May 2010

In its 40th anniversary season, "Sesame Street" has hit its highest ratings in its core demo in several years.

The program is averaging a 3.5 Nielsen rating for the current TV season in the core kids ages 2-5 demo. A spokeswoman said this is the best season average since 2007 for the show, which airs Monday-Friday. The producers said the show is maintaining its audience among 2-year-olds, but showing double-digit increases among 3- and 4-year-olds (up 21% and 32%, respectively, over last season). For February, the K2-5 rating hit 3.5, compared with 2.2 in the year-ago period.

Given kids' changing viewing habits, "Sesame Street's" 40th season has been reformatted. Murray the Monster Muppet hosts each episode from different locations linking four longer segments with interstitials throughout the hour. The show also has new opening and closing sequences that combine colorful chalk-art animation with the Muppets of Sesame Street and a re-versioned classic "Sunny Days" as musical back-drop.

In early February, New Mexico's delegation to Congress sent a letter to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski urging that the FCC's National Broadband Plan "clearly supports broadband for all." The letter points out that New Mexico ranks 46th among all states in the percentage of Internet users. And 20 of New Mexico's 33 counties are considered medically underserved. The large distances between New Mexican towns and cities require individuals in those communities to use the Internet to access healthcare information and services, pursue higher educationa1 opportunities, learn about economic and employment opportunities, and stay connected to families.

In early May, Chairman Genachowski wrote back to each member of the delegation individually saying that the broadband plan provides a comprehensive strategy for connecting all corners of the nation while transforming the economy and society with the communication network of the future -- robust affordable, and high- peed Internet. The Plan provides specific recommendations to tackle serious challenge of global competitiveness by pursuing a world-leading broadband infrastructure for the United States, which will be an enduring engine for job creation and economic growth. In this respect, the FCC evaluating public, private, and cooperative effort of all sorts and is considering short, medium and long-term action to improve universal service programs. The FCC is also assessing the experience with the Rural Health Care program to refine such initiatives to expand affordable broadband connectivity more effectively. Through these programs and other efforts, the FCC hopes to close the gap on universal broadband availability and adoption.

A developer that's trying to highlight the dangers of forgetting about personal privacy has unveiled a new service that shows how easy it is for users to have their phone numbers acquired by Facebook visitors.

The service, called Evil, sifts through Facebook groups to find posts left by users that include their phone numbers. It then displays the person's name and all but the last four digits of their phone numbers on the site. The issue, according to Tom Scott, the tool's creator, is that there are a slew of Facebook groups that are created each day by folks who lose their phones and need their friends' numbers back. Rather than e-mail each person individually, those people create groups where users can simply post their numbers to the group's wall. From there, the group owner can take the numbers and put them into their new phone. It's a simple, useful process for the group owner. But what those who are adding their numbers to the wall might not realize is that the majority of those groups are set to "public." And, according to Scott, a public group is viewable by anyone anywhere in the world, regardless of whether they're a Facebook user or not.