Philly Appeals Court: No Need for Warrant for Cell Phone Location Data

The federal appeals court in Philadelphia ruled on Tuesday in a precedent-setting decision that the FBI and law enforcement did not always need a warrant to access stored location from cell carrier records.

A three-judge panel of the Third Circuit said (PDF) tracking cell phones “does not require the traditional probable-cause determination” enshrined in the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits government agencies from conducting “unreasonable” searches. In doing so it agreed with the Obama administration. It’s not clear if the case will head to the Supreme Court.

- C|net

FCC Developer APIs

The FCC now offers four APIs for developers on its new developer page:

FCC Consumer Broadband Test
Over 1 million user speed tests were generated from FCC Consumer Broadband Test. This API delivers data on the number of tests, average user download/upload speeds, and more.

FCC Census Block Conversions
Like politics, all data is local. Unlock the US Census Block number of any geographic coordinate using the FCC Census Block Search.  This API also returns the associated US State and County name, with more layers coming soon.

FCC FRN Conversions
Quickly tap FCC Registration Numbers to learn more company information about broadband providers, which often change from state to state.

FCC License View
Spectrum is a national resource. License View provides information on over 3 million FCC issued licenses for use of the nation’s airwaves and other purposes.

- FCC Blog via @LearonDalby

Source: AND in exploratory talks with potential strategic buyers

A deal could happen within a year.

- Reuters

Class Action Suit Against TeleNav Related to IPO

Robbins Umeda LLP, a law firm, yesterday announced a class action on behalf of purchasers of TeleNav, Inc. around the company’s May 2010 initial public offering. The suit alleges “false and misleading Registration Statement that failed to disclose information pertaining to the Company’s business, operations, and financial prospects.”

- press release
- APB coverage of TeleNav IPO (1, 2, 3)

Esri: An Example of Smart Energy Rebate Use

The Redlands-based company gets the nod from Heather Clancy at SmartPlanet in her coverage of the importance of finding a good energy services company to dig out energy rebates (including those expected to be announced by President Obama later today).

For an illustration of how your company could use this money, consider the case of ESRI, a developer of geographic information software. I spoke in late June with John Parker, the data center operations manager for the company, about the company’s server consolidation project, a project that was focused not just on cutting ESRI’s electric bill but also on driving other operational efficiencies in its data center. Somewhere along the way, Parker’s team paused to have an outside engineering firm come in to perform a baseline audit. This $50,000 audit was covered by his company’s utility, Southern California Edison, which is looking for ways to help its customers reduce their power consumption. What’s more, that company also evaluated some of the technology that ESRI was considering. Ultimately, ESRI was able to cover about half the data center project upgrade costs with rebate money, Parker says. The main inconvenience to him and his team was/is getting the greenlight for the equipment it wanted to buy and the ongoing documentation it needs to provide demonstrating energy saving.

- SmartPlanet