Analysis American internet users are, seemingly, getting a quarter of the internet speed they are paying for.After compiling readings from over 380,000 individual users across the state, the results were even worse than expected: internet users are getting just 6.3 Mbps on average despite official US government statistics saying the figure was four times higher at 25Mbps.That is critical not just because it means people have to wait longer to download information from the internet but because the entire structure of oversight that is designed to make sure there is adequate broadband across the US is built around the 25Mbps figure.The survey went to some lengths to make sure its findings can't be undercut by cable industry lobbyists.For example, average speed in specific neighborhoods was calculated for every IP address where the latitude and longitude of the IP address was inside the neighborhood.That careful and in-depth approach to calculating internet speeds stands in stark contrast to the system and methods used by the cable companies and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which lawmakers, broadband advocates, smaller ISPs and even some FCC Commissioners have been complaining about for years.

In 2018, former Trump strategist Steve Bannon used location data from smartphones to target church-goers with get-out-the vote advertisements, according to a new report from ThinkProgress Friday.“We’re sending a message from CatholicVote, not to go vote for a specific guy,” Bannon said.“But for all Catholics to go out and do their duty and they’re going to put out a thing to support President Trump.”The concession came from a now-deleted scene from The Brink, a documentary by Alison Klayman focusing on Bannon’s efforts to mobilize the far-right throughout the 2018 midterm elections.In an interview with Klayman, Bannon says that he worked with the conservative group CatholicVote to use location data obtained from carriers to target ads to people who had recently been to Roman Catholic churches in Dubuque, Iowa.“If your phone’s ever been in a Catholic church, it’s amazing, they got this data,” Bannon reportedly said.

If you’ve been waiting for an updated version of the Movado Connect smartwatch from 2017, then your wait may finally be at an end.According to an FCC filing (spotted by Droid Life), the Swiss watchmaker is putting the final touches to the upgraded version of its premium smartwatch.FCC filings are pretty short on design specifications, but mentions of the watch as “MOVADO CONNECT 2.0/40” in the documents lead us to believe the casing for the watch will come in at 40mm.With the original watching rocking in at a sizeable 46.5mm, that’s a significant downgrade in size.Still, it’ll most likely be a welcome change.There’s also mention of a leather and metal strap, so expect to have swappable straps too.

Nintendo revealed this week it’ll be releasing an upgraded version of the Switch, with a longer-lasting battery.So now we can play Breath of the Wild for over five hours — as if we weren’t doing that already.The company first revealed the new model via the Nintendo Japan Twitter:— 任天堂株式会社 (@Nintendo) July 17, 2019According to Nintendo‘s Japanese website, this new version of the Switch runs four-and-a-half to nine hours from one battery charge.To further drive the point home, the company says playing Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild will deplete the original in three hours, and the new model in five-and-a-half hours.

OneWeb says a test of its low-Earth orbit satellites has delivered broadband speeds of more than 400Mbps with average latency of 32ms."The tests, which took place in Seoul, South Korea, represent the most significant demonstration of the OneWeb constellation to date, proving its ability to provide superior broadband connectivity anywhere on the planet," OneWeb said in an announcement yesterday.The company said it's on track toward creating "a fully functioning global constellation in 2021 and delivering partial service beginning as early as 2020."The test described yesterday involved six OneWeb satellites that were launched in February.After delays, OneWeb launches its first six low-Earth broadband satellitesWhile the 32ms latency figure is an average, the 400Mbps result seems to be the peak speed delivered during the test.

Just last week, Nintendo finally announced the Switch Lite—a cheaper and more portable version of the classic Switch but without the original’s TV docking support.However, it seems the Switch Lite wasn’t the only hardware upgrade Nintendo had planned, because now Nintendo has announced a new model for the standard Switch with some refreshed components and nearly double the battery life.The news was first revealed by Nintendo Japan’s Twitter account which points back to a listing on Nintendo’s Japanese homepage.While details regarding what Nintendo specifically changed for this new Switch model are somewhat sparse, if Nintendo’s recent FCC filing is any indication, this new version could include an updated version of Nvidia’s Tegra X1 chip, new flash memory modules, and a revamped circuit board.Either way, it seems these new components have had a positive influence on the Switch’s battery life.On Nintendo’s Japanese website, the company claims that the refreshed Switch can now last between 4.5 to 9 hours on a single charge, up from 2.5 to 6.5 hours for the original Switch.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee is sending a bill to help end the onslaught of unwanted robocalls to the floor, an issue that both chambers of Congress have made a priority this session.The bipartisan Stopping Bad Robocalls Act would outlaw a slate of methods fraudsters use to scam consumers over the phone and through text.If approved, the bill would make it easier for the government to go after the fraudsters and issue tougher penalties.The Federal Communications Commission would also need to update what it considers a “robocall,” which would require more businesses to obtain consent from customers before making robotic calls.“The American people are fed up with robocalls,” Chairman Frank Pallone Jr. (D-NJ) said.“Who can blame them – an estimated 47 billion robocalls were made last year.

A week after announcing the Switch Lite, Nintendo is back at it today with the announcement of a new standard Switch model.Thanks to FCC filings, we had some idea that this announcement was coming, but don’t expect this to be a big mid-generation update on the same level of something like the Xbox One X or the PS4 Pro.In fact, there doesn’t seem to be very much that’s changed with this new model.According to Nintendo, the only thing that’s changing is the battery life.In the standard Switch – model number HAC-001 – Nintendo’s own estimates for battery life come in at 2.5 to 6.5 hours, with the battery lasting approximately three hours while playing The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.In the new Switch, which has a model number of HAC-001(-01), the battery will instead last 4.5 to 9 hours.

It seems like loads of manufacturers are offering smartphones with pop-up selfie cameras these days, with the Xiaomi Mi 9T, Realme X, and OnePlus 7 Pro all delivering the feature.Only the OnePlus 7 Pro has officially made it to the U.S., but it’s not exactly the most affordable smartphone in the world at $669.Thankfully, it seems like U.S. budget brand Blu is working on a phone with a pop-up selfie camera, and it could make a splash in the mid-range segment.The Blu Bold N1 has passed by the FCC, and some of the images attached to the filing clearly show a device with a pop-up selfie camera.Check out the pictures below.Pictures, internal photos, and the user manual also reveal a Helio P60 chipset, dual rear-camera setup, 3,500mAh battery, 128GB of storage, USB-C port, 3.5mm port, a microSD slot, and dual-SIM support.

More than 220,000 unserved rural homes and businesses in 24 states will get broadband access because of funding authorized yesterday by the Federal Communications Commission, the agency said.In all, the FCC authorized more than $563 million for distribution to ISPs over the next decade.It's the latest payout from the commission's Connect America Fund, which was created in 2011.Under program rules, ISPs that receive funding must build out to 40 percent of the required homes and businesses within three years and an additional 20 percent each year until completing the buildout at the end of the sixth year.Ajit Pai wants to cap spending on broadband for poor people and rural areasThe money is being distributed primarily to smaller ISPs in Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Texas, and Virginia.

Fifth-generation cellular networks and devices are still in the earliest stages of launching across the world, but research on the next generation — 6G — is already underway.Today, researchers at the University of California, Irvine’s Nanoscale Communication Integrated Circuits Labs announced that they’ve created a tiny radio chip that can send and receive data in the 100GHz frequency range, which is expected to be the basis for future 6G communications standards.Though it seems early to be discussing 6G, leading wireless researchers in the United States, Finland, and South Korea have been focusing on the potential of “sub-millimeter wave” spectrum for roughly a year; the FCC opened a swath of 95GHz to 3THz spectrum for experimentation in March.Thanks to their unique characteristics and the lack of competing uses of the same spectra, the ultra-high-frequency radio signals are expected to quickly carry almost inconceivable quantities of data — enough to transmit human brain-level computing power from servers to pocket devices in real time.Currently in prototype form, UCI’s invention is a 4.4-square millimeter transceiver that operates between the 115 and 135GHz frequencies, achieving a 36-gigabit per second data rate at 30-centimeter (roughly one-foot) distances.The prototype consumes just over 200mW of power, including the necessary receiving and demodulation hardware, by using a novel approach to processing data.

An unprecedented drone incident at one of the world’s busiest airports in December 2018 led to flights being suspended for around 36 hours, which in turn resulted in ruined travel plans for around 140,000 people as well as huge costs for the airport operator and affected airlines.The problem of rogue drone flights near sensitive locations such as airports and prisons is a growing headache for governments around the world, though slowly but surely various solutions are being designed to combat the illegal flight incursions.One such company developing the technology is DroneShield.The Sydney, Australia-based outfit this week unveiled its third “drone gun,” designed specifically to jam a drone signal, take control of a rogue flying machine, and land it safely.The DroneGun MkIII is, at 629mm x 393mm x 209mm, its most compact design yet, and, unlike DroneShield’s other portable drone gun, can be comfortably operated with one hand.“DroneGun MkIII has an incredibly small form factor,” DroneShield CEO Oleg Vornik told Digital Trends.

Irvine, Calif., July 16, 2019 - A new wireless transceiver invented by electrical engineers at the University of California, Irvine boosts radio frequencies into 100-gigahertz territory, quadruple the speed of the upcoming 5G, or fifth-generation, wireless communications standard.The team's innovation is outlined in a paper published recently in the IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits."The Federal Communications Commission recently opened up new frequency bands above 100 gigahertz," said lead author and postgraduate researcher Hossein Mohammadnezhad, a UCI grad student at the time of the work who this year earned a Ph.D. in electrical engineering & computer science.Having transmitters and receivers that can handle such high-frequency data communications is going to be vital in ushering in a new wireless era dominated by the "internet of things," autonomous vehicles, and vastly expanded broadband for streaming of high-definition video content and more.According to Heydari, changing frequencies of signals through modulation and demodulation in transceivers has traditionally been done via digital processing, but integrated circuit engineers have in recent years begun to see the physical limitations of this method."Moore's law says we should be able to increase the speed of transistors - such as those you would find in transmitters and receivers - by decreasing their size, but that's not the case anymore," he said.

Ajit Pai is continuing his multi-year battle against local broadband regulation with a plan that would stop cities and towns from using their authority over cable TV networks to regulate Internet access.If approved, Pai's proposal would "Prohibit LFAs [local franchising authorities] from using their video franchising authority to regulate most non-cable services, including broadband Internet service, offered over cable systems by incumbent cable operators."These efforts appear to have followed the decision by the Supreme Court of Oregon in City of Eugene v. Comcast, which upheld a local franchising authority's imposition of an additional 7% "telecommunications" license fee on the provision of broadband services over a franchised cable system with mixed-use facilities.To address this problem, we now expressly preempt any state or local requirement, whether or not imposed by a franchising authority, that would impose obligations on franchised cable operators beyond what Title VI allows.Despite the Oregon Supreme Court ruling against Comcast, Pai's plan says "the majority of courts... have interpreted section 622(b) to prohibit states and localities from charging fees that exceed those expressly permitted by Title VI."Pai's proposal also declares that "in-kind" contributions required by local franchising authorities must count toward that 5 percent cap, "with limited exceptions, including an exemption for certain capital costs related to public, educational, and governmental access (PEG) channels."

The Federal Communications Commission on Monday said it authorized more than $524 million to expand broadband in 23 states.The funding will support more than 205,000 rural homes and businesses over the next 10 years, the FCC said.Providers will start to get funding this month.This is the FCC's third wave of funding for rural broadband as part of last year's Connect America Fund Phase II auction, which granted $1.488 billion to support over 700,000 homes and businesses.The agency also authorized funding in May and June to support connectivity in around 100,000 homes and businesses.The FCC will authorize more funding in the coming months as it approves more applications from the auction's winning bidders.

The question over whether or not the Samsung Galaxy Note 10 will be sporting a 3.5mm headphone jack has been seemingly answered with images published by the US FCC, which have since been deleted.Unofficial renders of the handset that we saw last week showed the bottom of the smartphone, but the FCC image gives us a closer look and you can quite clearly see the absence of a headphone jack.The images have since been removed suggesting the FCC shouldn't have posted them in the first place, but the internet being what it is, it's too late.This time around Samsung will be launching two models of the Note 10, with a larger Plus or Pro version.You can find out more about the Unpacked event here, and read up on all of the Galaxy Note 10 titbits and rumours right here.It looks like Samsung may also be revealing the Galaxy Watch Active 2 at Unpacked based on yet more renders that have made their way into the wild.

In less than a month, Samsung will take the veils off its third flagship of the year, with the Galaxy Fold taking the place of second.By now, however, almost everything about it has been unofficially revealed by rumors and leaks.Of course, those are all unofficial, no matter how credible the source may be.It’s still unofficial but leaksters don’t have anything on the FCC who may have given the public the closest it could get to official confirmation.The sighting at the FCC doesn’t really add anything new.But considering all communication devices have to pass by the US regulatory body before launching, it’s pretty much considered to be the real thing.

Samsung's Galaxy Note 10 has seen numerous high-profile leaks of late, including photos of the device spotted in the wild, and some incredibly convincing (and rather official-looking) renders which seemingly show the phone and its stylus in all their glory.Now, just weeks away from its official unveiling, Samsung's next productivity-focused flagship has been revealed in full thanks to a leak by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that was spotted by XDA Developers before being taken down.(Image credit: XDA Developers / FCC)As you can see, the image above provides a clear look at the handset, offering a front-facing shot that includes device dimensions and a view of the phone's centered pinhole selfie camera, which has been teased by the company in the lead up to the Note 10's launch.The image also confirms previous rumours about a lack of any buttons along the right edge of the device, though there are physical keys on the left where the volume rocker and Bixby button have traditionally been located – it's unclear whether the polarizing Bixby key is returning or if it's been replaced by a left-mounted power button.Additional, two other images featured on XDA Developers' post show the Note 10's front and back from different angles, seemingly confirming that the device will sport a vertically-aligned triple-lens camera on its left side and that it will indeed lack a 3.5mm headphone jack this time around.

On the same day US President Donald Trump held a social media summit without inviting the two biggest social media companies Twitter and Facebook, the White House also reportedly held an in-house meeting on 5G policy.The discussion was to "combat infighting" about the new mobile network technology, Axios reported Thursday afternoon.5G, already launched in some parts of the US by Verizon, AT, Sprint and T-Mobile, is the next-generation network being used by smartphones to provide faster speeds and more capacity.The "high-level" White House meeting was called by Mick Mulvaney, acting White House chief of staff, because "tensions over 5G have come to a head" in Trump's administration, according to Axios citing two administration officials.The meeting was led by Larry Kudlow, director of Trump's National Economic Council, the report said, and included Ajit Pai, Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chair as well as officials from the Defense, State, Commerce and Education departments.Mulvaney's office and the FCC didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.

This week, the federal regulator's triumvirate of Republican commissioners, led by the chairman Ajit Pai, actively voted down a city ordinance specifically designed to make sure that people living in apartment blocks have access to a range of ISPs.And then, for good measure, they put out a news release titled: "FCC takes action to promote broadband deployment and competition in apartment and office buildings."The ordinance in question - Article 52 of San Francisco's city rules – prevents property owners from denying ISPs access to existing wiring within "multiple occupancy buildings" i.e.As part of their nationwide policy of creating local monopolies, cable companies have often struck exclusive deals with building owners to supply only their internet services, resulting in lower competition and higher prices."Rather than fostering competition, the proposed order would strip occupants of many (multi-tenant environments) in San Francisco of a meaningful choice of communications providers," Breed warned."But when they know that they will have to share the communications facilities that they install with their competitors, they’re less likely to make the effort in the first place."