July 2012

Universal Music faces EU setback on EMI

Europe’s top antitrust watchdog has set out a sweeping list of objections to Universal Music’s £1.2bn bid for EMI’s record labels, putting pressure on the Vivendi subsidiary to offer large concessions to save the deal from being blocked.

According to people who have seen a “statement of objections” circulated by the European Commission, it argues that Universal, the world’s largest music company, already extracts materially higher prices from digital distributors than rivals, and that buying EMI would allow it to raise digital music prices. The Commission disagreed with Universal’s assessment of its market share, which excludes music it distributes for independent record labels, these people said. It was similarly unmoved by its arguments over the countervailing power of Apple and the pressure on legitimate music sales from piracy.

Broadband contract attracts two bidders

Just two companies have been picked to compete for government funds allocated to rolling out broadband to far-flung parts of the UK, under a national framework agreement aimed at cutting costs for local authorities.

The emergence of only two parties is likely to raise further questions about how competitive the selection process has been, given there is no guarantee both will bid for every tender. BT and Fujitsu have been chosen by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, which operates the £530m broadband delivery UK program. This aims to provide superfast broadband to 90 per cent of every county by 2015 and ensure a minimum 2 Mbps elsewhere. The national framework agreement, under which councils can choose from a list of already approved providers, so avoiding some of the costs associated with the tendering process, is aimed at accelerating the speed of rural broadband provision. That spread is seen as a key economic and social need.

Twitter Releases Statistics on Government Requests

Twitter said government agencies in the United States had sought information on 948 Twitter user accounts in the first half of this year, more than any other country in the world.

Japan came second, with requests for information affecting 147 Twitter accounts. The company received a total of six requests from courts and law enforcement agencies worldwide to take down content. They came from countries as varied as France and Pakistan. The company said it had so far complied with none of them. It also took down more than 5,000 tweets in response to requests from copyright holders. The information was released in a blog post announcing what the company called the Transparency Report, detailing government inquiries of who posts what on Twitter. The report, which Twitter said it would compile and publish twice a year, is modeled after a similar effort by Google.

Groups release dueling Internet freedom declarations

Two groups with members who opposed controversial copyright enforcement bills in the Congress have released competing declarations of Internet freedom, two days before the U.S. celebrates its declaration of independence.

One declaration -- backed by Free Press, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Center for Democracy and Technology and other groups -- calls for an end to Internet censorship, universal broadband access and net neutrality principles on an Internet "where everyone is free to connect, communicate, write, read, watch, speak, listen, learn, create and innovate." The second declaration -- from free-market think tanks TechFreedom, the Competitive Enterprise Institute and other groups -- calls on governments to "do no harm" to the Internet and to avoid getting involved in the broadband marketplace. "Government is the greatest obstacle to the emergence of fast and affordable broadband networks," the declaration said. "Rather than subsidizing yesterday's networks, free the market to build tomorrow's."

Verizon urges court to scrap network neutrality rules

Verizon filed a brief in federal court in its lawsuit to overturn the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) network neutrality rules.

The network neutrality rules prohibit Internet service providers from blocking or slowing down access to legitimate websites. Verizon argued that the FCC had overstepped its authority when it adopted the rules in 2010. The telecom company also claimed the regulations are "arbitrary and capricious," as well as unconstitutional. Verizon argued that instead of "proceeding with caution" in light of the Comcast ruling, the FCC adopted rules that "go even farther than its prior action and impose dramatic new restrictions on broadband Internet access service providers." "Here again, the FCC has acted without statutory authority to insert itself into this crucial segment of the American economy, while failing to show any factual need to do so," Verizon wrote. The company argued that Congress never authorized the FCC to regulate Internet access and that the agency acted without sufficient evidence to suggest the rules were necessary. Verizon claimed that the rules violate its First Amendment free speech rights. "Broadband networks are the modern-day microphone by which their owners engage in First Amendment speech," Verizon wrote. The company also argued the rules violate the Fifth Amendment by forcing broadband network owners to allow others to use their private property for free.

National Deaf-Blind Equipment Distribution Program

The Federal Communications Commission’s Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau announces the launch of the (NDBEDP), effective July 1, 2012.

The NDBEDP will begin to fill existing equipment and technology gaps to meet the communications access needs of this underserved population which, until now, largely has been denied the opportunity to enjoy the full benefits that these systems can provide. The FCC established the NDBEDP in response to the Twenty-First Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act (CVAA). The CVAA directed the FCC to establish a program using funding of up to $10 million annually from the Interstate Telecommunications Relay Service Fund (TRS Fund) for the nationwide distribution of communications equipment to low-income individuals who are deaf-blind. On April 4, 2011, the Commission adopted the NDBEDP Pilot Order, establishing the framework for a two- to three-year pilot program to fulfill this CVAA mandate. The FCC announced the selection of 53 applicants to become certified programs authorized to distribute equipment under the NDBEDP in each of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands

The road to gender balance in tech is paved with code

Women getting together to learn programming and build their own tech communities have been getting a lot of love recently. And for a good reason. Silicon Valley tech companies want to hire more women, and while there are plenty of issues with how those companies retain the women they hire, finding them in the first place is a big issue.

According to the National Center for Women & Information Technology, women made up only 14 percent of computer science graduates at major research universities in 2010. Yet there’s a huge need for programmers and IT professionals, with the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimating that those occupations will grow by 22 percent between 2010 and 2020, and a war going on among Silicon Valley startups for the best talent. Rails Girls, Girls Who Code, and Ladies Learning Code are just a few of the organizations that are attempting to get women excited about and interested in technology.

Users to YouTube: let us record your videos

If YouTube wants to be the future of broadcast, then it also has to support the DVR of tomorrow. That’s the main argument of a new online petition urging Google to allow third-party tools and services that record content from YouTube, which has attracted more than 170,000 signatures in just three days.

The petition was launched in reaction to reports that Google has been sending cease-and-desist letters to YouTube-MP3.org, Music-Clips.net and other sites, demanding to take down offerings that allow users to download the audio tracks of YouTube videos. In the letter, a YouTube lawyer referred to the site’s Terms of Service, which don’t allow the downloading of content that isn’t made available for download by YouTube itself. The petition, on the other hand, argues that downloading MP3 files from YouTube is simply an act of recording media, comparable to the DVR or even the cassette recorder.

Maybe We Should Stop Calling Smartphones 'Phones'

Every day, the average smartphone user spends 128 minutes actively using the device. That's just over two hours. The average user is spending those 128 minutes surfing the Internet (for nearly 25 minutes), engaging in social networking (for more than 17), listening to music (more than 15), and playing games (more than 14). What the average user is doing relatively little of, however, is talking -- using the smartphone as, you know, a phone.

NIST Kicks Off New National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) hosted a workshop to kick off the National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE), a new public-private collaboration that will bring together experts from industry, government and academia to design, implement, test and demonstrate integrated cybersecurity solutions and promote their widespread adoption.

The NCCoE will provide a state-of-the-art computing facility where researchers from NIST can work collaboratively with both the users and vendors of products and services on holistic cybersecurity approaches. NIST is hosting the center in collaboration with the state of Maryland and Montgomery County, Md. By providing a test bed where new ideas and technologies can be tried out before being deployed, the center provides the opportunity to thoroughly document and share each solution, supporting specific industry sector business challenges. This will encourage the rapid adoption of comprehensive cybersecurity templates and approaches that support automated and trustworthy e-government and e-commerce.

The goals are to:

enhance trust in U.S. IT communications, data, and storage systems;
lower risk for companies and individuals using IT systems;
encourage development of innovative, job-creating cybersecurity products and services.

The center’s work will be pursued through public-private sector teams organized around “use cases.” Team members will work together to identify objectives and create opportunities for collaborative leadership among technology and business communities.

Benton

Search