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The thorny privacy issues of tomorrow were on display when AT&T showed off a batch of technologies under development at AT&T Labs, the company’s research arm.

Researchers showed off door handles that unlock when you tap your phone against them, or even when the device is still in your pocket, sending vibrations through your body and into your fingertips. There was a steering wheel that communicates with a GPS device and vibrates to tell you which way to turn, and an app that works with sensors in your personal possessions to tell you when you have left something behind. A number of the tools focused on taking advantage of data about a user’s location, pointing toward tensions that will very likely increase as products are developed that use mobile devices as sensors and transmitters. These issues are not necessarily about what AT&T or other companies will do with their users’ personal data — although it is clear that there will be no shortage of concerns about that, either — but potential conflicts created by tools intended for people to keep track of one another.

[Commentary] Once upon a time there was something called "educational television," which harnessed the technological marvel of a new medium to provide children and adults with edifying programming uncorrupted by advertising. Today, public radio and television continue to devote more attention to educational programs than commercial broadcasters do, but they also seek to entertain viewers of all ages with features — such as British sitcoms, quiz shows, animal adventures and rock 'n' roll retrospectives — that duplicate those on commercial stations. And the programming is punctuated by corporate "sponsorship statements" that are advertisements by another name.

Given these changes, a federal appeals court decision last week allowing public stations to air political and campaign advertisements is not that dramatic a development. Last week the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, by a 2-1 vote, struck down on 1st Amendment grounds a congressional ban on such advertising, while upholding a prohibition on ads by profit-making companies. One can accuse the court of not giving proper deference to Congress' desire to keep public broadcasting ad free. But even if this case had been resolved differently, the notion of public television as a safe harbor from advertising would be a quaint one.

Philip Falcone’s LightSquared made an outstanding $56.3 million payment to Britain’s Inmarsat Plc related to a spectrum-cooperation accord and was granted an extension on further installments, gaining more time to win approval from US regulators for a wireless service.

The broadband venture won’t need to make any additional payments until April 2014 as part of the new agreement, Inmarsat, the biggest provider of satellite services to the maritime industry, said today in a statement. LightSquared will no longer be in default, it said. Under the companies’ agreement, Inmarsat is giving LightSquared access to part of its spectrum. LightSquared, majority-owned by Falcone’s hedge fund Harbinger Capital Partners, is struggling to get approval for a wireless service after the Federal Communications Commission said it will block the venture because of potential signal interference with global-positioning systems. Falcone has invested about $3 billion in the plan to build out a high-speed data network.

Apple, Google, Intel, Pixar and other high-tech companies will face an antitrust lawsuit that alleges they illegally conspired not to poach each other’s staffers.

San Jose U.S. District Court Judge Lucy Koh rejected a motion to dismiss the claims. In a 29-page opinion, she ruled that the “Do Not Cold Call” agreements among the defendants probably resulted “from collusion, and not from coincidence.” Other defendants include Adobe, Intuit, and Lucasfilm. Five software engineers have accused the companies of conspiring to limit pay and job movement. They are bringing the proposed class-action lawsuit. The claims are similar to those raised by the U.S. Department of Justice. It settled an antitrust probe in 2010 that alleged the companies colluded to keep a lid on wages by agreeing not to poach employees from one another. The companies agreed not to restrain competition in the labor market for high-tech talent. The litigation uncovered an email from 2007 from Apple’s Steve Jobs to Google’s Eric Schmidt over Google’s effort to recruit an Apple engineer. "I would be very pleased if your recruiting department would stop doing this," Jobs wrote Schmidt, then-CEO of Google who also sat on the Apple board.