April 2012

Tech firms face netroots uprising

In the wake of SOPA, everyone hailed the new power of the tech lobby to rile up the online masses and stop Congress in its tracks. But now, the netroots are turning on tech companies.

Facebook, IBM and other firms — along with lawmakers — have been targeted this week in attacks on Twitter and Facebook, via email and online petitions and threatened by hackers for backing a cybersecurity bill that opponents claim would facilitate spying on Web users. Tweets are one thing, but Anonymous used support of the controversial bill last week as an excuse to disable the websites of trade groups TechAmerica and USTelecom. “Cyberbullying,” one tech company insider dubbed it. “Knowing you could be hacked or have your Facebook swamped with complaints makes it harder to express any opinion in the policy process, whether you’re conservative or liberal,” the company insider said. “It’s hard to even tell if the protesting emails and petitions are legitimate or manufactured.”

The virtual masses already have a litany of crossed-out names on their hit list: SOPA, the Susan G. Komen Foundation and the American Legislative Exchange Council. Now, companies that have weighed in on the controversial Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act are being attacked on social media by savvy cyberactivists who have figured out that they can have more sway over Washington with smartphones and catchy hashtag phrases than with high-priced lobbyists. Worse yet, the hacker collective Anonymous last week lent some freelance muscle, unleashing denial-of-service attacks on the websites of Boeing, TechAmerica and USTelecom in response to their CISPA support. More attacks have been threatened.

How Verizon might kill any hope for LTE interoperability

[Commentary] The technology wars were supposed to be over. The global adoption of LTE as a common 4G technology was going to heal the rift between the CDMA and GSM camps and give U.S. consumers more freedom to switch between carriers, as well as the ability to choose from set of common devices that could work on any network. Well forget it: Verizon’s planned sale of its extra LTE spectrum pretty much quashes that dream.

Instead of coalescing around mutually exclusive technologies, U.S. carriers are now coalescing around mutually exclusive spectrum bands; but the result is the same. A Verizon LTE phone won’t work on an AT&T LTE network, and vice versa. This was always going to be a problem, but Verizon’s proposed fire sale of 700 MHz licenses would essentially codify that rift. If Verizon dumps all of its lower 700 MHz spectrum, it won’t share a single similar license with any of the country’s other operators, effectively creating its own private band within the 700 MHz airwaves. That means device makers like Apple will have to design phones that work on Verizon’s network and no one else’s. That means dozens of carriers who own spectral real estate in the same band won’t be able to roam onto Verizon’s network. LTE was supposed to change everything, but the industry remains as Balkanized as it always was.

Industry tells House panel private sector will be key in fixing spectrum crunch

Experts and industry advocates told members of a House Science, Space and Technology subpanel that new technology allowing scarce radio spectrum to be shared won't be enough to meet demand.

CTIA Vice President Christopher Guttman-McCabe said such technologies are neither feasible nor desirable at this time, when available spectrum must support increasingly complex mobile devices — which Americans depend on more and more. While the recently announced National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NIST) plan to release some government-held spectrum is a good start, he said, more spectrum must be cleared and released to the consumer market if a spectrum crisis is to be prevented. "Without exclusive licenses [for the private sector]," he said, "it is doubtful that the massive investment … in [wireless services]" would have happened. Cisco spectrum policy director Mary Brown agreed, saying "there is no end in sight" to the exponential growth in consumer wireless device usage.

Ranking member Donna Edwards (D-MD) asked what government and the private sector could do while reallocating spectrum to "step up research and development" of spectrum-sharing technology that would meet future needs. Richard Bennett, an Information Technology and Innovation Foundation senior research fellow, suggested redesigning applications to use commercial networking technologies. "One of the things that it's important to realize is there's no downside" to acting on the assumption that the spectrum crunch is real. Subramanian added that we've "started too late" and that as a result, there isn't much spectrum to repurpose. Offloading traffic to landlines or Wi-Fi can only do so much, he said.

Apple wants trial on e-book price-fixing: lawyer

Apple wants to go to trial to defend itself against U.S. government allegations that it conspired with publishers to raise prices of electronic books, a lawyer for the company said in court. Macmillan, a unit of Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck GmbH, and Pearson Plc's Penguin Group took a similar stance in the first hearing in Manhattan federal court since the anti-trust division of the Department of Justice last week accused Apple and five publishers of colluding to break up Amazon's low-cost dominance of the digital book market.

The judge scheduled the next hearing for June 22. The court also heard that 15 U.S. states and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico were in settlement talks with the three publishers. If all 50 states were ultimately to settle, it would have an impact on a separate class action brought by consumers, a HarperCollins lawyer, Shepard Goldfein, told the judge.

Cybersecurity Markup Sparks Democratic Dissent

House Homeland Security Chairman Peter King (R-NY) had a small mutiny on his hands during a markup of cybersecurity legislation. Despite a noticeable absence of most of the Republicans on the committee, Chairman King repeatedly ruled that Democratic amendments failed on voice vote. That sparked derision from the minority, who were unimpressed with King's protests that he was following long-standing precedent.

"It can appear to be done in an arbitrary way, but we try to run the committee in a congenial way," Chairman King said. Democrats responded by calling for votes by division, only to have Republicans ask for recorded votes, which the committee delayed until more members of the committee were present. Later in the hearing King relented and allowed some Democratic amendments to pass on voice votes.

House GOP leaders rebuff White House push on cybersecurity

House Republican leaders are standing firm against intense pressure from the White House to embrace regulatory mandates for cybersecurity.

The Obama Administration is leaning on Congress to pass legislation that would require some private companies to meet minimum standards for protecting their computer networks. Heavyweights from the administration, including Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, FBI Director Robert Mueller and National Security Agency Director Keith Alexander, were dispatched to Capitol Hill to outline the threats facing critical infrastructure. But GOP leaders in the House are opposed to adding more regulatory mandates on private businesses and are moving forward with cybersecurity legislation next week that would be purely voluntary.

The future of KCET

KCET-TV pushes into its second year of independence from PBS with a new headquarters, a new slogan and new pledges about the thoughtful and provocative shows it will produce about Southern California.

"Where the story really gets good," the fresh tag line declares. Management hopes it also applies to KCET's attempts to go it alone as one of the nation's handful of independent public television stations. Chief Executive Al Jerome said in a recent interview that KCET was making "really good progress" in its three-year plan to create a winning destination without public TV name brands such as "Sesame Street," "NewsHour" and the hit "Downton Abbey." Where Jerome and his top staff see steady progress, though, critics inside and outside the station see a sluggish old media franchise that is spending lavishly on its new studio in Burbank (fully occupied as of this week), burdened with a top-heavy management and slow to launch new shows to replace the familiar old ones. KCET's biggest in-house production, the award-winning "SoCal Connected" news magazine, went on hiatus this spring earlier than in some past years, due to a paucity of funding.

Menlo Park council unanimously approves deal for Facebook expansion

In almost anti-climactic fashion, the Menlo Park City Council unanimously approved a deal that allows Facebook to eventually bring in thousands of additional employees to its new campus in exchange for pumping millions of dollars into city coffers.

Just before the vote, Council Member Rich Cline disclosed that the city had made a "last-round" request in negotiations and Facebook "collaborated again" in response. "I'm done asking. Now I want to move to execution," Cline said, without revealing the city's final request. Speaking to the council, Facebook Chief Financial Officer David Ebersman called the agreement a "thoughtful and generous commitment" from the company. "This isn't the time for new negotiations," he added. As part of the deal, Facebook will provide a combination of community benefits, environmental commitments, pedestrian and bicycle pathway improvements and other amenities that the council said in February it expects when laying out parameters for the negotiating team, Public Works Director Charles Taylor said. Facebook also agreed to work with East Palo Alto to address its concerns about traffic and housing. For its part, Menlo Park agreed to process permits expeditiously and assured the social media company it wouldn't throw unexpected city fees and other wrenches its way.

Stuck With a $10,000 Phone Bill

When in roam, be careful with your phone. Smartphones and tablet computers set to automatically update data can trigger hundreds, even thousands, of dollars in expensive roaming charges. Data plans have become a more expensive travel gotcha than expensive voice-call rates overseas—as high as $5 or more per minute. Even if your phone checks the local temperature, that'll cost you. AT&T T and Verizon charge up to $20 per megabyte, so uploading a few photos, downloading a few attachments or watching three minutes of YouTube video can easily cost $100; watching a full-length feature movie through an Internet-based service can be an $18,000 show ticket.

Sony wins antitrust approval for EMI deal

A Sony-led consortium will win approval from Brussels for its $2.2 billion purchase of EMI’s music publishing business, giving unexpectedly early antitrust approval to one half of a deal to split the independent British music group.

To allay the European Commission’s competition concerns, Sony will sell EMI Music Publishing catalogues generating about €25m in revenues annually from songwriters such as Ozzy Osbourne, Culture Club and Tears for Fears, according to people involved in the negotiations. While Sony was forced to sweeten the original offer it made to the Commission, winning early clearance is an important breakthrough for the consortium that will allow it to avoid a lengthy in-depth investigation.

By contrast, Vivendi’s Universal Music is facing a full Brussels probe – exploring competition concerns in both the CD and digital music markets – into its $1.9 billion bid for EMI’s record labels. The Commission has until early September to rule on the proposed deal.

Benton

Search