The Consumer Product Safety Commission has posted a notice pending publication in the Federal Register that announces a one-year stay of enforcement of certain testing and conformity certification requirements of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 (CPSIA1), from February 10, 2009 until February 10, 2010.
Ninety-five percent of Americans live in counties covered by phase II E911 service, up from 90 percent a year ago, the National Emergency Number Association said. Also, 90 percent of public safety answering points are now phase II capable, the NENA said. The bad news, it said, is that 20 percent of the nation’s 3,135 counties are not. Most are in rural areas, the group said. “Significant progress continues to be made,” said Brian Fontes, NENA president. “However, it is essential that we continue to expand Wireless Phase II into the areas that, in many ways, need it the most rural America.”
The Consumer Product Safety Commission has posted a ballot sheet requesting CPSC Commissioners to vote on a request its staff received for an emergency stay of the February 10, 2009 effective date of the lead content limits1 for children's products established under Section 101(a)(2) of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 (CPSIA2).
Broadcasters may find it hard to make an early switch to digital transmissions if Congress passes a law extending the analog signal cutoff to June 12, Republican Commerce Committee leaders told the FCC in a letter Monday. The letter asks the FCC to list or estimate the percentage of stations that could cut off analog signals early if the Feb. 17 deadline is moved to June 12, with responses due by 3 p.m. Tuesday. The House scheduled a Wednesday vote on delay legislation (S-352) that the Senate passed unanimously last week.
Broadcasters may find it hard to make an early switch to digital transmissions if Congress passes a law extending the analog signal cutoff to June 12, Republican Commerce Committee leaders told the FCC in a letter Monday. The letter asks the FCC to list or estimate the percentage of stations that could cut off analog signals early if the Feb. 17 deadline is moved to June 12, with responses due by 3 p.m. Tuesday. The House scheduled a Wednesday vote on delay legislation (S-352) that the Senate passed unanimously last week.
While much energy and attention has been focused on getting the Nationwide Health Information Network up and running so patients’ health information is always fingertips away, no matter where the patient might be, a quieter, parallel effort has been taking place in the public health arena. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have been working on a number of initiatives designed to improve surveillance and ultimately improve public health. The effort faces many of the same challenges, like interoperability and standards, of the NHIN, but also must deal with federal-state relations and the question of control.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission has issued a press release stating that the Commissioners voted unanimously (2-0) on January 30, 2009 to issue a one year stay of enforcement (until February 10, 2010) for certaintesting and certification requirements for manufacturers and importers of CPSC-regulated products, including products intended for children 12 years old and younger.
TV and magazines still have the most impact among millennials -- consumers 14-25 -- and Generation Xers, 26-42, according to a November survey ordered by Deloitte and presented Wednesday at the National Association of Television Program Executives conference in Las Vegas on Internet TV. They're followed by the Internet. The willingness to pay for ad-free content has declined among all groups surveyed. “Young consumers would rather have limited interruptions than pay for no commercials,” said Diane Robina, Comcast’s emerging networks president. “You are going to see a lot of content offered to consumers for free, often in exchange for your personal information. … Millennials are screen- agnostic. When they are watching TV on their computer, to them that’s watching TV.” She said programmers have to recognize that the cellphone is the “single most important device” that people own, but developing programming is held by the subscription fees. “Pricing has to come down or be free, or at most a small charge with your phone service.” Senior Vice President Tom Zappala of ABC Family said insisting that ABC programs accompany the ABC player makes it easier to make money on the content. He said the profusion of platforms has created problems in timing shows. “Our affiliates now include the telcos and iTunes, so scheduling has gotten more difficult and complicated because you have so many affiliates to satisfy now.”
LAS VEGAS -- As the number of distribution platforms increases, copyright law needs to evolve, lawyer Lincoln Bandlow said at the National Association of Television Program Executives conference. At the same time, content owners need to reconsider when they should sue, he said. Bandlow said a the law changed for the better recently when “transformative use” was tied criticism and parody by the Koons and Amazon-Perfect 10 rulings. “Transformative doesn’t mean that it’s a new use,” he said. “It doesn’t mean you have to change the fair use content. Putting it into a new context, even if the work itself is unchanged, is transformative enough.”
By 2011, 80 percent of media consumed will be digital, FanTrust Entertainment President Catherine Warren said on a panel organized by the National Association of Television Program Executives. Despite the emergence of DTV, multiplatform distribution still faces significant obstacles, the speakers said, including monetization, rights issues and scale. “There’s a lot of sex appeal when talking about cross-platform, but … there’s a tremendous amount of operational savvy required to pull these things off,” Digital Media Strategies founder Janet Balis said. “And mobile is developing even more slowly.” A possible solution is producing directly for the Internet, then getting broadcast revenue through conventional syndication.