New York Times

Eighteen years ago, there was no certainty that we would be watching sports and movies on little mobile screens or that outfits like Netflix would engage us by streaming series a season at a time.

How, then, can anyone predict how we will consume video in 18 years with the rapid evolution -- alongside the occasional revolution -- occurring in technology? The answer is -- if you’re NBC Universal and the International Olympic Committee -- you don’t.

Not when you’re making a deal for NBC to carry in the United States the six Olympic Games from 2022 to 2032 on its television and digital platforms, and whatever new technology develops in the next two decades. Their $7.75 billion deal, with a $100 million signing bonus, was announced.

“Basically, what you do, is you say that if circumstances changes, then various things can happen,” Jim Clark, a partner at Cahill Gordon & Reindel and the lead lawyer representing NBC at the talks with the International Olympic Committee, said by telephone. “You know things can change. And the agreement takes into account that new technologies might have to be taken into account.”

So let’s say that an amazing technology, with enormous profit potential, breaks through in 2027 or 2028. Would the IOC reopen talks and seek additional money from NBC? No, said Steve Burke, the chief executive of NBC Universal.

“If the way the world changes and the way you make money changes,” Burke said in an email, “we are allowed to change and there will never be an added fee.” That is a great benefit of agreeing in 2014 to put down a huge sum of money from 2022 to 2032, and the fruit of two decades of trust between NBC and the IOC, which relies heavily on the network’s cash.

Kenneth Tomlinson, a conservative journalist who used his leadership role in federal communications agencies to counter what he regarded as liberal bias, died on May 1 at a hospital in Winchester (VA).

He was 69.

Tomlinson, a former top editor of Reader’s Digest, was director of Voice of America in the early 1980s and, from 2002 to 2007, chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which oversees the federal government’s international broadcasting. His most prominent role was as chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting for two years during the administration of President George W Bush.

Tomlinson was appointed to the corporation board in 2000 by President Bill Clinton to fill a Republican seat. Tomlinson immediately campaigned to eliminate what he perceived as the corporation’s leftward tilt. His biggest target was the PBS program “Now With Bill Moyers,” which he believed had veered into blatant liberal partisanship. To add what he considered needed objectivity to PBS, Tomlinson introduced conservative programming, including “The Journal Editorial Report,” a weekly talk show featuring columnists from The Wall Street Journal. Another was hosted by the conservative commentator Tucker Carlson, titled “Tucker Carlson: Unfiltered.”

In 2005, at the end of his mandatory two-year term as chairman, Tomlinson successfully pushed for the appointment of Patricia S Harrison, a former chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, as the corporation’s president. Tomlinson left the board after the corporation’s inspector general questioned his authority to order the study of Moyers’s show and to hire two lobbyists without the board’s knowledge.

In 2006, the State Department investigated his chairmanship of the Broadcasting Board of Governors. It found that Tomlinson had put a friend on the payroll and had run a “horse-racing operation” with government resources, specifically that he had bought and sold thoroughbreds from his office.

Eight weather broadcasters were invited to interview President Barack Obama and spend the day at the White House.

From Al Roker of the “Today” show to local weathermen and women from Chicago, Miami, Seattle and other cities, the handpicked guests were there, the Administration hoped, to spread the word contained in a landmark new report, the National Climate Assessment, that the warming climate is causing sweeping change across the United States.

Polls show that local television weathercasters are among the most trusted media figures, but there is a deep divide between those who accept the link between human activities and global warming and extreme weather and those who do not.

The largest technology stock offering in history is looming, but few in Silicon Valley seem to care. The initial public offering expected soon in the United States by Alibaba Group Holding, China’s largest e-commerce company, could surpass the amount raised in the initial public offering (IPO) of Facebook.

It would not even be surprising if it surpassed the combined amounts raised in the IPO’s of Facebook, Twitter, Google, Amazon, AOL and Yahoo.

But unlike the flurry of attention that accompanies high-profile floats by American tech stars, Alibaba’s stock offering has barely registered among the valley’s tech set. San Francisco’s artisanal toast bars have not been abuzz with commentary on Jack Ma, Alibaba’s chairman, and Palo Alto’s Tesla dealerships aren’t bracing for a surge in new buyers.

In interviews, a few Silicon Valley investors said they didn’t expect the offering to be a big deal in the markets they follow, though they declined to speak on the record about their apathy. The issue isn’t that the valley is ignorant of the rise of Chinese Internet giants. It’s more that American tech firms have long been spurned and surprised by China’s tech market, and many here aren’t sure how to gauge the ambitions of the giants like Alibaba now bent on crossing the Pacific.

Admit it: Sometimes you just want to punch your PC, or slap your smartphone, or knock your notebook. We all get riled by technology once in a while, with all those feeble batteries, endless updates and spinning wheels of death. But what if our devices could see it coming?

What if they could pick up the tics and tells of our brewing anger -- or, for that matter, any other emotion -- and respond accordingly?

It’s not as crazy as it sounds. To hear experts tell it, this is where technology is going.

Researchers and companies are already starting to employ sensors that try to read and respond to our feelings. While this sort of technology is still in its early days, the possibilities seem many.

One day, your PC might sense your frustration when a program keeps crashing and politely suggest that you take a walk while it contacts tech support. Or your smartphone could sense that passions -- of one sort or another -- are running high and, in response, disable messaging. Or your car might discern an early case of road rage and soften the car’s lighting and stiffen its steering. A new generation of sensors can judge emotion through people’s skin and breath.

With smartphone theft rampant, apps like Find My iPhone offer a new option for those desperate to recover their devices, allowing victims to act when the police will not.

But the emergence of this kind of do-it-yourself justice -- an unintended result of the proliferation of GPS tracking apps -- has stirred worries among law enforcement officials that people are putting themselves in danger, taking disproportionate risks for the sake of an easily replaced item.

Victims are often desperate to recover their stolen phones, which, as home to their texts, photos and friends’ phone numbers, can feel less like devices than like extensions of their hands.

The California legislative analyst’s office offered what it called “preliminary observations” on the push for expanded film and television subsidies in the state -- and it advices to proceed with a great deal of caution.

To date, California has offered $100 million a year in tax credits to support film production; proposed legislation would expand the program considerably. No dollar amounts have yet been assigned, but backers have talked privately of subsidies matching New York’s program, which is capped at about $420 million a year.

In its report, the analyst’s office acknowledged that larger incentives might help protect what it called a “flagship California industry,” one that has been fleeing to other states (and countries) with more generous subsidies. But the report offered a list of reasons to be wary: film and television production is growing more slowly than the rest of the economy, and may decline even with help; competing with other states could become hugely expensive; any benefits from an expanded credit would be concentrated largely around Los Angeles; and, other industries, some with arguably greater social utility, might well demand subsidies of their own.

The state analyst is expected to issue a full report on California’s film subsidies by the end of 2015.

[Commentary] Proponents of the “sharing economy” say websites like Airbnb that make it easy for people to rent a spare bedroom or an apartment on a short-term basis are a boon to cities like New York and San Francisco because they generate income for residents while giving visitors a cheap place to stay.

But advocates often ignore or casually dismiss big problems with these short-term rentals, including the fact that they are making housing less affordable in big cities by restricting supply. And in some cases the rentals may be illegal, which is one reason the New York state attorney general, Eric Schneiderman, has begun an investigation.

There are good reasons that governments regulate housing. For example, officials use zoning laws to separate hotels and residential development so apartment buildings are not overrun by tourists. Rent control policies exist to help ensure that lower-income tenants have a place to live. Laws against short-term rentals make sure landlords do not operate illegal hotels and reduce the number of apartments available to permanent residents.

Social media’s promise was that people with different views and political ties could mingle in digital bliss. But some social sites are more popular with one political party than another.

According to a new survey by the Harvard Institute of Politics, Democrats love Google Plus and Twitter, while Republicans are more interested in sharing on Pinterest. Some sites showed virtually no differences between the parties.

Democrats and Republicans used Facebook the same amount, 87 percent. With Snapchat, 24 percent of Democrats and 23 percent of Republicans said they actively used the service. Most other sites were predominantly used by Democrats, including Instagram, WhatsApp and Tumblr. While it’s difficult to tell why more Republicans than Democrats have joined Pinterest, this could be because of Mitt Romney, who used Pinterest to share pictures and information during his presidential campaign. His wife, Ann Romney, was also a frequent user of the site.

America’s infrastructure is crumbling, says former Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael Powell, the chief executive of the cable industry’s trade association.

Roads are in poor condition, bridges are structurally deficient, drinking water systems are near the end of their useful life and portions of the electric grid suffer regular blackouts. All of which, Powell says, proves that the country’s broadband networks cannot be considered a public utility and left in the hands of government oversight.

“Because the Internet is not regulated as a public utility, it grows and thrives, watered by private capital and a light regulatory touch,” Powell said in Los Angeles at the Cable Show, the annual meeting of the National Cable & Telecommunications Association. “It does not depend on the political process for its growth, or the extended droughts of public funding,” Powell said. “This is why broadband is the fastest deploying technology in world history, reaching nearly every citizen in our expansive country.”

Powell’s remarks were in response to recent calls for the Federal Communications Commission to reclassify high-speed Internet service as a “common carrier,” a public utilitylike network that should be subject to strict regulation.