May 2012

NAB Drops Challenge of FCC's White Space Decision

The National Association of Broadcasters has dropped its court challenge of the Federal Communications Commission's 2008 decision on allowing the use of unlicensed devices in the so-called "white spaces" between TV channels.

"NAB has reviewed the FCC's Third Opinion and Order and determined that it is no longer necessary for it to pursue this petition for review," said NAB in asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to dismiss the challenge.

"We commend NAB for filing to dismiss its court challenge to the FCC's white spaces order," said unlicensed device fans Public Knowledge. "Assuming the court grants the motion, the last potential legal obstacle to the use of this valuable unlicensed spectrum will be removed and the innovations that are just beginning can continue to proceed with new confidence."

FCC Temporarily Stays Enforcement of Tennis Channel Decision

The Federal Communications Commission has stayed the administrative law judge decision granting Tennis Channel's program carriage complaint against Comcast, but only until the FCC commissioners vote on Chairman Julius Genachowski's proposal "addressing the Tennis Channel's petition to compel compliance and Comcast's petition for conditional stay." Chairman Genachowski has issues with the decision and his proposed order says the stay will allow that reexamination of the record while "avoiding potential disruption to consumers and third-party programmers in the event that the commission subsequently reverses or modifies the ALJ's remedy."

Ad Industry Takes Major Step to Fight Online Piracy

The advertising industry took a step in fighting rogue websites that steal copyrighted material and sell counterfeit goods. To cut off the financial support that keeps rogue sites alive, the nation’s two major ad industry associations recommended agencies and marketers take steps to keep brands' ads off those sites. The Association of National Advertisers (ANA) and the American Association of Advertising Agencies (4A’s) released the statement of best practices during the International Anti-Counterfeiting Conference in Washington, DC. Supported by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), the groups advised marketers to include language in their media placement contracts and insertion orders to prevent ads from appearing on rogue sites.

YouTube Commits $200M to Promote Premium 'Channels'

There was Jay-Z, Flo Rida and the Neon Trees; Julia Stiles, Jennifer Beals, Virginia Madsen and Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt. YouTube threw a star-studded show for advertisers to tout its $100 million investment new "channels," a bid to bring professional entertainment to the world's largest video site. It also unveiled a $200 million campaign across Google's Content Network to push those channels -- meaning online ads promoting the nascent entertainment brands will start appearing in a big way.

It doesn’t matter what e-books cost to make

Book publishers are trying hard to defend the pricing of e-books — perhaps in part because they’ve been accused by the Justice Department of rigging prices to keep them artificially high — by arguing that it costs a lot more than most people think to produce the electronic version of a book. But as author Chuck Wendig notes, what e-books cost to manufacture or distribute is irrelevant to everyone but the publishers themselves.

All that matters is what book consumers are willing to pay for an e-book — and the same principle applies for any form of digital content. Hearing the complaints of book buyers must be frustrating for publishers, because they actually have a pretty good case for why e-books cost what they do. Although many see the price of old-fashioned things like paper and printing presses and trucks to ship them as a big cost for printed books, publishers like Penguin point out that the main costs involve advance payments to authors, marketing and other support expenses — things that also apply to e-books.

Now Europe wants you to prove how old you are online

Is the age of online anonymity coming to an end? If you live in the European Union, that might soon be the case.

New information came out regarding an EU project called the pan-European framework for electronic identification, authentication and signature (PEFIAS) is out — and it’s had some interesting tweaks. We heard about this plan for the first time late last year, when it was proposed as a good way of making online transactions more secure. But now it seems the scheme will also be used to prove people’s age online. Why? For the kids, of course. The one-size-fits-all nature of the internet is increasingly a headache for regulators who are trying to protect children, and here the EU wants to provide a possible cure. This new mission for PEFIAS was revealed in the European Commission’s Strategy for a better internet for children. It’s a weighty document that’s full of suggestions for keeping kids safe online — not just on the desktop, but also on tablets, mobile phones and game consoles, where the EC wants parental control tech to be built in.

Apple hit with national class action over iTunes double-billing

A New York man claims Apple charged him twice for the same song on iTunes and then refused to give him his money back. Now New York resident Robert Herskowitz wants to represent everyone in the country in the same boat. In a complaint filed in San Francisco, Herskowitz wants Apple to pay back everyone who was allegedly charged for double downloads. He also wants special damages and for Apple to change its refund policy. The case appears to hinge on the terms of service for the iTunes store which requires all users to agree to its no refund policy.

Technology helps drive high cost of US healthcare

Higher prices and greater use of technology appear to be the main factors driving the high rates of US spending on healthcare, rather than greater use of physician and hospital services, according to a new study from the Commonwealth Fund.

The study found the U.S. spends more on healthcare than 12 other industrialized countries, yet does not provide “notably superior” care. The US spent nearly $8,000 per person in 2009 on healthcare services, while other countries in the study spent between one-third (Japan and New Zealand) and two-thirds (Norway and Switzerland) as much. While the US performs well on breast and colorectal cancer survival rates, it has among the highest rates of potentially preventable deaths from asthma and amputations due to diabetes, and rates that are no better than average for in-hospital deaths from heart attack and stroke. US healthcare spending amounted to more than 17 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2009, compared with 12 percent or less in other study countries. Japan’s spending, which was the lowest, amounted to less than 9 percent of GDP, according to study author David Squires, senior research associate at The Commonwealth Fund.

Big Data Could Remake Science – and Government

Big data has the power to change scientific research from a hypothesis-driven field to one that’s data-driven, Farnam Jahanian, chief of the National Science Foundation’s Computer and Information Science and Engineering Directorate. Reaching that point, however, will require upfront investment from government and the private sector to build infrastructure for data analysis and new collaboration tools, Jahanian said. He was speaking at a big data briefing for congressional staff hosted by the industry group TechAmerica.

BART Defends Mobile Service Shutdown to the FCC

Disrupting mobile phone service is a legitimate tool for law enforcement authorities working against terrorism or other dangerous situations, a mass transit agency has said in defending its own mobile shutdown last August. The Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) District, serving the San Francisco area, has an obligation to protect its riders, wrote Grace Crunican, BART's general manager, in a filing to the Federal Communications Commission.

The FCC has been investigating BART's three-hour shutdown of mobile-phone base stations in some of its San Francisco stations last August in an attempt to disrupt a planned protest. Mobile devices can be used to detonate explosives, Crunican wrote. "BART is concerned ... that it must have the tools at its disposal to protect that public from wrongful use of wireless devices, as they can be used as an instrument for doing harm to passengers and BART employees," she wrote. "A temporary disruption of cell phone service, under extreme circumstances where harm and destruction are imminent, is a necessary tool to protect passengers."

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