A hearing on Internet accessibility legislation exploded into a political brawl after Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., lashed out at CEA President Gary Shapiro. Testifying Thursday to the House Communications Subcommittee, Shapiro had said Markey’s bill (HR-3101) could kill start-up CE manufacturers by requiring them to make all products accessible to people with any disability. Republicans defended the CEA executive and scolded Markey. Chairman Rick Boucher, D-Va., tried to steer the discussion back toward areas of agreement.

The term, “certified electronics recycler,” is “generic” and shouldn’t be trademarked, the Basel Action Network (BAN) says in a lawsuit naming the International Association of Electronics Recyclers (IAER) and the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI) as defendants. BAN seeks a judgment ordering the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to cancel registration number 2,679,182 for the “certified electronics recycler” trademark issued to IAER in January 2003 and transferred to ISRI when it acquired IAER last year, says the complaint, filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Seattle.

LAS VEGAS -- Having whetted consumer appetites in movie theaters, 3D front projectors will inch into homes, offices and classrooms this year, as sales hit 1 million units, Pacific Media Associates President William Cogshall said at the Projection Summit. Sales will increase to 4.5 million units by 2013 and 5.3 million units a year later, Cogshall said.

An FCC draft rulemaking proposes a 2012 deadline for U.S. low-power stations to switch to all-digital broadcasts, agency and industry officials said. That deadline was proposed in 2008 by then-Chairman Kevin Martin, but scuttled by other commissioners (CED Feb 27 p3), and now has been revived by current Chairman Julius Genachowski, agency and industry officials said. The draft asks whether a later date ought to be set, an official said. Low-power stations won’t likely be able to go all-digital in two years, said lawyer Peter Tannenwald of Fletcher Heald, who represents low-power broadcasters that have gone all-digital.

The first stereoscopic 3D game from Take-Two Interactive will be the PC version of Mafia 2, shipping Aug. 24 by its 2K Games division, the publisher said. The PC SKU will use Nvidia’s 3D Vision technology to achieve the stereoscopic effects, CEO Ben Feder said in a Tuesday earnings call.

LAS VEGAS -- Sony Electronics has installed 3D projection systems for 500 screens it’s converting to digital at the AMC and Regal Entertainment movie theater chains, Alec Shapiro, senior vice president of sales and marketing for the broadcast and products systems division, told us at the Infocomm show. The deployments are expected to produce sales of more than 10,000 units of Sony’s SXRD LCoS-based front projectors, Shapiro said.

DirecTV’s launch of ESPN 3D Friday, and later additions of other 3D programming this month, will help differentiate the company from other TV providers as an early adopter of the technology, said Steven Roberts, senior vice president of new media and business development, who’s overseeing the 3D effort for DirecTV. Extensive work with TV manufacturers will allow the company to remain at the forefront of TV technology, as it did with HD, he said. Dish will also begin to offer 3D later this year, but opted not to sign up now for ESPN 3D, said a Dish executive.

LeapFrog expects to return to profitability this year through growth partly from expanding distribution “to other footprints” beyond conventional toy retailers, CEO William Chiasson said Tuesday at the Piper Jaffray Consumer Conference in New York. The expansion includes a greater presence at Best Buy, which is “going to be carrying a lot of our mobile learning electronic devices,” and Barnes & Noble, he said.

E-waste and proposed changes to Energy Star were among the biggest environmental lobbying issues for electronics makers and trade associations in Q1, according to disclosure reports filed with Congress. With Congress taking up several environmental measures, the CEA has been “monitoring to see if they touch on products,” said Amy Dempster, senior manager of government affairs and environmental policy.

STANFORD, Calif. -- A government investigation of an online outlet’s reporting on the lost prototype for the new iPhone represents a frightening effort to start criminalizing some newsgathering, media and civil-liberties lawyers said. Apple escalated use of the legal system to stifle journalism, in this case against Gawker Media’s Gizmodo site, because the conventional civil remedy of injunction has proven ineffective in bottling up news in the Internet age, the lawyers said late Monday at the Innovation Journalism conference at Stanford University.