Tag: law

Posted on

Class Action Lawsuit Filed Over NVIDIA Falsely Advertising GTX 970 RAM

It’s a gripe I’m sure NVIDIA hoped would have blown over by now, but quite the opposite, as it looks like Big Green is facing a class action lawsuit.

The issue stems from how NVIDIA advertised the GTX 970 as including 4GB of RAM. While this is technically true, only 3.5GB is high speed, and that last 512MB is a separate slow bit. Whenever the card needs to access that last partition, performance suffers.

When gamers discovered the anomaly, it was hoped that there might be some kind of driver or software update to improve performance as the card utilized that last half a gig. Unfortunately, it would seem NVIDIA purposely designed the card this way, likely hamstringing it to distance performance from their top tier card the GTX 980. Continue reading “Class Action Lawsuit Filed Over NVIDIA Falsely Advertising GTX 970 RAM”

Posted on

FCC Public Advisory: Blocking Personal WiFi Hotspots is Prohibited

marriott hotel logoAn interesting story has been developing in the use of WiFi hotpots in hotels.

The FCC fined Marriott hotels for blocking their customers from using their own WiFi, powered by phones and MiFi’s using 3G/4G data connections. The fine amounted to $600,000, and Marriott petitioned the commission, asserting that blocking customers was a way for them to better protect the security of the networking solutions they were offering.

The FCC responded with a public advisory yesterday reaffirming their previous stance:

Personal Wi-Fi networks, or “hot spots,” are an important way that consumers connect to the Internet. Willful or malicious interference with Wi-Fi hot spots is illegal. Wi-Fi blocking violates Section 333 of the Communications Act, as amended.1 The Enforcement Bureau has seen a disturbing trend in which hotels and other commercial establishments block wireless consumers from using their own personal Wi-Fi hot spots on the commercial establishment’s premises. As a result, the Bureau is protecting consumers by aggressively investigating and acting against such unlawful intentional interference.

Continue reading “FCC Public Advisory: Blocking Personal WiFi Hotspots is Prohibited”

Posted on

If the Internet is Declared a Title II Utility, Verizon Will Only Have Itself to Blame

FCCThe fight over net neutrality is going to get uglier. President Obama recently voiced support for classifying the Internet as a common utility and ending 19 states laws preventing broadband competition, and FCC chairman Tom Wheeler might join the President after voicing support for Title II at this year’s CES.

On the other side, Conservatives are pushing another bill in the House which would completely strip the FCC of regulating Internet activity by classifying it as an “Information Service”. You can thank Congressman Bob Latta out of Ohio for that, who received around $80,000 in donations from the telecoms during the 2013-14 election year cycle.

Google is backing Title II, as the reclassification would mean they would have more access to public utility lines and infrastructure as opposed to always digging their own trenches. There’s been growing support for more publicly funded broadband at the local level, while traditional ISP’s have been lobbying to maintain their non-competitive status quo.

Verizon-logoFunnily enough we arrive at this point on the one year anniversary of an appellate court ruling in favor of Verizon in a lawsuit against the FCC and their Open Internet Order. The OIO would have enforced Net Neutrality rules on home internet and cabled broadband, but would have been pretty loose on wireless carriers.

Verizon alone sued the FCC over some fairly basic protections for keeping a level playing field, claiming it was their First Amendment right to degrade the quality of connection for competing services on their network. Other carriers have tried to circumvent Net Neutrality with “value add” benefits for consumers. People were up in arms about AT&T’s proposed Sponsored Data initiative, which would let third party companies pay to reduce the amount of data AT&T subscribers would be billed for, and T-Mobile found some success in cutting streaming music services off of customer’s bills.

Verizon’s actions a year ago in squashing the OIO means the worst possible option for carriers and ISP’s is the one gaining the most traction. It seems more likely now that in the wake of vocal opposition to the FCC’s “Fastlane” proposal, we might see an about face and a new proposal presented in favor of classifying the internet as a common utility.

Posted on

Communities in Kansas and Colorado Look to Build Their Own Public Broadband Internet

server rack front panelsThe problem companies face when communities lack competition for services like Internet? The community might try to roll their own.

There are laws on the books in twenty states preventing communities from building out their own public high speed and fiber broadband, but communities in Kansas and Colorado are looking to move forward on their own local offerings.

Seven cities and counties in Colorado voted during the last election to exercise an escape clause in their anti-competition legislation. All that was required was allowing a community to take a vote on the matter, and every community that put it up for a vote had it pass by a large margin. Boulder Colorado passed their measure with 84% of the voter turnout supporting it.

Continue reading “Communities in Kansas and Colorado Look to Build Their Own Public Broadband Internet”

Posted on

Tesla Wins in Massachusetts Supreme Court Direct Sales Lawsuit

model-s-blue-front2_960x640It’s been a long fight for Tesla in MA, but yesterday the state’s highest court thew out the lawsuit which would have blocked Tesla from selling electric vehicles directly to consumers.

The Massachusetts State Automobile Dealers Association sued Tesla citing the state’s franchise law, but the court ruled that Tesla was not violating the spirit of that law. The franchise law was written to protect franchise owners from direct and unfair competition against a parent company, a relationship which does not exist for Tesla. Justice Margot Botsford wrote:

The law “was intended and understood only to prohibit manufacturer-owned dealerships when, unlike Tesla, the manufacturer already had an affiliated dealer or dealers in Massachusetts”.

“Contrary to the plaintiffs’ assertion,” she added, “the type of competitive injury they describe between unaffiliated entities is not within the statute’s area of concern.”

Tesla is current fighting similar statutes in several other states including Texas, Arizona, Maryland, and recently an ugly public fight in New Jersey. If the state laws there are similar to MA’s, then this case might set the stage for Tesla’s future legal strategy.

 

Posted on

Smartphone Kill Switch Law Signed by CA Governor Jerry Brown

After months of debate in the CA senate, Governor Brown signed off on the smartphone kill switch law yesterday, following Minnesota as the second state to combat the growing rates of smartphone theft. The general idea being, if the phone is completely disabled or “bricked”, it wont be valuable to thieves, so it’s less likely to be stolen.

With very few exceptions (mainly for older handsets) any company wishing to sell a smartphone in the state must have some option for completely disabling it in the event it’s lost or stolen. There’s a $2500 fine per device for any company which fails to offer this feature. The law will affect any phone sold after July 1, 2015.

While carriers make up the bulk of phone sales, manufacturers will likely be responsible for developing the actual process that locks the phone down. Google for example sells their Nexus phone directly to consumers, so whatever process they develop will likely be embraced by other Android manufacturers.

Apple already has a fairly robust “Lost Mode” built into iOS, requiring someone to enter their Apple ID password before the phone can be used. This pass code continues to lock the phone down even if someone else factory resets the phone.

Microsoft has built in tools to find, lock, and erase, and we’ve reviewed Google’s Device Manager which offers up similar features, but neither of those company’s solutions will survive a hard reset.

California’s kill switch law will not affect tablets, another commonly stolen item, but if manufacturers improve the ability to remotely manage and lock phones down, these features will likely make their way into other data connected mobile products.

Governor Brown Legislative Update

Posted on

Why Wikipedia is WRONG to Share the “Monkey Selfie” as Public Domain

David J Slater, a British photographer set up a camera in Indonesia to capture monkeys at play. One monkey managed to snap an extraordinary “selfie”.

Wikipedia claims that because the monkey hit the shutter button, the image belongs in the Public Domain. I disagree…

Posted on

House GOP Attack FCC and Local Tax Payer Funded Internet Access

GOP rep marsha blackburnIf a community of people vote to approve tax payer funded internet access, should they be allowed to build their own network?

House Conservatives say “no”, that people at the state and local level should not be allowed the right to decide for themselves how to improve their internet access. Why? Because free market, competition, taxes, reasons.

In a frustrating example of political double-speak, Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) introduced an amendment to the 2015 Financial Services Appropriations Bill which would “prevent the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) from trampling on the rights of states when it comes to municipal broadband“. How does it protect states rights? By making it illegal for states and municipalities to petition the FCC for permission to build tax payer funded data networks. This amendment was of course approved by a vote of 223-200.

Continue reading “House GOP Attack FCC and Local Tax Payer Funded Internet Access”

Proudly powered by WordPress