The police around Cedar Hill, DeSoto and Duncanville Texas have a fancy new communications system that broadcasts their 10-4s and 187s up to 50kms, which coincidentally enough is screwing up a fancy radio-controlled networked sprinkler system in that general area. Turning off the sprinklers may not sound like it does anything except for making the grass die, but that's exactly what local residents are pissed off about—pissed off enough to get the FCC involved. Too bad for residents that the precedent for FCC decisions on cases where two frequencies overlap is to award use to public safety. If they don't, those same residents would be enjoying that fresh, green lawn when they're burning to death. [Dallas News]

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The lilliputian IdeaPads from Lenovo are coming, as we know, and now they're a little closer, having passed through the FCC's certification process. This is the final regulatory hurdle the IdeaPad S9 and S10 faced before going on sale in the US and comes just in time, as the duo of subnotebooks are expected to hit shelves next month. [Engadget via SlashGear]

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The FCC's test report—found by I Started Something—for an upcoming "Portable Media Device with 120GB Hard Drive" by Microsoft is the 120GB Zune, and was first tested June 19 of this year. What's this mean to you? Not a whole lot, since this Zune is the exact same size and shape as the old one, except with increased storage. It's likely that the 120GB Zune will be the new 80GB Zune later this year, assuming that Microsoft is going to push out another yearly update to their players and software suites. Or, it could just be a new size to go along with the old sizes. [I Started Something]

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For those of you keeping score at home, HTC's Dream, due to hit T-Mobile in October as the first Android phone, just got tapped by the FCC's rubber stamp. Unfortunately there aren't any of those h-o-t product shots that the FCC is usually known for to give us a better look at the device, just a lot of black and white. But it does confirm the Dream moniker, that it's got a jog ball, Wi-Fi and it's running on the 850/1700/1900MHz bands. Very exciting! [FCC via Engadget]

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The Net Neutrality battles have created and unexpected but welcome side effect. In it's ruling against Comcast last week, the FCC said in a round about way that unless a you are abusing your Internet connection then the carriers have... Read More »

Movies movies movies... we all love a good show, but the lovely MPAA is up to some pretty strange shenanigans to ensure that you get to see some shows just once—until they're out on DVD at least. The fab guys at the Motion Picture Association of America are petitioning the FCC on behalf of some major movie studios to close the "analogue hole" that may allow people to record movies broadcast on cable before they hit DVD. "The Petitioners' theatrical movies are too valuable in this early distribution window to risk their exposure to unauthorised copying" runs the argument, and is why the MPAA wants "selectable output control" (SOC) enabled on some cable box outputs.

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It comes as no surprise, but the FCC has officially ruled on the issue of Comcast P2P blocking and determined in a 3-2 vote that the company must stop blocking web access and fully disclose its traffic management practices... Read More »

A day before the FCC is expected to slap Comcast's Hellboy-like wrist, FCC Emperor Kevin Martin gave the the NYT his big hairy vision for openness for cable, wireless and the internet: He wants to set a "very high... Read More »

Confirming what's been hinted at by FCC Chairman Kevin Martin since like the dawn of time, the WSJ is reporting that the FCC is going to rule on Friday that Comcast violated federal policy by by stalling BitTorrent connections.... Read More »

Would you kick a crippled person just as they were standing on their feet, about to walk for the first time in years? AT&T would! Against all odds, WiMax just might make it, pending the merger of Sprint and... Read More »