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November 11, 2012
Source 
MediaPost
Author 
Wayne Friedman
Coverage Type 
Lauren Frayer

Long-term TV viewers and marketers may seek out more digital alternatives when it comes to multi-TV network provider blackouts. They may also force the Federal Communications Commission to take action, according to one media agency.

Media agency TargetCast says some 70 individual cable and/or multi-network TV services blackouts have hit viewers so far in 2012 --- with perhaps no end in sight. Most blackouts, it says, only last a few days. But TargetCast believes longer outages will force governmental action. The agency says: "We believe that there will have to be significantly more, and longer, blackout periods for Congress and the FCC to take action. For the most part, the system is working, as the majority of the 15,000 [plus] deals are done successfully and quietly behind the scenes, with only 1% becoming public disputes impacting viewers."

TV Blackouts Force Viewers, Markets To Consider Alternatives

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November 11, 2012
Source 
nextgov
Author 
John Pulley
Coverage Type 
Lauren Frayer

A federal health information technology committee this week released its proposed rules for Stage 3 meaningful use of electronic health records -- the first step in a long public process of reviewing how the government assesses whether EHRs qualify for incentive payments under Medicare and Medicaid.

Health care providers must demonstrate “meaningful use” of EHRs to qualify for incentives. Meaningful use stages are being phased in over several years, with each stage raising levels of functionality, usability and data exchange required of EHR systems. The committee’s “vision” for Stage 3 “includes a collaborative model of care with shared responsibility and accountability, building upon the previous [meaningful use] objectives,” according to the document released by the Health Information Technology Policy Committee. “While the committee appreciates and recognizes today’s challenges in setting up data exchanges, it is the committee’s recommendation that Stage 3 is the time to begin to transition from a setting-specific focus to a collaborative, patient- and family- centric approach,” the committee wrote.

With that in mind, the committee said Stage 3 objectives should:

  • Support new models of care;
  • Address national health priorities;
  • Have broad applicability to different medical specialties, patient health needs and regions of the country;
  • Promote advancement of EHR capabilities; and,
  • Be achievable and feasible.
Committee Releases Stage 3 Rules for Electronic Health Records

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November 11, 2012
Source 
Atlantic, The
Author 
Derek Thompson
Coverage Type 
Lauren Frayer

[Commentary] A small clutch of media companies owns 95% of the channels you watch. This oligopoly has the power to dictate terms to the cable/satellite companies that you pay each month. These cable/satellite providers are legally obligated to offer less popular channels alongside must-have networks like TBS and ESPN. That bundle costs the average household about $80, with roughly half going back to the media companies in "affiliate fees" and roughly half staying with the cable companies in infrastructure costs and profit. Cable companies didn't invent the bundle. They're prisoners of the bundle, just like you and I are.

This model isn't written into stone, but it explains why cable has been resilient. There are lots of reasons why TV hasn't gone the way of music and newspapers in the Age of Internet. First, HD video is much harder and more expensive to transport than a music file or article page. Second, networks have learned from the music industry's collapse to cling furiously to their rights. But the most important reason why cable TV hasn't changed is also the simplest to understand. It simply hasn't had to. It's making too much money.

What's going to kill the TV business, or at least challenge it, isn't Apple designing the perfect remote or Microsoft designing a superior guide. It's two things: the rising cost of entertainment and the accelerating exodus of attention away from television.

What's Going to Kill the TV Business?

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November 11, 2012
Source 
CommLawBlog
Author 
Donald Evans
Coverage Type 
Lauren Frayer

[Commentary] It’s undeniable that a small handful of carriers control an overwhelming amount of mobile spectrum in the US. Many observers of the communications landscape believe that that intense concentration has reached alarming proportions. Unfortunately, to date, federal regulators have not tended to be among those hand-wringers.

As a result, Verizon and AT&T, and to a lesser extent Sprint and T-Mobile, have increasingly gobbled up huge chunks of spectrum both through auctions and in secondary market transactions, leaving only the crumbs for smaller carriers to squabble over. Often the Federal Communications Commission auctions the spectrum in increments covering huge territories – Regional Economic Area Groupings (REAG) or Major Economic Areas (EA) – that span as many as ten states. Such vast areas are too big for a small or medium sized carrier to handle and usually more than even the largest carriers can hope to build out in a reasonable timeframe. So a considerable amount of spectrum lies moldering in the larders of the largest carriers for a rainy day while smaller carriers cannot fulfill their customers’ basic needs. Now the FCC has decided to take a fresh look at its policy on mobile spectrum holdings. In a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking released in September (and published in the Federal Register in early October) , the FCC has opened a far-ranging and much needed inquiry into all aspects of the spectrum accumulation issue.

The FCC Wants to Know: How Much Spectrum Is Too Much Spectrum?

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November 11, 2012
Source 
Rolling Stone
Author 
David Browne
Coverage Type 
Lauren Frayer

Bands are cutting costs, touring more and getting creative to make up for falling album sales.

The new rules of the shrunken music business begin in the studio, where recording budgets, especially for new and indie acts, have been slashed. To get around diminished budgets – or labels altogether – some bands have begun turning to Kickstarter, the "crowd-funding" service that lets musicians pay for recording costs by way of contributions from fans. (The site also helps fund movies, video games and other creative endeavors.) On the site's music category, fans have contributed an average of $25, according to a source at the company, and bands have been able to raise in the area of $20,000. In return for their investment, fans receive autographed records, concert tickets and other memorabilia. Record sales were never a major income generator for musicians, thanks to high recording and promotion costs that were charged against the artists' accounts. In the current climate, they're even less of a factor.

Survival of the Fittest in the New Music Industry

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New America Foundation
Friday, November 16, 2012
9:30 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.

The first presidential campaign since the 2010 Supreme Court's Citizens United decision resulted in the most expensive election season ever. Anonymous and unaccountable donors poured in unprecedented amounts of money. While new media, newspapers and radio collected some of this money, the lion's share ended up in the bank accounts of television broadcast companies. For months the public was bombarded with a tsunami of ads from political campaigns, Super PACs and other shadowy groups - ads that in many cases were only loosely connected to the truth.

Aside from creating windfall profits for broadcasters in swing states, what impact did dark money have on democratic discourse in the 2012 election at the state and the national level? With so much money in the mix, can media really fulfill its role to watchdog politics and separate fact from fiction? Is there evidence that Citizens United needs to be overturned? Have new rules to improve broadcaster transparency and disclosure helped? And are there other reforms that need to be on the table before the next election season?

Opening Remarks
Michael Copps (former FCC Commissioner)
Senior Advisor, Media and Democracy Reform Initiative, Common Cause

Panelists
Matea Gold
Washington Correspondent, Los Angelest Times

Ellen S. Miller
Executive Director, Sunlight Foundation

Jason Reifler, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Political Science, Georgia State University

Craig Aaron
President & CEO, Free Press

Moderator
Mark Lloyd
Director, Media Policy Initiative, New America Foundation

To RSVP :
http://newamerica.net/events/2012/dark_money_media_2012_campaign

For questions, contact Stephanie Gunter at New America at (202) 596-3367 or gunter@newamerica.net

Submitted on November 9, 2012

The work of policymaking generally grinds to a halt in the days, weeks, and, unfortunately, months before a major election as uncertainty reigns. The question isn’t just who will lead, but what direction the nation is headed. What unfolds on election night is not just vote tallies and changes in leadership. We catch sight of where we are headed and, for some, a path is revealed as well.

After the November 6 election was called, re-elected President Barack Obama took the stage at Chicago’s McCormick Place convention center and delivered a speech about perfecting our union. The President’s address gives a glimpse of Washington’s agenda in the coming months. There are huge challenges ahead – reducing the debt, fixing our immigration system, reforming the tax code, addressing global climate change, reducing dependence on foreign oil, ensuring our security while shaping “a peace that is built on the promise of freedom and dignity for every human being.” The President reminded the Nation that we have obligations to one another and to future generations and that with freedom comes rights and responsibilities – “love and charity and duty and patriotism.” He spoke of our shared destiny and shared obligations, of opportunity for all and addressing inequality, and of securing the middle class. The opportunities include a high quality education and employment, and American leadership in technology and discovery and innovation.

In the days following the election, we’ve seen a number of articles that try to flesh out the agenda, especially for telecommunications policy (you knew we were going there). The top priorities, for now, are working with Congress on deficit-reduction, taxes and jobs. Even before the election was settled, GigaOm’s Stacey Higginbotham was looking at the impact on the Federal Communications Commission. She speculated there are three big issues that will come up after the election: spectrum, network neutrality and the retirement of the copper telephone network.

At the Reboot America Summit this week, Benton Foundation board member and former chief of staff at the Office of Science and Technology Policy in the Obama administration Jim Kohlenberger said, "When I think about the next year, I think the president is focused on moving this economic engine, this dynamo forward." But he added that "we've got big things we need to do, [such as] getting more spectrum into people's hands. We have to solve important privacy and security challenges."

Spectrum
Telecommunications Industry Association, which represents communications equipment manufacturers and suppliers, this week called for "More spectrum for broadband is vitally important for allowing consumers to reap the benefits of the wireless revolution and for American businesses to compete effectively.” This is a call heard often and from many different voices.

The FCC is currently proposing an incentive auction that would offer TV broadcasters the chance to sell some of their airwaves. The auction, proposed in the National Broadband Plan, aims to repurpose broadcast television spectrum for mobile broadband use.

In addition, the Administration has also proposed spectrum sharing – a system to allow federal, nonfederal and commercial entities to share available radio spectrum. In order for something like this to work, the government would need to use a centralized system to scan the radio waves and be aware of the spectrum environment. This system would be able to find which frequencies are available and choose the best one for a mobile device to make a connection. Mobile devices themselves can also be equipped with special sensing circuitry to detect what frequencies other cellphones are using, and to choose a frequency that is less crowded.

Network Neutrality (and FCC Authority)
Washington Post columnist Vivek Wadhwa surveyed Silicon Valley executives and reports that Silicon Valley wants an open Internet, and it wants competition in broadband so Americans can get better and cheaper connectivity. Without these, “we lose the battle of the future,” said Om Malik, founder and senior writer for GigaOm. “Currently, the telecom and cable companies have created a cozy duopoly, and [Obama] and the rest of Washington, D.C. are highly compromised. Thanks to their contributions to the political parties, there is not even a modicum of competition in telecom/broadband markets.”

Public Knowledge founder Gigi Sohn, looking at election results, also highlighted impending decisions on the openness of the Internet. She notes that the fate of the Federal Communications Commission’s network neutrality rules -- and the FCC’s ability to protect consumers when it comes to broadband Internet access -- is now in the hands of the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit. Sometime this spring the court will render a decision in Verizon v. FCC, the case challenging the agency’s network neutrality rules. Verizon’s main challenge to the rules is that the FCC lacks the legal authority to regulate the network management practices of broadband Internet access providers. An FCC loss on those grounds will not only invalidate the rules, but will call into question whether the FCC will have any power to protect against anticompetitive and anti-consumer actions by broadband providers.

Should the FCC lose the case, regardless of the reason, Democrats on Capitol Hill will certainly seek to reinstate the network neutrality rules, and if necessary, give the FCC the authority to do so. Given the control of House by Republicans, passage of such a bill will largely be a symbolic task. In fact, it is widely assumed that House Republicans will introduce a bill stripping the FCC of any and all authority over broadband Internet access and instead giving the Federal Trade Commission enforcement power over broadband providers. Like the attempt to repeal the network neutrality rules via the Congressional Review Act, legislation of this kind will go nowhere in the Senate, Sohn writes.

Edward Wyatt of the New York Times noted Verizon v. FCC in his examination of FCC post-election priorities. He also notes two other key legal cases: 1) a challenge to FCC rules that require big companies like AT&T and Verizon to offer use of their data networks to customers of competing companies while they are roaming out of their service area and 2) small, rural phone companies are fighting the FCC’s right to overhaul the Universal Service Fund, which subsidizes for otherwise-uneconomical rural phone service, for use to build broadband networks. Sohn warns that if the FCC were to lose all three of three cases, “we could be looking at an agency that’s almost irrelevant.”

Copper’s Retirement Party?
In addition to the election results, there was a big announcement this week that AT&T plans to invest $14 billion over the next three years to significantly expand and enhance its wireless and wireline broadband networks. The company believes that an all-IP network is the path to more profitable future. AT&T said with the new investment, its LTE network will reach 300 million people or 99 percent of the U.S. , while its wireline U-Verse network will expand to cover 75 percent of the current customer locations — or 57 million people. The premise being that the remaining 25 percent of its customer territory will subscribe to LTE broadband, which comes at a much higher cost and has onerous caps that DSL access and AT&T phone lines do not have.

The implications could be huge for:

  • Rural areas where consumers still rely on their wireline copper-based telephones for burglar alarms, emergencies and fire alarm systems,
  • Competitive local carriers offer their products over AT&T’s copper pipes, and
  • Upgrades to the copper network.

AT&T’s plan, however, will also accelerate the policy discussion about how to regulate the nation's fiber optic communications infrastructure. AT&T is asking the Federal Communications Commission for permission to transition to the all Internet Protocol-based fiber network on a trial basis in a few of its wire centers. This experiment would in effect create a regulation-free zone in which AT&T could roll out fiber, roll back copper, and not be subject to rules that require them to continue to invest in their legacy networks. The move is important for AT&T, because the company is behind rival Verizon in its fiber-to-the-home offering, and is losing out to cable in terms of home broadband speeds. "From an engineering perspective, this totally makes sense," said Public Knowledge’s Harold Feld. "We want to see better broadband in America." However, he worries that the deregulatory push could have the effect of dialing back what's meant by universal service. "We're in danger of becoming the only industrialized nation to go back on access to basic phone service," he said.

But Wait, There’s More
The Hill identified 25 problems facing policymakers – four are directly linked to the Internet:

  1. Online poker. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) wants action in the lame duck on a bill legalizing online poker and online lottery sales.
  2. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The Senate might consider the controversial FISA amendments bill in the lame duck. The legislation would reauthorize spying on foreign communications without a judicial warrant. The House has approved a five-year extension of the authority, which expires in January.
  3. Online sales tax. Retail groups have been pushing hard for an online sales tax measure they say will level the playing field between brick-and-mortar stores and online retailers. Similar, but not identical, bipartisan measures in both the House and Senate would allow states to collect from out-of-state retailers. Some conservatives, such as Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC), oppose it.
  4. Cybersecurity. Senate Republicans blocked the Cybersecurity Act of 2012, sponsored by Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and Susan Collins (R-Maine), in September, and a compromise has been elusive, given business opposition. Politico reports that the Administration may move forward now on an executive order to improve the digital defenses of power plants, water systems and other forms of critical infrastructure. The White House would have preferred lawmakers to lead the way on cybersecurity, but there’s little hope Congress can make any progress in an otherwise jam-packed lame-duck session. That’s why the administration has spent months laying the groundwork for a potential executive order, said former White House cyber adviser Howard Schmidt.

Many are already speculating that comprehensive immigration reform could be part of the agenda in 2013. For the technology industry, which is “starved for talent,” that could mean changes for high-skilled immigration. Silicon Valley, a major contributor to President Obama’s re-election, wants more visas for skilled workers from abroad. The Valley needs more H-1B visas to help grow its tech companies. There is the need for a Startup Visa to allow foreign entrepreneurs to start new companies in the United States. And tech groups have been pushing lawmakers for legislation that would allow more foreign students who graduate from U.S. schools with tech-related degrees to stay and work in the United States.

Finally, online privacy will continue to get attention. During his first term, President Obama made a number of moves toward restricting marketing aimed at children, especially in regard to food marketing. Margo Wootan, director of nutrition policy at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, said she hopes a soon-to-be-released Federal Trade Commission study on the impact of self-regulation by the food and soft-drink industry will revive the debate. William Rice, president of the Web Marketing Association, is certain that a second Obama term may result in stricter controls on gathering personal information on the Internet. The Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration continues to convene meetings seeking mobile application transparency.

We’ll keep an eye on all this and more – and we’ll see you in the Headlines.

Submitted on November 9, 2012

While the pundits will devour months dissecting and divining all the implications of last Tuesday’s vote, one result trumps all others. It is totally historic. No, I’m not speaking about the egregious infusions of unaccounted cash into the electoral bloodstream (although you’ll be hearing more from me on that). I’m speaking about the huge, positive, and transformative impact of diversity on so many electoral outcomes, from the Presidential through Congressional, state and local contests. When the history of the 2012 elections is written, this will be its finding—a story of America turning a corner toward future elections that will be unlike any in our past.

Diversity is African Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans, a multitude of other ethnic and cultural groups, disability communities, gays and lesbians—the list goes on. Their impact on this election was overwhelming, at all levels of government. Just as clearly, their role will only grow as minorities trend rapidly toward being the American majority by mid-century. Every election will see their growing influence in charting our nation’s course. That course will be different—and I believe better—because of it.

Diversity spoke on November 6. It spoke clearly and convincingly:

Diversity said: “From now on, I will have a lot more to say about how elections turn out.”

Diversity said: “Candidates aren’t going to win without me.”

Diversity said: “But remember this—no one earns my votes by just talking about diversity. After the obvious impact I had on the 2012 results, everyone will be talking diversity because they think it’s good politics. From now on, successful candidates (and parties) will have to walk diversity’s walk. I’m looking for results now. I’ve raised the bar.”

Diversity said: “Don’t take me for granted. No one party commands my support. I will support those who deliver. I don’t have permanent friends; I have permanent interests. Ignore me at your peril.”

Diversity covers a wide waterfront of issues. My beat has been communications. Minorities haven’t fared well in telecommunications and media. They are behind in accessing the opportunity-creating tools of broadband. That means they have less access to jobs, education and healthcare. They are behind in owning media outlets that could help so much to spread knowledge of diversity issues and to inform our nation’s flagging civic dialogue. They are behind in holding top managerial jobs in media and telecommunications. They continue to suffer discrimination both blatant and subtle as their issues and voices are pushed to the side by the huge consolidated media behemoths that increasingly control our nation’s airwaves. At those times when minorities are covered, it is all too often in stereotype and caricature.

They are behind through no fault of their own. They are behind because business models in the private sector and bad policy decisions in the public sector have failed them. Huge consolidated media, for example, shut out small minority entrepreneurs. Government, for its part, has blessed and encouraged industry concentration and, to make matters worse, it has walked away from its statutory obligations to protect the public interest and to encourage a communications ecosystem that includes everyone who is part of the great tapestry that is the United States of America.

Those tasked with government oversight—and regulation—of the people’s airwaves must finally take heed. I speak particularly of the place where I spent the last decade—the Federal Communications Commission. Its record is not good when it comes to encouraging diversity. Dozens of recommendations have been submitted, for years, by outside groups and by the Commission’s own Diversity Advisory Committee—workable incentives to increase minority (and female) participation in communications. Somewhere along the line these proposals go astray, seldom making it to a full Commission up-or-down vote. I don’t believe this kind of disregard can continue much longer. Can’t the Commission at least vote on one of those recommendations every month for the next year? That’s not asking very much; but it is asking for more than we are getting.

Fortunately there is a strong voice for diversity at the Commission in the person of Commissioner Mignon Clyburn. Since arriving there in 2009, she has pushed to implement programs to encourage diversity in our communications businesses and in our news and information ecosystem. She has support in the Commission—but she needs a majority for anything to happen. She needs it now. The Commission, for its own credibility, needs a majority. It needs it now. In this Age of American Diversity, sins of omission are as bad as sins of commission. Neither can be tolerated when it comes to diversity justice. Diversity demands justice.

Minorities-becoming-the-majority stepped up to the plate in 2012. They must do so again in 2014. Following President Obama’s 2008 victory, diversity voting fell off in the Congressional contests two years later. That was costly to minorities and costly to the country. I don’t think that will happen again, but it’s up to all of us to exercise our franchise at every opportunity to make sure it doesn’t .

It is also up to us to demand repair of our broken electoral machinery. Efforts to exclude minority participation must be promptly and rigorously eliminated. So must state legislation that restricts voting by making registration and casting a ballot burdensome and ridiculously time-consuming. Voting procedures should be easy, expeditious, and consistent throughout the land. Building and maintaining democracy is challenge enough without short-circuiting it at the polling place.

Some among us seem to think that diversity is a challenge to be overcome. It is not. Diversity is an opportunity to be exploited. It is America’s strength and our ultimate advantage. Goodness knows we have frittered away enough of our country’s strength in recent years. Can’t we wake up to the advantages we still have and put them to work for the future? That Rainbow I mentioned isn’t just the magnificent diversity of our population. It is the bright portent of our democracy’s future—if we are smart enough to read the election returns.

Michael Copps served as a commissioner on the Federal Communications Commission from May 2001 to December 2011 and was the FCC's Acting Chairman from January to June 2009. His years at the Commission have been highlighted by his strong defense of "the public interest"; outreach to what he calls "non-traditional stakeholders" in the decisions of the FCC, particularly minorities, Native Americans and the various disabilities communities; and actions to stem the tide of what he regards as excessive consolidation in the nation's media and telecommunications industries. In 2012, former Commissioner Copps joined Common Cause to lead its Media and Democracy Reform Initiative.

November 9, 2012 (Issues, Priorities, and Wishlists)

BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for Friday, November 9, 2012

Diversity on the Hill highlights a busy day http://benton.org/calendar/2012-11-09/

THE AGENDA
   Privacy, Spectrum Among Top Mobile Issues
   Silicon Valley’s second-term wish list - analysis
   What Does Obama Re-Election Mean for Ad Industry? [links to web]
   The Next Four Years in Government IT will be about Implementation [links to web]
   No clear signal on FCC chair's post
   Media Ownership Looking Like a November Meeting No-Show
   Our dangerous illusion of tech progress - op-ed

ELECTIONS AND MEDIA
   Preliminary Findings of a Limited Election Observation Mission
   2012: The Anti-Data Election
   The Obama Campaign’s Technology Is a Force Multiplier
   Data drove Obama’s ground game
   Fox News: Karl Rove Argument Proves His 'Value' To Network
   An Ohio election special causes controversy
   A Last Fact Check: It Didn’t Work - analysis
   Did Facebook Give Democrats the Upper Hand?
   US election offers advertising lessons [links to web]
   Obama-Supporting PAC Touts YouTube's Impact on Election [links to web]
   Political advertising a boon to Colorado TV stations [links to web]

INTERNET/BROADBAND
   AT&T's IP Investment Could Reshape Telecom Regulation
   (Wall Street) Analysts don’t like AT&T’s upgrade plans [links to web]
   What's lost when phone service goes digital
   Verizon will bring LTE to every part of its 3G map by mid-2013 [links to web]
   AT&T Backpedals on FaceTime Restrictions
   What Does 2,000-Times-Faster Broadband Look Like? - analysis

PRIVACY
   House Lawmakers Want More Info From Data Brokers

CONTENT
   Music Industry Continues Fight Against Net Radio Bill [links to web]
   NAACP Opposes Effort to Change Online Royalties [links to web]

HEALTH
   Mobile Health 2012 - research

EDUCATION
   Designing Colleges For More Than Just Connectivity - op-ed [links to web]

TELEVISION
   NBC Universal and American Express Try to Bring Dawn of 'Television Commerce' [links to web]
   Centralcasting is Public TV’s Latest Program [links to web]

GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
   US announces sanctions against Iranians blamed for blocking Internet
   Australia abandons mandatory Internet filter plan [links to web]

POLICYMAKERS
   DOJ's antitrust chief to step down [links to web]

COMPANY NEWS
   Why only Samsung builds phones that can outsell iPhone [links to web]
   T-Mobile Sees Revenue Decline as Nearly 500,000 More Customers Leave [links to web]

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THE AGENDA

PRIVACY, SPECTRUM ARE TOP ISSUES
[SOURCE: National Journal, AUTHOR: Juliana Gruenwald]
Mobile industry policy experts said cybersecurity, privacy, and spectrum would be among the top issues facing the mobile industry in 2013. "When I think about the next year, I think the President is focused on moving this economic engine, this dynamo forward," Jim Kohlenberger, former chief of staff at the Office of Science and Technology Policy in the Obama administration, said at an event sponsored by Mobile Future, a coalition of tech companies. But he added that "we've got big things we need to do, [such as] getting more spectrum into people's hands. We have to solve important privacy and security challenges." The need for more spectrum has topped the wireless industry's wish lists in recent years and will continue to do so in 2013 despite steps taken by Congress and the Obama administration to free up more airwaves to fuel Americans' demand for new wireless technologies. These steps include an executive order by the president to find 500 megahertz of spectrum over the next decade for mobile broadband and passage of spectrum legislation that authorized incentive auctions to entice television stations to voluntarily give up some of their spectrum. "This president has laid out a very aggressive mobile agenda and has begun to execute on it. I think the next four years are really going to be about execution, execution, execution," said Bryan Tramont, a managing partner at Wilkinson, Barker and Knauer who served as chief of staff to former Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael Powell.
[Editor’s note: Mr Kohlenberger is a member of the Benton Foundation board of directors]
benton.org/node/138779 | National Journal
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SILICON VALLEY WISH LIST
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Vivek Wadhwa]
[Commentary] Silicon Valley contributed more to President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign than Wall Street and Hollywood, according to a Nov. 3 San Francisco Chronicle report. The Valley contributed $14.7 million compared to $14.5 million from New York City and $6.3 million from the Beverly Hills crowd. During his many trips to Silicon Valley, the President made a number of promises. Now that he has won, the Valley expects him to keep his end of the bargain. Here’s the wish list:
Immigration reform: First and foremost, the technology world finds itself starved for talent. The Valley needs more H-1B visas to help grow its tech companies. And there is the need for a Startup Visa to allow foreign entrepreneurs to start new companies in the United States.
Education: The Valley recognizes the importance of K-12 education, but it also wants to reform and improve the education system, reign in the escalating cost of higher education, and experiment with new models.
Freedom and competition: The Valley wants an open Internet, and it wants competition in broadband so Americans can get better and cheaper connectivity.
Invest in sustainable renewable energy solutions.
Abolish software patents: The larger technology companies have invested fortunes in their patent portfolios. But senior executives have said to me privately that they would rather disarm than waste the time and money they presently do on patent wars.
Fund basic research and improve research commercialization.
Rewards for investments in innovative startups.
All told, the Valley’s academics and entrepreneurs want what the rest of the nation wants: thoughtful economic policy. Stanford Law’s Grundfest asks for “a sensible balance between revenue enhancement and entitlement reduction that puts the nation on responsible glide path to a manageable level of federal and state debt.” Heidi Roizen, a venture capitalist, says “it really is all about the economy. Our entrepreneurial engine can only fuel recovery if it is built on a firm base of rational fiscal policy.”
benton.org/node/138771 | Washington Post
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THE NEXT FCC CHAIRMAN?
[SOURCE: Politico, AUTHOR: Brooks Boliek]
President Barack Obama’s reelection means a Democrat will remain in the driver’s seat at the Federal Communications Commission next year. But just who that Democrat will be is an open question. Current FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski is coy about his plans, but most observers say he is ready to leave the agency in the coming months. If the chairman departs, as expected, whomever Obama taps to succeed Genachowski will have to decide how to try to handle the agenda he leaves behind. The two other Democrats already on the commission — Commissioners Mignon Clyburn and Jessica Rosenworcel — are seen as contenders to succeed Genachowski. Both have powerful political backers on Capitol Hill. Other names bandied about include National Telecommunications and Information Administration Administrator Larry Strickling; former Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association head Tom Wheeler; Scott Harris, executive vice president of Neustar; and Blair Levin, a former FCC chief of the international bureau who also oversaw preparation of the National Broadband Plan. Public Knowledge CEO Gigi Sohn, for one, hopes the next chairman is a woman. “In the election year of the woman, the FCC needs a female chair,” Sohn said.
benton.org/node/138788 | Politico
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MEDIA OWNERSHIP DECISION IN NOVEMBER?
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
It is looking like the Federal Communications Commission's media ownership vote will not make it onto the FCC's November agenda after all. While multiple FCC sources had said the signal out of Chairman Julius Genachowski's office was that it would be circulated for a vote Nov. 30, according to those same multiple sources, it was looking less likely at presstime, though there is still an outside shot. Hurricane Sandy may have blown that timetable off course a bit, but it may also be that the chairman is still figuring out where all the other commissioners are on the item. The chairman is still expected to circulate the media ownership order, but not until sometime next week at the earliest, too late to make the agenda for the Nov. 30 meeting.
benton.org/node/138768 | Broadcasting&Cable
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ILLUSION OF TECH PROGRESS
[SOURCE: Financial Times, AUTHOR: Garry Kasparov, Peter Thiel]
[Commentary] During the past 40 years the world has willingly retreated from a culture of risk and exploration towards one of safety and regulation. We have discarded a century of can-do ambition built on rapid advances in technology and replaced it with a cautiousness far too satisfied with incremental improvements. The 2008 crisis lingers. But its main cause goes back more than three decades to the depressed rate of technological progress since the 1970s. If we want to escape not just today’s crisis but the whole post-1970 era of bubbles, busts and wage stagnation, our only option is to accelerate technological innovation. We bounded forward in the 1950s and 1960s thanks to a generation of scientists who did not just believe in a better future but invented it. They popularized jet aviation, fed a growing world with the harvest of the “green revolution”, switched on the first nuclear reactors for civilian power, launched the first satellites for communications and built the first integrated circuit, laying the foundations for decades of innovation in information technology. The genuine progress in IT from the 1970s up to the 2000s masked the relative stagnation of energy, transportation, space, materials, agriculture and medicine. IT enabled the processes of globalization and efficient management that delivered economic growth without increasing real median wages. But it also induced a misleading sensation of technological acceleration. We can now use our phones to send cute kitten photos around the world or watch episodes of The Jetsons while riding a century-old subway; we can program software to simulate futuristic landscapes. But the actual landscape around us is almost identical to the 1960s. Our ability to do basic things such as protect ourselves from earthquakes and hurricanes, to travel and to extend our lifespans is barely increasing.
[The writers are a former world chess champion and the founder of PayPal]
benton.org/node/138789 | Financial Times
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ELECTIONS AND MEDIA

MEDIA AND US ELECTION
[SOURCE: Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, AUTHOR: ]
Following an invitation from the United States Mission to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) deployed a Limited Election Observation Mission (LEOM) for the 6 November general elections in the US. The elections were assessed for their compliance with OSCE commitments and other international standards
for democratic elections, as well as with national legislation. Concerning media and the election, the study found:
Overall, media is pluralistic and diverse and provided voters with a wide range of information and views on candidates, issues, and electoral platforms. The obligations imposed on media for election coverage are very limited, with a preference given to self-regulation. While public and national broadcasters reported in a balanced manner, leading cable television networks were highly partisan.
The US media has a robust system of guarantees protecting freedom of speech and freedom of the press. There is a plural, diverse and independent media system allowing voters to access a wide range of information and views on candidates, issues, and electoral platforms.
The obligations imposed on the media for election coverage are very limited, in line with the protection afforded by the First Amendment. Federal regulation of editorial matters is minimal, with a preference given to self-regulation. The print media are not bound by any statutory requirements. National TV networks are required to operate in the public interest, but there are no statutory requirements for equal and balanced news coverage. Paid airtime is subject to an equal opportunity rule whereby candidates must be afforded airtime commensurate with that provided to other legally qualified candidates on a channel by channel basis. Political advertising was a major avenue for campaigning with large sums of money spent on TV advertising, mostly negative in tone.
TV is the main source of political information, as provided though public, national, and cable broadcasters. The presidential contest was the main focus of national media. OSCE/ODIHR LEOM media monitoring results show that public electronic media fulfilled their remit as public service broadcasters by covering the elections and candidates in a comprehensive manner, with substantive news and analysis of the candidates’ platforms and the issues. PBS evenly allocated airtime in news and current affairs programs between Barack Obama (53 per cent) and Mitt Romney (47 per cent) that was balanced in tone. Likewise, NPR coverage was equitable, with 45 per cent devoted to Obama and 55 per cent to Romney, and was balanced in tone. The main national networks also provided equitable coverage of Obama (50 per cent) and Romney (50 per cent) that was also balanced in tone.
In contrast, leading cable TV channels were highly partisan in their election coverage, with both Obama and Romney receiving more negative than positive coverage. Fox News dedicated 66 per cent of its coverage to Obama and 34 per cent to Romney. Coverage of Obama on Fox News was mostly negative in tone (72 per cent). MSNBC dedicated 34 per cent of its coverage to Obama and 66 per cent to Romney. Coverage of Romney on MSNBC was mostly negative in tone (87 percent).
All broadcast media dedicated the greater part of their electoral coverage to non-substantive issues such as daily opinion polls and the holding of campaign events (64 per cent), often at the expense of substantive discussion of policy (36 per cent). Press and online media provided extensive and comprehensive coverage of the elections, often with a greater focus on policy issues.
benton.org/node/138778 | Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe
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THE ANTI-DATA ELECTION
[SOURCE: Fast Company, AUTHOR: Cheryl Davenport]
Both parties manipulated statistics during this election to set their preferred narrative, and sewed confusion in the minds of millions of voters. There are two classic sins of data manipulation that were at work in this campaign: The first is that the Obama and Romney campaigns used different metrics, scales, and data points to discuss their respective track records and plans for the future, making it nearly impossible to compare apples to apples. The second is that both camps used metrics that lack context and relevance. The bottom line: Poor data and misleading metrics are bad for everyone except for the politicians who rely on them to set their narratives and confuse voters about what is “true.” And while this election is now over, the voting public must begin to demand more from our elected leaders if we want a more honest discussion and fairer use of facts in the future. Here’s what we can do to stop being manipulated by bad data:
We’ve got to ask the “so what?” question more often. When presented with facts and figures, asking “so what?” forces our leaders to use data that reflect important changes.
How can we judge progress when each candidate uses different indicators of success? We must ask our leaders to agree upon a common set of measures and data points that reflect the public’s common interest.
Candidates need to put metrics in context and tell the whole story. At the same time, we voters must seek more information. It’s not enough to know the size of the deficit under Obama or to look at the number of jobs Romney outsourced in the private sector. These data points require a deeper look at the data, and we won’t get it until we ask for it.
benton.org/node/138777 | Fast Company
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OBAMA’S USE OF TECH
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Steve Lohr]
Technology doesn’t win political campaigns, but it certainly is a weapon — a force multiplier, in military terms. Both sides in the presidential contest mined click-stream data as never before to target messages to potential voters. But a real edge for the Obama campaign was in its use of online and mobile technology to support its much-praised ground game, finding potential supporters and urging them to vote, either in person or by phone, according to two senior members of the Obama technology team, Michael Slaby, chief integration and innovation officer for the Obama campaign, and Harper Reed, chief technology officer for the Obama campaign. A program called “Dashboard,” for example, allowed volunteers to join a local field team and get assignments remotely. The Web application — viewable on smartphones or tablets — showed the location of field workers, neighborhoods to be canvassed, and blocks where help was needed.
benton.org/node/138787 | New York Times
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DATA DROVE CAMPAIGN
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Jennifer Martinez]
The impressive Election Day ground game that swept President Obama to victory was fueled by a technologic edge left over from his initial run to the White House in 2008. Obama’s campaign used buckets of data collected through Facebook, email and other social media tools to target the voters who supported him four years ago and drive them to the polls again. The result was high turnout among specific demographic groups responsible for Obama’s first win — African Americans, Latinos, young voters and women. While both campaigns blanketed swing-state television airwaves with advertisements, outside observers said Obama’s treasure trove of data helped give him a notable edge over Republican Mitt Romney. After laying the groundwork more than four years ago, Obama's camp was able to analyze the data it culled from supporters in 2008 to hone its message and micro-target its ground effort.
benton.org/node/138786 | Hill, The
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KARL ROVE AND FOX
[SOURCE: The Huffington Post, AUTHOR: David Bauder]
The on-air spectacle of Fox News analyst Karl Rove publicly questioning his network's call of the election for Barack Obama happened because Rove and Fox's decision desk both had pieces to a puzzle that the other wasn't aware of, a network executive said. Fox declared Ohio for Obama because its decision desk knew that the uncounted vote at that time in the evening was in areas with overwhelming Obama support. Rove didn't know that, Clemente said. Through his own reporting, Rove saw the actual vote count narrowing to a margin below 1,000 – information the decision desk didn't know at the time. Far from an embarrassment, the incident proved Rove's value to the network as more than an analyst, said Michael Clemente, Fox News Channel executive vice president of news editorial. Rove, former top advisor to President George W. Bush and a prominent fundraiser for Republican Mitt Romney, suggested Fox had prematurely declared Obama the winner in Ohio and thus for the election as a whole. Rove "finally had to concede to the arithmetic, but not before creating a defining image of a partisan, and a network, at war with the very reality it could not avoid reporting," wrote Time magazine critic James Poniewozik.
benton.org/node/138776 | Huffington Post, The
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SINCLAIR BROADCASTING
[SOURCE: Columbia Journalism Review, AUTHOR: TC Brown]
A controversial election eve special that aired twice on the local ABC affiliate in Columbus triggered a wave of criticism on social media, prompting one local anchor to launch her own Twitter defense. And because the company behind the broadcast is about to expand its media holdings in the Buckeye State, this story may not be over yet. First reported by Talking Points Memo, the left-leaning political news site, the special aired by WSYX focused on the economy, health care reform, and the September 11 attack on the Libyan embassy. Given the scant political coverage some local stations offer even as they rake in wads of campaign ad dollars, that sounds like a good thing. But as TPM’s Eric Lach wrote: “Rather than a side by side comparison of the two major party candidates, however, the special featured some of the most partisan criticisms of President Barack Obama, and spent relatively little time examining Republican nominee Mitt Romney.” As a result, “at times, it sounded more like Fox News than local news.” The half-hour special was produced by the Sinclair Broadcast Group, owner of WSYX and itself no stranger to controversy. In 2004, the company’s Washington bureau chief was fired after publicly criticizing the company’s decision to air parts of a documentary attacking John Kerry’s anti-war activities weeks before the election. That same year, Sinclair was surrounded by controversy when it barred seven of its ABC-affiliated stations from airing a Nightline episode that displayed the names and photos of 700 American soldiers killed in the Iraq war.
benton.org/node/138775 | Columbia Journalism Review
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FACT CHECKING
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: David Carr]
As so many media outlets promised, this was indeed the most fact-checked election in history. But as the campaign draws to a close, it’s clear that it was the truth that ended up as a smoldering wreck. Without getting into a long tick-tock of untruthfulness, a pattern emerged over the summer and fall: both candidates’ campaigns laid out a number of whoppers, got clobbered for doing so, and then kept right on saying them. Conventional wisdom suggests that the Romney campaign stepped across the line with more frequency, and we’d love to draw a conclusion from that, but it would involve fact-checking. Because consumers can create their own mediated universe, they can program their intake in a way that confirms their biases, exposes their opponents as liars and makes them feel like they are armed with the truth when they step behind the curtain on Election Day.
benton.org/node/138774 | New York Times
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FACEBOOK AND THE ELECTION
[SOURCE: The Atlantic, AUTHOR: Rebecca Rosen]
You didn't know it at the time, but when you logged into Facebook on Election Day, you became a subject in a mass social experiment. You went about your day, clicked around Facebook, and you may have voted. Now your behavior is data that social scientists will scrutinize in the months ahead, asking one of the core questions of democracy: What makes people vote? If patterns from earlier research hold true, the experiment's designer James Fowler says that it is "absolutely plausible that Facebook drove a lot of the increase" in young-voter participation (thought to be up one percentage point from 2008 as a share of the electorate). It is, he continued, "even possible that Facebook is completely responsible."
benton.org/node/138773 | Atlantic, The
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INTERNET/BROADBAND

AT&T AND TELECOM REG
[SOURCE: National Journal, AUTHOR: Adam Mazmanian]
AT&T's plan to invest $14 billion in expanding its wireline broadband offering and its wireless 4G network will accelerate the policy discussion about how to regulate the nation's fiber optic communications infrastructure. "This totally reshapes the discussion," said Harold Feld, senior vice president of the advocacy group Public Knowledge. AT&T is asking the Federal Communications Commission for permission to transition to an all Internet Protocol-based fiber network on a trial basis in a few of its wire centers. This experiment would in effect create a regulation-free zone in which AT&T could roll out fiber, roll back copper, and not be subject to rules that require them to continue to invest in their legacy networks. The move is important for AT&T, because the company is behind rival Verizon in its fiber-to-the-home offering, and is losing out to cable in terms of home broadband speeds. "From an engineering perspective, this totally makes sense," Feld said. "We want to see better broadband in America." However, he worries that the deregulatory push could have the effect of dialing back what's meant by universal service. "We're in danger of becoming the only industrialized nation to go back on access to basic phone service," he said. AT&T is mindful of the raft of issues raised in its filing. A company official said, "We understand there are a lot of policy questions that have to be answered. A lot of technology and operations questions. We have to play four-dimensional chess to make this conversion." How the policy issues will be addressed is another matter. "Ideally, you'd do it legislatively," said Feld, but he doesn't see a path to a revised Telecommunications Act in the current political climate.
benton.org/node/138765 | National Journal
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WHEN PHONE SERVICE GOES DIGITAL
[SOURCE: American Public Media, AUTHOR: Scott Tong]
"We are definitely moving away from a copper world," says telecom consultant Roger Entner at Recon Analytics. "Copper is very limited, compared with what you can do with fiber or with the most advanced wireless technologies today." But there's a tradeoff. "Are we going to give up some of the reliability of a copper network?" Entner asks. "Quite possibly." Reliable, universal service was part of the American social contract when the phone system was first built out. That's important to poor, rural users who may just have a phone line, says consumer advocate Harold Feld at Public Knowledge. He says New Yorkers learned about copper's reliability in Hurricane Sandy. "People who had cable VOIP or FIOS were trying to find payphones," Feld says, "because that old copper technology held up, where the new networks did not hold up nearly as well." Feld also wonders how affordable the new telecom world will be. He says guarantees that applied to old copper lines may not apply to the newer technology. "Because there's no rules for these new networks," Feld says, "they can decide, 'well we're happy to sell you our phone service as part of our cable service and data service, but we are not interested in selling you just a phone service for $25 a month.'" Feld says the question is, as we move into a post-copper world, whether to bring with us the old copper safety net.
benton.org/node/138783 | American Public Media
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AT&T AND FACETIME
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Brian Chen]
AT&T has removed a limitation that prevented some iPad and iPhone owners from making FaceTime video calls over its cellular network, after some public interest organizations said they would complain to the government about the restriction. The new version of Apple’s mobile operating system, iOS 6, allows iPad and iPhone owners to make a FaceTime video call over a cellular network; before, those calls worked only on Wi-Fi. AT&T had said it would allow only customers who subscribed to its new shared data plans to use FaceTime over its network, not those who had its older unlimited or tiered data plans. But the public interest organizations said that AT&T had violated Internet neutrality rules by blocking FaceTime, a calling service that could potentially compete with AT&T’s traditional phone service. AT&T said that over the next two months, it would allow customers of its older tiered data plans using its 4G LTE network to use FaceTime. It said it had limited use of the service to customers with shared data plans because it wanted to measure the impact of FaceTime on its network. Customers with unlimited data plans will still not be able to use the service over the cell network. The public groups said AT&T’s move did not go far enough. “The law is clear,” said Matt Wood, policy director of Free Press, in a statement. “AT&T cannot block FaceTime based on claims of potential congestion. There’s nothing even remotely reasonable about that approach.” He said the carrier still faced potential violations of Net neutrality rules unless it made FaceTime available for all customers, including those with unlimited data plans.
benton.org/node/138766 | New York Times | AT&T | more from AT&T | Free press | WSJ | WP | The Hill | ars technica | National Journal | GigaOm
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WHAT WILL FASTER BROADBAND MEAN?
[SOURCE: Fast Company, AUTHOR: Kit Eaton]
Bangor University scientists have successfully increased broadband speeds by 2,000 times using very similar tech to that currently in use, with limited cost impact. Let's count the (super-high-speed) ways this could change our lives. That is speedy enough to download a full HD movie file (not just a compressed low-res 700MB version) in just 10 seconds. This is one of the first reasons you'll be wanting ultra-fast broadband in your home, but it's only partly about current generation TV. Ultrafast broadband could also make video calling a reliable full-resolution process free of glitches, and that could transform habits like telepresence. A Philips representative said he expected 50 billion devices to be online by 2020--six times the global human population. Ultrafast broadband would enable more of these devices to share your home connection, and also for more data to be sent to and from each one at a faster rate. A recent study suggested that every doubling of broadband speed results in economic changes that boost GDP by at least 0.3%, which equates to roughly $126 billion right now. Ultrafast broadband solutions like this can also have benefits in behind the scenes technology you'll rarely have to think of--the giant mess of wires and computers that your broadband supplier needs to get data across the world to your home, place of work or smartphone. By speeding up data transfers, the Bangor system could lower infrastructure costs and thus indirectly lower end-user costs. It could also future-proof the system against the burden of installing more conventional servers and fiber to cope with ever-increasing data consumption. Best of all, systems like that proposed by Bangor can be more tolerant of errors and low quality fiber, which improves network resilience and again can lead to lower costs. And the capability for using less machinery to achieve faster data rates has an impact on energy consumption and thus the carbon footprint of a network.
benton.org/node/138767 | Fast Company
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PRIVACY

HOUSE WANTS MORE INFO FROM DATA BROKERS
[SOURCE: National Journal, AUTHOR: Juliana Gruenwald]
A bipartisan group of House members said they are not satisfied with responses they got from nine data brokers, saying the industry needs to be more open about how it uses personal information collected about consumers. Reps. Edward Markey (D-MA) and Joe Barton (R-TX), co-chairmen of the Congressional Bipartisan Privacy Caucus, and five other lawmakers wrote nine data brokers last summer seeking more information about where they collect data, what type of data is collected, who buys the data, and how it is used. The lawmakers said in a statement that only one company, Acxiom, described itself as a data broker. In its response to the lawmakers, Equifax, which is more well known as one of the three national credit reporting agencies, rejected the data broker label and instead said it offers "marketing services," which it noted only make up 1 percent of its business. Acxiom also was the only company that provided details on how many consumers asked to access data about themselves. Several others said they do not allow consumers to access their data because it is not personally identifiable. Acxion said in the last two years as few as 77 people each year out of the 190 million consumers it has information on asked to see their data. The companies did provide a few details on how they collect data about consumers. Their sources include consumers themselves, telephone directories, mobile phones, government agencies, financial institutions, and social media sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn.
benton.org/node/138761 | National Journal | The Hill | AdWeek
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HEALTH

MOBILE HEALTH 2012
[SOURCE: Pew Internet & American Life Project, AUTHOR: Susannah Fox, Maeve Duggan]
One in three cell phone owners (31%) have used their phone to look for health information. In a comparable, national survey conducted two years ago, 17% of cell phone owners had used their phones to look for health advice. Smartphone owners lead this activity: 52% gather health information on their phones, compared with 6% of non-smartphone owners. Cell phone owners who are Latino, African American, between the ages of 18-49, or hold a college degree are also more likely to gather health information this way.
benton.org/node/138757 | Pew Internet & American Life Project
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GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS

IRAN BAN
[SOURCE: Associated Press, AUTHOR: ]
The Obama Administration has imposed financial sanctions against officials and government bodies in Iran that the U.S. blames for jamming satellite broadcasts and blocking Internet access for ordinary Iranians. The State Department says four Iranian individuals and five organizations are banned from traveling to the United States. Spokeswoman Victoria Nuland says those targeted include Reza Taghipour, Iran's minister of communication and information technology, and Iran's Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance.
benton.org/node/138753 | Associated Press
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November 9, 2012
Source 
Financial Times
Author 
Garry Kasparov
Peter Thiel
Coverage Type 
Lauren Frayer

[Commentary] During the past 40 years the world has willingly retreated from a culture of risk and exploration towards one of safety and regulation. We have discarded a century of can-do ambition built on rapid advances in technology and replaced it with a cautiousness far too satisfied with incremental improvements.

The 2008 crisis lingers. But its main cause goes back more than three decades to the depressed rate of technological progress since the 1970s. If we want to escape not just today’s crisis but the whole post-1970 era of bubbles, busts and wage stagnation, our only option is to accelerate technological innovation. We bounded forward in the 1950s and 1960s thanks to a generation of scientists who did not just believe in a better future but invented it. They popularized jet aviation, fed a growing world with the harvest of the “green revolution”, switched on the first nuclear reactors for civilian power, launched the first satellites for communications and built the first integrated circuit, laying the foundations for decades of innovation in information technology.

The genuine progress in IT from the 1970s up to the 2000s masked the relative stagnation of energy, transportation, space, materials, agriculture and medicine. IT enabled the processes of globalization and efficient management that delivered economic growth without increasing real median wages. But it also induced a misleading sensation of technological acceleration. We can now use our phones to send cute kitten photos around the world or watch episodes of The Jetsons while riding a century-old subway; we can program software to simulate futuristic landscapes. But the actual landscape around us is almost identical to the 1960s. Our ability to do basic things such as protect ourselves from earthquakes and hurricanes, to travel and to extend our lifespans is barely increasing.

[The writers are a former world chess champion and the founder of PayPal]

Our dangerous illusion of tech progress

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