In this Public Notice, the Federal Communications Commission's Office of Managing Director announces that the proposed universal service contribution factor for the first quarter of 2010 will be 0.141 or 14.1 percent -- up from 12.3% for 4Q 2009.
In the movies, radio is a mythic force: local, rebellious, life-changing. This hardly describes the reality at commercial radio stations today, but it does tell us something about how radio was—and about how we want it to be.
The Parents Television Council is trying to enlist new National Association of Broadcasters President Gordon Smith in its fight against broadcast indecency. Citing the former Oregon senator's "strong record of public service on behalf of children and families," PTC President Tim Winter said he was encouraged by public comments Smith made on the issue. But he also said he found them at odds with stations' pushback on court rulings upholding FCC enforcement of fleeting profanity and nudity. "While these comments are both factual and encouraging, they run contrary to the actions and statements of NAB members in federal court," wrote Winter. "Consequently, I am unclear as to what the position of the NAB actually is with regard to the continuation and enforcement of indecency law."
'Read, Reflect, Display, and Do' can help instructors leverage the Internet's potential to help students learn.
Live television is still tops with kids. But when it comes to activities after that, younger kids generally go to DVDs and DVRs, while older kids head to the Internet. Almost half of kids 6-11 use the Internet, versus one-fifth of those ages 2-5. Not surprisingly, the biggest time slots are weekends, after school and after dinner, according to the Nielsen Company. Kids 2-5 spend 25 hours per week watching TV and 4.5 hours a week watching DVDs or playing video games. Throw in another 90 minutes for time-shifted DVR programming. Older time-shifting technology is still a factor as well: They spend 45 minutes a week with the VCR. Overall, the 2-11 group averages 28 hours a week, 2.5 hours for DVDs, an hour for DVR, and 18 minutes for VCR usage. Nielsen found that about half the kids 2-11 use TV, while the other half uses both TV and the Internet. Nielsen says 60% of teenagers and older adults were simultaneous users of TV and the Internet. When it comes to personal electronics, homes with kids have more technology than homes without kids.
Sen Mark Warner (D-VA), the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee's Task Force on Government Performance, pressed the Obama administration's top technology officials Thursday to ensure there will not be a repeat of the problems with the data posted during the first round of reporting on federal economic stimulus spending. During a task force hearing on using technology to improve government data, Chairman Warner said he "didn't realize Virginia had a 12th congressional district," citing one of the many gaffes that have been reported about the data on Recovery.gov, which tracks the economic stimulus spending. Aneesh Chopra, the federal government's chief technology officer, did not directly answer Warner's concerns. Instead, he discussed the need for data to be provided to the government in "machine-readable formats." Federal Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra noted that the new open government directive announced by the Office of Management and Budget this week made a point of addressing concerns with the quality of data agencies release by requiring each agency to appoint an official who is accountable for data quality. "We need to make sure data is timely, comprehensive and reliable," Kundra said.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton often jokes that she's not very tech savvy, but she has made technology an important part of U.S. diplomacy from Afghanistan to Mexico. And she has appointed a 37-year-old technology policy expert to advise her on these matters. While military planners look at troop levels in Afghanistan, Clinton's senior adviser for innovation, Alec Ross, spends his time thinking about the country's cellular phone network. "One of the things that we saw was that the Taliban was forcing the shutdown of the cellular networks at night, and they then would conduct raids and would be able to do things out of view while the cell networks were powered down," Ross said.
Google's Internet dominance is a concern to advertising firms, because it could limit the choices they can offer clients online, said Bob Lord, the head of Publicis Groupe SA's Razorfish agency. "People don't want Google to become Kleenex," said Lord, the chief executive officer at Razorfish, which Publicis acquired from Google rival Microsoft Corp. this year. Microsoft took a 3.3 percent stake in Publicis as part of that deal. "I don't want one big giant here. If I only have one major platform to go to like Google, it's hard for me to do my job." Google, which already leads the market for search advertising, is now gaining customers for display ads -- an area where Microsoft and Yahoo! Inc. have had an edge. Google also is bolstering its mobile-ad business. Even so, Microsoft's new Bing search engine is letting the company "give Google a run for their money," Lord said.
Old media is once again eager to get engaged to the dynamic new forces that increasingly look like the future. At a media conference, there were repeated invocations of its most treasured dowry item: content. "Content is king," is the once and future old-media mantra. The Comcast deal, says CBS chief Les Moonves, "underlines how valuable content is." But if content is king, there is a higher power in the new media world. When asked what content they'd be willing to pay for, people chose Gmail and Search (News finished a distant fourth).
[Commentary] Originally published in 1984, Bogart writes: There will be newspapers in 2084 but they will be quite different from those of today, in an age of vastly expanded communications resources. It is easy enough to project from existing trends to a society of far better educated people living longer, healthier, more rewarding lives. We can visualize a global economy becoming steadily more productive upon an ever-expanding base of new technology fueled by new sources of energy and stimulated by new adventures in space. It is harder to foresee the changes in human values, aspirations, and behavior patterns than those in the material aspects of life. The division of labor between the sexes will be progressively less distinct; the ranks of the disadvantaged will be diminished as minorities find their way into the mainstream. With a growing population of vigorous older people, the definitions of work and leisure will be blurred. The relationship between home and the workplace will be different, as home communications systems allow more personal business, shopping, and work activity to take place at home. All this will change the balance of cities and suburbs, and thus the physical appearance of the country itself. Daily life will be very different when everyone can fly through the air with the greatest of ease and the wristwatch picturephone is a commonplace. Developments like these, and others now unimaginable, will change the public's preoccupations and interests, change the content of the news, change people's loyalties and identifications, and thus change the constituencies for news media. The functions of all existing media will be transformed by the development of artificial intelligence, of two-way interactive linkages, and of ready access to vast amounts of stored information and entertainment.
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