standards
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Hitting the Books: The thirty-year quest to make WiFi a connectivity reality
In Beyond Everywhere, Wi-Fi co-inventor Greg Ennis recounts the fascinating (and sometimes frustrating) development of this ubiquitous technology.
US lets companies work with Huawei on 5G standards
The Commerce Department has tweaked its rules to let US companies work with Huawei on tech standards like 5G.
Huawei sues Verizon after patent talks break down
Huawei and Verizon's not-very-public feud has escalated into courtroom warfare as the telecoms company files lawsuits across Texas. Huawei is alleging that Verizon is infringing on its networking patents without paying the proper fees, and it wants "compensation for Verizon's use of patented technology." The Chinese giant says it began talking to Verizon on February 7th, 2019, but talks broke down on January 21st, 2020. The apparent breakdown prompted the legal broadside, with claims filed in both the Eastern and Western district of Texas.
Chrome will clamp down on sites with annoying video ads
As part of its ongoing efforts to block annoying video ads, Chrome has announced a new set of video advertising standards. The guidelines are based on data from the Coalition of Better Ads, which says there are three types of video advertising that people hate most. Chrome is taking a strong stance against these ad types, and it says website owners have four months to stop running the intrusive ads, or they will risk losing advertising completely.
Samsung's QLED 8K TV will be one of the first certified by the 8K Association
Samsung has fired a shot in a brewing 8K standards war by announcing that its 8K QLED TVs will be among the first to be certified by the fledgling 8K Association (8KA) sometime next year. That means the sets will hit a minimum 7,680 x 4,320 resolution (twice that of UHD), while peaking out at 600 nits of brightness and supporting HDMI2.1 and HEVC (H.265) standards. That could include models like Samsung's rumored bezel-free Q950T.
Google plans certification program for Android gaming phones
Google is developing a Game Device Certification program to ensure that future gaming smartphones meet minimum standards and pack enough power to behave predictably for Android game developers. Google hasn't announced the program yet, but XDA Developers obtained documents outlining new requirements for manufacturers. In one section, Google details the new Game Device Certification technical requirements, which manufacturers will have to meet in order to declare an Android device is certified and game-ready.
22 states join California to sue the Trump admin over emissions standards
A group of 22 states have joined California in suing the Trump administration, which revoked that state's right to set its own emissions standards. On Thursday, the Environmental Protection Agency and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced a plan for national vehicle emissions rules. The One National Program Rule would set federal standards on fuel efficiency and greenhouse gas emissions, aligning with the administration's aim to scale back Obama-era targets.
EPA pushes national fuel economy standard in face off with California
The Trump administration has announced plans to create a national vehicle emissions standard. The new "One National Program Rule" would allow the federal government to set uniform fuel efficiency and greenhouse gas emissions standards. The move, announced by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), is the latest in the Trump administration's feud with California.
The first global drone standards have been revealed
As drone use grows, rules and regulations remain in flux and vary among jurisdictions. Last month, for instance, the Federal Aviation Administration granted operators of certain drones approval to fly them in controlled airspace in the US, but the UK has an outright ban on using them within a kilometer of airports. To help establish best practices, the International Organization for Standardization has released the first draft set of global standards for drone use.
EFF is building a stronger 'Do Not Track' browser setting
Despite "Do Not Track" being a standard option on Firefox, Chrome and Safari (but not Microsoft Edge), many unscrupulous advertisers are still secretly tracking the browsing habits of internet users. That's why the Electronic Frontier Foundation has teamed with Adblock, Medium, Mixpanel and DuckDuckGo to create a stronger standard.
New video spec clears the way for 8K laptop screens
Think your 4K laptop or 5K iMac is hot stuff? If specification developers have their way, both will soon be old hat. The Video Electronics Standards Association has unveiled Embedded DisplayPort 1.4a, a new format that lets all-in-ones and laptops use 8K screens (7,680 x 4,320, if you want to be exact). The technology uses compression to squeeze more data into the video feed, and it can divide displays into two or four segments to help the pipeline cope with all those extra pixels.
EU may force Apple to change Lightning connector
EU lawmakers today agreed to a draft regulation stating that all consumer electronics manufacturers must use a common standard battery charger device. While the law may not take effect until 2017 or after, that means that Apple -- which uses its own Lightning adapter rather than the micro-USB connectors adopted by most other smartphone and tablet manufacturers -- would be forced to change its connector standard. The draft legislation could be voted on as soon as March 2014, at which time it will need to be turned into national laws by each EU state. Manufacturers will have another year after state adoption to comply, which means that 2017 is about the earliest that Apple might have to change the Lightning connector. However, this entire situation -- which was brought on by consumer advocates -- might be a moot point. A new USB connector, under design by one of the original USB architects, Ajay Bhatt, is being considered for adoption and would provide a reversible plug similar to the Lightning connector. This new standard will be called the Type C USB connector, and it might be well worth Apple's investment in time and money to influence the design to be compatible with Lightning. Other changes are included in the draft legislation, including common rules for radio equipment including mobile phones and data modems, as well as forcing manufacturers to register products prior to market release. A similar registration program is already in place in the United States, where the Federal Communications Commission must approve products prior to sale.
League of Legends enforces 'zero tolerance' policy on test server
Riot Games is cracking down hard on noxious player attitudes and actions on League of Legends' public beta environment (PBE) server. The studio admits that it has not done enough to enforce player behavior guidelines on the server. Riot also says that this ends now. "Our take-away message today is quite simple," the studio posted. "The PBE has zero tolerance for toxicity, and change is coming." The studio says that the PBE is a premium server that should function under higher standards, and as such the devs are working on ways above and beyond the norm to enforce and improve player behaviors as well as hold players accountable for their actions. One of the new features is an automatic system that will deliver bans to so-called toxic players, starting with 167 such bans today.
European customers lose the Mac Pro on March 1, maybe earlier
Product safety regulations, how do they work? European regulators are requiring adherence to UL's 60950-1 second edition standards, which originally came into effect in late 2010. The rules cover power supply design and other technical specifications. As reported in Macworld, the Mac Pro's 2010-era design doesn't meet the new spec, and Apple is ceasing sales of the tower machine in Europe as of March 1 to comply with the regulatory cutoff. Tim Cook has previously said that 2013 will see a revamp of the heavy-duty Mac form factor, which currently offers expandability at the cost of modern I/O like Thunderbolt. Even though the Mac Pro could technically be sold for one more month, UK reader Terry Hall in Devon reports that his local retailer had already sent back all the Mac Pro inventory in stock. While it would be nice to think that we'll see an all-new Mac Pro before the end of Q1 2013, more likely that it will debut at WWDC this summer instead.
The Nexus Telegraph: Sci-fi commonalities to expect in WildStar
There are certain bits that sort of obscure this fact, but when you get down to it, WildStar is a science fiction game -- a science fiction game taking lots of cues from more fantastical offerings and Westerns, but still science fiction at its heart. And that means that it has certain expectations from potential players, just like fantasy games are expected to have elves and superhero games are expected to have someone who is only distinguishable from Superman by the lack of a logo. Here's the thing, though: Science fiction covers a pretty wide range of setting, so some of those expectations may or may not come to pass with the game. Today I want to talk about some of those reasonable guesses, the sort of thing that you just think has to be in a science fiction game. Is WildStar going to feature these elements? I'm not sure, but I can make some guesses (which might be proved wrong before the week is out, but guessing is fun like that).
W3C completes HTML5 definition, starts interoperability testing
Long heralded as the darling of the open web, the standards for HTML5 haven't actually been finalized by the W3C -- it was just recently that the international consortium pledged to get it done by 2014. So it's good to hear the group just hit a significant milestone on the road to that goal by publishing the full definition for the spec this Tuesday. With that accomplished, the next step is interoperability and performance testing to make sure HTML5 plays nice with any and all browsers, servers and other web tools. The W3C hopes that this will bring "broad HTML 5 interoperability" by 2014, which fits right in to the organization's philosophy of bringing the entirety of the web -- however divisive -- together.
Alliance for Wireless Power approves its specification, edges closer to truly cable-free charging
Design by committee might not be the death knell for technology after all. Over four months after the Alliance for Wireless Power was founded in earnest, the coalition has already greenlit a specification for its partners to work from. The guideline lets device makers start building devices that charge through a magnetic resonance technology more forgiving of distance and material than Qi while simplifying the process through short-range wireless formats like Bluetooth 4.0. While the A4WP group hasn't made all the details public, it's holding meetings this week to speed up the commercialization process -- it's here that we'll learn whether the corporate bureaucracy is just as quick at getting wireless charging hardware into our hands as it is handshaking on standards.
W3C teams with Apple, Google, Mozilla on WebPlatform, a guide to building the open web (video)
The World Wide Web Consortium might just be the United Nations of web development, as it's bringing together some frequent enemies to fight for a common cause through WebPlatform.org. The collaboration will see Adobe, Apple, Facebook, Google, HP, Microsoft, Mozilla, Nokia and Opera pool educational resources to create a comprehensive, frequently updated guide to creating HTML5 and other content for the open web. The companies' instructional oversight is just the start, however -- visitors will have chats and forums to devise their own solutions, and they'll even have a better than usual chance at influencing mid-development web standards. It may be some time before we'll see the first fruits of the organization's work, but we're already happy to see technology companies set aside some of their differences.
Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, others to launch new Web standards resource
Apple is just one of quite a few big tech companies signed on to help support the Worldwide Web Consortium (known as the W3C) in developing a brand new web standards resource called WebPlatform.org. The new site is simply designed to get all available information about how to code for the various web standards out there (from HTML and CSS to newer tech like the Canvas API and various Audio plugins) all together in one clean, easy-to-find place. If you do coding for the web, the site is probably a valuable resource already, and all of the companies involved are trying to convince content creators to help them grow it by contributing to the forums, docs and tutorials currently available on the site. Apple's got lots of reason to support a movement like this, especially as its various Macs and iDevices claim more and more of the web's browsing audience. So it's no surprise that Cupertino is contributing to make a resource like this available. [via TheNextWeb]
W3C says HTML 5 will be finalized in 2014, HTML 5.1 to follow in 2016
HTML 5 has been a buzz word around the interwebs for so long you'd be forgiven if you thought it was a well-established standard looking for a successor. In fact, nothing could be farther from the truth. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), which helps establish the primary standards used online, didn't actually intend to complete HTML 5 until 2022. Thankfully, the group has reconsidered that seemingly absurd timeline and now plans to have this whole mess wrapped up by the end of 2014. The revised plan calls for an HTML 5 Candidate Recommendation (sort of like a feature-frozen beta) to be submitted by the end of 2012, before being finalized in 2014. All existing bits of the standard that are unstable or that suffer interoperability problems will be pulled from that candidate and pushed to a draft version of HTML 5.1. While HTML 5 is being completed, its evolutionary successor will begin the process of marching towards standardization, with a target completion date of 2016. For a more detailed exploration of the future of HTML hit up the source link.
