Today’s risk-averse, over-regulated society will drive young people to escape via digital technology, Orange Home UK Dir.-Technology Research Norman Lewis said. 2024’s 18-year- olds will be “a generation of technologically-savvy doers, people whose pragmatic adoption and internalization of digital technology will give them enormous creative potential,” he said. The question is whether parents and govts. will stifle that inventiveness, he said, commenting on the Spiked/Orange poll of experts and key challenges for people born in 2006. The future will bring unprecedented innovation in mobile communications, U.K. Mobile Operators Assn. Exec. Dir. Mike Dolan wrote. But concern about new communications technology and infrastructure must be debated and evaluated openly, “with evidence-based science underpinning subsequent political decision,” Dolan said. As mobile telephony moves into its 3rd and 4th decades of mass use, a main theme will be individual and societal boundaries related to privacy, work-life balance, use by children and etiquette, or limits set by govts. spooked by the “power of immediate person-to-person communication,” GSM Assn. Dir.- Research & Sustainability Jack Rowley said. Tools being devised will be aware of the surroundings; society has to balance the safety benefits of location information and the privacy implications of being able to reconstruct someone’s movements, he said. By 2024, consumers will have an easier time picking and using what they read and watch on their own schedules, U. of Minn. Communications Studies Prof. Donald Browne said. Cellphones will figure strongly, and media content regulation will shrink more rapidly than in 1980- 2000. Major challenges emerging from these developments: (1) The possibility of rising assumption that access to “basic” versions of new technologies is a universal right. (2) A citizenry “heavily fractionated” by media preference, complicating or easing political and economic movements efforts to achieve their goals. (3) Continuation of today’s “culture wars” between individuals and groups with deeply held religious, environmental and other convictions. Mass- audience TV will survive -- it if makes what people want to watch, Endemol UK Showrunner Managing Dir. Paul Marquess said. Given TV’s limited creativity, he looks to digital technology and interactivity to bring viewers stories they want, he said. Technical progress creates governance issues as networked information technologies blur boundaries within and between organizations and among the local, regional, national and global, said Microsoft Public Sector Innovation Head Chris Yapp. The role of ICANN and global Internet governance exemplifies the challenge, he said, as does the task of keeping children safe online and fighting spam and phishing. Yapp called for an invention with as much impact as the limited liability company had to the industrial age “to help us learn new governance models for the knowledge society.”
Teens keep online activities from parents for the same reason they try to hide their analog lives, Cox Communications said: Parents just don’t understand, and might ground you. That insight and others emerged Thurs. from a Teen Summit on Internet Safety that Cox and the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children organized to learn why teens take risks online. “Teens reinforced that Internet safety needs to be taught in schools, and they believe that the most powerful education tool would be for older teens to talk to their peers about Internet safety,” said the Center’s Staca Urie.
Teens keep online activities from parents for the same reason they try to hide their off-line lives, Cox Communications said: Parents just don’t understand, and might ground you. That insight and others emerged Thurs. from a Teen Summit on Internet Safety that Cox and the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children organized to learn why teens take risks online. “Teens reinforced that Internet safety needs to be taught in schools, and they believe that the most powerful education tool would be for older teens to talk to their peers about Internet safety,” said the Center’s Staca Urie.
EchoStar can send “pop-up” Emergency Alert System (EAS) text messages to any Dish Network channel, using a set-top box override function. A 255-character overlay message can be sent individual set-top boxes no matter what’s on screen - - real-time, pay-per-view or recorded programming, EchoStar last week told FCC Chmn. Martin’s office in an EAS presentation last week, an ex parte said. But EchoStar itself can’t check for EAS alerts, it said. “A Dept. of Homeland Security clearinghouse is needed that can aggregate all EAS alerts and sort notifications by zip code,” the company said: “EchoStar cannot feasibly monitor each locality for an EAS alert because EchoStar has a national footprint and does not have a local presence in these communities.”
Open Media Network (OMN) aims to come out of beta in mid-Sept. with its 1.0 version’s release, said OMN and public broadcast officials. The nonprofit online network got a boost when PBS decided to offer its premier programming on OMN as part of a “download to own” project. That move marks a first for both PBS and OMN, said Linda Lawrence, OMN Vp- Content Partnerships. Under the payment system for PBS programs, consumers can watch a program as often as they want for a flat price, much as they could a rental video, she added. PBS also announced a similar tie-in with Google Video.
Open Media Network (OMN) aims to come out of beta in mid-Sept. with its 1.0 version’s release, said OMN and public broadcast officials. The nonprofit online network got a boost when PBS decided to offer its premier programming on OMN as part of a “download to own” project. That move marks a first for both PBS and OMN, said Linda Lawrence, OMN Vp- Content Partnerships. Under the payment system for PBS programs, consumers can watch a program as often as they want for a flat price, much as they could a rental video, she added. PBS also announced a similar tie-in with Google Video.
NARUC was scheduled to open its summer meeting in San Francisco Sun. with video franchising, wireless preemption and caller ID spoofing resolutions on the Telecom Committee’s agenda. Also on the agenda is a speech Tues. morning by AT&T CEO Edward Whitacre.
Employment, wages and job growth for minorities and women are in a serious decline, according to a report issued this week by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR). This is related to massive ownership consolidation, anti-union sentiment and deregulation that have swept the communications and media industries since the 1996 Telecom Act, said several speakers at a Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR) Education Fund event Tues. at the Capitol to discuss the report and broader employment trends in the industries. The report is especially timely as Congress considers new telecom law and the FCC is now involved in new media ownership considerations, said event moderator Gloria Tristani, pres., Benton Foundation.
The House Tues. passed 414-2 a bill (HR-5852) that would coordinate national, state and local emergency communications efforts through a new Dept. of Homeland Security (DHS) office. The bipartisan bill largely sailed through the House, save for an attack by Rep. Stupak (D-Mich.). The former police officer said the bill solves only “half the problem” since it doesn’t fund the changes it proposes. Stupak slammed Republicans for rushing the bill to the floor with no hearing, markup or opportunity for amendment. The bill was introduced July 20.
The Department of Homeland Security has completed and issued the National Infrastructure Protection Plan (NIPP), which it describes as a comprehensive risk management framework that defines critical infrastructure protection roles and responsibilities for all levels of government, private industry, nongovernmental agencies and tribal partners.