March 2013

NYC Announces 'Reinvent Payphones' Design Challenge Winners

The finalists for New York City's Reinvent Payphones design challenge -- a city-backed effort to inject new life into the 11,000 payphones located throughout the city -- were announced Wednesday, March 6. The six finalists are:

Beacon: a communication and information hub with integrated technology (LED matrix screens, sensors, speakers, lighting and solar cells) that is controlled by the user's voice and gestures.
NYC I/O: an update featuring sensors and displays that creates a foundational input/output system for an open, urban-scale computing platform.
Windchimes: a distributed sensor network that provides a real-time and hyper-local record of the city’s rain levels, pollution and other environmental conditions, with the goal of empowering the city with never-before-seen data.
NYC LOOP: serves as an access point to the latest technology while simultaneously supporting the public spaces that make NYC unique.
Smart Sidewalks: communication, sustainability and wayfinding are squeezed into a 6-inch-wide interactive strip that folds up from the sidewalk.
NYFi: an interactive portal to public information, goods and services; a hub for free wireless Internet access; and an open infrastructure for future applications.

FCC's Pai: Commission Should Approve IP Transition Pilot Program

The Federal Communications Commission has yet to vote on a proposal by AT&T to test the migration to an all-IP communications delivery platform, but FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai said he thinks the commission should approve it.

"The FCC has sought and received comments on a proposal to create an All-IP Pilot Program," Commissioner Pai said in a speech to the Hudson Institute. "I've reviewed the record carefully. And having done so, I am proposing today that the FCC move forward with this program." He likened the test to the Wilmington (NC) test of the national digital television transition, or the FCC's rural health care pilot program. Commissioner Pai suggested the test was needed because the move to IP delivery was "as inevitable as death, taxes, or another reality show starring a Kardashian." He outlined how he thinks the test should be conducted. First, it should be voluntary. Second, it should be conducted in a variety of diverse places.

Five Fundamentals for the Phone Network, Part 2: Interconnection and Competition

Public Knowledge proposed Five Fundamentals to guide the upgrade of our phone network to an IP-based infrastructure. The second fundamental identifies the continued need for interconnection and competition among phone service providers.

Interconnection requirements make sure that different phone networks connect with each other, so users can place a call to anyone else with a phone number, no matter which phone company the person being called uses. Interconnection has become a critical tool for developing competition among carriers—after all, if a smaller carrier couldn’t guarantee that you’d be able to use its service to call your friends, family, and business contacts, you would always need to buy service from the biggest carrier in order to be able to place the calls you want. As a result, the largest companies would only get bigger and bigger, leading to fewer choices and higher prices for subscribers. In contrast to the phone network, we sometimes see disputes in the markets for internet or subscription video services that disrupt service for customers.

UK court invalidates three Samsung 3G patents

A UK court has invalidated three Samsung patents that cover 3G technology in two rulings in cases between Samsung and Apple, according to court filings. Samsung alleged that Apple infringed on the patents with 3G-enabled devices, including the iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, and the iPad 2 3G, according to court documents. The High Court of Justice, Chancery Division Patents Court in London dealt with the case in two parts. The first part covered two of the patents and the second part concerned the third patent. Justice Christopher Floyd ruled all three Samsung patents invalid.

Google’s revenge: Cheap Android smartphones could overwhelm China’s censors

A massive glut of commodity smartphones running a stripped-down version of Google’s Android software is coming to market in China, with the potential to upend the mobile phone marketplace and swamp the country’s Internet censors.

Technology Turns to Tracking People Offline

Following people online, with cookies, tagged pixels and even voluntarily given information, has been a big business. Now much of the same technology is moving into the physical world. A company called Euclid Analytics uses the Wi-Fi antennas inside stores to see how many people are coming into a store, how long they stay and even which aisles they walk.

It does this by noting each smartphone that comes near the store, feeding on every signal ping the phone sends. Using the information, retailers can tell whether someone walked by the store, whether a customer came in and how long the visit lasted. If it is a big store, with a couple of Wi-Fi antennas, the owner can start to see where in the store someone went. Euclid is three years old and has about 100 customers, including Nordstrom and Home Depot. It has already tracked about 50 million devices in 4,000 locations.

Facebook to launch redesigned News Feed immediately, include feeds

Facebook revealed its redesigned News Feed which emphasizes visual content and will be more in tune with the news feed of the Facebook mobile app.

Facebook also said users can use a new switch at the top right of the screen to toggle among different types of feeds to see different types of content. Among the feeds users will be able to switch among include close friends, games, all friends feed, most recent feed, music feed and following feed. Users also will be able to switch among their feeds using the Facebook mobile app.

Senate bill would legalize cellphone unlocking

Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Mike Lee (R-UT) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) introduced the Wireless Consumer Choice Act to legalize cellphone unlocking and allow owners to switch their devices to other networks. The bill would instruct the Federal Communications Commission to order carriers to allow their customers to unlock their phones and switch providers after they have completed their contracts. Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-CA) plans to introduce companion legislation in the House.

"As far as I can tell, it doesn't do anything at all," said Sina Khanifar, who started the White House petition. He pointed out that FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski has already pledged to look into the issue, and might compel wireless providers to allow unlocking anyway. "The root of this problem lies in parts of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and how easily they are abused at consumers' expense," said Christopher Lewis of Public Knowledge in an emailed statement. "Amending the DMCA itself will ensure stronger competition, and also that consumers can use the devices they've bought in whatever lawful way they choose."

Could New Software Help Cops Track Social Media?

Nationwide, police departments are using predictive analytics to strategically deploy officers around their respective cities. A mobile app for citizens in Baltimore called SpotAgent, for instance, predicts whether a given parking spot might be safe from roaming parking enforcement officers at a given hour. And since 2006, Memphis, Tenn, has used the technology to evaluate incident patterns citywide and forecast criminal hot spots. But security firm Raytheon is taking predictive analytics to the next level. While current technology, such as IBM’s predictive analytics solution, uses statistics and analytical data to predict criminal activity, Raytheon’s Rapid Information Overlay Technology (RIOT) software monitors public information on social media websites to predict what people will do next.

Doug Feaver Named The Washington Post’s First Reader Representative

The Washington Post announced Doug Feaver as its first reader representative. Feaver will serve as an advocate for readers, responding to their questions and concerns. He will work closely with Alison Coglianese, named assistant reader representative, and both will contribute to the reader representative blog. Feaver brings his deep journalistic background to the role, having spent his career as a reporter and editor at The Post on the Business, National and Metro staffs. In addition, he worked at The Post’s digital publishing arm, Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, as executive editor of washingtonpost.com, overseeing the growth and development of The Post’s online presence. He also anchored the dot.comments blog until 2009 which examined reader comments on Post stories and features.

Benton

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