September 2013

Here's Something Congress Can Agree On: Helium

With the government on the brink of a shutdown, Republicans and Democrats in Congress have come together to compromise on helium.

Legislation passed will keep the gas used in party balloons flowing from a national reserve. The helium bill's passage shows that compromise is still possible in the fractious political climate. But finding agreement over this inert gas was tough. The new law came after more than a year of intensive lobbying by some of America's largest businesses and academic institutions. The US government began stockpiling helium in the 1920s, back when blimps were a weapon of war. Today the Federal Helium Reserve contains roughly 11 billion cubic feet of helium. The government has turned this helium into a lucrative business, selling it to scientists and private companies. It's used in a wide variety of applications, including semiconductor manufacturing, fiber optics, the aerospace industry and MRI machines.

You Might Be Able to Pay for HBO Without Paying for Cable. But You’re Still Going to Pay the Cable Guy.

[Commentary] You say you love HBO — or the idea of HBO — but you don’t want to pay for other TV networks in order to watch it? Well, maybe, possibly, that could happen. One day. But you’re still going to end up handing over money to the people who sell pay TV.

That’s the scenario that Time Warner’s HBO has been floating for a while now. And Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes brought it up again. Bewkes and his lieutenants are not talking about selling HBO directly to you, the way Netflix sells its programs. They’re talking about selling it through Comcast, or Verizon, or Time Warner Cable, or whoever delivers your broadband Internet — and who also sells pay TV. The distinction is important to you, the would-be HBO subscriber, because it means you’ll pay a significant markup on the monthly price that Comcast, or Verizon, or Time Warner Cable pays for HBO. And depending on how much Internet pipe you end up using when you watch HBO and other Web video, you may end up paying more for broadband, too.

A CEO who resisted NSA spying is out of prison. And he feels ‘vindicated’ by Snowden leaks.

Just one major telecommunications company refused to participate in a legally dubious National Security Agency surveillance program in 2001. A few months later, its CEO was indicted by federal prosecutors. He was convicted, served four and a half years of his sentence and was released. Prosecutors claim Qwest CEO Joseph Nacchio was guilty of insider trading, and that his prosecution had nothing to do with his refusal to allow spying on his customers without the permission of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. But, to this day, Nacchio insists that his prosecution was retaliation for refusing to break the law on the NSA's behalf. After his release from custody Sept 20, Nacchio told the Wall Street Journal that he feels "vindicated" by the content of the leaks that show that the agency was collecting American's phone records.

Tech agencies brace for shutdown

The federal agencies that regulate technology industries will close their doors unless Congress strikes a last-minute deal to fund the government.

Only 38 employees of the Federal Communications Commission (about 2 percent of its staff) will keep working after a shutdown. Those employees include the commissioners, certain employees handling interference and disaster response issues, one employee for treaty negotiations and a bare-bones staff for oversight and technical support. The rest of the agency will have about four hours to cancel their plans and close down their offices. The FCC’s consumer protection and competition enforcement efforts will be shutdown. Companies won't be able to get approval for new electronic devices, and the agency won't approve any changes in TV, radio and wireless licenses. The National Institute of Standards and Technology, the Commerce Department agency that helps set industry standards, will have to suspend its work, including implementation of the President's executive order on cybersecurity. Jennifer Huergo, a NIST spokeswoman, said the agency has been preparing for a shutdown and still hopes to meet the President's Oct 10 deadline to release a preliminary framework of cybersecurity best practices for critical infrastructure.

Tech giants ask Congress to move quickly on NSA transparency bills

A group of 72 tech companies and advocacy groups are asking Congress to move quickly on surveillance reform bills that would let companies tell their users how often they hand over user data to the government.

The group — including Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Mozilla, Twitter and Yahoo — sent a letter to the chairmen and ranking members of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees, voicing support for two bills that would give companies “the right to publish basic statistics about the government demands for user data that they receive.” The two bills — The Surveillance Transparency Act of 2013, authored by Sen. Al Franken (D-MN), and the Surveillance Order Reporting Act, from Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) — would allow companies to publish the number of requests they receive under national security and foreign intelligence laws, including the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

FTC's Jessica Rich Lays Out Ambitious Ad Enforcement Agenda

Jessica Rich -- the Federal Trade Commission’s front line to advertising regulation as director of the agency’s consumer protection bureau -- is energetic and organized. She’ll need to be to tackle the ambitious agenda she laid out in her keynote speech to more than 100 marketers and advertising attorneys during the Advertising Self-Regulatory Council’s annual conference in New York.

Rich, a 20-year FTC career attorney, is best known for her work in crafting the agency’s privacy policies. But now she’s head of the division that cracks down on unfair and deceptive advertising practices, too. Named to her position in June, Rich’s remarks marked her first public appearance before the advertising community. Like her predecessor, David Vladeck, Rich said marketers should expect more of the same from the division. “The FTC has long had a focus on national advertising. We’re by no means finished,” Rich said.

Hey look, Google Fiber is going to go live in Provo in October

The energy that Google has harnessed around its fiber effort now extends to locals making cute commercials about the coming service, with residents of Provo, Utah, pulling a little skit together — comparing Google Fiber to a fire hose and a sad, middle-aged man trying to fill his pool with a garden hose to represent existing broadband providers. The video also suggests that Google plans to start offering service in October. The video, which was published by Provo’s mayor, is a great example of Google’s ability to inspire locals and city officials to trumpet the coming of the service and help market it.

Social Media Transforms the Way Chicago Fights Gang Violence

The Chicago Police Department (CPD) is figuring out exactly who is likeliest to kill and be killed in each district. Using a tool academics call “network analysis,” the CPD is using social media to map the relationships among Chicago’s 14,000 most active gang members. It’s also ranking how likely those people are to be involved in a homicide, either as victims or offenders. In the process, the CPD has discovered something striking: Cities don’t so much have “hot spots” as “hot people.” That finding is transforming the way the police do business in Chicago and has significant implications for how other cities should be policed. As of late July, Chicago had experienced 76 fewer murders than it did in 2012. Victims of gunfire were down by an even greater number -- 350. Summer wasn’t over, but if the trends continued, Chicago’s violent crime level would fall to levels not seen since the early 1960s. And that would suggest that social-network policing is the future of crime fighting.

Rogers announces high-speed roaming agreement with US carrier AT&T

Rogers has announced an LTE roaming agreement with US carrier AT&T for its mobile phone customers.

The news comes the same day as the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission’s deadline for telecom companies to submit their roaming fee rates for customers who travel to the US and any network sharing agreements between Canadian and American carriers. The CTRC has said it wants to review rates from the industry to “assess its competitiveness” on the country’s wireless industry and what choices are available to consumers. Rogers says its $7.99 daily roaming rate in the US, which was set independently of the roaming agreement with AT&T, was first announced in May.

'1:X Computing' Aims to Tailor Digital Tools to Learning Tasks

As it is, more than 2,000 schools around the country now provide each student with their own digital device, according to the One to One Institute, a nonprofit providing support for districts implementing 1-to-1 computing programs. Many more schools employ a variety of digital technologies that may or may not fit together coherently. But the idea of a coordinated strategy to provide students with access to a variety of devices from which they may choose depending on the task at hand is a potentially powerful new development, said Douglas A. Levin, the executive director of the State Educational Technology Directors Association, or SETDA. “In the professional world, the idea of different devices for different jobs is already a normal way of doing business,” Levin said. “It’s unrealistic for schools to think there’s going to be one killer device that’s going to do all things for all types of learners in all subjects.”

Benton

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