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[Commentary] When we talk about "searching" these days, we're almost always talking about using Google to find something online. That’s a big change for a word that long carried existential connotations -- a word that had been bound up in our sense of what it meant to be human.
We didn’t just search for car keys or missing socks. We searched for truth, for meaning, for transcendence. Searching was an act of exploration that took us out into the world, beyond ourselves, in order to know the world, and ourselves, more fully. In its original form, the Google search engine did just that. It transported us out into a messy and confusing world -- the world of the web -- with the intent of helping us make sense of it. But that’s less true now. Google’s big goal is no longer to read the web. It's to read us. These days, Google's search engine doesn’t push us outward so much as turn us inward. It gives us information that fits the pattern of behavior and thinking we’ve displayed in the past. It reinforces our biases rather than challenging them, and subverts the act of searching in its most meaningful sense.
The digital age has changed what it means to 'search'
An appeals court struck down a rule that had been issued by the Federal Communications Commission to allow customers to watch cable and satellite TV on "plug and play" televisions, replacing set top boxes. Satellite TV company Dish Network to the rule because it included prescriptions on encrypting programming that prevented Dish and others from, for example, making deals with studios to play new movies on a pay-per-view basis.
At the request of Dish, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit struck down the 2003 rule that had been drafted by the cable companies. The FCC rule - called the "plug and play" order - set standards that allowed customers to buy televisions that could plug into cable and satellite networks without using a set top box. In its objection, Dish argued that the FCC lacked authority to impose the standards on satellite providers. The court agreed.
Court sides with Dish in striking down FCC TV rule
Sen Jay Rockefeller's announcement that he won't seek reelection in 2014 may not upset too many folks in the entertainment business. The chairman of the powerful Senate Commerce Committee has never been shy about bashing the media industry.
Sen Rockefeller has been particularly concerned about cable news becoming more about who can shout the loudest and less about informing the masses. It would be easy to dismiss Rockefeller's concerns as coming from someone who longs for the days of three broadcast networks and "Leave It To Beaver" and who doesn't understand the modern media landscape. But his fears that too few media companies were controlling too many broadcast and cable networks and that consumers were not given enough say with regards to their pay-TV service are shared by many media watchdogs and consumers.
Sen Jay Rockefeller has never been shy about criticizing media
The Democratic members of the Energy and Commerce Committee met to determine recommendations for subcommittee ranking memberships and assignments for the 113th Congress. Ranking Members are still subject to approval by the Democratic Steering and Policy Committee, and the Democratic Caucus.
The Democratic staff of the Committee has also prepared a memo on the legislative record of the Committee in the 112th Congress. The overriding lesson is that the Committee succeeded legislatively when its measures had broad bipartisan support and failed when they did not.
Subcommittee on Communications and Technology
- Anna G. Eshoo, California, Ranking Member
- Edward J. Markey, Massachusetts
- Michael F. Doyle, Pennsylvania
- Doris O. Matsui, California
- Bruce Braley, Iowa
- Peter Welch, Vermont
- Ben Ray Lujan, New Mexico
- John D. Dingell, Michigan
- Frank Pallone, Jr., New Jersey
- Bobby L. Rush, Illinois
- Diana DeGette, Colorado
- Jim Matheson, Utah
- Henry A. Waxman, California (Ex Officio)
Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade
- Jan Schakowsky, Illinois, Ranking Member
- G.K. Butterfield, North Carolina
- John Sarbanes, Maryland
- Jerry McNerney, California
- Peter Welch, Vermont
- John D. Dingell, Michigan
- Bobby L. Rush, Illinois
- Jim Matheson, Utah
- John Barrow, Georgia
- Donna M. Christensen, Virgin Islands
- Henry A. Waxman, California (Ex Officio)
House Commerce Committee Democrats Announce Subcommittee Memberships for 113th Congress Dems Communications Subcommittee Members Set (B&C)
To connect mobile health units in the hills of rural New England with broadband access, policymakers are looking up -- all the way to space. In the next few months, roaming trailers that serve rural communities and ships that double as health clinics for Maine’s outer islands will be equipped with the gear necessary to draw broadband Internet from a satellite powered by Hughes Network Systems.
The initiative is being led by the New England Telehealth Consortium, a federally funded group of health care providers dedicated in part to improving rural health care access. The consortium’s efforts also focus on building new broadband infrastructure, but the mobile units that serve many of the hard-to-reach communities in the area would never be able to plug into the grid. Instead, they’ll transmit data through the Hughes Spaceway 3 broadband satellite, floating 22,300 miles above the Earth. It will allow those providers to use remote monitoring, electronic health records and more in a way that they never could with their current technology.
Space Satellite Connects Rural Health Clinics to Broadband
President Barack Obama had 79 press conferences over the past four years. That’s less than George W. Bush (89), Bill Clinton (133) or George H.W. Bush (143). He did manage to beat out former President Ronald Reagan, who had only 27 press conferences during his first term.
President Obama ends term with fewer pressers than Bush or Clinton
Liberals and consumer advocates are pushing the Obama Administration to investigate Internet providers for limiting the amount of online material that customers can consume each month. Critics of data caps say they are unnecessary and are unfairly used by monopolists to squeeze more profits out of consumers. Advocacy groups including Public Knowledge and Free Press are urging the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to review the practice and are lobbying Congress to hold hearings. “Data caps can create an artificial scarcity in the broadband market that limits consumer choice and hinders the creation of new competitive content online,” said Christopher Lewis, Public Knowledge’s top lobbyist. The issue could flare into a major regulatory battle in the new Congress.
Limits on consumers’ Internet use fuel calls for federal investigation
The cable bill is too damn high, as just about every U.S. cable subscriber will attest. This is a truth even industry analysts and cable executives can no longer deny, though they haven’t yet agreed on whom to blame. A little over two years ago, Sanford Bernstein analyst Craig Moffett was warning about “the widening disconnect between flat-to-declining consumer disposable income, particularly in the bottom two quintiles of household income, and the rising price of media and telecommunications services.” Just the television portion of the cable bill has nearly doubled to $78 monthly over the last decade. And U.S. cable and broadband rates are now at nosebleed levels relative to those on offer in foreign capitals, despite delivering inferior technology to the one that lets Koreans, Scandinavians and Hong Kongers surf the Internet much faster.
Is it because our sports are so much more exciting, our comedies that much funnier or our news shows more informative? If only. That’s down to the fact that our cable markets are entirely uncompetitive on price, even in places where cable providers have let the satellite dish to make significant inroads. And why are they uncompetitive on price? That’s no mystery at all. It’s because government has failed to foster the sort of competition that’s held down prices around the world.
The Cable Bill's Too High. Here's Why
A study released by Intel Corporation on women and the Internet has found some interesting trends. Researchers, who consulted with the U.S. State Department and UN Women, found that one-fifth of women in some countries feel that it would be inappropriate for them to use the Internet. The report issues a call to double the number of women and girls online in developing countries from 600 million today to 1.2 billion in 3 years. Around 2,200 women and girls from four countries--India, Egypt, Mexico, and Uganda--took part in the research, which found that 25% of women in developing nations lacked Internet access. In some sub-Saharan countries that figure rises to 45%.
One-Fifth Of Women In Developing World Countries Think Internet Use Is Inappropriate For Them
Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-CA) said that she intends to reintroduce legislation, the Next Generation Wireless Disclosure Act, in the coming weeks that's aimed at ensuring consumers have complete information about pricing and service conditions before they sign up for a mobile wireless contract.
Rep Eshoo said it's imperative that mobile providers "accurately disclose terms and the conditions of services, including a clear and concise explanation of pricing," as well as explain whether they have a "network management policy that could impact a user's experience." The goal of the forthcoming bill is to ensure "consumers know what they're getting for their money before committing to a two-year wireless service contract," Rep Eshoo said during an event about Congress's broadband agenda for 2013 that was held by the Broadband Breakfast Club. The bill would provide consumers with information about the speed of a wireless carrier's 4G service and the technology used to provide that high-speed mobile broadband service before they sign a mobile contract. The bill would also give consumers information about a wireless service's minimum data speed, network reliability and coverage areas so they can compare different pricing and service options.
Rep Eshoo to reintroduce wireless bill in coming weeks