July 2011

INTERNET/BROADBAND

BROADBAND AMBITIONS UNFULFILLED
[SOURCE: Connected Planet, AUTHOR: Joan Engebretson]
A comprehensive report based on research conducted by the Columbia Institute for Tele-Information finds that US service providers have ambitious broadband plans, but still have a significant way to go before those plans are realized. The 176-page report -- titled “Broadband in America 2nd Edition: Where It Is and Where It Is Going (According to Broadband Service Providers)”--updates a similar report issued in 2009 by the people at the FCC who wrote the National Broadband Plan. Based on data collected from service providers and third-party sources, the new report could be a valuable reference tool for anyone involved in the U.S. broadband market.
Here are some key findings:
If just the two largest telephone companies (AT&T and Verizon) achieve their stated goals for wireline broadband deployment, at least 50 million homes will be able to receive advertised downstream speeds of 10 Mb/s or more within the next two years.
By 2013 Verizon expects that LTE will provide subscribers with download speeds of 5 to 12 Mb/s in a deployment that aims to reach all of its covered population (at the end of 2008, Verizon’s wireless network covered 288 million people or 94% of the U.S. population).
Two new satellites with greater capacity are expected to become operational beginning in 2011, with the operators claiming that each satellite will be capable of providing service at speeds of 2 to 10 Mb/s.
While the majority of fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) connections (approximately 5.2 million) are provided by the nation's largest telcos (AT&T, Verizon and Qwest), there are also 770 other service providers that deliver FTTH service to approximately 1.9 million homes.
AT&T’s U-Verse and Verizon’s FiOS currently cover approximately 35% of US households and plan to reach 40% at the end of their deployment schedule.
Cable television companies currently provide broadband Internet access to an estimated 39% of households (versus 31% for telco broadband). Cable penetration numbers increased by 2% between 2009 and 2010.
Cable company DOCSIS 3.0 rollouts will increase available broadband speeds substantially but deployment schedules are not yet set.
Investment analysts and other research firms estimate year-end 2010 wireline broadband penetration at approximately 70% of all U.S. households, with 31% by telephone companies and 39% by cable companies.
benton.org/node/80717 | Connected Planet
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WHAT'S NEXT ON INTERNET?
[SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Deborah Netburn]
Can kids predict the future of the Internet? Latitude, an international research and consultancy firm, says they can. Over the last year, the company posed the question "What would you like your computer or the Internet to do that it can't do right now?" to 200 children under the age of 12 from Kentucky to Mumbai. The kids submitted their responses in drawing form, making this one of the cutest studies ever. Latitude suggests that the answers may tell us something about where the next generation (the company called them "digital natives") will be taking computers and technology. Several of the drawings include kids interacting with computers through touch screens, voice activation, and even mind reading. A computer that helped with fashion choices came up in a couple of drawings, so did teleportation. There was also a lot of interest in robots. In a summary of the findings, the company noted that one kid anticipated recent updates to Google image search.
benton.org/node/80819 | Washington Post
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WIRELESS

SPECTRUM HEARING RECAP
[SOURCE: House of Representatives Commerce Committee]
The House Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Communications and Technology, chaired by Rep Greg Walden (R-OR), held the fourth hearing in a series discussing the role of spectrum policy in promoting wireless broadband, bringing interoperable broadband communications to public safety, creating jobs, and reducing the deficit. Lawrence Strickling, Assistant Secretary for Communications and Information in the Department of Commerce and Administrator of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, shed light on how to improve federal government use of spectrum and reallocate resources to meet growing consumer demand for wireless broadband services. “The Ten-Year Plan and Timetable, developed with input from other federal agencies and the Federal Communications Commission, identifies over 2,200 MHz of spectrum for evaluation, establishes a process for evaluating these candidate bands, and lays out the steps necessary to potentially make the selected spectrum available for wireless broadband services,” Strickling testified. “In addition to identifying additional spectrum for repurposing for wireless broadband use, NTIA is intently focused on ensuring, to the greatest extent possible, that federal agencies use and share spectrum efficiently and effectively, while protecting critical Federal government operations.”
Strickling also relayed the administration’s support for “Congress to adopt proposals to improve the process for reassigning spectrum encumbered by federal users to private use, grant authority for the FCC to hold incentive auctions, create governance structures and channel auction proceeds to manage the deployment and operation of a nationwide interoperable public safety broadband network, and spur innovation in wireless services by both providing for unlicensed access to wireless spectrum and funding critical research and development.”
benton.org/node/80811 | House of Representatives Commerce Committee | NTIA
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NEW AT&T/T-MOBILE SURVEY
[SOURCE: Public Knowledge, AUTHOR: Press release]
A new poll released by Public Knowledge found deep concerns about AT&T’s takeover of wireless rival T-Mobile. The poll, conducted by Anzalone Liszt Research of 800 likely voters, reported more than 80 percent of those replying had concerns, including 44 percent who were very concerned, about the combination of wireless companies. The poll similarly found people wanted the federal government, not private Internet Service Providers (ISPs), to serve the consumer-protection function on the Internet. The poll found that by a 27-point margin (58% to 31%), voters say that ISPs should not be allowed to police themselves when it comes to whether they are blocking or slowing down access to websites. The poll also found substantial support for an Internet in which every person and every business has an equal opportunity to succeed.
benton.org/node/80715 | Public Knowledge | The Hill
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LIGHTSQUARED DEBATE
[SOURCE: Public Knowledge, AUTHOR: Harold Feld]
[Commentary] Lightsquared does, in fact, cause interference with GPS, even though it is operating under rules the Federal Communications Commission approved in 2003. This brings us to the question of who bears the cost of trying to make Lightsquared, or any new system, work. Which brings us to the expansion of the Lightsquared fight into the Satellite band generally, and the curious partnership between CTIA and the GPS Council. Both filed petitions asking the FCC to reconsider this order moving toward greater flexibility for satellite providers trying to offer “ancillary terrestrial component” (ATC) based services. Both object to a single, specific paragraph in the order in which the FCC (addressing the Lightsquared fight, which the GPS Council had raised in comments) stated that even existing incumbents have some responsibility to enable new services by making some adjustments to work more efficiently. Needless to say, organizations that represent incumbents, like CTIA and the GPS Council, do not like this one bit. From their perspective, once you get a license, you should never, ever, have to change what you are doing to accommodate someone else — even if that is the right answer from a spectrum efficiency/public policy standpoint. (We will pause a moment to appreciate the irony of CTIA arguing that incumbents must be protected under all circumstances no matter how old and useless their technology while simultaneously pushing to eliminate broadcasting and take their spectrum on the grounds that broadcast television is old and useless.)
benton.org/node/80805 | Public Knowledge
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AUCTION 92 BIDDERS
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: Public Notice]
In this Public Notice, the Federal Communications Commission's Wireless Telecommunications Bureau identifies 19 applicants found to be qualified to bid in the upcoming auction of 16 licenses in the 700 MHz Band (Auction 92). Bidding in Auction 92 is scheduled to begin on Tuesday, July 19, 2011. This Public Notice contains bidding instructions and other important information regarding Auction 92. It also addresses the continuing obligations and auction procedures for all Auction 92 applicants, including those that have not qualified to bid.
benton.org/node/80743 | Federal Communications Commission | list of qualified bidders | applicants not qualified to bid
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NETWORK NEUTRALITY AND TETHERING
[SOURCE: ars technica, AUTHOR: Matthew Lasar]
Free Press wants the Federal Communications Commission to take a close look at Google's move to curtail access (or, as Google puts it, making them "unavailable for download" via the Android Market) to independent 4G tethering apps. Those indie tethering downloads are a sweet deal; for the initial price of the software, they allow you to connect your mobile to your laptop and access the Internet. Similar apps from your broadband provider can cost as much as $30 a month. Free Press says that this sort of behavior represents a violation of the C Block open device access rules that Verizon agreed to when it bought a huge chunk of 700MHz spectrum on the license area in question. "Removing the applications from the Android Market curtails, restrains, and interferes with the ability of subscribers to use the applications of their choice by making it more difficult to download and install those applications," the reform group warns. Now a prominent professor of Internet architecture has written to the Commission, hastening to agree. "Verizon Wireless's practice and Free Press's complaint raise fundamental issues of Internet openness policy," argues Barbara van Schewick, Associate Professor of Law and Engineering at Stanford University. "Free Press's complaint implicates not only the specific question of whether Verizon Wireless has violated the conditions associated with its spectrum licenses, but also the more general question of how to apply openness rules to mobile networks."
benton.org/node/80737 | Ars Technica
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WI-FI IDENTITY CRISIS
[SOURCE: GigaOm, AUTHOR: Stacey Higginbotham]
In the coming year, Wi-Fi will become a different animal than what we currently know and love. Thanks to carriers getting more involved in using Wi-Fi for network offload — as well as more devices seeking a Wi-Fi signal — this hippie technology is about to get the layers of security, authentication and manageability once reserved for cellular networks. The mobile broadband service provider iPass has created a new service offering for mobile operators that allows them to offer the equivalent of Wi-Fi roaming, a key element to enabling carriers to charge for access to ubiquitous and quality-assured Wi-Fi. The new iPass service, called the Open Mobile Exchange, is only one of many data points in Wi-Fi’s slow transition from home networking tech for geeks to must-have for every mobile device, to perhaps another source of carrier revenue.
benton.org/node/80707 | GigaOm | Connected Planet
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THE UNITED STATES OF CONNECTEDNESS
[SOURCE: GigaOm, AUTHOR: Ryan Kim]
Mobile phones have helped close the gap between people, connecting friends, family and co-workers across wide distances. But the lines of communication don't follow traditional state and city boundaries and instead reflect different social influences and relationships that are sometimes harder to understand. But a new data and visualization project called the Connected States of America helps bring some focus into the way mobile phones facilitate communications and shows how conversations and text-messages bind areas and regions together, even ones that are far apart. Researchers at the MIT Senseable City Lab, AT&T Labs-Research and IBM Research today have showed off their work, which takes anonymous aggregated AT&T mobile phone data and creates interactive maps illustrating where calls and text messages are placed and where they connect to. The maps show what areas are likely to be in communication with each other and how some places, sometimes in the same state, remain separated. Metropolitan regions, even ones that spill over state lines, understandably facilitate a lot of communications among people in one area. But there is a lot of back and forth that emerges between states too. For instance, Alabama and Louisiana are sister states because of the cellular traffic between the two, while parts of Tennessee, like Chattanooga break away from the rest of Tennessee and join other neighboring states.
benton.org/node/80808 | GigaOm
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ANDROID AND MICROSOFT
[SOURCE: GigaOm, AUTHOR: Ryan Kim]
Google last year said Android is a $1 billion business. Microsoft, it seems, may have similar plans for Google’s mobile operating system. Thanks to a barrage of patent licensing agreements with Android manufacturers, including a potentially highly lucrative deal in the works with Samsung, Microsoft is on its way to making big money with Android. How much could it all be worth? Well, with 500,000 daily Android activations that Google recently reported, Microsoft could make $912 million in a year if it extracts $5 per activation on every Android smartphone or tablet sold. That’s how much it reportedly makes on each HTC Android device, as part of a licensing deal struck last year. It’s a long way to getting all Android makers to pony up, but you can see how big an opportunity this is for Microsoft, which is studiously lining up licensing deals with Android manufacturers. There are some 36 Android licensees as of May, making some 310 devices.
benton.org/node/80706 | GigaOm | NetworkWorld
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COMMUNITY MEDIA

MAKING MEDIA MORE ACCESSIBLE
[SOURCE: Brookings Institution, AUTHOR: J. H. Snider]
Early advocates for public, educational, and governmental access media (PEG), categorized here as “public community media,” envisioned that it would empower local civic groups through improved meeting coverage. Unfortunately, the current reality has come up far short of the original promise. Economically, the technology proved prohibitively costly for civic groups to incorporate into their meetings. Politically, public officials had minimal incentive to make media available to civic groups over whom they didn't have editorial control. The economic and political reasons reinforced each other in that the high cost of making public media available to civic groups, combined with the need for extensive government staff support, gave public officials a compelling excuse and means to exert the editorial control they sought. Fortunately, new information technology is revolutionizing the economics and politics of meeting media, making it possible to cover face-to-face meetings at negligible cost and without the need for government controlled technical experts. Moreover, meeting participants can be empowered to participate in ways undreamed of by the early public community media advocates.
benton.org/node/80734 | Brookings Institution
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OWNERSHIP

WEB DOMAIN WORRIES MUSIC INDUSTRY
[SOURCE: Politico, AUTHOR: Jennifer Martinez]
The recording industry is singing the blues over a new online addressing rule that will allow for the creation of a “.music” domain. The new domain name system was approved in June by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, the nonprofit organization that oversees the Internet addressing system. The music industry is concerned that the new system could allow online pirates to buy new domain names that help make their websites look more legitimate — encouraging more copyright infringement of digital music. One of the main concerns is that music pirates could register Internet addresses under the domain .music to make it appear to Web surfers that the music on its site is legal and licensed by recording companies. “Because these generic top-level domains are so specialized, people may think, ‘This is where I go if I want music,’” said Steven Marks, general counsel for the Recording Industry Association of America. “Therefore, we have the same kind of [copyright infringement] problem we have today.”
benton.org/node/80835 | Politico
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TELEVISION

RETRANSMISSION AND LATINOS
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: State Rep. Mara Candelaria-Reardon (D-IN)]
[Commentary] The threat of TV blackouts is never welcome news. For the millions of consumers unlucky enough to have had to worry about their favorite shows going dark, or actually losing their signals, the problem is not only real but frustrating and inconvenient. So what’s being done about it? Blackouts occur when video distributors (such as cable, satellite and telephone companies) are unable to reach agreement with television stations over “retransmission consent” fees. These disputes frequently blow up into public relations battles with each side blaming the other and consumers getting caught in the middle. At worst, TV stations pull the plug and their channels go dark for days and sometimes weeks. Why is this happening? Broadcasters say it’s because they need more money to pay for programming, so they have to charge higher rates. Program distributors say it’s because broadcasters have the incentive and ability to play hardball, since there is usually more than one distributor in each local market to keep carrying the station. We see it happen in large markets and small ones. But it doesn't need to continue. Community groups including the National Hispanic Caucus of State Legislators have urged the Federal Communications Commission, which has sweeping authority to regulate broadcasting in the public interest, to reform the retransmission consent rules. No one disagrees that the negotiation process should remain between the companies involved, but consumers should not be caught in the middle. Broadcasters argue that providing viewers with more notice of an impending blackout is sufficient. But this approach does nothing to solve the problem of threatened and actual blackouts. In fact, it ensures that consumers will be used as pawns in the negotiation process.
benton.org/node/80817 | Hill, The
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HEALTH

ONC SUPPORTS STAGE 2 DELAY
[SOURCE: Health Data Management, AUTHOR: Joseph Goedert]
Dr Farzad Mostashari, national coordinator for health information technology, has announced his support for delaying Stage 2 of electronic health records meaningful use by one year to 2014 for providers who attest to Stage 1 in 2011. The HIT Policy Committee, which advises ONC, recently recommended the delay. The rationale is that Stage 1 pioneers who attest in 2011 should not be penalized by tight timeframes next summer for getting ready for Stage 2, which starts in fiscal 2013 on Oct. 1, 2012.
benton.org/node/80744 | Health Data Management
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DIVERSITY

WOMEN AND TECH
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Sec Hillary Clinton]
[Commentary] Being a woman in the field of technology is not always easy. Being a woman in any field is not always easy. But there are so many opportunities in technology that we just have to forge ahead. We’re doing so around the world because we want to make sure that all the tools that technology has made available are just as open to women as they are to men. I also believe that innovation thrives on good ideas, and women have a lot of good ideas. And we don't want those ideas to just die. We want them to be shared and to help others and to create businesses and jobs and improve lives. And it has a greater impact when technology has access for everyone. Wherever you live, whether it’s in Silicon Valley or in the Middle East or North Africa, we want to support you. We want to support the software that you design, the engineering projects that you manage, the courses that you teach. We want to help you develop and apply new technologies, and we want to help you spread the word about what is available for all people.
benton.org/node/80818 | Hill, The
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CYBERSECURITY

ICSPA
[SOURCE: BBC, AUTHOR: ]
The International Cyber Security Protection Alliance (ICSPA) has been set up to fight cybercrime on a global scale. Launched in London on July 5, the new body unites governments, international businesses and law enforcement agencies, including Europol. Major security companies such as McAfee and Trend Micro have also signed up. UK Prime Minister David Cameron has welcomed the alliance. "Our government has already injected an additional £650m to help improve our national infrastructure and protect against cybercrime, but the very nature of this threat calls for more than a national response; it demands a truly global response and that is what the International Cyber Security Protection Alliance is all about," he said.
benton.org/node/80694 | BBC
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CYBER RESOLUTION
[SOURCE: nextgov, AUTHOR: Aliya Sternstein]
Russia and the United States are co-sponsoring a resolution to pre-empt cyberattacks that an influential international body is expected to adopt this week, according to a Belgium parliamentary member who introduced the decree. The proposal calls for member nations to exchange information about the way they intend to deploy cyber technology during military conflicts. Russian support is notable because the former Soviet republic was blamed in 2007 for knocking out Internet access in neighboring Estonia. Both nations belong to the 56-member Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. OSCE parliamentarians are gathering this week in Serbia to select provisions for inclusion in the Belgrade Declaration, an annual statement that guides OSCE decisions. The organization, which represents North America, Europe and Central Asia, provides a venue for negotiations on conflict prevention and post-war rehabilitation.
benton.org/node/80692 | nextgov
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BUILDING A NEW, SECURE, INTERNET
[SOURCE: nextgov, AUTHOR: Aliya Sternstein]
The United States may seriously want to consider creating a new Internet infrastructure to reduce the threat of cyberattacks, said Michael Hayden, President George W. Bush's CIA director. Several current federal officials, including U.S. Cyber Command chief Gen. Keith Alexander, also have floated the concept of a ".secure" network for critical services such as banking that would be walled off from the public Web. Unlike .com, .xxx and other new domains now proliferating the Internet, .secure would require visitors to use certified credentials for entry and would do away with users' Fourth Amendment rights to privacy. Network operators in the financial sector, for example, would be authorized to scan account holders' traffic content for signs of trouble. The current Internet setup would remain intact for people who prefer to stay anonymous on the Web. "I think what Keith is trying to suggest is that we need a more hardened enterprise structure for some activities and we need to go build it," Hayden said during a roundtable on cybersecurity hosted by the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies. "All those people who want to violate their privacy on Facebook -- let them continue to play."
benton.org/node/80807 | nextgov
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JOURNALISM

HACKING CASE IN UK
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Sarah Lyall]
Britain’s Parliament on July 6 collectively turned on Rupert Murdoch, the head of the News Corporation, and the tabloid culture he represents, using a debate about a widening phone hacking scandal to denounce reporting tactics by newspapers once seen as too politically influential to challenge. But though he joined in the chorus of outrage, Prime Minister David Cameron, whose Conservative Party benefits from Murdoch’s support, stopped short of calling for an immediate investigation into behavior by the Murdoch-owned News of the World and other tabloids. Such an inquiry would have to wait, he said, until the police had concluded their own criminal investigation. From all sides of the House of Commons the disgust came thick and fast, as the legislators recited the most recent allegations against The News of the World: that its executives had paid police officers, lied to Parliament and hired investigators to intercept voice mail messages left on the cellphones of murdered children and terrorism victims. Legislators also attacked the news media in general for employing many of the same tactics. The scandal posed new hurdles for Mr. Murdoch’s proposed $12 billion takeover of the pay-television company British Sky Broadcasting, as many legislators criticized the deal, and Britain’s media regulatory agency, Ofcom, said it was “closely monitoring the situation.”
Risk-taking and line-skirting have always been just one more cost of doing business for Rupert Murdoch. But the widening voice-mail hacking scandal threatens to stain the company’s image in a way that other embarrassing incidents at News Corporation’s far-flung media properties — which also include the Fox networks and The New York Post — have not.
benton.org/node/80841 | New York Times | NYT - Murdoch style | FT
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FOX VS MEDIA MATTERS
[SOURCE: Politico, AUTHOR: Keach Hagey]
For seven years Fox News has pushed back against the daily scrutiny and criticism leveled at it by Media Matters, the liberal watchdog group. But after David Brock, the group’s founder, said in March that his group’s new strategy amounted to a “war on Fox,” Fox ratcheted up its response. In the past ten days, the news channel has run more than 30 segments calling for the nonprofit group to be stripped of its tax-exempt status. Its Fox Nation website has even provided a link to pre-completed complaint forms against Media Matters to send to the Internal Revenue Service. While Fox News personalities like Glenn Beck and Bill O’Reilly have long grumbled about Media Matters, this attack on the group has been carried out across the channel’s news and opinion programs. It has included shows like “The O’Reilly Factor,” news coverage of the complaints to the IRS, and even a psychological profile of Brock, a former conservative journalist who went over to the liberal side, on “Fox and Friends” that suggested he might be “full of self-hatred” because he was adopted. “Media Matters is not a media investigative organization,” said Fox News contributor and Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer on a “Special Report with Bret Baier” last week. “It’s a war on Fox. And you’re allowed to do that in a democracy. You can be as nasty as you want. The only thing is, don't ask for a government subsidy.” To get tax-free status, educational nonprofits have to support their claims with facts and stay out of directly engaging in politics – though they can be as ideological as they like. Fox argues that Media Matters has veered from that educational mission and should be stripped of its special status.
benton.org/node/80834 | Politico
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GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS

TWITTER TOWNHALL
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Cecilia Kang]
A curious thing happened at the White House’s first Twitter townhall. No one watched the President. The guests were too busy sending tweets, flashing twitpics and hash-tagging on the micro-blogging site to look up from their smartphones. Such is the new world of social media. President Barack Obama even got in on the action and sent a live tweet, a short message in 140 characters or less. And he patted himself on the back for being the first president in history to do so. President Obama also took more than a dozen questions served up on a large flatscreen monitor and read by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey. As expected, President Obama did not break new ground in his views on the deficit and creating jobs. The event has been hailed more as a way for the president to reach new voters ahead of the 2012 election. Twitter, in exchange, gets a high-level endorsement of its importance. “There’s a lot to gain for Obama and Twitter,” said Guy Kawasaki, a Silicon Valley venture capital investor. “The inherent message is that the president is open to communication with anyone in the world with a Twitter account.” But the townhall differed from previous White House events at Facebook and via YouTube. Twitter went to lengths to explain how questions were “crowdsourced” or chosen from the most popular among its Twitter populace of 200 million users worldwide. Dorsey said that of the thousands of questions that were posed, the company chose those that were most “retweeted,” or repeated, such as one by House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), known as @speakerboehner on Twitter. He asked, “Where are the jobs?”
benton.org/node/80821 | Washington Post | brief White House video | Reuters | The Hill | GigaOm | nextgov | nextgov - preview
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GRASSLEY VS FCC
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
Sen Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) says Federal Communications Commission staffers ignored document requests about the FCC's communications with LightSquared and its backers and with the White House. Sen Grassley said in a letter to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski that following an "unresponsive" answer to his May 10 request for information, his staff followed up and was told that the FCC "chose to intentionally ignore the document requests," and said that if a FOIA request was made for the same information, the process could be drawn out over a couple of years and the eventual documents would be "heavily redacted." "As none of this information was contained in the letter you sent to me, I am writing to see if it is in fact accurate and if so, explore the FCC's apparent decision to take an extreme position against transparency, which would stifle congressional oversight and public scrutiny in direct contradiction to President Obama's stated policies and instructions on open government," said Sen Grassley.
benton.org/node/80712 | Broadcasting&Cable | National Journal
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CHINESE CENSORSHIP
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Andrew Jacobs]
What do Jiangsu Province, the minor pop idol Jiang Yirong and Huadong Hospital in Shanghai have in common? Over the past day, these and scores of other words and expressions have been blocked on much of the Chinese Internet, a result of the government’s unrelenting attempt to quash widespread rumors that the former Chinese leader Jiang Zemin is dead or dying. Not surprisingly, the stepped-up effort to silence speculation about the well being of Jiang, 84, who officially retired as party chief in 2002 and as president in 2003, has generated even more rumors since July 1 after he failed to attend the 90th anniversary gala commemorating the birth of the Chinese Communist Party.
A Swiss gallery owner who represents Ai Weiwei, the dissident artist and international celebrity recently let out of detention, said that Ai was working on his art again, even though he could not do interviews or meet with journalists because of the conditions of his release.
benton.org/node/80829 | New York Times | WSJ | NYT - Ai Weiwei
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POLICYMAKERS

VARNEY LEAVING JUSTICE
[SOURCE: Department of Justice, AUTHOR: Press release]
Christine Varney, Assistant Attorney General of the Antitrust Division, announced her resignation from the Department of Justice, effective as of Aug. 5, 2011. The Wall Street journal reported that she was heading to law firm Cravat, Swayne & Moore.
“Christine Varney led the Antitrust Division with great distinction through a period when the department confronted a number of proposed mergers and other matters that could have led to higher prices, lower quality products and less innovation in a recovering economy. There is no doubt that her tireless work helped protect consumers and businesses from anticompetitive conduct and preserved competition in America’s economy,” said Attorney General Eric Holder. “I will miss her leadership.”
“I am grateful for my two and a half years of service as Assistant Attorney General of the Antitrust Division,” Assistant Attorney General Varney said. “From the start of my time here, it has been a tremendous privilege to work with the department’s leadership and the dedicated professionals in the Antitrust Division.”
Tech policy watchers were quick to question the impact of the move on the Justice Department's pending review of AT&T's proposed acquisition of T-Mobile USA, which has raised concerns about competition in the wireless market.
Public Knowledge's Gigi Sohn said that even though Varney is leaving "we expect the Division’s staff to continue the independent, rigorous analysis they are undertaking in reviewing AT&T’s takeover of T-Mobile. We hope and expect that review will determine the deal is a clear violation of antitrust law that will harm consumers and damage a vital sector of the economy."
benton.org/node/80803 | Department of Justice | The Hill | B&C - reaction | Public Knowledge
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KIDS AND MEDIA

VIOLENT VIDEO GAMES AND THE CULTURE WAR
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Daniel Henninger]
[Commentary] Back when Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels was still in the even bloodier videogame called Race for the Presidency, he suggested the Republican Party declare a "truce" on social issues to concentrate instead on economic revival. In reply, Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention wrote in these pages that the American people don't want a truce. Both social conservatives and tea partiers, he said, "expect pro-life, pro-family legislation." California's videogame law presumably would qualify. It looks like Gov Daniels wins that argument. There's not much chance of finding a Terry Schiavo in this campaign. The main social issue of the 2012 election is, and should be, finding some 15 million jobs. New York's passage of a gay-marriage law, one of the great battlegrounds in the culture wars, passed through the talk-show fields of fire in a few days. Presumably videogame violence would fall under the no-discuss truce. That's too bad. This is what the culture war is really all about. It's ironic that the only place today one can find serious people discussing something like the effect of extreme video violence on the culture is the Supreme Court, the court whose decisions -- abortion, school discipline, Christmas crèches in the public square -- touched off the culture war.
benton.org/node/80840 | Wall Street Journal
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July 2011

Interest in Campaign News On Par With 2007

Bachmann Dominates Blogs

Verizon releases data management tools

July 7, 2011 (CITI broadband report; Varney out at Justice)

Murdoch Facing Parliament’s Ire in Hacking Case

The Fast and the Spurious

Tech groups put media in shade at Sun Valley

QuickPlay Acquires FLO TV's Network Ops Center

.music Web domain concerns recording industry