January 2010

Google CEO Eric Schmidt will join President Obama and former President Bill Clinton as speakers at this week's House Democratic Caucus retreat.

Schmidt will speak Wednesday night at the Library of Congress, while President Obama addresses lawmakers Thursday and Clinton will talk about health care Friday. In addition to health legislation, the issues conference will also focus on jobs and national security as well as the political landscape heading into the fall elections. Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Chris Van Hollen of Maryland kicks off the conference Wednesday afternoon with a closed-door political briefing at DCCC headquarters. Thursday's events, including Obama's remarks, are being billed as a jobs summit, although members will receive a classified national security briefing. According to the agenda, lawmakers will hear from unnamed "prominent speakers" who will focus on "job creation and innovation."

The White House's deputy chief technology officer said Tuesday that while the Obama administration believes in the fair use of content, it should not be used as an excuse for copyright infringement.

Andrew McLaughlin made the comment at Public Knowledge's Fair Use Day event that explored the doctrine of fair use, which is the legal right that allows for particular uses of copyrighted materials. McLaughlin said the administration will continue to aggressively enforce intellectual property laws but also believes that Americans should have the right to take advantage of the fair use of copyrighted works. "These two things must coexist and need not be seen as inherently in conflict," said McLaughlin, a former Google executive. He did note that the administration has made a shift in favor of fair use compared with previous administrations when it comes to providing access to copyrighted materials to the blind and visually impaired.

A U.S. delegation in December indicated support at a World Intellectual Property Organization meeting for international "consensus" on providing "basic, necessary limitations and exceptions in copyright law for persons with print disabilities," according to the delegation's statement from the meeting. The U.S. delegation said this "consensus" could come in the form of a model law, a joint recommendation adopted by WIPO or a multilateral treaty.

Verizon Wireless next week will begin requiring a minimum $10 data plan with some new feature phones, according to information obtained by Boy Genius Report. The move not only appears to mark the carrier's most expensive data plan yet, it could be a sign of things to come with LTE.

It appears that users who buy one of nine phones — dubbed "3G multimedia" handsets — will have to sign up for one of two data plans: 25MB a month for a whopping $10 (that's 40 cents a MB) or an unlimited option that will reportedly replace the current 75MB plan for $30 (also 40 cents a MB). That's right, Verizon thinks 1 MB is worth slightly less than a 44-cent postage stamp. The plans are substantially pricier than AT&T's $15-a-month unlimited web add-on for feature phones — which, of course, is optional — and follows moves by both Verizon and AT&T to require data plans with all new smartphone purchases. More importantly, the requirement and suggested data plans may signal Verizon's plans to raise data fees for users on the LTE network it will begin to deploy this year.

Government spending on information technology will grow nearly 4 percent, as agencies invest in software applications and services to enable transparency, accountability and modernize old computer systems, according to a federal IT research firm. Federal IT spending will grow from $73 billion in fiscal 2009 to $75.7 billion in fiscal 2010, Government Insights predicted in a report it released on Tuesday. Civilian agencies will account for 55 percent of total spending, or $41.8 billion, while the Defense Department will spend $33.9 billion on IT goods and services. "The overall bucket has increased," said Shawn McCarthy, research director for government vendor programs at Government Insights during a Tuesday Web conference to announce results of the report. During the last few years, civilian agencies have had sharper increases in IT spending than Defense, which has stabilized IT spending, and that trend should continue, he noted.