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You may recall that Prenda had (not surprisingly) gone crazy overboard with subpoenas in its attempt to intimidate some anti-copyright troll bloggers and their commenters. The EFF stepped in and asked a court to quash the subpoena, which the court has now done, in large part because Prenda never even bothered to respond. As of this date, no responsive memorandum has been filed. LRCiv 7.2(i) provides in part “if the opposing party does not serve and file the required answering memorandum, ...such noncompliance may be deemed a consent to the denial or granting of the motion and the Court may dispose of the motion summarily.” Pursuant to this rule, the Court deems Plaintiff's failure to serve and file the required answering memorandum a consent to the granting of Defendant-Movant's Motion to Quash the Subpoena to Wild West Domains Seeking Identity Information.
I guess Prenda's a bit busy. Or someone there realized this subpoena had zero chance of actually going forward. Either way, the subpoena is dead. Click healine to read more--
Telecommunications is a key element in some of the most headline-grabbing news of the week, especially the report from the Associated Press that the Justice Department secretly obtained telephone records of the news organization’s reporters and editors. But we want to highlight a development at the Federal Communications Commission that garnered almost no press at all. On May 10, the Federal Communications Commission released a Public Notice seeking public comment on how to structure real world trials that will inform the transition from today’s telephone networks to, well, the networks of tomorrow. The goal of any trials would be to gather a factual record to help determine what policies are appropriate to promote investment and innovation while protecting consumers, promoting competition, and ensuring that emerging networks remain resilient. The Public Notice comes from the FCC’s Technology Transitions Policy Task Force (1) which was announced back in December 2012. At the time, the FCC noted that the nation’s broadband transition means that communications networks are increasingly migrating from special purpose to general purpose, from circuit-switched to packet-switched, and from copper to fiber and wireless-based networks. In announcing the Task Force, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said its role is answer a fundamental policy question: “In a broadband world, how can we best ensure that our nation’s communications policies continue to drive a virtuous cycle of innovation and investment, promote competition, and protect consumers?” The Task Force is charged with providing recommendations to modernize the FCC’s policies in a process that encourages the technological transition, empowers and protects consumers, promotes competition, and ensures network resiliency and reliability. Click headline to read more--
I was asked to do a presentation on broadband trends at the Urban Land Institute’s spring meeting in San Diego today. Specifically, it was for one of the ULI’s community development councils, which is focused on planned community developers. I had to narrow the list down to five: 1. Conduit is gold. Cities and private developments can build a base for jobs and industry just by putting conduit in the ground whenever a trench is opened. And it’s a no brainer for greenfield developments. 2. Google wants to disrupt the telecoms business and, on the available evidence, it’s succeeding. By threatening incumbents with competition and raising consumer expectations, it’s shifting the conversation away from wireless spending and back to fiber optic investment. Click headline to read more--
Earlier this evening the bill to establish an Office of Broadband Development passed in the Senate and House and is on its way to the Governor’s Office. As was mentioned earlier this week, the Office has been moved from the Department of Commerce to DEED (Department of Employment and Economic Development) and the director will be appointed by the Governor.
With more than 1.4 million Twitter followers, Cisco Systems’ chief technology and strategy officer Padmasree Warrior might seem as connected as you can get. But she says the world is only 1 percent of the way toward total connectivity. In an interview about the “Internet of Everything” with McKinsey Publishing’s Rik Kirkland recently, Warrior conveyed her vision for how a significant share of the 99 percent of the people, devices, processes, and information that remains offline will become linked within the next decade. She predicts dramatic, unanticipated changes in everything from health care to farming in the next five years. Warrior tells Kirkland that by “the Internet of Everything,” she’s talking about “not just connecting the devices onto the network, but how can you use the information that’s being collected to drive better processes, better decision making for businesses, and better lifestyles for users and consumers?” She predicts improved efficiencies in big-data analysis such that every sector, including manufacturing, retail, and transportation, will be transformed. Advances in connectivity among video, sensors, and the streaming of low bit-rate data will also dramatically alter the consumer experience, Warrior predicts. In IT, she points to three major “differentials” that will change the future of the IT industry: the importance of the experience of IT—such as the fact that young people now think having access to the Internet is more important than having a car—the importance of velocity, which is driving individuals and businesses to the cloud, and the need to apply analytics to make big data useful. Click headlinne to read more--
The New Yorker has announced a new anonymous document sharing system called Strongbox, that will allow people to anonymously and securely submit documents to reporters from the New Yorker. Other publications have tried to set up something like this -- often inspired by Wikileaks -- but for the most part, they've been full of security holes, sometimes big and serious ones. What may be more interesting than the fact that this system is being set up is the story behind it. It's based on DeadDrop, an open source system that was put together by Aaron Swartz and Kevin Poulsen.
Poulsen has the backstory of DeadDrop here, which is well worth reading. Basically, he and Aaron worked on this project on and off for quite some time, and it was only just completed a few weeks before Aaron's death. The full story is worth reading, though here's a snippet: Click headline to read more--
From malicious hackers to viruses to privacy concerns, using the Internet is “risky behavior,” but generally abstinence is not an option. While most people are familiar with some of these threats, even those in tech-savvy circles are quick to admit that they are not taking sufficient precautions to protect themselves. The harm reduction framework — initially created to reduce the health risks associated with drug use — is an intervention strategy that has been shown to encourage individuals to make safer choices when engaging in risky behavior. Adopting this approach would allow members of the technical community to help a broader range of people employ safer tools and smarter behavior in their Internet use. By shifting away from a false dichotomy — “you’re either safe or not” — and instead offering non-judgmental suggestions to discretely reduce harms and risks, we can improve our collective digital health. The Internet and the tools that are built upon it have revolutionized how connected users can communicate, share or access information, and socialize. Yet the rewards offered by these tools often come with risks. While technologists familiar with the diversity and nuances of these threats can decide what risks they are willing to take and which activities they will forgo, most Internet users have a harder time doing so. In an effort to provide accurate assessments of various digital security tools for these users, security advice from digital experts can come across as impossibly complex and fruitless. When the less-experienced find it difficult to adopt a suggested behavior change (like using a different username and password for every website) they can end up feeling helpless to protect themselves ― and, in turn, apathetic about security. It is unrealistic to expect an individual to move from doing very little to protect their digital security to constructing the intricate web required to manage their digital security across platforms. Instead, we should gradually introduce at-risk users to the variety of different educational and digital tools for protecting themselves and keeping their communications or data safe. We can present these tools as a collection of safety gear that can be swapped out, combined, or disregarded depending upon context, behavior, and level of risk. As mentioned above, there is an established model that can inform how we educate and embolden individuals to minimize risk and reduce harms without causing them to feel overwhelmed: harm reduction. Click headline to read more--
The National Association of Counties, National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors, National League of Cities, and Public Technology Institute, in partnership with the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), are pleased to invite you to register for a webinar on May 20th from 2pm – 3:30pm EDT to hear highlights from the newly-released Broadband Adoption Toolkit produced by NTIA at the U.S. Department of Commerce. Click headline to read more and access hot link for registration--
It’s been almost two decades since Peter Shor came up with a a breakthrough algorithm for finding the prime factors of a number with a quantum computer, sparking great interest in quantum computing. But commercial adoption has been pretty much nonexistent. On Thursday, though, Google came forward with news that it’s launching a Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab that will include a quantum computer, apparently making it the second company to pay for a quantum computer. The development suggests that quantum computing could finally be taking off. Earlier this year Lockheed Martin shared details of its implementation of a D-Wave Systems quantum computer, which reportedly cost $10 million: The contractor is using the computer to develop new aircraft, radar and space systems. Now Google is taking steps at incorporating more quantum computing into its operations with the Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab, which will be located at the NASA Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif. Researchers from the Universities Space Research Association will be able to use the machine 20 percent of the time, Forbes reports. That could lead to lots of interdisciplinary thinking and collaboration. For Google, though, the goal of the initiative is to make strides in machine learning, according to a Thursday Google Research blog post. The best results could trickle down to end users, perhaps in search results and speech-recognition applications. Click headline to read more--
Model broadband development policies are on a fast track in Santa Cruz County. On a unanimous vote yesterday, county supervisors gave staff three months to evaluate four specific recommendations and come back with an action plan. “This is a far-reaching agenda for increasing the region’s access to broadband by lowering the administrative barriers to entry for, and increasing coordination between, private telecommunications providers,” wrote Zach Friend, the county supervisor behind the effort. The policies now under review in Santa Cruz include: Click headline to read more--
Undoubtedly everyone has seen stories in the media about how we need to expand high-skilled immigration because we have a shortage of workers with degrees in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). Claims of a shortage of STEM workers have been disconcerting to those of us who believe in economics since shortages are supposed to result in rising prices, or in this case, higher wages. We don't seem to be seeing rapidly rising wages in most areas, which makes the claims of shortages dubious. It turns out that at least one major tech firm has figured out how markets work. Netflix apparently doesn't have any problem hiring STEM workers. It offers higher wages. According to Businessweek: "Netflix can now hire just about any engineer it wants. That’s a function of the computer science the company does and its reputation as the highest payer in Silicon Valley. Managers routinely survey salary trends in Silicon Valley and pay their employees 10 percent to 20 percent more than the going rate for a given skill." Click headline to read more--
We keep hearing the MPAA and others talk about how much Hollywood is suffering from piracy and how they can't fund new movies and how they're having to lay people off. And then there's this, suggesting something else may be going on: Consider: the top 20 companies in the United States ranked by market capitalization include no media companies. But according to figures assembled for The New York Times by Equilar, which compiles data on executive compensation, media companies employ seven of the top 20 highest paid chief executives.
The names are familiar and the numbers are large: Leslie Moonves of CBS ($60,253,647), David M. Zaslav of Discovery Communications ($49,932,867), Robert A. Iger of Walt Disney ($37,103,208), Philippe P. Dauman of Viacom ($33,396,104), Jeffrey L. Bewkes of Time Warner ($25,670,263), Brian L. Roberts of Comcast ($25,087,379), and Rupert Murdoch of News Corporation ($22,418,292).
Basically, the study showed that media companies might not be as big as companies in other industries, but they pay their execs way more. Basically, the top execs in the media business make much more than comparable execs in other industries, even if the companies those execs work for are doing much better: Click headline to read more--
Over and over again people have pointed out that one of the reasons people flock to "unauthorized" versions of content is that legitimate versions aren't available. For a decade or so, it's been odd that network TV has been generally resistant to embracing the internet. A big part of the reason, of course, is money driven, since they make so much cash from cable deals (even if their content is free over the air). The fight with Aereo, of course, is not so much about copyright as it is about retransmission fees that the networks can get from cable. So it might seem like a bit of progress to see that the networks are finally moving towards live streaming of content.
While many shows are now available online, they usually aren't available until hours (or sometimes days or weeks) after things air. And while, yes, we're now a DVR world, where people don't always watch shows when they air, there is still a sizable population of fans of shows that like to watch them in real-time. In fact, many have said that the supposedly evil internet is actually making them more interested in watching live, because they can share the cultural experience more widely via things like Twitter and Facebook. So, recognizing that reality, making it easier for people to view the content live at the same time, such as via online streaming, makes a lot of sense. Kudos to the networks for recognizing that, about a decade later than they should have. Disney's ABC network will become the first broadcast network to stream its shows live online through an ongoing service, starting with viewers of its TV stations in New York and Philadelphia on May 14 and expanding to its other stations by the end of the summer.
Okay, that's the good part. But, given who we're talking about, of course there's a catch. There's always a catch: Click headline to read more--
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AT&T seems perfectly willing to let Google blaze the trail when it comes to fiber-optic deployment. Google has said it plans to deploy its fiber network in select neighborhoods in Austin, Texas. AT&T said it would also like to build a fiber network -- under the same kinds of terms and conditions. "We will probably piggyback on the rules and terms and condition that Google received in Austin and do our own build in Austin," CEO Randall Stephenson said Wednesday at a J.P. Morgan tech investor conference in Boston, which offered a live feed and transcript of his presentation. AT&T has had a tougher time with its own fiber deployment because cities have required it to build its network out to the entire community -- a costly project. But Google has been able to approach it differently, building only to homes and neighborhoods where it makes economic sense. It's a change that AT&T hopes to mimic. "I think you are going to see that begin to manifest itself around the United States, and in not just AT&T and Google. You will see others doing this because the demand for really high-speed broadband via gigabit-type fiber-based solutions on a targeted basis is going to be very, very high," Stephenson said. Click headline to read more--
Taking advantage of a recent trip to Washington, DC, I had the privilege of visiting three non-profit organizations who are leaders in the application of computers to changing society. First, I attended the annual meeting of the Association for Computing Machinery’s US Public Policy Council (USACM). Several members of the council then visited the Open Technology Institute (OTI), which is a section of New America Foundation (NAF). Finally, I caught the end of the first general-attendance meeting of the Open Source Initiative (OSI). In different ways, these organizations are all putting in tremendous effort to provide the benefits of computing to more people of all walks of life and to preserve the vigor and creativity of computing platforms. I found out through my meetings what sorts of systemic change is required to achieve these goals and saw these organizations grapple with a variety of strategies to get there. This report is not a statement from any of these groups, just my personal observations. Click headline to read more--
Joanne Hovis, President of CTC Technology and Energy, recently published a must-read article in Broadband Properties Magazine. Whether you are a community leader investigating the possibility of a publicly owned network or an engaged citizen looking for pros and cons, this piece explains practical benefits succinctly. In her article, The Business Case For Government Fiber Networks [PDF], Hovis looks at life beyond stimulus funding. She points out how we should evaluate municipal networks in an environment where shareholder profit is not the first consideration. Hovis gives a brief history of how local communities reached this point of need. As many of our readers know, local communities used to be able to negotiate with cable providers for franchise opportunities and rights-of-way. Often cable providers would construct broadband infrastructure in exchange for a franchise to operate in a given community, creating I-Nets for local government, schools and libraries. Once states inserted themselves into the process with state-wide franchising, local negotiating power evaporated. Many of those franchise agreements are ending and local leaders are considering municipal fiber optic networks. Hovis stresses that municipalities do not function in the same environment as the private sector. While they still have a fiscal responsibility to their shareholders (the taxpayers) the main function is providing public safety, encouraging economic development, offering education, and using tax dollars to better the quality of life. Hovis describes how redefining return on investment (ROI) needs to go beyond the balance sheet bottom line. Click headline to read more--
The big telcos (AT&T and Verizon) have been trying to move more and more to wireless networks over wired networks, in large part because they've realized that, for whatever reason, the FCC more or less gave them pretty free reign to completely ignore net neutrality concepts on their wireless networks. So it really shouldn't come as much of a surprise to see that AT&T has responded to the latest Google Hangouts app, which replaces the standard Google Talk app, by blocking video while on a cellular connection on Android phones (oddly, it works on iPhones). As you may recall, AT&T actually got into trouble for doing the same thing with FaceTime on the iPhone. AT&T's statement about this, as given to The Verge, parses its words very carefully, as if they think everyone is a complete moron: All AT&T Mobility customers can use any video chat app over cellular that is not pre-loaded on their device, but which they download from the Internet. For video chat apps that come pre-loaded on devices, we offer all OS and device makers the ability for those apps to work over cellular for our customers who are on Mobile Share, Tiered and soon Unlimited plan customers who have LTE devices. It's up to each OS and device makers to enable their systems to allow pre-loaded video chat apps to work over cellular for our customers on those plans.
The whole focus on "pre-loaded" apps was how AT&T tried to tapdance around net neutrality questions last year with Facetime. And it's completely made up and bogus. Click headline to read more--
Those of you who’ve followed my writings regularly know that I conduct a survey every year to get a snapshot of how broadband impacts economic development. Usually I work with the International Economic Development Council (IEDC) to survey their members. This year I switched things up a bit and worked with Broadband Communities magazine to focus on local government staffs, service providers, consultants and others involved with broadband. The primary purpose for expanding the scope of the survey is to bring additional perspectives into the discussion of broadband and economic development. I still highlight a core of six economic outcomes: --attracting new businesses to a community --making existing current businesses more profitable --reviving depressed business districts --increasing home-based businesses --reviving depressed communities --improving personal economic development In addition, I gathered feedback on competition, Federal broadband policy, service providers’ business philosophy and government broadband regulation. The report concludes with assessments of survey responses and recommendations for those leading the charge for faster, better broadband in communities. Some of the survey findings are: Click headline to read more--
I read a great Tumblr post today. No idea who wrote it, but it’s an expression of extreme annoyance with Google, PayPal and other online behemoths that have grown way beyond the “startup” stage but that still don’t provide proper, human customer support because it’s hard to scale at low cost. “It’s easy to make big money when you get to keep all the profits,” the Glass Balcony post points out, before complaining about the impact of these low-outlay ways on real people: “Relying on automated support systems is no longer adequate. As the amount of online fraud grows over the years, automated systems are becoming less efficient. There is no accurate measure for that, however it’s anecdotally known that it’s more common nowadays for Google to shut down perfectly well-standing and long-standing AdSense accounts for invalid activity without providing the actual reasons for shutdown. Ditto for PayPal withholding the funds of customers.” We all marvel at how quickly these companies grow and at their bounteous financials, but we don’t often enough sit back and consider why it is these companies can perform so well. A huge part of that is down to enabling technologies, from the web itself to cloud computing and, yes, natural language processing and other technologies that will make automated customer service more useful and reliable. But that’s only part of the picture. At this stage in the game, these companies are playing by different rules to everyone else. In the context of the post I mentioned above, customers are not customers: instead, they are users. If the exchange of money isn’t central to the relationship, as it is with an e-commerce operation such as Amazon, then customer support becomes an afterthought – after all, most of the users aren’t paying with anything more than their personal data anyway, so what should they expect? But that’s only one facet. Pull back, and this iconoclasm becomes even more concerning. Click headline to read more--
In late April, the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) announced he intended to tackle copyright reform over the summer. Later today, the Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Intellectual Property will hold its first hearing to address the subject, entitled “A Case Study for Consensus Building: The Copyright Principles Project.” Today’s hearing will be worth watching, and could mark the beginning of efforts to enact meaningful reforms to our copyright system. Congress has seemed reluctant to tackle copyright issues since the widespread blowback it received in 2011 and 2012 over SOPA and PIPA, controversial copyright legislation that many argued went too far to enforce copyright protections. Already there’s been a great deal of speculation as to how the Judiciary Committee will approach copyright reform. Mike Masnick at Techdirt, who extensively covered the SOPA / PIPA bills, expressed cautious optimism about these hearings, and saw the subcommittee’s selection of witnesses for this first hearing as a promising sign that it wants to handle reform in a prudent manner. Still, there has been a certain level of skepticism about the hearing. Mark Hachman at ReadWriteWeb expressed concern that Chairman Goodlatte’s past support for SOPA and CISPA means the Judiciary Committee as a whole will be unable to strike the right balance between ensuring compensation for copyright holders and ensuring innovation in new technologies and services continues, and will favor the copyright community’s interests over others. David Lowery, a musician of Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven fame, wrote in Politico that he fears the views of the actual content creators will be ignored in this hearing. He argued that the perspective of the artists is crucial to meaningfully addressing problems in the copyright system and developing solutions to them, adding that he expects Chairman Goodlatte to include that community in future hearings. Click headline to read more--
I’m pleased to share an update from the Arrowhead Electric Coop Facebook page – with a reminder that while this is good news, it doesn’t mean service will be available next week… Big Broadband News!! Progress on backhaul (the all important connection to Duluth) is being made. Monday, make ready work will begin on power poles in Lake County. Once completed the much needed fiber optic cable will be installed and eventually spliced into Arrowhead’s cable. It’s a huge step in the right direction for Arrowhead and everyone in Cook County. No dates to provide at this time…stay tuned….!! Click headline to read more--
The agenda for the Broadband Telemedicine Summit, a first-of-its-kind event that will convene healthcare leaders and top government officials, has been solidified.
Monday’s inaugural event will kickoff at 8 a.m. in the Wool Ballroom in St. Louis, and feature more than 20 of the nation’s top telehealth authorities conversing on the rapid growth of the technology and opportunities to integrate telemedicine with electronic health information systems.
The summit also will host several lawmakers from Illinois and Missouri, including Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon. Arkansas Gov. Mike Beebe will deliver a video message at the event and Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn’s office will be represented.
The summit will culminate in the development of an action plan describing key steps for stimulating telemedicine practices in Illinois, Missouri and Arkansas. Each state is expected to leave the summit with at least five actionable ideas. The final action plans will be published on the State Broadband Organizations and Telehealth Resource Center web sites.
Non-profit state broadband initiatives Broadband Illinois and MoBroadbandNow will host the event.
“We are extremely excited and proud to convene the Broadband Telemedicine Summit,” said Drew Clark, Executive Director of Broadband Illinois, adding that high-capacity broadband is quickly reshaping the medical industry. “This is an extremely important event for medical and technology sectors alike. We’re bringing together key partners to revolutionize the way citizens receive affordable, high quality healthcare.”
The keynote speaker of the event is Curtis Lowery, MD, of the ANGELS Program at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. He facilitated the process in which Arkansas insurance handles telemedicine, increased Medicaid reimbursements for care provided through telemedicine, and promoted a state-wide understanding of the benefits of telemedicine to health care facilities and the patients they serve.
Click headline to access the Summit website--
During the summer of 2011 the MPAA and RIAA teamed up with five major Internet providers in the United States, announcing their “six strikes” anti-piracy plan. The parties founded the Center for Copyright Information (CCI) and few months later they started a non-profit company with the same name in Washington, D.C. After more than a year of delays the CCI finally launched its Copyright Alert System during February. But just when it appeared the group was on the right track, it met another roadblock. According to the Columbia Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs (DCRA), the company leading the six-strikes program has had its status revoked. This pretty much means that the company is unable to conduct any official business anywhere in the United States. Click headline to read more--
The value of Bitcoin fell more than 10 percent overnight on Tuesday, apparently in response to Homeland Security’s decision to seize funds at a key exchange, Mt. Gox, where speculators trade the cyber-currency. The price has since returned to early-week levels, however, while new details came out about the nature of fed’s investigation. Here’s a look at the median price: In any case you missed it yesterday, the federal government took its most serious action to date against Bitcoin-related activity when it shut down money transfers between Mt. Gox and payment processing service, Dwolla. Dwolla is one of the few easy ways Americans can buy and sell Bitcoins at Mt. Gox. On Wednesday, Ars Technica unearthed the search warrant that Homeland Security used to seize a bank account that Mt. Gox used to obtain dollars from Dwolla. The account was registered to Mugillum Sigillum LLC, a Delaware subsidiary of Japan-based Mt. Gox. Click headline to read more--
Bank of America is joining other major U.S. corporations, General Motors & American Express, in moving Information Technology jobs back to the United States from India. India based business website Livemint.com reports, Bank of America, which has given contracts worth millions of dollars to companies such as Tata Consultancy Services Ltd (TCS) and Infosys Ltd—India’s top two software exporters—as well as Accenture Plc, will bring back some of its information technology (IT) projects to service providers in the US or to their own centres, according to at least two people familiar with the development, who requested anonymity. The move comes at a time when North American and European clients of India’s $108 billion IT industry are cutting spending on technology because of economic headwinds. For the year ended 31 March, Indian software exports revenue grew by 10.2%—the slowest since the Lehman Brothers collapse in 2008 triggered a global financial meltdown.
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