July 2013

How Washington Has Catalyzed Health Investment and Innovation in Silicon Valley

[Commentary] The Affordable Healthcare Act has had a dramatic and unintended positive consequence. New investment in digital health has skyrocketed in the last two-year period, and all of these companies are focused on helping to solve the big problem that the ACA seeks to reform: How to deliver more and better health services, at lower costs, with healthy outcomes as the measure of success.

In the wake of the ACA, over 100 digital health startups have been founded to take up the charge of delivering market-based solutions that solve for outcomes and efficiency improvements, including TelaDoc, CliniCast, iTriage, Omada, and Simplee. Several of these companies focus on improving outcomes at lower cost as the basis for their value proposition. This is highly disruptive to the existing healthcare business regime that has never been measured on outcomes.

[Stevens is CEO of Keas]

The Measurement Mess

TV uses very different measures of usage than those found in the digital world, making it difficult if not impossible to add up total viewing for a show across TV, online, mobile, social media and other digital platforms.

Worse, the fastest-growing areas of digital media-mobile phones and tablets-are not currently being measured at all by Nielsen, which supplies the ratings currency for the $70 billion TV ad spend. The result, some researchers complain, is morass of incompatible data that is forcing them to create what several call "Frankenmetrics."

Consumers Still Buying Tons of Older iPhones

According to new data from Consumer Intelligence Research Partners, Apple’s iPhone sales for the second calendar quarter of 2013 were pretty much evenly split between the iPhone 5 and its two precursors — the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S.

Lower-priced legacy iPhones are gaining share across Apple’s smartphone portfolio. Between April and June found that the iPhone 5 accounted for 52 percent of all iPhones sold in the United States. Meanwhile, the iPhone 4S accounted for about 30 percent, and the iPhone 4 about 18 percent. That’s similar to the iPhone model breakdown CIRP has charted for three quarters now, but it’s quite a bit different from the trend the firm saw following the release of the iPhone 4S, which claimed significantly more sales share following its debut, and held onto it longer. So there’s a clear trend developing here, with lower-priced legacy iPhones gaining in popularity and likely reducing the average selling price of the iPhone as a result. By how much?

Annual US Cybercrime Costs Estimated at $100 Billion

The cost of cyberespionage and cybercrime to the U.S. may reach $100 billion each year, casting doubt on earlier estimates that the costs were as much as 10 times higher.

The latest estimate is backed up by some U.S. intelligence analysts, who also believe the figure is closer to $100 billion, according to a former U.S. official familiar with the intelligence discussions. That figure is 1% or less of the U.S. gross domestic product and, for companies, puts cybertheft losses in a category of costs incurred in the course of doing business. The joint study by the nonprofit Center for Strategic and International Studies and the computer-security firm McAfee reflects a major revision of McAfee's own previous estimate of $1 trillion, which has been cited widely, including by President Barack Obama. That figure also contrasts sharply with an oft-quoted statement by Gen. Keith Alexander, head of U.S. Cyber Command, who last year said the losses represent "the greatest transfer of wealth in human history."

Here’s how the government justifies sucking up your phone records

Until recently, the National Security Agency treated the existence of its phone records program, which sweeps up the calling records of tens of millions of innocent Americans, as a closely held secret. But Edward Snowden’s disclosure of a court order authorizing the program forced the government’s hand. The government declassified some basic facts about the program last month, and in a court filing, the government makes the case for the legality of its once-secret spying program. To justify the program, the government needs to surmount two legal hurdles. First, it has to convince courts that the program is authorized by Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which allows the government to obtain records that are relevant to a terrorism investigation. Second, it must convince the courts that the program is consistent with the Fourth Amendment, which protects Americans against unreasonable searches.

Public Knowledge to Hill: Oversee Auctions, Don't Micromanage Them

In testimony for a July 23 House Communications Subcommittee hearing, Public Knowledge senior vice president Harold Feld says that everybody needs to lighten up when it comes to spectrum incentive auctions so the Federal Communications Commission staffers can do their jobs, or risk rushing headlong and "heedlessly" into an "ill-designed" process.

"Constantly hectoring staff that they are moving too fast or two slow, issuing too many public notices or not enough, being too generous to broadcasters or not generous enough, scheming to undermine licensed spectrum with inflated guard bands or being in the pocket of this or that faction of the industry is worse than not helpful," he says. "It creates an atmosphere of suspicion and pushes staff to retreat into the bowels of the Portals at a time when we need the maximum amount of transparency and trust between staff and stakeholders." Feld says the commission should avoid "forcing" false choices between licensed and unlicensed spectrum or boosting competition vs. paying for FirstNet (the interoperable nationwide broadband first responder network that will be paid for out of auction proceeds).

NAB on Incentive Auctions: No 'Win' for Broadcasters Who Remain

Rick Kaplan, executive VP of strategic planning for the National Association of Broadcasters, plans to tell Congress that there are three things that will determine whether the incentive auctions succeed: 1) maximizing revenue; 2) preserving a healthy broadcast business; and 3) "avoiding harmful interference among services." But even if it does all those things, NAB does not see the auctions as a win for broadcasters.

That is according to Kaplan's testimony for a July 23 spectrum policy oversight hearing on the incentive auctions in the House Communications Subcommittee. Kaplan said that maximizing revenue in order to "pay for [the auction] itself, provide compensation for the volunteering broadcasters, pay to relocate the non-volunteer broadcasters and invest in a nationwide interoperable public safety network" means pairing spectrum nationwide, not adopting a variable band plan that could have it "gobbling up" more spectrum in some markets "simply because it can." NAB also said it means a "measured repacking" of stations that minimized the impact on translators and low-powers. "Every megahertz reclaimed through repacking, especially in the West, threatens to eliminate television service to thousands of viewers who rely exclusively on translators [and low powers] for news, weather and emergency information." He said that is particularly true in tribal areas.

T-Mobile: FCC Should Put 'Reasonable Limits' on Spectrum Aggregation

T-Mobile says it is doing its best to fill gaps in coverage by buying or trading spectrum in the secondary market, but that that, by itself, is not a successful game plan for the future.

In testimony for a July 23 incentive auction hearing in the House Communications Subcommittee, T-Mobile VP, regulatory affairs, Kathleen O'Brien Ham, will say that the Federal Communications Commission's auction structure should meet three main objectives: 1) encourage widespread broadcasters participation; 2) maximize the paired spectrum freed up for wireless; and 3) put reasonable limits on spectrum aggregation to make sure that AT&T and Verizon don't foreclose competition. Making the auction more attractive to broadcasters means starting with high opening prices, says T-Mobile, combined with bidding options for broadcasters -- giving up spectrum, sharing, moving to a lower band (UHF is wireless beachfront property, just as it now is for broadcasting).

The Race to Manage Government Records Begins

As federal agencies crawl toward deadlines to permanently store their records in digital formats, the National Archives and Records Administration is bringing together vendors that want a piece of that business.

An August 2012 presidential directive requires agencies to store all emails digitally by 2016 and to store other records digitally by 2019. In advance of those deadlines, the Archives is inviting vendors to schedule Web presentations about their technology before interested members of the federal information management community, according to the notice posted this month. Vendors will be responsible for hosting and scheduling the webinars, according to an information page. The archives will simply pass that scheduling information on to records management officials at government agencies.

Money, Brains and Broadband: Tools to Thrive in a 21st Century Economy

[Commentary] Across America, small business innovators are harnessing the tools of 21st Century economic growth: money, brains, and broadband. From the Silicon Prairie to the Southern Gulf to my back yard in northwest Montana, we are seeing start-ups grow successfully in unlikely places -- creating jobs, innovating and attracting investment. That's why I'm excited to join a recent Webinar hosted by Mobile Future to discuss the accelerating business formation and surprisingly swift progress being made across rural America.

Benton

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