Berkeley may mandate RF disclosures just like the FCC, the California city said Monday at the Supreme Court in case 17-976. Berkeley opposed CTIA’s petition for high court review of the mandate that retailers inform prospective cellphone buyers that carrying their devices in certain ways can cause exposure to radiation exceeding federal limits (see 1802270045). The city may compel truthful disclosure in commercial speech because it’s reasonably related to the FCC’s interest, it said. “Berkeley’s interest in mandating this disclosure is precisely the same as the FCC’s: to give its residents the facts they would need to avoid exceeding the federal RF exposure limits -- if they so choose,” wrote the city’s attorney, Lawrence Lessig. “The ordinance is supremely ordinary. … Like nutrition and ingredient labels, drug side-effect and interaction disclosures, or elevator safety warnings, Berkeley’s ordinance gives consumers information that consumers could reasonably want to know.” The court shouldn’t hear the case because there’s “no split among the circuits upon any issue material to the disposition,” Lessig said. “The radical change in law that Petitioner advocates would impose substantial burdens on federal, state and local regulators while serving no genuine First Amendment interests.” Review is premature because the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is reviewing en banc a similar case about soda health effects, American Beverage Association v. San Francisco, he said.

Various models of Samsung Galaxy smartphones have rear-camera glass lens covers that are prone to “spontaneously shatter within a few weeks of purchase,” alleged a complaint (in Pacer) filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in San Francisco. The “defect is common” on Galaxy S7- and S8-series and Note 8 phones and is “known to Samsung, as Samsung has received countless complaints about it,” said the filing, which seeks class-action status. “But Samsung continues to hide this defect from consumers and has refused to repair it even when covered under its warranty.” That leaves consumers with devices “on which the camera -- an integral part of a smartphone’s functionality -- is unusable,” it said. The glass shatters “without any external force applied,” and does so “in a telltale circular pattern as if it had been shot out by a BB gun,” said the complaint. Consumers “have suffered injury in fact and incurred fees and costs” associated with the defect, it said. “Without a repair or a refund from Samsung, consumers are left with limited options. To replace one of these devices at retail price costs several hundred dollars.” Even if a consumer bought insurance on the defective phone, replacing it “requires paying a deductible that may be between $175 and $250,” it said. The complaint was reassigned Wednesday to a U.S. district judge in Oakland, California, after plaintiffs Lynette Pang and Timo Masalin declined (in Pacer) their consent to have the case go before a magistrate judge in San Francisco. Opting not to have a complaint heard before a magistrate judge is "common practice in these kinds of cases," Michael Woerner, a lawyer for Pang and Masalin, emailed us Wednesday. Samsung didn’t comment.

Google said it's considering its next steps in its long-running legal dispute with Oracle over its use of coding and names in Oracle's Java application programming interface (API) technology in its Android mobile operating system after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled against Google Tuesday. The three-judge Federal Circuit panel remanded the case to U.S. District Court in San Francisco for another jury trial, reversing a federal jury's 2016 verdict that Google's fair use of Oracle's API technology qualifies as a transformative fair use (see 1605260067). Oracle's appeal of the case to the Federal Circuit last year drew support from MPAA, while many tech sector stakeholders backed Google (see 1702220031 and 1705300064). “Although Google could have furthered copyright’s goals of promoting creative expression and innovation by developing its own APIs, or by licensing Oracle’s APIs for use in developing a new platform, it chose to copy Oracle’s creative efforts instead,” said Circuit Judge Kathleen O'Malley in the Federal Circuit panel's ruling, which was joined by Circuit Judges Jay Plager and Richard Taranto. “There is nothing fair about taking a copyrighted work verbatim and using it for the same purpose and function as the original in a competing platform.” The Federal Circuit's opinion “upholds fundamental principles of copyright law and makes clear that Google violated the law,” said Oracle General Counsel Dorian Daley in a statement. “This type of ruling will make apps and online services more expensive for users,” Google said in a statement Wednesday.

The abundance of high-end smartphones shown at Mobile World Congress with larger 4K displays, multiple high-resolution cameras and 4K HDR video recording is driving “increased memory and storage requirements” in those devices, said Micron Technology CEO Sanjay Mehrotra on a Thursday earnings call. OEMs also are “building new artificial intelligence, augmented reality and lifelike virtual reality capabilities into high-end smartphones, including facial and voice recognition, real-time translation, fast image search and scene detection,” he said. To support these “data-intensive” capabilities, high-end smartphones are migrating towards 6 GB of low-power DRAM components in those devices, “a trend that bodes well for Micron given our leadership in LPDRAM power efficiency, which is essential for optimizing battery life,” he said. The average storage capacity of solid-state drives also is increasing “across all smartphone classes with new flagship models using 64 gigabytes of flash memory at a minimum,” he said. The growing adoption of AI “is not limited to mobile,” he said. At CES, “several companies showed AI smart cockpits in new automotive models,” he said. “These systems integrate the instrument dashboard, infotainment and telematic systems with a centralized compute and storage architecture to create a data center on wheels. Voice and gesture recognition, combined with driver alert monitoring capabilities, are making automobiles more intelligent and much more compute-intensive, requiring higher capacity and more powerful memory and storage solutions.”

The new 64 GB Samsung Galaxy S9+ carries a bill of materials (BOM) cost $43 higher than previous versions of Samsung smartphones, said a Thursday IHS Markit teardown report. The $375.80, a “much higher” BOM than previous versions, is driven mostly by higher prices for DRAM and NAND flash memory and the much-touted dual-lens mechanical aperture camera module, said analyst Andrew Rassweiler. The camera section’s combined cost for the primary and secondary lens, iris camera and other modules is $44.95, of which $34.95 is for the new primary camera, he said. Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 845 processor is part of a bundled chipset estimated to cost $67, said the analyst. At 700-nit brightness, the 6.2-inch Super AMOLED display, slightly higher than last year’s Galaxy S8+, has a BOM of $79, making it the most expensive component in the device, said Rassweiler. Wireless charging in the device was upgraded to 15 watts from 7; no cost was given. “Despite the higher cost structure for Samsung, the Galaxy S9+ offers consumers better specs at about the same price point as the Galaxy S8+,” said Rassweiler, citing the brighter screen and advanced camera technology. The unsubsidized retail price for a 64GB Galaxy S9+ starts at $839.99.

The FCC released the latest lists of hearing aid compatible phones, indexed a number of ways, including by service provider, handset maker and air interface. The information is for 2017.

Commercial mobile service providers may join an April 5 wireless emergency alert test by the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (MWCOG) Emergency Managers Committee, said an FCC Public Safety Bureau order Friday granting limited waiver. The test will take place in 20 jurisdictions within the National Capital Region, “simulating the manner in which the MWCOG would conduct a coordinated WEA in the case of an actual emergency,” the bureau said in docket 15-91. Test alerts will be sent by 12 of the jurisdictions, it said. The bureau conditioned the waiver on MWCOG doing appropriate outreach beforehand so as not to confuse the public. Test participants are the District of Columbia and surrounding jurisdictions in Maryland and Virginia.

Samsung’s Galaxy S9 and S9+ went on sale Friday, with suggested retail prices of $719 and $839 in unlocked and carrier versions. The company focused on the “reimagined” camera features of the flagship smartphones for the “visual and social generation,” said Samsung Electronics North America CEO Tim Baxter. The spotlight is on the cameras’ dual aperture (F1.5-F2.4) lens said to work “just like the human eye to adjust to different lighting conditions.” The cameras capture up to 12 versions of the same photo to create an optimal image with high contrast, and less noise and grain, said Samsung. Carriers pitched various deals. Sprint said it will shave $30 off the price for phones purchased online, and it's hawking a free S9 or S9+ customers who sign up for two 18-month leases with one new line and an upgraded lease required. AT&T Wireless offers an S9 at half off until March 31 to customers who sign up for the AT&T Next plan with credits issued over 30 months. Verizon’s lead offer on its website Friday was for up to 50 percent off the iPhone in a trade-in offer. Its Samsung Galaxy promotion was a buy-one-get-one-free deal (up to $799) for customers who bought a minimum $929 Galaxy phone, no trade-in required, with credits applied over 24 months. T-Mobile is dealing the S9 at 50 percent off with a 24-month contract and a trade-in. C-Spire is giving discounts up to $400 for a limited time for customers who trade in a smartphone and sign up for $29- and $35-per month plans, it said.

ZTE’s Blade V9 phone is the first device to incorporate technology from Xperi’s FotoNation and DTS subsidiaries, said the companies Thursday. The smartphone, introduced at Mobile World Congress, will include portrait enhancement and panorama technologies from FotoNation and the DTS Sound audio post-processing solution.

New York City Emergency Management filed at the FCC a report it commissioned arguing for requiring the capacity to include transmission of photos and other media as part of wireless emergency alerts. The department said it submitted the report at the request of the FCC Public Safety Bureau. The report examines public reaction in the wake of the use of alerts as police searched for Ahmad Rahami, the suspect in the 2016 Chelsea bombing. The vast majority believed it was an "appropriate use of the system (89 percent appropriate) and less than 1 percent unsubscribed from the service following the alert,” the report said. “Although most could not correctly recall what time they received the message by the time our survey was conducted, over a quarter reported receiving the message between 7:30 and 8:30 am (27 percent).” Given limitations of WEAs, the city had to refer people to media reports for a photo of Rahami and 45 percent reported they took this step, the city said. “Those who didn’t said it was because they did not have time, were at work, or believed it was too much work to turn to the media for the picture. The survey shows broad support for updating these messages to include a direct link to view photos of the suspect, as 83 percent believe it would be useful to include such a link in wireless alerts.”