February 2011

Apple Moves to Tighten Control of App Store

Apple is further tightening its control of the App Store. The company has told some applications developers, including Sony, that they can no longer sell content, like e-books, within their apps, or let customers have access to purchases they have made outside the App Store.

Apple rejected Sony’s iPhone application, which would have let people buy and read e-books bought from the Sony Reader Store. Apple told Sony that from now on, all in-app purchases would have to go through Apple, said Steve Haber, president of Sony’s digital reading division. The move could affect companies like Amazon.com and others that sell e-book readers that compete with Apple’s iPad tablet and offer free mobile apps so customers can read their e-book purchases on other devices. An iPad owner, for instance, has not needed to own a Kindle to read Kindle books bought from Amazon. That may now change.

Web Running Out of Addresses

The Internet is about to run out of new addresses, a milestone that is spurring Web giants like Facebook Inc. and Google Inc. to develop new versions of their sites and prompting carriers like AT&T Inc. and others to upgrade networks.

This week, the organization that oversees Internet addresses is expected to dole out its last batch of existing Internet protocol addresses, a step akin to telephone companies running out of numbers to give customers. Internet protocol addresses are numerical labels that direct online traffic to the right location, similar to the way a letter makes its way through the postal system. Such routing is generally invisible to users -- when they type in www.facebook.com, for instance, they are actually connected to a computer located at the numerical address 66.220.149.32. It is those numbers that are in dwindling supply. While there is a new Internet addressing system ready to go that greatly expands the number of addresses, it isn't compatible with the existing system. So in June, Google, Facebook, Yahoo Inc. and others will switch over to the new addresses for one day in the first wide-scale test of the new network, dubbed IP version six, or IPv6. A permanent shift to a new Internet addressing system is still years off. But it is now inevitable.

CBS declines to run ad submitted by NFL players union

CBS is refusing to air an ad by the National Football League players union that seeks to rally public opposition to a lockout by team owners. The network is one of four that combined to pay the league as much as $4 billion a year for television rights, and union officials have suggested the ad was pulled in deference to the networks' financial ties to the NFL. "I'm confused and frankly a little irritated," said George Atallah, a spokesman for the players union. He said the union was informed that CBS College Sports was refusing to run the ad because of "the content." The spot, which was to run on CBS College Sports Network during a college all-star football game on Saturday, shows darkened stadiums and empty locker rooms interspersed with somber fans urging viewers to "Let Them Play."

Smithsonian regents support secretary's censorship decision

Smithsonian Secretary G. Wayne Clough, the point man in the controversy that has rocked the Smithsonian Institution for the past two months, received enthusiastic support from his board. At Monday's meeting of the Board of Regents, the Smithsonian's governing board, the regents reviewed the actions surrounding Clough's decision to remove a controversial video from an exhibit and said his broader accomplishments in running the 19 museums and research complex outweighed the uproar over the episode.

Worldwide mobile data traffic exploding, nearly tripled in 2010, Cisco says

In 2010 alone, the amount of mobile data sent was 2.6 times what it was in 2009. And by 2015, people will send 26 times more mobile data than they do now, according to Cisco's annual Global Mobile Traffic Forecast.

That will mean 6.3 exabytes per month, said Suraj Shetty, Cisco's vice president of worldwide service provider marketing. "That's the equivalent of every man, woman and child on Earth sending 1,000 text messages every second," he said. Cisco says two-thirds of that data traffic will come from mobile video, as more people begin making video calls, sending each other clips they've recorded, and watching longer-form television and movies on their cellphones and tablets. For a little perspective: Mobile traffic in 2010 was three times as large as all the world's combined Internet traffic in 2000. In short, mobile broadband is getting big -- everywhere.

Not-so-unlimited MetroPCS

[Commentary] The Federal Communications Commission's controversial new Network Neutrality rules aim to stop broadband providers from discriminating against legal sites and services online, as well as to require more clarity about the providers' terms and conditions. Now mobile phone carrier MetroPCS is presenting the first test: a $40 "unlimited" mobile broadband service that blocks video streams from all but one site, YouTube.

The problem isn't really what MetroPCS is offering, however. It's what the company is telling consumers, and how the precedent it has set might redefine the meaning of Internet access. MetroPCS' $40 offering, announced last month, includes unlimited phone calls, text messages and Web access. What the company doesn't make clear in its promotional materials is that customers can't stream or download content from any site other than YouTube. Less limited services are available for $50 and $60 a month, although even those don't include access to Skype and other Voice over Internet Protocol services. The way MetroPCS is marketing the $40 service seems to run counter to the commission's call for complete and accurate disclosures by all broadband providers. MetroPCS' version of unlimited Web access is akin to a movie ticket that takes a consumer only as far as the concession stand. It should be much more forthcoming about the restrictions, rather than burying them in the fine print.

Egypt crisis makes case for network neutrality: ex-Obama tech chief

Former Google executive and White House deputy chief technology officer Andrew McLaughlin used the communications crackdown in Egypt to argue in favor of network neutrality regulations.

Authorities in Egypt have interrupted Internet access for virtually the entire nation in an unprecedented move, and democracies can glean a thing or two from this, McLaughlin wrote in The Guardian. The lesson: Network neutrality rules are "important to prevent networks from installing tools and capabilities that could be abused in moments of crisis," McLaughlin said, adding that dictatorships and authoritarian regimes will take "quite the opposite" lesson from the crisis.

Thai Cabinet to Consider Telecom Compensation Report

Thailand’s information ministry will submit a report to Cabinet Feb 1 urging the government to seek compensation from the nation’s biggest mobile-phone companies over losses caused by changes to their operating licenses.

“I want to look at the overall picture to make sure that this business is treated fairly and the rules are consistent,” Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said today, declining to confirm whether the government will pursue claims against Advanced Info Service Pcl, Total Access Communication Pcl and True Move Ltd., a unit of True Corp. Information Minister Chuti Krairiksh said yesterday Advanced Info should pay compensation after a court ruled last year that former premier Thaksin Shinawatra abused his power to benefit the company. In the early 1990s, state-controlled TOT Pcl and CAT Telecom Pcl offered concessions to private companies to invest in a mobile-phone network they could operate for a set period in return for royalties.

First a Speech, then an Uprising, Dominate the News

Last week’s news landscape was a tale of two stories -- one much-anticipated event in Washington and an unexpected drama unfolding about 6,000 miles away.

In the first part of last week, the media focused on President Obama’s January 25 State of the Union speech. In the latter half, Egyptian protests that began to look like a revolution dominated coverage, virtually drowning out the president’s emphasis on re-tooling the U.S. economy. By the time it was over, events in the Middle East -- most notably the Egyptian uprising against President Hosni Mubarak -- was the No. 1 story from January 24-30. They accounted for 20% of the week’s coverage according to the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism. Coverage of the State of the Union speech, and the reaction to it, trailed closely behind, filling 17% of the coverage studied by PEJ’s weekly News Coverage Index. That was not what President Obama had planned. In the first three days of the week, his address accounted for much more of the media narrative (28%) than it would by week’s end.

Benton

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