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Electronic-book lending isn't just for friends anymore.
In the past few months, online clubs with such names as BookLending.com and Lendle.me have proliferated. The sites, some of which have gathered thousands of users, allow strangers to borrow and lend e-books for Amazon's Kindle and Barnes & Noble's Nook free. The sites are the latest twist in the industry of e-books, which has disrupted the traditional book-publishing industry and changed that business's economics. Public libraries can't lend e-books in the Kindle format, though they can for other e-reading devices. Previously, Kindle and Nook readers were largely limited to sharing e-books with friends because two users needed to know each other's email address to initiate a loan. The new sites give e-book readers access to a larger network of people and a larger selection of books. The lending sites have drawbacks. One is limited selection. Most major book publishers haven't made their e-books lendable, and the books can be lent only once and for only 14 days. That means that with every successful loan, the sites' available library shrinks unless new users with books to lend join.
E-Book Lending Takes Off
American television floods the world, but more and more, clever TV ideas also travel in the other direction.
Reality shows in particular import well. "American Idol" and "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" originated in England; "Survivor" started in Sweden, and "Big Brother" came from the Netherlands. With few exceptions, however, only the UK has managed to produce dramatic shows and comedies which translate—from "All in the Family" to "Masterpiece Theatre" to "The Office." But as the world gets smaller, and original ideas harder to come by, Hollywood producers and agents are looking elsewhere, and they say they've found signs of a Promised Land. Israel, though faraway, isolated and war-weary, is culturally more aligned to American TV tastes than almost any other country. The nation's small, but highly educated, technologically advanced work force largely speaks English and has grown up on U.S. shows and movies, even if their own shows are in Hebrew.
Coming to America
Some Nevada lawmakers want the state to be the first to regulate the multibillion dollar, quasi-legal Internet poker industry. But with some of the most powerful casinos lining up against the proposal, the bill could be headed the direction of other recent federal and state efforts - a legislative grave.
The bill would ask state gambling regulators to create rules for Internet poker operators and companies that make related equipment. It would also specifically prevent the Nevada Gaming Commission from denying a license to popular existing poker sites - like PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker - just because they have been operating offshore in a legal gray area after a federal law effectively banned online gambling in 2006. Alan Feldman, spokesman for MGM Resorts International, said the federal law needs to be fixed first. "I think everyone's objective should be to get the proper bill passed, and to do so federally," he said. "The business model ought to be following sound public policy, and (the Nevada bill) is actually a pretty good model of getting a business model way far ahead of anyone's policy."
Nevada considers Internet poker bill, but casinos balk
Lawyers and expert witnesses at the confirmation hearings in Tribune Co.'s bankruptcy case began this week to address the complex question of when the Chicago-based media company became insolvent and who should have known about it. But amid often-numbing testimony about discount rates and cash-flow tax values, strategies among the two groups of warring creditors in the case are becoming clearer as they each try to persuade U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Kevin J. Carey to accept their plan for restructuring the company.
The company and lenders that financed its ill-fated 2007 leveraged buyout maintain that the intricate, two-step deal did not itself bankrupt Tribune — a charge being pressed by junior creditors led by hedge fund Aurelius Capital Management. Former University of Chicago law scholar Daniel Fischel testified as an expert witness that it was reasonable for the lenders to assume the company was solvent at the time that each of the two steps of the deal closed in 2007.
But faced with ample evidence from other quarters, including the report of a court-appointed examiner, that the second step of the deal may have rendered the company insolvent, the senior group has also adopted another tactic. They produced Bernard Black, a finance and law expert from Northwestern University, who has spent the last year, for a $500,000 fee, calculating probabilities for various potential legal conclusions in the case. He testified that even if the buyout were a form of fraudulent conveyance, potential recoveries for the junior creditors pressing the claims would most likely not be higher than the 34 cents on the dollar they've been offered by senior creditors to settle. Black argued that the only way the junior creditors could do better is if they could prove that both Step 1 and Step 2 of the 2007 buyout were fraudulent conveyances. That would "avoid," or invalidate, the more than $8 billion in senior lender claims and give the junior creditors full recovery on the more than $2 billion they are owed. Given the legal hurdles, Black concluded, there was only a small chance of that outcome. Aurelius, however, is betting that it can convince the judge that there is ample value in its legal claims. While it will have to wait until next week to put on its case, David Zensky, a lawyer for the junior creditors, said in his opening statement that "there are several routes that would provide recovery to the [junior creditors] far in excess of the proposed settlement."
Creditors begin sparring over when Tribune became insolvent
The parent company of the Orange County Register has begun an auction seeking to sell all or part of the Irvine-based owner of 100 newspapers and eight TV stations. Freedom Communications, which emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last year, was expected to receive bids from a number of suitors before a March 10 deadline set by the company.
Among firms considered likely to make bids for parts of Freedom were Tribune Co. — which owns the Los Angeles Times, KTLA-TV Channel 5 and other media properties — and MediaNews Group Inc., publisher of newspapers including the Daily News in Woodland Hills and the Press-Telegram in Long Beach. Two Los Angeles-based private equity firms, Gores Group and Platinum Equity, also reportedly were considering making offers. Freedom's creditors, including private equity firm Alden Global Capital, took control of the company under its bankruptcy reorganization, which slashed the company's debt load by almost 60% to $325 million. For Chicago-based Tribune, Denver-based MediaNews and Platinum Equity, acquiring the Register would allow the buyer to cut costs by combining some operations with its existing newspaper operations in Southern California. Platinum owns the San Diego Union-Tribune.
Freedom Communications seeks to sell some or all of its media properties
Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-IL) said he stood-by a proposal he made last week that could result in the federal government providing an iPad for every student in the nation, despite a barrage of criticism he has suffered from the media in recent days.
"Let me be clear about a few things," Rep Jackson said, brandishing both an Apple iPad and an Amazon Kindle on the House floor. "These devices are revolutionizing our country — and they will fundamentally alter how we will educate our children." Rep Jackson said he had been skewered on conservative radio and in the blogosphere and was called "misleading" and “malicious” names. "Now, because I've suggested this idea, I've been called a communist and a socialist and any number of another things,” he said. Rep Jackson is promoting his idea to amend the Constitution so that it guarantees every American the right to an equal education. Under that amendment Congress would be given discretion to implement the educational reforms which, Jackson said, may lead to an iPad, Kindle, or Nook for every schoolchild.
Rep Jackson stands by his proposal: An iPad for every student
Japan’s mobile phone market – one of the largest and most structurally unusual – is facing change as the rapid spread of smartphones weakens carriers’ iron grip on the industry.
For years, the most prominent logo on a Japanese mobile phone has not been the manufacturer’s but that of NTT DoCoMo, KDDI or Softbank, the country’s three big network operators. The trio has dictated everything from the way phones are marketed to their features and design. Japanese handset makers such as Toshiba, NEC and Sharp have been relegated to the role of contract manufacturers, not unlike the anonymous Taiwan groups that build Apple’s iPhones. “Carriers have had everything their way,” Michito Kimura, senior market analyst at IDC, a research group, says. “They have had total control.” Two of the three groups – DoCoMo and KDDI, which markets under the name “au” – even have their own platforms for e-mail, web surfing and other applications. Their dominance, analysts say, is one reason Japan’s once world-beating mobile technology never spread beyond the domestic market. Now, smartphones such as the iPhone and more recent Google Android-based models are spreading fast.
Smartphone wake-up call for Japan
NTT DoCoMo, KDDI and Softbank, the three largest mobile-phone operators in Japan, said their services were disrupted across many regions after an earthquake shook buildings across the nation.
Wireless connections are poor across the country, Atsuko Suzuki, a spokeswoman for NTT DoCoMo said by phone. Phone services across Tohoku, Kanto and Tokai regions were bad, Softbank spokeswoman Makiko Ariyama said separately. Softbank is checking for possible damages to its telecommunications facilities, she said. An 8.8-magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of northern Japan, shaking buildings violently in Tokyo, according to the U.S. Geological Service. A tsunami of more than 10 meters was reported in northern Japan.
NTT Docomo, Japan Phone Operators Report Poor Services After Earthquake
[Commentary] A year into the National Broadband Plan and two years into the Obama Administration, it is worth looking at the progress in promoting an infrastructure that candidate Obama had declared essential.
The idea is to liberate 500 megahertz of spectrum, to auction it off to providers of 4G, presumably mobile telecom companies, thus more than doubling their spectrum, and to use the proceeds to create broadband connectivity for unserved areas and people. In the end, it is likely that much less spectrum will be available for auctioning than envisioned, and hence less money would be generated. In other words, a major struggle with broadcasters in the name of broadband Internet will result in $19.6bn for non-broadband purposes, and in only $8.2bn towards infrastructure, all of it for 4G wireless. Why then not move the national effort to fibre, which by general agreement, is the road to the future? The problem is that the Federal budget deficit does not permit the funding of a national fiber initiative. This leaves the government with the fallback to use an off-budget currency – spectrum allocations— to advance its goals, and it shapes its preference to the wireless platform. But if fiber upgrades are to be pursued, too, how would those investments then be generated? The approach here needs to generate creatively off-budget strategies.
It would have four elements:
- Tax incentives, through investment credits for incremental high-speed network upgrades in low-density areas, and for certain hardware upgrades by low-income end-users.
- Regulatory incentives, such as encouragement for cable, telecoms, and other infrastructure providers to share the fiber in low-density areas and thus lower their cost, subject to openness requirements and consumer protections.
- Creation of a Federal off-tax funding mechanism. This already exists through the universal service fund for rural telecom and is being transformed into a wider mechanism for broadband. It is, in effect, an internal taxing mechanism for telecom and soon for broadband, paid through a levy on communications bills. However, the amounts raised today for high-cost areas is about $4.5bn, of which maybe a third would go to fiber, and are not enough to fund fiber nationally. Expanding this mechanism would be the most realistic source of funding, and it might find the approval even of anti-tax Republicans because it is pro-rural and not formally a tax.
- Local cost sharing. There should be a much stronger role and responsibility for states and municipalities to support the infrastructure in their states following their own priorities. They could work with private companies, and use tax-free municipal bonds to support these projects. This should be promoted by Federal matching contributions, using the broadband fund mentioned above.
To conclude: the vision of a nation-wide fiber infrastructure should not be replaced by merely facilitating the new generation of mobile communications, and then relabeling it high-speed broadband. If the US is losing its technology lead it is not because of a lack of private sector initiatives, but because its government is losing the ability to do or enable big things.
The incredible shrinking US broadband plan
March 16 marks the one year anniversary of the release of the National Broadband Plan, a multi-year strategy for increasing broadband deployment, adoption and meaningful use throughout the country. Over the last year, the Benton Foundation has been tracking the implementation of the plan and its over 200 recommendations.
At Benton, we believe the heart of the National Broadband Plan are the recommendations targeted at modernizing and streamlining the federal Universal Service Fund. Thirty-five recommendations -- approximately 16% of the plan's suggestions -- address this issue. Five of these recommendations (14%) have been completed in the past year. In September, the Federal Communications Commission's E-rate Order addressed upgrading broadband connectivity to schools and libraries. The bulk of the recommendations (22 or 63%) are in full swing at the FCC. Most notably, the FCC has recently launched proceedings to modernize and streamline its universal service and intercarrier compensation policies and modernize and drive tougher accountability measures into the Lifeline/Link Up program. On Benton's National Broadband Plan Tracker you can follow the developments of each recommendation including the related dockets the FCC launches and public comments it receives, legislation introduced in Congress, and changes in Administration policy.
The Tracker is powered by our Communications-related Headlines service -- a daily update on the world of telecommunications policy. The Tracker captures the links between today's Headlines and events, bills moving through Congress, dockets at the FCC, and the week's key events. On this, day 361 of the National Broadband Plan, Benton invites you to take a look at how much work has gone into making the plan a reality. You can even grade the performance of the government bodies the Plan's recommendations were targeted to. Sure, the FCC has completed work on over 10% of the recommendations it made to itself, but how is Congress doing? (Hint: not nearly so well)
Tracking the National Broadband Plan -- Universal Service