March 2010

In lean times, TV reporters must be jacks of all trades

Whatever the pluses and minuses, a trend that took root in local television is spreading to the pricier precincts of network news as well.

When ABC News recently announced a massive wave of buyouts that could cut 300 to 400 jobs -- up to 25 percent of the workforce -- executives said its journalists would be expected to report, shoot and edit their own stories in addition to relying on film crews. All the networks, including ABC, have dabbled in the practice. But in an era of layoffs and shuttered offices -- ABC will have no physical bureaus outside Washington -- it is quickly becoming a necessity. "I would not say cost wasn't a factor, but it was not the driving factor," says Alexandra Wallace, senior vice president at NBC, which began the switch in earnest four years ago. "Sometimes you can get an intimacy with a tiny camera that you wouldn't get with a 2 1/2 -foot camera sitting on someone's shoulder. . . . I mostly consider everyone here a digital journalist."

Word to youth: Texting, driving don't mix

AT&T is launching a campaign against texting and driving. The effort uses television, radio, print, the Internet, shopping malls, even the protective "clings" over the front of new cellphones, to target young drivers. AT&T's "Txtng & Drivng ... It Can Wait" campaign features parents of young texting-and-driving victims and the final text messages the young drivers received just before they died. The campaign's theme: "No text is worth dying over." It's difficult to know how successful such a campaign can be, says Peter Kissinger, president and CEO of the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety. "The great majority of traditional public awareness campaigns on traffic safety have, unfortunately, not been terribly successful," he says. The successful model, he says, is the national Click It or Ticket seat belt campaign, which works because it has a law generally accepted by the public, a visible enforcement component and a big public awareness effort.

UK Call for new technology drive to spur growth

Britain should invoke some of the spirit of Inmos - a government-owned semiconductor company set up more than 30 years ago - to establish a £300m series of new technology centers to lay the basis for economic growth, according to a top government adviser.

"The UK should focus on technologies where it has a lead and back them with solid amounts of money," said Hermann Hauser, a scientist-cum-venture capitalist who is producing a report for Lord Mandelson later this month on several new technology initiatives. Hauser believes that due to the big fiscal deficit money for new state-backed technology developments in the next few years is likely to be tight, whichever party wins the next election. However, the economic spin-offs from backing such ventures are likely to be substantial in the long run, he says. "The lessons from Inmos have taught us that when governments put money into new technologies, they nearly always over-estimate the benefits in the short term but under-estimate what they will be over a long period," Hauser said. Bristol-based Inmos was set up by the Labour government in 1978 to develop a new series of microchips and received about £65m in public funds.

UK Bill will censor Internet, providers claim

The UK's largest Internet service providers have fired a broadside at last-minute changes to a law dealing with copyright piracy on the Internet, condemning the measures as "dangerous" and "unworkable."

They are calling for all parties to scrap a surprise amendment to the government's digital economy bill, which was passed by the House of Lords last week. The changes would give TV and music companies the right to demand that Internet service providers block access to websites that host pirated material. If ISPs wish to refuse, they would have to make their challenge through the courts, incurring high costs. BT said that in practice such companies would simply accede to most blocking requests, potentially ushering in an era of online censorship without any appropriate safeguard. "ISPs would feel compelled to block a site simply because a rights holder claims there is infringing material on it, rather than because of a court decision," said Simon Milner, group director of industry policy at BT. "We fear it could also be a backdoor to censorship of the Internet," said Andrew Heaney, executive director of strategy and regulation at TalkTalk, the UK's second largest Internet service company. "We are concerned that, as they stand, the proposals could increase costs and penalize ISPs," Virgin Media said.

Service providers have been left scrabbling to formulate a response to the amendment forced through by the Liberal Democrats on Wednesday.

New digital signs target people by age and gender

Using technology from top Silicon Valley companies such as Cisco and Intel, advertisers are creating a new breed of digital signs that can be customized depending on a viewer's age and gender.

Already starting to appear in selected malls and other spots around the country, the signs have the potential to revolutionize the retailing industry, but their intrusiveness has led to criticism from privacy advocates and nervousness from some in the marketing industry itself. "The vast majority of people walking in stores, near elevators and in other public and private spaces have no idea that the innocent-looking flat screen TVs playing videos may be capturing their images and then dissecting and analyzing them for marketing purposes," the nonprofit, Southern California-based World Privacy Forum warned in a report it issued on digital signs in January. "Controls need to be put in place now, before this technology runs amok." Businesses insist the signs are good for them and for consumers because they can offer more focused and effective advertising. And the burgeoning market has caught the eye of Silicon Valley companies. Among them is San Jose-based Cisco Systems, which makes gear that displays images and management software for the signs. It's not a huge business yet for the company, according to Thomas Wyatt, general manager of Cisco's digital media systems unit. But, he said, it's growing, adding "these are really emerging technologies."

Homeland Security seeks to thwart cyberattacks

Cybersecurity researchers in the private sector have lamented for many years that collaborations with government officials on addressing cyberthreats have been few and far between. But at the RSA Conference at San Francisco's Moscone Center, an annual gathering of cyber-security industry professionals, not only have top government representatives stressed their desire to work closely with the private sector in stemming the growing tide of security problems - they want some of them to quit their jobs and join the feds.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said during a keynote speech Wednesday that her agency has new authority to beef up its team of cyber-warriors and couldn't help making her pitch to the thousands of security experts in the room. Sec Napolitano was the second top federal official to make an appearance at the RSA conference this week. On Tuesday, cyber-security coordinator Howard Schmidt listed his office's priorities in fortifying the country's networks and digital assets. Their visits illustrate the prominence of cyber-security at the federal level as the government seeks to address the risks and opportunities of cloud computing, and the vulnerabilities of the nation's critical infrastructure have become painfully obvious.

China to punish hackers, says no Google complaint

China has pledged to punish hackers who attacked Google if there is evidence to prove it, but said it has yet to receive any complaint from the world's top search engine.

Google sent shockwaves across business and political circles in January when it declared it would stop censoring Chinese search results, and threatened to pull out of China -- the world's largest online community with 384 million users at the end of last year -- over hacking and censorship concerns. Google had never filed a report to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology over the cyber attacks or sought negotiations, Vice Minister Miao Wei was quoted as saying by state news agency Xinhua late on Saturday. "If Google has had evidence that the attacks came from China, the Chinese government will welcome them to provide the information and will severely punish the offenders according to the law," Miao said. "We never support hacking attacks because China also falls victim to hacking attacks," he said.

iPhone Network Congestion Opens Market for Time Warner Cable

iPhone users coping with jams on AT&T's network may get some relief from an unexpected quarter: cable companies.

Time Warner Cable, the biggest pay-television provider in New York City, is pitching phone companies including AT&T and Verizon Wireless on a service that uses its underground cables to carry mobile calls and Web downloads -- easing the congestion spurred by data-hungry users of smartphones like the iPhone. The service, known in the industry as wireless backhaul, has become Time Warner Cable's fastest-growing business after revenue tripled last year, said Craig Collins, senior vice president of business services. Across the cable industry, sales from wireless carriers may reach about $3.6 billion in 2012, according to researcher GeoResults. "Backhaul is a growth play that we are pursuing aggressively," Collins said. "These mobile players want to get the bandwidth they need at a cost-effective price and our structure allows them to get that pretty seamlessly."

GSA Preps $35 Billion Networking Contract

The General Services Administration is inching toward awarding a 10-year telecommunications contract vehicle estimated to be worth up to $35 billion. It is designed to complement the struggling, behind-schedule Networx contract vehicle.

GSA this week released a draft request for proposals for the new contract, Connections II, which the agency says will be a "one-stop shop" for telecom and networking products and services. Connections II will serve as a successor to the similar Connections contract, which expires in 2011. Connections II will make a number of services available to federal agencies, including: communications and networking; IT operations, administration and management support; customer service and technical support; and building/campus facility preparation. While the Networx contract covers telecommunications services provided by service providers (AT&T, Verizon, Level 3 Communications, Sprint, and Qwest won the awards there), Connections is geared toward internal networking needs.

Google's Search Engine Getting Too Personal?

A Q&A with Danny Sullivan, the editor-in-chief of Search Engine Land. In December, Google expanded its Personalized Search service to provide results tailored to a user's Web-surfing tastes, so now users may see different search results from the same search term. The launch of Personalized Search didn't get a lot of reaction, but some think that it should.

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