1. Monthly archive
  2. December 2016

December 2016

AT&T and Verizon try to fend off net neutrality case before Trump takes over

AT&T and Verizon on Dec 16 urged the Federal Communications Commission to drop a network neutrality investigation into the companies' practice of exempting their own video from mobile data caps while charging competitors for the same exemptions. The wireless carriers have a good chance of avoiding any punishment because the FCC next month will switch to Republican control under President-elect Donald Trump, an opponent of net neutrality rules. For now, the companies are cooperating in the case, with each carrier sending replies to the FCC by the commission's deadline. AT&T lets its subsidiary DirecTV stream video without counting against AT&T mobile customers' data caps, while Verizon's Go90 video service doesn't count against data caps on the Verizon Wireless network. Other video providers must pay AT&T or Verizon to get the same data cap exemptions, also known as "zero-rating."

Google To Shutter And Relaunch Contributor Subscription Ad Service

Google Contributor, the subscription service that allowed users to see fewer advertisements on publisher sites for a fee, will close in January and reopen in early 2017 with a new version. The service allowed site visitors to pay fractions of pennies to see fewer Google-served display advertisements when visiting publisher Web sites, but insiders said getting users to pay for a subscription was slow going.

Subscribers paid a monthly subscription fee allowing those searching the Web and visiting sites as normal from any browser and device. Each time Contributor removed an ad from a page viewed by a subscriber, Google gave a percentage to that site.

FCC, TIGTA Issue IRS Impersonation Phone Scam Advisory

Telephone fraudsters posing as Internal Revenue Service (IRS) agents have bilked tens of thousands of American consumers out of millions of dollars. This scam, the largest impersonation scam in the history of the IRS, has cost victims more than $50 million. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) are committed to quashing the scam, prosecuting the individuals behind the scam, and protecting consumers from future fraud and harassment.

Uncertainty over Trump's immigration policy leads foreign engineers to ditch startups

While on the campaign trail, Donald Trump made it clear that he wanted to deport illegal immigrants. His stance on high-skilled immigration, on the other hand, was more opaque. The H-1B visa is the most common pathway for high-skilled foreigners to work in the US. Trump called it "very, very bad for workers" on the campaign trail and, after being elected, pledged to investigate visa programs that were abused. However, he also admitted that he's hired H-1B workers for his own businesses.

Uncertainty over what will happen under Trump has some foreign engineers thinking twice about working for a startup.

Omnicom, Publicis Subpoenaed In DOJ Production Investigation

The Department of Justice investigation into production practices in the advertising industry is widening, as Omnicom Group said two of its subsidiaries had been subpoenaed and Publicis Groupe said one of its subsidiaries received one. "On Dec. 14, 2016, two subsidiaries within Omnicom Group received subpoenas from the US Department of Justice Antitrust Division concerning its ongoing investigation of video production and post-production practices in the advertising industry," Omnicom said. "Omnicom's outside legal counsel has contacted representatives of the Antitrust Division and the company is fully cooperating with the investigation."

The company declined further comment and would not name the units being investigated.

SoftBank touts first $1B investment as a part of pledge to Trump

SoftBank will invest $1 billion in One Web, a broadband access company based in Arlington (VA), as part of a pledge to President-elect Donald Trump to invest $50 billion in American companies.

“Earlier this month I met with President-Elect Trump and shared my commitment to investing and creating jobs in the U.S. This is the first step in that commitment,” the Japanese tech giant’s CEO, Masayoshi Son, said. President-elect Trump announced after meeting with Son earlier this month that SoftBank would invest $50 billion in U.S. businesses and create 50,000 new jobs domestically. The president-elect said Son made the pledge as a direct result of his presidential election victory.

The Great AI Awakening

How Google used artificial intelligence to transform Google Translate, one of its more popular services — and how machine learning is poised to reinvent computing itself.

The most important thing happening in Silicon Valley right now is not disruption. Rather, it’s institution-building — and the consolidation of power — on a scale and at a pace that are both probably unprecedented in human history. Brain has interns; it has residents; it has “ninja” classes to train people in other departments. Everywhere there are bins of free bike helmets, and free green umbrellas for the two days a year it rains, and little fruit salads, and nap pods, and shared treadmill desks, and massage chairs, and random cartons of high-end pastries, and places for baby-clothes donations, and two-story climbing walls with scheduled instructors, and reading groups and policy talks and variegated support networks. The recipients of these major investments in human cultivation — for they’re far more than perks for proles in some digital salt mine — have at hand the power of complexly coordinated servers distributed across 13 data centers on four continents, data centers that draw enough electricity to light up large cities.

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