechanically to determine the validity of an applied-for top-level domain label and the maximal set of its allocatable variant labels for the scripts supported. Further mechanisms are being developed to determine which of these allocatable variant labels will actually be allocated to those who have applied for top-level domains.” ICANN Internationalized Domain Names Program Senior Manager Sarmad Hussain said the release of LGR-1 Wednesday is “a significant step forward in developing a multilingual Internet. These rules provide an open and transparent method for determining the validity and variants of top-level domain (TLD) names, or labels, in the world's various scripts and writing systems.” Development of LGR-1 “benefits current and future Internet users who use the Arabic script by making it easier to navigate the web, and helps address confusion and security issues in using the domain name system -- specifically top-level domains,” Hussain said in a blog post.

Business professionals in many industries see IoT making a big shift toward “mainstream adoption” in 2016, Gartner said Thursday in a survey report. The research firm canvassed 465 firms in 18 business sectors globally in November and found 29 percent using IoT products or services, it said. An additional 14 percent are planning to implement IoT in the coming 12 months, with 21 percent more planning to implement IoT after 2016, it said. “The number of organizations adopting IoT will grow 50 percent in 2016, reaching 43 percent of organizations overall.” In the “aggregate,” 64 percent “plan to eventually implement IoT,” it said. “It is also important to note that another 38 percent have no plans to implement IoT, including 9 percent that see no relevance whatsoever in the technologies.” IoT adoption remains low because “many organizations have yet to establish a clear picture of what benefits the IoT can deliver, or have not yet invested the time to develop ideas for how to apply IoT to their business,” Gartner said. "However, we are poised for a marked shift in focus toward customer-facing benefits for planned IoT implementations, positioning IoT as a key competitive marketplace weapon going forward."

The federal government will let neither China nor any other government take charge of the domain name process, said Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker Thursday, restating a long-held U.S. position that a multistakeholder apparatus should govern the process. She responded to questions from Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., during a FY 2017 budget hearing before Senate Appropriations's Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies Subcommittee. With ICANN CEO Fadi Chehadé leaving to become co-chairman of a high-level advisory committee to the Chinese government-led World Internet Conference (see 1602240035), Lankford asked Pritzker what China's role could be. "What he’s choosing to do afterwards is his business," she replied. "Our concern is to make sure that, whether it’s China or any other government, because there are other governments that would like to take over the domain name process and we’re not going to allow that. That is not the objective here. The objective is to keep it in the multistakeholder domain." Lankford, echoing concerns of other lawmakers about China's role, said "it's very, very important" to keep the Internet "open, free and not limited. But when you’re dealing with China in the way this has been dealt with in so many places, it raises red flags to me on that.”

Freight railroads are making increasing use of broadband and are embracing changing technology, said Michael Rush, senior vice president of the Association of American Railroads, in an opinion piece in Re/Code building on the association’s recent “State of the Industry” report (see 1601270047). “Consumers may not associate freight railroads -- responsible for overseeing a vast infrastructure with more than 100,000 privately owned bridges and 1.5 million rail cars in the U.S. -- with high-tech and the startups driving consumer behavior today,” Rush wrote. “But for every disruptive technology like ride sharing or autonomous cars, there is a reliable freight railroad incorporating new technologies that ensure the efficiency and safety of the nation’s essential rail network.”

Plaintiffs in 17 of 20 class-action complaints against the Inscape viewer-tracking feature on Vizio smart TVs (see 1512060005) agree with Vizio that the complaints should be transferred to the U.S. District Court in Santa Ana, California, and "centralized" there into one case, lawyers for the plaintiffs and Vizio told the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation in a joint filing. The panel scheduled oral argument for March 31 in Santa Barbara, California, on the motion to consolidate, the panel order said. All the complaints allege Inscape violates the federal Video Protection Privacy Act and other federal and state statutes. Vizio hadn’t filed a legal defense to any of the complaints and agreed to submit one of the cases to a private mediator (see 1512060005). Plaintiffs in two of the remaining cases want the complaints transferred to and consolidated in federal courts in Arkansas or Indiana, court papers show. “Centralization” of the cases “is appropriate and prudent,” and Santa Ana is “the most logical forum choice,” because that court has a history of “expeditiously and efficiently” resolving civil complaints, the 17 plaintiffs and Vizio also told the panel Thursday in written arguments. Santa Ana also makes sense because Vizio and most of the plaintiffs are based in Southern California, they said. Consolidating the various complaints into one case in a single locale would “promote judicial economy and avoid inconsistent rulings,” the arguments said.

The European Commission approved the proposed combination of Dell and information technology and cloud services provider EMC, Dell said in a news release Monday. A week ago, the FTC cleared the companies' merger. The deal is still subject to approval by EMC's shareholders and regulatory bodies in "certain other jurisdictions," said Dell.

Distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks continued to rise in Q4 and are increasingly repeating strikes on the same targets, Akamai said Monday in a report. The number of DDoS attacks rose by 40 percent in Q4 from Q3. The average number of repeat attacks continued to increase in Q4 to 24 per target. One surveyed customer was hit with 188 repeat DDoS attacks during the quarter, Akamai said. More than 54 percent of DDoS attacks were aimed at targets in the gaming industry, while 23 percent were aimed at tech firms, Akamai said. Less than 7 percent of Q4 attacks were aimed at financial services, and less than 5 percent were aimed at entertainment companies. China was the top country where DDoS attacks originated in Q4, with 28 percent of all such attacks being sourced there, Akamai said. Twenty-two percent of attacks originated in Turkey, and 15 percent came from within the U.S.

Microsoft is “thrilled with the success of Windows 10, which is off to the hottest start in Windows history and already running on more than 200 million devices,” a spokesperson emailed us Thursday in response to HP Inc.’s statement that it hasn’t “yet seen the anticipated Windows 10 stimulation of demand that we would have hoped for” (see 1602250024). For Windows 10, Microsoft continues “to see huge opportunity in the consumer and enterprise PC markets, with 300 million PC sales expected in 2016, and strong growth in the 2-in-1 market,” the spokesperson said. “We are pleased with our progress toward making Windows 10 available on one billion devices and we’re thrilled by the new Windows 10 devices we’re seeing, including a new set of devices announced at Mobile World Congress.”

The FBI shouldn't require any technology company to create codes that undermine security and introduce additional vulnerabilities, Mozilla Chief Legal and Business Officer Denelle Dixon-Thayer wrote in a blog post Thursday. She said that government surveillance can cause "massive harm" to user security and the Apple case is the latest example. Instead, she proposed that governments adopt basic principles to guide the scope of their surveillance activities. Governments should strengthen user security and minimize the impact of surveillance on user trust and security, and such surveillance activities should have "empowered, independent and transparent oversight," Dixon-Thayer wrote. She asked users to share the principles and encourage policymakers and governments to protect users from what she sees as surveillance harms.

TP-Link bowed Wi-Fi range extenders for the home that are said to provide up to 10,000 square feet of coverage. The RE590T AC1900 ($149) range extender offers speeds up to 1900 Mbps for online gaming and 4K Ultra HD video streaming, the company said Wednesday. The extender includes 4 gigabit ethernet ports for hardwired connections and its touch screen lets users access network management features including guest login information. The AC1900 TP-Link’s Kasa app works with the RE350K AC1200 ($99) wall plug extender, finding the optimal location for the device and letting users know if the extenders are too close or far from the router, the company said.