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Charles Ergen's maneuvering just cost rival SoftBank $1.5 billion by forcing it to raise its offer for Sprint Nextel. But the question remains, is that a victory for the Dish Network chairman, or a defeat?

Ergen's knack for being famously hard to read left Wall Street and the telecom industry guessing his next move. Would Ergen try to convince Sprint shareholders a tie-up with Dish still offers a better deal? Would he sweeten Dish's bid for Sprint? Would he turn to another telecom target? Whoever prevails in the deal for Sprint—and at what price—could help reshape a U.S. mobile-phone industry that is increasingly central to how Americans communicate, work and entertain themselves. Dish, meantime, is fighting to remake itself and tap growing demand for wireless broadband service as the pay-TV market stagnates. Ergen is still in a powerful position as he seeks to disrupt the US wireless market. He has amassed a large trove of unused spectrum and is still on the hunt for more. He has spent billions of dollars buying the airwaves that carry wireless data, and estimates the value of his spectrum assets at more than $8 billion.

Using voice commands to send text messages and emails from behind the wheel, which is marketed as a safer alternative for drivers, actually is more distracting and dangerous than simply talking on a cellphone, a new AAA study found.

Automakers have been trying to excite new-car buyers, especially younger ones, with dashboard infotainment systems that let drivers use voice commands do things like turning on windshield wipers, posting Facebook messages or ordering pizza. The pitch has been that hands-free devices are safer because they enable drivers to keep their hands on the wheel and their eyes on the road. But talking on a hands-free phone isn't significantly safer for drivers than talking on a hand-held phone, and using hands-free devices that translate speech into text is the most distracting of all, researchers found. Speech-to-text systems that enable drivers to send, scroll through, or delete email and text messages required greater concentration by drivers than other potentially distracting activities examined in the study like talking on the phone, talking to a passenger, listening to a book on tape or listening to the radio.

The Federal Communications Commission unanimously adopted comprehensive reforms to further protect and strengthen the Video Relay Service (VRS) program that enables people with disabilities to do what most Americans take for granted: make a simple phone call.

Building on a foundation of ongoing reforms and program improvements, the Order initiates fundamental restructuring of the program to support innovation and competition, drive down ratepayer and provider costs, eliminate incentives for waste that have burdened the TRS Fund in the past, and further protect consumers. Measures to improve the structure and efficiencies of the VRS program while promoting consumer protection include:

• Ensuring that VRS users can easily select their provider of choice by promoting the development of voluntary, consensus interoperability and portability standards.
• Enabling consumers to use off-the-shelf tablets and smart phones for any provider’s VRS services by developing and deploying a VRS application to work with these devices, based on the consensus standards.
• Creating a centralized TRS User Registration Database to combat fraud, waste, and abuse by ensuring VRS user eligibility.
• Encouraging competition and innovation in VRS call handling services – such as American Sign Language interpretation – by contracting with a neutral third party to build, operate, and maintain a platform for communications services.
• Spurring research and development on VRS services by entering into a Memorandum of Understanding with the National Science Foundation.
• Piloting an iTRS National Outreach Program that is not dependent on individual provider branding to educate the general public about relay services.

In addition, the Order moves VRS compensation rates toward actual costs over the next four years, initiating a step-by-step transition from existing tiered TRS Fund compensation rates toward a unitary, market-based compensation rate. In this manner, VRS rates will better approximate the actual, reasonable costs of providing VRS, and will considerably reduce the costs of operating the program. Ensuring the integrity of the TRS Fund while providing stability and certainty to providers remain core objectives. The Commission also is proposing to transition to a new ratemaking approach that makes use of competitively established pricing – contract prices set through a competitive bidding process – where feasible.

A former federal prosecutor and the parents of a Navy SEAL member killed in action in Afghanistan have filed a lawsuit against President Barack Obama, Verizon, the National Security Agency (NSA), and others over the NSA domestic spying operation.

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, charges the defendants of violating constitutionally protected privacy rights and rights against unreasonable search and seizure. The lawsuit seeks $3 billion in compensatory and actual damages from the government and a cessation of the NSA spying program. The three named plaintiffs in the lawsuit are, Larry Klayman, founder of Judicial Watch and a former prosecutor, and Charles and Mary Strange the parents of Michael Strange, a Navy SEAL who was killed when his helicopter was shot down by Taliban fighters.