Los Angeles Times

[Commentary] CEO Mark Zuckerberg attracted a lot of attention — including from some telecom regulators — with his pronouncement that Facebook would “connect the world” by bringing limited Internet access to the unconnected in countries like India. His plan and others like it generally raise the hackles of government officials who are, perhaps rightly, wary of allowing giant corporations and the moguls who run them to have too much control over communications systems.

Technology companies and governments have been locked in this type of conflict for over 100 years, ever since a youthful Irish-Italian inventor by the name of Guglielmo Marconi patented the very first system for wireless communication. They weren’t using terms like network neutrality back then, but most of our ideas about telecom regulation – both for and against – have their origins in efforts to block Marconi’s near-monopoly control of the airwaves over a century ago. They made the case that competition would lead to lower rates and improved service — in other words, would be good for consumers around the world and hence a legitimate objective for an international treaty. The heart of the matter was an understanding of regulation. Despite their political differences, most governments agreed that they had the right to intervene by regulating the radio spectrum.

[Marc Raboy is a professor of communication at McGill University and the author of “Marconi: The Man Who Networked the World.”]

Media giant Time Warner has agreed to take a 10% stake in Hulu, becoming the fourth major media company to put its weight behind the increasingly popular online video-streaming service. The deal better positions Hulu to compete with industry leader Netflix by bulking up Hulu’s supply of high-quality programming. The move also accelerates Time Warner’s foray into video streaming, coming more than a year after the company launched the stand-alone HBO Now service to attract consumers who are not inclined to subscribe to a traditional cable TV package. Time Warner also owns the prominent Turner Broadcasting cable channels CNN, TBS, TNT and Cartoon Network. “This investment fits our strategy like a glove,” said Time Warner Chief Executive Jeff Bewkes.

Hulu, which is headquartered in Santa Monica (CA), was launched nearly a decade ago by NBCUniversal, now owned by Comcast, and Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox. Walt Disney Co. later joined Hulu. Disney, NBCUniversal and Fox each own 30% of Hulu, giving Time Warner the smallest stake. Time Warner pledged about $583 million for its piece, which values Hulu at nearly $6 billion.

Senior citizens need more medical care than anyone else in the United States. And the Internet is chock full of health information. Yet seniors are far less likely than other adults to tap into it, new research shows.

A report published in the Journal of the American Medical Assn. found that only about 18% of participants in the National Health and Aging Trends Study got health information online in 2014. That pales in comparison with the approximately 60% of adults of all ages who have told the Pew Research Center that they consult Dr. Google at least once a year -- including the 35% who said they rely on the Web to diagnose their own ailments or the maladies of people they know. Since 2011, thousands of Medicare beneficiaries in the aging trends study have been completing annual surveys that gauge their use of technology. In the survey’s first year, 64% of the survey takers had computers and 43% were hooked up to the Internet. Their average age was 75. Apparently, these seniors had better things to do than research ways to prevent heart disease, manage symptoms of diabetes or stave off dementia. E-mail was far more enticing. Electronic banking (but not online shopping) was also more popular. Among all 7,609 initial study participants, only 16% said they went online to learn something about health. In addition, 8% said they filled prescriptions online, 7% used the Internet to get in touch with their doctors and 5% dealt with their insurance claims on the Web.

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti is asking the Federal Communications Commission to examine the stalemate between Time Warner Cable and other pay-TV operators that's prevented much of the region from watching Dodgers baseball this season.

Mayor Garcetti stopped short of asking the FCC to demand resolution of the Dodgers channel impasse as a condition for the government's approval of Comcast’s purchase of Time Warner Cable. But the mayor did ask the FCC to delve into programming disputes and "determine why the problem has not been resolved already, and then ask Comcast to show that the merger would alleviate, and not exacerbate, problems of this sort."

Mayor Garcetti also asked the FCC to require Comcast to continue to follow so-called net neutrality guidelines to treat all Internet traffic equally. He also requested that the FCC encourage Comcast to increase its commitment to provide low-cost Internet service to more low-income families.

For the first time, satellite broadcasters will be jockeying with other media outlets for a share of political spending that could top $3 billion in 2014.

Satellite TV giants DirecTV and Dish are using digital technology to match voter registration information with subscriber homes, and are now offering political campaigns the ability to send targeted ads to select households. For example, politically conservative satellite customers might see a TV commercial for a Republican candidate, while their liberal neighbor gets an ad for a Democrat.

With more than 55 million homes now equipped with DVRs, pay-TV companies increasingly are experimenting with so-called addressable advertising.

Free Wi-Fi is now available to visitors at six parks throughout the city.

Park-goers will be able to connect their laptops, tablets and e-readers to public Wi-Fi networks at Cabrillo Beach, Echo Park Lake, Griffith Observatory, Pershing Square, Reseda Park and Venice Beach.

Walt Disney is planning to sell 23 radio stations and will begin distributing much of its Radio Disney content digitally, the company said. As a result of the expected sales, Radio Disney will lay off about 200 people.

Disney will retain its AM station in Los Angeles -- KDIS-AM (1110) -- which will be used to originate Radio Disney's national programming feed.

Jack Griffin, chief executive of Tribune Publishing, said his primary focus at the newly spun-off company is growing online subscriptions and digital advertising at its eight major newspapers.

"The days of just taking your print product and raising the price every year are out of vogue," Griffin said. "We'll be adding more value."

To do so, the rest of Tribune's newspapers will replicate the new Times’ digital format by the end of 2014. The company will also redesign and relaunch all of its mobile apps and restructure subscription packages. Papers that don't currently charge for online access will set up metered pay walls, Griffin said.

Apple became the latest tech company to reveal the diversity of its workforce, and as has been the trend, the Cupertino giant is dominated by white men.

The iPhone maker said only 30% of its 98,000 employees are women. The number drops to 28% when it comes to leadership roles, but that is actually a higher percentage than at other tech companies.

In terms of race and ethnicity, Apple said it's split 55% white, 15% Asian, 11% Latino and 7% black, but those figures include retail store employees. In tech-specific jobs, the numbers skew toward whites and Asians, at 54% and 23% respectively, while Latinos fall to 7% and blacks drop to 6%

US District Judge Lucy H. Koh rejected a proposed settlement in a case involving Apple and Google in which they were accused of secretly agreeing not to hire each others' employees.

The $324.5 million deal was part of a case that originally involved several of Silicon Valley's biggest companies. The settlement was reached in a case that had already proved deeply embarrassing to the tech companies involved.

Intel and Adobe Systems were also named in the lawsuit brought by former employees of the companies. To thwart even more disclosures, the companies announced a settlement to avoid a trial in the spring of 2014. Judge Koh said the payment was too low.