Netflix has grown tremendously over the last several years, due mainly to takeup of its online streaming service. But its reliance on others' broadband networks for delivery of its streams, combined with its competition with the pay TV operators that run those networks, could put Netflix at the mercy of the very Internet service providers it needs to deliver its streams.
New Jersey State Senator Tom Goodwin (R-Hamilton) wants Cablevision to reimburse its customers for the ongoing channel blackouts due to the Fox/Cablevision retransmission consent dispute. While most of the legislative input has focused on keeping signals on the air or encouraging outside arbitration, Goodwin instead asked the cable operator to compensate his constituents for lost channels.
Within six years, the Federal Communications Commission will require that television stations in the top 60 US markets provide video descriptions on primetime programming so that TV shows are more fully accessible by the blind and other visually-impaired people.
The descriptions of characters, scenes and action are inserted between the dialog of shows. TV stations should be able to pass through the extra audio channel containing the video descriptions without much trouble. However, some stations may face additional expenses in upgrading their switching and infrastructure. But Eric Small, the founder and chief technology officer of Modulation Sciences, cautions that there are other potentially costly elements in the new law, namely requirements for audible emergency alerts and closed captions on programming streamed on the Internet. Just what they mean for broadcasters won't be known until the FCC writes its implementing rules.
The home mortgage crisis, fueled recently by charges of fraudulent foreclosure procedures, triggered angry reactions aimed at multiple culprits from bloggers of all political stripes last week.
For the week of October 11-15, fully 22% of the news links on blogs were about economic issues, with the vast majority focused on the housing market. That made it the No. 1 subject on blogs, according to the New Media Index from the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism. Many bloggers aimed their disgust at the banks for their lending practices while others blamed people who obtained mortgages they could not afford. Some, particularly real estate agents, also used their blogs to provide information to those who are buying or selling a foreclosed property. Bloggers have spotlighted the mortgage situation before. Three weeks earlier, an article accusing some of the nation's largest mortgage companies of using a single document processor to sign off on foreclosures without having read the paperwork was the No. 5 subject, at 6% of the links. The No. 2 story last week, also receiving 22% of the links, was a controversial column by Professor Jerry A. Coyne from the University of Chicago which appeared in the October 11 USA Today. Coyne argued that science and faith cannot coexist because each is based on foundations that have irreconcilable differences.
If you're a social media-savvy citizen, Uncle Sam wants you to help populate a brand new timeline of the most important moments in government social media use.
Robert Butler, deputy assistant secretary of defense for cyber policy, downplayed the need to define clear lines of authority for federal agencies involved in combating cybersecurity threats, saying the emphasis has shifted toward having agencies work more closely together.
Butler said the administration has been shifting its focus toward determining what it wants agencies to accomplish, rather than first defining the lines of authority. Butler acknowledged that much work remains to define operational roles and responsibilities of both agencies. For now, he said, a major goal is improving "situational awareness," or the ability to know when networks are under attack and, when possible, where an attack is coming from.
As school district leaders increasingly incorporate so-called 21st-century skills into their instructional strategies, many believe the federal government should support the development of new school assessment models that effectively measure those skills, a new survey suggests.
Thirty-five percent of respondents in the survey, conducted by the National School Boards Association, listed "assessing 21st-century skills" as the top educational technology priority that Congress and the Obama administration should address. More than 43 percent of survey respondents said their district already has created new school assessment measures to incorporate such skills as problem solving, teamwork, and critical thinking. But with the federal and state governments playing such a large role in school assessment, standardized testing, and accountability, lawmakers need to be involved in finding solutions, respondents said.
[Commentary] Welcome to Sel-te's Inferno. A short take on the recently concluded broadband stimulus awards. Ye award winners who enter this post need not abandon all hope, but you might want to brace yourself because winning the big bucks isn't all happy days and peaceful nights that you might expect. Each round of awards brought with them the popping of champagne corks or wailing and gnashing of teeth, depending on where your application fell. But what about those winners? What awaits them? Come walk with me, Virgil, and you'll see. From these lessons on unexpected (unprepared for) outcomes, I'll pluck out some broadband tips for the rest of us.
Most school districts have the technical infrastructure to support the basic digital textbooks of today. But as far as supporting the kinds of textbooks tech-savvy educators would like to see -- multimedia-rich, interactive, Web-based materials -- schools have some serious catching up to do in increasing network speed and connectivity, providing professional development for teachers, and persuading lawmakers to revisit state textbook-adoption policies.
A new attack ad popped up this week in Nevada's Senate race, where the slung mud has already spattered both Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and GOP challenger Sharron Angle. This attack was different. It told Latino voters, "Don't vote."
But the consultant who made the ad insists that's not precisely what he meant. The ad comes from a small group in Virginia called Latinos for Reform. It accuses both parties of neglecting Latinos -- but it dwells on Democrats. It says Democratic leaders including Harry Reid are taking Hispanic voters for granted. It says not voting is the only way to get Democrats to take them seriously.
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