November 2011

A Silicon Valley Dream Grows in Guatemala, Despite the Risks

Guatemala’s attempt to create a local Silicon Valley. For now, it is just a single brick building called Campus Tecnológico, with workspaces, programming classes and eco-friendly signs asking people to turn off lights in unused bathrooms. But the developers’ goal is to turn this five- or six-block area in the city’s center into an entrepreneurial campus, and a residential outpost for the hip, savvy, successful and young. A zone for meritocracy — that alone would be an achievement in Guatemala. Since the first coffee boom that began around 1875, Guatemala’s economy has been defined by wild swings, cronyism and wide income disparities, with ethnic and class divisions that have mostly kept the poor poor and the rich rich. The current era of drug-fueled violence has added another challenge. Indeed, for all its left coast breeziness, Campus Tec is still a place that must be protected with shotgun-toting guards and biometric keypads that require approved thumbprints for entry.

Amazon KindlePhone for 2012?

Amazon just rolled out a full-fledged tablet. Next year, says Citigroup’s research department, it could have its own phone.

Los Angeles Dodgers Sue Fox in Bankruptcy Court Over Regional TV Contract

The Los Angeles Dodgers sued News Corp’s Fox Sports, accusing the broadcaster of interfering with the bankrupt baseball team’s plan to sell itself and its television rights through a court-sanctioned auction.

Fox Sports sent a letter that “constitutes a deliberate attempt by Fox to interfere with the ability of LAD and its advisers, including Blackstone Advisory, to sell LAD’s assets,” the team said in papers filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Delaware. Team owner Frank McCourt has agreed to sell the Dodgers in a process where separate bids would be accepted for the team and its television rights. Fox Sports Net West 2 LLC has the current TV contract, which gives it the exclusive right to negotiate an extension through November 2012. The Dodgers have filed court papers seeking approval to immediately start talking with potential buyers of the television rights, the team’s most lucrative asset. Under the proposal, the team would negotiate with Fox for 45 days. If no deal was struck, the Dodgers would talk to competing bidders. In its filing, the team asked U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Kevin Gross to bar Fox from “taking any act that otherwise interferes with any property rights of the LAD estate, including existing and future media rights.” Fox has said it plans to challenge any early sale, or negotiations, of the media rights. The company said it may update a lawsuit filed against the Dodgers in September.

FCC Launches Small Biz Cyber Planner

The Federal Communications Commission released the Small Biz Cyber Planner, a new easy-to-use online tool to help small businesses customize their own cybersecurity plans.

The Small Biz Cyber Planner online resource will enable any small business to create a customized guide tailored to its cybersecurity needs by answering a few basic questions. By using this tool and implementing the planning guide, businesses can protect themselves, their information, and their customers from cyber threats. The new online tool was developed as part of a collaboration with government experts and private IT and security companies, including DHS, NCSA, The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, The Chertoff Group, Symantec, Sophos, Visa, Microsoft, HP, McAfee, The Identity Theft Council, ADP and others.

Canadian regulators ditch usage-based billing for independent ISPs

For the last year, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission has been at the center of a raging debate over the future of Internet access pricing. After the CRTC approved a shift to usage-based wholesale rates for competitive Internet service providers, a furious backlash caused the Canadian government to pressure the CRTC to take another look at the policy. Canada has a line-sharing regime for broadband similar to the one the United States abandoned under President George Bush. Under this scheme, ISPs whose networks don't reach the "last mile" to a customer's home can lease connectivity from an incumbent at wholesale rates set by the government. In the past, the wholesale rates were on a per-connection basis, but the incumbents have been lobbying for a switch to usage-based billing, which they argue is needed to help pay for the costs of capacity expansion.

In a Nov 15 ruling, the CRTC, which has powers similar to the Federal Communications Commission, tried to split the difference with a capacity-based usage model. Under this model, competitive ISPs must decide at the start of each month how much network capacity it wants at each point where it interfaces with the incumbent's network. If it overestimates its traffic needs, it will pay more than it needs to. If it underestimates, its customers will suffer from increased congestion.

Businesses say Chinese Internet control undermines trade

China's strong control of Internet communication undermines human rights and has significant impact on its relationship with the United States, witnesses told a joint congressional-executive commission.

"Addressing Chinese censorship as a trade barrier is a legitimate, multilateral and potentially effective approach that needs to be pursued by our government at the highest levels," Ed Black, president of the Computer & Communications Industry Association said at the hearing of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China. As the country that led the way in developing the Internet, the United States must likewise lead the effort to hold the Chinese government accountable, Black said. Gilbert Kaplan, president of the Committee to Support U.S. Trade Laws, said China imposes "debilitating" burdens on foreign Internet service providers, and the censorship of websites can "inhibit or prevent altogether" the ability of U.S. companies to do businesses. "China's blocking and filtering measures, and the fog of uncertainty surrounding what China's censors will and will not permit, violate numerous of China's international obligations," Kaplan said. "The negative impact of these violations on America's premier Internet companies is profound."

Would Google block payments to the New York Times?

In a congressional hearing about a proposed anti-piracy bill, one of the few technology companies to testify was Google, which sent its copyright policy counsel to address the committee. In her comments, Katherine Oyama said the payment blockade against WikiLeaks — in which PayPal, Visa, MasterCard and others refused to process donations to the organization, causing it to effectively shut down — was a model for how new laws could treat copyright infringers. Is Google really saying payment companies (of which the web giant is one, via Google Wallet and Google Checkout) should decide whose websites should be shut down? And why is it promoting the idea of blocking payments to a media entity that has never been charged with a crime?

The Truth About Internet Radio

With the public offering of Pandora and the recent U.S. launch of European music darling Spotify, as well as the emergence of other startups in the "streaming music" market, a great deal of media attention is focused on the online radio space. All of these music services are readily clumped together as "Internet radio." Streaming radio, is also sometimes called “Internet radio,” and they are essentially interchangeable. They involve delivering music (and/or other audio content) to a device via the Internet as a live stream. Internet radio is the opposite of a download. However, there are different types of services in the Internet radio basket, and many who speak or write about them end up comparing apples and oranges.

Within the scope of Internet Radio there are two categories of service, "non-interactive" and "on demand." With a non-interactive music service that is Digital Millennium Copyright Act-compliant, the listener cannot dictate exactly which songs to play or in what order. You can choose the type of music to listen to, but not a specific song. As the name implies, "on demand" services allow listeners access to a library of songs in which they can play any song, in any order they choose. Non-interactive services also offer "terrestrial simulcast” streams and "pure-play Internet only" streams. Terrestrial simulcast refers to the Internet streaming of actual broadcast radio stations.

[Carson is CMO of Myxer, an ad-supported provider of free entertainment content on the Web.]

National Competition Selects 12 Libraries and Museums to Build Innovative Learning Labs for Teens

The Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation announced the first 12 winners of a national competition to build 21st Century learning labs in museums and libraries around the country. The winners -- four museums and eight libraries -- will receive a total of $1.2 million in grants to plan and design the labs. Inspired by YOUMedia, a new teen space at the Chicago Public Library, and innovations in science and technology centers, these labs will help young people move beyond consuming content to making and creating it.

Locations for the 12 new learning labs include: San Francisco, CA; Thornton, CO; Columbia, MD; St. Paul, MN; Kansas City, MO; New York, NY; Columbus, OH; Portland, OR; Allentown, PA; Philadelphia, PA; Nashville, TN; and Houston, TX.

The learning labs will be based on new research about how young people learn today. Teens will use both digital and traditional media that promote creativity, critical thinking, and hands-on learning. The labs will connect teens to mentors and peers, as well as anytime, anywhere access to information through online social networks so that they can pursue their interests more deeply. The winning institutions will match the funds from the competition and partner with local educational, cultural, and civic organizations to build a network of learning opportunities for young people.

New Paper Takes the Air Out of Broadcasters’ Localism Claims

“Retransmission consent provisions are not accomplishing their original goal of enhancing broadcasters’ commitment to localism,” states Fordham Business School Professor Philip M. Napoli. In a paper, Napoli identifies this significant disconnect and urges the FCC to consider this “disappointing state of affairs” in its retransmission consent rulemaking. The paper, titled “Retransmission Consent and Broadcaster Commitment to Localism,” was commissioned by the American Television Alliance.

In reviewing the original intent of Congress, Napoli notes that the retransmission consent provisions of the 1992 Cable Act, such as “must carry,” were designed by Congress to provide revenue that enhanced “local stations’ ability to provide local news and information to viewers.” While retransmission consent payments have skyrocketed from $214 million in 2006 to a projected $1.3 billion this year, the paper shows that “national broadcast networks are seeking an increasing amount of this revenue stream” and local stations’ commitment to local programming has shown no meaningful improvement and has, by some measures, declined. Napoli provides numerous examples of declines in local news, looking at the number of minutes broadcast stations devote to local public affairs and local news programming, the actual content of the local news, and resources invested in local news production. He cites an FCC study finding that most stations provide on average, fewer than 1.5 hours of local public affairs programming per week (under 1% of total available broadcast hours).

The Napoli paper also covers the “increased frequency of actual or threatened broadcast stations blackouts,” which “have the potential to be incredibly damaging to local communities.” He cites the recent blackout in Mobile area as Tropical Storm Lee approached the Gulf Coast. He writes that “the tactics employed in these negotiations can take turns that literally threaten the physical well-being of citizens living in these affected communities during a time of crisis.” The paper closes by noting that there is “little compelling evidence that retransmission consent revenues are being utilized by broadcasters to enhance their provision of local news and public affairs programming. Rather, it appears that these revenues are being used in large part to fund the programming activities of national broadcast networks.” As the FCC considers revisions to the retransmission consent rules, Napoli urges the Commission to “keep in mind the localism objectives underlying these rules, as well as to keep in mind the increasingly disappointing state of affairs in terms of the extent broadcasters dedicate themselves to serving the informational needs and interests of their local communities.”

Benton

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