July 2022

Digital divide creates challenges in connecting older adults to post-pandemic resources

As the world inches towards full emergence from the COVID-19 pandemic, California says older adults were hit the hardest in the past couple of years. The digital divide was partly the reason why. Director of the California Department of Aging (DOA), Susan DeMarois, says extreme isolation, resource availability, and elder abuse for those 60 years old and older have all increased since 2020. That's on top of this population experiencing the highest mortality rate for the virus.

Publishers Battle Internet Archive Over Digital Library

Major book publishers are pressing a judge to rule that an 11-year-old digital lending program established by the nonprofit Internet Archive infringes copyright. “Masquerading as a not-for-profit library, Internet Archive digitizes in-copyright print books on an industrial scale and distributes full-text digital bootlegs for free,” lawyers for Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins Publishers, John Wiley & Sons, and Penguin Random House write in papers filed with US District Court Judge John Koeltl in the Southern District of New York.

Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment Program Funding for Anchor Institutions

One of the aspects of the $42.5 billion Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) Program that many communities might have overlooked is that communities can request grants to bring fast broadband or improve existing broadband to anchor institutions.

Canada’s internet outage should encourage us to dismantle our telecom oligopoly

A recent telecommunications outage left millions of Canadians without access to internet and cell services for hours. It was a stunning reminder that Canada must revolutionize the industry and dismantle the oligopoly that runs it. On July 8, more than 10 million customers of Rogers Communications were left without internet and cell services when a maintenance update went sideways. At least two days later, some customers were still without service, while others had unreliable access. It was the second time in 15 months the Rogers service failed.