August 2011

The Internet's $10 Million Mix Tapes

As the music industry struggles to find its way in the digital era, it is seeing unlikely trailblazers in the likes of Beethoven, Mozart and Bach.

Last year, the classical-music charts were dominated by two distribution companies: the world's largest record label and a five-year-old, Stockholm-based digital company with 43 employees, no performers under contract and virtually no profile in the broader music business. The contrast between the giant Universal Music Group and the tiny X5 Music Group AB offers insight into the future of music distribution.

Traditional labels like Universal, a unit of Vivendi SA, tend to focus on new releases and CDs, which last year represented 73% of total U.S. album sales. CDs accounted for nearly 54% of all recorded music sales, when paid downloads of individual songs were measured, too. X5 releases no new music and sells no CDs. Instead, it licenses the catalogs of about 50 other companies -- most of them small classical labels based in Europe -- and repackages their recordings into compilations, sort of like classical mix tapes. It sells music only through online outlets like Apple Inc.'s iTunes Store and Amazon.com Inc.'s MP3 store, with cover art designed to stand out even at the thumbnail sizes displayed on the services. And most of X5's collections, even those with 50 and 100 songs, are priced below $8.

State Attorneys General Call for Reallocation Of Spectrum For Public Safety Network

Most of the nation's state attorneys general are calling on Congress to reallocate spectrum to public safety officials for the creation of a national broadband network aimed at improving emergency communications.

In a letter to congressional leaders, 42 state attorneys general urged lawmakers to pass legislation that would reallocate a swath of spectrum known as the D-block to public safety officials for a national broadband network. That spectrum is slated under current law to be auctioned to commercial bidders. The Senate Commerce Committee approved spectrum legislation in June that would give the D-block to public safety agencies and authorize funding to build such a network, but GOP leaders on the House Energy and Commerce Committee would prefer to see the D-block auctioned.

GAO: Conflicting orders have led to confusion over DOD’s cyber strategy

The military’s war-fighting commands are unsure how to handle cyberspace activities, but a strategy that could alleviate the confusion is months from completion.

“Conflicting statements have led to confusion among the combatant commands about command and control over cyber operations,” Government Accountability Office analysts said. A 2008 Defense Department-wide plan assigns the new U.S. Cyber Command with the duties for overseeing military network operations, as well as all planning for and defending against cyberspace foes. “But it also states that geographic combatant commanders are to exercise authority over all commands and forces within their areas of responsibility,” the GAO analysts said in a briefing presented as part of an online forum sponsored by Government Executive magazine.

Bill Nye Discusses Climate Change With Fox Business Network's Charles Payne

In a recent interview with the Fox Business Network, Bill Nye (yes, the Science Guy) explained to host Charles Payne that Al Gore's recent comments on the need for climate change discourse may not be far off point, especially when one considers the science behind it all.

The clip, available on Media Matters, aired just after Hurricane Irene had passed the East Coast of the U.S. It is from a segment of the show "Freedom Watch," discussing a link between climate change and extreme weather. At the beginning of the clip, Payne mentions a Newsweek article from May that suggests extreme weather is the “new normal” because of climate change. When asked if Irene was “proof of global warming,” Nye patiently explained that it is likely “evidence” for or “a result of” global warming. He added that the climate modeling needed to actually determine this will take at least several months, but he seemed confident of what the results would be. After showing a clip of Al Gore's recent comments about confronting climate deniers, Payne asked Nye whether it helped climate change believers “to always bring in things like racism” or if it “denigrate[s] anyone who might just have an inkling that maybe this stuff doesn't exist.” Nye responded that after measuring temperatures worldwide, “you can't disagree” with the fact that the world is getting warmer. He also argued that, “when you learn the science of climate change, in my opinion, you will find it quite compelling. And you will want to do something about it, rather than pretend it doesn't happen.” Payne thanked Nye, but said he was “confusing some of the viewers.”

Google investor sues board over online drug ads

Google's board of directors faces a lawsuit for previously allowing Canadian pharmacies to advertise prescription drugs to U.S. customers via the Web search leader.

The civil lawsuit, filed on behalf of a Google shareholder on Monday, claims the ads -- which Google stopped displaying in February 2010 -- led to what it calls the "illegal importation" of the drugs. The lawsuit follows Google's $500 million settlement last week of a U.S. criminal probe over such ads. The shareholder charges that the board breached its fiduciary duty and seeks unspecified damages.

The case in U.S. District Court, Northern District of California is Patricia M. McKenna, derivatively on behalf of Google Inc., v. Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Eric Schmidt et al., No. 11-4248.

Graphene finding could lead to super-fast Internet

British scientists have devised a way of using graphene, the thinnest material in the world, to capture and convert more light than previously, paving the way for advances in high-speed Internet and other optical communications.

The team -- which included last year's Nobel Prize-winning scientists Andre Geim and Kostya Novoselov -- found that by combining graphene with metallic nanostructures, there was a 20-fold enhancement in the amount of light the graphene could harvest and convert into electrical power. Graphene is a form of carbon just one atom thick and yet 100 times stronger than steel. Previous research has shown that electrical power can be generated by putting two closely-spaced metallic wires on top of graphene and shining light on the whole structure, effectively making a simple solar cell. The researchers explained that due to the particularly high mobility and velocity of the electrons in graphene, such graphene cell devices can be incredibly fast -- tens or potentially hundreds of times faster than communication rates in the fastest Internet cables currently in use. The main stumbling block to practical applications has so far been the cell devices' low efficiency, the researchers said. The problem is that graphene absorbs little light -- only around 3 percent -- with the rest going through without contributing to the electrical power. In a collaboration between the Universities of Manchester and Cambridge, Novoselov's team found they could solve this problem by combining graphene with tiny metallic structures known as plasmonic nanostructures, which are specially arranged on top of graphene.

NLRB: Employers' Social Media Policies Can Violate Labor Laws

Late last year, the National Labor Relations Board sided with an emergency medical technician, Dawnmarie Souza, who was fired after complaining about her boss on Facebook. The NLRB argued that Souza's dismissal by the ambulance company, American Medical Response of Connecticut, violated a federal labor law protecting employees' rights to unionize. That law allows employees to discuss salaries, working conditions and other issues that could be covered by union negotiations.

Now the NLRB has issued a 24-page report examining employers' social media policies. In its report, the agency looks at various incidents involving employer-employee disputes involving social media that came to the NLRB's attention in the last year. While the NLRB didn't side against employers every time, it found several companies' social media policies unlawful. For instance, the NLRB said in one case that a nonprofit social services provider unlawfully fired five people who discussed high workloads (and other job-related matters) on Facebook. "The Facebook discussion here was a textbook example of concerted activity, even though it transpired on a social network platform," the NLRB wrote.

Lessons From Hurricane Irene on Cell Phone Reliability

Only a year or two ago, I was ready to argue that old-fashioned phone service was a vital community lifeline. It's clear that as the expense of maintaining it is falling on fewer and few subscribers, it won't be sustainable in the long run, together with its famous standard of 99.999 percent reliability and ample backup power in emergencies.

Power outages, winds, and flooding can knock out cell towers. A few long emergency calls on hold could quickly drain even fully charged batteries. Running a vehicle cell charger isn't always an option, especially if a car or truck has been disabled by a storm or earthquake or fuel is short. It's unsafe to idle cars in urban garages. Some products purporting to be emergency cell phone backup batteries are not compatible with all phones, as I discovered even before the storm. Even if fully charged, my cable modem is rated at only about seven hours, while some of my local friends have been without power for over 24. Local libraries are crowded with laptop refugees. There's an obvious need for ways to extend the reserve. Since cell phones and Internet phone service is becoming the norm, bringing them up to the five-nines standard may be a less expensive goal than maintaining and upgrading the landline infrastructure. Internet service providers and cell phone companies need to work out better affordable and standardized emergency hardware: hand-cranked generators, backup batteries, signal boosters, and even automatic emergency forwarding of Internet-based calls to cell numbers and vice versa whenever one system or another is down.

Samsung still top mobile handset maker

Samsung remains the top mobile handset maker while Google's Android continues to expand its lead on Apple as the leading smartphone platform, according to the latest data from comScore.

Samsung remained the top mobile-device maker, with 25.5 percent of the overall market, followed by LG at 20.9 percent, according to data from the three-month period ending in July. The rankings were largely unchanged from April. Among smartphone users, Android expanded its lead by 5.4 points since April to 41.8 percent of the market. Apple is in second with 27 percent, up 1 percent, and RIM was down 4 percent to 21.7 percent. Microsoft and Symbian combined account for less than 8 percent of smartphone users.

Fox Moves to Majority Position in Big Ten Network

Protective of the Big Ten brand and a muscular negotiator, Conference Commissioner James Delany secured an arrangement that had the conference holding a majority stake at about 51%. The network, now in 45 million homes and profitable, will launch its fifth football season Sept. 2 with a Michigan State game.

Yet, surprisingly, there was a provision in the 20-year deal between the Big Ten and Fox that would allow a reversal in control. At some point since June 2010 that kicked in and Fox has moved to an approximate 51% ownership position. A Fox representative declined comment on specifics of the deal, though wrote in an email that "a change in control was anticipated at some point." Yet, he said the Big Ten "maintains sufficient control" over matters "it deems most important." That surely means there will continue to be no alcohol or gambling-related ads on the network, and promotional programming about campus life at each university will continue. The flip in majority control may not alter much functionally.

The BTN president (now Mark Silverman) will continue to report to a board - it isn't clear if Fox would be able to remove the leader unilaterally - and Fox will still handle affiliate sales, human resources and other functions. Still, it's curious that the Big Ten would make a deal allowing itself to become a minority owner so early in the BTN's lifespan. Even if the conference thought it would get along famously with Fox, it would seem to have wanted more time to ensure the network would be running at a level meeting its standards.