The New Year's Ball in Times Square is relying on people power to light the numerals 2-0-0-9 as the clock strikes midnight. Visitors to the Duracell Battery Center in the heart of the Big Apple have had the chance to "put the pedal to the metal" on specially designed "snowmobikes," which capture energy through their spinning wheels when the bikes are pedaled. That power has being stored until it is routed to light the night's most important moment. More than 200 pedal hours are needed to illuminate the sign. Duracell is also offering a "Recharge Rest Stop" that allows pedestrians to plug-in and charge their personal entertainment and digital devices -- including digital cameras, cell phones, BlackBerrys, iPods, MP3 players and gaming devices.
For the first time ever, anyone with access to a Wi-Fi network, an iPod, or Internet connection can enjoy the New Year's Eve party in Times Square, live all night long, thanks to the Times Square Corporation and Web streaming service Mogulus. The event starts at 4 p.m. Wednesday and ends at 12:15 a.m. Thursday. The Web stream will also embedded on this blog so you can watch the ball drop and ring in 2009 right here.
Need some reading material for your holiday vacation? Adam Thierer at the Progress and Freedom Foundation has some suggestions. He recently posted his picks for the most important tech policy book of 2008. Thierer's top 10 include:
The Future of the Internet, and How to Stop It
The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, From Edison to Google
Born Digital: Understanding the First Generation of Digital Natives
Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing without Organizations
Against the Machine: Being Human in the Age of the Electronic Mob
Access Denied: The Practice and Policy of Global Internet Filtering
Blown to Bits: Your Life Liberty and Happiness After the Digital Explosion
Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy
Patent Failure: How Judges Bureaucrats & Lawyers Put Innovators at Risk
Understanding Privacy
Consulting firm Precursor, which is run by analyst Scott Cleland and bankrolled by major telecom companies, released a study Thursday alleging that Google "is by far the largest user of Internet bandwidth," the company's share of bandwidth usage is rising rapidly, and it's bandwidth use "is orders of magnitude greater than its payment for its cost."
Cleland, a frequent Google critic, estimated the firm used 16.5 percent of all U.S. consumer Internet traffic in 2008, and that share could grow to 25 percent in 2009 and 37 percent in 2010. The driving force is Google’s search bots that "regularly copy every page on the Internet, some as frequently as every few seconds," and the YouTube video sharing site, which streams almost half of all video on the Internet, the paper alleged. Cleland estimated Google’s payment to fund just the U.S. consumer broadband segment to be approximately $344 million in 2008.
Google's Washington telecom counsel Richard Whitt responded to the attack on the company's policy blog, pointing out that Cleland is paid by AT&T, Verizon and Time Warner and his report is "the latest in what one blogger called his 'payola punditry.'" "In his zeal to score points in the net neutrality debate, he made significant methodological and factual errors that undermine his report's conclusions," Whitt said.
Continue reading 'Payola Pundit' Picks Fight With Alleged Bandwidth Hog.
Experts Spell Out Privacy Platform For Next Congress
The Homeland Security Department's first chief privacy officer recommended today that the new Congress consider strengthening the nation's 34-year-old Privacy Act and a 2002 statute on electronic government services to uphold privacy and civil liberties safeguards for national security. Read More
Martin Won't Tackle Biggest Priorities At FCC Meeting
The FCC's final public meeting of 2008 will not include action on FCC Chairman Kevin Martin's three biggest priorities: overhauling a multibillion-dollar federal fund subsidizing telecom services in rural and low-income areas; revamping fees carriers charge to terminate traffic on each other's networks; and issuing revised rules for the auction of communications spectrum designed to enhance the capabilities of emergency responders. Read More
FDA To Post Information On WebMD
FDA warnings and consumer information will appear on the online medical information portal WebMD under a partnership announced today. The agency will provide food-safety warnings, recalls and other alerts in a dedicated, ad-free section of WebMD's Web site, FDA Commissioner Andrew von Eschenbach said.
Read More
Tech Coalition Presses Open Internet Agenda
A coalition of consumer and grassroots groups, as well as businesses including Amazon.com, eBay, and Google, urged President-elect Obama's transition team today to ensure that his administration keep the Internet "fast, open and accessible to all Americans."
Read More
The National Association of Manufacturers, which employs one of the highest paid DC trade association executives, John Engler, who received total compensation of $1.2 million in 2006, has laid off staff just weeks before Christmas, my colleague Bara Vaida at National Journal's "Under The Influence" lobbying blog reported Tuesday. The group has joined hands with the tech sector on a number of issues recently, including advocacy for stronger intellectual property rights for U.S. goods.
NAM is cutting its budget by 10 percent resulting in the elimination of 17 full-time positions. In an email to his board, Engler wrote that the action was "difficult but necessary" and by "acting now to reduce costs, we preserve our ability to provide you, our members, with critical services." "In this time of unprecedented political change and economic turmoil, our manufacturing agenda is essential to our nation's recovery. The NAM remains dedicated to its success," he stated. Read the full email here.
Will Google soon be joining the recently launched Future of Privacy Forum -- an AT&T-funded initiative intended to advance a national privacy agenda that promotes transparency and user control and is practical for businesses? Probably not… unless Christopher Wolf, a longtime attorney for AT&T and co-chair of the forum rolls back his contempt for the Web firm, which was recently exhibited in a Bangkok Post op-ed.
In Wolf's weekend column ominously titled "Google Is Watching You," the Proskauer Rose partner writes: "There is no doubt that the Internet search giant has helped people around the world access useful information. But what if Google's technology was used to keep track of you -- your whereabouts and your activities and records were kept of where you have been? That would be a little worrisome to say the least. And yet that may well be happening."
Wolf explains that Google, which has gone a long way to bolster its privacy protections, has developed a "geolocation" application for mobile and wireless devices "designed to let restaurants, salons, malls and other businesses and interested parties advertise to you while you are on the move." "This raises a host of concerns about privacy and safeguarding personal information," he writes, noting that the company already scans and stores "mind-boggling" amounts of data about its users.
Continue reading New Privacy Group Co-Chair Blasts Google In Op-Ed.
From my colleague Winter Casey at NationalJournal.com...
There's little question that the technology community in Washington is excited by what they expect to be the elevated embrace of technology by President-elect Obama's administration. "He gets it," tech insiders say. Insiders say they're looking forward to having a more tech-savvy team in the White House and hope that the administration's use of technology will help usher in an era of greater transparency in government. An Obama reign is expected to channel more federal resources toward technology initiatives and spur pro-tech changes in trade and tax policy. Obama has also said he supports network neutrality "to preserve the benefits of open competition on the Internet," but it remains to be seen what will happen on this policy front.
Business Software Alliance president Robert Holleyman said that "Obama sees a central role for technology and technology policy" in his administration. Obama seems to "look at tech sector as a unique driver of growth and solutions" and not just as another industry sector, agreed Ralph Hellmann of the Information Technology Industry Council. Robert Atkinson, president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, called Obama "ambitious on the spending side," which could mean "more serious federal resources going behind e-government" initiatives, health IT, broadband and education.
Read the full story here.
In what its sponsors are describing as an "unprecedented display of consensus," a coalition of corporate, labor and public advocacy groups Tuesday will release a "call to action" intended to provide the incoming Obama administration with a framework for a national broadband strategy. The session, sponsored by the New America Foundation, includes two panels that feature top officials from AT&T, the Benton Foundation, Google, the Telecommunications Industry Association, and the Communications Workers of America, among other groups.
In the call to action, the groups state that broadband is becoming as important to the United States as railroads, electricity, telephones, and highways were in the last two centuries. It concludes with a commitment of the signatories to continue to work together to address key issues and priorities and to hold an event to present more specific recommendations to Obama, Congress and the American people. See the list of signatories here and read more about the event here.
A coalition of companies that have pressed Congress to regulate rather than ban Internet gambling in the United States said Monday that a segment [view above] on CBS News' "60 Minutes" demonstrated "unambiguously that the existing government prohibition on Internet gambling is a failure and a mistake." "The millions of Americans who continue to gamble online are vulnerable to being defrauded by offshore operators who exploit U.S. prohibition policies, leaving U.S. consumers without legal protections when they make a bet or play poker online," Safe and Secure Internet Gambling Initiative spokesman Jeffrey Sandman said.
Left out of the story, which aired Sunday, were details about legislation introduced last year by House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, which would establish an enforcement framework for licensed gambling operators to accept bets from U.S. individuals. "As the coverage reveals, the structure of the Internet allows for greater protections since there is a complete audit trail of all Internet gambling activity and transactions. A companion piece of legislation would ensure the collection of taxes on regulated Internet gambling activities," Sandman said.
Surf on over to CongressDaily's TechCentral for a new "Issue of the Week." Here's a taste:
The United States lacks a fully defined policy and legal framework for using offensive cyberwarfare capabilities against adversaries, making it difficult for policymakers to determine the origin of computer attacks and when pre-emptive action is justified against criminals, terrorists and hostile foreign nations, according to current and former government officials.
The information networks of U.S. government agencies and critical industry sectors, such as the nation's power and banking companies, are under persistent and increasing cyber attack from foreign foes, including major criminal organizations and countries like China, according to officials and recent high-level reports. Although the U.S. government has an arsenal of cyberwarfare capabilities at its disposal, policymakers are grappling with how and when to use them, along with what kind of privacy and civil liberties issues are raised in doing so.
High-tech spending projections for the first quarter of 2009 are "abysmal -- the worst ever," reports ChangeWave, a firm that has surveyed companies since 2001. The bottom line: 45 percent of respondents said their business's IT spending will decrease (or there will be no spending at all) in the quarter -- that's 16 points lower than the previous survey, ChangeWave's Paul Carton said in a blog post. Ten percent of respondents said IT spending will increase -- a three point drop from earlier reports.
Meanwhile, spending is plunging at a time of year when the industry normally experiences seasonal increases. ChangeWave asked respondents if their IT spending was on track thus far in the fourth quarter and by a wide margin, the results were the worst on record. In one of a few upbeat findings, the corporate smart phone market continues to show growth -- with BlackBerry maker Research in Motion maintaining its lead, but Apple continuing to make inroads in small to medium-sized businesses.
Google CEO Eric Schmidt spoke to a crowd convened by the New America Foundation in Washington on Tuesday about the ways technology can help Barack Obama's administration and Congress address two of the biggest challenges ahead: generating short- and long-term economic and job growth that can help pull the nation out of financial turmoil, and restoring public trust in government. Schmidt, who chairs the foundation's board and is a member of Obama's transition team, said America "has the intellectual foundation, leadership and literally the people in the room not just to solve problems but build a better place."
"A hundred years ago, nobody had information. Now all of you are significant users of the Internet," Schmidt said. "In our lifetime, almost all people will have access to almost all the world's information. That’s a remarkable achievement on par with Gutenberg." Just about every American can now create and publish their ideas, he said, noting that "some of them are absolutely wacko." Nevertheless, the power of communication is in everyone's hands, he said, noting that the U.S. government and individual citizens are only now beginning to understand that power. His thesis: "Technology makes a difference."
Schmidt's talk was not without controversy. During the question-and-answer session, Consumer Watchdog's John Simpson confronted him with a question about the need for Google to build greater privacy and security protections into its applications. Simpson urged Congress not to use Google programs because of certain alleged vulnerabilities and said representatives from the Internet giant are trying to sell Capitol Hill staffers on the firm's software and services. Schmidt said he read a letter Simpson sent to him and would be happy to discuss his concerns at a later date. Read more in CongressDaily's AM edition on Wednesday.
The Securities and Exchange Commission charged Dallas entrepreneur Mark Cuban Monday with allegedly engaging in insider trading for selling 600,000 shares of the stock of an Internet search engine company based on non-public information. The commission’s complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, alleges that in June 2004, Mamma.com invited Cuban to participate in the stock offering after he agreed to keep the information confidential.
The complaint further alleges that Cuban knew that the offering would be conducted at a discount to the prevailing market price and that it would hurt existing shareholders. After Cuban received this information, the complaint holds that Cuban called his broker and told him to sell his stake in the company. This move enabled Cuban to avoid losses in excess of $750,000. “It is fundamentally unfair for someone to use access to nonpublic information to improperly gain an edge on the market,” said Scott Friestad, deputy director of the SEC’s enforcement division, in a statement.
-- Winter Casey
Update: Cuban responded to the claims by posting a statement on his blog. "I wish I could say more, but I will have to leave it to this, and let the judicial process do its job," he said. Follow the jump to read the statement by attorney Ralph Ferrara.
Eric Schmidt, chairman and chief executive officer of Internet giant Google, will speak Tuesday on “What’s Ahead: Technology, Economic Growth and Open Government.” During his address to the New America Foundation, Schmidt will discuss the need to build a 21st century infrastructure, support for research and innovation, repairs to the U.S. education system, and ways to make government more open and responsive. Schmidt, who is on the foundation's board, is said to be in the running to serve as the nation’s chief technology officer -- a position that President-elect Barack Obama envisioned as part of his technology policy platform. Schmidt threw his support behind Obama in the final weeks of the campaign and is on the transition team's economic advisory board. Learn more about this event here.
Gawker.com founder Nick Denton has released his 2009 Internet Media Plan. The key message: "Publishers should be planning for the worst -- now." Private companies, he writes, can move more nimbly than established behemoths to boost revenues and reduce costs." There are six main levers, the details of which you can read here.
1. Get out of categories such as politics to which advertisers are averse.
2. Renegotiate vendor contracts.
3. Consolidate titles.
4. Offshore more.
5. Variable compensation.
6. More value for marketers.
Denton's bottom line: "It looks pretty bleak: but at least lean Internet businesses can make it through!"
From Monday's CongressDaily PM Edition...
Senate Commerce Panel Expects New Faces, Shakeup
Change is coming to the Senate Commerce Committee in the new Congress with Commerce Chairman Daniel Inouye expected to take over for Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., as head of the Senate Appropriations Committee. His departure, paired with Election Day losses for Republican Sens. Gordon Smith of Oregon and John Sununu of New Hampshire, opens at least two spots on the committee. There is also the question of what happens to the seat of Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska. He may lose his bid for an eighth term, but if he wins he could be expelled from the Senate because of his Oct. 27 conviction on corruption charges. Stevens served as ranking member -- and before that as chairman -- but relinquished his leadership post to Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, before his trial began.
Read the full story here.
Groups: DTV Shift May Leave Behind Millions Of Viewers
With the nation's shift to digital television signals just 100 days away, officials representing the interests of the disabled, elderly and minorities warned today that those populations are among the most vulnerable to losing reception when the Feb. 17 transition occurs. "On Feb. 18, there will be millions of Americans who will wake up and will not have [television] service available," said Wade Henderson, president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, at a news briefing intended to reinforce the message of a transition on track.
Read the full story here.
Tech Daily Dose's parent company, National Journal Group, has unveiled Under the Influence, a blog that aims to take coverage of lobbying, lobbyists and the K Street community to new heights by helping readers grasp the business of the powerful $3 billion-plus industry. Contributors include a handful of scribes with their fingers on the pulse of the lobbying game -- Bob Gettlin, Julie Kosterlitz, Peter H. Stone and Bara Vaida.
Why this blog? Why now? Because the lobbying and advocacy sector is poorly understood and heavily stereotyped by the media, the public, politicians, and, at times, by K Street professionals themselves, the blog says in its mission statement, adding: "We want to give voice to the individuals - the contract lobbyists, corporate representatives, trade group officials, nonprofit advocates, public affairs practitioners, and thousands of other professionals - who make up the diverse K Street community."
A few samples of recent posts:
▪ No Lobbyists in the White House in 2009?
▪ Adelson's Troubles Hit Freedom's Watch
▪ Engler Angling for Bigger NAM Role
Under the Influence is the latest in a series of blog launches by National Journal Group. The company started a healthcare blog on Oct. 6, an economy blog on Oct. 14 and an energy blog on Oct. 20. Read more about those blogs here. Tech Daily Dose welcomes you all to the blogosphere!
The Technology CEO Council and the Digital Energy Solutions Campaign unveiled BehindTheGreen.org this week -- an online forum to learn about and explore how green technologies are helping to improve energy efficiency in the United States and beyond. The Web site comes on the heels of the group's introduction of Greenville, a virtual green community that exemplifies what can (and in some places already is being done) to go green at home, at work and elsewhere.
"From higher energy and consumer expenses to global climate change, Americans are increasingly aware that our ever-increasing demand for energy has very real consequences for our economy," Council Executive Director Bruce Mehlman said in a blog post on the site. "The desire to 'go green' is urgent, and people want to learn more about how they can help." "The good news: there's a lot we can do -- right now -- if we act together," he said. The group is backed by the chief executives of Dell, IBM, Intel, Hewlett-Packard, Motorola and a handful of other companies.
Microsoft, Yahoo, the African Development Bank and Western Union have joined together to combat a growing online menace -- lottery scams, also known as advance fee fraud -- by helping law enforcement agencies around the world gather information and build evidence to identify, locate and prosecute scammers. The schemes are a form of cybercrime in which the victim is deceived into paying money upfront to receive a fictitious gift or cash prize. [Read more about these scams in this FTC briefing paper.]
The Tuesday announcement coincided with the annual German Anti-Spam Summit where Tim Cranton, Microsoft's associate general counsel, said the online threat differs from those that try to exploit software code or attack computers. "Lottery scammers prey not on software, but on the hope of their victims – and with scams that can be so creative and plausible, Internet users simply don’t know who they can believe," he said. International collaboration is necessary because Web shysters typically operate out of several countries at the same time and are truly global in reach, Microsoft said.
Google's settlement with a group of authors and publishers regarding the Internet giant's book digitization project was hailed Tuesday as a landmark announcement by the company but Public Knowledge's Sherwin Siy believes that the deal, which still must be approved by a court, might not alter the legal landscape but could impact future digital innovators' efforts. Under the agreement, Google will pay at least $45 million to copyright holders whose works were scanned and displayed without permission.
"Rightsholders and other potential plaintiffs might view this settlement as the model for all future relationships with digitization efforts," he wrote in a blog post. "If Google pays for digitizing, why shouldn’t everyone else? Such a landscape might make a plaintiff more likely to sue, although the results in court, ideally, shouldn’t differ, with or without this settlement in place. Read Siy's lengthy analysis of the arrangement and its potential implications here.
Arts + Labs, a recently launched coalition backed by AT&T, Viacom, NBC Universal and others, also offered comment. The group's co-chairs Mike McCurry and Mark McKinnon issued a statement saying the settlement "shows that creators’ rights and consumer benefit can go hand-in-hand in the Internet age." The arrangement demonstrates that "collaboration between the technology community and the creative community can give consumers access to a wealth of resources while also preserving copyright owners right to control how their work is distributed."
Internet behemoth Google announced an agreement on Tuesday with a number of authors and publishers and with its library partners, starting a new chapter in its Google Book Search project, which began almost four years ago. The deal will give readers digital access to millions of in-copyright books; create a new market for authors and publishers to sell their works; and further efforts of Google's library partners to preserve and maintain their collections while making books more accessible to students, readers and academic researchers.
The agreement also resolves lawsuits that were brought against Google in 2005 by a group of authors and publishers, along with the Authors Guild and Association of American Publishers. While Google, the Authors Guild and the AAP have disagreed on copyright law, they have always agreed about the importance of creating new ways for users to find books and for authors and publishers to get paid for their works, Google's top lawyer David Drummond said in a blog post.
AAP President Pat Schroeder issued a statement saying her group is "proud to have been a part of the process that has produced this historic, landmark agreement." "This settlement, the product of many years’ hard work, is a great 21st century solution," she said. To date, Google has worked with libraries worldwide to make more than 7 million books searchable "and we're just getting started," Drummond said. "Ultimately we'll provide access to many times that number, and if approved, this agreement will unlock access to millions of these texts." Read more here.
Continue reading Google Starts New Chapter For 'Book Search'.
As economic woes persist in the United States and around the world, the Consumer Electronics Association last week released a prediction that sales of its industry's products will grow 3.5 percent in the fourth quarter as compared to last year. The bad news is that increase is only half what was seen in 2007. Still, consumer electronics remain "must have" items for many American shoppers and comprise about 40 percent of the items on adults' holiday wish lists.
CEA's holiday trends survey indicated that 87 percent of consumers feel that the U.S. economy is worse then it was at this time last year. About 64 percent of consumers expect to spend money on gifts this year, compared to 74 percent in 2007, the trade group said, noting that a decline in overall spending for the holiday season is expected. That said, the percentage of the U.S. family’s gift budget in 2007 allocated to electronics was 22 percent and in 2008, it jumped to 28 percent. GPS and in-car video, mobile phones and audio/video products are expected to be top sellers.
Surf on over to CongressDaily's TechCentral for this week's Executive Summary. It's a great cheat sheet for all the news that you should have been paying attention to this week if you weren’t so caught up in Obama/Biden/McCain/Palin madness.
Some highlights:
▪ FCC Looks To NASCAR To Spread DTV Message
▪ ICANN To Unveil Plan For Net Address Expansion
▪ Social Security Numbers Widely Available In E-Records
▪ Pressure For 'Fair Use' Of Campaign Footage Surges
▪ Microsoft Announces Worldwide Anti-Piracy Blitz
▪ Identity Theft Task Force Cites Progress
▪ TSA Issues Final Rule On Taking Over Watch List
▪ Group Urges Greater Info Sharing Between Government, Private Groups
▪ DHS Seeks Court OK On Employment Verification Fix
▪ Microsoft, Net Activists Fueling Democratic Challenger's Campaign
▪ Growth In Tech Spending Expected To Continue
It appears that John Hodgman -- best known to some as "PC" in Apple's series of quirky PC vs. Mac advertisements and to others for his hysterically deadpan delivery of satirical news for Comedy Central's "The Daily Show" -- is now going to be a guest blogger for BoingBoing. This makes perfect sense. It's a pairing like peanut butter and jelly and we can't wait to see what this union brings forth. If it's anything like Hodgman's work on the small screen or his tome "The Areas of My Expertise," we're in for a treat.
Hodgman writes in his inaugural post that it was a mention on BoingBoing "which first convinced me to descend from the airy heights of minor television renown and return to my ink-stained former life of writing big books of fake trivia." BoingBoing co-editor Cory Doctrow brought Hodgman's attention to the "completely implausible but distressingly real" product Dick Van Patten's Hobo Chili For Dogs. It was Van Patten's creation that led him to write his latest book "More Information Than You Require," which hits bookstores on Tuesday. (Photo Credit: spi516 via Flickr)
Surf on over to CongressDaily's TechCentral for a new "Issue of the Week." Here's a taste:
With more than three months to go before the new Congress and administration come to Washington, policymakers are already feeling pressure to implement new safeguards for federal agencies' use of counterterrorism programs that collect or "mine" personal data, such as telephone, medical, and travel records or Web sites visited. A recent report by the National Research Council suggests lawmakers consider imposing restrictions on how personal data as part of a broader re-examination of national security laws to assess how privacy can be protected in conjunction with data-mining. The special panel of university academics, privacy specialists and technology experts was created at the request of the Homeland Security Department and the National Science Foundation.
The 376-page paper, which examines the technical effectiveness and privacy impacts of data-mining and behavioral surveillance techniques, picks up where a number of congressional inquiries and stakeholder debates left off by offering two sets of criteria to help agencies and policymakers move forward in crafting smart data-mining solutions. One set is designed to gauge whether a program is likely to be effective, while the other assesses likely privacy impacts and helps ensure that a program protects privacy to the greatest extent possible. Each should operate with the least amount of personal data consistent with its objective and should have a process for the reporting and redress for those whose privacy is improperly breached.
On Friday, the Advanced Communications Law & Policy Institute at New York Law School will host a congressional staff briefing on recalibrating regulation in the advanced communications sector. Participants will analyze the differences between the financial sector and the advanced communications sector and discuss why calls for greater regulation in the former don’t translate well regarding the latter. Kind of timely, huh?
Speakers will also focus on ways in which industry stakeholders can work together to enhance transparency, promote collaboration, and increase accountability among firms in the advanced communications sector. An afternoon panel will bring together public and private sector representatives to discuss how to affect meaningful regulatory oversight of the sector, including a possible recalibration of FCC and FTC regulatory authority.
The roster of participants includes representatives from House and Senate offices, CTIA – The Wireless Association, the FTC, the Heritage Foundation, the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation, the National Cable & Telecommunications Association, the Progress & Freedom Foundation the U.S. Telecommunications Association and others. For more details about ACLP, click here.
High-tech giant Microsoft and big screen star Angelina Jolie are joining forces with leading law firms and corporate law departments on Friday to announce the formation of Kids in Need of Defense, an organization dedicated to providing legal counsel to unaccompanied immigrant and refugee children in the United States. Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith will hold a Washington luncheon to launch the effort. The titillating "Tomb Rader" star is not on the guest list for the event.
Key invitees include Ronald Schechter (not Jolie), a senior partner at Arnold & Porter, and Mauricio Vivero (not Jolie), executive director of Ayuda, a D.C. based group that protects the legal rights of low-income immigrants in the metropolitan region. KIND's pro bono network of attorneys will serve children in areas of the country where the need is greatest, including Los Angeles, Seattle, Houston, and the northeast corridor. In Washington state, Microsoft already spearheads Advocates for Immigrant Justice, a coalition of law firms, corporations and NGOs that offer pro bono help.
Others involved in KIND include Covington & Burling, Holland & Knight, Perkins Coie, Latham & Watkins, Sidley Austin, Morrison & Foerster, News Corp., and many more. (Photo Credit: KIND)
Surf on over to CongressDaily's TechCentral for a new "Issue of the Week." Here's a taste:
With a worsening economy and a changing administration on the way, the technology policy community in Washington is looking at new ways of managing risk -- both politically and financially. According to Information Technology Association of America President Phil Bond, the weakening economy is putting "greater pressure than ever on the expense side" for tech associations to be efficient regardless of size.
At the same time, the importance of government policy is greater than ever. This explains why some companies are trimming costs while others are increasing spending on lobbying. The latter "is becoming more important to the business," says Bond, who worked under the Bush administration. "Each company weighs where they are going to take some efficiencies."
Roger Cochetti, a director with The Computing Technology Industry Association, agrees that the weakening economy will put a "premium on efficiency" for the industry. Other stakeholders see new areas of focus.
The nationwide Amber Alert electronic system that alerts the public when children go missing has made great strides since April 2003, when the program's coordinator role was statutorily established, the Justice Department said Tuesday as more than 300 officials from all 50 states gathered in Orange County, Calif., for a conference on the initiative.
▪ All 50 states now have statewide Amber Alert plans, creating a network of systems nationwide to aid in the recovery of abducted children.
▪ A secondary distribution effort undertaken in partnership with wireless companies, online service providers, and other private and public entities enables Amber Alerts to be sent directly to the public.
▪ Tribal nations are working to develop their own tailored plans so that children in Indian country may benefit from Amber Alert.
▪ More than 90 percent of the 426 Amber Alert recoveries have occurred since Amber Alert became a nationally coordinated effort in 2002.
▪ Anecdotal evidence demonstrates that perpetrators are well aware of the power of Amber Alert, and in many cases have released an abducted child upon hearing the alert.
“Amber Alert has helped to rescue hundreds of children from abductors and return them safely to their homes,” Assistant Attorney General and national Amber Alert coordinator Jeffrey Sedgwick said in a press release. "Thanks to cooperation among law enforcement agencies, the media, transportation officials, public and private partners, and concerned citizens, the Amber Alert system has become part of America’s public safety landscape.”
An interesting report by the Washington Post's Brian Krebs...
An effort by the state of Kentucky to seize more than 140 online gambling Web site names is raising novel legal questions about the physical location of digital property and the reach of local and regional governments on the global Internet.
Last month, a Kentucky circuit court judge granted a request by the governor to have 141 Web site names used by online gaming operations transferred to the state's control. The action was filed by a Chicago law firm on behalf of Gov. Steve Beshear (D), who was elected in part on the strength of a promise to bring casino gambling to the state.
The domains include some of the most popular online gaming sites on the Internet, including UltimateBet.com and FullTiltPoker.com. According to the state, residents spend roughly $170 million each year gambling at online casinos, potentially taxable revenue that might otherwise have been spent at the state's own gaming operations, which include regulated betting on horse racing and bingo.
Read the full story here.
As CongressDaily reported on Thursday, the Information Technology Industry Council surprised some tech policy watchers by announcing that longtime president Rhett Dawson’s successor will be Dean Garfield, who is currently chief strategic officer for the Motion Picture Association of America. Garfield will take the helm at ITI when Dawson retires in December. Garfield took a moment during ITI's board meeting in California to chat with us about his new gig.
Q: What experience do you bring to the job, particularly from MPAA?
A: Over the last three years I've spent lot of time doing strategic planning and working on the convergence between media and information technology. The combination of those two things will serve us well at ITI. An important part of what I do with my work is looking at how we can make sure ITI remains and grows into a thought leader for IT issues in the U.S. and globally. I have learned from my time at MPAA that in this world of growing convergence, it's impossible for media to be successful on its own. Much of our success is due to IT.
Continue reading High-Tech Group Makes Surprise Pick For President.
Corporate, government and academic institutions on Tuesday announced the formation of the Center for Applied Identity Management Research -- an initiative focused on developing research and solutions for society’s most daunting identity management challenges such as cyber crime, terrorism, financial crimes, ID theft and fraud, weapons of mass destruction, and narcotics and human trafficking. Backers include the U.S. Secret Service, LexisNexis, IBM, Cogent Systems, Visa and business solutions provider Intersections. Indiana University economic crime expert Gary Gordon will serve as executive director of the center.
“As a non-profit organization governed by its partners with a strong affiliation with its host academic institution, Indiana University, CAIMR is uniquely positioned to foster a collaborative applied research environment that brings together the multi-disciplinary talent, resources, data sources, and analytical capabilities to take up this challenge,” Gordon said in a press release. LexisNexis Chief Businses Officer Norman Willox, who chairs CAIMR's board added: “A collaborative, multi-disciplinary applied research approach is required to provide pragmatic solutions to diverse areas such as cyber crime.”
Speaking at the National Press Club announcement, Indiana University professor and cybersecurity researcher Fred Cate, stressed that "how you determine quickly, reliably and affordably that a person is who he claims to be and that he is entitled to the access -- whether to a Web site, a network, or a government facility -- he seeks is an enormous challenge that has long plagued industry and government." That challenge will only be solved through close cooperation among public and private sector stakeholders, he said.
The project was a long time in the making -- National Journal's now-defunct Technology Daily reported on plans for the center back in June 2006.
Here's a quick follow-up to Tuesday night's post about the launch of a new effort to spur the creation of innovative Internet content and distribute in safe, reliable ways. The clumsily titled campaign, Arts+Labs, was unveiled at a Wednesday briefing in New York City and its founding members are a who's who of high-tech and content industry powerhouses -- AT&T, Viacom, NBC Universal, Cisco, Microsoft and the Songwriters Guild of America.
Arts+Labs is co-chaired by Mike McCurry, former White House press secretary to President Bill Clinton and Mark McKinnon, former media adviser to the campaigns of President Bush and current GOP presidential nominee John McCain. SGA President Rick Carnes and Chuck Sims of the law firm Proskauer Rose also have agreed to join Arts+Labs as the first members of its advisory board.
"Quality content drives the Internet and that distribution of easily accessible, affordable content in the Internet age requires new business models," McKinnon said in a press release, noting that consumers should know where to get safe and legal online content while protecting artists' and innovators' rights. McCurry said consumers want greater opportunities to access content "with confidence that they are safe from viruses, hackers, malware, illegal file trafficking and other net pollution."
Buzz is building about the Wednesday launch of an advocacy coalition intended to draw attention to "the opportunities and challenges that the Internet presents for consumers, artists and the technology community alike." The kick-off is being held in New York City -- not in Washington -- which already smells a little funny to me if this group's intention is to influence policy. Organizers have been tight-lipped about the affair but there are a few clues I can offer.
Among the notables scheduled to be trotted out at the event are Mike McCurry, former White House press secretary to President Bill Clinton; Mark McKinnon, former chief media adviser to the campaigns of President Bush and current GOP presidential nominee John McCain; Chuck Sims, a copyright and First Amendment lawyer; and Rick Carnes, president of the Songwriters Guild of America.
McCurry, a principal at Public Strategies Washington, co-chaired Hands Off the Internet, a group formed during the 109th Congress to counter calls for so-called "network neutrality" legislation. That coalition was affiliated with AT&T, NetCompetition.org and other telecom industry fueled ventures. McKinnon was an early backer of the short-lived HotSoup.com, a Web site launched in 2006 with the aim "to spark debate over hot-button topics of the day in the worlds of politics, business, and culture."
Continue reading Sneak Peek: New Internet Coalition To Launch.
The MacArthur Foundation on Tuesday announced 25 new fellows for 2008 after the recipients learned last week in a single phone call that they will each receive $500,000 in “no strings attached” support over the next five years. The new fellows work across a broad spectrum of endeavors.
A few tech-related examples:
▪ An astronomer designing experiments and devices to advance understanding of the geometry of the universe and the story of both its beginning and its end
▪ A neuroscientist tracing the natural interactions of differentiating neurons, bringing us closer to developing effective methods for treating central nervous system damage
▪ An inventor of musical instruments that transform and transcend the musical experience and navigate the boundaries between live and recorded sound
▪ An optical physicist demonstrating that power can be transmitted wirelessly, opening the door to the possibility of a range of devices operating free of traditional power sources
▪ A structural engineer restoring cathedrals and other structures of the distant past and identifying ancient technologies for use in contemporary constructions
Read more here.
Tech Daily Dose welcomes the launch of another inside the Beltway blog -- K Street Café, a Web site sponsored by the public affairs firm Adfero Group where experts from a variety of backgrounds share novel ways technology, the Internet and social media are being used to shape public policies.
"As new media tactics are introduced, K Street Café will examine how advocacy organizations are continually changing the way they execute public affairs campaigns," Adfero's Jeff Mascott said in an e-mail. "Contributors to the blog will highlight and analyze the shift from one-directional communications to multi-layered conversations as the method of choice for individuals engaged in issue advocacy."
Contributors include Alan Rosenblatt of the Center for American Progress Action Fund; ePolitics.com's Colin Delany; Verizon's John "CZ" Czwartacki; John Wonderlich of the Sunlight Foundation; the Congressional Management Foundation's Kathy Goldschmidt; the Heritage Foundation's Rob Bluey and others.
Some recent posts:
Movement from email to social media for grassroots activism
Rise of Millenials and their effect on advocacy campaigns
What Washington can learn from the Cluetrain Manefesto
Measuring the effectiveness of social media marketing
Surf on over to CongressDaily's TechCentral for a new "Issue of the Week." Here's a taste:
With six weeks left until Election Day, Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Barack Obama, D-Ill., are feeling pressure to communicate their views on issues from national security to the economy. The presidential candidates have also been pressed to address challenges related to U.S. leadership in science, math, engineering and tech -- tenets of their innovation agenda.
In public speeches and on their campaign Web sites, McCain and Obama have both noted the importance of American innovation and leadership. As part of that effort, they responded to a questionnaire sent to each campaign asking 14 key questions on science and technology. The survey provides a side-by-side comparison of their views on energy, education, climate change, stem cell research, security and more. McCain's answers to the Science Debate 2008 query were published Sept. 15, and Obama submitted his responses to the grassroots group two weeks earlier.
Weeks after being named one of the Top 100 Undiscovered Web Sites of 2008 by PC Magazine, Tech Daily Dose has been awarded a rank of "8.4" out of a perfect 10 in the technology category at Blogged.com. Our little spot on the Internets was evaluated on frequency of updates, relevance of content, site design and writing style.
Others that earned an "8.4" include The New Scientist's technology blog and British newspaper The Daily Mail's science and technology section. We're in good company and we appreciate the distinction, so thanks! Unsurprisingly, tech blog royalty like Slashdot.org, BoingBoing.net and TechDirt.com were among those that ranked the highest.
Internet experts will join members of Congress and FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein on Monday, Sept. 22 to “bury” an e-democracy time capsule and discuss the state of the Web as part of an effort launched there years ago as "Earth Day for the Internet" by law professor Susan Crawford. The One Web Day event will feature presentations on government transparency, online tools for participatory democracy and the problem of broadband accessibility
Meanwhile, some of the Web’s great visionaries, including Tim Westergren (Pandora); Lawrence Lessig (Stanford Law); Craig Newmark (Craigslist); John Perry Barlow (Electronic Frontier Foundation); S.J. Klein (One Laptop Per Child) and others will gather for a rally in New York City's Washington Square Park.
San Francisco will witness a massive volunteer effort, coordinated by the mayor’s department of technology, to bring residents in public housing online with wireless Internet and donated computer equipment. Chicago will host a seminar sponsored by the Future of Music Coalition. In Cincinnati, technology activists will convene a meeting on “The Next President, the Internet and the Disconnected City.”
A complete description of events worldwide, including in India, Tunisia, Australia and Europe can be found here.
Jay Bhatti, co-founder of Internet-based people finder Spock.com has an interesting take on how the economic meltdown, which has dominated national news coverage this week and sent stock markets spiraling, will affect the high-tech industry. Bhatti, a former Microsoft product manager, secured $7 million in venture capital in 2006 to take his start-up Web offering to the next level. Here are some excerpts from his blog:
Big players like Oracle, Sun, Microsoft, and SAP: "These guys will feel an immediate impact. Financial service firms are some of the biggest spenders of IT budgets around. I can imagine memo’s coming from the top to CIOs at banks telling them to cut costs ASAP. Naturally, they will start to push back on upgrades to new software (sorry Vista), ask for greater concessions on license pricing, and in some cases, abandon plans for new technology deployments such as new hardware or new ERP applications."
Why green technology may be in for a scare: "I can see the biggest impact happening on green tech investments. Green technology requires a lot of capital (wind energy is not cheap, have you seen how big those turbines are?). Most software start-ups can be funded in under $20 million and get to profitability or an exit with that investment. However, in Green Tech, the amount of investment needed in many cases go well past the billion dollar mark."
More traditional start-ups in the valley are also being impacted: "When hedge funds were popping up all over the place, they needed a new place to invest their money. One of the investments they started looking into was high tech startups. Entrepreneurs welcomed this with joy. It gave them another outlet to get funding outside of traditional VCs (just look at the private investments made in Facebook less than a year ago). However, with hedge funds now reverting back to their traditional channels and many closing shop, a lot of funding that entrepreneurs were expecting may never surface." Read his full blog post here.
The 10 most tech-savvy states in the nation were announced Wednesday by e.Republic’s Center for Digital Government, a national research and advisory institute focused on information technology policies. State chief information officers and senior executives from across the nation participated in the survey, which benchmarks progression in digital government. Verizon Business sponsored the study.
Top Ten States:
1st Place Utah
2nd Place Michigan
3rd Place Virginia
4th Place Arizona
5th Place California
6th Place Washington
7th Place Kentucky
8th Place South Dakota
9th Place Maryland
10th Place Tennessee (tie)
10th Place Pennsylvania (tie)
The Associated Press reports that the Smithsonian Institution will work to digitize its collections to make science, history and cultural artifacts accessible online and dramatically expand its outreach to schools. "I worry about museums becoming less relevant to society," said Secretary G. Wayne Clough told the newswire's Brett Zongker in his first interviews since taking the helm of the museum complex in July.
Clough, 66, who was president of the Georgia Institute of Technology for 14 years, says he's working to bring in video gaming experts and Web gurus to collaborate with curators on creative ways to present artifacts online and make them appealing to kids, AP reports. "I think we need to take a major step," Clough said in an earlier interview. "Can we work with outside entities to create a place, for example, where we might demonstrate cutting-edge technologies to use to reach out to school systems all over the country? I think we can do that." Read the full story here.
From Tuesday's CongressDaily's AM edition:
Stark IT Bill Differs From Energy And Commerce Version
House Ways and Means Health Subcommittee Chairman Fortney (Pete) Stark, D-Calif., Monday introduced a bill to create a nationwide system of electronic medical records that would use Medicare reimbursement to prod physicians and hospitals to adopt new technologies. Read more here.
Election Could Spur Effort To Limit Spectrum Ownership
The nation's largest and second-largest mobile telecommunications carriers, AT&T and Verizon respectively, could face substantial curbs on their ability to participate in future spectrum auctions under an administration run by Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., in an effort to boost opportunities for small and mid-sized players. Read more here.
ID Theft Bill Approved, On Its Way To President
Legislation intended to combat identity theft passed the House by voice vote Monday after being folded into a bill to extend Secret Service protection to former vice presidents. The bill now goes to President Bush's desk. Read more here.
Commerce To Ask Congress For $7M For DTV Coupons
The Commerce Department is poised to ask Congress for an additional $7 million to cover administrative costs for its $1 billion coupon program designed to help Americans buy digital television converter boxes. Read more here.
Provocateur Sandra Bernhard opens her electrifying one-woman show at the Washington, D.C. Jewish Community Center on Thursday evening and folks might be shocked to learn that the comic incorporates tech topics into the act. Early in her shtick, Bernhard riffs on the blogging phenomenon, revealing that she was asked to contribute to pundit Arianna Huffington's left-leaning Web 'zine for $200 a week. Bernhard declined, saying she prefers to vent on stage -- a kind of live-blogging where she can wear designer garb and interact with her audience.
Then, as she reflects on the good old 1980s, Bernhard explains "Rickrolling," an Internet meme involving the music video for the 1987 Rick Astley song "Never Gonna Give You Up". The meme is a bait and switch, she says, where an individual provides a Web link they claim is relevant to a topic at hand but the link actually leads to the Astley video. Later, she channels blues singer Nina Simone who carps about never receiving royalties for songs she recorded from George Gershwin's opera "Porgy and Bess." "Where's my Porgy money?" she screeches. Have the performing rights organizations looked into this?
Much of the show is a revival of "Without You I'm Nothing," the performance that propelled her into the stratosphere 20 years ago. Bernhard's four-letter-word-filled cabaret is worth the money and tickets will go fast. One note for the politically sensitive and easily offended: Bernhard isn’t a fan of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, Sen. John McCain's vice-presidential running mate and she makes her viewpoint crystal clear.
The show runs through Sept. 28. Click here for information. (Apologies if this post was a bit far afield. I attended a special performance last night).
Notable musicians and members of the Copyright Alliance will exhibit creative works, the latest in copyright protection, and release new information detailing how copyright benefits each state at its second annual expo on Capitol Hill later this month. VIP guests at the Sept. 24 event will appeal to graying lawmakers (and fans of the golden age of music) but might be lost on some young staffers.
Martha Reeves, a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee who belted out catchy Motown tunes like "Heat Wave" and "Dancing in the Street," will be on hand to sign autographs at the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists booth. Fellow hall-of-famer Felix Cavaliere of the Young Rascals ("Groovin,'" "People Got to Be Free") will meet and greet attendees at the ASACP booth. Last year's expo featured soul singers Isaac Hayes, Chuck Brown and David Porter.
Other exhibitors will include American Society of Media Photographers, Association of American Publishers, Broadcast Music Inc., Entertainment Software Association, Graphic Artists Guild, Motion Picture Association of America, National Music Publishers’ Association, Professional Photographers of America, Recording Industry Association of America and Vobile Inc. For more information, click here.
CongressDaily's PM edition on Monday includes a free trade story based on my interview with Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez at last week's Republican National Convention. During our chat, we also discussed other topics like the nationwide digital television transition and intellectual property rights. Here are some of his thoughts:
On the February digital TV deadline:
"We've had almost a billion dollars of advertising from industry. We've had over 20 million coupons requested. We've mailed out a good portion of the coupons. The redemption rate is about 50 percent. That could mean some people are ordering them who don’t need them or some people are ordering coupons and they forget about it or they lose them. The program is on target. We've got enough coupons. We've got a lot of people working the phones. Our website is open, we've got local partnerships, and we've got national media. The date is coming and if people aren’t aware and don’t do what they need to do, on the 17th of February, their TV will go blank."
Continue reading Interview: Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez.
Gossip blog Gawker.com reports that Bloomberg accidentally published its lengthy obituary of Apple CEO Steve Jobs on Wednesday. Major news organizations routinely write, maintain and update obits of celebrities and once in a while there's a slip-up. The financial newswire quickly retracted the story about the high-tech titan (who successfully beat pancreatic cancer earlier this decade) but Gawker published the death notice. Read the whole kit and kaboodle here.
Interestingly, Bloomberg's internal notes for reporters included a list of people to call for comment if Jobs, who is still very much alive, kicks the bucket. Among them were Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak; Jon Rubinstein, former head of Apple's iPod division; and Heidi Roizen, a venture capitalist who once dated Jobs. Former Vice President Al Gore, California Attorney General Jerry Brown and Oracle's Larry Ellison were also on the list. (Photo Credit: Danny Novo via Flickr)
A handful of education and education technology associations launched a print and radio public service announcement campaign on Wednesday themed "One Giant Leap for Kids" that asks the presidential candidates to make K-12 student access to ed-tech and modern learning environments a top national priority. The PSAs will be sent to campaigns of of Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Barack Obama, D-Ill., along with five questions about each candidate's vision for the future of the modern classroom.
The PSAs will also be placed in a number of education and education technology trade publications. The campaign, which includes an online petition in support of making 21st century education a public policy priority, was developed by the Consortium for School Networking, the International Society for Technology in Education, the National Education Association and the State Educational Technology Directors Association.
"The future competitiveness of the United States is inextricably linked to the investments we make today to improve education, enhance learning and provide our students with the skills and knowledge that will afford them the opportunity to succeed among the best and brightest competitors in the world," CoSN's Keith Krueger said. "The presidential candidates have an opportunity to develop solid education platforms focused on achieving this goal." Read more about the PSA here.
"As the Democrats and Republicans gather at their national conventions, it is time to really think about a comprehensive national technology policy for the Internet age," TechCrunch's Erick Schonfeld wrote this week in a plea for the creation of a Digital Bill of Rights. Such a document would spell out "what freedoms and rights consumers can expect from Internet service providers, content companies, device manufacturers, and the government itself," he wrote.
Both presidential candidates have already outlined their technology platforms but nobody in either party has pulled together a focused set of principles that can truly guide both lawmakers and policymakers, Schonfeld said. "It’s a tall order, but it is important to have a consistent policy governing everything from Internet Protocol regulations to intellectual property on the Web," he added.
Key components of Schonfeld's Digital Bill of Rights include:
▪The Right to Use and Reuse Content
▪The Right To Control Digital Property On Your Own Device
▪The Right To The Free Flow Of Information
▪The Right To (Some) Privacy
▪The Right to Control Your Digital Identity
Read more details here.
Internet giant Google on Tuesday unveiled more than $10 million in investments and grants in Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS) technology including funding for research on next-generation geothermal resource mapping, EGS information tools, and a policy agenda for geothermal energy. According to a company press release, EGS expands the potential of traditional geothermal energy by orders of magnitude.
Google's EGS partners to date include: AltaRock Energy ($6.25 million), Potter Drilling ($4 million), and the Southern Methodist University Geothermal Laboratory ($489,521 grant). "While the U.S. debates drilling in the ocean for oil, we are focused on drilling for renewable energy -- and lots of it -- right beneath our feet," Google said. Find out more here and here.
Local media Web sites have the upper hand when it comes to delivering results for advertisers, according to a new report by the Online Publishers Association. The study found that consumers trust advertising on local newspaper, magazine and television sites, and are very likely to take action after viewing ads on these sites.
The results are part of “Local Online Media: From Advertising to Action,” an OPA report looking at consumers who get local information from online city guides, classifieds, magazines, newspapers, portals, television sites, user review sites, or yellow pages. “With strong brands and trusted environments, local media sites deliver concrete results for local advertisers,” OPA President Pam Horan said. The study, which was conducted by JupiterResearch, is available here.
XM and Sirius satellite radio networks are moving quickly toward consolidating operations in the wake of the FCC's approval of their merger so I thought it would be a good time to take a look behind the curtain. Last week I toured Sirius's Manhattan headquarters, which will serve as home base for the new entity, and here's what I found:
Sirius chief Mel Karmazin's office is curiously accessible to staff, separated only by glass walls. Other executive offices are similarly positioned along the edge of an expansive cubicle farm. Some of the cubes were deserted (the downsizing has already begun and there's more to come).
Howard Stern's compound is isolated from the rest of the Sirius studios and requires an additional key-card swipe to gain access. That's by design so the shock jock's guests (celebrities, porn stars, exotic dancers) and props (don’t make me explain) do not offend folks at The Catholic Channel, Martha Stewart Living and other family friendly stations.
Speaking of the magical Ms. Stewart, guests on her channel are not allowed to cook in-studio due to building code but there's nothing against a little potluck. Covered dishes and plastic utensils lined the countertop of her glass-walled domicile. Another note about dear Martha -- she reportedly brought in her own experts to stencil a perfect studio logo.
PC Magazine has named Tech Daily Dose one of the Top 100 Undiscovered Web Sites of 2008. Here's what the widely read high-tech publication said about our little spot on the World Wide Web: "It's a bit nichey for most, but for those interested in the role technology plays in government would be hard-pressed to find a better news outlet than this National Journal-run blog. From piracy to Net neutrality to online campaigning, this site is a fantastic resource for exploring tech policy inside the Beltway." See the rest of the honorees in the technology category here and the entire top 100 list here.
The airlines are facing tough times -- charging us for pillows, peanuts and extra luggage -- but Delta announced Tuesday that it would offer broadband wireless Internet access on its full domestic fleet by next summer… assuming anyone can afford to fly by then. The Atlanta, Ga.-based company said it would sell Wi-Fi service to customers traveling throughout the continental United States and is working with Aircell, an airborne communications provider, to install the network on more then 300 aircraft.
The system, known as Gogo, will enable Delta customers traveling with Wi-Fi enabled devices, such as laptops, smartphones and PDAs, to access the Internet, corporate VPNs, corporate and personal e-mail accounts, as well as SMS texting and instant messaging services. Gogo will be available to customers for $9.95 on flights of three hours or less and $12.95 on flights of more than three hours. Read Delta's press release here.
Surf on over to CongressDaily's TechCentral for a new "Issue of the Week." Here's a taste:
When Democratic lawmakers on Capitol Hill unveiled legislation over the past two years to tighten regulation of the wireless phone industry, carriers largely turned a deaf ear because they knew the bills stood little chance of passage. But if the Democrats hold both chambers in November, as expected - perhaps with significantly enlarged majorities -- and take the White House, regulatory-minded legislators may have a smug message for the wireless industry: Can you hear me now? Consequently, the possibility of a Democratic sweep in November is spurring the wireless industry to urge the Republican-controlled FCC to act this summer to head off potentially onerous regulation come January.
Here's some sad news in the intellectual property community -- noted copyright attorney William Patry is shutting down his popular blog after writing about 800 postings over about four years. He provided readers with two explanations for his decision: (1) The inability or refusal to accept the blog for what it is: a personal blog (2) The current state of copyright law is too depressing.
Patry wrote: "It is profoundly depressing, after 26 years full-time in a field I love, to be a constant voice of dissent. I have tried various ways to leaven this state of affairs with positive postings, much like television news shows that experiment with "happy features" ... But after awhile, this wore thin, because the most important stories are too often ones that involve initiatives that are, in my opinion, seriously harmful to the public interest. I cannot continue to be so negative, so often."
Participatory online news network NowPublic.com unveiled it's second MostPublic Index, identifying the 50 most influential individuals in Silicon Valley/San Francisco. The rankings are a barometer of who's voices are most heard in the digital landscape as new channels -- Twitter, Facebook, Flick, YouTube and the like -- transform how media is created and spread.
Here's the top 10 list:
Blogger and tech visionary Robert Scoble
TechCrunch's Michael Arrington
Twitter's Jack Dorsey
Twitter's Biz Stone
Google's Matt Cutts
Mashable's Pete Cashmore
Blogging pioneer Dave Winer
Venture capitalist Guy Kawasaki
Entrepreneur Loïc Le Meur
Digg cofounder Kevin Rose
MENLO PARK, Calif. -- July 28, 2008 -- Cuil, a technology company pioneering a new approach to search, unveils its innovative search offering, which combines the biggest Web index with content-based relevance methods, results organized by ideas, and complete user privacy. Cuil.com has indexed 120 billion Web pages, three times more than any other search engine.
Cuil (pronounced COOL) provides organized and relevant results based on Web page content analysis. The search engine goes beyond today’s search techniques of link analysis and traffic ranking to analyze the context of each page and the concepts behind each query. It then organizes similar search results into groups and sorts them by category.
Read the full press release here.
Initial thoughts -- the main page took too long to load; the results are displayed in an interesting, un-search-engine kind of way. I'm not sold yet but will continue to tinker.
Surf on over to CongressDaily's TechCentral for a new "Issue of the Week." Here's a taste:
When Super Tuesday rolled around this past February, and Minnesota Democrats faced the prospect of caucusing for their U.S. Senate pick, many supporters of Democratic aspirant Al Franken were prepared.
They had already watched the campaign's instructional video online designed to explain the complicated process. What's more, the organization of the one-time "Saturday Night Live" comic had relied on its Web site to manage and recruit volunteer precinct captains to turn out voters in more than half of the 4,000 precincts in Minnesota.
"It's a really important part of what we do, and we use it to amplify our activities," said Franken spokesman Andy Barr of the campaign's use of the Web. He noted that, in the run-up to the caucuses, large numbers of volunteers were able to self-schedule their time and coordinate with staffers at the campaign headquarters by using a simple application on the Franken Web site.
Welcome to the 2008 congressional campaign, Web 2.0 style.
Friday was the last installment of National Public Radio’s edgy, Web-savvy morning news show, “The Bryant Park Project.” It was a favorite of mine (and of many listeners around the globe) and it will be missed. The BPP staff posted a “WKRP In Cincinnati” inspired goodbye video, which you can watch here. They also created a music mash-up of the five stages of grief – denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Listen to those songs here. The team will soon be posting its final “tweet” on its Twitter page here but the show lives on (kind of) at the BPP Diner here.
Motion Picture Association of America chief Dan Glickman on Tuesday championed the need for intellectual property protections and the importance of bipartisanship to improve public policy. Hollywood's top lobbyist (and former Kansas congressman) spoke to the Bipartisan Policy Center at a luncheon, emphasizing the need for lawmakers to traverse party lines even during the partisan presidential election season.
“You have to look no further than the record-breaking box office success of The Dark Knight from last weekend to know that the appeal of American movies transcend political boundaries,” he said. “I believe the same can be true as we tackle the major issues facing our country and our world.”
Glickman has worked closely with policymakers from both parties, labor and a wide range of business communities to support efforts to broaden protections for copyrighted goods – from fashion and pharmaceuticals to music and movies. The MPAA has been part of a coalition supporting a bill awaiting action in Congress that the group believes would strengthen the U.S. economy and generate more jobs for American workers.
“I do believe we will see greater global cooperation on intellectual property,” Glickman added. “The more sophisticated work countries do in the global economy, the greater their own stake. And, same as any of these issues, the more it’s about all of us rather than some of us—the more progress we can make together.”
Senate Majority Whip Richard Durbin and Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., Monday asked three prominent Internet companies for an update on a voluntary code of conduct being written by the industry, academics and human rights groups to regulate businesses' activities in countries that restrict Internet use and content. The full story can be found in CongressDaily's AM edition.
While Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and others involved in the rulemaking have until September to decide whether to sign on to agreed upon language, a Google spokesman offered me this much: "Promoting freedom of expression and privacy around the world are top priorities for Google and our users. We are actively working on the code of conduct with all parties and look forward to reaching a consensus."
Colin Maclay, managing director of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society, which is helping stakeholders reach a consensus, added in an e-mail on Monday night that "it's beyond unrealistic to think that the deadline could move up" because the behind-the-scenes work represents significant commitments by a multitude of Internet players. Even if companies, including European partners that went unaddressed, did speed things up, non-corporate entities would not be able to (nor have any incentive to do so), he said.
Those involved in the dialogue have come a long way in nearly two years, Maclay said. "The trust developed among all partners in this process - while still somewhat fragile - has been the biggest story," he said. Maclay also noted that negotiations "were not along a two-dimensional continuum -- rather the parties definitely sought (and reached) common ground along a third dimension in a number of areas."
A handful of prominent technology experts got together Tuesday morning to provide congressional staffers with some insight into their industry's varied policy interests and legislative priorities. Speakers noted that the sector is often puzzling to legislators and regulators because it is complex and fast-moving and because IT is so diversified. Stakeholders rarely speak with one voice, they said.
Getting beyond buzzwords like innovation, openness, jobs, or economic growth is sometimes difficult but when you peel back the rhetoric, most policy differences among IT companies are the result of competing business models. Examples discussed at the Association for Competitive Technology event included network neutrality, privacy and tech standards. The Cato Institute's Jim Harper, CompTIA's Chris Katopis and others took part.
ACT also released a report at the event called: "Understanding The IT Lobby: An Insider's Guide," which is intended to help lawmakers make more informed decisions on policies that impact industry, consumers and the overall economy. In it, the authors describe IT business models and examine lobbying tactics employed on Capitol Hill today.
Longtime AOL executive, Washington Capitals hockey team owner and certified gazillionaire Ted Leonsis launched SnagFilms.com on Wednesday -- a Web site created to address the bottleneck in distribution for quality documentaries that has left many films unable to reach their potential audience or to provide a viable financial return. The endeavor is also backed by AOL co-founder Steve Case and venture capitalist Miles Gilburne.
At launch, more than 250 films are available for immediate streamed playback, requiring no software downloads, sign-ups or waiting, and an additional 200 films, already under contract, will be added by mid-August. Films from the vaults of PBS, National Geographic, United Nations, Sundance Preserve, IndiePix, Peter Jennings Productions, Arts Alliance America, and many others will be available for viewing.
“There has never been a time when so many high-quality socially relevant documentary films have been made, yet even though tens of thousands of documentaries are submitted to film festivals every year, only a handful find theatrical distribution," Leonsis said. "Through SnagFilms, everyone on the Web can be a theater owner and a film distributor if they just donate their pixels and enable these incredible documentaries to be seen."
In related news, SnagFilms also announced that it has acquired indieWIRE, the leading news, information, and social networking site for the international independent film community. IndieWIRE will continue to operate as a standalone, independent site while also providing content for SnagFilms.com.
Earlier this week, National Public Radio announced that it was pulling the plug on "The Bryant Park Project," the network's weekday morning news program tailored for hip, younger listeners. I have been so busy on Capitol Hil in recent days that I neglected to mention this. I'm a few days late with the shout-out but felt compelled to give the BPP crew some serious props.
The show was a gigantic breath of fresh air and it will be thoroughly missed -- and not just because I appeared as a guest last week and hoped to do so again soon. The last broadcast of the Manhattan-based program, which the New York Times pointed out is tuned into by many at npr.org rather than over the air, is slated for July 25. The newspaper called the show "an expensive failure" with a first-year budget of $2 million plus. The article also points out BPP's robust Web presence -- blogging, online video, etc.
"We are still absorbing the news of our untimely demise. We will still produce new shows for the next two weeks, and we'll keep on blogging and twittering. We may also dip into the Best of the BPP, stuff we're really proud of," a staffer wrote on the BPP's blog. Rob Paterson on the FastForward blog also offered some thoughts on why the axe fell on what I consider a smart, super-fantastic show.
Meanwhile, listeners have flooded the show's blog to register reactions. "This is the worst news ever!" writes one commenter. "I love BPP, it needs more time to grow! I love it as is, though. This is not fair." A few cheered the show's ending, calling it "drivel" and "an embarrassment to NPR." Several asked whether there might be a way to save the BPP. One listener started a Facebook campaign, championed by the blog Radio Sweethearts.
After a year of consultations, the Distributed Computing Industry Association has launched a program to protect peer-to-peer users against the inadvertent sharing of personal or sensitive data. The program, which was launched over the weekend, was conceived by P2P companies and other technology sector participants along with federal regulators.
The guidelines begin with a glossary defining terms, such as "recursive sharing," "sensitive file type," and "user-originated file," as well as protective measures, such as "affirmative step." It then outlines seven steps that are required to be in compliance with the program. Adoption is a voluntary decision to be made by each P2P firm but DCIA CEO Marty Lafferty said he is "confident of wide acceptance." His group will encourage and monitor compliance, he said on his Web site.
George Searle, CEO of the popular but controversial P2P application LimeWire, said is company is "committed to providing a great file-sharing product that people love to use and that provides for their personal safety." His company and others, including Kontiki and Pando Networks, took part in the development of the program.
Although copyright and related laws are not the only obstacle to digital preservation, there is no question that those laws present major challenges, the Library of Congress concluded in a report released Monday by its National Digital Information and Infrastructure Preservation Program in cooperation with partners in Australia, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Digital works are ephemeral, and unless preserved soon after creation, they will be lost to future generations, the study said.
The report includes recommendations for legislative reform and other solutions to ensure that libraries, archives and other preservation institutions can manage copyrighted digital information in a manner consistent with national and international laws. Specific recommendations include structuring national copyright laws to provide exceptions for
preservation institutions to proactively preserve at-risk copyrighted material in digital form, subject to measures appropriate to protect the legitimate interests of rights holders.
Recommendations in the U.S.-focused section of the report follow those outlined in by an independent Library of Congress study group in March. Recommendations from the other jurisdictions reflect each country's specific copyright laws. The four organizations worked closely together to develop joint recommendations for how copyright and intellectual property law might better accommodate digital content preservation.
Continue reading Library Of Congress: Digital Preservation Report.
NetChoice policy counsel Braden Cox posted an interesting item on the group's blog about a bill that passed out of the Louisiana legislature last week that was created to deal with social networking and Internet safety. The bill demonstrates what NetChoice believes is a trend toward comprehensive legislation that addresses education, law enforcement and parental empowerment.
In his post, Cox wrote that the bill, now on Gov. Bobby Jindal’s desk, "was well thought through and not a knee-jerk publicity-friendly response." Most early attempts to take on Web safety "showed little understanding of how the social networking sites worked, how individuals interacted, and the realities of the threats of online predators," he said.
Measures that require age and parental verification are "unworkable and ineffective, and would have the unintended consequence of giving parents and kids a false sense of security," Cox wrote. States like Georgia, Iowa, Mississippi, and Illinois have introduced such bills. All were scuttled.
Read his full NetChoice blog post here and for a full listing of Web safety measures that NetChoice supports, click here.
Residents and visitors to the nation’s capital this summer are getting an eyeful of messages about the upcoming switch to digital television. Ads highlighting the Feb. 17, 2009 transition deadline have been placed in 15 Metrobus shelters located in high-traffic areas downtown as part of the National Association of Broadcasters’ campaign to educate Americans about the big change.
The bus shelters are scattered throughout popular neighborhoods, including Capitol Hill, Union Station, Eastern Market, Federal Triangle, Farragut Square and near the White House. The ads will run until early August, NAB said in a Monday press release. NAB has also supplied 2,000 receipts promoting DTVAnswers.com to the Yellow Cab Co., the city’s largest taxicab fleet, so drivers can hand them to passengers.
The District of Columbia has one of the country’s highest percentages of over-the-air households, NAB said. More than 20 percent of residents in the city rely exclusively on free broadcast television. Read more about NAB's DTV initiative here.
(Courtesy: Futureshop.ca via YouTube)
On Friday, Microsoft founder Bill Gates officially transitioned from his day-to-day role at the high-tech company to focus more time on his work with the foundation he started with his wife, Melinda. Gates will remain Microsoft’s chairman and will be involved in select projects based on direction from CEO Steve Ballmer and the leadership team. Watch the hilarious "last day" video [above] from this year's Consumer Electronics Show. I wonder if his real last day was similar...
From Microsoft's Web site:
• Video Tribute: Looking Back, Moving Ahead
• Virtual Pressroom: Video Clips, Images and Press Materials
• Feature: Iconic Albuquerque Photo Re-Created
The Internet's key oversight agency relaxed rules today to permit the introduction of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of new Internet domain names to join ".com," making the first sweeping changes in the network's 25-year-old addressing system. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers -- ICANN -- unanimously approved the new guidelines on the final day of weeklong meetings in Paris.
ICANN also was considering a separate proposal to permit addresses entirely in non-English languages for the first time, the Associated Press reported. New names won't start appearing for at least several months, and ICANN won't be deciding on specific ones quite yet. The organization still must work out many of the details, including fees for obtaining new names, expected to exceed $100,000 apiece.
For more details, see the full article on CongressDaily's TechCentral.
The high-tech industry in the Washington, D.C. region area added 6,100 jobs for a total of 295,800 workers in 2006, making the capital region the second largest "cybercity" by high-tech employment, behind only the New York metro area, the American Electronics Association said in a new report released Tuesday.
The nation's capital also has the fifth highest concentration of high-tech workers in the nation, according to the most current metropolitan data available. High-tech firms employed 132 of every 1,000 private sector workers in 2006. The jobs are high paying too -- the average tech sector worker in D.C. earned $92,700 (67 percent more than the region’s average private sector wage).
Ninety-five percent of Washington's high-tech industry is in the services sectors, AeA noted. The area ranked first in the nation by employment in computer systems design and related services, with 137,100 workers in 2006. It also ranked first in engineering services, with 44,400 jobs, and 2nd in R&D and testing labs, with 40,200 jobs.
Continue reading Study: Tech Jobs Booming In Washington, D.C. Region.
Guess who's coming to Washington this week? A pair of outside-the-Beltway Internet visionaries: Robert Scoble and Gary Vaynerchuk. The former is a blogger, technical evangelist and author best known for his Scobleizer blog, which became a must-read in the high-tech community during his tenure at Microsoft. The latter has been called "the first wine guru of the Web video era."
While in Washington, Scoble expects to meet with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi; House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet Chairman Ed Markey, D-Mass.; Rep. Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla.; FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein; National Cable and Telecommunications Association President Kyle McSlarrow, and others.
On Wednesday evening, Scoble and Vaynerchuk will booze and schmooze with D.C. politicos and techies at MCCXXII. Capitol Valley Media has been working hard to plan the event with the help of Frank Gruber and the Social Times. RSVP here. Follow Scoble during his journey on his Qik channel, Twitter feed and through his FriendFeed.
Since it appears to be slow news day (at least so far), here are some tech headlines to keep your brains busy. Or you could always flip over to watch breaking news coverage of this guy stuck in a tree.
Yahoo, Google pairing has lawmakers searching for answers
House investigators prepare for hearings on FCC chairman
Homeland security subcommittee clears $31.4 billion FY09 funding bill
Apple's iTunes hits 5 billion mark
Mars lander loses some photos after data glitch
Regulators take aim at infant DNA-testing industry
Surf on over to CongressDaily's TechCentral for a new "Issue of the Week." Here's a taste:
Regardless of which political party takes over the White House next Jan. 20, the new administration will have to move quickly to meet several looming deadlines in 2009 related to critical homeland security programs.
In addition, lawmakers and administration officials say the Homeland Security Department must be ready and vigilant for the upcoming presidential transition, especially since similar events in other countries have been marred by terrorist attacks.
But, without time to waste after the transition, the department will also face a series of imminent requirements under existing laws and regulations in the areas of border security, protecting the nation's seaports and helping states stay on track to begin issuing new secure identity documents.
Specifically, deadlines will quickly materialize in 2009 for the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, the US-VISIT foreigner tracking system, the Transportation Worker Identification Credential program and the so-called Real ID law. Read the full "Issue of the Week" here.
It has been almost two years since billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban declared that "only a moron would buy YouTube and that Google was crazy for actually going through with it." Since that time, the video sharing site's traffic has skyrocketed but they have noted the difficulty in being able to monetize those eyeballs in a profitable manner.
This week, Cuban wrote on his blog that the YouTube business model "is broken and there is no light at the end of the tunnel." The reason, he explains, is Hulu, a joint venture by NBC, FOX and their cable networks that offers free streaming content. Hulu doesn't serve up more videos that YouTube -- they aren't even close -- but he writes that the site is "laughing at YouTube all the way to [the] bank."
Read Cuban's full post here.
New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo unveiled landmark agreements on Tuesday with Sprint, Time Warner Cable and Verizon Communications to shutter major sources of online child pornography. The announcement comes as many on Capitol Hill are exploring legislative solutions aimed at curbing illegal Web content.
The three major Internet service providers for the first time have agreed to block customers' access to child porn-themed online bulletin boards known as "newsgroups" and will purge their servers of child porn Web sites. That "new standard of responsibility… should serve as a model for the entire industry," Cuomo said.
An investigation by his office uncovered 88 different newsgroups that contained more than 11,000 lewd photos. As part of the probe, Cuomo's staffers developed a new system for flagging online child pornography and digitally matching an image anywhere else it is distributed. The companies will also pay $1.12 million to fund additional efforts to remove child porn from the Internet.
The Senate Judiciary Committee passed a bill last month intended to improve the federal government's response to Internet-based crimes against children and the House approved several bills in the fall. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., who sponsored one of the measures, lauded Cuomo's announcement. "We need to think of this as a war -- a war we must wage against sex predators, a war for our children," she said.
The Economic Club of Washington risked a journalistic coup on Monday when the organization sat roughly a dozen tech and telecom reporters in the back corner of the Ritz-Carlton ballroom to cover Google CEO Eric Schmidt's luncheon keynote. We weren’t expecting chow nor were we expecting a front row seat but the accommodations afforded by such an esteemed forum were disappointing to many.
Scribes were also barred from asking questions after his speech and were told that the right was reserved for several hundred club members and guests. One of my colleagues muttered: "They're certainly no Detroit Economic Club," which is known for its all-star speakers (and apparently a better relationship with the press).
To add insult to injury, several reporters who approached Schmidt with questions as he left the room were rebuffed. He had a flight back to Silicon Valley and didn't have time for walk-and-talk. Read speech coverage in CongressDaily's PM edition.
What do Aimee Mann, They Might Be Giants, and Wilco have in common? In addition to being several of this writer's favorite bands, they've also all donated tracks to a compilation album, which will be released next month, to benefit a proposed federally mandated "network neutrality" rule for broadband Internet providers.
To be clear, I cannot and will not take sides on the contentious congressional debate, but I will note that the Future of Music Coalition and Thirsty Ear Recordings brought together 15 acts for the "Rock the Net: Musicians for Net Neutrality" compact disc. Look for it on July 29. Regardless of one's stance on the issue, good music is good music, right?
The Media Institute, a nonprofit First Amendment and communications policy think tank, will launch its very own blog on Tuesday at www.mediacompolicy.org. The blog, called "Media & Communications Policy," could be a welcome addition to an already vibrant online community that discusses how the media affect and are affected by technology, commerce and politics.
The blog will feature insight from the organization's experts who have been avid observers and active participants in communications policymaking for more than 25 years. The creators' aim is to offer observations that "will be insightful -- and in no way constrained by the reigning ethos of political correctness," according to an e-mailed announcement.
Intriguing! Too bad the blog's name isn't -- but I'll withhold judgment until I see the finished product.
(ASACP's Joan Irvine & Stormy Daniels / Photo Credit: ASACP)
I thought I'd supplement my reporting of Stormy Daniels' visit to Washington on Thursday with some coverage by Jeff Dufour of the Examiner's "Yeas & Nays" column. He writes:
What does a famous adult-film actress wear at a D.C. press conference? No, whatever you were thinking of, it’s not that. For Wicked Pictures’ Stormy Daniels, who appeared at the National Press Club this morning, the choice was a knee length black business suit, a dark blue shirt and what looked to be an engagement ring on her left ring finger (sorry, guys).
Daniels was in town with the Association of Sites Advocating Child Protection, as they promoted a new “Restricted to Adults” label for use by adult sites, the better to flag themselves for parental-control software.
The association picked a good spokeswoman in Daniels. Apart from being a performer, director and writer of X-rated fare, she has some mainstream exposure, thanks to bit parts in “The 40-Year-Old Virgin” and “Knocked Up.” She’s also lobbied California state legislators in Sacramento on the same issue.
“I do not want children viewing my site or its adult-only content,” she said. “The adult industry does not want their business.” Read his full story here.
Congress is in recess for Memorial Day until next Monday. If you're looking for something to -- shall we say -- spice up what is likely to be a slow week on the tech policy front, we call your attention to a Thursday morning press conference featuring adult film performer/writer Stormy Daniels -- just in time for National Internet Safety Month.
The session at the National Press Club features a joint appearance between the odd couple of Daniels and Joan Irvine of the Association of Sites Advocating Child Protection. The latter group was created more than a decade ago with the goal of eliminating child pornography from the Internet and to help parents prevent children from viewing "age-inappropriate" material online.
The press conference appears to be the latest move in a campaign launched two months ago, in which Daniels -- whose work is produced by an entity called Wicked Pictures -- appears in a public service announcement sponsored by ASACP, promoting a "restricted to adults" label on applicable Web sites and encouraging parents to use filtering software. The PSA can be viewed above.
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children believes it's important for families to have conversations about serious subjects like safety while doing something positive together -- like cooking. So, just in time for June (National Internet Safety Month), Red Robin Gourmet Burgers has teamed up with the center to produce a cookbook filled with kid-invented recipes and online safety tips.
The book, filled with more than 50 recipes, will be sold for $5 on Red Robin's Web site until Aug. 10 and profits will benefit NCMEC. Joey Yarwick, 12, of San Diego, Calif., was the grand prize winner of Red Robin's contest with his "Au Brie Burger a la Francais" (made with ground sirloin, brie cheese, au gratin potatoes, butter, cream, fresh rosemary, salt and pepper).
Maybe NCMEC should also pair up with the American Heart Association for a handbook to teach kids how to avoid burger-induced heart attacks and how to stay safe online.
(Photo Credit: daxiang stef via Flickr)
From the New Scientist via EurekAlert:
LOL, OMG and TTYL: parents and teachers worry that teenagers' use of these and other forms of online shorthand is harming their language skills. Perhaps they will take comfort from a study suggesting that instant messaging (IM) actually represents “an expansive new linguistic renaissance."
Sali Tagliamonte and Derek Denis at the University of Toronto, Canada, say teenagers risk the disapproval of their elders if they use slang, and the scorn of their friends if they sound too buttoned-up. But instant messaging allows them to deploy a “robust mix” of colloquial and formal language.
In a paper to be published in the spring 2008 issue of American Speech, the researchers argue that far from ruining teenagers’ ability to communicate, IM lets teenagers show off what they can do with language.
Noah Clements writes on the Association for Competitive Technology's blog that the Software Freedom Law Center has taken a page from the Business Software Alliance's playbook by filing four heavily publicized lawsuits on behalf of BusyBox, a set of Unix utilities licensed under the Gnu Public License version 2.
The suits filed last fall and winter against Monsoon Multimedia, Xterasys, High-Gain Antennas, and Verizon, all involved the same claim that the companies (perhaps inadvertently) distributed BusyBox with their products without the source code as required by GPLv2. The suits all seem to have settled the same way -- by promising to release the code, appointing an "open-source compliance officer," and paying an undisclosed sum of money.
If these actions seem familiar, Clements writes, you might be thinking of the BSA, which has been criticized for what some call intimidation tactics to "punish businesses that may be trying to play by the rules." GPL lawsuits are only going to increase, he predicts. The people behind the SFLC recently formed a for-profit law firm so that open-source businesses can sue for violations as well.
Experiencing prolonged chest pains? Maybe you're allergic to your wireless Internet signal -- or at least that's what a group of citizens in Santa Fe is alleging. New Mexico's KOB-TV reports that the group has complained the city is discriminating against them because they will not ban Wi-Fi from public buildings.
Arthur Firstenberg told the station that he is highly sensitive to certain types of electric fields, including wireless Internet and cell phones. "I get chest pain and it doesn't go away right away," he said. Firstenberg and others say public Wi-Fi is a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act and the city attorney is checking into the situation.
The brand new National Museum of Crime and Punishment hosted a special preview party on Thursday night for those who wanted a sneak peek at its interactive, educational offerings a day before it opened to the public. The event included drinks, hors d'oeuvres, a CSI-style crime lab and high-speed police chase simulators.
The downtown D.C. destination, owned by an Orlando businessman in partnership with "America’s Most Wanted" host John Walsh, spans three floors and more than 28,000 square feet. It presents the history of crime and punishment in America -- from pirates and Wild West outlaws to high-tech white-collar criminals.
Interactive components include a studio with green-screen technology; touch-screen and zip code analysis for learning about community-based crime prevention programs; and a simulated FBI shooting range. The museum charges a whopping $17.95 for adults and $14.95 for kids and is conveniently located near the International Spy Museum ($18 for adults; $15 for kids) and the Newseum ($20 for adults; $13 for kids).
The Center for Democracy and Technology said Monday that the indictment by the U.S. Attorney’s office in Los Angeles of the St. Louis woman at the center of a MySpace suicide case represents "a gross and inappropriate expansion of federal power to regulate speech" over the Internet.
Lori Drew’s alleged deception -- creating a fake MySpace profile of a teenage boy -- to “gather intelligence” about her daughter’s classmate, Megan Meir, 13, turned horribly wrong. Megan took Drew’s messages as cruel and harassing, and ultimately unbearable. Megan committed suicide.
If the allegations are true, Drew could face civil liability for her actions, but the Justice Department, finding nothing appropriate in federal statutes to charge her with, charged her with breaching the MySpace “terms of service” agreement on the grounds that she accessed protected computers without authorization.
In the government’s theory, if someone signs up for an online service and then does not follow the rules of that service, the use of the service is "unauthorized" and thus (according to this indictment) a federal crime under a statute appropriately used to prosecute people who break into a computer system, according to CDT.
If the indictment stands, all that "fine print" of the user agreement is moved from an annoyance to a significant legal risk, the watchdog group said: "If you violate any term, you are committing a federal crime. This could seriously chill the robust interactivity of the Internet."
Technology and consumer advocates planned a unique discussion on Capitol Hill on Monday morning to discuss how federal, state, and local governments use their own version of "scrapbooking" to preserve records. Most of the time, technologies on which they rely are expensive to maintain and could easily be upgraded. Those systems also lack safeguards needed to protect privacy and sensitive data.
Association for Competitive Technology President Jonathan Zuck; Citizens Against Government Waste President Tom Schatz; and Stephen Forte of Telerik were to discuss the real costs of continuing to use legacy systems, both short and long term; the risks of not dealing with the problem, or choosing to simply avoid it; and what governments can do, including a discussion of where interoperability, accessibility, and privacy intersect.
I'm giving a shout-out to 463 Communications twice this week but it's kind of worth it. Sean Garrett, the PR firm's main man in San Fran, posted a really interesting missive on the company blog about present-day high-tech leadership in Silicon Valley.
Garrett writes:
A decade ago, we had industry leaders like John Doerr, John Chambers, Jim Barksdale, Reed Hastings, Craig Barrett and so on who put on the hat of industry steward and talked about the growth of the technology industry and the policy issues that would impact it. They weren't necessarily reserving their big keynote addresses or sit-downs with the Wall Street Journal to discuss Kleiner Perkins portfolio companies or Cisco's growth strategy.
Who is doing this in 2008? With a few exceptions, it's pretty much the same people. That's a good thing when considering how well Doerr, Chambers and Barrett do when evocatively connecting the dots between sound policy and innovation that benefits society at large. But, it's also a bad thing when you consider that a whole lot of companies have grown up and a lot of executives have made their marks since then without a contribution to the policy dialogue.
Read the full 463 blog post here.
Librarian of Congress James Billington on Wednesday named 25 additions to the National Recording Registry as part of its efforts to preserve the nation’s aural history. Each year the institution selects recordings that are "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" to preserve for all time. Read the press release here.
Some of the selections were:
▪ Harry S. Truman’s 1948 Democratic National Convention speech
▪ 1,000 broadcasts by Ronald Reagan before his presidency
▪ The first trans-Atlantic radio broadcast in 1925
▪ Michael Jackson’s "Thriller"
▪ The "Sounds of Earth" disc that traveled with Voyager through space
▪ Herbie Hancock’s "Headhunters"
▪ One of the few gospel recordings performed by Thomas Dorsey
▪ The first recording of "Call it Stormy Monday, but Tuesday is Just As Bad"
The 320,000-member American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers published a position paper last week to "demystify the basic rights of music creators" amid growing confusion and concern around music copyright issues. The topic has been a recent favorite on Capitol Hill.
The paper helps define a "right" and copyright basics; and explains the meaning of "performing rights." It also asks the gazillion-dollar question: "Are rights still relevant in the digital age?" The document also includes a "Bill of Rights for Songwriters and Composers," which has collected over 6,000 signatures in support to date online.
The document centers around 10 core principles like: "We have the right to be compensated for the use of our creative works, and share in the revenues that they generate." In addition to the flurry of online signatures, a number of prominent musicians have backed the effort, including Lionel Richie, Stacy "Fergie" Ferguson and Justin Timberlake.
If they haven’t already, the group might want to send a copy of the position paper and bill to the 200-plus members of the House who have signed a resolution to fight legislation to nix an exemption granted to AM and FM radio stations that allows them to broadcast music without paying royalties.
A similar effort just began in the Senate. Read more about it CongressDaily's AM edition on Tuesday.
IP Law360.com reports:
Attorneys looking to track down more details on U.S. patents issued this year may have trouble relying on Google Patent Search. The Mountain View, Calif.-based search engine launched its user-friendly beta Web site, www.google.com/patents, in December 2006 to make information on the United States’ seven million patents more accessible, but has not updated the site since Jan. 1. So Googlers, what gives?
Forbes.com published an op-ed Friday written by former Bush administration IP czar Chris Israel. In it, the Institute for Policy Innovation fellow discusses the recent announcement made by Comcast and BitTorrent that they will work together to find a market-based solution to challenges posed by the bandwidth demands of peer-to-peer file sharing.
According to Israel, the news "further demonstrates that an intrusive government 'network neutrality' regime is not necessary, and this provides a more promising future for protecting intellectual property online." In the debate over net neutrality, he writes, the issue of who gets to do what with the network they built has been the main sticking point while stopping the flow of illegal content has played a somewhat secondary role.
Meanwhile, House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers and Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., added to the ongoing debate over the topic on Capitol Hill on Thursday by introducing a bill that would require pipeline providers to interconnect on "a reasonable and nondiscriminatory basis" and ensure all legal content, applications and services have an equal opportunity to reach consumers.
Their bill, which approaches net neutrality from an antitrust angle, differs from a measure introduced by Energy and Commerce Telecommunications and the Internet Subcommittee Chairman Edward Markey, D-Mass., which is FCC-focused. Read CongressDaily's latest coverage here.
Winners of the annual Webby Awards were announced this week.
Highlights include:
▪ Webby Person Of The Year - Stephen Colbert, Comedy Central's "Colbert Report." He was honored for using the Internet to interact with fans of his show -- from "Google bombing" to make him the top search result for "greatest living American" to challenging the "truthiness" of Wikipedia.
▪ Webby Film & Video Person of The Year - Filmmaker Michel Gondry. His latest film, "Be Kind Rewind," is a celebration do-it-yourself filmmaking introduced "sweding" to the Internet, inspiring filmmakers to recreate scenes from their favorite films.
▪ Webby Artist Of The Year - Will.I.Am, frontman for the Black Eyed Peas. He was recognized for the songs and Internet videos he created in support of U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama. His online "Yes We Can" video has been viewed more than 17 million times since its February premiere.
▪ Webby Film & Video - Best Actor: Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim, creators of the cult hit timanderic.com. They are poster children for the kind of weirdness that could only take off online.
Other highlights include multiple winnings by NYTimes.com, The Onion, PostSecret, National Geographic, Apple.com, Hometown Baghdad, "You Suck at Photoshop," Flickr, FactCheck.org, BBC, TED.com, ESPN.com, and CondeNet. Read more about the winners here.
My former Technology Daily colleague Brittany Ballenstedt, now with Government Executive magazine, has an interesting story about new survey results released by the Gallup Organization that shows roughly one-third of young adults seriously would consider a career in public service if asked by a parent or the next president of the United States.
When it comes to exploring jobs in the federal government, respondents said they would be most likely to look at government Web sites as their primary source of information. Of millennials, 11 percent said they would use search engines like Google and Yahoo to learn about federal jobs, compared with 6 percent of those older than 30. Read the full story here.
The New York Times ran an interesting story on Tuesday about a George Washington University law professor who has discovered a constitutional flaw in the appointment process over the last eight years for judges who decide patent appeals and disputes. John Duffy's short paper documenting the problem seems poised to undo thousands of patent decisions concerning claims worth billions of dollars.
Since 2000, patent judges have been appointed by a government official without the constitutional power to do so, the paper reports. "I actually ran it by a number of colleagues who teach administrative law and constitutional law," Duffy said, recalling his own astonishment at finding such a chink in the legal armor.
Although a spokesman for the Justice Department would not offer a comment, the agency has already all but conceded that Duffy is right, the article states. Given the opportunity to dispute him in a December appeals court filing, government lawyers said only that they were at work on a legislative solution. Read the full story here.
Susan Crawford points out on her blog that the Yale Information Society Project recently posted its 9.5 Theses for Technology Policy in the Next Administration:
1. Privacy. Protect human dignity, autonomy, and privacy by providing individuals with control over the collection, use, and distribution of their personal information and medical information.
2. Access. Promote high-speed Internet access and increased connectivity for all, through both government and private initiatives, to reduce the digital divide.
3. Network Neutrality. Legislate against unreasonable discrimination by network providers against particular applications or content to maintain the Internet’s role in fostering innovation, economic growth, and democratic communication.
4. Transparency. Preserve accountability and oversight of government functions by strengthening freedom of information and improving electronic access to government deliberations and materials.
5. Innovation. Restore balance to intellectual property rules and explore alternative incentives to better promote innovation, freedom, access to knowledge, and human development.
Read the full list here.
High-tech giant Microsoft on Tuesday announced legal actions against eight software dealers in the United States, Canada, Egypt and the Netherlands that are alleged to have engaged in the illegal sale of unlicensed Microsoft products. The actions came as a result of hundreds of reports to the Microsoft anti-piracy hotline (800) RU-LEGIT (785-3448).
The alleged illegal sales involved the unlawful importation of unlicensed software into North America from multiple dealers overseas. As alleged in the lawsuits, the dealers deceived customers by selling them software without also providing them with the necessary licenses, according to a Microsoft press release.
"We want customers to receive the best possible experience with our products, including the benefits of support and service that come with the purchase of licensed, genuine software," Microsoft attorney Bonnie MacNaughton said. "The unlawful distribution and sale of this software has tangible, negative consequences for the marketplace."
Microsoft announced over the weekend that has withdrawn its offer to acquire Internet giant Yahoo for roughly $5 billion. "After careful consideration, we believe the economics demanded by Yahoo do not make sense for us, and it is in the best interests of Microsoft stockholders, employees and other stakeholders to withdraw our proposal," Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said in a statement.
"We have a talented team in place and a compelling plan to grow our business through innovative new services and strategic transactions with other business partners," Ballmer said. "While Yahoo would have accelerated our strategy, I am confident that we can continue to move forward toward our goals."
Roy Bostock, chairman of Yahoo issued a response reiterating that "our independent board and our management have been steadfast in our belief that Microsoft's offer undervalued the company and we are pleased that so many of our shareholders joined us in expressing that view." Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang added: "With the distraction of Microsoft's unsolicited proposal now behind us, we will be able to focus all of our energies on executing the most important transition in our history."
Stanford Group analyst Clay Moran believes Yahoo missed a good opportunity and he expected the firm's stock to drop significantly on Monday. "We believe this is good for Microsoft’s stock in the near term not only due to the unwinding of arbitrage positions, but also as it likely represented its best option under the circumstances," he added.
The result of the deal's demise makes Google the big winner, Moran said. The company's two largest competitors remain separate, thus entrenching its dominant position, and Yahoo may be pressured to further pursue a search outsourcing agreement with Google.
(Photo Credit: David Bohrer/White House)
Ninety-nine educators from around the country have been awarded the annual Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching for 2007. The teachers, who each get a certificate and $10,000 educational grant to be used over a three-year period, will be recognized during a ceremony on Friday evening hosted by National Science Foundation Director Arden Bement.
While in Washington this week, the teachers visited the White House and were slated to meet a NASA astronaut as well as members of Congress and the Bush administration to discuss hot topics in math and science teaching. A little bird tells us the group had been promised a snapshot with POTUS himself but he was busy chatting up the New York Giants who stopped by the South Lawn the same day. Instead, the teachers posed for a photo-op with Vice President Dick Cheney.
Click here for the press release and here for a larger Cheney pic.
Update: An administration official pointed out that Bush met with the award winners in 2001, 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007 and First Lady Laura Bush met with them in 2003 and 2007. Cheney met with the recipients in 2002 and again this year. According to the source, former President Bill Clinton never (or rarely) met with them.
The woman believed to be the so-called "D.C. Madam" was reportedly found dead Thursday in a shed near hear mother's Florida mobile home. The madam, Deborah Jeane Palfrey, was recently convicted on federal charges stemming from operating a prostitution service in the nation's capital with a number of high-profile clients. Her sentencing was scheduled for July 24.
The news prompted me to visit Palfrey's personal Web site where she previously posted a copy of her escort service records (all 46 pounds of them). The site, which was created in February 2007 and is registered to Palfrey's attorney, Montgomery Blair Sibley, is now blank except for a line that eerily reads: "deborahjeanepalfrey.com is off line until further notice."
It is unclear when the site was wiped clean. Deborahjeanepalfrey.com had a traffic rank of 3,463147366,946 on analytics site Alexa.com.
"Securing and Expanding Press Freedom Through New Media" was the topic du jour at a morning briefing on Wednesday hosted by the National Endowment for Democracy. The event preceded World Press Freedom Day, which is observed annually on May 3. This year's theme is "Freedom of Expression, Access, and Empowerment."
Participants included Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif.; John Palfrey, executive director of the Berkman Center on Internet and Society at Harvard Law School; Shanthi Kalathil, a consultant at the World Bank's Communication for Governance and Accountability Program; Aboubakr Jamai, a fellow at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government; and Xiao Qiang of the China Internet Project at the University of California, Berkeley.
By engaging in the new information society, "netizens" are contributing to the free flow of information and participating in the democratic process, which is a vital prerequisite to an open society, the foundation said in a description of the event posted on its Web site. The group pointed out that authoritarian governments are increasing efforts censor content and citizens’ access to information while investing in greater surveillance efforts.
Tech Daily Dose - prime placement, above-the-fold, so to speak. Yippie.
AT&T announced Tuesday that Apple's popular iPhone is now more accessible for Americans who are deaf or have a hearing or speech disability. The telecommunications giant unveiled a new $40 plan to give those customers the choice of unlimited text messaging, Web browsing and easy access to e-mail.
Under the service offering, "users can tap, flick and pinch the innovative multi-touch touch screen for a completely new world of functionality," AT&T Vice President Carlton Hill said in a press release. To qualify, customers must complete an application for eligibility through AT&T’s National Center for Customers with Disabilities, which can be found here.
Some creative (and computer-savvy) minds at the New York Post have unveiled a Web-based "2008 Democratic Fight Night" game that lets a reader toss his or her favorite candidate --- either Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., or Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y. -- into a virtual boxing ring to beat the living daylights out of the rival wannabe nominee.
A colleague who sent me the link pointed out that the game is "not quite Grand Theft Auto, but it still entertains." Well, he's right. It's a hoot. You can check it out here. Now, who will come up with the online game where presumptive Republican nominee Sen. John McCain of Arizona pummels himself? Any takers?
"The Kojo Nnamdi Show" on WAMU (88.5) in Washington will feature a segment Tuesday focused on cracking down on pirated goods. Nnamdi's interest in the issue comes on the heels of an annual report card on intellectual property protection released Friday by the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (Read CongressDaily's coverage here).
Guests (who will be on the air just after 12 p.m. ET) include: Assistant USTR Stan McCoy and Susan Sell, director of the Institute for Global and International Studies at George Washington University. Click here for more information about Kojo's show and to listen to the webcast.
Internet giant Google has joined the Family Online Safety Institute, an international nonprofit organization dedicated to identifying and promoting best practices, tools, and methods for Web safety. Google Policy Counsel Pablo Chavez was added to the group's board to help steer its strategic direction and initiatives. "Joining FOSI furthers Google's efforts to educate families about ways to use the Internet safely," Chavez said in a press release. Google joins a list of big name high-tech players involved in the effort, including AT&T, British Telecom, Comcast and Verizon.
Andrew Feinberg over at CapitolValley.net has an interesting take on the recently revived discussion on Capitol Hill over "orphan works," copyrighted materials whose owners cannot be found. He takes a look back at the Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998, which drastically extended copyright terms and then boils it down to how the change impacts John Q. Public.
Feinberg writes that one of his favorite television shows, "The Wonder Years," is unavailable on DVD because the nostalgic series featured so much copyrighted material from the 1960s era that obtaining permissions and arranging royalties has proved impossible. Some copyright holders won't give permission but others simply can't be found.
Free-market think tank iGrowthGlobal, which was launched last year by refugees from the Progress and Freedom Foundation, has changed its name to the Technology Policy Institute -- a little more generic, a little less new-agey. The firm, led by former PFF President Thomas Lenard, focuses on the economics of innovation, technological change, and related regulation in the United States and around the world. The group, which is guided by light-touch government and private sector driven policymaking, is also staffed by PFF alums Garland McCoy and Scott Wallsten. Lenard said the name change more accurately reflects the coming year's focus on communications and broadband policy, online privacy, and Internet governance. As part of the rebirth, TPI also launched a sleek, new Web site.
The National Press Club is getting tech-savvy with a Monday afternoon seminar titled "Reporting from Facebook." According to the notice, the session "will start by looking at what online social networks are and examining the differences between several of the most popular sites, including Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn. From there we will move on to a more in-depth look at Facebook - navigating the site, using it to research stories, using it to identify and contact sources, and using it to connect with your audience."
In Monday's San Jose Mercury News -- some thoughts on free trade from the Computer and Communications Industry Association's Ed Black.
Editorial: U.S. political leaders must recognize importance of free trade
As the leading export industry of the nation, the high-tech sector is a strong supporter of free trade and open markets. That is why the current confrontation between Congress and the Bush administration is so alarming.
We believe the Colombia trade agreement is good for our national security and foreign policy as well as for our economy. More important than the deadlock on this agreement itself is that it illustrates how far the United States has strayed from the path of bipartisan commitment to free trade.
Global trade has been and remains vital to the U.S. economy. The extraordinary economic growth after World War II was, in large part, due to the fact that the United States opened itself up to the world. Thoughtful political leaders of both parties understood trade's importance, and chose to subordinate politics to trade. The challenge was always to mitigate harm to some impacted sectors while expanding trade.
Read the full editorial here.
From the latest National Journal magazine:
Striking blondes have a way of getting attention in D.C. That’s a sure bet for adult-film starlet Stormy Daniels, who will represent the Association of Sites Advocating Child Protection at the National Press Club on May 29. The Los Angeles-based group of porn producers wants to keep adult Internet content away from kids. Online child safety has been a key issue for the Justice Department and has prompted hearings, legislation, and self-regulatory actions by industry, such as ASACP’s own online warning-label program. ASACP, whose inside-the-Beltway exposure has been scarce, has hired the Raben Group to raise its image in the public policy realm.
Check out ASACP's "Restricted to Adults" PSAs here and here.
National Journal Group's long-awaited Web site overhaul is complete and we hope you like the finished product. Here's a screenshot of a demo front page. Click here to visit the real thing and here to read a note to readers.
Cable and Internet giant Comcast and Pando Networks, a provider of managed peer-to-peer content delivery services, said Tuesday that they will lead an industry-wide effort to create a “P2P Bill of Rights and Responsibilities” for file-sharers and Internet service providers. The pair plan to collaborate with industry experts; other ISPs and P2P firms; content providers and others, to guide the popular high-tech platform.
The purpose of the initiative is to clarify what choices and controls consumers should have when using P2P applications as well as what processes and practices ISPs should use to manage P2P applications running on their networks, according to a Comcast press release. Comcast and Pando will also test Pando Network Aware™ P2P technology on Comcast’s fiber-optic network with the purpose of analyzing data flow.
The announcement builds on Comcast’s March 27 announcement to work with BitTorrent and the broader Internet and ISP community to more effectively address issues associated with rich media content and network capacity management. Comcast Chief Technology Officer Tony Werner said he hoped to gather stakeholders this spring and publish the P2P guidelines later this year.
Update: Marvin Ammori, general counsel of Free Press, said the Comcast and Pando have "declared themselves the arbiters of consumers' rights and responsibilities." Their announcement gives little information about the arrangement, "but Comcast's behavior tells us everything we need to know," he said, adding that the firm has been blocking P2P and doesn’t plan to stop.
Scott Cleland at the Precursor blog also weighed in, calling the partnership "a breakthrough agreement" that solves "multiple thorny problems." Read his full post here.
Internet innovator Google has partnered with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to provide software tailored to help automate and streamline the technical side of the group's child pornography investigations through advancements in video and image search.
"Criminals are using cutting edge technology to commit their crimes of child sexual exploitation, and in fighting to solve those crimes and keep children safe, we must do the same," NCMEC President Ernie Allen said in a press release. Working in cooperation with federal law enforcers, NCMEC analysts have reviewed more than 13 million child porn images and videos and the Google offering will help expedite searches.
In August 2006, Google joined the Technology Coalition and the Financial Coalition Against Child Pornography, industry initiatives launched by NCMEC and its sister agency, the International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children, to develop solutions that disrupt the ability of predators to use the Internet to exploit children or swap child porn.
Surf on over to CongressDaily's TechCentral for the latest on the pending merger between Sirius Satellite Radio and rival XM. Here's a taste of Monday's "Issue of the Week:"
When Sirius Satellite Radio Chief Executive Officer Mel Karmazin testified last year at congressional hearings on plans to combine his company with rival XM, he made several promises to win over regulators, including assurances that the millions of receivers in homes and cars wouldn’t become obsolete and that low-cost pricing would be available. Karmazin’s message apparently resonated with the Justice Department, which approved the $5 billion transaction on March 24 with no conditions.
Now, as the merger’s fate rests with the Republican-controlled FCC, industry analysts say the government’s review has shifted from whether the combination should win approval to how it should be conditioned.
(Photo Credit: Andrew Noyes)
Friday marked the grand opening at the new Newseum in Washington. It was a massive, day-long affair that drew scores of tourists, locals and, of course, news enthusiasts. I've had a keen interest in the project as it has evolved because of the groundbreaking high-tech components featured inside the museum. This is just a snapshot of what's inside. It's a must-see! [Click here for more photos]
Technology nonprofit One Economy launched its "Bring IT Home America" campaign on Tuesday -- a program geared toward combining the resources of government, business, and the nonprofit sector to extend innovative technologies to those who need them most. Companies like AT&T, Intel, Verizon and Wells Fargo have signed onto the two-year project.
According to the group, 21 percent of people earning less than $30,000 per year have broadband and the applications it makes possible in their homes; three times as many affluent households have high-speed access. One Economy believes in the need to inspire a "profound and urgent national commitment to bring the power of information to all Americans -- regardless of income, race, age, or geography."
By the end of the campaign, One Economy and campaign members will have engaged 5,000 youth to provide technology training in their neighborhoods, brought broadband into the homes of half a million Americans, and reached millions more with the next generation of public-purpose media, the Public Internet Channel, officials said.
West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin, a champion of the initiative, issued a statement saying broadband access is as important as water and sewer infrastructure for the Mountain State and other rural localities to prosper in the new economy. As a proud West Virginian who grew up with lackluster technology in school and even less at home, I couldn’t agree more.
R.E.M. rocked NBC's "Today Show" on Tuesday morning and chatted with Matt Lauer about their new album, how they have embraced high-tech distribution methods and the state of the American music industry.
Mike Mills on tech: "The technology is out there and the best thing you can do is break down the barriers between yourself and your fans. We streamed it on iLike and we have a Web site -- SupernaturalSuperserious.com -- where you can build your own video out of clips we've provided. It's just a way to remove the middle man and connected directly with the people who like you."
Michael Stipe on the music business: "I think the music is doing great right now, I think the industry is sort of suffering. But musicians continue writing good songs and there are fans out there that support them."
Watch "Today Show" clips here. I can't wait to get my hands on the new album. And yes, this was blogworthy because I love them and it's my birthday week so I'm entitled.
Everyone seems to have March Madness -- even CNBC, which is encouraging viewers to take part in Wall Street's answer to the annual college basketball frenzy. The network has lined up 64 companies, four sectors, and one champion. Winners are selected each night through April 7th at 5 p.m. and 8 p.m. ET by the "Fast Money" traders.
According to CNBC's site:
Hewlett-Packard rolled over 16 seed Western Digital. Then, in a hard fought chip conference battle, 9-seed Intel, squeaked by LCD giant Corning. Microsoft, appeared to be oblivious to taunting from the sidelines by Yahoo's Jerry Yang and they beat IBM. Larry Ellison's Oracle squad sailed by Comcast.
While EMC -- with its mysterious virtualization offense -- won a hard fought one over Verizon. 3 seed Apple stole from Research In Motion's playbook and won as the iPhone maker started to gain business customers. And John Chambers out-coached Michael Dell with Cisco beating Dell.
Meanwhile in live tournament play, AT&T made mincemeat out of Google* with the traders ruling in favor of telephone’s buildout over Google’s online ad sales.
*The producers of Fast Money advanced Google to the next round of competition anyway. Read more here. (Thanks for the tip on this, MB)
Richard Branson is a damned genius. That's why I consciously bypassed conveniently located Reagan-National Airport to fly to Los Angeles on Tuesday evening via Virgin America from Dulles International Airport, which is quite a haul from downtown D.C. I was tired of crisscrossing the country on the big, boring airlines and needed something fresh and new -- and boy, did Branson deliver.
From the time I boarded the plane, I knew I was in for a treat. The "mood lighting" blanketed the cabin in a pinkish-purplish hue and I made my way to my surprisingly comfortable coach seat (It's worth noting that the first class recliners are equipped with a massage feature). The safety video was kitschy and the on-board announcements were casual and friendly.
Now, comes the good part (and the part that makes this blog post a bit relevant for Tech Daily Dose) -- the in-flight technology smorgasbord. Everything a passenger needs for a 5+ hour flight from Washington to California is contained in a nifty little seatback touch-screen monitor/remote control. The system is known as Red, it's still in beta version and it totally rocked my world.
Watch: There are new release movies, music videos, live television, on-demand premium TV and multi-lingual TV offerings. Plus, as an extra special treat for techies: videos from popular blog BoingBoing. I watched "Across the Universe" for $7 because I missed it in theaters. Oh and there's a program guide that lets you set reminders for upcoming TV shows and Google Maps to let you know where you are in the sky.
Listen: The music player boasts an impressive track listing from a variety of genres and artists -- and passengers can create their own playlists that can be revived on future flights. Radio stations include rock, alternative, hip-hop, jazz and many others. If you're a fan of Cantonese or Mandarin pop music, they've got that too.
Continue reading Virgin America's In-Flight Entertainment Extravaganza.
Kara Swisher has an interesting blog post over at All Things Digital that points out that "the Blue states are taking back ground from the Red ones -- at least in cyberspace." In February, for the first time ever, Arianna Huffington's liberal political news and commentary site, the Huffington Post, reportedly surpassed conservative/populist Matt Drudge's Drudge Report.
She cited recent traffic data reports from both comScore and Nielsen Online. Nielsen, for example, said Huffington's traffic has more than tripled since February 2007 when it had about 1.1 million unique visitors. Last month, that number grew to 3.7 million. The same month, Drudge's site had 3.4 million (it had 2.75 million a year ago). Read the full post here.
Oxford University Internet scholar Jonathan Zittrain was in Washington on Thursday to speak at Google's D.C. office (alongside Stanford Law School's Lawrence Lessig who was in town to launch his ChangeCongress movement). I was supposed to attend but had a last-minute conflict.
Zittrain's talk was based around his new book, "The Future of the Internet -- And How To Stop It." His thesis, summed up nicely by the Washington Post's Mike Musgrove, is that "the prevalence of spam and malware may be setting the Web on a path to a kind of appliance-driven lockdown."
Zittrain argues "the threat of faulty code and spyware, among other problems, means that the world is starting to turn to closed systems -- like TiVos, Xboxes and iPhones -- that can't as easily be modified by users or gifted programmers," Musgrove wrote on the Post IT blog.
Andrew Feinberg at CapitolValley.net also wrote about the book, which is sitting on my nightstand begging to be read right after I finish "Patent Failure," a timely tome by James Bessen and Michael Meurer.
From Jim Romenesko at Poynter Online:
----------------------------------------------------
Memo to Orlando Sentinel employees
----------------------------------------------------
Sent: Tuesday, March 18, 2008 10:56 AM
To: OSC DL All Employees
Subject: Orlando Sentinel Digital Edition Launching March 31
On Monday, March 31, the Orlando Sentinel will launch a new digital edition of the newspaper via a new business partner, Pressmart. As a result, the paper will no longer be available in physical form at the Orlando Sentinel offices. On March 31, employees will receive an automated e-mail with a link access the newspaper. This link will also be permanently posted on the home page of SentineLink ...
... The decision to begin offering a digital edition was made in an effort to cut costs while expanding our digital product selection to our customers. In addition, there are significant financial benefits to the Sentinel, including increased ABC-audited circulation, lowered printing and distribution costs, and reduced future archival costs.
Read the full memo here.
There's a special story posted on CongressDaily's TechCentral written by my colleague Shane Harris at National Journal magazine. In it, he conducts an exit interview of sorts with Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. After weathering congressional criticism, Gulf Coast hurricanes, and a failed bid for immigration reform, Chertoff remains upbeat about DHS, the shape in which he leaves it, and the future of border security.
In Harris's interview, Chertoff warned about national complacency toward terrorism, praised his department's efforts to prepare for the upcoming transition, and questioned whether the Federal Emergency Management Agency should be taking on reconstruction efforts. Click here to read the Q&A.
An international competition to inspire viable, super-efficient vehicles that could help curb the United States dependence on foreign oil and stem the effects of climate change will kick off this week at the New York Auto Show. The Senate passed a resolution supporting the project last Thursday and the House did the same in February.
The winning entrant of the Automotive X Prize must produce a commercially viable vehicle that gets at least 100 miles per gallon fuel efficiency over a series of road trials meant to simulate real world driving conditions. The public unveiling of the multi-million dollar prize purse and title sponsor will take place on Thursday.
"The dual passage of both the House and Senate resolutions demonstrates that our elected officials understand the real issues consumers are facing today and that real solutions will require the American spirit of free enterprise," Automotive X Prize Executive Director Don Foley said. "This high-profile competition is igniting ideas and concepts across the globe to help solve the challenge of energy security and climate change."
The high-priced call girl who effectively ended New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer's political career this week happens to be an aspiring musician and a song featured on her MySpace.com page is getting quite a bit of radio airplay.
Several stations, including the Big Apple's "K-Rock" and Z-100, downloaded Ashley Alexandria Dupre's song "What We Want" and featured it as part of their pop music line up. Eric Johnson of New Jersey's WSJO told Radio-Info.com that "it's not a bad mid-tempo pop song. We’ll spike it in and let the listeners decide."
News of Dupre's ditty is particularly interesting given Spitzer's high-profile crusade against radio "payola." When he was the state's attorney general, his office served subpoenas against record labels in a probe into the illegal compensation of radio stations for playing certain songs.
A tipster tells Tech Daily Dose that Spitzer "can now claim that his anti-payola efforts at getting new artists on the air were successful." "Apparently Spitzer thinks pay-for-play wasn't so bad after all," the snarky source added.
From the Reuters DealZone blog:
Sirius Satellite Radio CEO Mel Karmazin said Wednesday he hoped U.S. regulators would rule by the end of March on the satellite radio company’s proposed merger with rival XM. Speaking at the Bear Stearns 21st Annual Media Conference, Karmazin said he “took heart” about recent comments by FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, who indicated that his agency aimed to rule on the deal by the end of March.
Shares of the satellite radio companies immediately jumped on hopes the deal could actually close soon. XM Chairman Gary Parsons was less specific than Karmazin when he spoke at the Bear Stearns conference. He merely said he was confident the regulatory review was moving forward “in a timely manner.”
Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet & Society, Google and the Family Online Safety Institute will host an afternoon discussion March 20 featuring Oxford University Web policy expert Jonathan Zittrain. He will preview his new book, "The Future of the Internet - And How To Stop It."
Stanford University law professor Larry Lessig will furnish a response. In February, Lessig flirted with a run for the seat of the late Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif., who passed away earlier this year. The special Democratic primary is April 8 and Lessig said he did not think he could win the election with six weeks of campaigning.
The invitation-only event will take place at Google's new Washington, DC headquarters at 1101 New York Ave., NW.
Watching the guerilla tactics of Hollywood paparazzi, as depicted on TMZ.com's star-stalking TV series, must have paid off. Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates was on Capitol Hill on Wednesday and after an hour-long stakeout, I nabbed a few precious moments of his time.
This excerpt from CongressDaily's AM edition is what you get when you hurl yourself into an elevator with the software pioneer (and second wealthiest man on the planet) and his visibly annoyed posse.
After addressing a closed-door Democratic Caucus lunch, Gates told CongressDaily that one of his companies' legislative priorities this year -- overhauling U.S. patent laws -- was "probably too complicated for a hallway conversation." The House passed a patent bill in September and a Senate version awaits floor action. Microsoft is part of the Coalition for Patent Fairness, which has been leading the charge to change the laws. When asked how much Capitol Hill had changed since Gates himself was a congressional page, he said: "A lot less than you think."
Gates was slated to speak to the Northern Virginia Technology Council on Thursday morning. Also, if you want to see excerpts of the House Science and Technology Hearing where Gates testified, click here.
As the net neutrality antics played out on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, Motion Picture Association of America chief Dan Glickman was making news of his own at an entertainment industry conference in Las Vegas. His speech at the ShoWest summit railed against net neutrality efforts, marking the first time he has spoken out on the issue on behalf of major movie studios.
"Government regulation of the Internet would impede our ability to respond to our customers in innovative ways, and it would impair the ability of broadband providers to address the serious and rampant piracy problems occurring over their networks," Glickman said. Read CongressDaily's story here and MPAA's press release here.
Internet billionaire and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban's worlds are colliding (see "Seinfeld" reference here). The avid Web writer posed an interesting question on his personal blog on Monday: "Should bloggers be allowed in the Mavs locker room?"
"Conceptually it's not a big deal. A blogger, a beat writer, columnists. The medium they use to deliver their content should be irrelevant. No question about it," he writes. "But then there is the question of real world constraints." The area where media conducts interviews after a big game is pretty cramped as it is -- without bloggers in the mix.
Read the rest of his commentary here. It's probably something that sports teams -- major and minor -- have had to wrestle with as the new media writers and traditional scribes compete for space and time.
I just remembered an interesting bit of information -- Nine Inch Nails' latest album, "Ghosts I-IV," has been released under a Creative Commons [attribution non-commercial share alike] license. I heard the news from dinner companions at last week's Radio and Television News Directors Foundation gala but filed it away in my brain and it just rattled loose.
NIN's Web site says "an exciting partnership and experience regarding this release will be announced soon." According to the band: "This music arrived unexpectedly as the result of an experiment… The end result is a wildly varied body of music that we’re able to present to the world in ways the confines of a major record label would never have allowed."
Stupid Spitzer
Huffington Post/Bill Press
Here's one thing I'll never understand: Why do such smart men do such dumb things? Or maybe we should ask: Why don't smart men use their brain instead of some other part of their anatomy? It's a bipartisan malady. Mark Foley and Larry Craig. Gary Hart and Bill Clinton. And now, Eliot Spitzer - caught by a federal sting operation in the middle of a high-class prostitution ring.
Just. Keep. It. In. Your. Pants!
Fire Dog Lake
… As a resident of New York and someone who voted for Mr. Spitzer, I have a question for him: what the HELL were you thinking? You were the Attorney General, for crissakes, the self-righteous bulldog who chased down white collar criminals and prosecuted them. Successfully. You made yourself a whole lot of enemies on Wall Street who would kick up their well-polished heels if you were publicly scandalized. You won the Governor's mansion running on your record at the AG's office. Oh, did I mention the enemies you made on Wall Street?
Republicans Try, Unsuccessfully, To Hits Dems Over Spitzer
Crooks and Liars
Given the humiliating difficulties facing the National Republican Congressional Committee, I guess it’s not too surprising the gang would try to connect Democratic House candidates to Eliot Spitzer’s scandal, but this is just weak.
Left And Right Agree: Eliot Spitzer Must Go
Michelle Malkin
A survey of this morning’s lead editorials in the NY press shows a bipartisan consensus: Eliot Spitzer has to go. Both left and right bristled at Spitzer’s brief, arrogant, remorseless, and dishonest statement yesterday apologizing for his “private matter”–a very public matter of alleged law-breaking, breach of electoral trust, and political self-destruction.
This isn’t about tech policy nor is it particularly relevant to Washington, but it's news about my favorite band, so you'll have to just humor me. The Silicon Alley Insider reports that R.E.M. will debut their latest album on the social music discovery site and popular Facebook application iLike.
The album, "Accelerate," will launch March 24 on iLike but Warner Music Group won't sell the album until April. The Insider says that's significant because while plenty of artists have previewed work via various broadcast outlets (like XM and Sirius), a social network won out in this case. That could signal a significant shift in how music labels view promotions.
Meanwhile, I have go sign up for iLike and mark my calendar for March 24.
Big news from The New York Times:
ALBANY - Gov. Eliot Spitzer has been caught on a federal wiretap arranging to meet with a high-priced prostitute at a Washington hotel last month, according to a person briefed on the federal investigation. The wiretap recording, made during an investigation of a prostitution ring called Emperors Club VIP, captured a man identified as Client 9 on a telephone call confirming plans to have a woman travel from New York to Washington, where he had reserved a room.
The person briefed on the case identified Mr. Spitzer as Client 9. The governor learned that he had been implicated in the prostitution probe when a federal official contacted his staff last Friday, according to the person briefed on the case. The governor informed his top aides Sunday night and this morning of his involvement. He canceled his public events today and scheduled an announcement for this afternoon after inquiries from the Times. Read more.
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children's CyberTipline, a system for reporting sexual exploitation of children, will celebrate 10 years of operation this week. The program has processed more than 570,000 reports of sex crimes against children over the past decade.
The tipline is staffed 24 hours a day, seven days a week by personnel in NCMEC's Exploited Child Division who analyze and develop the leads, which are then referred to law enforcement for investigation and prosecution.
"In the first 10 months of operation, the CyberTipline received a total of 4,500 reports," NCMEC President Ernie Allen said in a press release. "For the 12 months during 2007, that number exploded to 105,000." The increase in the number of reports of child pornography and online sexual solicitation of children is alarming, he added.
In addition to the reports received by the general public, the tipline also gets leads from U.S. based electronic service providers and each report may involve several dozen or even hundreds of images, NCMEC said. To date, ESPs have reported more than five million images.
The Vatican has updated its list of mortal sins, those grave sins for which believers will go to hell if they have not confessed and received forgiveness. The list, published in the Vatican newspaper, now includes pollution, drug-dealing, social injustice, and genetic/stem cell experiments.
News/satire site 236.com has a few more tech-related ones to add:
Mortal (deadly) sins:
Updating your blog too much
Using capital letters in personal email correspondence
iPhone worship
Venial (minor) sins:
Not updating your blog enough
Using "Wikipedia" or "YouTube" as a verb
Still not sure:
Buying stuff from J. Crew online, wearing it once, then returning it
Talking on cell phones in restaurants
Read the full list here.
The creative minds behind SaveNetRadio.org, a grassroots group formed to fight against recently instituted increases in fees paid to the music industry by Internet radio services, came close to winning a prestigious PR Week award on Thursday night but was beat out by Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co.
A team from Qorvis Communications, who created the campaign last spring for the Digital Music Association, was among several entries in the "crisis or issues management campaign of the year" category. The winners were announced at a ceremony at Tavern on the Green in Manhattan.
SaveNetRadio rallied online radio listeners, artists and independent labels and in a matter of weeks, began working to reach target audiences through online recruitment and branding. The campaign used a combination of traditional and new earned media and Internet social networks.
During a three month period beginning in April 2007, the coalition recruited over 2,000 webcasters, 6,000 artists and over 100,000 "listener activists." More than a million people used SaveNetRadio's Web site to correspond with their congressional representatives. That spurred the introduction of the Internet Radio Equality Act, which garnered 140 cosponsors.
Investor Warren Buffett is the richest man on the planet, Forbes magazine announced on Wednesday. His estimated $62 billion, up $10 billion from a year ago, puts him ahead of Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, who was the richest for 13 straight years. Maybe he'll have to start moonlighting somewhere to make ends meet.
Gates, who will testify about U.S. innovation and competitiveness on Capitol Hill next week, is now worth $58 billion and is ranked third in the world. He is up $2 billion from a year ago.Mexican telecom tycoon Carlos Slim Helú is the world's second-richest man, with an estimated net worth of $60 billion.
According to the magazine, this was a record-breaking year for young billionaires, with Forbes finding 50 under the age of 40, 25 of whom are new to the list. Sixty-eight percent of these under-age-40 tycoons built their own 10-figure fortunes, including Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.
Read more about this year's wealthiest by clicking here.
Cable news network CNN has expanded its iReport offering to include a standalone Web site (iReport.com). The new beta site is aimed at delivering "uncensored, user-powered news." "CNN built the tools, you take it from there," the front page boasts.
All the stories are user-generated and instant (CNN does not vet or verify their authenticity or accuracy before they post). Content with the "On CNN" stamp have been vetted and used in CNN news coverage.
Since the Web site's launch two weeks ago, the iReport has collected 1,200 contributors. A few examples: One user uploaded photos she took of Kosovo's declaration of independence; another snapped images from a memorial for students slain in a shooting at Southern Illinois University; and another wrote a story about autism in a virtual world.
The guys over at the Capitol Valley blog must have been seriously caffeinated Tuesday because they churned out a ton of content from the Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet's summit (On several occasions author Andrew Feinberg was snapping photos like a paparazzo who had just witnessed Britney's emergence from the psych ward).
The blog has a flood of commentary, interviews, audio files and pictures so it's worth a look if you weren’t able to make it to the Politics Online event. Several highlights: Yahoo debuts its new political ad platform; the questioning of Facebook's Adam Conner; and a moment with Internet visionary Tim Wu.
The recently launched blog covers (according to its 'about us' page) "technology and politics and whatever else the editors think will make you laugh, cry, or think during the work day."
Here is CongressDaily's coverage of the conference:
Panelists Say Internet Political Impact Only Likely To Grow
Report: Relatively Small Amount Spent On Web Campaigns
After almost a decade, leaders of the California-based group that administers the Internet-addressing system believe that change will do them good. That change, they say, is transitioning the coordination of technical functions of the Web to the private sector -- and some believe that loosening the reins of government is going to be a chore.
Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers Chairman Peter Dengate Thrush issued a statement last week that the United States "has been and remains a staunch advocate for an Internet that is based on values of freedom, enterprise and crucially coordination -- not control." His comments were read at a National Telecommunications and Information Administration summit on the topic.
Read CongressDaily's "Issue Of The Week" here.
MySpace.com co-founder Tom Anderson, the first one to "friend" anyone who creates an account on the popular social networking platform, sent a mass message to users late Sunday updating everyone on changes to the site's in privacy policy and terms of use.
Here's what landed in my inbox:
From: Tom
Date: Mar 2, 2008 11:57 PM
Subject: Updated Terms of Use and Privacy Policy
My lawyers tell me that I need to let every MySpace user know that MySpace's Terms of Use and Privacy Policy have been updated. Feel free to take a look at them: Terms of Use / Privacy Policy
Don't worry everyone received this message from me, and this doesn't mean we are charging. MySpace is still free!
An international mediator of Web address squabbles reported Wednesday that it presided over a total of 1,805 domain name disputes in 2007, up from 1,658 disputes in 2006. Cases filed with the National Arbitration Forum are heard and decided by independent panelists with specialized domain name, trademark, copyright and/or e-commerce experience.
According to the group, domain names with common extensions like .com, .net, and .org accounted for 1,775 filings and Web addresses with the .us extension accounted for 30 filings. Of the 1,805 disputes, panelists heard 1,391 cases; parties worked together to settle many others, officials said.
"Our dispute resolution program is available to deal quickly with the core problem: a domain name registered and being abused by a party who cannot claim legitimate rights to it," NAF's Kristine Dorrain said. Since the forum began taking cases in 1999, there have been 9,916 domain name complaints filed.
The Newspaper Association of America named the winners of its 2008 Digital Edge Awards this week. The ceremony took place on Monday at the NAA Marketing Conference in Orlando, Fla. The competition drew more than 200 entries from U.S. newspapers of all sizes.
Each entry was judged on strategy, creativity, impact in the local market and adaptability to other markets, according to the NAA. Judges name winners in three groups based on the newspaper's print circulation size. This year's Online Innovator Award went to Dan Shorter for his work at PalmBeachPost.com.
And the winners are (drum-roll please) ...
Best Overall Newspaper Web Site
LJWorld.com, The Lawrence Journal-World/The World Co. (circ. < 75,000)
Knoxnews.com, Knoxville News Sentinel (circ. 75,000 – 250,000)
PolitiFact.com, St. Petersburg Times and Congressional Quarterly (circ. > 250,000)
Best Local Guide or Entertainment Site
Lawrence.com, The World Co. (circ. < 75,000)
Austin360.com, Austin American-Stateman (circ. 75,000 – 250,000)
Vita.mn, Minneapolis Star Tribune (circ. > 250,000)
Read the full list of honorees here.
Television viewers, rejoice. The Hollywood writers' strike, which ended earlier this month, is now officially, totally, completely over and done with. Here's the proof -- a statement from the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers:
"The members of the Writers Guild of America have ratified their new labor agreement. Now that our industry is back in business, our goal is to collaborate with everyone in the industry - writers, directors, actors and stagehands alike - to produce the highest-quality entertainment products without any further interruption."
Read CongressDaily's coverage of the strike's conclusion here.
Surf on over to CongressDaily's TechCentral for these stories and more:
Royalty Fight Between Broadcasters, Music Industry On Tap
A months-long lobbying blitz surrounding the music industry's push to eliminate an exemption granted to over-the-air radio stations, which allows them to broadcast music without paying royalties, ramped up as broadcasters from around the country arrived in Washington for their annual leadership conference.
Martin Says FCC May Move Against Broadband Operators
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- FCC Chairman Kevin Martin told a packed hearing that his agency may take action to keep telecom giants from acting as gatekeepers of the Internet.
Stanford Prof Lessig Opts Against Bid For Lantos' Seat
Just days after he revealed he was considering a bid for Congress, Stanford University Law School Professor Lawrence Lessig announced that he would not run for the seat of the late Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif.
FTC Passes On Probe Of TV Copyright Warnings
The FTC will not pursue a formal investigation into a complaint lodged last summer by the Computer and Communications Industry Association that alleged professional sports leagues and media giants misrepresent their legal rights through deceptive and threatening statements, CongressDaily has learned.
A massive boycott by eBay sellers will conclude Monday after causing auction listings on the popular Web site to drop by as much as 13 percent since the strike started Feb. 18, according to third-party tracking firms. A company official told USA Today that internal statistics showed the boycott "has had no impact on our listings."
The protest was in opposition to pricing changes, which fluctuate seasonally and sometimes unpredictably, the newspaper reported. EBay announced that the cost to list items will be cut by 25-50 percent, but the commission that eBay charges for completed sales increased, starting last Wednesday. Read the article here.
During the last big boycott in 2005, sellers had little choice but to crawl back to eBay, TheStreet.com reported. Now, however, the marketplace is much broader, and sellers can push their wares on sites like Amazon or Google, the Web site said. That story can be found here.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is headed to Asia this weekend and Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang wants her to take the message of Internet freedom there with her. A letter from Yang to Rice obtained by CongressDaily urges the U.S. government's top diplomat to help alleviate "the plight of political dissidents who have expressed their views over the Internet in China" and have been jailed. Yahoo took a beating at a high-profile November hearing by the House Foreign Affairs Committee about the company's connection to the imprisonment of a Chinese journalist. Read more in the PM edition.
With tax season looming, Americans have returns and refunds on their minds and scammers are taking advantage of that yet again, computer security firm MessageLabs warned in an e-mail blast on Thursday. This year, authenticity is the scammers' modus operandi as they have concocted fake Web pages that mimic those on IRS.gov.
January saw a spike in this type of spam, when the volume increased to 10 times the normal level and the percentage of IRS-related malware increased to 6 percent, the firm said. If a recipient clicks on a link and completes the form requesting personal and financial information, the site then redirects to the actual IRS Web site, which is unlike similar scams, MessageLabs analyst Paul Wood said.
Microsoft unveiled a set of sweeping changes to its technology and business practices on Thursday to increase the openness of its products and drive greater interoperability, opportunity and choice.
The changes are organized into interoperability principles and corresponding actions: 1) ensuring open connections; 2) promoting data portability; 3) enhancing support for industry standards; and 4) fostering more open engagement with customers and the industry, including open source communities, according to the software giant's Web site.
"These steps represent an important step and significant change in how we share information about our products and technologies," Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said. For 33 years, the company has shared "a lot of information with hundreds of thousands of partners" but this announcement represents a key expansion "toward even greater transparency," he said.
The Association for Competitive Technology's Jonathan Zuck said the move "will undoubtedly put IBM and the rest of the ECIS [European Committee for Interoperable System] companies back on their heels." ACT is backed by Microsoft and other tech companies.
"Microsoft broadened its commitment to interoperability to include all of its high volume products, leaving these competitors with little if anything left to complain or sue about," Zuck wrote on ACT's blog. "After years of hounding Microsoft in the courts and in front of governments, these competitors are now confronted with the reality that Microsoft has raised the bar on interoperability, and they too might have to measure up."
As tax season looms, an increasing number of people plan to file their federal taxes online, according to The Conference Board. Forty percent plan to file online, up from 34 percent three years ago and more than two-thirds of consumers report having filed online for three years or more, up from less than 55 percent in 2005.
"Given the many online tax filing alternatives and payment options, such as IRS E-file, Free File and direct deposit options, it’s not surprising that every year an increasing number of consumers are filing electronically,” said Conference Board Consumer Research Center Director Lynn Franco. “Once they file online, they tend to stay online.”
The think tank's survey showed that more consumers are comfortable filing their taxes online, compared to other financial transactions. Half are "extremely concerned" when banking or paying bills on the Web while 44 percent express similar concerns when filing taxes online. Read more here.
Long Island University has announced the winners of the George Polk Awards, which recognize media coverage that exposes corporate and government misfeasance, and a popular political blogger is among the honorees. Polk was a CBS reporter who was slain while covering the civil war in Greece in the 1940s.
The Polk Award for legal reporting will go to Joshua Micah Marshall, editor and publisher of Talking Points Memo. His writing "led the news media in coverage of the politically motivated dismissals of United States attorneys across the country," according to a university press release. Marshall and his staff "connected the dots and found a pattern of federal prosecutors being forced from office for failing to do the Bush administration's bidding."
As part of the prize, Marshall will take part in the annual George Polk Seminar on April 16 alongside other winners. The panel will explore the topic: "Strategies – Old and New – for Groundbreaking Journalism." The official awards luncheon will occur the following day. Read more about the award (and winners) here.
Most Internet sex offenders are not adults who target young children by posing as another youth, luring children to meetings, and then abducting or forcibly raping them, according to new a new study by the Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire.
The bulk of online sex offenders are adults who target teens and seduce victims into sexual relationships. They take time to develop the trust of victims, so the youth see the relationships as romances or sexual adventures, according to the analysis published in the new issue of American Psychologist, the journal of the American Psychological Association.
This topic was front-and-center in the 109th Congress when the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations held a series of hearings on Internet-related crime during which members heard testimony from a host of government officials, industry experts and other child advocates.
Youth most vulnerable to online sex offenders have histories of sexual or physical abuse, family problems, and tendencies to take risks both on- and offline, researchers said. The study was based on three surveys -- two involving phone interviews of 3,000 Internet users between the ages of 10 and 17 and one involving 612 interviews with federal, state and local law enforcement officials.
"To prevent these crimes, we need accurate information about their true dynamics," lead author Janis Wolak said in a press release. "The things that we hear and fear and the things that actually occur may not be the same. The newness of the environment makes it hard to see where the danger is."
Steven Hirsch, the self-titled "King of Porn," planned to tell an audience at Yale University on Saturday that responsible companies in the adult industry have gone to great lengths to deter minors from accessing inappropriate content but major search engines have not.
"None of the search engines and portals, but particularly Yahoo and Google, has taken any significant steps in this direction," the co-founder of adult film studio Vivid Entertainment said in a press release previewing his speech.
Hirsch also said encouraged Internet service providers to "more vigorously promote their filtering and age verification programs to their subscribers." ISPs as well as payment systems and adult content producers "all need to be more responsible with regard to allowing X-rated material to be obtained by non-adults," he noted in lecture remarks.
Vivid became one of the most famous adult studios in the world by making a concerted effort to become more accepted by mainstream media and by capitalizing on advances in technology, he said. "We always believed it was important to stay on top of all new technologies," he said.
Jason Kottke muses on his blog about the abundance of Web denizens building "single serving sites," which he defines as sites "comprised of a single page with a dedicated domain name and do only one thing."
Some fun and interesting examples provided by the blogger:
Barack Obama Is Your New Bicycle
Sometimes Red, Sometimes Blue
Is Lost a Repeat?
D-E-F-I-N-I-T-E-L-Y
Are We At War With Iran?
The Abe Vigoda Status Page
Is Paris In Jail Right Now?
Am I Awesome?
The high-tech PR gurus at 463 Communications have hired a new partner for the bicoastal company's San Francisco office. Hani Durzy joins Sean Garrett who has been holding down the fort all by himself on the West Coast as the D.C. operation has grown and grown.
Garrett wrote on his blog that "once we got past Hani's obnoxious Red Sox Nation-isms, we knew that he would be the perfect compliment to our team and a great asset as we grow in the Bay Area." Durzy was most recently eBay's communications director, which prompted this e-mail exchange:
To: Sean Garrett
From: Andrew Noyes
Sent: Mon 11/02/2008 2:09 PM
Subject: Good get!
Did you buy your new colleague on eBay? If so, what was the highest bid? Heh!
From: Sean Garrett
To: Andrew Noyes
Sent: Mon 11/02/2008 5:27 PM
Subject: RE: Good get!
Zing! That is our whole plan. Buy low and sell high.
Former Technology Daily editor Danny Glover? He landed a sweet new gig as executive producer for Eyeblast.tv, an online video Web site with a conservative twist. The site, a project of the Media Research Center, makes him "officially part of the vast right-wing conspiracy" -- or at least that's what he joked in a Monday e-mail.
Eyeblast, which is in the soft-launch phase, lets users post content, rate videos, make comments, create profiles and groups, join groups, send messages, store favorite videos and more. My former boss tells me that an official launch and marketing blitz is a few weeks off.
Not only has Danny been keeping busy with that, he spent the better part of three days at the Conservative Political Action Conference, speaking and networking. GOP bloggers, rejoice. Liberal bloggers condemn. He seems to have found an exciting new venture and we wish him all the best. Although, his rant about "liberal newsrooms" is a bit much.
The 50th annual Grammy Awards aired on CBS on Sunday night, live from Los Angeles. But it looks like someone over at the Recording Academy's Web department was asleep at the switch. About 30 minutes into the show, I visited Grammy.com and was surprised to see the site looking a little empty. The team must've been updating the site to reflect the evening's winners, but next time maybe they should do their tinkering with a page that isn't live.
The Associated Press reports that the Writers Guild of America "moved swiftly Sunday toward a resolution of its three-month-old strike, with guild leaders deciding to recommend the contract to members and ask them to vote on a quick end to the walkout." Membership meetings will be held Tuesday in New York and Los Angeles.
Under the proposed contract, film and TV writers, who previously got nothing for content streamed online, will get a fixed residual payment of $1,200 a year for one-hour shows in the first two years of the new contract. In the third year they would get residuals equal to 2 percent of the revenue received by the program's distributor, according to the Los Angeles Times.
"This is the best deal this guild has bargained for in 30 years," said Patric Verrone, president of the guild's West Coast branch. See the summary of the tentative contract here.
The New York Times' City Room blog reports that Amber Lee Ettinger, star of the hit YouTube music video "I Got a Crush on Obama," didn't vote for the Illinois senator on Tuesday.
According to the paper's Jennifer 8. Lee:
On Tuesday night, City Room ran into Ms. Ettinger at an election-watching party in Greenwich Village and asked how things went at the polls. “I didn’t get a chance to vote today because I’m not registered to vote in New York,” she said. So where is Obama Girl registered to vote? “New Jersey.” Um, but didn’t New Jersey also hold a primary? True. The problem, she explained, was that she was sick in New York City and was unable to get back across the Hudson River to the polls in Jersey City.
From a New America Foundation press release:
The New America Foundation, a nonpartisan ten-year-old think tank headquartered in Washington D.C., announced today the appointment of Dr. Eric Schmidt, the chairman and chief executive of Google, Inc., as the new chairman of New America's Board of Directors.
Dr. Schmidt, who has been a member of the New America board since the policy institute's founding, will succeed James Fallows, the author and national correspondent of the Atlantic. Fallows will remain on New America's board after the transition, which will take place on June 1st; Fallows was New America's founding board chairman.
"New America is a place where first-rate scholars are producing concrete, creative solutions for some of our nation's biggest challenges," said Dr. Schmidt. "I'm proud to be associated with the Foundation and look forward to helping shape its work and future."
Read more here.
The Service Employees International Union and League of Young Voters unveiled a curiously named awareness campaign on Wednesday focused on the dangers associated with escalating debt. The Web-based "Keep It In Your Pants" initiative offers a $5,000 prize to the best student-made public service announcement on the topic.
"Credit card debt can ruin your life, spreading and growing like a disease," said SEIU's Stephen Lerner. The effort is aimed at warning young people of the dangers of "debt disease" and urging them to "protect themselves the same way they would against any other dangerous and contagious social epidemic."
Online video submissions of 30-60 seconds are being accepted at www.KeepItInYourPants.org until March 12. Semifinalists will be announced April 2 and the winner will be announced at a red-carpet event on April 23.
(Photo Credit: Andrew Noyes)
Dell Computer CEO Michael Dell (center) joined a panel of high-tech executives and analysts to unveil a new energy efficiency study in Washington on Wednesday. Read more in CongressDaily's PM Edition.
The big news surrounding Sunday night's Super Bowl -- aside from the Giants upsetting the Patriots 17-14 -- was the surprising display of high-tech advertisements interspersed with the standard beer, babe and car commercials.
There were around 50 ads this year, which cost companies an estimated $2.7 million per 30-second spot. Tech firms that paid big bucks to get a piece of the action included Careerbuilder.com, Cars.com, Dell, E-Trade, Garmin, GoDaddy.com, Sales Genie and T-Mobile.
Here are my top two picks:
Dell Computer Product Red Super Bowl Ad: XPS Laptop Draws Cheers
Add to My Profile | More Videos
eTrade Super Bowl Commercial: Talking Baby Rents a Clown
Add to My Profile | More Videos
The folks over at the Electronic Frontier Foundation grace the cover of the current issue of California Lawyer magazine for their legacy of advocacy work and their current battle against AT&T over its reported role in warrantless government spying. The 3,000-plus word article is worth a read. The entire story can be found here.
Here's an interesting (and controversial) idea from Internet billionaire Mark Cuban: "Whether sold digitally or by CD, the reality of today's music and theatrical release market is such that music from movies would generate more total dollars for everyone if it were given away with the purchase of a movie ticket."
He goes on to write on his Blog Maverick Web site that releasing a major motion picture costs a lot of money and the industry has trouble figuring out what part of the marketing budget actually drives people to theaters.
Cuban's proposal: "One way to entice people to get off the couch and attend more movies is to increase the value to customers. The most cost effective opportunity to increase value is to give away items to theater goers that have a very high perceived value, but a very lost cost of distribution." Read more about his idea here.
My former colleague Drew Clark launched his new Web venture on Thursday -- BroadbandCensus.com -- a site aimed at providing everyday Internet users with the ability to learn about broadband availability, competition, speeds and prices.
"Bell and cable companies have, thus far, generally been unwilling to provide the public with information about which local areas they serve. BroadbandCensus.com hopes that the creation of this new site, and with its easy ability for Internet users to 'take the broadband census,' will change this dynamic," he wrote on his personal site.
His upstart has the financial backing of the Benton Foundation and the Pew Internet and American Life Project has contracted with him to gather information about users' broadband experiences and incorporate those findings into its annual Internet report.
Meanwhile, the FCC and Agriculture Department debuted a new, online resource for those in rural America looking to bring the benefits of broadband services to their communities.
The site provides information about various technology platforms used to provide broadband service; how to access spectrum necessary for delivery of wireless broadband services; government funding for broadband services; and data on broadband deployment.
The American Civil Liberties Union has launched a clever campaign to draw attention to government and private sector data-collection activities that they believe could institute a 24-hour surveillance society.
A new animated video on the group's Web site warns that ordering pizza could be hazardous to your health -- and privacy. In the skit, a man orders a pie on the phone and Pizza Palace instantly knows everything about him -- from his work and home addresses and phone numbers to his travel habits, magazine subscriptions and blood pressure.
The ACLU claims that intelligence initiatives like the now-defunct MATRIX (the Multistate Anti-TeRrorism Information eXchange) and the FBI's Carnivore are destroying citizens' privacy. "They want to track your purchases, your medical records, and even your relationships," the ACLU argues. Makes you wonder how much your Domino's delivery guy really knows -- other than the fact that you like extra cheese and black olives.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation is encouraging its supporters to turn to photo-sharing Web site Flickr to oppose foreign intelligence reform legislation that that would grant telecommunications companies legal protections for helping the Bush administration spy on U.S. citizens without warrants.
"Congress needs to hear from citizens like you!" EFF's Cindy Cohn said on the watchdog group's blog. A quick check on Friday afternoon showed that more than 80 people had posted photo messages on Flickr -- and some images were more creative than others. Kids, pets and activists of all shapes and sizes uploaded pics.
EFF partnered with People for the American Way to launch StoptheSpying.org as a catalyst for action. On the site, the groups are also urging people to send in 60-second digital videos telling their members of Congress to oppose telecom immunity.
A new documentary on government suppression of information has generated some buzz at the Sundance Film Festival in recent days. The aptly titled "Secrecy" was made by Harvard University professors Peter Galison and Robb Moss and has been screened a half-dozen times at the Park City, Utah cinematic carnival.
The festival's online movie guide calls the film "stylistically elegant and provocative" and says the documentary takes audiences "inside the inverted world of government secrecy." Its creators try to answer the questions: When does security erode, rather than enhance, democracy? Can burying too much information actually undermine national security?
"We live in a world where the production of secret knowledge dwarfs the production of open knowledge," the directors note on the movie's Web site. "In a single recent year the U.S. classified about five times the number of pages added to the Library of Congress."
It's no secret that Sundance appreciates the film. It has been nominated for one of festival's top honors -- a grand jury prize.
How do celebrities, executives and politicians wind up with their names used as Web addresses and on Web sites without their consent? How do they get out of that sticky situation? The D.C. Bar Association tackled that topic on Thursday at a lunchtime briefing.
Neil Brown, a prominent lawyer and former member of the Australian House of Representatives, keynoted the event. He was expected to explain how the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy, which took effect in 1999, is used to address the problem.
Brown, who works with the World Intellectual Property Organization, discussed what must be proved by celebrities and others to win a domain name feud. WIPO statistics show the number of complaints filed against cyber-squatters under the UDRP hit a record high in 2007 with 1,824 filings. In 2008, there have already been 108 complaints.
I never looked to the 80s pop band Duran Duran for profound musical inspiration (hit singles included "Girls on Film" and "Hungry Like the Wolf") but now I'm certainly not awarding them any medals of melodic valor.
On the way to work on Wednesday, I heard a radio interview with the British boppers who recently put out a new album called "Red Carpet Massacre." In the XM Satellite Radio spot, they explain that the inspiration for their song "Zoom In" is the popular virtual world Second Life.
Apparently they were somewhat addicted to playing the computer game, which boasts 20 million online members, as they were coming up with songs for the album and that song was the result. Here's an excerpt:
"Now she arrives
In a flaming crash
Like a falling star
Heading straight for the dive
Gonna make some cash
With the avatar"
"We're not alone
In the second life
There are millions like us
Right here
In the stones
In the air too bright
All the new insiders"
Poetic? Prophetic? Pathetic? You decide. All I'll say is that I prefer the single "Falling Down" because it doesn’t hurt my ears.
Heads up! There's another progressive news Web site making waves on the Internets as the race for the White House heats up. Our newsroom received a manila envelope on Tuesday from something called 236.com. The t-shirt enclosed boasted the frontal catchphrase "236: Some of the news/most of the time." On the back: "Tagg Romney is a stupid name." The aforementioned is one of GOP presidential contender Mitt Romney's sons.
Upon further exploration, we found that 236.com is a "co-production between the gigantic, vaguely Death Star-like IAC, and The Huffington Post, a progressive news hub where outraged people go in order to get more outraged before going to have dinner at Nobu."
The site's "corporate overlords" are Arianna Huffington (publisher); Sarah Bernard (president); and Michael Jackson (IAC's head of interactive programming, not the embattled pop star).
One thing is for sure -- the headline writers at 236.com are having fun. A few eye-catching samples: "The Economy's Passed Out, Naked, And Covered With Crap" and "Fred Thompson Wakes Up, Drops Out Of Race, Goes Back To Sleep."
I wonder what the folks over at 463 Communications... or the PR pros at 133 Public Affairs... think of the new numerical kid on the block.
Stanford University law professor Lawrence Lessig announced on his blog last week that after "a productive and valuable conversation" with his publisher, , Random House has agreed to make available "The Future of Ideas" under a Creative Commons license. His 2001 tome can be downloaded here.
The book hit store shelves two weeks after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and Lessig said he is "glad it now has a chance to flow a bit more freely." The development means that all four of the CC co-founder's books are licensed under the unique content-sharing regime.
Consumer Electronics Association President Gary Shapiro finally got his chance to take on CNN’s Lou Dobbs during a live debate on the cable network on Thursday night. Since many tech policy watchers were at Google's Washington office launch party as the TV drama unfolded, here's a YouTube video of the showdown.
Shapiro previously condemned Dobbs for making "anti-trade comments" and "his refusal to grant equal time to opposing viewpoints." The newsman quipped: "I don’t know why you want to debate me, but fire at will."
Former Homeland Security Department Secretary Tom Ridge told a roomful of lawyers on Friday that despite his prior post within the Bush administration, he has been pulled aside for secondary screening at airport security checkpoints two dozen times.
"You ought to see the expression on the [faces of the] people at TSA when they put me in that plexiglass lane," he said during a morning keynote at an American Bar Association conference. "Some think I'm a plant and that I'm testing their procedures out." Ridge said fellow passengers have stopped to gawk (and laugh) when they see him being detained.
After a 25-year government career, adjusting to life as a public citizen has been difficult, he joked. The morning after Ridge left his DHS job, he recalls waking up to find that his kids took one car, his wife took the other and he had no way to get around. When he asked to borrow his son's vehicle, Ridge was advised: "Watch where you park it and don’t forget to fill it up with gas when you bring it home."
The major movie studios' mouthpiece will move its 150-employee Los Angeles operation later this month to office space in the Sherman Oaks Galleria. Starting Jan. 22, the Motion Picture Association of America can be found in the same complex as Ben & Jerry's, the Cheesecake Factory and Starbucks. Don't worry, there's a 24-Hour Fitness to work off that dessert.
"As the MPAA has evolved into an even more global operation and adopted new approaches to fighting piracy which require new technological capability, we have sought office space that meets different needs," MPAA chief Dan Glickman said. The new location will afford staffers "a larger, freer working environment" and new screening rooms for the panel that classifies and rates movies.
For the past 15 years, the MPAA's L.A. offices have been headquartered in Encino, along with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. AMPTP will make the move to the new digs along with several components of the Directors Guild of America. A division of Warner Bros. is located in the same complex.
After entering the blogosphere this summer and battling hackers who tried to post movie-copying code, the Library of Congress is now braving the social networking realm of online photo-sharing.
On Wednesday, the government institution announced it is making more than 3,000 photos available on the commercial picture-swap site Flickr. The library spokesman Matt Raymond explained that the Flickr page dedicated to the library's collections will only contain images "for which no copyright restrictions are known to exist."
Raymond is encouraging people to tag, comment and make notes on the photos -- the typical Flickr protocols. "The real magic comes when the power of the Flickr community takes over," he said.
Many library photos are missing key caption information like where the photo was shot and who is in the picture. If Flickr members privy to that kind of information type in messages, the comments "can potentially enhance the quality of the bibliographic records for the images."
As part of the project, Flickr has created a new layout for publicly-held photographic collections called “The Commons.” Flickr states on the page: "Hopefully, this pilot can be used as a model that other cultural institutions would pick up, to share and redistribute the myriad collections held by cultural heritage institutions all over the world." -- Aliya Sternstein
With immigration as a top issue in the 2008 presidential campaign, the Americans for Legal Immigration Political Action Committee launched a Web site on Wednesday to draft controversial CNN anchor Lou Dobbs as a presidential contender.
Dobbs has criticized U.S. firms that send jobs overseas and was challenged to a live, televised debate on the impact of international trade on the U.S. economy by Consumer Electronics Association chief Gary Shapiro last fall.
According to ALIPAC, Dobbs "has earned national recognition for his tough stance on border security and curbing illegal immigration" and has encouraged voters to register as independents. The campaign site is www.LouDobbsforPresident.org.
"Lou Dobbs could run and win because he could easily raise the funds and grassroots support he needs to be a historic and viable candidate quickly," ALIPAC's William Gheen said in a press release. "The public is eager to rebuke the DC status quo and would quickly rally to Dobbs."
(Photo Credit: Andrew Noyes)
Google invited a handful of reporters over to see their new Washington office on Monday afternoon -- a sneak peek before their big housewarming party later in the week. The space, which is smaller and less ornate than the mother ship in Mountain View, Calif., is still a feast for the senses. Between the catered lunches, snacks, videogames, massage chair and music, I don’t know how those people get any work done. Follow the jump for more photos!
Eric Goldman of the High-Tech Law Institute at Santa Clara University has posted his annual cyberlaw recap at InformIT. His #1 topic: "The Power to Tax is the Power to Destroy: Utah Tries to Tax Keyword Advertising Into Oblivion."
Goldman, who authors the Technology & Marketing Law Blog, writes:
"The state of Utah has an unrivaled record of Internet legislative incompetence, but they topped themselves in March when they passed the Utah Trademark Protection Act. This law set up a registry for trademarks and other identifiers and banned third party use of these registered marks as triggers for keyword advertising.
It's been hard to pin down exactly why Utah passed this law. Once the publicity spotlight shone on this law, everyone in Utah involved with the law started finger-pointing, making it difficult to do after-the-fact forensics. As far as I've been able to deduce, Utah hoped to get a little slice of the massive online advertising industry for itself--Utah could charge trademark owners to register their marks and charge online advertisers to check the registry, allowing Utah to tax online advertising even if none of the players (the advertisers, the keyword vendor and the trademark owner) had any relationship with Utah.
We may never know if this law would survive a legal challenge because Utah legislators started backpedaling almost immediately since their actions were publicized. In the end, this particular law is almost certain to fade away quietly--good news, to be sure, but a temporary win at best. The same drivers--greedy and incompetent legislators eyeing a big fat chunk of economic activity--almost ensure that other legislators will try again, making another battle inevitable unless preemptive federal legislation is passed."
Read the rest of his list here.
It's not often that we at the Watergate get to blog about our artsy neighbor, the Kennedy Center, but today is one of those days. I just received a packet of information about a February festival that showcases the richness and diversity of Japan -- and that, of course, includes technology.
Part of the month-long "Japan: Culture + Hyper Culture" extravaganza is an exhibit called "Robotopia Rising," which will highlight the science and culture of Japanese robotics. The display, which runs Feb. 7-17, will let guests get up close and personal with some of the most sophisticated robots in the world.
Kokoro's astonishingly human-like Actroid DER2 will greet visitors throughout the festival with a great range of vocabulary, gestures and facial expressions. Mitsubishi's Wakamaru, which has a vocabulary of 10,000 Japanese words, will also be schmoozing with attendees. Robots created by Honda and Toyota will take part in daily demonstrations -- and one will even play the trumpet for you.
For more information, visit this Web site.
Here's a heads up for Technology Daily subscribers. Throughout this week, the PM Edition is running a series of articles that examine the impact of Microsoft's epic antitrust battle nearly a decade after it began. The retrospective comes as the software company's settlement with the federal government and nine state attorneys general is set to expire. In addition to the articles, the package also features profiles of key players, audio from the landmark trial, a timeline of events, and related video clips. [Click here for more].
Information security provider Entrust e-mailed me its recommendations for Santa's 2007 "Naughty & Nice" list and I thought it might be worth a mention. Some excerpts:
Naughty
U.K. HM Revenue & Customs. More than 25 million records of children were lost in a breach that affected 40 percent of the British population.
Consumers responding to phishing e-mails. Online "phishing" and man-in-the-middle attacks continue to rise in profitability because consumers aren't paying attention to red flags.
TJ Maxx. Forget Santa's naughty list, they're already reaping the horror of their own insecurity in the court system. A lump of coal might be a welcome relief.
Nice
PKI [Public key infrastructure]. The 1990's solution that looked for a problem finally has found more than a dozen and come full circle. This technology is more pervasive than ever with more PK-aware applications on the rise.
Banks that step up security. U.S. Bank, Bank of New Zealand and others are increasing online security, adding things like picture replay, question-and-answer, grid cards and fraud detection solutions.
Smart, safe surfing. Let's hear it for online retailers that use encryption to secure transactions.
European Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes topped Ethisphere's "100 Most Influential People in Business Ethics." "Not only did Kroes levy record fines across Europe for antitrust cases, but she proved to American titans such as Intel, Apple and Microsoft that European rules should not be taken lightly," the magazine said.
Kroes is making an early case for leading the list again next year "with her plans to 'fight like hell' to stop price-fixing and ensure companies get the message," as well as indications that she plans on raising fines for antitrust violations even higher next year.
Other notables who made the list include Dell Computer Chairman Michael Dell; Computer Associates Senior Vice President Patrick Gnazzo; Hewlett-Packard Chief Ethics & Compliance Officer Jonathan Hoak; and Xerox CEO Anne Mulcahy.
The Boston Red Sox may want to make sure Curt Schilling has a good keyboard wrist rest. Because at the rate he's been blogging lately, the guy might come down with carpal-tunnel syndrome before the season starts.
Schilling, one of the key players on Boston's world championship teams in 2004 and 2007, has been using his 38 Pitches blog as his personal soapbox for a while now. But the presidential race and former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell's recent report on steroids in baseball has forced him to crank his blogging up a notch.
His sprawling post on Wednesday about steroids clocked in at 3,676 words. He penned another entry earlier this month endorsing Sen. John McCain's presidential bid that went over the 1,000 word limit -- roughly twice the length of the story I'll have in this afternoon's edition of Technology Daily.
As I've mentioned on this blog before, I really don't like the Sox. So I can't say I'll be torn up if Schilling needs to sit out a start or two next season because he blogged too hard for his own good. But I'll advise him nonetheless that it's a dangerous world out there. After all, Detroit Tigers fireballer Joel Zumaya once got so into the "Guitar Hero" videogame that he rocked himself out of the American League Championship Series with a forearm injury.
Blog safely, Curt. And if you plan on writing more about the presidential race, it's Mike Huckabee not Huckaby. -- Michael Martinez
Remember how cool it was when Time magazine's "Person of the Year" was "You?" Remember the cover story that said the World Wide Web in 2006 had become a precious tool for bringing together the contributions of millions of people and making them matter? Gosh, that was nice. We really liked that.
Well, the 2007 "Person of the Year" is Vladimir Putin. The magazine said his final year as Russia's president was his most successful: "At home, he secured his political future. Abroad, he expanded his outsize -- if not always benign -- influence on global affairs."
Not a bad choice, but c'mon, plenty of fun tech-related people made news in the past 12 months. It would have been great to have claimed the cover yet again. Was Vint Cerf a contender? He's been called the "Father of the Internet" and his lengthy tenure as chairman of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers ended recently.
Runners up were former Vice President Al Gore, author J.K. Rowling, Chinese leader Hu Jintao, and U.S. military commander David Petraeus.
Running behind on your holiday shopping? Got a political junkie in the family? A quick trip to eBay might help you snag that emergency gift you're looking for.
For starters, there are currently more than 230 online auctions pending for Barack Obama-related goodies. You can scoop up some Obama pins on the cheap for about $10. But if you're buying for someone with a more international taste, you might want to consider these Obama-inspired Russian nesting dolls.
And if you've got the cash to spend, you can always throw down for the rights to an Obama domain name. The going price for ProObama.com? A cool grand. But that's not even that pricey, when you think about it. The enterprising vendor who goes by the name "festivusmaximus" is pawning the domain name MittRomneysDog.com for five times that. The seller even included a link to the Time magazine story that inspired the domain name. How Christmassy.
Hillary Clinton fans might be intrigued by this snazzy nutcracker modeled after the former first lady. But if you're part of the "Stop Hillary Clinton (One Million Strong AGAINST Hillary)" Facebook group, this stress-relief squishy toy might be more your speed. These Clinton clay pigeons also have stocking-stuffer potential for the gun-toting conservative types out there.
Here are a few more quirky gift items I found in my eBay travels...
Continue reading Perfect Gifts For The Politico In Your Life.
Google's growing Washington staff started their first week of work at their new headquarters on Monday. Sources tell Tech Daily Dose that it's a big improvement from the team's temporary space on Pennsylvania Avenue. I'd been in the old office a time or two and it seemed nice (but uncharacteristically bland for the colorful Web colossus).
The new address is 1101 New York Ave., NW and Googlers tell me that they plan on doing a media tour of the facility in early 2008. The building looks pretty sleek from the outside but I can't imagine that it stacks up to the Googleplex in Mountain View, Calif.
Here are a few amenities that the mothership offers (ripped straight from Google's Web site) that I'm unrealistically hoping they gave their policy squad in the nation's capital:
▪ Recreation facilities: Workout room with weights and rowing machine, locker rooms, washers and dryers, massage room, assorted video games, Foosball, baby grand piano, pool table, ping pong, roller hockey twice a week in the parking lot.
▪ Google Café - Healthy lunches and dinners for all staff. Stations include "Charlie’s Grill," "Back to Albuquerque," "East Meets West" and "Vegheads." Outdoor seating for sunshine daydreaming.
▪ Snack Rooms - Bins packed with various cereals, gummi bears, M&Ms, toffee, licorice, cashew nuts, yogurt, carrots, fresh fruit and other snacks. Dozens of different drinks including fresh juice, soda and make-your-own cappuccino.
It's Friday afternoon and the Technology Daily staff was in desperate need of a sugar fix. Lo and behold, a bag of holiday cheer appears. AT&T branded cookies! Good work, guys. Follow the jump for another shot of my colleague Michael Martinez chowing down.
I saw this on the 463 Blog and couldn't help but post an excerpt:
Cut to Washington lawyer talking to a Senator at cocktail hour...
Lawyer: "Senator, you know how kids use social networking sites to connect with each other on the Internet?"
Senator: "Yes, I believe my grandkids in college are on SpaceBook. I've heard that there are racy photos of kids up there drinking. I told my daughter that she needs to be watching their Internets..."
Lawyer: "Well, um, excuse me, sir ... my nephew has a page where he used it to get support for an endangered newt. And, from what I understand, my niece gets to communicate with other students her age from all over the world."
Senator: "Exactly, I hear that that there are racy photos of kids drinking and in their bathing suits on that MyFace. It must be the influence of those Europeans, or maybe it's those..."
Read the full post here.
One of the federal government's oldest continuing programs, Job Corps, has for the first time turned to video-sharing site YouTube to provide parents and students with information about what the initiative has to offer.
Job Corps, which was part of President Lyndon Johnson's " War on Poverty," began in 1964. It is currently managed by the Labor Department as a no-cost education and vocational training effort that helps 16-24 year olds secure job opportunities across the country.
Remarks made by Job Corps Director Esther Johnson as well as testimonials by program participants Tiffany Williams and Kelvin McJunkin and alumnus David Bol were uploaded to YouTube last week, officials said. The footage is from a Job Corps summit held in October.
In addition, a public service announcement was sent to radio stations around the country, Johnson said in an e-mail. The outreach effort fulfills a promise she made to "do whatever we could to spread the word and market the wonderful opportunities that Job Corps offers its students."
The Justice Department on Monday unveiled $1.7 million in funds for national, regional, state and local organizations and agencies that assist victims of identity theft and financial fraud. Read more about it in Technology Daily's PM Edition.
Betsy Broder, who oversees the FTC's ID theft efforts, lauded the grant-giving, told us that she met with and is providing guidance to the handful of groups that got the money. Every year, her agency responds to about 250,000 ID theft victims, she said.
Many consumers are "able to respond quickly and effectively themselves to recover from ID theft" but others aren’t as lucky, Broder noted. The grant program "contributes to the resources available for those consumers who need help" to recover from ID theft.
While certain forms of ID theft do not always have a financial impact, resolving issues can be time consuming and stressful for consumers, added Andy Serwin, a partner at Foley & Lardner who focuses on privacy and security matters.
Justice's focus on prevention is important, he said: "While identity the
