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Google is one of the leading players in a modern-day Silicon Valley morality tale, particularly now, since it is among the American multinationals using sophisticated international tax shelters to avoid paying billions of dollars in taxes.
According to Bloomberg, nearly $10 billion in revenue and $2 billion in taxes due disappeared into a Bermuda Triangle of shell corporations, offshore subsidiaries and clever accounting maneuvers such as the “Double Irish With a Dutch Sandwich”. Even for Google’s biggest fans, it’s now a fair question: Whatever happened to the unofficial company motto "Don't be evil"? To be fair, nothing Google did was illegal — the company simply executed well-known tax loopholes to perfection in the interest of maximizing returns to shareholders. Moreover, Google is hardly the only tech company caught with their Bermuda shorts pulled down around their ankles. Across Europe, there has been an outcry against tax-avoiding multinationals, with an emphasis on cracking down on the offshore tax activities of the tech world’s biggest players, including Amazon, Apple and Microsoft. In the UK earlier this month, British lawmakers took turns publicly admonishing the leaders of some of America's biggest companies, claiming that they aren’t paying their “fair share” of taxes. These are not just harangues from our cash-strapped European friends, they are evidence of a fundamental change to the way we view Silicon Valley’s most successful tech companies.
Google’s Silicon Valley morality tale
Google’s Android is extending its lead over Apple in the mobile-software market at a rate that compares with Microsoft’s expansion in desktop software in the 1990s, Google Chairman Eric Schmidt said.
Booming demand for Android-based smartphones is helping Google add share at the expense of other software providers, Schmidt said in an interview at Bloomberg’s headquarters in New York. Android snared 72 percent of the market in the third quarter, while Apple had 14 percent, according to Gartner. Customers are activating more than 1.3 million Android devices a day, Schmidt said. “This is a huge platform change; this is of the scale of 20 years ago -- Microsoft versus Apple,” he said. “We’re winning that war pretty clearly now.” Schmidt’s remarks reflect Google’s growing confidence in its ability to attract users and advertisers as more customers rely on handheld devices and shun traditional computers.
Google Chairman Says Android Winning Mobile War With Apple
Broadcast television enjoyed an impressive third quarter, as overall network spend soared 35 percent versus the year-ago period. According to data just released by Nielsen, the broadcasters booked north of $5.33 billion in Q3 ad sales, a significant improvement over the $3.95 billion raked in during the period spanning July 1 and Sept. 30, 2011.
A good deal of that extra volume was funneled toward NBC, thanks to its coverage of the 2012 London Summer Olympics. The Peacock scared up $1.2 billion in ad sales during the 17-day event. More evenly distributed political dollars also swelled broadcast’s coffers to some extent although the vast majority of the estimated $3.3 billion spent by various campaigns and SuperPACs was allotted to local TV. Broadcast’s strong showing also came on the heels of the 2012-13 upfront, during which the networks wrote some $9.15 billion in commitments on their prime-time inventory.
Nielsen: Broadcast Ad Spend Zooms in Q3 US Ad Spending Rose in Quarter, Nielsen Reports (NYTimes)
The Federal Communications Commission announced that the proposed universal service contribution factor for the first quarter of 2013 will be 0.161 or 16.1 percent.
Proposed First Quarter 2013 Universal Service Contribution Factor
There’s a schism between the people who believe you can build a business charging for content — and those who believe you can’t. In the last couple of years, the scales have been tipping toward the pay model. While the vast majority of digital content is still gratis, a fifth of U.S. newspapers were charging online by this summer, and a fifth of tablet users pay for news. But what makes content worth paying for? Which content services create a really compelling experience for users and how have they done it? With that question in mind, we gave our media reporters—Robert Andrews, Laura Hazard Owen, Jeff John Roberts and Janko Roettgers—a hypothetical allowance of $100 and asked them to tell us how they’d spend it on digital content.
Here’s what they said.
- Robert Andrews: 3 months of Spotify ($30); Soma FM ($2.99 month); Ancestry.co.uk subscription ($62.71).
- Laura Hazard Owen: New York Times Saturday-Sunday subscription (3 months -- $39.60); Byliner Plus subscription (3 months -- $7.99); Eat Your Books subscription (3 months -- $7.50); Worldreader donation ($14.93).
- Jeff John Roberts: MLB.tv ($120); The Magazine (3 months -- $5.97); Downton Abbey ($14.99/season)…
- Janko Roettgers: Netflix subscription (2 months -- $16); Hulu Plus subscription (2 months -- $16); Spotify (2 months -- $20); Vudu (4 rentals -- $20); Kindle e-book ($12); $10 worth of apps; Miami Connection ($6).
The Best in Digital Content: What our Reporters would Buy with $100
On Dec. 11, Gov. John Kasich (R-OH) unveiled the state's 100 Gbps broadband network -- a tenfold increase in speed and capacity -- operated by the Ohio Academic Resources Network (OARnet).
Gov Kasich announced the upgrade in his State of the State address in February, and Ohio has since invested approximately $13 million to take Ohio’s broadband infrastructure from 10 Gbps capacity to 100 Gbps -- an expansion that uses 1,850-plus miles of OARnet's fiber-optic network. "This is an ability -- think about 4G -- this is like 4G times a billion," Gov Kasich said. "This is the real thing, where we can send amazing amounts of data so that videos, file transfers -- the kinds of things that can be used at great distances to communicate back and forth to people who are engaged in anything from the development of businesses to the practice of medicine -- it is an unlimited potential for the state of Ohio." This network, Gov Kasich said, is the most comprehensive and connected operation in the entire world. "And it's just absolutely thrilling to have it here right on the campus of Ohio State [University]," he said. "It's going to hook all of our brothers and sisters across all the educational institutions in the state." After showing a video about OARnet, the governor asked a technician, who appeared on a monitor amid wires and equipment, to the right-hand side of the stage, to "light the network."
Within seconds, the technician replied, "Governor, the network is operational."
Ohio Launches State's New Ultra-Fast Broadband Network
Named Hawaii’s first CIO in summer 2011, Sanjeev “Sonny” Bhagowalia brings a résumé that includes 14 years at Boeing, as well as key roles in the federal government, most recently leading e-government programs for the General Services Administration.
For a small state, Hawaii has some significant challenges ahead. Leaders confess that the fragmented physical nature of the islands has led to a disjointed system of technology infrastructure. The state workforce has gotten by delivering services using disparate legacy systems past their prime with business processes to match. With maintenance costs for these aging systems growing every year, most agree that Hawaii is in desperate need of a technology overhaul. The good news is that the state seems well positioned to deliver.
Hawaii Embarks on a Tech Transformation
A hallmark of the Obama campaign’s email program was its non-stop emphasis on testing. On Oct. 17, it sent out messages to 166 segments and 84 were A/B tests, whether with subject lines, time of day, messaging, etc. Toby Fallsgraff, the e-mail director for Obama’s 2012 reelection effort, said the pursuit of innovation continued to avoid stale tactics. “Novelty can be highly effective, it can also be highly fleeting and so our mantra was test and re-test,” he said. The efforts worked. More than $500 million was raised online via 4.5 million donors averaging $53 a donation.
Obama Campaign Email Efforts Marked By Continual Testing
US law enforcement agencies with the help of Facebook have arrested 10 persons from various countries in connection with international cyber crime rings that targeted users on the social network.
The operation is said to have identified international cyber crime rings that used various variants of a malware called Yahos. The malware has infected more than 11 million computers and caused over $850 million in losses through a Butterfly botnet, which steals computer users' credit card, bank account, and other personal identifiable information, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said. The 10 persons arrested are from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, New Zealand, Peru, the U.K., and the U.S.
US law enforcement busts cyber crime rings with help from Facebook
Physician adoption of electronic health record (EHR) and other computerized tools to help improve care, safety and coordination of health care for patients across the county continue to rise, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) reports in a new data brief.
Last week, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) reported that the percentage of doctors adopting electronic health records has increased from 48 percent in 2009 to 72 percent in 2012. The ONC report shows that since 2009, the percent of physicians with computerized capabilities to e-prescribe has more than doubled, from 33 percent to 73 percent. Within the past year, more physicians (56 percent) have the computerized capabilities to engage with patients and their families by providing patients with summaries after visits, an increase of 46 percent. The data brief, Physician Adoption of Electronic Health Record Technology to Meet Meaningful Use Objectives, found that since the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act was enacted in 2009, the percentage of doctors that are meeting five meaningful use core objectives has increased by at least 66 percent. The HITECH Act authorized incentive payments under the Medicare and Medicaid EHR Incentive Program to eligible professionals and hospitals for the adoption and meaningful use of certified EHR technology. To participate in incentive programs, professionals are required to demonstrate computerized capabilities that meet defined meaningful use objectives. The data are reported from the 2012 mail survey of physicians in the National Electronic Health Record Survey conducted by NCHS.
The new data brief also shows:
- In the past year, the percent of doctors using EHRs meeting nine meaningful use measures increased by at least 21 percent.
- As of 2012, two thirds or more of physicians have computerized capability to improve patient safety through electronic tools such as drug interaction checks and electronic medication lists.
- Half or more of physicians reported they have adopted computerized tools to meet twelve meaningful use core objectives, and at least two thirds have adopted computerized tools to meet nine measures out of 13. In 2012 there are 15 required measures; the data brief reports on 13 of those measures.
More doctors adopting EHRs to improve patient care and safety