February 2012

The Wireless Equivalent of Fracking

[Commentary] Freedom to innovate is a concept that was lost in the fiasco of the government's recent review and quashing of a proposed merger of AT&T and T-Mobile. Regulators feared the wireless industry congealing into an uncompetitive duopoly of AT&T and Verizon thanks to an alleged shortage of regulated spectrum. Yet this picture was already being utterly upended by the mobile equivalent of fracking.

The mobile equivalent of fracking is Wi-Fi. Wi-Fi is free, unregulated spectrum, separate from the regulated spectrum that mobile operators buy from the government. Faster than anyone might have guessed, Wi-Fi is blowing up the distinction between fixed and wireless networks and exerting subtle but serious downward pressure on what cellular operators can charge for access to their cellular networks. You, me or the kid down the block can set up a Wi-Fi hot spot that, if open to the public, allows free high-speed access to anybody within a radius of a few hundred feet. Like fracking, only later have big companies noticed the potential and begun rolling out professionally-managed Wi-Fi networks to help deliver mobile broadband coverage without the huge costs (including spectrum costs) of building a cellular network.

Lawmakers say questions remain about Google’s policy

Lawmakers said that they still have questions regarding Google’s privacy policies after receiving an explanatory letter from the company.

Reps. Cliff Stearns (R-FL) and Ed Markey (D-MA) both said they had lingering questions about the policy, particularly about whether the company will allow its account holders to opt out of data collection and integration between its services. Rep Stearns praised Google for responding quickly and simplifying its policies, but said that he would like Google to brief lawmakers on its responses before the policy goes into effect March 1. Rep Markey said that he understands that integrating data makes good business sense for Google, but that he believes it “undermines privacy safeguards” in place for consumers.

Google to give closed-door briefing on policy changes

Google CEO Larry Page won't be testifying before Congress this week. In response to an invitation last week from Rep. Mary Bono Mack (R-CA), who asked Page to appear and explain the company's user policy changes, two other Google executives will appear. Google deputy general counsel Mike Yang and public policy director Pablo Chavez are preparing to deliver a closed-door briefing on Feb 2, says Ken Johnson, Mack's senior adviser. The audience will be restricted to members of the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade, which Mack chairs. Rep. G.K. Butterfield (D-NC) is the ranking minority subcommittee member.

Feasting on junk info

[Commentary] There is a new kind of ignorance afoot in the world, one that results from overconsumption of information rather than from a lack of access to it. It's fashionable to blame cable television and the Internet for this new ignorance. And it's true that if you spend much time watching cable news and surfing the Internet, you'll come away thinking that many information providers are more interested in fanning fear and feeding people's preconceived notions than they are at communicating truth. But we should really blame ourselves for the content we're seeing. Why? Because what shows up on the Internet and cable television is shaped by what we choose to click on and watch, and we're making terrible choices. Your habits have immense power. A movement led by a few dozen activists and a few high-end consumers led Wal-Mart to significantly reduce the salt, fat and sugar content in the foods it sells. You can do the same thing for the media. Let's make the market chase us. Consume deliberately, consume locally, consume close to the original source, consume less and produce more. Seek facts, not comfort. And not all the time. We'll all be better off.

White House office studies benefits of video games

If you're training for a new job someday soon with a video game controller in your hands, thank Constance Steinkuehler. This summer, when your kids' favorite science museum boasts a new augmented-reality environmental simulation? Same deal. If in the next few years a video game teaches you anything — how to conserve energy, eat a balanced diet or solve quadratic equations — consider the invisible hand of one of the most unconventional White House hires in recent memory.

Steinkuehler studies video games. Since last September, she has been a senior policy analyst at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, where she's shaping the Obama administration's policies around games that improve health, education, civic engagement and the environment, among other areas. On leave for 18 months from the School of Education at the University of Wisconsin with MacArthur Foundation funding, Steinkuehler says the job represents "an incredible opportunity to make good on the claim that games have real promise."

NCTA Advises USDA to Help Institute FCC's USF Reforms

The National Cable & Telecommunications Association has advised Secretary of Agriculture Thomas Vilsack to work with, not against, the Federal Communications Commission to reform the Universal Service Fund.

In a letter to Vilsack, NCTA President Michael Powell, a former FCC chairman, said that all parties had to make concessions, but that the reform effort needs to proceed. Powell said he appreciated that the USF reform has "significant consequences" for the phone companies that receive loans from the USDAs' Rural Utilities Service, but that those rural carriers assertions that the reform order is a "downside only" approach is wrong. NCTA was weighing in after the National Telecommunications Cooperative Association, OPASTCO and the Western Telecom Alliance wrote Vilsack to take issue with the FCC's USF reform, adopted last fall, and ask USDA to intervene, to advise against some of those changes.

Marketing to Young Fans on Their Technology Level

The founders of the Whistle have a single aspiration: create an ESPN for kids. It is no small ambition.

Sports television viewing is dominated by the habits of men 25 and older, who are targets for commercial pitches for beer, cars and insurance. Until now, pint-size fans watched what Mom, Dad and older siblings did — including the Cialis ads. ESPN’s many spin-offs include none for the 6- to 16-year-olds in the Whistle’s sights. Enter the Whistle. Rather than build an old-style brick-and-mortar cable network, it is plotting its digital domain out of its Web site; a channel on YouTube; channels that it hopes to occupy on the major gaming consoles; and time that it is buying on the NBC Sports Network. The Whistle’s executives believe that their audience can be found among the tens of millions of children who play organized sports and who navigate with increasing ease between televisions, computers, tablets, cellphones, apps and social media.

Introducing the iFactory

[Commentary] Apple’s production practices have been a subject of consternation for several years.

CEO Tim Cook should launch a long-term plan to completely remake Chinese contract manufacturing—a plan that improves factory conditions, raises wages, and, over the long run, reduces the number of workers needed to make electronics. He should do so publicly, telling the world exactly what’s wrong with how we make gadgets now, and how Apple plans to fix the system. And he should do so with the same commitment to excellence that Apple brings to its products—setting high standards, and meting out severe punishment for contractors who fail to meet them.

Why should Apple revolutionize electronics manufacturing? Not just because it’s the right thing to do—even a company as successful as Apple can’t afford to spend billions just to make itself feel better. The more pressing problem is its image; if Apple ignores this problem, the specter of “conflict iPhones” is going to swallow its brand. While there is no evidence to suggest that Apple’s factories are any worse than those of its competitors—in fact, many of them use the same contractors to make their devices—no company benefits more from low-cost Chinese labor than Apple. If it continues to deliver monster earnings, scrutiny of its factories isn’t going to stop.

What’s more, Apple is in a unique position to change how the world’s gadgets are made.

Gov.uk launches one UK government website to rule them all

The first major product of sweeping changes to how the UK government handles its internal IT systems and public-facing websites is to be unveiled on Feb 1, as a new unified website for online public services goes live for testing. A new single government domain, at www.gov.uk, will replace Directgov, the portal which launched in 2004, before extending across Whitehall departments’ sites in the coming weeks. The “simpler, clearer, faster” site has been designed with search engines and smartphones in mind. Early testing on 2,000 people by civil servants cut by a third the time it took people to find information or complete a task. In some cases, dozens of pages have been whittled down to a multiple-choice process to guide users to their particular destination.

Benton

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