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Apparently, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski circulated a model of spectrum and incentive auction repacking as an addendum to a draft notice of proposed rulemaking on an auction framework.

The model is described as essentially a "tab A in slot B" description of the process, from reverse auction clock countdowns, to running the winning bids through the FCC's modeling for reconfiguring that spectrum, to the spectrum's re-auction to wireless, soliciting questions all along the way. The model talks about cross-border spectrum arrangements and says there will probably have to be different rules for stations along the shared border with Canada and Mexico, seeking comment on what those should be. The 20-page model, the work of outside consultants rather than FCC staffers, provides flexibility in the broadband plan for the forward auction--the re-auction of reclaimed spectrum presumably to spectrum-hungry wireless broadband players--assuming varying participation in the reverse auction, in which broadcasters will offer up the lowest price they will take for their spectrum, and the border issues. So, each market could wind up slightly different. The goal, said an FCC source, is for a unified band plan, but it recognizes that there could be some markets where there is not enough broadcaster participation or along the border where it won't be as uniform.

How crucial are the swing states in the presidential race? So crucial that President Barack Obama is once again taking the chase for votes to the virtual battlegrounds of the video game world.

Starting Sept 14, the Obama campaign will begin running ads across multiple video game titles from Electronic Arts, including the new Madden NFL 13, in the key Electoral College-tilting states of Ohio, Nevada, Colorado, Iowa, New Hampshire and Virginia. The ads are aimed at encouraging the gaming demographic to take advantage of early voting in these states. Beside console games, Obama is running "get out the vote" virtual ads in casual Web games on EA’s Pogo.com and in mobile games like Battleship, Scrabble and Tetris. Obama has tried this before. According to Dave Madden, EA’s svp of global media solutions, the strategy paid off for team Obama. Based on surveys conducted by EA during the 2008 ad effort, gamers were 120 percent more likely to feel positively about the candidate and 50 percent more likely to consider voting for him after seeing the in-game ads.

Two months ago, the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) unveiled a bold plan to share 1,000MHz of federal spectrum with cellular providers. It wasn’t exactly what carriers were looking for. They’d prefer exclusive licenses to use spectrum whenever and wherever they need it. But the Federal Communications Commission has decided to adopt the plan, or at least its first steps.

By the end of this year, the FCC announced this week, it will "initiate formal steps to implement the key recommendations of the PCAST report." The first target is freeing up 100MHz of spectrum in the 3.5GHz band for small cell use. The brief announcement actually doesn’t mention the word "sharing." Perhaps the FCC is trying to avoid controversy. But we confirmed with an FCC spokesperson yesterday that the commission plans "to take spectrum in 3550-3650 (currently used for radar) and share it with wireless carriers," as recommended by PCAST. Bureaucratic problems are, well, problematic. For one thing, just figuring out what each chunk of spectrum is used for is difficult, said Michael Calabrese, who contributed to the PCAST report and is director of the Wireless Future Project at the New America Foundation. "Congress needs to mandate a granular spectrum inventory," he said. "Right now, what's operating on federal spectrum is incredibly opaque. It’s like pulling teeth to get these guys to say how much you’re actually using, what kinds of systems, and where does it operate."

There are no set appropriations for how much the federal government can spend on rewarding providers who adopt and use electronic health records under the Medicare and Medicaid meaningful use EHR incentive program, according to National Coordinator for Health IT Farzad Mostashari, MD.

"Whoever qualifies, gets paid; there's no hard cap," said Mostashari, who gave a keynote at the Annual Policy Summit for the Health Information Management and Systems Society (HIMSS). Mostashari said the federal government estimates it will pay out around $20 billion in incentives before the program shifts to a penalty in 2015, but there is no fixed budget set in the HITECH Act that mandated the program. The government recently announced it has paid out nearly $7 billion since the program began in 2011. The federal health IT czar said he couldn't imagine health IT advancement – which enjoys widespread bipartisan support – losing the backing of Congress after the election, no matter the party in control.