At least 60 percent of the more than 1 million net neutrality comments to the FCC were form letters written by organized campaigns, the Sunlight Foundation said in a blog post (http://bit.ly/1oAFcYA) Tuesday about a study it did of the submissions. The form letters, while a majority of the comments, composed a smaller percentage of filings than in other high-profile dockets, including those of the State Department on the Keystone pipeline and the IRS on campaign contributions by social welfare organizations, in which the foundation said more than 75 percent of submissions were form letters. Among other key findings, the study found less than 1 percent of the FCC comments were clearly opposed to net neutrality, at least 200 were written by law firms, and about two-thirds opposed the idea of paid prioritization. Those statements of opposition included many individual comments, but also form letter campaigns organized by Battle for the Net, CREDO Action, Daily Kos, Free Press and the Nation, the study said.

The FCC Wireline Bureau and Office of Strategic Planning released an update Friday offering a better way to evaluate data on whether areas are eligible for Connect America Fund Phase II support. The update allows interested parties to download geospatial files for a selected census tract or county, the FCC said (http://bit.ly/1n4IDaK). “The downloaded file is specifically for use with desktop mapping software to display eligible census blocks, which should help users investigate potential areas for rural broadband experiments and assist parties participating in the Phase II challenge process.”

U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh rejected Apple’s bid for a permanent injunction against Samsung, according to a Wednesday night ruling from U.S. District Court in San Jose. Apple had won a $120 million judgment against Samsung for infringing on three Apple patents, according to Koh’s ruling (case No. 12-CV-00630-LHK). But Koh on Wednesday declined to stop Samsung from selling its products with features infringing on the patents. “Apple has not satisfied its burden of demonstrating irreparable harm and linking that harm to Samsung’s exploitation of any of Apple’s three infringed patents,” she said. “Apple has not established that it suffered significant harm in the form of either lost sales or reputational injury.” Koh said she didn’t think Apple proved “that the patented inventions drive consumer demand for the infringing products.” Apple didn’t comment. A Samsung spokeswoman welcomed the ruling: “We remain committed to providing American consumers with a wide choice of innovative products."

Americans are more comfortable having an in-person conversation about the government’s surveillance programs than via a social media platform, said a Pew Research Internet Project report released Tuesday (http://pewrsr.ch/1BYLb3Q). In a survey of 1,801 adults, Pew asked about individuals’ willingness to discuss the surveillance programs that came to light in 2013. Eighty-six percent of those surveyed said they would have an in-person conversation about the topic, but only 42 percent of Facebook and Twitter users said they would post about it on either platform. “Social media did not provide new forums for those who might otherwise remain silent to express their opinions and debate issues,” said a summary of the report. “Further, if people thought their friends and followers in social media disagreed with them, they were less likely to say they would state their views on the Snowden-NSA story online and in other contexts, such as gatherings of friends, neighbors, or co-workers.”

Radar will remain a key technology in the automotive space, but camera sensors and machine vision technology are poised to push advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) into the mainstream due to low cost, flexibility and multiple use cases, said ABI Research. Automotive camera sensor shipments are forecast to reach 197 million by 2020 from suppliers including OmniVision, ON Semiconductor, Sony, STMicroelectronics and Toshiba, it said. ABI described a “fusion of sensors” combining with radar for forward-looking obstacle detection, pedestrian detection, lane guidance and driver monitoring; with infrared cameras for night vision; and with ultrasonic sensors for automated parking. Advances in RF transceivers, microcontrollers and open platforms will lead to cost reduction by leveraging microcontrollers across multiple sensors, it said. The primary driver for the uptake of ADAS will be the arrival of autonomous driving, ABI said. ADAS is already becoming the subject of regulation, with the European New Car Assessment Programme including the presence of speed assistance systems, autonomous emergency braking and lane departure warning/lane keep assist as criteria to determine safety ratings, it said. In the U.S., similar initiatives are being discussed by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which recently proposed changes to its five-star safety program, ABI said.

The automotive telematics market is projected to grow to $45 billion by 2019, a MarketsandMarkets report found. Telematics, the technology that transfers data between vehicles or devices through wireless networks, has the potential to convert vehicles “from just a simple mode of transportation to moving information stations,” said the report, released Friday (http://bit.ly/1mvOd5C). Demand for connected vehicles is driven by developments like collision warnings or remote maintenance “that provide safety and comfort to the driver and passengers,” it said. Telematics services are divided into the four major types of safety, information and navigation, entertainment and remote diagnostics, MarketsandMarkets said.

The FCC Wireless and Wireline bureaus gave limited, interim relief to Alaska telco Adak Eagle Enterprises and its Windy City Cellular subsidiary Thursday. An order said Adak will receive $33,276 monthly and Windy City will receive $40,104 monthly. That funding will last no more than six months or until the commission reviews the companies’ petition for reconsideration (http://bit.ly/1tpZLfD). Adak and Windy City had petitioned the FCC for reconsideration of its denial of the companies’ request for a waiver of caps on USF payments (CD Aug 16/13 p5). Executives from Adak and Windy City urged FCC staff in a meeting last month to provide a “permanent solution” the funding issues they have sought to relieve through the waiver (CD July 29 p14).

The special access data collection effort announced by the FCC (CD Aug 19 p2) Monday could pose “longer-term concern for incumbent telcos,” said Paul Gallant, analyst at Guggenheim Partners, Wednesday in a research note. Noting the issue “has gone on for years,” Gallant wrote, “there is no assurance that it will actually result in rule changes. But should the FCC decide the data show incumbent pricing power and insufficient competition in certain areas, we do expect the agency to push forward with changes that could limit telcos’ special access prices in some way.” A final ruling is a ways off and “seems unlikely” before the first quarter of 2016, he said. Gallant said the FCC and congressional Democrats have long backed a special access inquiry, so Chairman Tom Wheeler will likely “closely evaluate whether to propose revised special access pricing rules for incumbent telcos.” What ultimately happens, he said, will depend on what the data show. If the findings are “inconclusive or not persuasive, the agency might decide that opening up a new policy battle with AT&T, Verizon, CenturyLink and others doesn’t pass the cost-benefit test,” Gallant wrote.

Applications for rural broadband experiment funding are due Oct. 14, the FCC Wireline Bureau said in a public notice Tuesday (http://fcc.us/1ti1vs9). The FCC is awarding up to $100 million in rural broadband experiment support (CD July 14 p11) to bring next generation voice and broadband service to high-cost areas of the country, the notice said. The budget calls for $75 million for projects in high-cost areas proposing to offer broadband service at 25 Mbps downstream and 5 Mbps upstream; $15 million for projects in high-cost areas proposing to offer broadband service of 10 Mbps downstream and 1 Mbps upstream; and $10 million for projects proposing to serve extremely high-cost areas with broadband service of 10 Mbps downstream and 1 Mbps upstream, the notice said.

The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is investigating the Patent and Trademark Office based on a Washington Post article (http://wapo.st/1oVE7Po) alleging USPTO remote employees lied about their hours, said a letter from committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., to Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker Tuesday (http://1.usa.gov/1thQ4Rl). “Reportedly, patent officers and paralegals routinely lied about their work and logged thousands of hours on the taxpayer’s dime,” said a committee news release Wednesday (http://1.usa.gov/VEMa8e). “Raising questions about USPTO’s internal investigation, the USPTO also removed the most damaging reports of employee fraud in a report to the agency’s independent watchdog.” Issa asked Pritzker to arrange a briefing by Friday for the committee’s staff. “We are carefully reviewing the Committee’s request and will respond and remain in close contact with the Committee on this matter,” the USPTO said in a statement Wednesday. The office “welcomes this opportunity to demonstrate that the agency’s award-winning telework programs -- and their measurable work production requirements for patent examiners -- have been integral to the USPTO’s dramatic, quantifiable progress in fulfilling its core functions of reducing the backlog of patent applications and the wait time for applicants,” it said.