The CEDIA Technology Council on Tuesday released the first 10 of 100 smart home predictions for 2020, including a residential social robot and “the end of the copper wire.” Mixed reality rooms -- comprising augmented and virtual reality experiences -- will begin to replace home theater, said Dave Pedigo, CEDIA senior director-emerging technologies. As the need for data bandwidth expands, fiber will replace copper wire in the home, he said: Video will be decoded and rendered in the same device.

The EU should rethink its e-privacy directive since it duplicates existing and new laws such as the general data protection regulation and "creates a fragmented privacy regime," said the Internet Association in Tuesday news release. In a filing to the EU, the group, which represents almost 40 internet companies including Facebook, Google and Twitter, said the directive has been "superseded" by several new legal instruments (see 1512160001) and creates "ambiguous implications." Internet Association General Counsel Abigail Slater said in the release the EU should assess the directive’s "continued relevance.” She said data protection policies also should include encryption and other mechanisms to safeguard people's electronic communications without back doors that weaken such protections.

Lawyers for a U.S. citizen convicted of attempting to bomb a ceremony in Portland, Oregon, plan to argue Wednesday that warrantless surveillance of his international communications violated his constitutional rights. Attorneys for the American Civil Liberties Union and Electronic Frontier Foundation, which filed amicus briefs in U.S. v. Mohamud, were given time by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Portland to argue at the hearing -- which will be live-streamed at 2 p.m. EDT -- on broader privacy implications. It's the first time a federal appeals court will hear oral argument on a challenge of NSA warrantless surveillance of Americans’ international communications, the ACLU and EFF said. They will argue the government's use of Section 702 under the 2008 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Amendments Act, which authorizes spying only on the electronic communications of foreigners abroad, is being used to monitor any international communications, wrote the ACLU in its June 3 brief. "It also violates the reasonableness requirement. The Supreme Court has emphasized that a surveillance statute is reasonable only if it is precise and discriminate. The [FISA Amendments Act] is neither." All sides declined comment Tuesday. ACLU Staff Attorney Patrick Toomey, who will argue before the three-judge panel, said in a news release the case has privacy implications for all U.S. citizens and residents because the government has "virtually unfettered access" to all their international phone calls and emails. “It has become increasingly apparent that the NSA and FBI have implemented the law in the broadest possible way, and that the rules that supposedly protect the privacy of innocent people in fact do the opposite," he said last week. The government said evidence obtained through Section 702 "did nothing to undermine the fairness of the pretrial rulings, trial, or sentencing hearing." In targeting non-U.S. persons, the collection of communications of U.S. persons is incidental, it said. Mohamed Osman Mohamud sought a new trial because the government notified him after the trial it got evidence through Section 702 surveillance without a warrant, his lawyers argued February. They said the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board and the President’s Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies don't permit the government from retaining, querying and accessing Americans' communications gotten by targeting foreigners.

Google is becoming more diverse, with women comprising 31 percent of its workforce in 2015, said Vice President-People Operations Nancy Lee in a Thursday blog post. Women held 24 percent of Google's leadership positions in 2015, up from 22 percent the previous year. Women's presence in technical roles grew to 19 percent from 18 percent in 2014, Lee said. The rising presence of women at Google is in part due to increased hiring of women in 2015, along with increased hiring of blacks and Hispanics, Lee said. “We’re continuing to build a culture where Googlers can grow, thrive and want to stay,” she said. “We want to build a place where everyone feels comfortable sharing ideas and opinions -- and empowered to grow their careers. We check and recheck processes like promotion and performance reviews to make sure they’re producing equitable outcomes, and address any gaps we find.” Lee also noted Google's commitment to gender pay equity. The company has been pushing for an industrywide increase in diversity, citing its own four-part diversity plan as a model (see 1505060005).

ICANN CEO Göran Marby assured the Coalition for Online Accountability that his organization is "fully committed" to vigorously enforcing its contracts with domain name registries after the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority transition, including provisions to protect IP rights and country code top-level domains (ccTLDs). COA, which represents Disney, MPAA and five other top entertainment industry entities, raised concerns last month in letters to Marby and the leaders of the House and Senate Judiciary committees about how ICANN's IANA transition plans would affect the nonprofit's enforcement of contracts (see 1606280062). IP owners will continue to have multiple mechanisms available for enforcing their rights post-transition, including the Public Interest Commitments Dispute Resolution Procedure, Marby said Thursday in a letter. COA's representation to the House and Senate Judiciary leaders of ICANN's process for delegating ccTLDs "misstates NTIA's current role, and reflects a common misunderstanding among various parties in the community," Marby said. "NTIA's role is largely clerical, and does not conduct a substantive review to approve redelegations." The agency "has always concluded that ICANN followed its verification/processing procedures appropriately, and NTIA has never failed to authorize a redelegation request (or other change request for that matter)," he said.

Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker will speak Friday at the Aspen Institute's Aspen Ideas Festival, the Department of Commerce said Wednesday. Pritzker is expected to discuss “opportunities for growth in the digital economy, as well as the challenges it presents for both governments and businesses,” Commerce said in a news release. Pritzker's session with Aspen Institute President Walter Isaacson also is expected to address cybersecurity, workforce training and policy issues the next presidential administration will need to address, Aspen said. Pritzker will speak at noon MDT.

ICANN sought comment Thursday on the proposed extension of its .com registry agreement with Verisign through 2024. ICANN separately signed its service level agreement Wednesday with the Regional Internet Registries for the IANA numbering services, which will take effect when the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) transition takes effect. ICANN also finalized its memorandum of understanding supplemental agreement Wednesday with the Internet Engineering Task Force for performing protocol parameters functions. Enactment of the IETF supplemental agreement was a Cross Community Working Group on Enhancing ICANN Accountability recommendation on ICANN accountability mechanisms. The existing Verisign registry agreement won't expire until 2018 but ICANN’s Global Domains Division is proposing an extension of the agreement to align it with the term of its new root zone maintainer services agreement (RZMA) with Verisign. ICANN announced the new RZMA deal last week as part of the work to transition NTIA’s oversight of the root zone management system to ICANN in parallel with the IANA transition (see 1606280062). The .com registry agreement extension doesn’t affect Verisign’s presumptive right of renewal of the contract, ICANN said. Comments on the proposed extension are due Aug. 12.

Walmart is taking on Amazon Prime with a two-day shipping service called ShippingPass, it said Wednesday. The retailer is offering customers a free 30-day trial of the service, which Walmart said at $49 is “about half the price of similar programs out there." Amazon Prime is $99 per year, but includes perks such as audio and video streaming, early access to new products and cloud storage. The Walmart ShippingPass has no minimum order requirements and offers free return shipping or in-store returns.

Facebook said it's changing its news feed algorithm to increase the visibility of content posted by a user's friends and family. The news feed algorithm changes will come at the expense of content posted directly by publishers, said Vice President-Product Management, News Feed Adam Mosseri in a Wednesday blog post. “The specific impact on your Page’s distribution and other metrics may vary depending on the composition of your audience,” said Engineering Director Lars Backstrom in a separate blog post. “For example, if a lot of your referral traffic is the result of people sharing your content and their friends liking and commenting on it, there will be less of an impact than if the majority of your traffic comes directly through Page posts.” Facebook doesn't “favor specific kinds of sources -- or ideas,” Mosseri said. “Our aim is to deliver the types of stories we’ve gotten feedback that an individual person most wants to see. We do this not only because we believe it’s the right thing but also because it’s good for our business.” Facebook is “not in the business of picking which issues the world should read about,” Mosseri said. “We are in the business of connecting people and ideas -- and matching people with the stories they find most meaningful. Our integrity depends on being inclusive of all perspectives and view points, and using ranking to connect people with the stories and sources they find the most meaningful and engaging.” Facebook faced pressure in recent months over allegations it suppressed conservative viewpoints in the trending topics of its news feed (see 1605100032 and 1605170068).

Cisco will pay $293 million to acquire cloud security vendor CloudLock, Cisco said in a news release Tuesday. CloudLock sells cloud access security broker technology to enterprise customers, providing data and analytics about user activity and sensitive data. CloudLock employees will join Cisco’s networking and security business group, Cisco said. The deal is expected to close in Q1, subject to customary closing conditions, it said.