April 2012

Every major federal agency is now using Twitter and YouTube and 23 of the 24 major agencies are on Facebook. The Nuclear Regulatory Agency -- the only major agency reported as not using any of the three major social networking sites in a June 2011 report by the Government Accountability Office -- joined Twitter in August 2011 and launched a YouTube page a month later, spokeswoman Holly Harrington said. GAO did not study agencies' presence on Google+, Flickr, Pinterest and other social networking sites.

For better or for worse, your kids may never really have to work out exactly where they are on the planet or where they're going--one device or another will do it for them, and Google and the cloud will help.

One of the more startling things, if you were watching closely, in the concept video for Google's AR-goggle "Glass" project last week was when the wearer asked his device how to get to a particular part of a store he was in. The goggles not only knew where he was standing, but where he wanted to go on the store's floor plan and worked out how to route him past floor displays and other obstacles to get where he wanted to go. Think about that the next time you're lost in a huge department store. But how did Google get that data? Well, because people like you provided it. Google just released a tool that lets you provide exactly this sort of information to Google's map database. All you need is a compatible Android device and the app from Google's Play app market. When wandering around your building, the app collects information about what GPS signals it can capture, as well as ID and signal information about public Wi-Fi transmitters and cell towers. This is basically the same info Google's Street View systems capture, which got Google into trouble when it also sniffed passwords and other private info, but this time inside a building on a much more intimate scale. It's actually just the latest move from Google to make this info relevant, since last November it released Google Maps Floor Plans to let companies actually mark out the arrangement of their floors with a software tool.

Competing online video services have become so successful that about one-third of Americans have streamed a movie or TV show on Netflix, Hulu, Vudu, Crackle or another Net-based video service, according to Nielsen.

Americans will watch 3.4 billion movies online this year, more than doubling 2011's total and exceeding DVD and Blu-ray consumption for the first time, estimates researcher IHS Screen Digest. "We are looking at the beginning of the end of the age of movies" on discs, says IHS senior principal analyst Dan Cryan. Another sign of streaming's success is that entrenched pay-TV providers, such as Comcast, are creating their own similar services in an effort to keep subscribers.

Creating Hollywood's largest entertainment union, members of the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists have voted overwhelmingly to combine into a single bargaining unit.

In an resounding show of support, SAG members voted 82% in favor of the merger, while AFTRA members voted 86% in favor. That was well above the 60% threshold needed for the combination to take effect. SAG represents 125,000 actors, extras and stunt performers in movies and television shows. AFTRA has about 70,000 members who are actors as well as singers, dancers, disc jockeys, sports announcers, comedians and broadcast journalists, among others. About 40,000 people hold membership in both labor groups. The historic vote comes nearly two years after union leaders began discussions to merge in a bid to gain more leverage in contract negotiations with studios and to end a long history of jurisdictional disputes and feuding over negotiating strategy. Under the plan, the new consolidated union will be called simply SAG-AFTRA. National officers, including the president and secretary-treasurer, would be elected directly by members. However, some other positions, such as an executive vice president, would be elected by delegates at a convention held every two years -- a concession to AFTRA's tradition of using conventions and delegates. SAG elects its officers directly by a vote of members.