In This Update:
• FCC Bans Exclusive Apartment Telephone Deals
• Verizon Wireless Unveils Open-Network Policy
• SpinVox Raises $100 Million from Goldman, Others; $500 Million Valuation
• Nokia Offers No Remedies for Navteq Deal: EU
• NY Legislator Looks To Outlaw Behavioral Targeted Ads Without Opt-In
• Google Releases Google Search Windows Mobile Plug-In
• Behavioral Targeter Phorm Opens Source Code For Inspection
• Stanford Researchers Developing 3-D Camera with 12,616 Lenses
• FCC Approves New Method for Tracking Broadband’s Reach
• Gameloft and CBS Using Real Phone Calls in Mobile Game
• Blu-Ray Copy Protection Gets Hacked
• Adobe Working on Media Player for iPhone
• Retrevo Raises $8M Series B for Aggregation of Consumer Electronics Information
• Study: More Fans Watching Sporting Events on the Internet

FCC Bans Exclusive Apartment Telephone Deals
REUTERS
Communications regulators voted on Wednesday to ban exclusive deals between phone service providers and owners of apartment buildings. The Federal Communications Commission unanimously approved a measure that voids existing agreements between carriers and apartment building owners and bars any new deals. FCC officials said the exclusive agreements hurt competition because they prevent other potential competitors from offering consumers “triple-play” packages including voice, video and broadband service.
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Verizon Wireless Unveils Open-Network Policy
UNSTRUNG
Verizon Wireless launched its Open Developer portal today to give interested device vendors the initial specifications they need to get gadgets certified to run on the operator’s CDMA network later this year. Verizon says it will start testing initial voice and data devices in mid-May. “The overall process is likely to be a four-week process,” says Verizon Wireless CTO, Tony Melone. Verizon this morning laid out a parcel of standard CDMA features that vendors must conform to get on the Verizon network, as well as “supplemental requirements” that the company wants met before gadgets get its stamp of approval. These include phone location capabilities that can meet the E911 emergency standard, over-the-air activation capabilities, and support for short messaging service text messaging.
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SpinVox Raises $100 Million from Goldman, Others; $500 Million Valuation
REUTERS
SpinVox, which converts voicemail messages into text and sends them to a recipient’s inbox or phone, has raised more than $100 million in funding from a Goldman Sachs Group Inc unit and other institutional investors, the company said on Wednesday. This third round of funding values London-based SpinVox “in excess of $500 million,” co-founder and Chief Executive Christina Domecq said in an interview. SpinVox plans to use the money to expand its presence in North America and introduce voice-to-text services in more languages, she said. SpinVox has deals with 12 cell phone carriers globally, including Canada’s Rogers Mobile and Alltel Wireless, the fifth-largest U.S. carrier, and plans to double that number this year.
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Nokia Offers No Remedies for Navteq Deal: EU
REUTERS
Nokia has offered no remedies for potential competition problems in its proposed purchase of U.S.-based digital map supplier Navteq for $8.1 billion, a European Commission spokesman said on Wednesday. That means the Commission must either approve the deal as proposed, or open an in-depth investigation of the world’s top mobile phone company’s largest takeover to date. The Commission now has until March 28 to decide whether to approve the deal or move to an in-depth probe. The transaction would give Nokia — which is looking for new revenue sources as the mobile phone industry matures — a stronghold in the navigation business, one of the fastest-growing segments in the technology industry.
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NY Legislator Looks To Outlaw Behavioral Targeted Ads Without Opt-In
NEW YORK TIIMES
A New York Assembly member is looking to force ISPs and behavioral advertisers like Phorm and NebuAD to make their services opt-in. At the moment in the States, ISPs seem to be implementing the controversial systems with little more than a quiet TOS revision. Even though the law would technically only apply to New York, since it would be difficult to figure out who’s in NY and who’s elsewhere, it would force many providers to get rid of targeted advertising.
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Google Releases Google Search Windows Mobile Plug-In
THE UNWIRED
A few weeks ago, Google launched a mobile plug-in for Symbian devices that put a Google search shortcut onto the phone’s home screen. This shortcut reduces the time it takes for you to get answers from Google by eliminating the initial search steps like finding and starting the web browser and navigating to Google.com before entering your query. The same plug-in has been available for BlackBerry devices since last December and today Google made it available for Windows Mobile devices too.
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Behavioral Targeter Phorm Opens Source Code For Inspection
THE REGISTER
Rootkit and spyware developer turned behavioral advertising firm Phorm has agreed to allow an independent software expert to inspect its source code as it continues to battle the firestorm provoked by agreements with BT, Virgin Media and Carphone Warehouse to let it build profiles of their broadband customers’ web browsing. Phorm has tried to deflect scrutiny of its Russian-developed code by emphasising that the profiling hardware will be administered by the ISPs. This has not satisfied web users and website adminstrators who have been up in arms over the technology for three weeks now.
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Stanford Researchers Developing 3-D Camera with 12,616 Lenses
PHYSORG
The camera you own has one main lens and produces a flat, two-dimensional photograph, whether you hold it in your hand or view it on your computer screen. On the other hand, a camera with two lenses (or two cameras placed apart from each other) can take more interesting 3-D photos. But what if your digital camera saw the world through thousands of tiny lenses, each a miniature camera unto itself? You’d get a 2-D photo, but you’d also get something potentially more valuable: an electronic “depth map” containing the distance from the camera to every object in the picture, a kind of super 3-D. Stanford electronics researchers, lead by electrical engineering Professor Abbas El Gamal, are developing such a camera, built around their “multi-aperture image sensor.” They’ve shrunk the pixels on the sensor to 0.7 microns, several times smaller than pixels in standard digital cameras. They’ve grouped the pixels in arrays of 256 pixels each, and they’re preparing to place a tiny lens atop each array.
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FCC Approves New Method for Tracking Broadband’s Reach
CNET
As expected, federal regulators on Wednesday voted to overhaul the way they measure how widely broadband is available across the United States. For years, the Federal Communications Commission has been drawing up reports on the state of U.S. Internet access availability based on methodology that considers 200 kilobits per second (Kbps) service to be “high speed”–and such access to be widely available even in ZIP codes that may, in reality, house only one connection. The decision to move away from that methodology is potentially significant. Critics, both inside and outside the agency, have charged that the inadequacy of data that the FCC collects semiannually from Internet service providers hinders both the government’s ability to set smart pro-broadband policies and could slow investment on the technology side. It could also help federal regulators determine whether the United States is really as far behind in broadband penetration as some international studies have suggested during the past few years.
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Gameloft and CBS Using Real Phone Calls in Mobile Game
SMS TEXT NEWS
Gameloft has come up with an interesting gameplay quirk for CSI: Crime Scene Investigation – The Mobile Game. When signing up, players have the option of activating the interactive phone call feature – they will then receive an automated call during the game offering clues and tips that lead them to new crime scenes. This CBS Mobile game is the first of its kind utilizing outbound calling, which literally calls players to action,” said Cyriac Roeding, Executive Vice President, CBS Mobile. “Your cellphone rings, and a detective calls you to the scene – just like a real CSI detective. This combination of game play with popular content and a whole new level of interactivity represent enormous entertainment and business potential for the mobile world.”
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Blu-Ray Copy Protection Gets Hacked
NEWTEEVEE
Sony won’t have much time to celebrate winning the format war against HD DVD: Notorious Antigua-based software maker Slysoft says it’s cracked Blu-Ray’s copy protection. Slysoft’s AnyDVD HD application is now offering unencrypted access to Blu-Ray content, making it possible to back up Blu-Ray discs onto your own hard drive, copy or transcode HD movies and watch them without DRM-compliant hardware, according to a company press release.
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Adobe Working on Media Player for iPhone
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Adobe Systems Inc. has begun work to create a media player destined for Apple Inc.’s iPhone, Chief Executive Shantanu Narayen said Tuesday, thus adding a new wrinkle to a standoff between the two long-term partners.
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Retrevo Raises $8M Series B for Aggregation of Consumer Electronics Information
TECHCRUNCH
Retrevo, a site that aggregates information about consumer electronics from sources found across the web, has raised $8M in Series B funding from Norwest Venture Partners and Alloy Ventures. Both of these investors were also involved in the company’s Series A round. The company has raised $11.9M to date. The purpose of Retrevo is to provide consumers with information about electronics before and after they purchase them. During the shopping phase, the site serves as an advisor and maps products visually according to how expensive and feature-intensive they are.
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Study: More Fans Watching Sporting Events on the Internet
DIGITAL MEDIA WIRE
With the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament set to officially tip off on Thursday, a new study has found that sports fans are using the Internet at greater rates than ever before to watch games and follow their favorite teams. According to the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) and the Sports Video Group, nearly four in 10 (38%) sports fans said that they will download and watch a game at no cost over the next two years, an increase of 10% from 2007. In response, networks are offering fans the ability to watch games online — including the NCAA Tournament.
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Tags: Adobe, Apple, Blackberry, Blu-ray, CBS, DRM, EMC, EMI, European Commission, FCC, Google, HD DVD, IAC, iPhone, ISP, LTE, Nokia, RIM, Series A, SMS, Sony, Spinvox, Turn, U.S., Verizon, Video