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  2. October 2014

October 2014

Rising to the Challenge: Re-Envisioning Public Libraries

A new report released from the Aspen Institute looks at how -- in an age of instant and abundant information -- US public libraries can drive community advancements unlike any other public institution. The report explores how public libraries can respond as the digital age increases the demand for high-speed information access, changes in our education systems, innovative job training models and additional community services to help people and communities compete in the new economy.

The report is part of the Aspen Institute Dialogue on Public Libraries, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The multiyear dialogue brings library professionals, policymakers, technology experts, philanthropists, educators and civic leaders together to explore the future of public libraries. The report highlights a number of examples of groundbreaking work and new ways public libraries are meeting the needs of their communities. It also includes 15 action steps that the Dialogue recommends for each of its stakeholder groups: library leaders, policymakers and the community.

Our TV shows need political diversity too. Jane the Virgin is helping to fix that

[Commentary] We have a tendency to think of diversity in film and television only in terms of race, gender, religion, and sexuality. And those are important places to have diverse representations of people from all walks of life. But there's so much more to diversity than just those categories! There's diversity of class, for instance, something TV and movies have actually gotten worse at over time. There's diversity of geographical location. And then there's diversity of political background. Hollywood doesn't like to make its projects overtly political, but when characters express a political point-of-view at all, it tends to default to a kind of mushy progressivism. But maybe just don't ask about it. What's interesting about the first episode of The CW's wonderful new dramedy Jane the Virgin is how thoroughly it smashes the standard models for TV, but without calling attention to itself.

The Future of LPTV/TV Translator Service Taking Shape?

[Commentary] Of all television operators, low power television stations (LPTV) and TV translator licensees have faced the greatest uncertainties as the anticipated repacking of the TV band has begun to loom. That’s because the Federal Communications Commission’s repacking plans thus far have disregarded LPTVs and translators. As a result, LPTV/translator licensees don’t whether their stations will continue to exist post-repack: the repacking process will squeeze full-power and Class A stations into considerably less spectrum than they currently occupy, leaving precious little extra space for LPTVs/translators (except possibly in areas populated more by prairie dogs than by people). And anyone holding a construction permit to convert an existing analog LPTV/translator station to digital or to build a whole new station has been left to wonder whether, if they proceed with construction, they will be able to use those re-built facilities after the repack has been completed. Now, at long last, the FCC has begun to turn its attention to these concerns.

October 14, 2014 (Ads Tied to Web Searches Criticized as Deceptive)

BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for TUESDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2014

Title II Versus Sec 706 and The Specter of a Closed Internet: What is at Stake? http://benton.org/calendar/2014-10-14/

INTERNET/BROADBAND
   What if the FCC is the wrong agency to handle network neutrality?
   FCC Plans Stealth Internet Tax Increase - op-ed
   AT&T wants you to design your own Internet fast lane [links to web]
   Verizon FiOS Speeds To Top Of Netflix Rankings
   Sec Pritzker: US won't allow 'Internet to be co-opted'
   AT&T Completes 1-Gig Upgrade In Austin [links to web]
   The Internet is Not Harming You. Here’s What’s Harmful: Fearmongering About the Internet - analysis [links to web]

SPECTRUM/WIRELESS
   FCC Republicans Question Designated Entity Moves
   Flight Attendants Fight to Reinstate Ban on Fliers’ Devices [links to web]
   France’s Iliad Abandons Efforts to Buy T-Mobile US [links to web]
   T-Mobile, Sprint Dive Too Deep Into the Subscriber Pool - Miriam Gottfried analysis [links to web]

ELECTIONS AND MEDIA
   Democrats push Obama-quality digital tools all the way down to state House races [links to web]
   Microsoft gets into election forecasting [links to web]

PRIVACY/SECURITY
   Report: Despite Known Threats, Americans Putting Their Own Online Security at Risk [links to web]

TELEVISION
   Aereo to the FCC: Let us join the cable companies we tried to replace [links to web]
   ACA: Repair Program Access Before Redefining OVDs [links to web]

CONTENT
   Ads Tied to Web Searches Criticized as Deceptive
   How to read books from your local library on your tablet [links to web]

HEALTH
   Non-Profit RFP Seeks Construction of Rural Healthcare Fiber Networks [links to web]
   As another flu season approaches, health tech will play an educational role [links to web]
   With Electronic Medical Records, Doctors Read When They Should Talk - analysis [links to web]

EDUCATION
   Web-Era Trade Schools, Feeding a Need for Code [links to web]
   Teen Researchers Defend Media Multitasking [links to web]

GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
   Second leaker in US intelligence, says Glenn Greenwald [links to web]
   Edward Snowden: It was worth it [links to web]

POLICYMAKERS
   Honda and Khanna locked in tight battle in Silicon Valley [links to web]
   How ‘Braveheart’ explains the future of tech policy (Q&A with Chip Pickering) [links to web]

STORIES FROM ABROAD
   Core Secrets: NSA Saboteurs in China and Germany
   EE, Vodafone and Three give police mobile call records at click of a mouse [links to web]
   Facebook speeds up Web in Indonesia [links to web]

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INTERNET/BROADBAND

FCC OR FTC FOR NET NEUTRALITY
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Brian Fung]
Is the Federal Communications Commission the wrong agency to handle matters of net neutrality and Internet openness? That's what some in Congress and elsewhere are suggesting. Instead, they say, ensuring that Internet providers don't abuse their network operator roles should be a matter for the Federal Trade Commission and antitrust law. In a hearing Oct 10, members of the House Judiciary Committee grilled current and former federal officials over the possibility of letting the FTC take on the punishing of broadband companies that have harmed consumers. "Do you believe the FTC would be effective at protecting the competitive interest?" asked Rep. Jason Smith (R-MO). Former-FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell and current FTC Commissioner Joshua Wright told the committee that using the FTC to regulate companies after the fact would be enough and that the FCC does not need to regulate Internet service providers (ISPs). So far, there's been no evidence of a market failure that would require the FCC's preemptive regulation, they said. Net neutrality advocate Tim Wu testified that looking at Internet policy solely through the lens of antitrust law would ignore the non-economic harms that Internet providers could wreak on the Internet, such as suppressing speech and limiting diversity.
benton.org/headlines/what-if-fcc-wrong-agency-handle-network-neutrality | Washington Post
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INTERNET TAX INCREASE
[SOURCE: Forbes, AUTHOR: Harold Furchtgott-Roth]
[Commentary] The Federal Communications Commission, without statutory authority, is proposing to expand its taxation and regulation of the Internet. Congress is oblivious to Federal Communications Commission efforts to undermine the spirit if not the letter of Internet Tax Freedom Act by extending substantial new federal fees on broadband access. These fees could be as harmful, if not more so, than any that state and local governments might imagine. Yet many in Congress, unaware of the fees that might be applied to the Internet, applaud the FCC. Under its “Open Internet” or “network neutrality” proceeding, the FCC would regulate the Internet and broadband service providers with rules similar to those that courts have not once but twice ruled unlawful. By statute, the FCC regulates telecommunications services, not Internet services. Rather than wait for Congress to give it authority to regulate Internet services, the FCC asserts that power for itself by some imaginative interpretation of the Communications Act.
benton.org/headlines/fcc-plans-stealth-internet-tax-increase | Forbes
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ISP SPEED INDEX
[SOURCE: Multichannel News, AUTHOR: Jeff Baumgartner]
Thanks to a paid interconnection deal announced in April, Verizon FiOS has surged to the top of Netflix’s ISP Speed Index for September, unseating Cablevision Systems as the best performer (by a small margin) among the 16 major US broadband providers ranked each month by Netflix. Verizon FiOS ,with an average Netflix streaming speed of 3.17 Mbps, rose nine spots in the rankings, up from the 2.41 Mbps average Verizon FiOS turned in for August 2014. Verizon DSL averaged 1.68 Mbps in September (beating its 1.31 Mbps average for August), good enough to move it one spot ahead of now last-place Clearwire.
benton.org/headlines/verizon-fios-speeds-top-netflix-rankings | Multichannel News | ars technica | GigaOm
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INTERNET GOVERNANCE
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Mario Trujillo]
Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker insisted that the United States would prevent the Internet from being "co-opted" by any government or person. She said the United States will remain a champion of an open Internet, as the Commerce Department plans to move away from its oversight role of the system that governs Internet addresses. "Let me be clear about this: The United States will not allow the global Internet to be co-opted by any person, entity or nation seeking to substitute their parochial world view for the collective wisdom of the community," she said. She added: "We know that those interested in government control tend to be countries that censor content and stifle the free-flow of information."
benton.org/headlines/sec-pritzker-us-wont-allow-internet-be-co-opted | Hill, The
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SPECTRUM/WIRELESS

QUSTIONING DE MOVES
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
Federal Communications Commission members Michael O’Rielly and Ajit Pai were not happy with portions of the FCC's Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on competitive bidding in spectrum auctions, particularly the upcoming broadcast incentive auction. The item passed, but not without the Republicans dissenting in part and making their unhappiness known. The FCC voted to allow small businesses and minorities more opportunities to bid by, among other things, loosening restrictions on third-party leasing or requirements for higher upfront payments from bidders with past debt issues. "The NPRM proposes to permit small businesses (known as 'designated entities' or 'DEs') to obtain taxpayer-funded discounts and then turn around and lease 100% of their spectrum to the world’s largest corporations. It does absolutely nothing good for competition in the wireless marketplace to award bidding credits to entities that flip their spectrum to large incumbent providers," Commissioner Pai wrote in his partial dissent. "To the contrary, it only makes it harder for small and regional facilities-based providers to win spectrum and compete on a level playing field. The Commission did not need to take this approach" He said there were some parts worth exploring, but on balance called it a "lost opportunity" by DEs to get into the wireless business. Commissioner O'Rielly also took issue with the NPRMs proposal that DEs not have to be a facilities-based provider -- allowing them to lease the spectrum to others.
benton.org/headlines/fcc-republicans-question-designated-entity-moves | Broadcasting&Cable
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CONTENT

DECEPTIVE ONLINE ADVERTISING
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Rolfe Winkler]
In June 2013, Mary Engle, the Federal Trade Commission’s associate director for advertising practices, wrote to 22 search sites, including the top three, warning of a “decline in compliance” with guidelines that search engines clearly delineate listings that are ads, and the risk of deceiving consumers. In response, the three leading US search engines have done little, making it difficult for users to distinguish ads from “natural” search results. Google stopped placing colored shading around ads, and now displays a small yellow “Ad” label next to some paid links. The shading of ads on Yahoo and Microsoft’s Bing search results is nearly imperceptible; both search engines label ads with a single line of light-gray text.
benton.org/headlines/ads-tied-web-searches-criticized-deceptive | Wall Street Journal
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STORIES FROM ABROAD

CORE SECRETS: NSA SABOTEURS IN CHINA AND GERMANY
[SOURCE: The Intercept, AUTHOR: Peter Maass, Laura Poitras]
The National Security Agency has had agents in China, Germany, and South Korea working on programs that use “physical subversion” to infiltrate and compromise networks and devices. The agency has used “under cover” operatives to gain access to sensitive data and systems in the global communications industry, and these secret agents may have even dealt with American firms. Documents describe a range of clandestine field activities that are among the agency’s “core secrets” when it comes to computer network attacks, details of which are apparently shared with only a small number of officials outside the NSA.
benton.org/headlines/core-secrets-nsa-saboteurs-china-and-germany | Intercept, The
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Ads Tied to Web Searches Criticized as Deceptive

In June 2013, Mary Engle, the Federal Trade Commission’s associate director for advertising practices, wrote to 22 search sites, including the top three, warning of a “decline in compliance” with guidelines that search engines clearly delineate listings that are ads, and the risk of deceiving consumers. In response, the three leading US search engines have done little, making it difficult for users to distinguish ads from “natural” search results. Google stopped placing colored shading around ads, and now displays a small yellow “Ad” label next to some paid links. The shading of ads on Yahoo and Microsoft’s Bing search results is nearly imperceptible; both search engines label ads with a single line of light-gray text.

T-Mobile, Sprint Dive Too Deep Into the Subscriber Pool

[Commentary] Where are all the new US wireless phone subscribers coming from?

Despite what would seem to be a fairly saturated market and the onset of heightened competition, the four biggest carriers appear set to add a net 4.3 million postpaid phone subscribers in 2014, according to UBS. That compares with a mere 737,000 in 2013. Indeed, this year should mark a level of net additions of the industry’s most valuable subscribers, those who don’t have to pay for service upfront, unseen since 2008.

One factor behind the gains: moves by T-Mobile US and Sprint to dig deeper into the pool of lower-credit-quality subscribers, previously relegated to prepaid plans. The risk is that this burnishes near-term performance but results in higher customer turnover down the line.

Teen Researchers Defend Media Multitasking

Some teens doing homework while listening to music and juggling tweets and texts may actually work better that way, according to an intriguing new study performed by two high-school seniors.

The Portland (OR) students were invited to the annual conference of the American Academy of Pediatrics to present a summary of their research, which analyzed more than 400 adolescents. The findings: Though most teens perform better when focusing on a single task, those who are “high media multitaskers” -- about 15% of the study participants -- performed better when working with the distractions of email and music than when focusing on a single activity. The results are a surprise. Previous research generally has found that people who think they are competent multitaskers actually perform worse than others who try to focus on one thing at a time. But the latest study looked only at teens and is one of the few multitasking-research projects focused on this age group. The student researchers suggest this may explain the different outcomes.

Web-Era Trade Schools, Feeding a Need for Code

A new educational institution, the coding boot camp, is quietly emerging as the vocational school for the digital age, devoted to creating software developers.

These boot camps reflect the start-up ethic: small for-profit enterprises that are fast (classes are two to four months), nimble (revising curriculum to meet industry needs) and unconcerned with SAT scores or diplomas. Most are expensive, but some accept a share of the graduates’ first-year earnings or a finder’s fee from employers as payment. Most important, at a time when so many young people are underemployed, most graduates, especially those from highly selective boot camps, quickly find well-paying jobs.

With Electronic Medical Records, Doctors Read When They Should Talk

[Commentary] We are in the middle of a simmering crisis in medical data management. Like computer servers everywhere, hospital servers store great masses of trivia mixed with valuable information and gross misinformation, all cut and pasted and endlessly reiterated. Even the best software is no match for the accumulation. When we need facts, we swoop over the surface like sea gulls over landfill, peck out what we can, and flap on. There is no time to dig and, even worse, no time to do what we were trained to do -- slow down, go to the source, and start from the beginning.

October 20, 2014
9:30 a.m. - 1 p.m. PT / 12:30 p.m. - 4 p.m. ET
http://muninetworks.org/content/next-century-cities-launch-webcast-octob...

Municipalities are increasingly realizing they need to take steps to ensure fast, affordable, reliable Internet access for local citizens. Some are doing the work themselves with publicly owned projects while others seek public-private partnerships. In order to capitalize on collaboration, a group of city leaders are now forming Next Century Cities.

Featured speakers will include

  • Mayor Pam O'Connor, Santa Monica, California
  • Mayor Andy Berke, Chattanooga, Tennessee
  • Mayor Joey Durel, Lafayette, Louisiana

As part of the event, Susan Crawford will moderate a panel discussion with Mayors and city leaders from a variety of communities.

The event will also include a panel discussion moderated by Christopher Mitchell with information and innovation leaders from the cities of Santa Monica, Boston, Kansas City, Portland, Raleigh, and Lafayette.


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