April 2014

AT&T to Offer In-Flight Wi-Fi in Challenge to Gogo

AT&T the second-biggest US mobile-phone carrier, will introduce 4G LTE wireless Internet access to commercial flights, mounting a challenge to Wi-Fi provider Gogo.

With help from Honeywell International, AT&T will begin offering the service in the continental US as soon as late 2015 for in-flight Wi-Fi Internet connections and entertainment, as well as for cockpit communications, according to a statement.

AT&T would be the first provider of 4G LTE to planes, said Roger Entner, an analyst with Recon Analytics in Dedham, Massachusetts.

“The service could potentially be faster, since you don’t have to bounce up to a satellite,” he said. The service will use ground-based antennas aimed skyward at receivers on planes, AT&T Strategy Chief John Stankey said in a phone interview.

Pending final approval from regulators, AT&T will use some of the Wireless Communications Service, or WCS, spectrum it acquired in 2012 to transmit the LTE signal to the planes, Stankey said.

Marketers Must Embrace the Transition Into the Post-Television World

Ad agencies, marketers and the media are awash with buzz about the competition between the Digital Content NewFronts and the subsequent broadcast network upfront marketplace.

But all the gossip and prognostication miss an essential fact: Digital video is not television.

The NewFronts is not an assault on this classic medium. Rather, digital video represents a culmination of television and the start of a post-television world. Granted, it’s clear how this misunderstanding came to be.

There’s little precedence for the unfolding of digital video -- a medium that can appear so similar to existing, predominant media yet is such a dramatic evolution from its apparent kin. Already in its young life, digital video can do everything that television can -- it can easily deliver big brand, direct response and local advertising, just like the TV set in your den has done for so many decades.

Its producers and networks can already create entertaining and culturally relevant programming that assembles valuable audiences. Premium video content is truly premium by the highest measure: cultural cachet. In 2013, Netflix proved its chops as an original content producer when it won an Emmy Award for Best Director for House of Cards.

Consumers Buffeted by Security Hacks Still Don't Understand Data Privacy

Despite of being constantly worried about online security in the wake of numerous data hacks and security breaches among top Web companies and retailers, market research firm Toluna found that people still don’t really understand online privacy and data security.

Three in five consumers (62 percent) said that they are more concerned about online privacy than they have been in the past, and 44 percent of those surveyed feel that they are not in control of their information on the Internet. But even as the White House readies a report on data privacy, Toluna found that there is still some confusion about what online privacy actually means -- even though the rules have been in place for a long time.

Fewer than half of those surveyed characterized their understanding as “good.” About a quarter (26 percent) admitted they know little to nothing about online data use. However, US consumers understand that data can improve their online experiences.

In general, they reported feeling happier about the use of their data online if they were asked for permission first, and a majority (52 percent) said they appreciate the use of targeted advertising. Two-thirds of those surveyed (66 percent) are happy to let brands use their information to serve them relevant discounts and loyalty rewards.

Rep Walden Announces Hearing with FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler on May 20

The Subcommittee on Communications and Technology, chaired by Rep Greg Walden (R-OR), will have a hearing to conduct oversight of the Federal Communications Commission May 20, 2014. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler will be the sole witness.

“I am pleased that Chairman Wheeler will join us in May,” said Rep Walden. “This will be our first opportunity to directly discuss issues important to our technology economy, including recent proposals regarding the incentive auctions, the latest iteration of the administration’s ill-advised net neutrality policies, and the broadcast joint sharing agreements and media ownership proceedings at the commission. Process reform also remains a top priority for the committee, and we look forward to discussing this with the chairman.”

It’s time for a rational perspective on Wi-Fi

[Commentary] Wi-Fi has so dazzled us with its achievements that many people can’t see its fundamental limitations. Unless network planners and policymakers grasp those limitations, they are likely to reach misguided conclusions about the optimal role of Wi-Fi in our mobile-broadband fabric.

The case for a Wi-Fi-only world is based on false notions that existing wireless broadband providers are less innovative than others within the Internet ecosystem and that networks can grow organically, as suggested by Comcast in its recent pleadings to acquire Time Warner.

The theory is that if government were to give innovators sufficient unlicensed spectrum, a global Wi-Fi network, available everywhere, built by hundreds or even thousands of entities, would materialize, similar to what happened with the Internet. However, because unlicensed bands are short range, any Wi-Fi network, no matter how many hotspots are deployed, will still result in massive coverage gaps.

As serious as the concerns over coverage are the problems inherent to unlicensed frequencies: interference and congestion. Connecting to the Internet via Wi-Fi at hotels and airports, for instance, has become a hit-or-miss proposition. It sometimes works, but more often it’s slow or unavailable due to the escalating number of people using these networks.

A truly ubiquitous, fast mobile broadband network needs both licensed and unlicensed spectrum. Licensed spectrum gives operators manageability and predictability, which enables them to safely invest in a top-down fashion the tens of billions of dollars in the infrastructure necessary for coverage. Given the volume of traffic carried on these networks, these cellular networks will need continually greater capacity. Meanwhile, unlicensed spectrum gives millions of entities the flexibility to invest in a bottom-up manner to provide localized high capacity.

The two approaches are symbiotic and mutually interdependent -- with no foreseeable changes. Both will benefit from technology advances and both will need more spectrum over time.

[Rysavy heads Rysavy Research]

Beyond 'Screen Time:' What Minecraft Teaches Kids

Minecraft is one of the most popular games in the United States with over 100 million registered users. But Minecraft is different than other video games because the object is to construct, not to tear down.

It's a video game, but it can also be classified as a building toy.

Parents are faced with difficult choices about technology. The prevailing wisdom is that “screen time” is bad for children. But can Minecraft be lumped in with the rest of the things that kids might do on a computer or phone?

Minecraft offers youth the opportunity to explore an environment that is not rule-based like the rest of their lives. Not only does the open-world nature of Minecraft give children the opportunity to be more creative, it allows them to feel like they have a sense of control over themselves and their environment. It’s an implicit way for them to develop self-regulation skills that then transfer to offline spaces -- through having this freedom to create on Minecraft, they learn how to identify and work towards offline goals like finishing class assignments or graduating from college later in life.

Playing Minecraft teaches kids useful skills. The most clearly visible are visuospatial reasoning skills -- learning how to manipulate objects in space in a way that helps them create dynamic structures.

Educators should take note and realize how they can leverage Minecraft. Some ideas include: letting kids share what they are building in the game and having them describe how they are interacting with their peers; setting up Minecraft hackathons where students who know how to mod can teach others how to do so; and devoting some class or after-school time to allowing kids to work on Minecraft-based assignments.

Lafayette Internet venture recalled at technology event

On the first day of the technology-driven Innov8 Lafayette festival, Lafayette Utilities System Director Terry Huval remembered the forces he and others had to fight to install a fiber-optic network that brought super-fast Internet to all city residents.

“We were crazy enough to do it,” Huval said of the 1 gigabyte per second fiber network completed in 2010.

Huval, who also heads the company that brings customers the broadband, LUS Fiber, recalled how the audacious fiber-to-the-home idea encountered all manner of opposition from entrenched interests: telecommunications, cable TV providers and others. He said it was not lost on him how hard it was to reach the point LUS Fiber and the city found itself hosting the third annual Innov8 Lafayette, a festival that advocates wide-ranging entrepreneurial goals and has a particular focus on technology.

Huval kicked off Innov8’s first day at the Louisiana Immersive Technologies Enterprise Center by introducing health care professionals whose jobs have been made more efficient by technology.

Bradley Cruice, a medical professional who works for the Lafayette Parish school system, and Geoff Daily, of the Lafayette General Foundation, described how schoolchildren in Lafayette Parish are healthier and learning more through telemedicine, which allows doctors miles away to interpret students’ vital signs or symptoms and make a diagnosis. Cruice said it allows the student to stay in school, and also allows the student’s parents to stay at work rather than take time off to care for their kid.

On the other end of the age spectrum, technology is helping care for the elderly, whose numbers are growing while the number of beds and facilities for the elderly are stagnant or declining, said Keith Speights, of the medical company RosieConnect. Speights’ company developed a robot that gathers a patient’s medical information quickly for the medical chart, and also to alert a physician if there is something wrong.

How Internet Access Can Boost The Economy And Social Equality

Desire2Learn (D2L) is transforming education through technology.

The Waterloo, Ontario-based company is positioned as the leading SaaS provider of learning technology for the education and the corporate markets.

“We can leverage technology to have a fundamental impact on student learning outcomes, or in corporate cases, to really rethink performance management. Imagine the old way students sit in the classroom. Everyone would proceed through the course material at the same pace, take the same assessments and have access to the same content. As we go digital, all of a sudden we are introducing things like adaptive learning, so that an individual student can have a personalized learning experience, understand that they’re falling down on this one particular outcome, and automatically create new resources for them to reassess the material until they get it, before they move forward,” says D2L founder and CEO, John Baker.

According to research from Global Industry Analysts (GIA), the global market for eLearning is projected to reach $168.8 billion by 2018. The study states that the “eLearning market is one of the most rapidly growing sectors in the global education industry. Not surprisingly, D2L is growing fast and now has offices around the world in Toronto, Waterloo, Vancouver, Boston, UK, Brazil, Amsterdam, Singapore and Australia.

Today, D2L provides its open and extensible platform to over 1,100 clients and 13 million individual learners in higher education, K-12, healthcare, government and the corporate sector, including Fortune 1000 companies. Baker also sees his e-learning platform as a way to bridge the gap between the “haves and have-nots” in education resources.

“The attainment gap is a great example where it’s the have nots that have this gap: 46 percent of students finish at a four-year program in six years. That’s the average for across the US. The education system is not working for them. We’re closing that gap by helping schools improve their retention.

Modernizing the FCC Enterprise

According to the Government Accountability Office, Federal agencies are currently spending over 70% of their Information Technology budgets on maintaining legacy systems.

Government-wide, these maintenance costs amount to over $54 billion a year spent on existing legacy systems, and delays needed transitions to newer technologies. Moreover, this cost only captures those legacy processes automated by IT; several paper-based, manual processes exist and result in additional hidden, human-intensive costs that could benefit from modern IT automation.

In the spirit of openness, I’d like to share our seven tracks as we embark on our journey to modernize the FCC enterprise. These tracks and supporting goals represent our focused efforts to bring the FCC into the 21st century and ensure the Commission has some of best IT in government supporting its mission.

Like an iceberg where a majority of the ice is hidden underwater, modernizing manual, human-intensive processes at the FCC will reduce legacy “sunk costs” at the Commission. The result will be a more agile, responsive, IT-enabled FCC enterprise able to work faster and float “above water”. Our workforce will be more effective, efficient in their time and energy, and better able to deliver the highest quality public service to the US public and FCC partners.

Improve Secure Employee Telework & Mobility
Secure Internal & External Collaborations
Strengthen FCC’s IT Security Posture
Transform Access to FCC Enterprise Data
Modernize Legacy Systems & Tracking
Improve FCC.gov & Complaint Reform
Increase Transparency & System Usability

[Bray is the FCC’s Chief Information Officer]

Judge’s ruling spells bad news for US cloud providers

A court ruling over search warrants means continued trouble for US cloud providers eager to build their businesses abroad.

In his ruling, US Magistrate Judge James Francis found that big Internet service providers (ISPs) -- including name brands Microsoft and Google -- must comply with valid warrants to turn over customer information, including e-mails, even if that material resides in data centers outside the US, according to several reports.

Microsoft recently challenged such a warrant and this ruling was the response. In a blog post, Microsoft Deputy General Counsel David Howard characterized this as a necessary first step in what will likely be a long battle.

The ruling basically upholds the status quo for US companies who have tried to reassure foreign governments that data residing in their data centers outside the US will be safe from overreach by US law enforcement or security agencies.

Benton

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