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Using the National Broadband Map, the Department of Education just released a map product that visualizes one of the most vital aspects of broadband deployment in America: broadband availability for U.S. schools.
Moving forward, the National Broadband Map will be collecting more information about Community Anchor Institutions – the places like schools and libraries that often are the central locations for public broadband access – that will help grow the functionality in products like the Broadband Availability map.
New Market Opportunities and FCC Building Blocks Broadband Availability for US Schools (Dept of Education)
As part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, Congress set forth an ambitious goal of establishing a definitive National Broadband Map. Understandably, researchers are now anxious to use the data received to quantify the extent of broadband availability and to explain the relationships between availability and socio-economic factors.
While the National Telecommunications and Information Administration should be lauded for its inaugural effort to complete this Herculean task, it is nonetheless important to recognize that the mapping data currently has many known and yet-to-be-discovered defects. These errors include, but are not limited to, measurement errors and sample selection, both of which can cause severe problems with empirical analyses. In light of the known defects in the data and the lack of a robust data verification process, the analyst must proceed with caution and considerable modesty.
Indeed, until a data verification process is put into place and the known defects remedied, all statistical and econometric results using the National Broadband Map data should be viewed with skepticism as such work permits no strong causal and policy-relevant conclusions. Over time, as some of the measurement error and sample selection problems are resolved, econometric models may offer more robust conclusions. As always, empirical research using the Map data should begin with a sound, rational framework explaining observed outcomes.
Phoenix report on National Broadband Map
Making sense of vast amounts of data is made easier through processor improvements, faster networks and a growing amount of cloud storage capacity, but there’s another factor that’s accelerating the ability to sift through information: user communities.
At the Structure Big Data event, Alfred Spector, a VP of Research and Special Initiatives at Google, illustrated how to combine low-level user data with the massive information stores and cloud computing services offered by his company. Perhaps the most prominent example is Google’s geographic data used both in both the Google Maps and Earth products. The company harvests global information to create useful products in their own right, but each can be supplemented through localized user data. A modern data management web app makes it easy for Google to host, manage, allow collaboration and publication of data tables or personalized maps.
How Google Uses Data to Make a Better Google
The folks at American Idol were only giving helpful stage direction when they told a homosexual contestant to “gay it up.”
That’s what a lawyer for the talent show says, at least. In a motion to dismiss a federal harassment suit against the show, attorney Mark Goldberg denies that notorious contestant Ian Benardo was harassed or discriminated against and argues that some of the comments at issue were “acts of acceptance and encouragement.” Benardo, 30, who has sued the show three times, claimed in his January 2011 suit that producers directed him to act in a stereotypically effeminate way during his performance of “Gloria.” He also says that he was repeatedly called “fag” and “homo,” and that at one point a producer threatened to “shove this mic up your @$$.”
'Gay It Up' Just Stage Direction, American Idol Lawyer Says
CTIA-The Wireless Association announced the redesign of AccessWireless.org, the association’s website to help people with disabilities, seniors and their families find the right accessible wireless products and services.
As part of the wireless industry’s continued commitment to serving people of all abilities, AccessWireless.org is the initial website that consumers should visit for information about accessible wireless handsets and services. For the first time in the U.S., consumers can “Find a Phone” by searching and comparing the accessibility features of a variety of wireless handsets through the Mobile Manufacturer Forum’s (MMF) Global Accessibility Reporting Initiative (GARI). CTIA and its member companies received recommendations and insights from a diverse working group to ensure the redesigned website fit the needs of the accessibility community. The group consisted of policymakers from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and consumer representatives including the American Foundation for the Blind, Hearing Loss Association of America (HLAA), American Association of People with Disabilities, TDI, Inc., the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, the Alzheimer’s Association and the Wireless Research Engineering and Rehabilitation Center (RERC).
CTIA Wants to Help Consumers Choose the Right Accessible Wireless Devices and Services
World-renowned jurisprudent Marvin Ammori has joined the new America Foundation as a Legal Fellow.
He currently helps lead the JD/LLM program in Space and Telecom Law at the Nebraska-Lincoln College of Law and teaches courses on cyberlaw and domestic and International telecommunications. Professor Ammori was Free Press's top policy lawyer in Washington, DC, where he served as the lead lawyer before the Federal Communications Commission on the Comcast-BitTorrent case regarding network neutrality. His scholarship, published in journals at Michigan, Missouri, Indiana, and Catholic, focuses on freedom of speech and new technologies. He is also a Term Member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a regular blogger at Balkinization and the Huffington Post.
Marvin Ammori Joins the Open Technology Initiative as a Legal Fellow
Computer-generated reminders in electronic health record systems can help improve care in developing countries, according to a new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association.
For the study, researchers at the Regenstrief Institute, the University of Indiana School of Medicine and Moi University School of Medicine in Kenya evaluated how EHRs affected care quality in clinics in Eldoret, Kenya. The clinics studied are part of the Academic Model Providing Access to Healthcare program, which provides care to more than 120,000 HIV-positive adults and children in western Kenya. The study focused on an open-source EHR system, called OpenMRS, that is widely used in developing countries. The study found that the EHR system's computer-generated reminders improved adherence to clinical guidelines for CD4 blood tests, which are key to monitoring the health and treatment of patients with HIV. According to the researchers, EHR reminders about overdue tests resulted in a nearly 50% increase in appropriate use of CD4 blood tests.
E-Health Records Can Boost Care in Developing Countries, Study Finds Evaluation of computer-generated reminders to improve CD4 laboratory monitoring in sub-Saharan Africa (Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association)
[Commentary] In February 2011, two pilots of a new standard for sending health information securely over the Internet were launched. The pilots -- one in Minnesota and one in Rhode Island -- are the first tests of the Direct Project, a Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) initiative designed to simplify the exchange of information within the health care industry. The most noteworthy aspect of this initiative is how quickly it happened. These initial pilots are taking place less than a year after the Direct Project was started. The project represents an unusual experiment in accelerating the creation of the Nationwide Health Information Network. The project has demonstrated how rapidly a "lightweight" open process can yield useful results compared with typical government-sponsored IT development projects.
The Direct Project: Accelerating Government Innovation in Health IT
The Department of Health and Human Services released the National Strategy for Quality Improvement in Health Care (National Quality Strategy). The strategy was called for under the Affordable Care Act and is the first effort to create national aims and priorities to guide local, state, and national efforts to improve the quality of health care in the United States. HHS calls for increased adoption of electronic health records to facilitate many of the projects included in the strategy. The use of EHRs has the potential to reduce costs and paperwork, boost outcomes and empower patients to have more control over their health care.
Health IT Part of National Strategy for Quality Improvement in Health Care National Strategy for Quality Improvement in Health Care (read the strategy)
An amended version of Chile's regulation on Internet neutrality is far from perfect but now better reflects the spirit of a law approved in July, said José Huerta, spokesperson for local network neutrality lobby group Neutralidad Sí. Chile introduced a landmark law on net neutrality - the principle which advocates no restrictions by ISPs and governments on content - last year, making it the first and so far only country in the world to do so.
Amended network neutrality regulation calms critics in Chile