July 2013

With Microsoft's reorganization last week, a curious thing has now happened at the three companies that are the biggest players in the world of operating systems. In the last year, Apple, Google and Microsoft have all moved to put one person in charge of both their mobile and desktop operating systems. Coincidence Perhaps.

But Colin Gillis, an analyst at BGC Partners, who mentioned the trend in a recent conversation, says the shift seems to be pointing each company toward convergence some time, even if that point remains far down the road. "Do these companies want both of those operating systems?" Gillis said. "Probably not." Over time, Gillis said, as mobile hardware becomes more robust, these companies can build more features into their mobile OS. At the same time, users of desktops and laptops are growing to expect some of the mobile features on those platforms.

If you thought the PRISM debacle couldn’t get any more convoluted, then listen up. It turns out that there are two PRISM programs… or not, in which case the German government may be heading for a fall. It depends on who you believe: the newspaper Bild or the German government.

The German federal elections are coming up and PRISM is a major issue. The opposition parties have demanded answers about what Angela Merkel’s administration knew about the Americans spying on German citizens en masse. The government is sticking to its line that only highly-targeted data-sharing takes place, in order to keep the public safe from terrorism, and that it never knew about the wider PRISM program. Bild published a major scoop, based on a document that was apparently sent by NATO to all the regional commands in Afghanistan back in 2011. This document laid out instructions for cooperation under a program called PRISM, which involved monitoring emails and phone calls, with access regulated by the U.S. Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System (JWICS). This document naturally made its way to the Germans, who are somewhat controversially deployed in Afghanistan and, as Bild framed it, this meant the German government is lying about its PRISM ignorance.

Three years after taking over Verizon's West Virginia landline operations, Frontier Communications officials say the company has either met or exceeded state-mandated performance goals for improving local service.

When the state Public Service Commission approved Frontier's acquisition of the Verizon network in May 2010, it imposed several conditions as part of the transaction. Those included requiring the company to invest nearly $280 million to improve service quality and increase broadband deployment by the end of 2013. Regulators also said Frontier must ensure that at least 85 percent of households in the old Verizon network have broadband access by the end of 2014. Frontier officials now say they have satisfied regulators' requirements well ahead of schedule.

[Commentary] This week saw yet another manifestation of our national paranoia about The Government.

Late in 2012, Congress passed the Smith-Mundt Modernization Act, and in January 2013, President Obama signed it into law. The act repealed a Cold War-era prohibition on disseminating government information produced for foreign audiences inside the United States. As of July 1, when the repeal took effect, radio and TV programs designed for non-U.S. audiences, such as those produced by Voice of America, can now be re-broadcast in the United States. The sky is falling! Left and right are temporarily united over the horror of "government propaganda" hitting the U.S. airwaves. Okay, I guess I get it. With so much idiotic privately produced propaganda already widely available here in the U.S. of A., who needs government propaganda? Our private sector already does a fine job of disseminating inflammatory misinformation, thank you very much. I mean: We already have Fox News, Matt Drudge, and TruthOut. We can already find plenty of media outlets that purvey shamelessly one-sided, irresponsible garbage. Why muddy the waters by adding government-funded news?