September 2013

While the cheaper of Apple’s new iPhones has disappointed critics who say it’s not priced low enough, in Europe it may still help carriers achieve what’s become rare in a region where wireless devices outnumber people: finding new customers.

The iPhones introduced this week are also finally compatible with more of Europe’s high-speed, fourth-generation networks, addressing one of the big let-downs of the last model, whose 4G capability was only supported by a few carriers. Making iPhones -- the second most-popular smartphone in Europe after Samsung’s devices -- more accessible may attract customers so far deterred by the sticker shock. Many European carriers don’t subsidize the price of devices, so customers aren’t used to getting prices slashed in exchange for signing onto service contracts.

[Commentary] ConnectED must be seen as so much more than just about wires, or wireless, or even the coolest new gadgets. The power of ConnectED is in what it can mean for the lives, learning, and educational future of our students — regardless of the accident of their birth, the education or income of their parents, or the zip code of their home. The end goal is not connectivity for its own sake: it is about allowing all students to have a more robust, individualized, and ambitious educational experience that better prepares them to be citizens, parents, and, of course, the skilled workers of the future.

Yet what is painfully clear – and what compels the need for ConnectED – is that a vision of students on individualized learning devices, getting the most up-to-date content, and reaping the benefits of stronger assessment tools is not possible in the majority of classrooms around the country today. ConnectED can address this, and pay huge dividends to the nation. Let me highlight two ways how. First, we have to ask ourselves: if technology has changed industry after industry across our economy, why not education? Second, and what excites me most about the President’s vision of connected classrooms is the full meaning of what it can mean for all young people reaching their potential. The ConnectED promise is the kind of personalized instruction that can eradicate negative forms of tracking – keeping kids at varying levels of mastery in the same room, all being challenged and all learning from one another. The ConnectED vision also allows students who are struggling to keep trying without feeling embarrassed or ashamed in front of their peers Individualized learning takes technology, and technology can take the fear out of learning in a group setting.

[Gene Sperling is Assistant to the President for Economic Policy and Director of the National Economic Council]

[Commentary] From the secret court rulings that allow it to collect data on all Americans to its systematic subversion of the entire Internet as a surveillance platform, the National Security Agency (NSA) has amassed an enormous amount of power.

There are two basic schools of thought about how this came to pass. The first focuses on the agency’s power. Like J. Edgar Hoover, NSA Director Keith Alexander has become so powerful as to be above the law. The second school of thought is that it’s the administrations’ fault -- not just the present one, but the most recent several. According to this theory, the NSA is simply doing its job. If there’s a problem with the NSA’s actions, it’s because the rules it’s operating under are bad.

Regardless of how we got here, the NSA can’t reform itself. Change cannot come from within; it has to come from above. It’s the job of government: of Congress, of the courts, and of the President. These are the people who have the ability to investigate how things became so bad, rein in the rogue agency, and establish new systems of transparency, oversight, and accountability. Any solution we devise will make the NSA less efficient at its eavesdropping job. That's a trade-off we should be willing to make. We do this because we realize that a too-powerful police force is itself a danger and we need to balance our need for public safety with our aversion of a police state. The same reasoning needs to apply to the NSA. We want it to eavesdrop on our enemies, but it needs to do so in a way that doesn’t trample on the constitutional rights of Americans, or fundamentally jeopardize their privacy or security. This means that sometimes the NSA won’t get to eavesdrop, just as the protections we put in place to restrain police sometimes result in a criminal getting away. This is a trade-off we need to make willingly and openly, because overall we are safer that way.

The Chinese Internet isn’t exactly known as a hotbed for free speech. But judging by a few recent events, debate about how the Internet in China should be managed is gaining steam.

Beijing has been embroiled in a campaign against online rumor-mongering of late. In a recent judicial ruling, the government announced stiff penalties for posting rumors that get shared 500 times or seen 5,000 times. Civil-liberties advocates say the ruling, with its possible three-year jail sentence, sets a dangerous precedent for free speech. The new law is so extreme that even some domestic intellectuals have begun criticizing it. Among the critics is Zhu Mingguo, a key party official in the province of Guangdong. His criticism of the anti-rumor rule might sound familiar to some in the West frustrated with how legacy organizations have adapted (or not) to new technology. “In an environment of new media, we should take the initiative … and seek breakthroughs in propaganda on the Internet … and should not simply resort to the means of ‘delete’, ‘shut down’ and ‘reject’,” Zhu said, according to local media reports.