Millions of Netflix subscribers were tipped off last week to a $2 per month bump in standard streaming subscriptions on tap for next month, as stories swirled around media sites and social media about the hike to $9.99 per month. Subscribers didn’t get an official word from Netflix, and a few were miffed at the streaming video service for not sending notice directly, although the increase shouldn’t be a surprise. Netflix emailed subscribers in May 2014 (see 1405120065) alerting them they were grandfathered in at $7.99 but would face a price hike in two years. At the time, the new subscriber rate was $8.99 per month, which went up to $9.99 last October. Wedbush Securities anticipates some falloff due to the increase, analyst Michael Pachter emailed us. “Most subscribers use the service and perceive sufficient value to remain subscribers after the price increase.” Wedbush estimates 600,000-750,000 subscribers don't use the service “but still pay out of inertia.” It expects those subscribers to “gradually defect when the price goes up, particularly if the company notifies them of the increase.” Pachter said new subscribers have paid $9.99 since October, “and it appears to be dampening new subscriber growth already.” Business Insider reported that Netflix will raise prices on roughly 17 million of its standard accounts next month and said “most people have no idea.” It cited a JPMorgan survey saying 80 percent of Netflix subscribers grandfathered in at $7.99 didn’t know the increase was to go into effect in May. A Netflix spokeswoman told us Friday that grandfathered subscribers will have the choice of continuing at $7.99 on the standard-definition plan or continuing on HD at $9.99 per month. The two-year holding price was a "thank you" to members, she said. Later this month, members in the U.K. will begin to be "ungrandfathered," she said, and beginning in May, the price hike is rolling out elsewhere based on member billing periods. Members affected by the price increase "will be clearly notified by email and within the service, so that they have time to decide which plan/price point works best for them," she said.

The Global Market Development Center (GMDC), a trade association for health, beauty and wellness retailers, will recommend the ZigBee 3.0 standard and its retail components as part of a liaison agreement between GMDC and the ZigBee Alliance, said the groups Thursday. GMDC members can leverage ZigBee 3.0 in their supply chains and across systems controlling the in-store experience to cut costs and improve product quality, tracking, marketing and merchandising, said GMDC CEO Patrick Spear. ZigBee 3.0 also will give retailers new ways to increase customer loyalty by implementing personal shopping assistants and gateways, intelligent shopping carts, asset tracking systems and energy management solutions, merchandising and marketing systems and pharmacy services on one network, said the trade groups. Also via ZigBee 3.0, retailers can gather information about customer shopping behavior, track inventory and monitor temperature and humidity from the warehouse to stores, they said. The ZigBee 3.0 standard includes device definitions specific to retail service applications along with definitions for sensor and actuator applications that allow retailers to build integrated custom solutions using standard components, they said.

Microsoft sees privacy “as a fundamental human right” and is committed to giving customers “the information and controls they need to make the choices that are right for them about how data is collected and used,” Chief Privacy Officer Brandon Lynch said in a Thursday blog post. A website directed at consumers linked to in the blog post included a statement from CEO Satya Nadella and privacy pledges. They include transparency, security, "strong legal protections," "no content-based targeting" and consumer control. “People today keep more information on their phones than they previously kept in their entire house,” Lynch said. “And most of this, often sensitive information, is connected to the cloud. In an era of rapidly evolving and increasingly personal technology, we know that people won’t use technology they don’t trust. Technology advances, but timeless values, like privacy, must also endure.” Microsoft “in the months ahead” plans to introduce four new privacy “initiatives,” Lynch said. It promises, he said: (1) a “comprehensive repository” of information and training resources “designed to help privacy, legal and compliance professionals understand, achieve and verify the compliance requirements of their organization’s cloud deployments”; (2) “roundtable events” around the world to discuss “the urgent compliance issues,” including data security, and “personal information privacy” for consumers, employees and students; (3) new investments in training programs “that focus on the skills and knowledge compliance professionals need to oversee safe, secure and compliant cloud deployments”; and (4) “regular updates” on Microsoft efforts “to strengthen the privacy, security and compliance protections of the Microsoft cloud.” Lynch didn’t mention the recent Apple-FBI legal battle over access to encrypted data on an iPhone used by one of the shooters in the San Bernardino, California, terror attacks (see 1603290059).

Roku began taking pre-orders Tuesday for a next-generation Streaming Stick with eight times the processing power of its predecessor. The $49 device will begin shipping later this month, Roku said. Features include a quad-core processor; private listening via smartphone or tablet using the Roku app for iOS and Android device; Hotel and Dorm Connect; and cast capability from Netflix and YouTube apps directly to a TV, said Roku. The announcement of the new Roku Streaming Stick coincided with Roku’s release of its 7.1 operating system, which the company said simplifies search and discovery by adding new categories within the My Feed section. Users can view TV shows and movies from various popular streaming channels in one place on the Roku platform and then choose to watch them immediately, follow them in the Roku feed to see changes in availability and price, or watch when they become available for free viewing, Roku said. A feature unique to the Streaming Stick allows consumers to use the mobile app on phone or tablet to listen to a show through wired or wireless headphones, it said. The app can also serve as a remote control, enabling search by voice or an on-screen keyboard, Roku said. The Play On feature lets users streaming personal videos, music and photos to the TV using the stick. With the Hotel and Dorm Connect feature, users can connect a Roku device to a password-protected network like those found in hotels, dorms and other public places and sign in with their login credentials using the browser on their phone, tablet or laptop, said Roku.

Facebook introduced a new functionality -- automatic alternative (or alt) text -- that aims to describe photos on the website to blind or visually impaired users. "With more than 39 million people who are blind, and over 246 million who have a severe visual impairment, many people may feel excluded from the conversation around photos on Facebook," wrote software engineers Shaomei Wu and Hermes Pique and the Head-Accessibility Jeffrey Wieland in a Monday blog post. With this advancement, as a Facebook user encounters a photo using a screen reader on iOS devices, the user will hear a number of items that a photo may contain. "Someone could now hear, 'Image may contain three people, smiling, outdoors,'" the three wrote. Previously, screen readers only identified the name of the person sharing the photo and the term "photo" when they came across one, they said. Automatic alt text produces the description using object recognition technology, which is "based on a neural network that has billions of parameters and is trained with millions of examples," the three wrote. They said the company is launching the "nascent" technology first on iOS screen readers set to English but plan to expand it soon to other languages and platforms.

Intel estimates that 30 percent of the IoT “market segment” by 2020 will require “functional safety” such as advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), said Ken Caviasca, vice president-platform engineering and development in Intel’s IoT Group, in a Tuesday blog post. That was Intel’s rationale for acquiring Yogitech, an Italy-based "expert in semiconductor functional safety and related standards,” Caviasca said. Acquiring Yogitech “furthers our efforts to win in ADAS, robotics and autonomous machines for market segments like automotive, industrial and other IoT systems that require functional safety and high performance,” he said. “For years, Intel has been providing high-performance IoT systems that allow people and businesses to make better-informed decisions. The industry is now moving from automating data to inform better decisions, to automating actions informed by real-time data. You can see this evolution in the autonomous vehicle prototypes that nearly all have Intel inside. Functional safety is a requirement for these and other IoT customers. We see the combination of high performance and functional safety as a natural evolution of Intel’s IoT platform and strategy.” Intel is confident that the Yogitech acquisition, terms of which weren't disclosed, “will take our autonomous systems efforts to the next level,” though “we’re not ready to share product roadmap details yet,” Caviasca said.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is still working to “convince” the World Wide Web Consortium to adopt its proposed covenant that would obligate all W3C stakeholders not to file or join a lawsuit against entities under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and similar laws for circumventing technological protection measures for security research purposes, Special Adviser Cory Doctorow said in a Tuesday blog post. EFF has been pressing W3C to adopt its proposed covenant as a condition for rechartering W3C's HTML Media Extensions Working Group, which is developing a standardized application programming interface for encrypted media extensions (EME). Other W3C stakeholders have previously told us support for the proposal remains minimal (see 1603240055). Doctorow urged EFF supporters to publicize the digital rights group's proposal, noting that W3C “is very interested in the public's ideas about what the Web can and should be.” W3C's EME API development work could potentially add encumbrances 'to the Web, rather than removing them,” Doctorow said. "That's wrong. We think the W3C had the right idea before: when corporations gather under its roof to make standards, they should have to pledge not to use the law to stop legal, legitimate, innovative Web technology.”

Thirty-seven percent of U.S. businesses lack confidence that their third-party vendors would inform them if a data breach involving sensitive information occurred, said a Ponemon Institute Web-based survey commissioned by law firm BuckleySandler and Treliant Risk Advisors. Ponemon surveyed 598 people in various industries, and involved companies that had a vendor data risk management program. "The study reveals the difficulty companies have in mitigating, detecting and minimizing risks associated with third parties that have access to their sensitive or confidential information," the survey said. It found that 73 percent of respondents didn't believe indirect service providers or subcontractors hired by a third-party vendor would notify companies of a data breach. "The risk to strategic data assets extends beyond any single third-party but rather to the web of relationships that comprise the data ecosystem," BuckleySandler Managing Director Rena Mears said in a Monday news release. Companies worry about data safeguards, security policies and procedures implemented by third parties, but the survey said that companies "rarely" perform reviews of vendor management policies and programs involving data risk. "Companies should compile a comprehensive inventory of and conduct data and privacy risk assessments for all third-party vendors; however, we found that few companies represented in this research, in particular those outside the regulated banking sector, have done so," Treliant Chief Business Officer Susanna Tisa said.

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment set for Monday the debut of its 4K Ultra HD movie streaming service, Ultra, for owners of qualified Sony Ultra HD TVs, it said in a Tuesday announcement. Ultra, which Sony announced at CES, will offer a variety of movies for purchase and playback in 4K Ultra HD, with many including high dynamic range, it said. Films available on Ultra for $30 each will include new releases like Concussion, The Night Before and The Walk, and library titles such as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Ghostbusters, it said. Consumers who buy eligible Sony 4K TVs with Ultra this summer will receive four free movies when they sign up for the service, it said.

The FTC approved a final order Tuesday, resolving a complaint against Oracle that it deceived customers about security updates to the Java platform, standard edition (Java SE) software (see 1512210028), the commission said in a news release. The commission approved the order 4-0 after a public comment period. FTC announced the settlement in December when the commission said Oracle was aware of "significant security issues" with older Java SE versions -- installed in more than 850 million personal computers -- that support browser-based features such as calculators, online gaming, chat rooms and 3D images. FTC's complaint said Oracle didn't tell customers that software updates may have left older versions intact. The complaint said hackers could exploit the flaws in the older versions, potentially giving them access to consumers' usernames and passwords to financial accounts and enabling them to launch phishing attacks. The order requires Oracle to notify customers of any older versions on their computers during an update process, inform them of the risks and give them the choice to uninstall them. "In addition, the company will be required to provide broad notice to consumers via social media and their website about the settlement and how consumers can remove older versions of the software," the FTC release said.