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The House Commerce Committee approved the rules of the committee during the organizational meeting for the 113th Congress. The first resolution established the Rules of the Committee. The second resolution established the jurisdiction of the subcommittees. The third resolution established the Republican chairmen, vice-chairmen, and membership of the subcommittees. The fourth resolution established the Democratic ranking members and membership of the subcommittees.
The jurisdiction of the Communications and Technology Subcommittee: Electronic communications, both Interstate and foreign, including voice, video, audio and data, whether transmitted by wire or wirelessly, and whether transmitted by telecommunications, commercial or private mobile service, broadcast, cable, satellite, microwave, or other mode; technology generally; emergency and public safety communications; cybersecurity, privacy, and data security; the Federal Communications Commission, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, the Office of Emergency Communications in the Department of Homeland Security; and all aspects of the above-referenced jurisdiction related to the Department of Homeland Security.
House Commerce Committee Approves Rules
House Commerce Committee ranking member Henry Waxman (D-CA) sent committee chairman Fred Upton (R-MI) a memo as the committee began its work in the new Congress suggesting that bills fare better when they are bipartisan.
On the Communications Subcommittee, for example, the three bills in the committee's jurisdiction that were either reported out of the committee or that went directly to the floor without the support of the Democratic majority did not pass. Those were the FCC Process Reform Act, a resolution disapproving the FCC's network neutrality rules, and one that would have defunded National Public Radio. By contrast, of the four bills in their jurisdiction that were supported by Dems -- the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2011 (which included incentive auctions), a resolution backing a multistakeholder model of Internet governance, a bill to return unused broadband stimulus funds to the Treasury and H.R. 3310, the FCC Consolidated Reporting Act of 2011 -- two passed. Those were the tax relief bill and the multistakeholder resolution. That is a 50% success rate, Rep Waxman pointed out.
Rep Waxman: Communications Subcommittee Success Depends on Bipartisanship Letter to Chairman Upton (Waxman letter) Legislative Record of the Energy and Commerce Committee in the 112th Congress (Waxman memo)
Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-CA) said that if the D.C. Circuit overturns the Federal Communications Commission's Open Internet order, she will be ready with a bill to clarify the FCC's authority to make such rules.
In a speech at the annual State of the Net Conference of the Congressional Internet Caucus (she is co-chair), Rep Eshoo said that "clarifying" the commission's ability to ensure "a free and open Internet" was a consumer protection issue and that, "should the court overturn the FCC's rules, I will be prepared to introduce legislation." That will be an uphill climb in a Republican-controlled House, where leadership has expressed no love for the FCC's network neutrality rules. Rep Eshoo put in a plug for the FCC's proposal to adjust its spectrum screen, which is the amount of spectrum owned by one company in a market that triggers additional concentration concerns. She said the screen should be reformed, including by treating spectrum less than one gigahertz different from other spectrum because it was more valuable.
Rep Eshoo Threatens Net Neutrality Bill If FCC Rules Overturned
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) announced the next stage in an ambitious project called Phoenix, which it hopes will bring about the first demonstration of robotic, in-orbit satellite servicing in 2015.
The servicing, however, won't involve the repair of an existing satellite -- instead, one that has already been retired will be scavenged for spare parts. If all goes well, the antenna (or aperture) of the defunct satellite will be linked with one or more small "satlets" that will return it to active duty. "[Phoenix is a] modest effort to increase the return-on-investment for DoD [Department of Defense] space missions," Dave Barnhart, a DARPA program manager, said at a recent press conference. It costs a lot of money to put something into geosynchronous orbit, and not everything that's been put there remains active. In many cases, this is because of the failure or obsolescence of only some of their hardware, while other parts remain perfectly viable and functioning. (In fact, we already know they've functioned after launch and deployment.) In short, the Phoenix project is essentially a very complicated recycling program.
DARPA unveils robotic plan to reuse, recycle satellites in 2015
[Commentary] In a recent column, Chairman Genachowski explains why the U.S. Needs 'Gigabit Communities.' He's right, but refuses to do anything meaningful to get us there. It starts off with an accurate observation...
“Walking the floor of the Consumer Electronics Show last week, I kept thinking of that line from Jaws, ‘You're going to need a bigger boat.’ All the Internet-connected, data-hungry gadgets that are coming to market sent a strikingly clear message: we're going to need faster broadband networks.... It's essential to economic growth, job creation and U.S. competitiveness.”
Yes! If only the head of the Federal Communications Commission understood what is preventing us from building those networks. Hint: It isn't a lack of demand. Google was inundated with applications for its gigabit service. Hundreds of communities have built their own networks (some of which he praises).
[Christopher Mitchell is the Telecom Director at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance]
The FCC Chief Is Awesome at His Job if You Own a Big Cable Company
A lawsuit by The Associated Press against paid clipping service Meltwater has drawn the attention of digital rights advocates, who are siding against the wire service in a new friend-of-the-court brief.
The AP sued Meltwater last year, alleging that the clipping service infringes copyright by copying news stories and "selling that content to its subscribers for a profit." But Meltwater counters that it merely offers a search engine that allows users to "discover, monitor, research, and analyze information made freely available on news Websites across the Internet." Now Public Knowledge and the Electronic Frontier Foundation argue in a friend-of-the-court brief that Meltwater, like other search engines or aggregators, is protected by fair use principles when displaying fragments of news articles. The groups add that a ruling against Meltwater on that point could set a troubling precedent by curtailing "the essential role fair use plays in facilitating online innovation and expression."
Digital Rights Groups Slam Associated Press
This summer, on June 1-2, 2013, citizens in cities across the Nation will join together to improve their communities and governments as part of the National Day of Civic Hacking. Civic Hacking Day is an opportunity for software developers, technologists, and entrepreneurs to unleash their can-do American spirit by collaboratively harnessing publicly-released data and code to create innovative solutions for problems that affect Americans.
While civic hacking communities have long worked to improve our country and the world, this summer will mark the first time local developers from across the Nation unite around the shared mission of addressing and solving challenges relevant to OUR blocks, OUR neighborhoods, OUR cities, OUR states, and OUR country. National Day of Civic Hacking is a call to action for anyone who wants to make a positive impact on their town, city, and country. A coalition of leading organizations, companies, and government agencies have banded together to issue this challenge with the goal of promoting transparency, participation, and collaboration among governments, startups, and citizens. These partners will support Civic Hacking Day by hosting activities across the country that invite anyone to become part of the civic hacker community—whether you’re a newbie or an expert—and by connecting people in person or online during the weekend celebration. The event is taking place in conjunction with Random Hacks of Kindness and Code for America's Brigade meetings and is being modeled after the Innovation Endeavors’ Super Happy Block Party. A number of Federal agencies, including NASA, the Census Bureau, and the Department of Labor, are participating by offering specific challenges for hackers to work during the event.
[Brian Forde is the Senior Advisor to the U.S. CTO for Mobile and Data Innovation; Nicholas Skytland is the Program Manager of NASA's Open Innovation Program]
Roll Up Your Sleeves, Get Involved, and Get Civic-Hacking
The tech team behind the 2012 Obama campaign has probably received more attention than any political programmers in history. A so-called "dream team of engineers from Facebook, Google and Twitter [who] built the software that drove Barack Obama’s reelection" were extolled in the press for bringing Silicon Valley strategies like Agile development to the normally hidebound process of a political campaign. In the post mortems that followed Obama’s victory, many credited the superiority of the Democrats’ tech team and its famous Narwhal platform, in contrast to the failure of Mitt Romney’s digital efforts, with mobilizing the vote and winning crucial swing states.
But in the aftermath of the election, a stark divide has emerged between political operatives and the techies who worked side-by-side. At issue is the code created during the Obama for America (OFA) 2012 campaign: the digital architecture behind the campaign’s website, its system for collecting donations, its email operation, and its mobile app. When the campaign ended, these programmers wanted to put their work back into the coding community for other developers to study and improve upon. Politicians in the Democratic party felt otherwise, arguing that sharing the tech would give away a key advantage to the Republicans. Three months after the election, the data and software is still tightly controlled by the president and his campaign staff, with the fate of the code still largely undecided. It’s a choice the OFA developers warn could not only squander the digital advantage the Democrats now hold, but also severely impact their ability to recruit top tech talent in the future.
As Obama heads back to office, a battle rages over the tech that got him reelected
Women remain underrepresented in Hollywood as the percentage of female filmmakers stagnated last year, according to a new study.
In 2012, women represented just 18 percent of all directors, producers, writers, cinematographers and editors working on the top 250 domestic grossing films, according to a report from the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University titled "The Celluloid Ceiling: Behind-the-Scenes Employment of Women on the Top 250 Films of 2012." That number remained the same as in 2011, and has increased just 1 percentage point since 1998.
Among the study's other findings:
- Women accounted for 15 percent of writers working on the top 250 films of 2012. Seventy-eight percent of the films had no female writers.
- Women make up 17 percent of all executive producers working on the top 250 films of 2012. Sixty-one percent of the films had no female executive producers.
- Women accounted for 25 percent of all producers working on the top 250 films of 2012. Thirty-two percent of the films had no female producers.
Sexist Hollywood?: Women Still Struggle to Find Film Jobs, Study Finds
It's only logical that Netflix will lose its dominance over the video-streaming business. It's been slowly happening for a couple of years.
Competitors have been piling in. Netflix is losing some big providers of movies and TV and paying more to the ones it lands or retains. That situation is likely to continue as more licenses come up for renewal. It's not a question of if Netflix will lose its dominance, but when. And yet, the debate about the company's fate rages on, and the stock price is rising rather than falling. It's up more than 10% just since the beginning of the year, to just about $100—which is better than the $295 it was getting in July of 2011 but still inflated. Investors act "as if it's the undisputed leader," CNNMoney's Paul LaMonica remarked. And it is, but not for long.
Why Netflix can't keep winning