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A Q&A with former Federal Communications Commission member Michael Copps.
This week, Moyers is focusing on the Federal Communications Commission’s proposal to relax the rules that prevent one company from owning radio stations, television stations and newspapers all in the same city — a move activists say would hurt diversity and be a boon for the Rupert Murdochs of the world. It’s déjà vu for Michael Copps, who served on the commission from 2001-2011 and was acting chairman from January to June 2009 — a tenure marked by his concern for diversity and opposition to media consolidation. Copps is now the senior advisor for media and democracy reform at Common Cause. He stopped by our office to share his concerns about the FCC’s latest proposal.
Former FCC Commissioner: Big Media Dumbs Down Democracy
[Commentary] Rupert Murdoch is not the first media mogul to stand accused of plotting a presidential campaign for a favored contender. But the revelations regarding his network come at a particularly inconvenient moment, as Murdoch is seeking federal rule changes that would allow him to become a dramatically more definitional figure in American politics.
The Federal Communications Commission is currently considering a radical restructuring of media ownership rules that would benefit Murdoch. From its founding, the FCC has been charged with preventing media conglomerates from dominating local and national media in a manner that would allow an individual owner to define the discourse. Now, because Murdoch wants to buy major daily newspapers in communities where his News Corp combine already owns local television stations, he proposes to tear up the old rules. Murdoch wants FCC chairman Julius Genachowski and his fellow commissioners to ease limits on what is referred to as “media cross-ownership” in the nation’s largest cities. If that happens, the nation’s media reform network, Free Press, warns that the move will “pave the way for Murdoch—and like-minded media moguls—to own the daily newspaper, two TV stations and up to eight radio stations in the same market.”
The FCC Must Not Give Rupert Murdoch More Control Over US Media
Few can accuse Peter Swire of backing away from a challenge.
The Ohio State law professor has agreed to take on a job that might be as hard as trying to mediate the feud between the Hatfields and the McCoys. Swire was picked last week to take over as cochairman of a working group created last year by the World Wide Web Consortium to come up with a standard for responding to consumers online tracking choices. He was tapped after Aleecia McDonald, director of privacy at Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society, stepped down from the post. Privacy advocates and the Federal Trade Commission have championed the idea of providing consumers with a way to opt out of being followed as they surf the Web. Advertisers and others use tracking information to help target ads to consumers based on their interests. Swire, who will cochair the do-not-track working group along with Intel’s Matthias Schunter, has a long record of experience in following online-privacy issues. He served as privacy adviser to President Clinton and as a special assistant on President Obama’s National Economic Council from 2009-2010.
Despite this, he faces a tough task.
Ex-White House Official Aims to Get ‘Do Not Track’ Back on Track
Since the election, the political news cycle has revolved around the impending "fiscal cliff," a perfect storm of tax increases and government spending cuts set to take effect on Jan. 2, 2013. Although the information technology industry may not have paid much attention, it's just as susceptible to the policy changes as the rest of the economy.
The policy changes range from the removal of tax provisions for small businesses to massive cuts in spending on federal programs. The Congressional Budget Office predicts that, if these policy changes are not altered by the turn of the year, the US economy could plunge back into recession in 2013, with real gross domestic product dropping by 0.5 percent and unemployment shooting back up to 9.1 percent. Network World spoke with Lamar Whitman, director of public advocacy for CompTIA, and Richard Davis, managing director covering enterprise software for investment bank Canaccord Genuity, about the specific tax and government spending changes that could have the most significant impact on IT companies, as well as how they could protect themselves.
How the fiscal cliff affects IT
Google has funded plenty of research and humanitarian projects, and now it's putting some of its money towards figuring out how to automate sociological research. As part of its $23 million in new Global Impact Awards, Google announced $1.2 million in funding for the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media.
The eight-year-old Institute takes a research-based approach towards increasing representation and decreasing stereotyping of women and girls in film and TV, building a massive database of how many female characters appear in scenes, how often they speak, and how often they are sexualized compared to men. As one might suspect, the results aren't great for women and girls — the Institute concludes that in family films, for example, there are about three male characters for every female one, and women are less likely overall to be shown working or even given a speaking role.
Google grant will help computers detect gender balance and stereotyping in movies and TV
[Commentary] Numerous avenues of listening, combined with the digital capacity to hold on to qualitative feedback, make campaigns aware of the differences among voters’ motivations, attitudes, protestations — not just their demographics and voting history.
In a nation of over 200 million eligible voters, technology is allowing campaigns to finally see through the fog of the crowd and engage voters one by one. In other words, there is no giant blue computer sitting on the 101st floor of a sleek skyscraper, surrounded by bubbling tubes of illuminated liquid, spitting out the manifest destiny of America’s voters. Campaigns are moving away from the meaningless labels of pollsters and newsweeklies — “NASCAR dads” and “waitress moms” — and moving toward treating each voter as a separate person. In 2012 you didn’t just have to be an African-American from Akron or a suburban married female age 45 to 54. More and more, the information age allows people to be complicated, contradictory and unique. New technologies and an abundance of data may rattle the senses, but they are also bringing a fresh appreciation of the value of the individual to American politics.
I Am Not Big Brother
The Federal Trade Commission is backing Apple in the company’s battle with Google over standard-essential patents (SEP), arguing that any attempt to ban a product for allegedly infringing an SEP “risks harming competition, innovation, and consumers.”
In an amicus brief filed with the U.S. Federal Circuit Court of Appeals, the trade agency argued that a district court was right to dismiss a request by Google’s Motorola Mobility division for an injunction against sales of the iPhone and iPad in the United States. The patents Motorola had attempted to assert against Apple were SEPs, which it is obligated to license on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms. And in the FTC’s eyes, using the threat of SEP-based injunctions to demand higher royalties or other favorable licensing terms is bad business. It’s a “patent hold-up,” to quote the agency’s term. “Hold-up and the threat of hold-up can deter innovation by increasing costs and uncertainty for other industry participants, including those engaged in inventive activity,” the FTC said in its brief. “It can also distort investment and harm consumers by breaking the connection between the value of an invention and its reward — a connection that is the cornerstone of the patent system.”
FTC Slams Google for Seeking iPhone, iPad Ban FTC opposes product bans in Apple-Motorola patent dispute (IDG News Service)
Deutsche Telekom said that its T-Mobile USA subsidiary will at long last get its chance to sell some Apple mobile products next year, but declined to offer much in the way of specifics. The carrier is investing billions in a move to first make its 3G network iPhone compatible and then to deploy a next-generation LTE network sometime next year. Along with that, the company has recently stepped up an effort to get existing iPhone owners to bring their devices over to T-Mobile’s network. T-Mobile is also in the process of acquiring prepaid carrier MetroPCS.
T-Mobile USA Getting Some Apple Mobile Products Next Year
Apple and HTC announced a surprise settlement to their patent litigation last month, but the details were kept tightly under wraps. Then a federal judge this week granted a motion by lawyers for Samsung requesting that they be able to see a copy of the settlement.
Apple complied, and Samsung lawyers filed a copy of that settlement with a U.S. Federal District Court. The 140-page document, however, is heavily redacted.
The agreement forbids HTC from making and selling mobile devices that copy what is described as the 'Distinctive Apple User Experience." The 'slide to unlock' feature at the bottom of the screen of some Apple devices, for example, could qualify as a distinctive Apple user experience, while the 'pinch to zoom' functionality does not, and will not be considered a 'cloned feature.' Disputes over cloning are to be referred for arbitration, if company executives fail to arrive at a resolution. HTC may be required to remove the cloned feature in its design within 90 days.
Samsung lawyers file copy of Apple patent settlement with HTC HTC-Apple agreement forbids cloning of Apple 'user experience' (IDG News Service)
The digital video recorders that have proliferated in US homes over the past decade may be a boon to TV viewers, giving them the ability to time-shift programs, record multiple shows at the same time and pause live broadcasts. But they're also gluttons for electricity, consuming almost as much power after they've been turned off as when they're on. They're about to go on a power diet. The Consumer Electronics Assn. and the National Cable & Telecommunications Assn. announced an agreement to switch to significantly more energy-efficient set-top boxes, with the first steps starting next month.
Although the agreement is voluntary, 15 top cable, satellite and telephone companies and their set-top box makers that serve more than 90 million U.S. homes have pledged to abide by it. The trade groups projected that the moves could cut consumers' power bills by $1.5 billion annually once the agreement is fully implemented. Most of the savings will come from new set-tops that meet the Environmental Protection Agency's Energy Star 3.0 standards; those devices consume about 45% less power than conventional models. The agreement calls for 90% of the set-tops purchased and deployed by pay-TV providers after 2013 to meet Energy Star 3.0, but it doesn't compel them to replace the boxes that are already in consumers' homes. As a result, it will take years to achieve much of the savings envisioned by the deal.
Trade groups agree on steps to cut the pay-TV power bill