PDFs can be the bane of open government advocates' existence: digital, yes, but often far more difficult to work with than other electronic file formats. But there is perhaps a bright spot for them over in the United Kingdom.
The gigabit fiber war just got a little hotter. Louisiana-based broadband provider CenturyLink said that it's expanding its fiber optic service -- with speeds of 1 gigabit per second -- to 13 new cities. The speeds will be "symmetrical," meaning that users will get the same upload speeds as their download speeds.
The list of new cities getting CenturyLink residential fiber includes Seattle, Portland, Denver, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Orlando, and Columbia and Jefferson City (MO). Businesses will be able to take advantage of gigabit service in all those cities, as well as in Phoenix, Tuscon, Albuquerque, Spokane (WA), Colorado Springs, and Sioux Falls (SD).
Google is set to restrict search terms to a link to a Wikipedia article, in the first request under Europe's controversial new "right to be forgotten" legislation to affect the 110 million-page encyclopedia.
The identity of the individual requesting a change to Google's search results has not been disclosed and may never be known, but it is understood the request will be put into effect within days. Google and other search engines can only remove the link -- as with other "right to be forgotten" requests, the web page itself will remain on Wikipedia.
The recent White House big data reports are inconsistent with the Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights proposed by the White House in 2012, states Technology Policy Institute President Thomas Lenard in comments filed with the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA).
The reports, by a group led by White House Counselor John Podesta and a complementary report by the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, suggest privacy policy should focus on specific harmful uses of information, as opposed to policies limiting collection and use as described in the Privacy Bill of Rights. In his comments, Lenard notes that the proposed Privacy Bill of Rights is based on the Fair Information Practice Principles (FIPPs), which promote notice and choice, access and security.
Nearly a quarter of all Californians could soon have their medical histories accessible to doctors and emergency rooms all over the state with just a few strokes on the keyboard.
Two of the state's largest insurers are launching perhaps the biggest health information network anywhere in the country, putting California at the center of the decade-long push to digitize medical records. Dubbed Cal Index, the system is set to launch by the end of 2014, connecting the nearly 9 million patients of Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield of California with doctors, hospitals and other healthcare providers.
Gannett is splitting its broadcast and publishing business in two, joining other major media players in allowing fast growing TV and digital operations to operate more freely and not be weighed down by the declining newspaper business.
Gannett also announced that it would take full ownership of Cars.com for $1.8 billion. The publishing company will house USA Today as well as 81 local US daily publications and Newsquest, a regional community news provider in the UK.
[Commentary] Television may have peaked, but it’s going to have a very long run ahead of it. That’s the thinking behind a series of big media moves in the past few years, where conglomerates that own big investments in TV have been doubling down -- or trying to double down -- by acquiring more TV assets.
Even if TV ad dollars are shrinking, TV still generates a lot of ad dollars -- that’s why Facebook, Twitter and everyone else on the Web wants a piece of the TV business.
Meanwhile, the fees that cable providers pay broadcasters for their programming, which had theoretically been threatened by Aereo, now look like they’ll continue to be reliable, high-margin cash-flow generators, after all.
Dish Networks, which says it wants to launch an Internet TV service in 2014, is getting closer to its goal: The satellite TV company has signed a deal with A&E Networks that lets it stream the cable programmer’s shows on the Web.
The deal gives Dish the rights to stream live and on-demand programming from A&E’s lineup of channels, which include A&E, History and Lifetime.
Last quarter, Xiaomi was the top smartphone seller in the largest market in the world: China. A report published by Canalys highlighted Xiaomi’s remarkable growth, surpassing giants like Samsung and Lenovo to become the top player in China.
Because of its huge growth in China, Xiaomi became the fifth largest smartphone maker in the world.
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