February 2012

Google Is Said to Assure Fair Licensing for Motorola Patents

Google, the largest maker of smartphone software, plans to send a letter to standards organizations reassuring them it will license Motorola Mobility Holdings patents on a fair and reasonable basis, according to two people with direct knowledge of the situation. The letter, to be signed by a senior Google lawyer, is likely to be sent within the next 24 hours, according to the people, who asked not to be named because the decision isn’t yet public. The move would come after a deadline passed for Google to submit remedies to the European Commission, which is evaluating the plan to buy Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion. Google, which has drawn scrutiny over the acquisition of Motorola Mobility’s patents, plans to send the letter to several standards organizations, the people said. The groups would include the European Telecommunications Standards Institute, a nonprofit recognized by the European Union. Sending the letter is a “good step” for Google, said Maulin Shah, managing director of patent research firm Envision IP.

AT&T shareholders demand answers

Some AT&T shareholders want more than just dollars and cents from the board of directors in the aftermath of the company’s aborted takeover of T-Mobile: They want to know how company money is being spent to influence politics.

A slew of corporate boards — including those of Apple, Ford and Pepsi — are being petitioned this proxy season by stockholders demanding an accounting of corporate funds being spent on campaigns, super PACs and political causes as corporate governance experts and members of Congress press for new federal rules. “Companies like AT&T are not tracing where shareholder money goes, and there needs to be due diligence on every political contribution, because it could have a wide-ranging effect that could impact the reputation of the company,” said Adam Kanzer, managing director and general counsel for Domini Social Investments, an AT&T shareholder group trying to get the company to disclose more of its political spending.

Silicon Valley job growth sizzles in 2011, but new report also issues warnings

Job growth in Silicon Valley accelerated sharply last year, but the growth has primarily benefitted people in highly skilled technology sectors rather than those in unskilled industries.

Total jobs increased 3.8 percent in Silicon Valley in 2011, a much faster rate of growth than 2010, when the region's job base increased by 0.8 percent. The 2012 Silicon Valley Index report was issued by two nonprofit organizations, Joint Venture: Silicon Valley Network and Silicon Valley Community Foundation. 43 percent of Silicon Valley households are in upper income brackets, earning $100,000 or more; 37 percent are at middle income levels, with household incomes of $35,000 to $100,000; and 20 percent are in the lower-income strata, with household incomes below $35,000. "The gap between those succeeding and those struggling grows wider and wider," said Russell Hancock, president of Joint Venture: Silicon Valley, a group with members from business, government, labor and academia. "It's as if we're becoming two valleys." It's not enough for a region to generate a relatively narrow array of jobs, even if those jobs are in the nation's hottest industries, said Emmett Carson, president of Silicon Valley Community Foundation, a regional center for philanthropy. "A healthy economy requires jobs at all levels," Carson said. "You need people to work at the hospital, you need teachers and bus drivers, you need plumbers and electricians. A healthy economy requires an ecosystem of all kinds of jobs."

Lawmakers Remain Hopeful About Spectrum Bill's Prospects

Two key lawmakers said that despite some differences between the House and Senate approaches to the issue, they are still hopeful spectrum legislation will be included in a package to extend a payroll tax cut. House and Senate lawmakers on the payroll tax cut conference committee met again to try and hammer out differences between the two chambers' versions of the legislation but did not discuss spectrum. Still, House Commerce ranking member Henry Waxman (D-CA), one of the House Democratic conferees, said that staffers are meeting and making slow progress on ways to narrow differences between the House-GOP passed spectrum legislation, which was included in a one-year extension of the payroll tax bill, and a stand-alone bipartisan spectrum bill approved last summer by the Senate Commerce Committee.

LightSquared asks FCC to set tough standards for GPS receivers

Wireless startup LightSquared asked the Federal Communications Commission to set tough technical standards for the design of GPS devices. LightSquared has invested billions of dollars to launch a wireless broadband service, but tests last year showed its planned network could interfere with GPS devices. The company says the problem is that GPS receivers are poorly designed and are receiving signals from outside their designated frequency bands. "If GPS devices had stayed in their own lane, there wouldn't be an issue with LightSquared's network," said Jeff Carlisle, LightSquared's vice president of regulatory affairs. Carlisle accused GPS companies of making "a too big to fail argument" by saying the FCC should give them special protection because of the importance of their devices.

Facebook will release more user data: lobby group

Social media network Facebook has promised to release more information about the data it collects from millions of users, an Austrian group lobbying for respect of privacy laws said. Facebook had agreed in December to overhaul privacy protection for more than half a billion users outside North America after a three-month Irish investigation found that its privacy policies were overly complex and lacked transparency. At a six-hour meeting in Vienna with the europe-v-facebook.org group, Facebook officials pledged more openness.

Scripps Stations Expand Offer to Candidates

As part of “Democracy 2012,” Scripps television stations in all 13 of the company’s television markets will provide a minimum of five minutes of airtime to candidates nightly between 5 and 11:35 p.m. in the 30 days preceding the general elections.

The stations also will provide free airtime as needed during the 30 days preceding primary elections. The Scripps television station group had a similar free airtime policy during the national elections in 2000, 2002, 2004, 2006, 2008 and 2010.

Democracy 2012 includes:

An online portal for Florida voters,
‘Ask the Candidates’ web features,
‘Get out the vote’ public service announcements,
Scripps stations will concentrate editorially on exploring key local issues during each of the 30 days leading up to the general election. Station leadership, through an interactive process with local individuals and citizen groups, will develop election coverage,
special programming such as town hall meetings and debates during the 30 days leading up to the general election,
partnering with the Center for Responsive Politics to offer Web-based, searchable databases that allow voters to research campaign contributions and follow the money trail from the sources all the way to the beneficiaries, and
Scripps Howard News Service in Washington, D.C. is expanding to provide more election material specific to local markets.

Tales from the front lines of the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program

The Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP) is producing jobs, driving growth, providing tools for economic empowerment and improving lives across the country. That was the takeaway from a recent panel discussion at the annual State of the Net conference held in Washington, D.C. last month.

The conference, which is organized by the Advisory Committee to the Congressional Internet Caucus, explores the biggest technology policy issues of the day. This year’s conference included a panel devoted to BTOP, a Recovery Act program administered by NTIA that is investing in roughly 230 projects to increase broadband access and adoption around the country. The BTOP infrastructure projects are bringing broadband to places where it’s lagging and supplying high-capacity connections to schools, hospitals and other anchor institutions that need more bandwidth. These projects are also spurring private-sector investment since local Internet providers can connect to these critical new "middle mile" facilities to serve more homes and businesses. The BTOP adoption programs are teaching computer and digital literacy skills, providing online job search and resume writing assistance, and even training people for technical jobs in the information-age economy. And the BTOP computer centers - located in schools, libraries and other public buildings - are providing broadband access for people who want to go online but lack the resources at home.

The State of the Net panel was moderated by Anthony Wilhelm, who directs the BTOP program for NTIA. But the real stars were the panelists themselves: leaders from five very different BTOP projects across the country who spoke about how Recovery Act investments are closing the digital divide and building the technology infrastructure and skills that America needs to compete in the 21st Century. Throughout the week, we will provide snapshots of each of these projects, along with highlights from each panelist’s remarks. See links to the first two below.

House Science Committee approves network research bill

The House Science Committee reported a bill that would update the government's investment plan for network and information technology (NIT) R&D. The Advancing America’s Networking and Information Technology Research and Development Act of 2012 (H.R. 3834) would overhaul the federal government's policies for funding R&D in the growing NIT space. The bill is an updated version of legislation that passed the Committee in 2009.

When Whinosaurs Attack!

[Commentary] From the same people who brought you Fear Factor, Temptation Island and When Animals Attack! comes one of the most-shocking-but-true stories of hubris, greed and endless griping imaginable.

This is a tale of the vastly powerful but sniveling giants who control your TV, dictate much of our political discourse and get rich doing it -- all while evading even the most basic forms of public accountability. This isn't just another reality show -- it's the reality of what's airing on every local TV station. And as far as station owners and their lobbyists are concerned, their business is none of yours. Broadcasters have pocketed gazillions over the years while using the airwaves free of charge. In exchange, they're supposed to serve the public interest with programming that reflects community needs. But the Federal Communications Commission's modest attempts to hold broadcasters to their end of the bargain are being met by a teeth-gnashing, fire-breathing rhetoric... and pitiful mewling about how hard it is to use a computer.

Benton

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