Semiconductors are “a hot topic these days,” said Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger at the groundbreaking ceremony Friday of two new fabs Intel is building in Chandler, Arizona -- a site he dubbed the “Silicon Desert.” The industry is enduring a demand-supply gap, and the global shortage “is causing chips to halt and slow production of many other areas of the economy,” he said.

As more devices and smart home functionality depend on a solid Wi-Fi connection, opportunities are rising for managed services to oversee home networks, said Shane Eleniak, Calix Edge Products senior vice president-revenue, on a Wednesday Parks Associates virtual smart home conference. The average U.S. broadband home has 14 connected devices, according to Parks.

Preferred scheduling, a commitment of over $75 million for existing hourly store employees, education benefits and paid back-up training are some of the ways Target hopes to ensure holiday season store shifts are covered in a tight labor market, said the retailer Thursday.

Comments are due Nov. 8 at the Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security in docket BIS-2021-0036 to help the secretaries of Commerce and Homeland Security prepare a report to the White House on the global semiconductor shortage by the one-year deadline of President Joe Biden’s Feb. 24 executive order on America's supply chains, says Friday’s Federal Register. BIS put out a separate call for comments this week due Nov. 4 on supply chain disruptions in the broader information and communications technology sector, also under the Feb. 24 EO (see 2109170042).

The Computer & Communications Industry Association and NetChoice sued Texas over its social media law Wednesday (see 2109030048 and 2109100049), calling it a First Amendment violation. See a news bulletin here. The associations filed a lawsuit against a similar social media law passed in Florida.

Google and Facebook didn’t engage in anticompetitive behavior through a 2018 digital advertising agreement, representatives from the companies told the Senate Antitrust Subcommittee during a hearing Tuesday. A lawsuit from state law enforcers accused the companies of an illegal price-fixing scheme via the agreement.

Measuring TV viewers is expected to get more competitive following Nielsen’s accreditation troubles, and advertising targeting is considered the best way to monetize ATSC 3.0, said panelists at the virtual TV2025 Conference Wednesday. “I could see a time in the future where we start to rethink the value of third-party measurement,” said Publicis Media Senior Vice President-Global Research, Data Sciences Eric Cavanaugh.

Rural America is used to being “last to the race” when new wireless generations are released, but that won’t be the case with 5G, said Anand Akundi, interim head of Ericsson North America’s regional carrier unit. “5G changes the paradigm,” he told the Competitive Carriers Association Wednesday.

The impact of “constrained labor markets” remains the biggest challenge for FedEx, as with most other large companies, said President-Chief Operating Officer Raj Subramaniam on an earnings call Tuesday for fiscal Q1 ended Aug. 31. He estimates FedEx incurred $450 million in added costs during the quarter from the labor shortages. The disclosures sent the stock tumbling 9.1% lower Wednesday to close at $229.08.

Disney “called it exactly right” when it shifted during the COVID-19 pandemic last year to the three-pronged strategy of releasing some feature films direct to theaters, others exclusively through Disney+, and still others as a hybrid Premier Access option through theaters and on Disney+ streaming, CEO Bob Chapek told the Goldman Sachs Communacopia Conference virtually Tuesday. Amid the market's "vast uncertainties," deciding which film goes to which channel is akin to working a stick shift, he said: "We’re making the right calls at the right time”