May 2012

Senate Dems modifying cybersecurity bill to pick up GOP votes

Senate Democrats are quietly revamping cybersecurity legislation in an attempt to pick up Republican votes. The move is an acknowledgement that they currently lack the 60 votes needed to bring their preferred bill to the floor. "Undoubtedly we'll make some changes," a Senate Democratic aide said. But he said getting the legislation through the Senate "is not as hard of a lift as some people have made it out to be." The aide predicted that the entire Senate Democratic caucus will vote for the bill.

Google Said to Face Fine by US Over Apple Safari Breach

Google is negotiating with the Federal Trade Commission over how big a fine it will have to pay for its breach of Apple’s Safari Internet browser, a person familiar with the matter said. The fine could amount to more than $10 million dollars, said the person, who declined to be identified because the talks are confidential. The fine would be the first by the FTC for a violation of Internet privacy as the agency steps up enforcement of consumers’ online rights. The FTC is preparing to allege that Google deceived consumers and violated terms of a consent decree signed with the commission last year when it planted so-called cookies on Safari, bypassing Apple software’s privacy settings, the person said.

Oracle v. Google judge asks for comment on EU court ruling

The copyright phase of the Oracle v. Google trial is winding down. While the world waits for a jury verdict on the facts, the judge overseeing the case is wrestling with the complexities of the law.

Oracle has argued that the "structure, sequence and organization" of the Java API is eligible for copyright protection, while Google disagrees. Judge William Alsup asked each party to submit a 20-page brief answering a series of 13 in-depth questions about the Java API and the relevant precedents. Among other things, he asked the parties to weigh in on the implications of this week's EU court decision that allowing functional characteristics of programming languages to be copyrighted would "monopolize" ideas. Some of Judge Alsup's comments in the courtroom in recent days suggested that he is skeptical of Oracle's position.

Can France’s Free keep its wireless revolution going?

The first official casualty reports emerged this week in Free Mobile’s price war against Frances’ mobile powers that be. France Telecom’s Orange reported a 615,000 subscriber loss, or 2.3 percent of its total customers. People are flocking in droves to Free’s ultra-cheap voice and data plans, but there are also signs that the upstart operator will have trouble keeping its wireless French Revolution raging.

Verizon is selling its spectrum, but is anyone buying?

[Commentary] On April 19, Verizon Wireless surprised many people by announcing that it would sell its 700MHz A-and B-block holdings if the Federal Communications Commission approves its proposed $3.9 billion purchase of SpectrumCo and Cox Communications’ Advanced Wireless Spectrum (AWS) holdings (as well as a smaller spectrum swap with Leap Wireless). This comes despite Verizon’s recent well-publicized assertions that it will start running out of LTE capacity by 2013 if it doesn’t get approval for the SpectrumCo deal. That’s led some of us to wonder whether Verizon is really as short on spectrum as it claims. However, what’s more intriguing is whether Verizon can actually pull off this sale and meet Verizon CFO Fran Shammo’s claims on its Q1 2012 results call that Verizon will be able to get a “return” on its original investment.

As Public Knowledge’s Harold Feld points out, Verizon is making as an incredibly smart move to wrong-foot both its competitors and the FCC. In as single stroke it can get its SpectrumCo transaction approved without allowing smaller competitors to close the “spectrum gap” between themselves and AT&T and Verizon. Moreover, if the FCC allows Verizon to set a reserve price on its 700 MHz licenses based on its apparent intention to make a profit over what was paid in 2008, it is possible that Verizon may be able to get its AWS while keeping many of the A-and B-block licenses it claims to be sacrificing. Verizon paid relatively high prices for those licenses in 2008, and it is far from clear whether smaller competitors are in a position to pay more for these licenses today than they were prepared to bid back in 2008.

New Study Follows Kids On Social Media

You're 18 years old. What can social media do for you? What can it do to you?

Social media benefits adolescents by creating connection, academic opportunities, and access to health information. On the other hand, it has created cyberbullying, sexting, and Facebook depression. But how true is any of this, and just what are adolescents doing on social media every day? A new phase of a multi-year study -- kind of a digital version of the famous "7-Up" documentary series -- will attempt an answer. The research, led by Marion K. Underwood, a professor at the University of Texas, Dallas, actually began in 2003. Underwood, UT’s Ashbel Smith Professor, School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences, and her research group started a study on social aggression with a group of 175 nine-year-olds (third graders). Five years later, and before the students began ninth grade, they received BlackBerry devices from Underwood and her team. With lots of confidentiality and firewall arrangements, Underwood was able to embark on a new phase of the longitudinal study by recording each text message, photo, email, and IM.

Will 4G Catalyze Rural Telemedicine?

Wireless 4G networks might be the best way to deliver telemedicine in rural areas, even better than wired broadband, a rural practitioner said at the American Telemedicine Association’s annual meeting.

But neither is available in much of rural America. Outside of the country's metropolitan areas, broadband access is spotty, despite federal efforts to expand networks. Wireless 4G coverage is rapidly expanding, yet it too is available primarily in cities, writes SearchHealthIT’s Don Fluckinger. It’s an important issue, since areas that are least accessible to high-speed Internet access are the ones that most need telemedicine to connect patients with specialists in bigger cities.

Nielsen: 1.5M U.S. households cut the cord in 2011

One thing seems certain: the number of US homes subscribing to a cable, satellite or telephone company for a multichannel TV bundle isn’t growing as fast as it used to.

In fact, belying several earlier research studies, which said growth of U.S. multi-channel services has slowed significantly but not stopped, Nielsen’s latest “Cross-Platform Report” says the number of U.S. homes paying a multichannel provider for TV services last year actually declined by 1.5 million, or about 1.5 percent. Subscription gains made by telco providers AT&T and Verizon (about 1.1 million) and satellite service companies DirecTV and Dish (added 280,000 subscribers) could not offset the over 2.9 million subscriptions lost by cable providers, Nielsen reports.

Why are kids’ e-book sales surging? Partly because adults are reading them

New stats from the Association of American Publishers show that kids’ and young adult e-book sales grew by triple digits in February, while adult e-book sales appeared to flatten. But the AAP notes that’s partly due to the fact that so many adults are reading YA e-books like the “Hunger Games” trilogy.

The AAP notes that adult e-book growth in February 2012 appeared to slow (adult e-book sales were only 9.9 percent higher this February than last February) because February 2011 included “an unusual one-off retail revenue transaction” making sales that month “abnormally high.” The AAP was also collecting data from many, many fewer publishers last February (under 100 compared to 1,191 now) so it may indeed be true that adult e-book sales are flattening — but we’d need more than a month of data to deduce that.

From Fiddlers To Franklin: The Showbiz Dilemma

[Commentary] The entertainment industry today is caught in a kind of purgatory, somewhere between Zero Mostel and Franklin Roosevelt. It's an odd place to be, and not sustainable to be there for much longer.

From Mostel, comes the line, "Without our traditions, our lives would be as shaky as... as... as a fiddler on the roof!" from the play, "Fiddler on the Roof." The industry respects, and clings to, its traditions. It is simply trying to scratch out a simple living without breaking its neck, and because of its traditions, the industry has more or less kept its balance for many years. Even so, the industry's lives are becoming increasingly shaky and the balancing act more precarious. In the face of ever-changing audiences and environments, the industry has maintained the never-faltering tradition of steadfast opposition to any technological change whatsoever that would disrupt their business -- even if it eventually profits from those changes. Rather than see technology as an opportunity, the industry always sees it as a threat. Bloomberg BusinessWeek broke the story of the latest chapter in a long saga, as the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) admitted it feared the arrival of Google’s high-speed network in Kansas City.

The entertainment industry should no longer fear technological change. It should no longer cling to a precarious balance on the roof of an industrial structure constructed long ago. It's time to look on technology as an opportunity, and to conquer its fear of the unknown.

Benton

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