1. Monthly archive
  2. August 2012

August 2012

From Weeds and Bricks to Media Hub in Brooklyn

After decades of neglect, the 300-acre Brooklyn Navy Yard, known as the Naval Annex Historic Campus, may be ready for a long overdue makeover. The nonprofit Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation and a private developer, Douglas C. Steiner, have reached an agreement, contingent on city, state and federal financing, to convert the hospital complex into a media, technology and film hub. Steiner, who owns the adjacent Steiner Studios movie and television production center, would connect the site to his property to create a 50-acre lot to be called a media campus. The project, which would cost nearly $400 million and take 12 years to build, would use the nine historical buildings on the site and create five new structures for a total of 328,000 square feet, housing media companies and academic programs. There would also be 100,000 square feet of new stages for film and TV, including the first underwater stage in the country and the first back lot on the East Coast to feature a New York City streetscape.

Commission on Presidential Debates Asked to Add Debates Moderated by Journalists of Color

The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies sent a letter to Janet Brown, the Executive Director of the Commission on Presidential Debates, with concerns that the commission did not select any journalists of color to moderate any of the presidential debates being broadcast this year. The Joint Center asked the commission to schedule additional presidential debates moderated by journalists with large audiences of African-Americans, Latinos, Asian-Americans, Native Americans and other people of color.

Network upgrades boost average broadband speeds

UK consumers are achieving average residential broadband speeds of 9.0Mbit/s, driven by the move to new ‘superfast’ services, Ofcom research reveals.

Ofcom’s latest research into fixed-line residential broadband speeds shows that, in May 2012, the average actual UK speed was 9.0Mbit/s, which is 2½ times faster than the average speed of 3.6Mbit/s recorded in November 2008 when Ofcom first began its speeds research. Ofcom’s research now includes some new ‘superfast’ packages, including Virgin Media’s ‘up to’ 60Mbit/s service and BT’s Infinity 2 ‘up to’ 76Mbit/s service, the launches of which have contributed to the rise in average speeds. The continuing trend of increasing speeds recorded in the research confirms that consumer migration to faster services is gathering momentum. While some consumers actively choose to upgrade to superfast broadband packages to achieve higher speeds, many are benefitting from improved speeds as a result of internet service providers’ (ISPs’) network upgrades, at little or no additional cost to consumers.

Saudi Arabia objects to .gay, .wine and other proposed gTLDs

Saudi Arabia objected this week to a variety of new generic top-level domains (gTLDs) ranging from .porn and .sexy to .wine and .bar and .bible, according to records of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).

The organization said in June it had received 1,930 applications for gTLD "strings", of which 911 came from North America and 675 from Europe. It has extended the period for comments on applications by 45 days to Sept. 26. Saudi Arabia's Communication and Information Technology Commission, the IT and communications regulator, has objected to the .gay string and asked ICANN to refuse the application for the new gTLD. "Many societies and cultures consider homosexuality to be contrary to their culture, morality or religion," CITC said. "The creation of a gTLD string which promotes homosexuality will be offensive to these societies and cultures," it added.

Google faces investigation by India's antitrust agency

The Competition Commission of India, the country's antitrust agency, is investigating Google for alleged anti-competitive practices following a complaint by a consumer watchdog group, a federal minister told Parliament. Consumer Unity & Trust Society (CUTS) International approached the CCI, which has quasi-legal authority, to investigate the potential misuse by Google of its dominant position in online search and search-related advertising markets, following the company's investigation by the European Commission and antitrust agencies in other jurisdictions, Udai Singh Mehta, associate director at CUTS said on.

Born from Japan disasters, Line app sets sights on U.S., China

Born in the chaos after Japan's 2011 disasters, the smartphone application "Line" has attracted 50 million users faster than Facebook with a made-in-Japan blend of cute and the promise of free communication. Now, the company behind the application is readying an online media campaign to promote the app in China and the United States to sustain its meteoric growth rate and hit the 100 million-user mark by December. Line allows users to text and call from their smartphones using the existing data plan so users can communicate via the Internet and not be charged for a cell call. It has topped Apple's App Store rankings for downloads in 24 countries from Kuwait to Kazakhstan. To distinguish itself from other communication apps, Line offers its own games, a camera app, and a social platform complete with a timeline and homepage, similar to Facebook.

Japan's Dimwitted Smartphones

Smartphones are now playing center stage in the consumer-electronics world, not only delivering staggering sales growth, but also cannibalizing sales of digital cameras, portable game machines and other strongholds of Japanese electronics. In an effort to catch up, Japanese companies are redoubling their smartphone push with varying degrees of ambition. People in and outside the industry cite a number of factors for why Japanese companies missed the trend: Too much focus on the domestic market; too slow and inflexible to adapt to dynamic conditions; a misread of consumer preferences and a dose of arrogance about hardware superiority.

New Zealand judge: FBI must release more evidence to Kim Dotcom

In an appellate judicial ruling at the New Zealand High Court, a judge ruled that the FBI must allow Kim Dotcom, the founder of the now-shuttered Megaupload site, to see more evidence against him in his extradition case to the United States.

The ruling marks a significant blow to the American efforts to get Dotcom extradited to the US. A New Zealand district court had previously ordered the disclosure of some of the evidence against Dotcom during his extradition hearing. The United States challenged that ruling, seeking a “judicial review,” which the High Court dismissed. In the 51-page ruling, Justice Helen Winkelmann said that under New Zealand law, Dotcom had a legal right to see the evidence against him—otherwise he and his legal team would be "significantly constrained" in preparing an adequate defense. Similarly, the “requesting state would have a significant advantage." She added that Dotcom should be allowed to see "only relevant evidence," but did not explain what exactly that might mean.

The judge ordered the FBI to hand over:

  • All records obtained or created in connection with the covert operations undertaken by agents involved in the investigations related to these proceedings in transacting and uploading/downloading data and files on the Megaupload site
  • All records or information and/or material provided to or obtained by the investigation and/or prosecuting agencies by the investigating and/or prosecuting agencies in this case from holders and/or owners of copyright interests evidencing alleged infringement of their copyright and/or complaining of such infringement
  • All records and materials related to communications between relevant copyright holders and Megaupload and/or its employees regarding their copyright interest, the direct delete access provided by Megaupload to any such copyright holders, and any communications between the copyright holders and Megaupload and/or its staff regarding takedown notices

UK’s Internet video regulator is here to stay

The UK’s controversial new video on demand (VOD) regulator has been re-appointed to the task, after a review backed every aspect of its work. The Authority for Television On-Demand (ATVOD) has ruffled online publisher and broadcaster feathers since its introduction in 2010.

Complaints included:

  • the fees ATVOD charges operators to be regulated by it
  • classifying online publishers like newspapers sites as “TV-like” under its auspice.

But, after an inquiry launched in May in to ATVOD’s suitability, UK communications regulator Ofcom has concluded it is acting adequately on all counts. It has re-assigned ATVOD to continue overseeing content standards on UK “TV-like” VOD services. In fact, Ofcom is also giving ATVOD more freedom to act without having to notify it of certain aspects of its work.

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