Top Of The Order:
A Crack In The Cable Cabal: Earlier this year, the Federal Communications Commission approved a measure aimed at giving customers better, and cheaper options for their cable-TV set-top boxes. The purpose was to let customers buy boxes instead of having to pay monthly fees for the devices to their cable-TV providers. In effect, the move could lead to cable TV companies having to make their services available to be accessed on boxes provided by third parties.
On Friday, President Obama threw his weight behind the FCC efforts, as two of his economic advisers, Jeff Zients and Jason Furman, wrote in a blog post on the White House web site that greater competition in the set-top box market will be in the best interests of consumers.
The cable TV providers have come out against the efforts of President Obama and the FCC, saying the proposal would upset their business relationships with cable-programming providers and that there is already enough innovation going on in the set-top box market.
Middle Innings:
Who Will Sponsor Steph Curry?: Well, there has been corporate sponsorship of sports arenas for years. And if you ve ever watched a NASCAR race, you might have found it difficult to see a car s number surrounded by all the advertiser and sponsor logos. So, in a way, it s surprising that it has taken so long for the National Basketball Association to say teams can sell ad space on their players uniforms.
The NBA on Friday became the first of the four major professional U.S. sports leagues to say it s OK to put ads on teams game-day jerseys, and will begin doing just that with a three-year pilot program that starts with the 2017-2018 season. NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said the program could generate $100 million a year.
The ads are supposed to be no larger than a 2.5-inch-by-2.5-inch spot on the jersey. Since the program won t start for more than a year, it s way too early to say what companies might line up to get their names on the front of the jerseys of Steph Curry, Klay Thompson and other Golden State Warriors. Does anyone know if Chico s Bail Bonds from the original Bad News Bears movie might still be in business?
It s Still Tops For Spying, Right?: With all the brouhaha still going on around Apple, the federal government and cybersecurity, the matter of the feds getting a look inside of your own personal tech products remains in the public eye. But, as it turns around, the government itself isn t that good at keeping bad guys from breaking in to its myriad of digital databases.
A report that came out late Thursday ranked U.S. agencies at the federal, state and local levels dead last in terms of cybersecurity when compared to 17 other leading industries. The study said that federal agencies got low marks especially when it comes to network security, patching flaws in software and malware, and that NASA got the lowest scores of all the organizations in the report.
QuickTime Goes Quickly Out The Window: So much for Apple s QuickTime video and software living peacefully with Microsoft Windows. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said Windows users should uninstall their version of the program after security software company Trend Micro said Apple has yanked its support for QuickTime and will no longer provide security updates for the program. DHS said that without further suck updates, QuickTime for Windows will be more vulnerable to hacker attacks.
Bottom Of The Lineup:
Here s a look at how some leading Silicon Valley stocks did Friday….
Movin On Up: Gains came from Oclaro, Medivation, Electronic Arts, Wageworks and Tivo.
In The Red: Super Micro Computer shares fell more than 19 percent after the server-technology company issued a profit warning late Thursday. Losses also came from Gigamon, Nimble Storage, Pandora Media and Aemetis.
The SV150 Index of Silicon Valley s biggest companies gave up 0.1 percent to close at 1,634.
The tech-focused Nasdaq Composite Index ended the day down by 0.2 percent at 4,938.
The blue chip Dow Jones Industrial Average was also trimmed by 0.2 percent to end the day at 17,897.
And the broad-based Standard & Poor s 500 Index gave up 0.1 percent to finish at 2,080.
Quote Of The Day: Baseball is like a poker game. Nobody wants to quit when he s losing; nobody wants you to quit when you re ahead. — Jackie Robinson, who made his Major League Baseball debut on April 15, 1947.
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Photo: Apple TV set-top box and television. (Bay Area News Group archives)
The post Biz Break: Obama gets behind new set-top box efforts appeared first on SiliconBeat.
