With a week to go before CES, where high dynamic range figures to be a big issue, Philips appears to be inching closer to landing Patent and Trademark Office registration of the “hdr” trademark, agency records show. According to a Dec. 5 notification, the Philips application (serial number 79162105) is due to be published Tuesday in PTO’s Official Gazette, setting in motion a 30-day comment period during which outside parties may file oppositions. Barring such oppositions, PTO under its customary procedures would grant Philips registration of the “hdr” mark a short time later. The lower-case "hdr” is included in the image accompanying the application. It remains a mystery how Philips would use the trademark if granted the registration. The Philips HDR proposal, one of two proprietary systems along with Dolby Vision to be designated as HDR options in the Ultra HD Blu-ray format, is based in the same Philips Intellectual Property and Standards office from which the trademark application emanated. But Marty Gordon, a spokesman for the Philips HDR team, said that team has no plans to use the logo in its forthcoming activities to win adoption of the Philips HDR system. Representatives of corporate Philips or the various entities like Funai and TP Vision that have licensed the Philips brand for TVs and other CE products didn’t comment.

Ex parte filings at the FCC by the Consumer Video Choice Coalition on recent demonstrations of the coalition's downloadable security solution aren't specific enough about the technology and devices used, said NCTA in an ex parte filing in docket 15-64. “The Commission should not permit such obfuscation in any proceeding, let alone a proceeding like this one where highly technical issues should be fully disclosed and subjected to full analysis before the Commission takes further action,” said NCTA. “There is a reason that the Commission designated this proceeding as a 'permit-but-disclose' proceeding.” The specifics of the demonstrations need to be subjected to third-party scrutiny, NCTA said. The FCC “should subject this new information to analysis by experts and other parties to determine whether it is a real 'solution' as its proponents claim or just another Potemkin village in a series of ever-changing proposals submitted by AllVid proponents,” said NCTA.

A rulemaking on classifying over-the-top video distributors as multichannel video programming distributors could be “rolled into” other video proceedings expected to take place in 2016, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said during a news conference after the commissioners' meeting Thursday. The FCC “hit pause” on the OTT-MVPD proceeding after receiving information in response to its NPRM, he said. The OTT-MVPD rules could become part of a proceeding on content and “local rights,” he said. The FCC doesn’t want to obstruct innovation in video, he said. We had first reported that the proceeding was at a standstill (see 1510230025).

The FCC should move forward “expeditiously” with an NPRM proposing the competitive navigation device solution backed by the Consumer Video Choice Coalition, the CVCC said in a Friday meeting with staff from Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel’s office, according to an ex parte letter posted in docket 15-64 Wednesday. The CVCC also demonstrated its proposed technology for an aide to Commissioner Ajit Pai Monday, said a second ex parte filing. Competitive third-party navigation devices could save consumers an average of $232 per year in leasing fees paid to multichannel video programming distributors, the CVCC said. Commissioners may soon have an NPRM to vote on (see 1512150072).

The Obama administration is willing to discuss transparency with journalists and others, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said in a Society of Professional Journalists news release Tuesday, shortly after he met with representatives of SPJ, the American Society of News Editors and the Society of Environmental Journalists. "This Administration isn't just committed to the principle of transparency, we've committed to engaging advocates and journalists to discuss legitimate ideas that advance it. We look forward to continuing this conversation." SPJ said among issues discussed in the hourlong meeting were "anonymous background briefings" and "other policies that prevent information from flowing to the public." Agencies such as the FCC routinely hold such briefings with groups of reporters, sometimes more often than on-the-record media events (see 1511200019). The White House didn't comment Wednesday.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation said the possibility that journalist Matthew Keys, who was convicted in October under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) for providing access to Tribune Co.'s content management system, could get up to 25 years in prison is another reason that updating the federal anti-hacking statute is "long overdue." Keys provided the content management system username and password to the hacktivist group Anonymous in an online chat room and an individual used those credentials to make "some relatively silly changes" to a Los Angeles Times story, amounting to "vandalism," said EFF in a Wednesday blog post. The federal government charged Keys with three felony violations under CFAA, including "conspiracy to cause damage to a protected computer, transmission of computer code that resulted in unauthorized damage, and attempted transmission of malicious code to cause unauthorized damage." His sentencing is scheduled for Jan. 20. EFF acknowledged the government may seek a five-year sentence but said many prosecutors and judges use the maximum punishment to indicate a crime's severity and also to put pressure on defendants to plea bargain or settle. The amount of damages claimed under CFAA could also result in a longer prison sentence, said EFF, saying the government said Tribune incurred nearly $930,000 in losses based on the 40 minutes that the vandalized article was posted. "How much of the claimed 'damages' are actually the result of 'hacking' and how much are part of an attempt to ratchet up loss to ensure a felony CFAA conviction?" asked EFF. It cited a 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling (see 1512040036) in a different case that CFAA doesn't apply to violations of employer-imposed use restrictions. EFF also said the Keys case "is an illustration of prosecutorial discretion run amok."

Eight in 10 digital device users said they would stop engaging with content that's too long or hard to view across devices, said an Adobe report. Consumers are increasingly “multiscreening, impatient and demanding to be entertained,” it said Monday. Nearly three-fourths of consumers are open to content recommendations from brands based on experience, and 75 percent said they would exchange at least one piece of data about themselves to prompt better content suggestions. Respondents said they used an average of five different devices and 83 percent said they used multiple devices simultaneously. Globally, consumers use an average of 2.23 devices at the same time, while U.S. consumers reported the highest simultaneous usage at an average 2.42 devices. On their feelings about multiscreening, 81 percent of consumers felt entertained, 80 percent felt connected, 76 percent felt productive while 47 percent said they were distracted when multiscreening. Consumers are skeptical of most content they view online. Half question whether negative comments or reviews have been removed from a product listing, 49 percent question whether an author was given an incentive to write a positive review and 48 percent wonder whether a news article was biased. The report, by Edelman Berland, is the second installment of a two-part online survey of 12,169 consumers ages 18-plus from Australia, France, Germany, Japan, the U.K. and the U.S., Sept. 12-29.

Pandora launched on Monday Thumbprint Radio, what it dubbed a “hyper-personalized” station that's tailored to listeners’ unique thumbs-up feedback. Chief Product Officer Chris Phillips called Thumbprint Radio a “collaboration between each listener and Pandora,” a dynamic collection of users’ favorite music that they’ve selected with a thumbs-up. The more a listener “thumbs,” the “better their station will get,” Phillips said. Our first listen to Thumbprint Radio started with Clair de Lune by Debussy, followed by Erik Satie’s Gymnopedies, and then jumped to House of the Rising Sun by The Animals and Time of the Season by The Zombies -- all tunes we pegged as favorites but decidedly not in the same list or for the same listening mood. Pandora said Thumbprint Radio is “not simply all of your thumbs up on shuffle” but “an experience that will seamlessly guide listeners through the wide variety of their favorites, while weaving in new music discovery along the way.” Once listeners have shared their stations, Pandora said, it dynamically updates the channel in real time based on subsequent thumbs-up ratings.

Hulu, Yahoo and Zealot Networks will join Time's video distribution network, meaning Time video will be available via those online video distributors, Time said in a news release Thursday. Time said it now has 18 such distribution partners, including Amazon/Amazon Video Shorts, AOL/AOLon, CBS Local Digital Media, Cinesport, Gannett/USA Today, Nexstar and Vessel’s Video Service, and also said it intends to expand that distribution network internationally.

Pandora is now on Apple TV, it said Thursday, joining Apple Music as a native music content source. The Pandora app is on more than 1,000 CE devices, including connected speakers, gaming consoles, smart TVs and wearables in the U.S. Australia and New Zealand, the company said.