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[Commentary] There is so much about the “Obama Phone” nonsense that tickles my funny bone in odd places. It’s not just that everything conservatives say about it is factually wrong. It also proves that the cherished progressive belief that every policy ever adopted under Reagan and under W were universally unmitigated disasters for the poor and people of color is also wrong. As if this were not ironic enough, the “Obama phone” was approved by the Federal Communications Commission in part to address the massive sudden need for subsidized mobile phones for Katrina victims. In 2005-06, Tracfone distributed 30,000 phones to Katrina victims under the expanded Lifeline program, and raised awareness of the new program through the devastated Gulf Coast region, i.e, the same red state regions now bellyaching about the program. For Progressives, consider that the “Obama phone” was invented in part as a response to Katrina by the President who “didn’t care about black people.”
The Best 10 Ironies About The “Obama Phone”
The TV industry's best hope of shutting down TV startup Aereo Inc. anytime soon could rest, bizarrely enough, on a legal case involving something called Aereokiller LLC.
So where does Aereokiller fit in? It is a copycat service launched in Aereo's wake last year by an entrepreneur named Alkiviades David, using a Web address of Barrydriller.com. Aereokiller streams broadcast networks over the Web, and has said it uses technology similar to Aereo's. At the time of Aereokiller's launch, major broadcasters thought the copycat was little more than a farce—though one they quickly moved to quash. Mr. Diller was also dismissive, saying at the time that he'd "hoped that if they steal my name they'd do it for something more provocative." He quickly sued over the name, and Aereokiller dropped use of the Barrydriller.com Web address for its service. Now, Aereokiller has become a larger threat to Aereo, clouding both its legal standing and its hopes of expanding its service to 22 cities across the U.S., say lawyers not involved in the case. That is because broadcasters have had more luck shutting down Aereokiller than Aereo—even though they operate similarly—thanks to the different legal precedents set in the states where cases are being heard.
New Threat to Aereo TV
Two fledgling technologies could dramatically reshape the $60 billion-a-year television broadcast industry as they challenge the business model that has helped keep broadcasters on the lucrative end of the media spectrum.
On April 1, a U.S. appeals court rejected a petition by the major broadcasters including Comcast's NBC, News Corp's FOX, Disney's ABC and CBS, to stop a service called Aereo, which offers a cut-rate TV subscription for consumers by capturing broadcast signals over thousands of antennas at one time. It was the second time in recent months that TV broadcasters failed to block a new technology that undercuts revenue they generate for their television shows. In November, a California court struck down Fox's request to ban Dish Network's ad-eliminating video recording device called the Hopper. The two services strike at the heart of the TV broadcast model.
Tech initiatives to shake up traditional TV model face brutal fights
Several Texas A&M professors know something that generations of teachers could only hope to guess: whether students are reading their textbooks.
They know when students are skipping pages, failing to highlight significant passages, not bothering to take notes — or simply not opening the book at all. “It’s Big Brother, sort of, but with a good intent,” said Tracy Hurley, the dean of the school of business. The faculty members here are neither clairvoyant nor peering over shoulders. They, along with colleagues at eight other colleges, are testing technology from a Silicon Valley start-up, CourseSmart, that allows them to track their students’ progress with digital textbooks.
Teacher Knows if You’ve Done the E-Reading
The National Labor Relations Board said that it planned to file a complaint charging Cablevision with making illegal threats and offering improper inducements to its employees in the Bronx to discourage them from voting to unionize.
As part of the complaint, the labor board’s regional office for Manhattan and the Bronx is accusing Cablevision’s chief executive, James L. Dolan, of illegally telling the Bronx workers that they would be excluded from training and job opportunities if they voted to unionize. The board also said that Cablevision had improperly offered raises and improved benefits to its workers in the Bronx and elsewhere to deter them from joining a union. Karen Fernbach, director of the labor board’s regional office, said those moves improperly influenced an election last June in which Cablevision’s installation workers in the Bronx voted overwhelmingly — 121 to 43 — against joining the Communications Workers of America.
Cablevision’s Actions Illegal, Board Says
U.S. undersecretary of state for economic growth, Robert Hormats, said the growing incidence of hacking that originates inside China is undermining trust between the two countries and harms Beijing's long-term interests. Washington believes cyber intrusions originating from China that result in the theft of sensitive information have reached very high levels. He urged China to take firm action against hacking.
US says hacking undermines China's interests
European antitrust regulators have received a formal complaint about Google’s Android operating system for mobile devices, even as they move to the final stages of their inquiry into the company’s search practices.
The complaint was filed by Fairsearch Europe, a group of Google’s competitors, including the mobile phone maker Nokia and the software titan Microsoft, and by other companies, like Oracle. It accuses Google of using the Android software “as a deceptive way to build advantages for key Google apps in 70 percent of the smartphones shipped today,” said Thomas Vinje, the lead lawyer for Fairsearch Europe, referring to Android’s share of the smartphone market. For example, phone makers that agree to use Android — and that also want Google applications like YouTube — face contractual requirements to place those applications and other Google-branded applications in prominent positions on the mobile device’s desktop, Vinje said.
In Europe, New Protest Over Google Google target of Microsoft-led antitrust complaint (Associated Press) Coalition of Google Rivals Complains to Europe Over Android Bundling (WSJ)
Deutsche Telekom AG, Germany’s largest phone company, won permission to offer speedier Web access in most urban areas on existing copper lines, giving it a cheaper way to take on cable providers.
The Bonn-based carrier may deny rivals access to its street-side cabinets -- a precondition for installing the so- called DSL vectoring technology -- under certain conditions, Germany’s Federal Network Agency said in an e-mailed draft ruling. Such a move is allowed, for instance, in areas where customers can choose an alternative fixed-line network, the watchdog said. “The driving idea behind the decision is to allow vectoring for all market participants and thus drive forward the broadband rollout,” Jochen Homann, the agency’s president, said in the statement. “The open access approach ensures that no monopolies may arise in certain areas: neither for Deutsche Telekom nor its competitors.”
Deutsche Telekom Wins Watchdog Approval for Faster Web
Just one day before Google is expected to announced that it will bring Google Fiber to Austin, Texas, two Wall Street analysts have calculated that it would cost $11 billion annually to bring gigabit to the rest of the nation on the scale of other large nationwide providers like Comcast or Time Warner Cable.
Based on that model, Google’s fiber network would pass “roughly 15 percent of US homes.” By comparison, Google is worth (based on its market capitalization) around $253 billion—so the search giant would have to spend about four percent of its net worth to bring a fair portion of us some of that sweet, cheap, crazy-fast broadband. Google appears to be looking for cities that have a certain size (geographic area) and a certain population density—Austin's is roughly the same size as Kansas City, KS and Kansas City, MO combined. So why is Google undertaking this entire process? Here's what the Berstein folks say: "we believe Google Fiber has two related objectives: first, Google is seeking to figure out whether or not, or under what conditions, it can make money as a facilities-based provider of broadband and pay TV services; second, it is an opportunity for Google to test new applications, new ad formats and delivery models (e.g., targeted TV ads) and to get further insight into consumer behavior. We do not believe this effort will have any significant impact on regulation or legislation."
Nationwide Google Fiber would cost $11 Billion per year, probably will never happen
Is News Corp. really going to yank Fox off the airwaves in response to Aereo? Snap consensus judgment from the various corners of the TV Industrial Complex: No way. At least, not anytime soon.
It’s possible that over time, if broadcasters do think that Aereo or Aereo-like technology really threatens the fees they get from pay TV operators for their over-the-air programming, they’ll move more of it to cable networks. And, in fact, programmers have already started moving lots of high-profile sporting events from free TV to pay TV. Near-term, however, people seem to think that both practical and legal restrictions — for instance, deals that Fox and CBS have with the NFL for football broadcast rights — would prevent this from happening. More practically, there isn’t any reason to do so, since only a handful of people are actually using Aereo to get broadcast TV for free.
All that said, Wall Street seems to like the idea. Bernstein analyst Todd Juenger gamed out a scenario where all four broadcasters moved from over-the-air to pay networks, and concluded that it wouldn’t be a terrible idea, at least financially. By Juenger’s thinking, the lost “retransmission fees” and advertising dollars the broadcasters would lose from over-the-air programming would be replaced by even higher “affiliate fees” and advertising dollars they could get on cable.
Wall Street to the TV Guys: Please Bail on Broadcast for Cable!