April 2014

Vast Digital Divide Exists in K-12 Schools, E-Rate Analysis Shows

Applications for federal E-rate money show broad gaps between wealthy and poor school systems' access to high-quality technologies, and varying abilities among districts to purchase connectivity at affordable rates, a new analysis reveals.

The research, released by Education SuperHighway, a San Francisco-based nonprofit that advocates for improved school connections, is based on data the organization says it collected and analyzed from more than 1,000 school districts in 45 states, which had collectively made $350 million in requests for E-rate funding. Among Education SuperHighway's findings:

School districts that are already meeting the ConnectED goals pay on average only one-third the price for broadband as schools that don't meet that standard. That could be because they're buying more broadband, with economies of scale, or because they're in geographic locations where it's cheaper, Marwell said. But it also could be driven by other factors, he said, such as they could have greater resources and competition from providers;
School districts that already have fiber optic cable connections have nine times the bandwidth, and 75 percent lower costs, per megabit per second, than districts without fiber;
School districts with access to "competitive options" pay two to three times less for wide-area-network connections compared with those served by "incumbent" telephone and cable companies. Ideally, those incumbents should be challenged for school district business by local utilities, municipal networks, and competitive local exchange carriers, Marwell argues.
School districts already meeting the ConnectED goals have budgets for accessing the Internet that are, on average, 450 times larger than those that don't meet those goals, and they invest $7.16 per student, compared with just $1.59 for schools falling short of the mark;
While just 20 percent of all school districts surveyed are meeting the ConnectED goals, the number is lower, 14 percent, among districts with at least three-quarters of students on free or reduced price lunches. By contrast, a much higher portion, 39 percent, of schools with less than 1 percent of free or reduced price lunch students are meeting the ConnectED goals.

Won’t Someone Think of the Cloud Services?

Public Knowledge has been filing briefs in Aereo's lawsuits (and in related cases like Film On) since the beginning, but the beginning was only 2012.

The litigation has made it to the Supreme Court very quickly, and it's going to take some time to digest exactly how the Justices react to the various arguments that are presented (such as the arguments in our joint brief).

But it's worth thinking about what the implications of Aereo might be for various industries, now that the purely legal arguments have all been made. It's hard to believe the broadcasters when they say that Aereo will somehow take away their retransmission fees, and destroy their business model. How did they manage for so long -- from the middle of the 20th Century until just a few years ago -- without those fees? But even more to the point, the idea that Aereo will give cable systems a magic ticket that will enable them to stop paying the fees is a bit far-fetched.

After all, a cable system doesn't just need to carry ABC, but ESPN as well, which is under the same corporate umbrella. An Aereo win might give cable a bit more leverage against broadcast but they're still going to need to pay. T

he dollar totals around different line items might switch around but without much net effect. Instead, the consequence of an Aereo win will likely be more subtle: Aereo (and maybe services like it) that do not offer the complete cable package and are available online will continue growing, making it easier (when combined with content from other services like Amazon Instant Video) for people to "cut the cord" and do without a traditional pay TV subscription at all. Online services will find it easier to offer viewers the more flexible programming choices the marketplace has repeatedly demonstrated they want.

HR 3635, Safe and Secure Federal Websites Act of 2014

Congressional Budget Office estimates that enacting the Safe and Secure Federal Websites Act of 2014 (HR 3635) would have no significant effect on the federal budget.

The legislation would amend federal laws that protect the privacy of personally identifiable information collected by the government. Personally identifiable information includes any information that identifies an individual such as name, Social Security number, and medical or financial records. The legislation would prohibit an agency from deploying a new website until the agency’s Chief Information Officer certifies that all such information is safe and secure.

Existing federal websites would have 90 days following enactment of HR 3635 to comply with this requirement. The legislation also would require the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to issue policies and procedures for agencies to follow in the event of a security breach of a federal data system that contains personally identifiable information.

OMB’s “Breach Notification Policy” requires all agencies to implement a policy to safeguard personally identifiable information and to provide notification of a security breach. Because laws and policies regarding the security of personally identifiable information are already in place, CBO estimates that the cost of certifying the safety of information collected by federal websites would be less than $500,000 over the next five years.

Enacting the bill could affect direct spending by agencies not funded through annual appropriations; therefore, pay-as-you-go procedures apply. CBO estimates, however, that any net change in spending by those agencies would be negligible. Enacting the bill would not affect revenues.

HR 3635 contains no intergovernmental or private-sector mandates as defined in the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act and would impose no costs on state, local, or tribal governments.

ALA announces 10 public libraries selected for Libraries Transforming Communities Public Innovators Cohort

The American Library Association announced the 10 public libraries chosen to undergo an intensive 18-month, team-based community engagement training program as part of the Libraries Transforming Communities (LTC) Public Innovators Cohort.

The cohort, selected through a highly competitive peer-reviewed application process, is part of ALA’s LTC initiative, a national plan to help librarians strengthen their role as core community leaders and change-agents. The selected libraries represent the range of American communities in terms of size, location, ethnic and racial diversity and socioeconomic status, and they all face challenges including illiteracy; unemployment; a “digital divide” in their community’s access to information technology; an influx of new and immigrant populations; and disparate access to services.

Through in-person training, webinars and coaching -- valued at $50,000 -- teams from each library will learn new community engagement techniques and apply them within their communities. Each library also receives an $8,000 cash grant to help cover the cost of their new community-engagement work. In partnership with The Harwood Institute for Public Innovation, Libraries Transforming Communities addresses a critical need within the library field by developing and distributing new tools, resources and support for librarians to engage with their communities in new ways. The following libraries make up the LTC Public Innovators Cohort are:

Red Hook (NY) Public Library (pop: 1,900)
Columbus (WI) Public Library (pop: 5,000)
Knox County (IN) Library (pop: 33,900)
Suffolk (VA) Public Library System (pop: 85,000)
Hartford (CT) Public Library (pop: 125,000)
Springfield (MA) City Library (pop: 153,000)
Tuscaloosa (AL) Public Library (pop: 195,000)
Spokane County (WA) Library District (pop: 255,000)
San Jose (CA) Public Library (pop: 980,000)
Los Angeles Public Library (pop: 3.8 million)

Supreme Court Hears Arguments in Aereo Case

The Supreme Court seemed to have conflicting impulses in considering a request from television broadcasters to shut down Aereo, an Internet start-up that the broadcasters say threatens the economic viability of their businesses.

On the one hand, most of the Justices seemed to think that the service was too clever by half. “Your technological model,” Chief Justice John Roberts Jr told Aereo’s lawyer, “is based solely on circumventing legal prohibitions that you don’t want to comply with.”

But Justice Stephen Breyer, echoing sentiments of other members of the court, said “what disturbs me on the other side is, I don’t understand what a decision” against Aereo “should mean for other technologies,” notably cloud computing.

The Justices seemed keenly aware that their ruling would have vast implications for the broadcast industry and for technical innovations involving cloud computing.

Digital Public Library of America Marks a Year of Rapid Growth

The Digital Public Library of America, a project aimed at providing free online access to the nation’s cultural repositories, has tripled in size to more than seven million items from more than 1,300 institutions since it opened in 2013.

The noncommercial effort, which is based in the Boston Public Library, gained steam following a 2011 federal court ruling that derailed Google’s plan to build the world’s largest digital library. It does not own any of the items in its catalog, but instead allows users to access them both through its own website and through various regional service hubs.

The library’s holdings, which come from institutions ranging from the Smithsonian and the New York Public Library to the Minnesota Streetcar Museum and the Montana Memory Project, include items in more than 400 languages, the project’s executive director, Dan Cohen, said in an interview. They can be accessed by various search tools, including a map that allows users to search for items by state.

Fan TV coming to Time Warner Cable in first national rollout

The revolutionary Fan TV set-top box and viewer guide will soon be available to Time Warner Cable customers across the country, marking the first formal roll-out of a product that delivers a combination of live TV, pay-TV services and online video on demand through a minimalist receiver.

Fan TV, which San Francisco-based start-up Fanhattan unveiled 11 months ago, is unusual in at least three respects. All the programming, including broadcast TV, is transmitted via Internet Protocol, à la an online video service such as Netflix. The viewer guide offers several different ways to find movies and TV shows, integrating "over the top" options from the Web with those from live TV.

And the Zen-inflected set-top is not only far more attractive than the typical cable box, its touch-controlled remote is a breakthrough in ease of use. The heart of Fan TV is the guide, whose combination of online offerings and live TV listings with reviews, social-media tools and other resources from the Web is unlike anything cable operators have offered to date.

Teaching seniors to use Internet cuts depression risk

According to new research by a Michigan State University professor published in the Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences, computer use among retirees reduces the risk of depression by more than 30%.

And don't worry that Grandpa doesn't yet understand this newfangled Internet-thing. It's never too late to learn, said Sheila Cotten, lead author and a professor of telecommunication, information studies and the media.

Researchers wanted to focus on retirees -- those who no longer have jobs that force them to interact in person or online. With other factors held constant -- such as whether the seniors lived with other people -- the authors found that roughly 7 in 100 Internet users were estimated to have depression, whereas 10 in 100 non-computer users were estimated to have depression. In other words, Internet use led to a more than 30% reduction in the probability of depression.

It's not clear what the participants were doing -- checking e-mail, shopping or searching for information. And that doesn't matter, Cotten said: "It's really about being able to connect and communicate and find information you need."

Checking up on consumer generated health information

Whether it’s a website where people diagnosed with the same medical condition can share their stories or an app to find out how long it will take in the gym to burn off a Macadamia Mania Ripple sundae, consumers are taking their health in their own hands -- and generating a massive amount of digital data in the process.

Consumers are tracking their diet, exercise, medications, and symptoms online and even downloading their medical records and family histories into apps and websites. Many of these products and services help to empower consumers to be healthier, but what happens to all that data? Who has access to the information and what are they doing with it?

Those are just some of the issues on the agenda as the FTC continues its Spring Privacy Series on May 7, 2014, with a seminar on Consumer Generated and Controlled Health Data. We’re bringing together industry experts, consumer advocates, technologists, and researchers to talk over topics like:

What types of sites, products, and services are consumers using to generate and control their health data? What benefits can they offer people?
Are companies sharing the consumer information they collect? If so, with whom and for what purposes?
What actions are companies taking to protect consumers’ privacy and security?
What do consumers expect from these companies about privacy and security protections?

BYOD Cost The Energy Department More Than Supplying Government Phones

Some Energy Department divisions were too liberal with stipends they paid contract employees under contractor-operated bring-your-own-device plans, an auditor has found.

As a result, the department sometimes compensated those contract employees more for supplying their own smartphones and tablets -- which were often loaded up with unlimited voice and data plans -- than it would have paid to give them government devices, Energy’s inspector general found.

Overall, Energy could save at least $2.3 million over three years by better handling how it buys and manages mobile devices, according to the IG report. In addition to not being strict enough about BYOD [bring your own device] policies, Energy spent $325,000 at eight separate locations on devices that were not used at all during the 2012 fiscal year, the report found.

Numerous other devices were underutilized during that time, according to the report. The department also failed to consolidate contracts with mobile carriers in order to benefit from economies of scale, the report found. The White House’s Office of Management and Budget has urged agencies to consolidate mobile contracts whenever possible as part of a government-wide digital strategy.

Benton

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