China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology moved to tighten controls on Internet use Tuesday, saying individuals who want to operate Web sites must first meet in person with regulators. The state-sanctioned group that registers domain names in China froze registrations for new individual Web sites in December after state media complained that not enough was being done to check whether sites provided pornographic content.
Remember when the Internet was supposed to kill off television? That hasn't been the case lately, judging by the record television ratings for big-ticket events.
The Vancouver Olympics are shaping up to be the most-watched foreign Winter Games since 1994. This year's Super Bowl was the most-watched program in United States history, beating out the final episode of "M*A*S*H" in 1983. Awards shows like the Grammys are attracting their biggest audiences in years. Many television executives are crediting the Internet, in part, for the revival. Blogs and social Web sites like Facebook and Twitter enable an online water-cooler conversation, encouraging people to split their time between the computer screen and the big-screen TV. The Nielsen Company, which measures television viewership and Web traffic, noticed this month that one in seven people who were watching the Super Bowl and the Olympics opening ceremony were surfing the Web at the same time.
"The Internet is our friend, not our enemy," said Leslie Moonves, chief executive of the CBS Corporation, which broadcast both the Super Bowl and the Grammy Awards this year. "People want to be attached to each other."
A new French antismoking advertisement aimed at the young that plays off a pornographic stereotype has gotten more attention than even its creators intended, and critics suggest that it offends common decency and creates a false analogy between oral sex and smoking.
France has banned smoking in cafes, bars and restaurants. But smoking is still increasing among the young in France, according to the French Office for the Prevention of Smoking, prompting an antitobacco organization called Droits des Non-fumeurs, or Nonsmokers' Rights, to create the ad. The slogan is bland enough: "To smoke is to be a slave to tobacco." But it accompanies photographs of an older man, his torso seen from the side, pushing down on the head of a teenage girl with a cigarette in her mouth. Her eyes are at belt level, glancing upward fearfully. The cigarette appears to emerge from the adult's trousers. Two other ads show young men in the same position as the girl, though the adult is wearing a suit jacket and a watch.
Across the unforgiving terrain of Afghanistan, American combat forces have come to rely on satellites as well as their rifles and body armor to carry out missions effectively, and to stay alive.
But American units have found that satellite signals are weakened and even blocked outright by the breathtaking peaks and backbreaking valleys of Afghanistan -- making it hard to pinpoint the troops' location, navigate on patrol, identify friend from foe in battle or call in bombs and artillery when under attack. So the top officer of the military's Strategic Command, which is better known for control of the nation's nuclear arsenal, has ordered up what might be called a "satellite surge" to increase the coverage and accuracy for GPS devices in the war zone. The constellation of operational satellites that allows GPS devices to work is being expanded over the next year or two to 27 from 24. The increase will benefit civilians as well as soldiers. Drivers, sailors, hikers and golfers around the globe will share in the improved performance of their GPS devices.
A trailer for the forthcoming film "Kick-Ass" that depicts a girl wielding a gun and using highly, highly profane language is igniting debate about how Hollywood advertises its R-rated films on the Web.
Movie marketers in recent years have increasingly relied on raunchy ads known as "red-band" trailers to stir interest in their films. While most trailers are approved for broad audiences by the Motion Picture Association of America, the red-labeled variety usually include nudity, profanity and other material deemed inappropriate for children. Many theaters refuse to run these trailers, but they are widely distributed online — and that is at the root of the current dust-up. "Studios hide behind the notion of an age requirement for these trailers, but it's pure fiction," said Nell Minow, a lawyer who reviews films for radio stations and Beliefnet.com under the name Movie Mom. "It's easy for kids to access, and that's exactly how the industry wants it." Moreover, the severity of age policing varies, with some sites — including the Trailer Park section of MySpace, which had the red-band version as of Tuesday — seemingly leaving it to the honor system and asking for only an easily lied-about birth date. (A MySpace spokeswoman, Tracy Akelrud, said the site used other controls to detect under-age users. "If you are under 17, you will be blocked," she said.)
In 2002, TechNet said the government should commit to a goal of 100 Mbps to 100 million homes and small businesses by the end of the decade -- in other words, now. But in case you didn't notice, 100Mbps x 100 million didn't happen.
About 75 to 77 million Americans currently access some kind of broadband, according to the latest data. That's only assuming, however, that you accept 200Kbps as a flavor of "high speed Internet." And a huge chunk of the population (over 30 percent) never go online at all -- less because they're retired and not interested; more often because they can't afford the prices. So why this shortfall of progress, especially compared to other countries? Some argue that everything is going fine. The US is just too spread out, that's all -- and we'll catch up in due time. Others contend that we just haven't spent enough government or private sector money on the problem. But the big thesis these days is that we missed the boat by curtailing wholesale network access to the big telcos and cable ISPs. By making it more expensive for smaller providers to link to AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, or Time Warner Cable in order to build out their own middle-mile systems, the government condemned most consumers to two ISP choices, at best.
[Commentary] Recently, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski unveiled his "100 Squared" initiative, which sets the goal of America having 100 million households connected to 100Mbps by 2020. But what does that goal really mean?
Is that 100Mbps symmetrical, with as much capacity to upload as download? Is that 100Mbps advertised or do providers need to be able to actually deliver it? Is that a 100Mbps monopoly or a market where consumers have choice? The answers to these questions define the scope of this initiative's ambitions. They also frame the need for and appropriate structure of any government intervention to help move the market forward.
[Commentary] Here are four things Newman hopes the Federal Communications Commission includes in the National Broadband Plan:
The General Services Administration should open its massive Networx telecommunications contract to state and local governments to encourage the expansion of broadband into rural and other underserved areas, a Federal Communications Commission panel said on Feb 18.
The proposal, included in the initial recommendations for the national broadband plan, would allow other jurisdictions access to the lower process on telecommunications products and services that the federal government negotiated when awarding the Networx contracts, according to officials. "We believe it is a win-win for the country," said Eugene Huang, government operations director for the National Broadband Task Force. "For state and local governments, this would be an additional option for them to consider when they go out and negotiate for their own telecom services." GSA can open Networx to state and local governments only if Congress allows it. In 2003, the agency was allowed to offer its Schedule 70, off of which all information technology products and services are sold, to buyers outside the federal government.
Free Press has written the Federal Communications Commission requesting the ability to review data collected by the FCC in connection with its periodic inquiry into the deployment of advanced telecommunications capability to all Americans.
In particular, the organization is requesting that the public be granted the opportunity to examine and analyze the data collected by the FCC on Form 477, which gathers standardized information about subscribership to high-speed Internet access services. Our request is limited to the data reflecting subscribership as of December 31, 2008.
Understanding that some of the companies that provided this information may believe their submissions are competitively sensitive, Free Press simultaneously requested a protective order and ask that the FCC institute appropriate procedures for the public to review the Form 477 data.
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