At preliminary meetings held on January 24--26, 2011, finance leaders stated that the major industrial and emerging-market nations are expected to focus on world food prices and currency stability during the 2011 G8 and G20 summits. They hope to address concerns that unstable food and commodity prices, together with international currency imbalances, could cause widespread hunger in poorer nations and stall global economic growth.
The President has issued an administrative order which continues for one year the national emergency declared in Côte d'Ivoire and measures blocking the property of certain persons contributing to the conflict in Côte d'Ivoire.
Reaching mainstream consumers is critical in the evolution of the smart grid ecosystem, said attendees at Parks Associates’ Smart Energy Summit in Austin, Texas, this week. “How do we get to mass?” said Kris Bowring, senior director of emerging business for Best Buy, who told us the retailer is testing “very basic” energy management products including thermostats, electronic locks, Internet gateways and cameras in 45 stores to gauge consumer interest and willingness to invest in energy management products. The trial stores were “picked for different reasons,” Bowring said, to determine how energy is consumed and generated and how advanced the utilities are in particular markets. “We mapped to stores that were already doing energy efficiencies and energy savings,” he said. Bowring wouldn’t say when the products will go national. “You're seeing the evolution of the technology now, and then we're trying to help the consumer understand how and why this is important, what’s available to them and how it can simplify their life,” he said. One of the biggest challenges for everybody in the smart grid chain is “making it simple and relevant through education and understanding,” Bowring said. For energy management to hit the mass market, “it must be independent of the smart meter but also able to work with the smart meter,” he said, so when consumers receive smart meters from the utility, they'll be able to understand their consumption in relationship to demand. “The meter has to be paired and information exchange needs to happen,” Bowring said, and when consumers can see how their choices affect energy use, “that will change their behavior,” he said. He described the expected progression as “peeling the onion": Once consumers understand what they can do with technology, “they'll want to know what else they can do.”
A delayed FCC proposal to let all pay-TV subscribers connect video devices, such as set-tops boxes and DVRs, bought from retailers or other third parties seems to have been slowed by concerns expressed by many multichannel video programming distributors and their content suppliers, said commission, industry and nonprofit officials on both sides of the issue. An AllVid rulemaking notice on a gateway device to connect CE gear to all MVPDs was supposed to have been voted on by commissioners last quarter, under the National Broadband Plan’s agenda. The item may not circulate until later this quarter or Q2, said officials inside and outside the commission watching development of the item.
A delayed FCC proposal to let all pay-TV subscribers connect video devices, such as set-tops boxes and DVRs, bought from retailers or other third parties seems to have been slowed by concerns expressed by many multichannel video programming distributors and their content suppliers, said commission, industry and nonprofit officials on both sides of the issue. An AllVid rulemaking notice on a gateway device to connect consumer electronics to all MVPDs was supposed to have been voted on by commissioners last quarter, under the National Broadband Plan’s agenda. The item may not circulate until later this quarter or Q2, said officials inside and outside the commission watching development of the item.
The federal government seeks to partner with the private sector and international bodies to help drive standards development, key to achieving national priorities like smart grid, health IT, cybersecurity, cloud computing and public safety, said Commerce Department Secretary Gary Locke at the National Institute of Standards and Technology roundtable Tuesday. The administration is seeking public input on effective federal participation on standards and conformity assessment activities related to technology, he said.
The federal government seeks to partner with the private sector and international bodies to help drive standards development, key to achieving national priorities like smart grid, health IT, cybersecurity, cloud computing and public safety, said Commerce Department Secretary Gary Locke at the National Institute of Standards and Technology roundtable Tuesday. The administration is seeking public input on effective federal participation on standards and conformity assessment activities related to technology, he said.
The digital era requires policymakers to change fundamental assumptions, Blair Levin, who headed the team that wrote the FCC’s National Broadband Plan, said in a speech last week. Levin, who spoke at the Minority Media and Telecom Council conference, said the way the Universal Service Fund is structured makes little sense now. “We'll spend $20,000 a line a year to subsidize a line to a second home but almost nothing to connect unserved homes and to help people who are digitally illiterate,” he said. “Actually, it’s worse. We assess those unserved and the digitally illiterate homes every month to pay for subsidies for areas and people far better off. … What is the economic or moral principle that justifies that?” Spectrum is allocated based on the market of 60 years ago, Levin added. “We provide educational content over the platform developed by Gutenberg-textbooks-instead of that developed by Bezos and Jobs, even though e-books are better for education and cheaper,” he said. “We provide emergency alerts on a one-way, nondynamic, location-ignorant platform that Americans are only occasionally connected to instead of the two-way, dynamic, location aware platform most Americans are next to 24/7, one that would be far more effective in an emergency.”
The digital era requires policymakers to change fundamental assumptions, Blair Levin, who headed the team that wrote the FCC’s National Broadband Plan, said in a speech last week. Levin, who spoke at the Minority Media and Telecom Council conference, said the way the Universal Service Fund is structured makes little sense now. “We'll spend $20,000 a line a year to subsidize a line to a second home but almost nothing to connect unserved homes and to help people who are digitally illiterate,” he said. “Actually, it’s worse. We assess those unserved and the digitally illiterate homes every month to pay for subsidies for areas and people far better off. … What is the economic or moral principle that justifies that?” Spectrum is allocated based on the market of 60 years ago, Levin added. “We provide educational content over the platform developed by Gutenberg-textbooks-instead of that developed by Bezos and Jobs, even though e-books are better for education and cheaper,” he said. “We provide emergency alerts on a one-way, nondynamic, location-ignorant platform that Americans are only occasionally connected to instead of the two-way, dynamic, location aware platform most Americans are next to 24/7, one that would be far more effective in an emergency.”
The following are highlights of the trade-related Executive Communications sent to Congress from December 29, 2010 to January 12, 2011: