For the mobile device initiatives of chipmaker Pixelworks, Q3 “was an outstanding quarter of progress,” CEO Bruce Walicek said on an earnings call. Pixelworks introduced and sampled the second chip in its Iris family of mobile display processors, “and we gained volume production,” he said Friday. The processor is targeted at 5.5-inch smartphones, 10-inch tablets and other mobile devices at sizes in between that feature display resolutions up to full HD, he said. The chip “is receiving a great response and faster adoption as the concept of bringing TV quality processing to mobile gains momentum,” he said. As Pixelworks moves into “the next phase of market development” with the Iris initiative, “we are seeing opportunities and higher volume platforms as many mid-range mobile SoCs can leverage the performance and benefits and features of Iris, allowing them to compete against more expensive, higher end SoC platforms,” he said. “Regarding SoC partners, we are seeing significant pull as the benefits of Iris can help differentiate their platforms as well as enhanced capability and performance. As a key part of our strategy to drive Iris design wins, we are engaged in joint selling and reference designs with major mobile SoC providers. And our activity increased significantly during the quarter.” The strategy recently paid big dividends when Pixelworks “captured a significant milestone design win for a major U.S. mobile wireless carrier, and we expect to see Iris-enabled tablets in their channel in mid-2016,” Walicek said. Pixelworks sees over-the-top video streaming services as “a key driver of mobile video and the increasing importance of the display experience,” he said. Early in 2016, Pixelworks plans to roll out “a key piece of our strategy to leverage” the company’s core video processing technology, he said. Code-named True Cut, the initiative brings the company’s video processing algorithms “upstream to the server level to drive pull for Iris-based mobile devices and ultimately drive design wins for Iris,” he said. True Cut is “an end-to-end solution that enables products based on Iris to display a higher-quality streaming video experience,” he said. True Cut “not only provides a value proposition to products based on Iris, but to carriers and content distributors as well,” he said. Pixelworks has begun “initial trials” of True Cut with “a major China-based carrier,” and expects to mount “live demos of this capability” in Q1, he said.

Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas will meet with senior Chinese government officials in Beijing Nov. 12-13 to “advance implementation” of the U.S.-China bilateral agreement signed in September, a DHS spokeswoman said in a statement Monday. The bilateral agreement, announced during Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to the U.S., would prohibit both the U.S. and Chinese governments from doing or “knowingly” supporting IP theft, including of trade secrets (see 1509250059). Mayorkas will also discuss preparations for an initial ministerial-level U.S.-China dialogue set for Dec. 1-2 in Washington, DHS said.

Comcast moved up two spots to sixth place on the list of U.S. providers in the Netflix October ISP Speed Index, Netflix said in a news release Monday. Comcast averaged 3.61 Mbps when its customers streamed Netflix in October, compared with 3.52 Mbps the previous month. Verizon FiOS maintained the top spot for U.S. service providers in October with an average speed of 3.8 Mbps, while Cox ranked second, averaging 3.75 Mbps. Bright House, Cablevision Optimum and Time Warner Cable rounded out the top five. Frontier, CenturyLink, Verizon DSL and Clearwire had the lowest average speeds for Netflix streaming among major U.S. ISPs for the month.

Ericsson and Cisco are joining to accelerate their platforms and services needed to create the IoT and to develop a mobile enterprise experience through a secure technology architecture, the companies said in a news release Monday. The partnership will "drive growth, accelerate innovation, and speed digital transformation demanded by customers across industries," the release said, and has an incremental revenue opportunity of at least $1 billion for each company by 2018. The companies plan to jointly offer "end-to-end leadership" across 5G, cloud services, IP and the IoT, they said. The partnership will be supported by several agreements, including commitments to network transformation through joint development, collaboration in emerging markets, as well as licensing agreements for the companies' respective patent portfolios in which Ericsson will receive licensing fees from Cisco, the release said.

NTIA “will continue to monitor the work” of the ICANN stakeholder community to complete an Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) transition proposal that fully meets NTIA-established criteria, the agency said its Q4 report on the IANA transition process. The report, released Monday, covers IANA transition planning developments only through Sept. 30 and therefore doesn’t include the results of work at ICANN’s October meeting in Dublin or post-Dublin progress on transition planning. The IANA Transition Coordination Group has finalized almost all elements in its IANA transition proposal but can’t submit its final proposal to the ICANN board until the Cross Community Working Group on Enhancing ICANN Accountability (CCWG-Accountability) finalizes its own proposal on changes to ICANN’s accountability mechanisms that are critical to the IANA transition (see 1510290058). CCWG-Accountability reached a high-level consensus during the Dublin meeting on several controversial provisions in its proposal, but isn't expected to have a final proposal ready until late January (see 1510220053). NTIA said it continued emphasizing to ICANN stakeholders that the IANA transition plan “must support and enhance the multistakeholder model of Internet governance, i.e., it should be developed by the multistakeholder community and have broad community support. We will not accept a transition proposal that replaces the NTIA role with a government-led or intergovernmental organization solution.” Once NTIA receives a final IANA transition plan proposal, the agency will “work within the interagency process to provide a thorough review of the proposal across government agencies. NTIA is also organizing internally to undertake a rigorous review of the community proposal.”

Intel announced an IoT reference platform architecture along with related hardware and software products Tuesday. The Intel IoT Platform includes two reference architectures and a product portfolio that includes new Intel Quark processors for IoT, analytics capabilities and free and “simple” operating systems with a cloud suite from Wind River, Intel said. The strategy is to make it easier for its customers “to scale from things to cloud” using the Quark processors and Wind River OS, Intel said. The platform architecture is focused on enabling the Intel ecosystem to “develop, secure and integrate smart things,” Intel said. The platform provides a “blueprint” for bringing innovations to market faster by “reducing complexity and defining how smart devices will securely connect and share trusted data to the cloud,” Intel said. The first company to announce IoT technology based on the new Intel IoT Platform is SAP, which will develop IoT enterprise end-to-end products based on the Intel platform along with its SAP HANA cloud platform, Intel said. Yanzi is using Intel’s Quark SoC to develop a solution that can optimize energy use based on space utilization and predictive maintenance in smart buildings, Intel said. A Honeywell connected worker wearable for mission-critical workers is designed to anticipate unsafe conditions and prevent “man-down” scenarios or unsafe conditions, Intel said.

Pandora finalized its buy of live events technology company Ticketfly, Pandora said in a news release Monday. The transaction was valued at about $450 million (see 1510070013).

Akamai Technologies said it bought Secure Web Gateway provider Bloxx in an all-cash transaction. Bloxx’s technology will “complement Akamai's cloud security strategy for protecting businesses against Internet vulnerabilities,” Akamai said in a Monday news release. It said the deal will allow Akamai to “extend its portfolio of cloud-based security services to focus on the enterprise” and “go beyond traditional blacklisting by providing real-time risk assessment and enabling customers to specify the actions Akamai will take based on the detected threat level.”

With the holiday selling season fast approaching, retailers are “thinking through every element” of their e-commerce plans to “significantly boost sales during the busiest shopping time of the year,” Jason Miller, Akamai chief strategist-commerce, said Friday in a blog post. The quality of the “user experience” is one of the "biggest drivers" of online sales, so retailers should place “increased emphasis” to bolster several key “customer touchpoints” during the holiday rush “to ensure positive brand interactions that convert browsing into sales,” Miller said. For example, Akamai research has found that more than half of consumers expect a Web page to load in three seconds, or less, he said. “So if your page does not, shoppers will most likely use the back button and visit your competitors,” he said. “Getting content close to users and caching content to avoid round trips to origin servers will increase performance.” Said Miller: “The importance of exceptional user experience across all channels cannot be undervalued. The reason many consumers decide to research and shop online as opposed to going to a store is convenience and simplicity. If customers find that a site is not easy, they'll find another resource.” Retailers that make the e-commerce effort to “consistently delight their customers” will be well “on their way to driving impressive results this holiday season,” Miller said.

The Trustworthy Accountability Group announced an industrywide anti-fraud program, Verified by TAG, to “fight digital ad fraud and bring new transparency across the digital ad ecosystem,” a TAG news release said Thursday. Companies can apply to be verified by TAG as a trusted advertising party, it said. Registered companies will receive a TAG-issued identifier they can share with partners and pass with every ad they buy, process, place or run, it said. TAG is also developing a Payment ID system to create a record of who gets paid for every impression, to prevent criminals from receiving ad spend, it said. “The TAG Registry and upcoming Payment ID system will act like a ‘two-factor authentication’ for the digital ad supply chain,” said TAG CEO Mike Zaneis. “Through the TAG Registry, buyers will be able to ensure that they are working with trusted parties at every step of their campaigns, while the Payment ID system will ensure that payments only go to legitimate players, choking off the cash to criminals.” Registration is open, and "it’s time for every company in digital advertising to get TAG’ed,” Zaneis said. TAG’s registration program has been endorsed by the “big five” ad agency holding companies, plus AOL, Google and other major programmatic ad players, the release said.