The 37-member Alliance for Competitive Taxation supports the House tax reform agenda, it said in a Thursday news release. The group, which includes Dell, Disney, Google and Verizon, offered approval without specifically mentioning some controversial “border adjustability” elements that would subject imports to taxation while exempting U.S. exports. "The ‘Better Way for Tax Reform’ blueprint includes many of the policies that our businesses support, including setting a competitive corporate tax rate at 20 percent, establishing a modern international tax system, promoting investment and job creation in the U.S., and providing a level playing field for U.S. and foreign companies competing to sell their goods and services at home and abroad," the group said. Border adjustability was mentioned in House Speaker Paul Ryan's tax reform agenda last year and continues to be seen as a key element, though no legislation has been introduced. Retailers, which generally depend heavily on imports, are largely opposed to such a provision.

CEDIA’s decision to sell its September trade event to Emerald Expositions will allow the trade organization to focus on year-round member initiatives, it said in a Thursday news release. “CEDIA will continue to be deeply involved in the show, working hand-in-hand with Emerald on overall show direction, as well as retaining control and ownership of all educational programming." Offloading the show, called CEDIA Expo until last year, will allow CEDIA to “reallocate staff” to develop programs and initiatives to drive member success, said CEDIA CEO Vin Bruno in a statement. CEDIA's professional staff spends most of its time during the year preparing for the trade show, said CEDIA Chairman Dennis Erskine. With the resources freed up from not organizing the show, the organization will address member needs: workforce development, education delivered “more conveniently to members," consumer awareness, industry outreach and providing better digital tools, it said. The organizations will work together on the 2017 show, scheduled for Sept. 5-9 in San Diego, in what CEDIA called a “transitional year” as CEDIA hands off operations to Emerald Expositions for 2018. “Beyond 2017, Emerald will be responsible for all operational aspects of the show excluding educational programming and the CEDIA Awards event,” CEDIA said. Emerald, meanwhile, was said to be exploring a sale that could value the company at close to $2 billion, Reuters reported Wednesday. Emerald’s website says the company operates more than 50 trade shows, including 30 of the top 250 trade shows in the U.S. Shows include the KBIS kitchen and bath show, Surf Expo and the National Stationery Show. It operates shows for other industries including gift, home and general merchandise; design; food; healthcare; construction; and military. Emerald’s other technology shows are the Internet Retail Conference + Exhibition and the Digital Dealer Conference & Expo. Emerald didn't immediately respond to questions.

Despite communications from the Consumer Product Safety Commission this week on recalls of lithium-ion batteries and overheating concerns, lithium-ion batteries “are quite safe,” Sajeev Jesudas, president of safety certification organization UL Consumer, emailed us Wednesday. Reported failures are “less than one in 10 million,” said Jesudas, “an extremely low failure rate.” The CPSC expanded a recall for Panasonic batteries used in HP laptop PCs this week (see 1701240015). It also used visibility over the Samsung Note7 battery report (see 1701230048) to urge (see 1701240065) the CE industry “to modernize and improve the safety standards for lithium-ion batteries” and to “stay ahead of new power sources that will inevitably come along and replace these.” On whether UL is seeing more overheating cases as electronics become thinner, “Historically electronics have shrunk to be lighter and more portable," Jesudas said. We’ve seen TV tubes turn into flat-screen TVs, and radios become more compact," but independent, third-party safety testing "and sound manufacturing practices help ensure fewer failures in the marketplace.” Although emerging battery designs are being discussed, Jesudas said, none is positioned to replace lithium-ion near term. Lithium-ion batteries are “rechargeable, compact and long-lasting, making this technology a top choice for many manufacturers,” he said.

Facebook's "Trending" topics feature will get three new updates, including a publisher headline about that topic, a better system that identifies the topic is trending, and the ability of everyone in a region to see the same topics, wrote Will Cathcart, vice president-product management, in a Wednesday blog post. The Trending topics feature was criticized last year for supposed bias, censorship and fake news (see 1605120058 and 1610140054). Adding a headline from a publisher's article about the topic -- the most requested improvement from users -- will give readers more context on what's trending on the social media site, he wrote. "The headline that appears is automatically selected based on a combination of factors including the engagement around the article on Facebook, the engagement around the publisher overall, and whether other articles are linking to it." The new system that identifies trending topics will be based on the number of publishers posting articles on the site with the same topic rather than around a single post or article, he said. This should present a broader range of news and events and reflect real world events, he added. Plus, "Facebook will no longer be personalized based on someone’s interests." Instead, everyone in the same region will be able to view the same topics so people don't miss out on what's being discussed, Cathcart said.

More than 6.8 million tuned in to Twitter and PBS NewsHour’s live-streamed coverage of President Donald Trump’s inauguration, a Twitter spokesman said Tuesday. That made it Twitter’s highest viewed live stream, just beating BuzzFeed and Twitter’s election night coverage, it said. The inauguration broadcast peaked at 377,000 concurrent viewers at 12:15 p.m., it said. Twitter users sent 12 million tweets about the inauguration Friday and 11.5 million tweets globally about the Women’s March the next day, the company said earlier (see 1701230059).

Consumer Product Safety Commission Chairman Elliot Kaye praised results of the Samsung Note7 recall, citing a 97 percent (“and counting”) consumer response rate, while urging the 2-plus percent of outstanding customers to “do the right thing,” in an email update Tuesday. Samsung has been "accountable in taking steps to drive up the recall response rate and keeps pushing, as they should, for every one of the recalled [phones] to be returned,” said Kaye, urging the industry to “modernize and improve the safety standards for lithium-ion batteries in consumer electronics and also stay ahead of new power sources that will inevitably come along and replace these.” Consumers “expect more power from a smaller battery that charges faster and discharges more slowly,” said Kaye, noting companies are “under a lot of pressure to meet this performance demand.” CPSC and Samsung are working with the wireless industry, battery makers and electrical engineers “to take a fresh look at the voluntary standard for lithium-ion batteries in smartphones,” Kaye said. “The overheating is a fire risk" and defective batteries are a serious issue, he said, "so I urge the remaining Note7 owners who are holding out to do the right thing and get a full refund or a new phone." After hoverboard and smartphone battery recalls, CPSC added to its operating plan a project for its technical staff to assess high-density battery technology, innovations in the marketplace, gaps in safety standards, and the research and regulatory activities in other countries, he said. “Beyond an excellent recall response rate, we need more good to come out of the Note7 recalls and I believe Samsung agrees." At a minimum, he said, industry needs to learn from the experience "and improve consumer safety by putting more safeguards in place during the design and manufacturing stages to ensure that technologies run by lithium-ion batteries deliver their benefits without the serious safety risks.”

HP expanded the recall of batteries for HP and Compaq computers, said the Consumer Product Safety Commission Tuesday. The Panasonic lithium-ion batteries used in HP notebook computers shipped from March to October can overheat, posing fire and burn hazards, said CPSC. The expanded recall covers about 101,000 batteries, adding to the 41,000 batteries recalled in June. Some 3,000 were sold in Canada and 4,000 in Mexico. Batteries included in the expanded recall have bar codes starting with 6BZLU, 6CGFK, 6CGFQ, 6CZMB, 6DEMA, 6DEMH, 6DGAL and 6EBVA, said CPSC. HP received one additional report of a battery overheating, melting and charring, which was said to cause $1,000 in property damage. The June notice cited seven reports of battery packs overheating, melting or charring, causing $4,000 in damage. The laptops were sold at authorized retailers nationwide including Best Buy, Costco, Sam's Club and Walmart for between $300 and $1,700, and batteries also were sold separately for $50 to $90, it said.

CTA President Gary Shapiro, who stated publicly in a Facebook post last fall he intended to vote for Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton (see 1610150001), took to Facebook again in a call for unity Thursday night, hours before Donald Trump’s inauguration as president. “During this historic moment I want to give a message to my friends on the right and left,” said Shapiro, who supported Republican candidate Mitt Romney in the 2012 election. Shapiro urged his progressive Facebook followers to “disagree on policies and substance but try being respectful. You are more likely to sway people that way.” To his Trump-supporting friends, Shapiro said: “Try to agree on facts before you fight over policies” and give Democrats a “seat at the table and use their best ideas.” Stressing the need to compromise, Shapiro said, “Our best legislation is bi-partisan.”

Donald's Trump's presidency will have an even bigger impact on telecom/cable regulation than his November victory did, Bank of America Merrill Lynch cable/satellite analysts wrote investors Wednesday. The Republican election sweep forced Democratic FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler to abandon efforts to push through new rules on cable set-top boxes and telecom business data services, they noted. The post-inauguration regulatory impact "will be even more significant as the President-elect's administration is reportedly interested in: (1) reshaping the FCC into a more streamlined agency that better reflects convergence; (2) re-working the Open Internet Order; and (3) re-writing the 1996 Telecommunications Act," they wrote. "The new FCC and potential for a re-working of the Open Internet Order would eliminate the significant overhang of rate regulation and also reduce uncertainty." A note by Bank of America Merrill Lynch telecom equipment analysts said the new administration "appears likely to drive spending on infrastructure & cyber security" and promote "an offshore cash repatriation holiday and a broad reduction of the corporate tax rate, ie from 35% to 20%." They expect a Republican rollback of net neutrality to drive increased capital expenditure for service providers, to the benefit of equipment providers such as Cisco and others.

ProSource announced a member dues abatement for Q1 for all members on record as of Sept. 30. The unanimous decision voted by the ProSource board was made possible by “effective cost management” over the past year and “continued net membership growth,” it said Tuesday. The member-owned organization’s goal is to provide maximum investment return on program benefits and “lowest possible cost of membership” to dealers, said CEO Dave Workman. Dues vary based on dealer size, but most dealers pay $3,580 a year for membership, or $895 per quarter, Workman emailed us. The abatement is the buying group’s first, he said. ProSource added approximately 50 dealer members in 2016, bringing the total to over 500.