May 2012

The President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology recent report alludes to spectrum-sharing technologies that would help address the exploding demand for mobile data spurred by smartphones and tablets. How exactly would this spectrum-sharing technology work? Steven Crowley, a wireless engineer who works as a consultant to carriers, government agencies and others, said that the system should be designed so that federal, nonfederal and commercial entities can share available radio spectrum. In order for something like this to work, the government would need to use a centralized system to scan the radio waves and be aware of the spectrum environment. This system would be able to find which frequencies are available and choose the best one for a mobile device to make a connection. Mobile devices themselves can also be equipped with special sensing circuitry to detect what frequencies other cellphones are using, and to choose a frequency that is less crowded, he said. More advanced antennas would also help with this effort, Crowley said. A conventional radio antenna on a cellphone tower spews energy in all directions, but only a portion of it goes to the right phone. A technology called the smart antenna would direct energy straight at phones, and as a result, current spectrum would be put to more efficient use. The idea of sharing unused spectrum seems fairly obvious, raising the question of why it hasn’t already been done. Crowley said the technologies required for spectrum-sharing had only recently matured.

On May 30, the Federal Trade Commission holds a workshop that will look at how companies should disclose incentives on social-media "platforms that allow only short messages or a simple sign of approval," says FTC advertising practices chief Mary Engle.

Incentives for consumers to "like" companies on Facebook fall into a "gray area" that depends on whether the number of likes a company has influences consumers in choosing their products, Engle says. The FTC's advertising endorsement guidelines require compensation to be disclosed, as with Twitter hashtags such as "#paid," she says. The National Consumers League's Sally Greenberg, who is testifying at the FTC workshop, says consumers on social media need the same protections as with traditional advertising. Consumers need to be protected "from false and deceptive advertising" in "new media," says Greenberg.

Apparently, Facebook has received notice that the Federal Trade Commission will give its proposed purchase of the popular photo-sharing app maker Instagram a lengthy investigation.

Facebook has received a "second request" from the FTC, essentially a request for relatively large amounts of data that the regulators will sift through to ensure that the deal complies with antitrust law. A prolonged review adds another headache to the No. 1 social network. The purchase of the photo-sharing service on the Internet is a crucial part of Facebook's strategy to bolster its mobile offerings at a time when consumers are increasingly accessing the Internet through smartphones.

One of the big story lines in this year's presidential election is the unprecedented role of outside money. Millions are being raised and spent by groups that back one candidate or another. Those groups are buying advertisements, often to launch attacks on the candidates they don't like. It's an area where pro-Republican ads have overwhelmingly outnumbered those backing Democrats. One place these ads are hard to miss is in Iowa. It's not even summer yet, and the dust from the primaries has barely settled.