ITI Daily News Roundup

Fiscal Cliff

Obama and Boehner Diverge Sharply on Fiscal Plan.  Hopes for a deal faded as Speaker John A. Boehner moved for a vote on a scaled-down plan to limit tax increases.  (NYT)

IP Enforcement

China tells U.S. it will improve intellectual property protection.  China told U.S. trade negotiators in Washington on Wednesday that Beijing would do more to protect intellectual property rights and combat piracy by promoting the use of legal software, China's commerce minister told reporters.  (Reuters)

International Trade

India Still Reviewing U.S. Model BIT; No Formal Negotiations Yet Slated.  India is still undergoing its internal review of the U.S. model bilateral investment treaty (BIT) as revised and released by the Obama administration earlier this year, and there are no specific dates yet planned for the U.S. and India to hold bilateral BIT discussions at this point, according to a senior Indian official.  (Inside US Trade)

Billionaire Scion at Tata Helm Is Backed by Bond Market.  The bond market is showing confidence in Cyrus P. Mistry’s ability to maintain growth and rein in debt at India’s biggest business group when he takes over as the Tata Group’s chairman next week.  (Bloomberg)

Cybersecurity and Privacy

Americans Hacked Get No Help From Chamber.  Attempts to force the architects of the Internet to improve the safety of users have so far failed, in part because the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has pushed back on behalf of its business members. It helped defeat a cyber security bill backed by the White House this year that included regulation of the small fraction of corporate computer systems that, if hacked, could cause mass casualties or economic damage. Chamber lobbyists cast the bill as unnecessary and overreaching, and said government meddling would only make the problem worse.  (Bloomberg)

New Online Privacy Rules for Children.  The Federal Trade Commission said it was moving to keep pace with the growing use of mobile devices and technological advances like behavior-based advertising.  (NYT)

Industry groups pan FTC's online privacy rules.  Internet trade groups were quick to complain about the Federal Trade Commission's new rules aimed at protecting the privacy of children when they are online.

Sen. Al Franken's Location Privacy Protection Act.  Senator Al Franken is pushing for more privacy options when it comes to location data.  (Marketplace)

Tech Business

Samsung Electronics completes talks for $3.9 billion U.S. chip expansion.  South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co Ltd, the world's No.1 memory-chip maker, said on Thursday it has completed talks with the state government of Texas where it plans to invest $3.9 billion to expand system-chip production lines and that the expansion would proceed.  (Reuters)

What we’ll see in 2013 in data.  Whether we know it or not, data — big or small — is becoming a central component to the way we live our lives.  (GigaOM.com)

Kleiner Partners' View of the Future of Tech.  John Doerr and Ted Schlein of venture-capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers discuss investments in tech and clean tech, as well as their thoughts on the "four horsemen" of the Web.  (WSJ)

Taiwan Tech Firms Bring Jobs Home Quietly.  On the same day that Apple jolted the tech world with the announcement it will manufacture some Mac computers in the U.S., another piece of tech news slid by largely unnoticed: Two of Apple’s Taiwanese suppliers were also planning to bring jobs home.  (WSJ)

Twitter active users pass 200 million.  Number of Twitterati has shot up from 140 million in May, but majority of 500 million registered users prefer not to tweet.  (The Guardian)

Telecom & Mobility

U.K. Mobile Internet Auction Draws 7 Bidders Including Vodafone.  Vodafone Group Plc and Telefonica SA are among seven bidders in an auction for frequencies to carry faster mobile-phone services in the U.K.  (Bloomberg)

Global LTE phone shipments will triple in 2013.  Global LTE smartphone shipments will grow threefold to reach 275 million units in 2013, which would be a record year for 4G technology, according to Strategy Analytics Inc., a research and consulting firm headquartered in Newton. (Boston Globe)

Key Apple patent used against Samsung under fire.  A key Apple patent used against Samsung in court is under close scrutiny by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office after a re-examination. (CNET)

Australian university to issue 11,000 iPads next year.  Initiative is part of a curriculum overhaul at the University of Western Sydney that will stress a "blended learning model."  (CNET)

The Customer Experience Challenge Met: SAP's Turn.  A little over a month I challenged a number of technology vendors who had shifted their messaging to customer experience from something else to customer experience to show me how they could defend that transition - to show me how it was more than hot air - smoke and mirrors. So far Get Satisfaction and now SAP have met the challenge. Read it. SAP more than answered it  (ZDNet)

Kodak to Sell Digital Imaging Patents for $525 Million.  The company had once valued its portfolio of 1,100 digital imaging patents at $2.6 billion.  (NYT)

Ericsson to take $1.2 billion charge on ST-Ericsson stake.  Ericsson, the world's biggest telecom network equipment maker, will take an 8 billion crown ($1.2 billion] charge on its ST-Ericsson venture, underscoring the uncertainty over the loss-making project after partner STMicro said it was pulling out.  (Reuters)

Google sells Motorola set-top business.  Google has reached a $2.35bn cash-and-stock deal to sell the TV set-top business it acquired when it bought Motorola Mobility earlier this year.  The purchase represents a large bite for Arris, a little-known US networking equipment maker that said it would borrow $2.05bn to pull off the deal. The sale will also leave Google with a stake of around 16 per cent in Arris, valued at $300m based on the company’s share price before the deal was announced.  (FT)

Analytics startup's big funding round shows growing strength of YouTube.  Tubular, a small San Francisco start-up that provides analytics for YouTube content creators, has raised $2.5 million in venture capital in the latest sign of how far the business ecosystem has evolved around the Google-owned video repository.  (San Jose Mercury News)

James Bond Can’t Fix Sony as Japan Electronics Scrape Lows.  Even James Bond and Spider-Man can’t rescue Sony Corp., the beleaguered Japanese electronics maker.  (Bloomberg)

The President will attend meetings at the White House.  He has no public events scheduled.  At 1:00 p.m. ET, the Vice President and members of the Cabinet will meet with law enforcement leaders from across the country as they work to develop a policy package in response to the Newtown, Conn., shooting.

House:  The House will meet at 12:00 p.m. ET for legislative business. First votes expected: 2:30-3:30 p.m. Last votes expected: Early evening.  Several bills will be considered under suspension of the rules.  The House also expects to vote on Speaker Boehner’s “Plan B” on the fiscal cliff as well as the conference report on H.R. 4310, the Defense authorization bill.

Senate:  The Senate will convene at 11 a.m. ET and continue to debate the emergency appropriations bill to address Hurricane Sandy recovery efforts.