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Format: 2012-05-26
Format: 2012-05-26

May 25, 2012 (News from FCC Meeting)

Hal Jackson, 96, New York Broadcaster Who Broke Racial Barriers in Radio

Location:
New York, NY
United States
Recommendation:
2

Hal Jackson, a veteran broadcaster who broke down racial barriers, becoming one of the first black disc jockeys to reach a large white audience and an omnipresent voice on New York City radio for more than 50 years, died on May 23 in Manhattan. He was 96.

High Noon for Diller's Aereo

Location:
New York, NY
United States
Recommendation:
2

When Barry Diller backed a start-up that streams local broadcast signals over the Internet, it looked like another unorthodox move by a famously offbeat mogul. Now that start-up has become a grenade that is threatening to wound the television industry.

Lawmakers question whether Google misled Congress on data collection

Location:
Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530-0001
United States
Recommendation:
2

Reps. Frank Pallone (D-NJ) and John Barrow (D-GA), who both serve on the House Commerce Committee, sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder asking the Justice Department to investigate whether Google misled Congress and regulators over its collection of data from unprotected Wi-Fi networks.

E-Mail Shows Murdoch Bid Maneuvering

Location:
London
United Kingdom
Recommendation:
3

The long-running judicial inquiry into the cloistered world of Britain’s media barons and powerful politicians produced a new and potentially damaging insight into the internal maneuvering within Prime Minister David Cameron’s government as it considered Rupert Murdoch’s $12 billion bid last year to take control of the country’s most powerful and lucrative commercial television network.

My Other Phone Is a Phone

Location:
Forrester Research
400 Technology Square
Cambridge, MA 02139
United States
Recommendation:
2

A new study from Forrester Research on technology adoption by urban Chinese consumers also illustrates the power of the mobile Internet in China. Out of more than 3,600 people surveyed, 71 percent use their phones to go online at least once daily. Fully one-third of the consumers surveyed own two or more active mobile phones.

FCC Dedicates Spectrum Enabling Medical Body Area Networks

Location:
Federal Communications Commission (FCC)
445 12th Street SW
Washington, DC 20554
United States
Recommendation:
3

The Federal Communications Commission advanced its wireless health care agenda by adopting rules that will enable Medical Body Area Networks (MBANs), low-power wideband networks consisting of multiple body-worn sensors that transmit a variety of patient data to a control device.

FCC Explores Use of Emergency Aerial Communications to Enable Quick Restoration of Communications for First Responders

Location:
Federal Communications Commission (FCC)
445 12th Street SW
Washington, DC 20554
United States
Recommendation:
2

The Federal Communications Commission adopted a Notice of Inquiry (NOI) to explore the use of Deployable Aerial Communications Architecture (DACA) technologies. DACA ...

FCC Promotes Wireless Investment and Deployment in the 800 MHz SMR Band

Location:
Federal Communications Commission (FCC)
445 12th Street SW
Washington, DC 20554
United States
Recommendation:
3

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) issued a Report and Order that reduces barriers to the deployment of broadband, encourages investment in wireless technologies, and facilitates the efficient use of spectrum by revising a burdensome legacy regulation that unnecessarily constrained 800 MHz Specialized Mobile Radio (SMR) licensees.

As Facebook Launches a Standalone Camera App, the Instagram Buy Comes Into Focus

Location:
Facebook (new HQ)
1601 Willow Road
Menlo Park, CA
United States
Recommendation:
1

Facebook will launch Facebook Camera, and it’s essentially Instagram redux.

GOP lawmakers question Twitter's tracking practices

Location:
Twitter
795 Folsom St
San Francisco, CA 94107
United States
Recommendation:
2

Twitter's recent embrace of the tech industry's do-not-track standard has drawn praise from top Republicans on the House Commerce Committee. But the company's announcement that it will use new methods of highlighting "relevant" users for new users to begin following is drawing questions from two of those GOP committee members, Reps. Joe Barton (R-TX) and Cliff Stearns (R-FL), who sent a letter to Twitter CEO Dick Costolo asking about the ways the company collects and tracks user information.

Sen. Lee defends Verizon, cable providers’ proposed spectrum deal

Location:
Senate Judiciary Committee
Constitution Avenue and 1st Street, NE Dirksen Senate Office Building -- 226
Washington, DC 20002
United States
Recommendation:
2

Sen Mike Lee (R-Utah), ranking member on the Senate Judiciary antitrust subcommittee, defended the proposed deal to allow Verizon to purchase spectrum from a consortium of cable companies.

Hard-up telcos get stingy with mobile give-aways

Location:
Spain
Recommendation:
2

Save up now for that new iPhone: the era of free or cut-price phones when signing a new mobile phone contract may be soon be over in Europe. Telecom companies, facing a profit squeeze from fierce competition and regulatory pressures, are taking the knife to the generous subsidies that allow new mobile customers to get the latest smartphones on the cheap.

Chairman Rockefeller Asks American Gas Association for Cybersecurity Standards

Location:
Senate Commerce Committee
Constitution Avenue and 1st Street, NE Russell Senate Office Building - 253
Washington, DC 20002
United States
Recommendation:
2

Sen John D. (Jay) Rockefeller IV (D-WV) sent a letter to the American Gas Association requesting information on cybersecurity standards that were developed in 2006 and designed to protect industrial control systems from cyber attacks.

FCC Chair Responds to Sen Grassley Criticisms of Transparency

Location:
Federal Communications Commission (FCC)
445 12th Street SW
Washington, DC 20554
United States
Recommendation:
2

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski defended the FCC's openness and transparency against charges by Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) that the FCC was one of the worst agencies at complying with document requests.

State Department Report Highlights Limits Of Technology

Location:
Department of State
2201 C Street NW
Washington, DC 20520
United States
Recommendation:
2

Last year technology helped more people exercise their rights, but in 2011 more countries restricted access to the Internet or used technology to repress, according to the State Department's annual human rights report.

Google takes down 1.2 million search links a month over piracy, copyright issues

Location:
Google
1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
Mountain View, CA 94043
United States
Recommendation:
2

Google released a new picture of the millions of links it scrubs from its search results in response to requests from Microsoft, movie studios and other content owners.

Pop Culture is King in Social media

Location:
Project for Excellence in Journalism
1615 L Street NW
Washington, DC 20036
United States
Recommendation:
2

For the week of May 14-18, the X Factor was the No. 1 subject on Twitter and the No. 5 story on blogs, according to the New Media Index from the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism. But there was a difference in some reactions on the two social networks.

FCC’s Genachowski Ignores Harm Of His Data Cap Sentiments

Location:
Federal Communications Commission (FCC)
445 12th Street SW
Washington, DC 20554
United States
Recommendation:
2

There probably was no great need for Comcast to raise the usage caps on its broadband service, as it did last week from 250 gigabytes (GB) to 300 GB per month. If the company thought for an instant that the modest increase bought it any good will from its theoretical regulators, it needn't have bothered. The Federal Communications Commission doesn't care.

Dish Sues Networks, Fox Sues Dish Over Ad-Skipping Auto Hop

Location:
U.S. District Court for the Central District of California Los Angeles, CA
United States
Recommendation:
2

Dish sued the big four television networks over its new ad-skipping Auto Hop feature, even as Fox filed the first network lawsuit to stop Dish from offering the technology. Dish sought a federal court's "declaratory judgment on questions" related to Auto Hop, which allows viewers to skip commercials when they watch previously aired shows. Fox, meanwhile, accused Dish of copyright violations.