January 11, 2012 (Can you say that on TV?)
Jim Fellows, key diplomat within public TV, dies at 77
BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 11, 2012
Today, CES continues and Brookings hosts the Principles of Internet Governance http://benton.org/calendar/2012-01-11/
AGENDA
Lifeline Reform Only Item on FCC’s January Agenda
TELEVISION
Can you say that on TV? The Supreme Court debates
One First Amendment
FCC Details New Emergency Altert Obligations
Local TV News, Meet the Internet - analysis
Another nail in the set-top coffin
Local TV finds a new outlet: Chicago taxis [links to web]
Comcast Starts Live In-Home Streaming; Requires New ‘AnyPlay’ Device [links to web]
If You Pay For Cable, You're A Hostage Of Sports - analysis
ELECTIONS AND MEDIA
SOPA becoming election liability for backers
With a Fast and Anticipated Result, TV Analysts Shift Focus to South Carolina
Forget the Debates -- Focus on the Air War! - analysis
Why media outlets team up in an election year - analysis [links to web]
SPECTRUM/WIRELESS
Group backs calls for unlicensed spectrum
Will Google buy T-Mobile? Not a chance - analysis
More From T-Mobile CEO: On Pricing, LTE and That Ever-Elusive iPhone
LightSquared owner pitches network directly to FCC staffers
Can Two Smartphone Also-Rans Rescue Each Other?
Siri, 1%, and the Truth About Data Usage - analysis
A battlefield internet? [links to web]
Problems with battlefield smartphones [links to web]
Failure to communicate: Inside the army's doomed quest for the 'perfect' radio [links to web]
Apple vs. Samsung and the reality of the Android ecosystem - analysis [links to web]
Can You Say 'WAH-wey'? Low-Cost Phones Find Niche [links to web]
INTERNET/BROADBAND
ICANN CEO: Cities, States Eager for New Top-Level Domains
Consumers spend more on digital immersion than staying warm
Dish Network and ViaSat to launch better-than-DSL speed satellite broadband
How ViaSat's Exede makes satellite broadband not suck [links to web]
AT&T, Verizon Dial Back Juniper's Prospects
We need better infrastructure to bridge urban digital divide - op-ed
Cyberattacks likely to escalate this year [links to web]
CONTENT
Fighting Internet piracy: CES takes on SOPA vs. OPEN debate
Google Adds Posts From Its Social Network to Search Results
Twitter slams Google for search changes [links to web]
Streaming Music Has a Problem -- It's a Huge Success
The Rise of Media Quants [links to web]
Seeing Social Media More as Portal Than as Pitfall
Consumer Electronics Websites: Microsoft is Most Visited, but Apple has Longest Time Spent [links to web]
Amazon Backs Hollywood Film Streaming Format [links to web]
With Enough Bandwidth, Many Join the Band [links to web]
New Fight Breaks Out Over Digital Rights to Old Books
TELECOM
NTCA: Include Text and Broadband to Cut USF Contribution Rate in Half
AT&T, Verizon Dial Back Juniper's Prospects
GOVERNEMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
Use An iPhone? Yup, The Government Tracks That
Most Data.gov apps are built by government, not the public [links to web]
Authorities probe U.S.-China commission e-mail hack [links to web]
Fewer online petitions posted to We the People website [links to web]
HEALTH
Can electronic health records erase disparities?
What if Insurers Didn’t Pay for Crashes Caused by Texting? [links to web]
WebMD ends sale talks, CEO resigns [links to web]
POLICYMAKERS
Jim Fellows, key diplomat within public TV, dies at 77
FCC lawyer joins Jenner & Block [links to web]
Google wants former lawmakers for lobbying gig [links to web]
STORIES FROM ABROAD
Everything Everywhere to sell spectrum in UK [links to web]
Cameron to call for more mainstream UK films [links to web]
China Targets Entertainment TV In Cultural Purge [links to web]
MORE ONLINE
Research Bought, Then Paid For [links to web]
Troubled Online Charter Schools - editorial [links to web]
Company says carriers, phone makers infringe patent [links to web]
Size Matters In Mobile Screens [links to web]
Skype is killing long distance, one minute at a time [links to web]
5 Driving Forces For Media Change In 2012 [links to web]
The New York Times's Nick Kristof On Journalism In A Digital World And The Age Of Activism [links to web]
AGENDA
FCC ANNOUNCES TENTATIVE AGENDA FOR JANUARY OPEN MEETING
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: Press release]
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski announced that the following item will be on the tentative agenda for the next open meeting scheduled for Tuesday, January 31, 2012.
Lifeline and Link Up Reform and Modernization, Report and Order and Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking: The Commission will consider a Report and Order and Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to comprehensively reform the Lifeline program to ensure universal availability of communications services to low-income Americans while minimizing the universal service contribution burden, including by eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse; strengthening program oversight and administration; and modernizing Lifeline to support broadband adoption.
benton.org/node/110121 | Federal Communications Commission
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TELEVISION
INDECENCY HEARING
[SOURCE: Associated Press, AUTHOR: Mark Sherman]
In colorful give and take, the Supreme Court debated whether policing curse words and nudity on broadcast television makes sense in the cable era, one justice suggesting the policy is fast becoming moot as broadcast TV heads the way of "vinyl records and 8-track tapes." The case involves programing that is available to all viewers free over the air — even though many now receive it through paid cable connections — during hours when children are likely to be watching. Some justices said they were troubled by inconsistent standards that allowed certain words and displays in some contexts but not in others. One example frequently cited by the networks was the Federal Communications Commission's decision not to punish ABC for airing "Saving Private Ryan," with its strong language, while objecting to the same words when uttered by celebrities on live awards shows. Justice Elena Kagan said the FCC policy was, "Nobody can use dirty words or nudity except Steven Spielberg," director of the World War II movie. Other justices seemed more open to maintaining the current rules because they allow parents to put their children in front of the television without having to worry they will be bombarded by vulgarity.
benton.org/node/110130 | Associated Press | Bloomberg | Reuters | LATimes | The Hill | B&C | ars technica
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ONE FIRST AMENDMENT
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Editorial staff]
[Commentary] The Constitution generally prohibits the government from suppressing words and images unless they are obscene. But the Supreme Court upheld a narrow exception to this free speech tenet in 1978, letting the Federal Communications Commission ban “indecent but not obscene” material from radio and television because it said broadcast media were pervasive and accessible to children. In FCC v. Fox Television Stations, which the court heard on Jan 10, the Justices should overturn the 1978 ruling and apply the same First Amendment principles to all media. If the court refuses to go that far, it should at least uphold the decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit that the FCC’s indecency policy is “unconstitutional because it is impermissibly vague” and must be revised to give reliable notice about what can be broadcast.
Justice Antonin Scalia said that “the government is entitled to insist upon a certain modicum of decency.” But the revolution in communications has wiped out the basis for any special indecency restrictions by the FCC. The court should end the anomalous treatment of radio and television. If it does not overturn the 1978 decision, it must require the FCC to rewrite the vague and subjective restrictions that chill protected speech.
benton.org/node/110162 | New York Times
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EAS ORDER
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: ]
The Federal Communications Commission released a Fifth Report and Order in its review and overhaul of the of the Emergency Alert System (EAS). With this order, the FCC codifies in detail the general obligation the FCC adopted in the Second Report and Order in this docket to require EAS Participants to be able to receive Common Alerting Protocol (CAP)-formatted messages. This will enable EAS Participants not only to receive CAP-formatted alert messages, but also to redistribute those messages in the legacy EAS format over the current broadcast-based EAS.
Specifically, CAP-formatted EAS alerts:
will be converted into and processed in the same way as messages formatted in the EAS Protocol; and
will be used to generate enhanced visual displays for the viewers of the EAS station processing the CAP message.
In addition, the FCC is streamlining the Part 11 rules to improve the overall effectiveness of the EAS.
benton.org/node/110083 | Federal Communications Commission
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LOCAL TV NEWS MEETS THE INTERNET
[SOURCE: Columbia Journalism Review, AUTHOR: Steven Waldman]
The Federal Communications Commission has proposed an important rule change that could make the political system more transparent. Amazingly, the trade associations representing the local TV news industry are opposing it. In exchange for being given the broadcast spectrum by taxpayers for free, broadcasters have long been required to fulfill certain “public-interest obligations” to communities. These used to be fairly significant; now they mostly entail compiling and maintaining a “public-inspection file” that citizens can examine. One of the most interesting components of the file: broadcasters are required to keep a log of the political advertising that airs on their channel. This is a potential gold mine of information about who is spending what. The requirement applies to all races—national, state, and local—and issue ads, and must be posted rapidly (usually within forty-eight hours). Stations also must maintain a list of the executives or members of the board of directors of the groups buying the ads. To be clear, this is what broadcasters are already required to assemble. They mostly do it on paper and store it in filing cabinets at their offices. The FCC’s proposal is breathtakingly obvious: move the material online.
benton.org/node/110045 | Columbia Journalism Review
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NAIL IN SET-TOP COFFIN
[SOURCE: GigaOm, AUTHOR: Ryan Lawler]
Internet connected devices are chipping away at the need for consumers to have a set-top box in each room in which they have a TV. The latest evidence comes from Samsung and DirecTV, which have partnered to let the satellite TV provider’s customers broadcast live and pre-recorded content directly to a Samsung Smart TV. Samsung is calling it “set-top ‘Boxless’ viewing,” which will enable operators to offer up the same user experience to the TV without the need for an additional piece of hardware connected to it. The pact was made possible in part through both companies’ participation in the RVU Alliance, a consortium formed to work on advanced remote user interface (RUI) technology. But DirecTV isn’t the only operator able to make use of Samsung’s “set-top boxless” technology — since it’s embedded the tech in all of its connected TVs, other partners could potentially deliver multi-room viewing with only a single box in the home.
benton.org/node/110117 | GigaOm
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HOSTAGE OF SPORTS
[SOURCE: National Public Radio, AUTHOR: Frank Deford]
[Commentary] For the many reasons that the Republican presidential debates have been so popular, the main one is simply that they're live. Happening right before our eyes. When Rick Perry says "Oops," he's saying it just as we're hearing it. Live. Wow: "Oops." This is why, whether you like sports or not — perhaps you'd desperately prefer NPR to have somebody else right now, talking about something really important, not sports — nonetheless, each month, you're charged about eight bucks on your cable bill for the privilege of not watching sports. Pay up for sports, or you don't get anything else you might want to watch on cable, un-live. It's where the money is. It's why professional leagues and teams and college conferences all now want to have their own cable networks. And it's why, last week, Comcast renamed one of its properties NBC Sports Network –– all sports, all day, all year — the better to try to get a larger share of what ESPN does. ESPN now collects an average of $4.69 for every cable home –– four times more than any other network. Throw in the various other ESPN channels, plus other sports networks –– like that new NBC Sports –– that your cable provider makes you pay for, and there's $8 for sports on your monthly bill. Or, as the CEO of Liberty Media describes it, "a tax on every American household."
benton.org/node/110144 | National Public Radio
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ELECTIONS AND MEDIA
SOPA BECOMES A LIABILITY
[SOURCE: Politico, AUTHOR: Jennifer Martinez]
To the ranks of same-sex marriage, tax cuts and illegal immigration, add this to the list of polarizing political issues of Election 2012: the Stop Online Piracy Act. The hot-button anti-piracy legislation that sparked a revolt online is starting to become a political liability for some of SOPA’s major backers. Fueled by Web activists and online fundraising tools, challengers are using the bill to tag its congressional supporters as backers of Big Government — and raise campaign cash while they’re at it. Among the fattest targets: SOPA’s lead author, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-TX), and two of its most vocal co-sponsors, Reps. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN). House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) has also felt the wrath of SOPA opponents. Even GOP presidential contenders Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum were asked by voters recently to weigh in on the bill (neither gave definitive answers, though activists have interpreted Santorum’s response as more sympathetic to SOPA than Romney’s).
benton.org/node/110078 | Politico
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FOCUS SHIFTS TO SOUTH CAROLINA
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Brian Stelter]
Seconds before the correspondent Carl Cameron came on Fox News for a live report from Mitt Romney’s victory party in Manchester (NH) on Tuesday night, he spotted two of the candidate’s top advisers dancing to the music being piped into the room. The advisers’ euphoria, however, was not shared by conservative commentators on Fox News and other networks. While their comments were not outwardly negative, they, and many other news organizations, suggested that South Carolina would pose a more important test — implicitly urging TV and Web viewers to stay tuned. In a sharp change from the Iowa caucus night, when Mr. Romney was not named the winner until 2:30 a.m. Eastern time, major news organizations named him the winner of the primary as soon as polls closed at 8 p.m. Eastern time. This result was expected; CNN all but said as much in a commercial early in the evening that declared, “Who comes in second may be as important as who comes in first.” But Ron Paul was identified as the second-place finisher in the 8 p.m. hour, too, deflating what little drama remained in the coverage. The results were known so early, in fact, that Fox News ended its news coverage an hour earlier than scheduled, handing the coverage over to the conservative host Sean Hannity at 10 p.m. By then, talk had already shifted to South Carolina.
benton.org/node/110164 | New York Times
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FOCUS ON THE AIR WAR
[SOURCE: Columbia Journalism Review, AUTHOR: Brendan Nyhan]
If debates are unlikely to sway voters, is there a format where attacks can shape the primary campaign? Yes -- television advertisements, which are seen by a wider and more diverse group of people than debates. As Georgetown political scientist Jonathan Ladd pointed out on Twitter, negative ads may be especially potent in primary campaigns since voters lack party cues or an incumbent record to vote on, and there are often vast resource discrepancies between rival candidates. Viewed through this prism, the most significant campaign news of the last few days was not the debates over the weekend, or even the New Hampshire primary, which Mitt Romney should easily win. Rather, it was the report that a super PAC backing Newt Gingrich will air millions of dollars in negative ads against Romney in South Carolina, the site of the next Republican primary after New Hampshire. But while the media hasn’t ignored this development, it hasn’t yet gotten the broad attention it merits. Romney remains the overwhelming favorite to win the nomination, but those ads could damage him in a state that is considered more difficult for him to win. More importantly, they raise serious questions about the role that outside spending will play in our post-Citizens United democracy. For both reasons, the coming South Carolina onslaught deserves more coverage than it’s getting.
benton.org/node/110041 | Columbia Journalism Review
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SPECTRUM/WIRELESS
GROUPS BACK UNLICENSED SPECTRUM
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Gautham Nagesh]
A coalition of tech firms and public interest groups argued unlicensed spectrum is a crucial source of innovation to the U.S. economy. The Wireless Innovation Alliance -- whose members include Google, Microsoft and Public Knowledge -- praised a bipartisan group of senators for their opposition to provisions in the House spectrum bill that would tie the Federal Communications Commission's hands with respect to unlicensed spectrum. "Curtailing unlicensed uses of spectrum will result in the loss of a crucial platform for 'innovation without permission' as well as billions of dollars to the U.S. economy," the group said. "While deficit reduction is an important goal of any impending spectrum legislation, it must not be met by strangling the potential of Super WiFi."
benton.org/node/110125 | Hill, The
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GOOGLE/T-MOBILE? NO CHANCE
[SOURCE: GigaOm, AUTHOR: Kevin Fitchard]
SNL Kagan reported that both Google and Dish Network have submitted bids to buy T-Mobile now that AT&T’s has ceased its overtures toward the country’s No. 4 operator. But the idea of Google becoming a wireless carrier is absolutely ridiculous. There’s no arguing that Google has big ambitions to expand further into the wireless space. Not only did it build an overnight sensation with Android, it’s exploring the cutting edge of handset technologies with its Nexus line and will broaden its device scope with the purchase of ailing Motorola Mobility. The search giant is one of the biggest players in mobile apps, and remains a looming presence on the mobile Web. So why wouldn’t it want to complete that dominance by controlling the pipes that the deliver its services? There’s a big difference between delivering applications, services and devices and selling raw connectivity. Nowhere does this difference shine brighter than Google’s relationship with Verizon Wireless. Verizon benefits from the traffic that Android and Search deliver, and Google benefits from all of the Android devices that Verizon sells, but beyond that their common ground disappears, as the recent dust-up over Goggle Wallet shows. As an operator, Verizon has to carefully ration access to its network in the form of data caps and restrictions in order to make its profits. If Google were to buy T-Mobile it would be forced to do the same. As an apps and services innovator rationing bytes and bandwidth is the last thing Google wants to do.
benton.org/node/110118 | GigaOm
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T-MOBILE’S PLANS
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Ina Fried]
With the AT&T deal dead and no similar transaction in sight, T-Mobile CEO Philipp Humm has his work cut out for him. So just what is he going to do? Well, some of the details are still being worked out. But Humm said a big part will be continuing with the “value plans” that the company introduced last year. Those plans, which offer lower monthly rates to those who forego a device subsidy, can indeed save many customers money, but they are also complicated to make sense of. “I think it’s more complicated because it means you separate out the handset from the rate plan,” Humm said. “On the other hand, it is more honest. It is a way for customers to optimize based on what they need.”
benton.org/node/110129 | Wall Street Journal
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LIGHTSQUARED PITCH
[SOURCE: nextgov, AUTHOR: Bob Berwin]
Philip Falcone, the billionaire chief executive officer of Harbinger Capital Partners, which owns the beleaguered startup wireless broadband carrier LightSquared, personally made a pitch to top Federal Communications Commission staffers last week to approve commercial service over the company's network, which could blanket the country with 40,000 cell towers. Falcone, along with Jeffrey Carlisle, executive vice president for regulatory affairs at LightSquared, and Ashley Durmer, a consultant to Harbinger, met with top FCC officials on Jan. 4 to address the interference issues. The company executives met with Edward Lazarus, chief of staff to FCC chairman Julius Genachowski; Amy Levine, special counsel and legal advisor to the chairman, and Paul de Sa, chief of the FCC Office of Strategic Planning and Policy Analysis. Falcone and Carlisle, according to the filing, "urged the Commission to continue to work toward a resolution that would enable the commencement of commercial service over the LightSquared network." They also emphasized the "significant investment" made in LightSquared -- $3 billion to date. The executives told the FCC that LightSquared has "invested millions of dollars during the past 12 months in conducting tests and developing filtering solutions to resolve issues with GPS receiver design that causes devices to look into spectrum licensed to LightSquared. As a result, the scope of the GPS technical issues has been narrowed considerably." Falcone and Carlisle also discussed with the FCC "various alternative technical solutions that will effectively and economically allow GPS receivers to work as intended, and still allow the deployment of the LightSquared network."
benton.org/node/110082 | nextgov
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NOKIA AND MICROSOFT
[SOURCE: National Public Radio, AUTHOR: Steve Henn]
Not too long ago Nokia was the largest tech company in Europe. Its market cap rivaled Microsoft's. It helped create the mobile phone industry as we know it. But the emergence of a new generation of smartphones — led by Apple's iPhone and Android-based offerings from Samsung, HTC and others — left Nokia behind. Now Nokia, with the help of Microsoft, is trying to force its way back into the North American smartphone market. At the Consumer Electronics show in Las Vegas, Nokia said it will begin selling a new Microsoft Windows phone on T-Mobile on Jan 11 — and is unveiling the high-speed Lumia 900 this week. The Lumia 900 will be launched exclusively on AT&T and will take advantage of that carrier's new high-speed 4G LTE network. Executives at Nokia have to hope this represents a turning point for the company.
benton.org/node/110077 | National Public Radio
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TRUTH ABOUT DATA USAGE
[SOURCE: Public Knowledge, AUTHOR: Michael Weinberg]
[Commentary] Last week saw two sets of stories tied to a single report that made bombastic assertions about changing mobile data usage patterns. While the assertions themselves are a bit misleading, they do point to an underlying truth – when using data on the go is easy and useful, people do it. Everything flowed from a report by Arieso, a company that just happens to sell mobile network management solutions to carriers. Reports focused on two main claims from Arieso’s report. First, that iPhone 4S users use twice as much data as iPhone 4 users. The alleged culprit there is Siri, the digital assistant that is included in the iPhone 4S but not the iPhone 4. Second, that 1% of mobile users consume half of the world’s data. For that we can thank "data hogs." When you look a bit closer, neither of these claims are as surprising as they may appear. As Ars Technica’s Jacqui Cheng discovered two months ago, in all likelihood the Siri service itself uses a relatively small amount of data. That means the data spike does not come from Siri per se. Instead, the spike is facilitated by Siri.
benton.org/node/110058 | Public Knowledge
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INTERNET/BROADBAND
CITIES, STATES EAGER FOR TOP-LEVEL DOMAINS
[SOURCE: nextgov, AUTHOR: Joseph Marks]
Some of the greatest interest in the slate of new top-level Internet domain names set to be opened up has come from governments, the chief executive of the non-profit body that will oversee those new domains said. In some cases national governments are interested in new top-level domains that, for the first time in history, will be opened up to non-Latin scripts such as Chinese and Arabic, said Rod Beckstrom, CEO of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. Even more often, cities and states or provinces are eager for the chance to wield greater control over their Internet presences.
benton.org/node/110127 | nextgov
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CONSUMERS SPEND MORE ON NET THAN HEAT
[SOURCE: USAToday, AUTHOR: Byron Acohido]
PC support company iYogi released survey results showing consumers spend more on staying connected to the Internet than on staying warm. Not surprisingly, mobile phones chew up a large and growing chunk of the average household's disposable income. Some 63% of American households spend 35% more on technology bills than utility bills, according to an in-depth survey of 1,100 adults. Consumer spending is rising for basic Internet connections, various online services, mobile communication, and multimedia entertainment. "Technology is now the real utility, as increasingly households spend more on a combination of technology bills to stay connected than their utility bills," says Vishal Dhar, president marketing and co-founder of iYogi.
benton.org/node/110087 | USAToday
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SATELLITE BROADBAND
[SOURCE: ars technica, AUTHOR: Sean Gallagher]
In its battle for market share in satellite television, Dish Network is jumping to cross the digital divide by bundling a new broadband satellite Internet service with speeds that are faster than most DSL land-line services. At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas on Monday, Dish CEO Joe Clayton announced a partnership with ViaSat that will allow the company to offer broadband service with download speeds as fast as 12Mbps and upload speeds of up to 3Mbps. Clayton said that the service would be available as part of Dish service bundles, starting at $79.98 a month. The satellite broadband service opens up a potential market of 8 to 10 million customers in rural areas who currently can't get land-line broadband service, Clayton said. The broadband service is through ViaSat's Ka-band WildBlue, which is tied to the ViaSat-1 satellite—as such, it requires the installation of a second antenna.
benton.org/node/110068 | Ars Technica
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WE NEED BETTER INFRASTRUCTURE
[SOURCE: GigaOm, AUTHOR: Craig Settles]
[Commentary] The broadband stimulus program committed nearly $500 million to narrow the digital divide through broadband adoption campaigns and building computing centers in low-income areas. After distributing much of this money in 2011, these investments should start bearing fruit. But will they? Their success faces two challenges: a lack of sufficient broadband infrastructure in some low-income areas and broadband adoption efforts that miss the mark because policymakers don’t understand what leads to success. Fortunately, these issues can be addressed. Once we accept that success depends on how we spend that stimulus funding and what stakeholders expect (hope) to achieve.
benton.org/node/110147 | GigaOm
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CONTENT
CES SOPA PANEL
[SOURCE: ars technica, AUTHOR: Jon Brodkin]
While thousands of tech vendors frantically demoed new gadgets and apps at the giant Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, a debate over the future of the Internet and how the government may regulate distribution of (often pirated) content was taking place down the hall. With the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Online Protection & Enforcement of Digital Trade Act (OPEN) under debate in the House and the Protect IP Act (PIPA) in the Senate, CES convened a panel including Congressional staff members, a musician, lawyers, a Web hoster, and a representative of the Copyright Alliance. It was moderated by former Rep Rick Boucher (D-VA). "While I really don't miss being in Congress, I really do miss being on the House Judiciary Committee and being able to take part in this particular debate," Boucher said in introduction. As Boucher explained, while PIPA and SOPA differ in some ways, they both would give the government ability to designate rogue websites, remove those sites from the Internet's domain name system, require search engines to remove the sites from results, prevent advertisers from doing business with the "rogue" sites, and lessen protections currently provided to site owners during Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedown processes.
benton.org/node/110152 | Ars Technica
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GOOGLE SEARCH UPDATE
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Claire Cain Miller]
Google excels at responding to search queries with links to Web pages, but those have become old-fashioned. These days, the company has concluded, Internet users increasingly want to find conversations and photos posted by their friends on the social Web. Google is taking its biggest step yet toward incorporating social networking posts from its Google+ service into its search results. Google says that the new feature, which it calls Search Plus Your World, is one of the biggest changes it has ever made to its search results. People will see posts and photos from their friends, profiles of their friends when they search people’s names, and conversations occurring on Google+ related to topics they search.
benton.org/node/110074 | New York Times | Google | Fortune
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STREAMING MUSIC
[SOURCE: AdWeek, AUTHOR: Erin Griffith]
The online music industry is in a unique, catch-22 situation: The more successful it is, the more money flies out the door. Digital music companies pay dearly for the rights to stream music. Pandora, for example, turned a profit for the first time this past November—10 years since its launch—thanks to onerous licensing agreements requiring it to pay a fee each time a song is streamed. The firm’s peers, including the smaller players, also pay a hefty rate each time a song is played. The services will never outgrow their costs, an unfortunate arrangement commentators have dubbed a “suicide pact.” And subscription revenue, a much smaller business, is not enough. The streaming services need advertising dollars, and they have monies previously allotted to broadcast budgets in their crosshairs. It is, in general, a well-trod story: New medium goes after old ad dollars. But in this case, the stakes are unusually high. Online radio’s very survival depends on stealing ad dollars from its traditional counterpart, and it needs to do it fast.
benton.org/node/110123 | AdWeek
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SOCIAL MEDIA AS PORTAL
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Perri Klass]
More than a hundred years ago, when the telephone was introduced, there was some hand-wringing over the social dangers that this new technology posed: increased sexual aggression and damaged human relationships. “It was going to bring down our society,” said Dr. Megan Moreno, a specialist in adolescent medicine at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Men would be calling women and making lascivious comments, and women would be so vulnerable, and we’d never have civilized conversations again.” In other words, the telephone provoked many of the same worries that more recently have been expressed about online social media. “When a new technology comes out that is something so important, there is this initial alarmist reaction,” Dr. Moreno said. Indeed, much of the early research — and many of the early pronouncements — on social media seemed calculated to make parents terrified of an emerging technology that many of them did not understand as well as their children did. Whether about sexting or online bullying or the specter of Internet addiction, “much social media research has been on what people call the danger paradigm,” said Dr. Michael Rich, a pediatrician and the director of the Center on Media and Child Health at Children’s Hospital Boston. Though there are certainly real dangers, and though some adolescents appear to be particularly vulnerable, scientists are now turning to a more nuanced understanding of this new world. Many have started to approach social media as an integral, if risky, part of adolescence, perhaps not unlike driving.
benton.org/node/110073 | New York Times
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E-BOOK RIGHTS
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Jeffrey Trachtenberg]
A legal battle between HarperCollins Publishers and a company run by one of its former chief executives is putting the spotlight on a key issue in book publishing today: Who owns the e-book rights to decades-old titles? Two days before Christmas, HarperCollins filed a copyright-infringement suit against Open Road Integrated Media in federal court in New York, seeking to block Open Road from selling an e-book edition of Jean Craighead George's 1972 children's novel "Julie of the Wolves." Open Road, which published the e-book version last August, is run by Jane Friedman, a former CEO of HarperCollins. The lawsuit appears likely to reopen a critical issue relating to e-book rights that was thought to be resolved about a decade ago. That is, whether book contracts written before the digital age granted publishers digital rights, or whether those rights were retained by the author and could be sold to an e-publisher.
benton.org/node/110156 | Wall Street Journal
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TELECOM
USF CONTRIBUTIONS
[SOURCE: ILEC Advisor, AUTHOR: Cassandra Heyne]
When you glance at the National Broadband Plan action item website, you will see that it is reportedly at the 80% completion mark as the plan nears its 2 year anniversary. Then, look at the section called “Accelerate Universal Broadband Access and Adoption”—this is where all the “good stuff” on Universal Service Reform/Intercarrier Compensation reform lives—and you will see that the Federal Communications Commission’s goals have largely been achieved. Except for one: the elusive USF Contributions NPRM. According to the action item agenda, “To stabilize support mechanisms for universal service programs, in Q4 2010 propose rules to reform the process for collecting contributions to the USF.” Well, here we are a year after this objective should have been achieved and still no progress on USF contributions reform…and the National Telecommunications Cooperative Association (NTCA) is not letting the FCC forget about it.
NTCA discussed with FCC staff “prompt and effective reform of the contributions mechanism that enables the federal universal service fund.” NTCA argued for a revenue-based contributions mechanisms that “is technology neutral and best captures the value that consumers place on competing services;” “reflects the balance that consumers strike between different service offerings and the evolution of consumer preference;” is the “most equitable means of sharing responsibility;” and “can be implemented quickly with little burden to providers or the industry.” NTCA further argues that a revenue-based mechanism would be stabilizing and not overly complex, unlike a mechanism based on numbers or connections. NTCA believes that the FCC has ample authority to extend the contributions base.
benton.org/node/110112 | ILEC Advisor
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TELECOM CAPITAL BUDGESTS FLAT
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Rolfe Winkler]
Sometimes success in the technology arena boils down to little more than how big a check Randall Stephenson and Lowell McAdam plan to cut. The chief executives, respectively, of AT&T and Verizon have a combined annual capital-expenditure budget of over $35 billion. Unfortunately for Juniper Networks, and many others lately, those checks aren't growing. Juniper joined the chorus citing weak spending by "service providers" like AT&T and Verizon as the reason behind December-quarter results coming in below expectations. Texas Instruments, Acme Packet, Cavium and Altera, among others, had made similar statements. Knowing that 60% of Juniper's sales are to service providers, Juniper investors were already prepared for the worst. Its shares didn't react much on Monday, though they are already down 33% in the past six months. But investors shouldn't expect much to change. Spending at AT&T and Verizon isn't getting a boost any time soon.
benton.org/node/110149 | Wall Street Journal
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GOVERNEMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
GOVERNMENT TRACKS IPHONE USE
[SOURCE: Fast Company, AUTHOR: Neal Ungerleider]
Last week, an Indian hacker crew successfully broke into a secured Indian military government network. The group, the Lords of Dharmaraja, posted documents that infer Apple, Nokia, and Research In Motion gave the Indian government backdoor access to their devices in exchange for mobile phone market rights. Indian government officials say the files are forgeries; however, they fit in perfectly with what we know about mobile phone surveillance in 2012.
Fast Company has reported extensively on smartphone and computer security fears. In the documents, which have been posted on multiple mirrors, India military intelligence refers multiple times to a system known as RINOA SUR. According to ZDNet India's Manan Kakkar, the RINOA portion of the acronym refers to “RIM, Nokia, Apple,” while the SUR portion is unknown. The documents describe a backdoor mobile phone surveillance system in great detail. The documents also infer that network access was granted to the Indian government in exchange for the right to sell to Indian consumers.
benton.org/node/110054 | Fast Company
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HEALTH
EHRs AND HEALTH DISPARITIES
[SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Frederik Joelving]
Switching to electronic health records might help close health gaps between black and white Americans, researchers suggest in a new study. They say government data on primary care visits from 2007 to 2008 show that when doctors didn't use digital records, there was a racial gap in how many patients had high blood pressure. But there was no such gap among patients treated at practices with electronic record-keeping. That could be important, because African Americans are more likely to have high blood pressure than whites, which might in turn explain why they also have more heart attacks, strokes and kidney disease, said Dr. Lipika Samal, who worked on the new study.
benton.org/node/110085 | Reuters
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POLICYMAKERS
JIM FELLOWS
[SOURCE: Current, AUTHOR: ]
James A. Fellows, 77, an advocate of high ideals and strategic planning for public television, died in his sleep Friday, Jan. 6, at a nursing home in Millville (NJ). Fellows represented stations on the national scene for 40 years, serving as the last president of the National Association of Educational Broadcasters, founding Current as a service of NAEB, remaining its publisher for more than 20 years, and working to establish a strategic planning unit for the famously fractured and decentralized public TV field. In 1979, CPB honored him with its highest award for achievement in public television, the Ralph Lowell Medal. From 1983 to 2003 he led Central Educational Network, a regional association of stations, and for years he chaired the Maryland Public Television Foundation. A longtime participant in the Prix Jeunesse biennial children’s TV festival, he chaired its international advisory board and founded what is now the American Center for Children and Media, based in Chicago.
benton.org/node/110053 | Current
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