Netflix is looking for an engineer to research using a peer-to-peer architecture for streaming.
When asked whether the company intends to stream video using P2P, a Netflix spokesperson replied only that "the best way to see it is that we look at all kinds of routes."
Rep Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), a longtime critic of the Federal Communications Commission's network neutrality rules, is no fan of the commission's latest effort to come up with legally sustainable open Internet enforcement.
In a letter to FCC chairman Tom Wheeler, Blackburn said the FCC should conduct a cost-benefit analysis of the proposed network neutrality rules (the chairman circulated a draft April 24).
“Despite any evidence of a great consumer harm, the FCC is once again considering regulatory action that could change the future of the Internet as we know it. Before the Administration takes any reckless steps that could jeopardize the explosive growth and innovation of the Internet, it is important the FCC is able to explain the potential costs and its impact on jobs to the American people," she said.
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s Board of Directors unanimously approved a resolution urging the Federal Communications Commission to avoid allowing “white areas” that would lack public television coverage after the upcoming spectrum auction and channel repacking.
Vinnie Curren, CPB’s chief operating officer, told the CPB Board that it has identified “half a dozen major communities” where auctions could occur and where the pubTV station “is operated by an institution whose primary mission was not public broadcasting,” such as a university or government agency. CPB has a “particular concern,” Curren said, that those communities may be at risk of losing an over-the-air public television signal completely. Curren did not identify the stations.
The resolution states that CPB, “as the steward of the federal appropriation, urges the Federal Communications Commission to adopt rules and practices with regard to its spectrum incentive auction and repacking process to ensure that no white areas be created and that universal access to free over the air public television service be preserved.”
CPB President Pat Harrison said she and PBS President Paula Kerger have requested one-on-one meetings with FCC Chairman Wheeler to express CPB’s viewpoint, though Wheeler has said he is not taking individual meetings, Harrison said. Representatives from CPB, PBS and the Association of Public Television Stations are also hoping to meet with commissioners, said Michael Levy, CPB’s executive vice president.
Next year the FCC will conduct the first-ever “Incentive Auction,” which will harness market forces to reallocate valuable low-band (below 1 GHz) spectrum from television broadcasters who voluntarily choose to relinquish their channels in exchange for incentive payments, to wireless providers who will bid against each other to buy those frequencies to provide mobile broadband services.
Two national carriers control the vast majority of that low-band spectrum. This disparity makes it difficult for rural consumers to have access to the competition and choice that would be available if more wireless competitors also had access to low-band spectrum. It also creates challenges for consumers in urban environments who sometimes have difficulty using their mobile phones at home or in their offices.
To address this problem, and to prevent one or two wireless providers from being able to run the table at the auction, I have proposed a market based reserve for the auction. Any party desiring to bid on any license area will be free to do so. When the Incentive Auction commences, all bidders will be bidding and competing against each other for all blocks of spectrum.
We expect a fulsome bidding process. There will be no “reserved” spectrum during this initial stage of the auction. When the auction reaches a “trigger” point that the Commission will set in advance of the auction -- largely based on meeting a price threshold -- wireless providers with a dominant low-band position in a license area will be constrained from bidding on a few “reserved” spectrum blocks.
The exact amount of “reserved” spectrum available will depend on how much spectrum non-dominant providers are actively bidding for at the trigger point, but in no instance will the reserve exceed 30 megahertz. Those “reserve-eligible” bidders who are still actively bidding at the trigger point will then begin bidding for reserved spectrum against only other eligible bidders, and not against bidders who already hold a dominant low-band position in that license area.
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler circulated a much-leaked proposal to restrict how many licenses the country’s two largest wireless companies can win in an auction of TV airwaves in 2015.
In a blog post, he said regulators need to ensure that the nation’s largest carriers, AT&T and Verizon Wireless, don’t scoop up all of the TV airwaves. The licenses to be auctioned off are coveted by wireless companies because they allow signals to penetrate buildings and travel long distances, which makes them cheaper to use. The rules are designed to prevent “one or two bidders” from sweeping the auction, Chairman Wheeler wrote. They should make it easier for Sprint, T-Mobile and other smaller carriers to scoop up prime airwaves licenses for their LTE networks.
A senior FCC official told reporters they’re trying to do a balancing act between wanting to raise money while ensuring that smaller carriers have a chance to win licenses. This is a reasonable approach, the official said. It’s not clear if the wireless carriers will agree.
When the rules were leaked, AT&T complained about the set-aside for smaller companies and threatened to boycott the auction. Now, AT&T has backed down from the threat, saying, “our desire to participate in this auction and our hope for a successful auction is unchanged,” in a letter disclosing a meeting AT&T officials had with Chairman Wheeler’s aides.
Tech outlets across the web have named it “brogramming culture.” And tons of organizations tirelessly work to combat it. It is the overwhelming scarcity of women in tech.
The general method to improve female-to-male ratios in tech companies is to attract women to the field early on, by encouraging them to take computer science classes in high school and college.
Recently the toys and games industry has targeted the youngest girls, with products like Computer Engineer Barbie and GoldiBlox. And now, a tech executive wants to get the entertainment industry on board.
Anthony Onesto, director of talent development at Razorfish, is finishing up an Indiegogo campaign to get a new children's cartoon off the ground, called Ella the Engineer. The campaign aims to raise $25,000 by April 27th to produce the pilot, aiming for outlets like Nickelodeon and the Disney Channel. Thinking of his daughters, he realized that girls are poorly exposed to the possibilities of a tech career from a young age.
“There is no hero, no heroine in their lives, particularly in the media and the shows that they are watching, that has this computer science background,” he says.
The latest Apple-Samsung patent megatrial is nearing its end, with the final witness testimony scheduled to take place.
The two sides have just a few minutes remaining in the 25 hours granted to each to present its case. The jury will get to start early, with the lawyers and Judge Koh sticking around to hash out a bunch of details including final jury instructions and the form that the jurors will use to decide the case.
Judge Lucy Koh released a proposed jury form, but both sides objected to it, saying it could lead to confusion. Each side submitted proposals of their own in early April.
Apple is seeking more than $2 billion in damages, while Samsung says that figure is a “gross exaggeration” and is looking for only a few million dollars on its counterclaim.
Ahead of testimony, the lawyers in the case and Judge Lucy Koh are discussing the impact of a new ruling from the Federal Circuit in a related case involving Apple and Motorola. In particular, that case deals with one of the patents in this case -- the ’647 patent related to “quick links”.
[Commentary] No, the Federal Communications Commission's newly proposed rules for network neutrality don't spell the end of the Internet as we know it. But some of the concern about the proposed rules are valid, in big part because the rules don't address certain issues.
Here are the four key takeaways you need to know:
Amazons want to be an entertainment giant.
During Amazon's first quarter alone, the company released its long-rumored Fire TV, a $99 TV streaming and casual gaming device, unveiled its first video game courtesy of Amazon Game Studios, and inked a major deal with HBO that gives its Prime Instant Video service rights to older HBO shows such as The Sopranos, Six Feet Under and The Wire.
"We get our energy from inventing on behalf of customers, and 2014 is off to a kinetic start," CEO Jeff Bezos said in a statement.
A portion of the new catalog likely stems from the recent HBO deal. Amazon has also invested heavily in original content creation via its Hollywood arm. In the short-term, it's easy to think of Prime Video as a Netflix competitor, the former gaining ground on the latter company with new distribution deals and original content.
But Prime Video is just one piece in a bigger plan. Amazon wants to create an entertainment experience that's so compelling it can't be ignored. It wants to offer original and exclusive content streamed via Amazon services and served up on slickly-designed Amazon hardware, so competitively priced that few competitors can keep up.
[Commentary] The Federal Communications Commission will say -- loud and proud – that it is fixing the open-web problem while actually letting it get worse, by providing a so-called "fast lane" for carriers to hike fees on sites trying to reach customers like you and me.
Which, inevitably, would mean you and I start paying more to use those sites -- if we aren't already.
If you live in America and believe in an open Internet, don't waste your time sinking into despair over politicians' betrayals. A little anger wouldn't hurt, but aiming it at the former cable and wireless industry lobbyist Tom Wheeler is pointless. Focus your attention on the people who he works for, and who allegedly work for you.
Start with President Barack Obama, whose unequivocal vow as a candidate to support an open Internet was as empty as so many of his other promises, if not an outright lie. Then:
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