May 2015

Google Modifies Websites to Hasten Service

Google is making its search engine lean to be seen. The Internet giant is modifying some key services -- and some non-Google websites -- to reach more users in faster-growing, developing countries with limited, expensive Internet connections, Google executives said at the company’s annual developers’ conference. In one move, Google is adapting its Chrome browser to tap antennas and other components in smartphones to detect the speed of a user’s Internet connection and the size of a Web page.

When Google estimates that a page will take more than 25 seconds to load, it will remove some images or videos so the page will load faster, said Jen Fitzpatrick, head of the company’s maps and local business. The system will pull in slower-loading content later, or by demand when users ask for it, she added. Google plans to launch a pilot in India in coming months. To Google, faster service means more use of its services. Earlier in 2015, Google tested stripped-down Web pages to people in Indonesia who use Chrome and Android Web browsers on phones. The lighter pages used 80 percent less data, loaded four times faster and got 50 percent more views, compared with the original pages delivered over the same connections, the company said.

Periscope CEO: We're working on combating piracy

Periscope's CEO says the mobile live streaming service wants to make it easier to report piracy but is being held up by technical details. Media companies want to be able to quickly take down copyrighted content that is being streamed over the Twitter-owned service. Some have said the service should have an automated process for taking down pirated content. The company’s head says that such a solution might be in the works, but will take time. "That's a process we’re looking to improve with technology, but there's a lot of technical complexity in doing that," CEO Kayvon Beykpour told Reuters. He told the wire service that the company has been meeting with content companies that have issued takedown orders to the company.

Backlash Brewing Against Binge TV as 'Orange Is the New Black' Creator Speaks Out

On May 28, NBC will jump on the binge-viewing bandwagon, releasing the entire 13-episode first season of "Aquarius" online while also airing the David Duchovny period drama each week on linear TV. But NBC may be serving up the binge just as Hollywood is beginning to ask: Have viewers had their fill?

While pioneer Netflix has ridden the binge-viewing trend to media-darling status (62 million global subscribers and a $600 stock price), on May 21 the service quietly began rolling out Canadian co-production "Between" week-to-week on Netflix and Canada's City network. At the same time, observers and even Netflix creators acknowledge that the all-at-once model limits media attention on shows beyond the burst around the premiere and might lead audiences to eschew series that feel more like a 13-hour obligation than entertainment. "I miss having people on the same page," "Orange Is the New Black" creator Jenji Kohan said, adding, "I do miss being able to go online and have the conversation the day after. But it's kind of a waste of time to lament that because that's not the way our show comes."

Noncommercial Broadcasters: FCC Obliged to Reserve Noncommercial Spectrum

Representatives of the Big Three noncommercial broadcasting groups met with Federal Communications Commission officials to argue for reserving at least one channel for public broadcasting in each market after the spectrum auction. The groups had petitioned the FCC for that change after its original proposal did not set aside those channels. Apparently, the proposed resolution of that and other petitions to reconsider its spectrum auction framework also does not include granting that request, which prompted the noncoms to take their case directly to the FCC.

The item is being circulated among the other commissioners and changes are still at least possible. In the meetings, Lonna Thompson, executive VP, COO, APTS; Cindy Campbell, VP, Corporation for Public Broadcasting; and Eric Wolf, VP, and Thomas Rosen, senior counsel, at PBS, argued that the FCC "has both the authority to reserve a portion of the public airwaves for noncommercial educational service and the obligation to continue doing so." Without that set-aside, they warned, it could adversely impact minority communities and others reliant on over-the-air TV. "The Commission has never made the continued existence of noncommercial educational reserved spectrum subject entirely to market forces and cannot reverse this well-settled policy now," they argued.

Here’s how badly we’re getting ripped off by our mobile phone providers

It is hard to overstate how much I love the British mobile provider Three and how I wish it would come to the United States. My fellow Americans, let me (again) re-iterate how badly we’re all getting overcharged: Three offers a 30-day prepaid plan with unlimited data, unlimited texts, and 200 minutes of domestic calling, all for £20 ($31). That’s about one-third less than what I pay right now Stateside.

As I’ve been reporting for Ars for years now, the American mobile market is slowly starting to move in the direction of prepaid plans, which has dominated the rest of the globe for years. To match what I already have with Straight Talk, I’d be looking at paying $60 per month with T-Mobile. AT&T, meanwhile, charges $60 for less data! Verizon doesn’t even offer a prepaid plan anywhere close to 5GB. Its best offer is $60 per month, but only at 2.5GB. Sprint comes closest, at $45 for 3GB of data. Some of the other MVNOs have offers that are identical or even come very close to Straight Talk. For instance, I might consider switching to Cricket, a subsidiary of AT&T. including a discount for adding a second line (my wife), we would pay the same as we pay now ($90).

All the personal data that Verizon FiOS uses to keep you from canceling

When you call Verizon FiOS, the customer service representative on the other end of the line already knows quite a lot about you. The American television and Internet provider is now closely tracking exactly what you watch, what devices you use, and how much data you consume. It knows whether your household spars over DVR conflicts and how many hours your kids spend binge-watching shows on HBO. What’s more, the company is listening in on phone calls to customer service in real-time, with supervisors poised to jump at the moment they sense a fight brewing or hear trigger words from an unhappy customer, such as “switching to Time Warner Cable.” El Assir explained how Verizon monitors billions of data points a day from 7 million Verizon FiOS customers to make sure its customer service representatives know pretty much everything about their customers’ TV consumption habits before they start trying to talk someone out of canceling a bundle of channels or getting rid of that extra DVR. “Customers are four times more likely to upgrade their DVR boxes to newer versions that record more shows when we bring up the data on recording conflicts,” El Assir said.

AT&T keeps fighting to get FTC lawsuit over its data throttling thrown out

AT&T Mobility asked a federal appeals court to decide whether the Federal Trade Commission can move ahead with a lawsuit that targeted the carrier's data throttling policies. In a filing with the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, based in a San Francisco (CA), AT&T said the court should hear the case now in order to avoid costly litigation for both sides. "If this Court waits to review until after a trial, the parties could waste enormous amounts of time and money litigating this case to completion," AT&T argued in its filing seeking an immediate appeal.

The FTC isn't opposing AT&T's request, according to documents AT&T filed on May 26. In a late March decision, Judge Edward Chen of US District Court in Northern California refused to dismiss the lawsuit, which the FTC first brought last fall. The FTC alleged that the carrier misled as many as 3.5 million customers with legacy unlimited data plans by throttling their data speeds and changing the terms of their plans. AT&T has said the lawsuit does not have any merit.

Sprint's Claure: In 18-24 months, we'll be No. 1 or 2 in network performance

Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure has a bold claim: that within two years, Sprint will have the top network among US carriers. Claure said that "you can expect in the next 18 to 24 months -- hopefully you'll invite me two years from now -- that our network will be ranked No. 1 or No. 2 in every single market." He later clarified that he meant No. 1 or 2 in the United States' major markets. Claure acknowledged that when he took over from Dan Hesse last August, Sprint's network was in poor shape. "I've been in this job for eight months and when I came, you're absolutely right, our network was drop-dead last," he said. "We'd be foolish not to acknowledge that." However, he said since then Sprint has continued to build out its tri-band Spark LTE service and improve and optimize its network. "We've put a relentless focus on getting our network better in the last eight months," he said.

Global Cybersecurity Index: Updated Report

The International Telecommunication Union and ABI Research are pleased to launch a follow-up report on the Global Cybersecurity Index (GCI), published in December 2014 at ITU World Telecom. In addition to showcasing the global and regional scores and rankings, the publication will include Cyberwellness Profiles of 196 sovereign nation states. Each country profile features information on measures contained in the five key pillars of the GCI, as enshrined in the ITU’s Global Cybersecurity Agenda, notably: legal, technical, organizational, capacity building and cooperation. Information on child online protection measures will be added to each profile. The GCI has been an ongoing project between ITU and ABI Research to map out cybersecurity efforts undertaken at the national level. Each of the six regions (Africa, Americas, Arab States, Asia Pacific, the Commonwealth of Independent States and Europe) saw regional champions emerge. Good practices from each region and from each of the pillars are highlighted in the new publication.

Congress.gov Continues…

So far, 2015 has been a great year for Congress.gov. First, we launched e-mail alerts in February. Then, we added treaty documents and more in March. With May 28th’s update, improvements have been made to search (results, command line and advanced), alerts, browse, and accessibility. The Federalist Papers have remained a perennially popular item on THOMAS with nearly a million page views over the last two years. Thanks to a lot of hard work by Kelly Yuzawa, you can now read them on Congress.gov. There are two additional items listed on our Fields Values List. One is the Member Bioguide Ids, which is a list of all Members in our system and their unique identifier, and the other is Committee Names and Codes. There are also four new items on our Browse page: Public Laws; Bill and Law Texts Received Today; Bills Introduced by Request; and Bills Introduced as Private Legislation. Speaking of Public Laws, you can now quickly access them from the text drop down menu. Thanks to all of you for providing us with great feedback on Congress.gov. It keeps fueling our efforts to make the site better and better.

Benton

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