August 2012

Ryan Pick Excites Foes of Tech Regulation

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) is best known as a budget wonk, and doesn’t have a major profile on technology issues. Still, his pick by Mitt Romney to join the Republican presidential ticket has energized a group of libertarian-leaning experts on tech policy who look past Ryan’s lack of issue-area expertise and focus on the free-market philosophy they believe drives his plan to flatten the tax code and shrink government. The bigger perspective here, said Berin Szoka, president of the think tank TechFreedom, is that “ultimately this debate about Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security and entitlements is really a debate about the future level of taxation.” The reality is, he said, “the tech sector is likely to bear a significant portion of the future tax burden.”

Apple, Microsoft, Google and the sad state of TV

The latest news on Apple’s plans for the future of television is that the company is in talks with big pay TV operators to carry their live programming. This would turn a future Apple TV product into a kind of set-top box, reported the Wall Street Journal Wednesday. Negotiations with cable companies are ongoing, with no deal in sight, and operators are wary of Apple’s quest for control, according to the paper. But the sad truth is that even winning a contract like this would be a defeat for Apple. The company originally set out to disrupt the TV space and sell programming directly to consumers. It wanted to unbundle cable much in the same way it unbundled the CD when it started selling single songs on iTunes for $0.99. A move like that would have been truly innovative. But as it looks now, Apple is just going to repackage the good old cable bundle and make it available through yet another device. If it’s any consolation for Apple, it is not alone with this path. Numerous companies have tried to reinvent TV, only to end up with products that look just like more of the same.

As time ticks down, publishers and Authors Guild slam e-book settlement

The Authors Guild, publishers Penguin and Macmillan, and Apple filed their opposition to the Department of Justice’s proposed e-book pricing settlement with Hachette, HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster.

The Whole Story: Media And The Daily Commute

Whether consumed while traveling, just before leaving or arriving home, or just after arriving or leaving work, media delivers some segment of the commuting population in varying degrees and contexts.

  • Radio is far and away the dominant medium in the commuting schedule with 68% reach.
  • The ubiquity of the mobile phone, it’s multifunctionality as both a communications, work and leisure tool places it second in the rankings of most-used media in the commuting period at 26%.
  • The presence of TV at 9% reach will mostly be accounted for by the number of people using it just before leaving home and the computer will be primarily used by those arriving at work during the half-hour reported -- though some will also be using it on trains, etc.
  • The relatively low reach of newspapers and magazines will partly be accounted for by the dominance of the car as the commuting vehicle of choice for the vast majority of the country, where mass transit is either not available or the preferred option.

The End of Big Data

Big data is about to get bigger. Deloitte predicts that by the end of 2012, more than 90% of the Fortune 500 is likely to have at least some “big data” initiatives under way. Companies are likely to spend $1 billion to $1.5 billion to enable their organization to collect, analyze and use big data to gain a better understanding of their customers. However, according to David “Doc” Searls, author of the new book "The Intention Economy: When Customers Take Charge," big data may be a waste of money. Searls points out in a recent article in The Wall Street Journal that as fast as companies are configuring systems to capture data at customer touchpoints, consumers are disabling data collection sites. In May, ClarityRay reported that the overall rate of ad blocking in the United States was 9.26%, and even higher on certain types of sites and browsers.

Obama, Romney Won't Air Ads On 9/11

There will be no TV advertising on Sept. 11 from the presidential candidates to honor the victims of the attacks in 2001. According to reports, the campaigns of President Barack Obama and Republican candidate Mitt Romney said they would honor a request to stop all advertising made by a New York-based group. This would make the third straight election candidates have taken a moratorium on TV advertising since 9/11.

What data does the public want?

Agencies wondering what data they should release through application programming interfaces have hit on a novel idea: just ask. APIs are data streams that automatically transfer new information from one website -- in this case, a government agency’s -- to a subscriber’s computer or website. An environmental researcher, for instance, might be interested in a stream of updated EPA data on water quality.

Dish's Broadband Satellite Expansion Won't Solve the Rural Internet Problem

In an attempt to make the Internet more available to people in rural areas, Dish is working on expanding its broadband satellite services to the whole of America, but the cost may still pose a barrier to entry for many. The satellite provider will expand this space Internet from select cities to everywhere, while also offering faster speeds from a newly launched satellite. That's great for about 20 percent of people living in our country's sparser areas, who say that they don't have broadband because of a lack of access, according to Speed Matters. But, for another 22 percent of those people, who haven't connected because of price concerns, Dish's service might not solve their lack of Internet. When it was announced at this year's Consumer Electronic's Show, Dish's Broadband Internet service started at $79.98 per month after a $99 installation fee. Woof.

Your Life Is Fully Mobile

Just as remarkable as the power of mobility, over everything from love to learning to global development, is how fast it all happened. It is hard to think of any tool, any instrument, any object in history with which so many developed so close a relationship so quickly as we have with our phones. Not the knife or match, the pen or page. Only money comes close—always at hand, don’t leave home without it. But most of us don’t take a wallet to bed with us, don’t reach for it and check it every few minutes, and however useful money is in pursuit of fame, romance, revolution, it is inert compared with a smart phone—which can replace your wallet now anyway. So how do we feel about this? To better understand attitudes about mass mobility, Time, in cooperation with Qualcomm, launched the Time Mobility Poll, a survey of close to 5,000 people of all age groups and income levels in eight countries: the U.S., the U.K., China, India, South Korea, South Africa, Indonesia and Brazil. Even the best survey can be only a snapshot in time, but this is a crisp and textured one—revealing a lot about both where we are now and where the mobile wave is taking us next.

News Corp Announces New Ethics Oversight Structure

News Corp. unveiled a new structure to oversee the company's ethical practices, part of its efforts to address concerns that intensified after a phone-hacking scandal erupted at its U.K. newspaper division last year. The company has named Gerson Zweifach, senior executive vice president and group general counsel, as its chief compliance officer. Lisa Fleischman, vice president and associate general counsel, will become deputy compliance officer. News Corp. also has organized its businesses into five compliance groups, which will be led by a group chief compliance officer who reports to Mr. Zweifach. The groups include the L.A. cable and broadcast group; the L.A. film and TV production group; the Europe and Asia group; the Australia group; and the New York news and information group.