December 2009

Charting a course from virtual reality to the White House

Beth Noveck is President Barack Obama's deputy chief technology officer for open government. Precisely what "open government" means probably depends on whom you ask. But in her official role in the current presidential administration, Noveck frames it as an attempt to make our federal institutions embrace technology in a bid to share information with the public. "Open government is the effort to create government institutions that are more transparent," Noveck explains, "that work more in the open and that provide information more readily online and in real time--and that are also more participatory." On January 21, as many in Washington (DC) were still shaking off hangovers from the inaugural parties the night before, Obama, in his first official action as president, signed the Memorandum on Transparency and Open government, a short document that declared, "We shall work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation and collaboration. Openness will strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in government." Noveck was a principal contributor to the memorandum, and the first member of the Obama-Biden transition's Technology, Innovation, and Government Reform team, which advised the president-elect on ways to incorporate technology into his larger reform goals. So one could say that the new president's adoption of these concepts was a very high-profile validation of years of Noveck's work on a wide range of issues revolving around technology policy and using technology to help craft policy.

Intellectual Property Meeting Leaves Some Unhappy

Public interest and tech industry advocates voiced disappointment about being left out of a round table discussion Tuesday afternoon being hosted by Vice President Biden and several cabinet officials to discuss enforcing laws against the piracy of intellectual property. In addition to the vice president, the event will feature a who's who of Obama administration officials who have a role to play in enforcing IP laws. They include Attorney General Eric Holder, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, FBI Director Robert Mueller, U.S. Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Director David Kappos and the White House's new IP enforcement coordinator, Victoria Espinel. The industry participants include executives from the movie studios, record companies, book publishers, television networks and the heads of the Motion Picture Association of America and Recording Industry Association of America, as well as unions representing actors and directors. Both Public Knowledge and TechAmerica released statements arguing that they have important roles to play in the debate.

Net Neutrality Debate Burns On

Two key stakeholders who have taken opposite stands in the net neutrality debate found some area of agreement Tuesday: Wireless providers should be given more leeway in how they manage their broadband networks given the constraints imposed by their use of spectrum to deliver high-speed Internet services. But when it comes to the overall issue of whether the Federal Communications Commission should impose rules that would ensure that broadband providers cannot prioritize content, Public Knowledge President Gigi Sohn and Chris Guttman-McCabe, vice president of the wireless industry group CTIA, parted company. During a debate on the FCC's proposed principles, Sohn argued that the issue "comes down to what kind of Internet do we want? Do we want an Internet where control" is with the users or the network operators. "The large carriers want to prioritize content. They want to pick winners and losers," Sohn said. She argued that the FCC's proposed network neutrality principles are "spare, narrow and straight forward" and will ensure that control stays with users. Sohn added that while operators, particularly wireless carriers, should have some flexibility to manage their networks, she said it should be defined. Sohn said she has concerns that the FCC's proposed language providing for "reasonable" network management is to "loosey goosey." She said she would prefer the agency consider language adopted by Canadian authorities.

New FCC Telephone Subscribership Report

The Federal Communications Commission released its latest report on telephone subscribership levels in the United States. The report presents subscribership statistics based on the Current Population Survey (CPS) conducted by the Census Bureau in July 2009. The report also shows subscribership levels by state, income level, race, age, household size, and employment status.

In July 2009:

The telephone subscribership penetration rate in the U.S. was 95.7%, an increase of 0.3% over the rate from July 2008. This is the highest reported rate since the CPS began collecting this data in November 1983.
The telephone penetration rate for households in income categories below $15,000 was at or below 93.3%, while the rate for households in income categories over $50,000 was at least 98.5%.
Among the states, the penetration rates ranged from a low of 91.3% to a high of 98.7%.
Penetration rates ranged from 91.5% for households headed by a person under 25 to at least 96.4% for households headed by a person over 55.
Households with one person had a penetration rate of 93.5%, compared to a rate of 96.8% for households with four or five persons.
The penetration rate for unemployed adults was 94.6%, while the rate for employed adults was 96.7%.

What Google Wants With Its Own Phone: Control

With all the attention Google's plan to launch its own phone is receiving, a sensible question remains: Why, when it makes billions off the high-margin business of search and online advertising, would it get its hands dirty launching a mobile handset? Google's fortunes come from advertising, making money off eyeballs and user experience. As the online world matures and growth from advertising revenue slows, Google is looking to reap ad dollars from mobile. EMarketer has online advertising revenue growing 6% next year, compared to 40% for mobile. Consider that the search juggernaut last week showed off its vision of mobile search -- from the promises of visual search to using voice commands to find stuff -- it makes sense that Google wants to have a direct hand in accelerating the promise of these applications and control the user's experience with them. "Mobile is the next frontier for everyone," said Bill Ho, analyst at Current Analysis. By directly controlling the handset experience and its specs, "they can control their own mobile destiny. At the end of the day, it's adding more subscribers, adding more eyeballs," Ho said.

What In The World Are Local TV Stations Thinking?

[Commentary] A look at Nielsen's decision to remove live-only ratings from the local television marketplace beginning January 1, 2010. Could this be the worst thing ever at the worst time ever for local TV? Why in the world would local TV stations push so hard to remove a metric that their clients believe represents a higher measure of accountability on the performance of their medium? And why would they seek to do it a time when other media - especially online, mobile, and soon, local cable TV systems - will be able to prove themselves even better via superior return path data? It just doesn't make any sense. At least not to me. So if you've got some thoughts on this one, please steer me in the right direction, and post them here. I'm trying to be open-minded about this one, but I think the local broadcast TV community is dead wrong on this one. I think Nielsen is wrong too, and is playing way too heavy a role in exercising its judgment on this call. And I think the real loser is going to be local broadcast TV advertising share. If advertisers and agencies lose more confidence in the medium, they're simply going to shift budgets to other, more accountable media.

The Comcast/ NBC Universal Merger: Addressing The Addressable

[Commentary] Since the turn of the 21st Century, of all of the cable operators Comcast has been the most prolific in deploying video on demand platforms, whether they be cable network linear extensions, original branded propositions, automotive, real estate and retail classified-link-to-video destinations and the disable-ization of commercial fast forwarding functionality in broadcast network VOD offerings in a few markets. In the future, Oscar imagines the new entity will make even more top quality content available through on demand venues, both traditional and TV everywhere-like authentication peppered with technological extensions. Last week Comcast announced a shop-by-remote function, in partnership with HSN, that would be available in 10+ million homes early next year augmenting the 8 million Enhanced TV Binary Interchange Format (EBIF) enabled homes currently in the field. Nary a Canoe Request for Interaction product mention. So unless Comcast mandates its networks (and NBCU siblings) to support Canoe product roll-outs, Oscar doesn't expect in the near future that one of the noticeable benefits of the Comcast-NBCU merger will be in the iTV/ addressable realm or not, at least, through Canoe Ventures white labels - if history be judge of repetition.

'Beacon' communities must show HIT bona fides

Communities that vie for grants to become health IT "beacons" under a federal program to set up models of meaningful health information usage must show that a good portion of their local providers already embrace e-heath records and electronic health information sharing. The Obama administration earlier this month said it would offer15 communities grants of up to $20 million to support connectivity and the meaningful use of health IT, such as clinical decision support. The communities would act as business models to inspire other groups to be productive users of the technology. To become a "beacon" community, applicants must have an established track record of using health IT to improve health care in at least one category -- cost efficiency, quality of care or population health, said Dr. Farzad Mostashari, senior advisor to the Office of the National Coordinator for health IT during a Dec. 14 teleconference. ONC said it would like the program to get on a fast track. "We want to see what is possible in a relatively short time period, within 30 months," he said in giving more details of the grants, applications for which are due Feb. 1.

Community health system readies docs for EHR incentives

Community Memorial Health System of Ventura (CA) has rolled out a new electronic health record and practice management solution to its 70 physicians in preparation for the release of government incentives for IT adoption. The new stimulus funds - approximately $44,000 to $64,000 per physician - will become available through the Department of Health and Human Services to providers who can demonstrate the "meaningful use" of healthcare IT in 2011. Officials of Community Memorial Health System said the implementation of the new EHR/PM solution was the first step in order to make affiliated practices eligible for the new incentives. The EHR/PM solution, developed by Chicago-based IT provider Allscripts, is expected to enhance the quality of care, improve patient communications, and better manage the cost of care delivery, said Memorial Health officials.

Stimulus funds to pay for EHRs at federal centers

The Obama administration is distributing $88 million in economic stimulus law funding to federally supported health centers to pay for new electronic health records and other health information technology systems. The digital record funding comes from the Health Resources and Services Administration from its pool of $1.5 billion in stimulus money to update buildings and systems at the 1,100 health centers nationwide, according to a Dec. 9 news release. Those centers serve 17 million uninsured or underinsured people. The $88 million will go to Health Center Controlled Networks, which are electronic networks established by three or more health centers to share core business functions. About 53 such networks now exist.

Benton

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