January 2012

Netflix to testify on video rental privacy law

Netflix will testify on a law prevents them from sharing information on users' video rental history at a hearing Jan 31 in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on Technology, Privacy and the Law.

Subpanel chairman Al Franken (D-MN) released a witness list for the hearing on the Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA) that includes Netflix general counsel David Hyman, University of Minnesota Law School Professor William McGeveran, and Electronic Privacy Information Center executive director Marc Rotenberg. The VPPA was passed in 1988 after the Washington City Paper published a list of recent video rentals by Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork during his contentious nomination process. The law bans sharing of rental information without written consent by the consumer or a warrant from law enforcement. The VPPA has since drawn opposition from Netflix, who claims the law prevents even the voluntary sharing of information on customer viewing habits via social networks. The widespread adoption of social media has resulted in users increasingly relying on the media recommendations of their networks.

Tech subcommittee to hold hearing on LightSquared

Rep. Greg Walden (R-OR), chairman of House Commerce Committee's technology subcommittee, told reporters he plans to hold a hearing on wireless startup LightSquared.

The company, which has invested billions of dollars to launch a wholesale wireless broadband service, has become embroiled in controversy since tests showed its planned network could interfere with GPS devices. Chairman Walden did not suggest any wrongdoing, but he questioned why the Federal Communications Commission allowed LightSquared to get as far as it has in the regulatory process before discovering the interference problems, but he suggested there could still be an engineering solution to the interference problem. He noted that the interference is a result of GPS devices receiving signals from outside of their designated frequencies — not by LightSquared's signal bleeding into the GPS band. He said he hopes it would be possible for GPS companies to modify their receivers to work in the presence of LightSquared's network. Chairman Walden said his hearing will probe why the FCC did not discover the interference problem earlier and what can be done about it now.

Rep. Walden: FCC feels like 'tool of the White House'

Rep Greg Walden (R-OR), chairman of House Commerce Committee's communications subcommittee, said he plans to push ahead with legislation that would overhaul how the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) operates.

He emphasized that the FCC only has the authority that Congress gives it. "It's beginning to feel like it's another tool of the White House," Chairman Walden said at a briefing for reporters. He expects the full Commerce Committee to mark up the FCC overhaul bills on Feb. 7. Chairman Walden said the legislation would improve transparency and openness at the FCC, but Democrats argue the measures are really about hamstringing the agency's power to adopt new regulations and oversee corporate mergers. When asked whether he thinks the legislation has any chance of passing the Democratic-controlled Senate, Chairman Walden said, "I would hope that Senate would be supportive."

Senators back Obama's call for cybersecurity reform

Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman (I-CT) echoed President Obama's call in the State of the Union for Congress to pass comprehensive cybersecurity legislation.

“The President’s call for Congress to pass cybersecurity legislation underscores the pressing nature of securing the government’s cyber systems and networks — and a limited number of private sector networks that touch the lives of all Americans," Chairman Lieberman said. “This is nothing less than a matter of national security. The Secretary of Defense has warned that the next Pearl Harbor could be a cyber attack." "As Chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, I fully support efforts to protect our national security by passing cyber security legislation. I have been working for years to address our country's vulnerability to cyber-attacks and believe now is the time for Congress to act," said Senate Commerce Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-WV).

Raunch meter rises for CBS Monday comedies

Last week seemed typical for CBS' sitcoms on Monday night, television's most popular — and raunchy — night of comedy. There was a strip club visit on "How I Met Your Mother," lap dance included. The stars of "2 Broke Girls" mistakenly believed an upstairs neighbor ran a brothel. "Two and a Half Men" included jokes about masturbation, oral sex, sex with moms, trading cigarettes for sex and two scenes with loud noises of passion from behind closed doors. A quick count found 53 sex jokes on the network's four comedies, which includes "Mike & Molly." There were also nine jokes about flatulence or bowel movements, and two scenes where marijuana use was clearly implied — one with a teen-age boy and the other with an older woman. The subject matter leaves some viewers queasy

New library e-catalog offers expanded selection

Library users searching for e-books will soon get to look through a much bigger catalog and help decide what their local branch might carry. OverDrive, a major e-distributor for libraries, announced the launch of a vastly expanded list for patrons, featuring not just e-books available for lending, but hundreds of thousands of those which include a collected of Edgar Allan Poe stories edited by Michael Connelly to foreign-language titles. Viewers can look at excerpts, purchase books from a retailer or request that their library add an e-book that wasn't being offered. "We're allowing libraries to be better connected with their communities," OverDrive CEO Steve Potash said during a recent interview. "Right now, we have librarians who are trying to add books to the e-catalog but don't always know what to add. Now, by exposing a publisher's entire list, it becomes like crowdsourcing, where patrons can offer their suggestions."

Motorola piles on the patent suits, now targets iPhone 4S and iCloud

Motorola's own patent war against Apple rages on, as the company has filed a new lawsuit in the US targeting Apple's iPhone 4S and iCloud service. Motorola's new lawsuit, filed in the US District Court of Southern Florida, asserts six patents against the iPhone 4S, with four of those same patents asserted against iCloud.

This suit comes several months after two other federal lawsuits filed by Motorola against Apple, rounding out the list of Apple products that Motorola is going after with its patent portfolio. The four patents Motorola is claiming against iCloud (hat tip to FOSS Patents for rounding them all up) include one for "multiple pager status synchronization," one that describes a "method and apparatus for communicating summarized data," a "system for communicating user-selected criteria filter prepared at wireless client to communication server for filtering data transferred from host to said wireless client," and a "method and apparatus in a wireless messaging system for facilitating an exchange of address information." The patents being claimed against the iPhone 4S are all of the above, plus another patent for a "receiver having concealed external antenna," and an "apparatus for controlling utilization of software added to a portable communication device." Overall, it appears that Motorola is targeting iCloud and the iPhone 4S for being able to sync data stored on the iPhone wirelessly (via concealed external antenna, that is).

Web Will Turn to Premium Content in 2012, Say Miller, Levinsohn

The digital battle in 2012 will be waged over premium content, said News Corp. Chief Digital Officer Jonathan Miller and Yahoo! executive VP Ross Levinsohn during the opening panel at NATPE, taking place this week at South Beach's Fontainebleau Resort.

"We've narrowed our focus on video to premium," Levinsohn told moderator Michael Nathanson, managing director of equity research for U.S. media at Nomura Securities. "The notion of scarcity no longer exists. What there is scarcity of is good video. I like watching a cat chase a laser pointer on a skateboard like everyone else but it's impossible to monetize. If I were a big premium brand advertiser, I'm not sure I would want my name next to that kind of content. As a result, we've narrowed our focus around premium video." "The premium space is up for grabs, it's a battleground, and it's a battle worth fighting. [Google-owned] YouTube is getting very much â€˜channelized.' I see ‘channelization' of the Web being a big event for 2012," said Miller, repeating an idea he also posited at last week's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. By ‘channelization' Miller means watching the Web like watching TV, with online channels populated by programs and supported by advertising.

27,000 Google Chromebooks headed to US schools

Google has won over three school districts with its Chromebook vision, bringing more than 27,000 of the browser-based laptops to Iowa, Illinois, and South Carolina.

Obama en Español: PBS brings SOTU to the world

Only hours after President Obama delivered his State of the Union speech, it was already available online with subtitles in seven different languages, including Japanese, Arabic and French. Additional translation efforts for Spanish, German and Korean versions of the speech are currently underway. The multi-lingual captions are the result of a partnership between PBS Newshour, Mozilla and Universal Subtitles, which collectively received $400,000 in funding from the public broadcaster a few days ago.

Aside from making the speech available in other countries, the captioning is also meant to make it more accessible to viewers within the United States that primarily speak a different language, as well hard-of-hearing viewers. The Newshour team is working with professional translators on some of the subtitles, while others are collectively done by volunteers through Universal Subtitles’ online tools.

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