Lockheed Martin's second GPS III satellite, GPS III SV02, has been assembled, with a third to follow soon, having just received its navigational payload, the company said in a news release Monday. GPS III SV02 is expected to launch in 2018, after environmental testing this summer, it said, saying eight more contracted GPS III satellites are in the works. It said SV01 was put into storage in February ahead of its expected launch, also next year.

Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter and Alphabet/Google's YouTube formed the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism to boost their collaboration in curbing online terrorist and violent extremist content, said Facebook in a Monday news release. The forum builds on the companies' initiative with the EU (see 1606030037 and 1605310051), creation of a shared industry hashtag database (see 1612060053 and 1612090049) and other efforts. The forum "will formalize and structure existing and future areas of collaboration between our companies and foster cooperation with smaller tech companies, civil society groups and academics, governments and supra-national bodies such as the EU and the UN." Initially, the forum will focus on technological solutions, research on counter-speech efforts and more collaboration with counterterrorism experts to develop best practices and other initiatives.

The Communications Workers of America alleged that Altice broke a New York condition on its buy of Cablevision by laying off nearly 30 dispatchers in customer-facing jobs. Altice notified the employees verbally and in writing that they would be “discharged against their will as of June 29,” the union wrote the New York Public Service Commission, posted Friday. The PSC included a four-year prohibition on job cuts in the June 2016 order (see 1606150056). “We ask that the Commission take all appropriate actions to prevent these lay-offs, to protect these and other workers and to enforce all provisions of the Order including but not limited to those referenced in PSL §§25 and 26,” CWA said. An Altice spokeswoman denied wrongdoing. "Altice USA respects its commitments to the PSC and is in full compliance with all the terms of its agreement," she said. "We will vigorously defend our company against these false allegations."

CTA released a logo for over-the-counter hearing aids to help consumers distinguish high-quality hearing enhancement devices for mild to moderate hearing loss from “cheap, ineffective personal amplifiers” found on the market today, it said in a Friday announcement. “With the industry agreeing on a common standard and logo, we can now better help the almost 40 million Americans who live with some form of hearing loss,” said CEO Gary Shapiro. CTA’s Personal Sound Amplification Performance Criteria standard (ANSI/CTA-2051) sets minimum performance requirements for devices that provide high-quality amplification enhancement, it said.

The FCC's letting cable operators email customers annual notifications potentially could extend to the agency allowing for distribution to a customer's online account instead of email, or notices for retransmission consent elections moving to email, Commissioner Mike O'Rielly said in a statement released Wednesday alongside the electronic annual notice declaratory ruling. O'Rielly said the ruling "comports nicely with our overall push to recognize the current realities of business communications and realize efficiencies by permitting, or in some cases requiring, paper transmissions to go electronic." The ruling said emailing annual notices "will greatly ease the burden of complying" with Section 76.1602(b) of rules requiring cable operators notify subscribers at least annually, and on request, of services offered and pricing as well as installation and maintenance policies, with that relief especially felt by small cable operators. A coalition of local governments that wanted conditions on the NCTA/American Cable Association petition (see 1606130028), emailed us, “While local government supported the move to paperless notices, we felt that the cable industry’s petition, as filed, was short on consumer protections. While we continue to review the order, we believe on balance that the Commission and the industry took our concerns very seriously. That fact is reflected in that Order modified the petition to address many, if not all, of our concerns.”

Ligado's plans to protect certified aviation GPS receivers from interference still leave helicopter navigation in potential interference danger, said aviation and aerospace representatives. In a meeting with FCC officials, they said results of a Radio Technical Commission for Aeronautics review of Ligado-conducted studies about possible interference to those GPS receivers were inconclusive and incomplete. They urged looking at the yet-to-be-released Department of Transportation Adjacent Band Compatibility assessment of the possible impact of Ligado handsets on precision and other noncertified GPS handsets. They said they share Iridium concerns (see 1703280064) that Ligado's ancillary terrestrial component handsets could bring out-of-band interference to satellite communications and said Inmarsat's system could be similarly affected. The aviation interests said the cost of retrofitting aircraft with new satcom receivers would be immense, and who would pay for such a retrofit isn't an issue Ligado raised. A filing posted Wednesday in docket 11-109 recapped the meeting. Participants included the Aerospace Industries Association, Airlines for America, Aviation Spectrum Resources and Helicopter Association International and representatives from the Wireless, International and Public Safety and Homeland Security bureaus and Office of Engineering and Technology. Ligado didn't comment.

Qualcomm made an undisclosed strategic investment in Amionx, whose Safe Core battery technology is said to prevent lithium-ion batteries from sparking a fire or explosion, it announced Tuesday. Safe Core can be implemented in existing battery manufacturing factories without additional capital cost and with minimal add-on cost to the bill of materials, it said. As part of the investment, Qualcomm President Derek Aberle will join the Amionx board. Estimated annual revenue for lithium-ion batteries is $35 billion, Qualcomm said.

Former Bell Labs President Arun Netravali was awarded the Marconi Prize by the Marconi Society for his pioneering work on video compression standards that were the base technology for MPEG 1, 2 and 4 video. The standards enabled video services including digital TV, HDTV and streaming video and are used in most TVs sets and all mobile phones today, said the society in a Friday announcement. The awards ceremony will be in Summit, New Jersey, Oct. 3, ahead of a symposium at Nokia Bell Labs in Murray Hill, New Jersey, on the societal impact of digital video.

The Audio Engineering Society is launching a “standards sustainers” program to subsidize funding of its standards development operations by soliciting monetary contributions from outside companies, the group said in a Friday announcement. Sustainers may contribute at four different levels, ranging from a $1,000 “basic” contribution to a $10,000 “platinum” endowment, AES said. “Numerous standards in development are driving an expansion of the AES standards operation,” it said. “That necessitates an expanded base of funding. Unlike other technical societies with standards programs, AES does not charge participation fees.” AES believes “a completely open process ultimately produces better and more widely accepted standards,” it said. “Consequently, other sources of revenue are required.”

Funai renewed its multiyear product and intellectual property license with TiVo for entertainment products sold in Japan, North America and Europe, said the companies in a Wednesday announcement. Funai, which is about to re-enter the Japanese market with 4K TVs, licensed TiVo’s G-Guide and G-Guide xD electronic programming guides and will incorporate TiVo’s G-Guide HTML in future 4K TV models, it said.