AT&T executives will meet with Austin and Texas officials seeking the same concessions that Google is getting in order to build out its gigabit network. As someone who has followed telecom in Austin, and in Texas, this mostly means the ability to cherry pick where it will deploy its gigabit network. And that points to both the upside and downside of Google’s influence.
AT&T and Google’s plans to give Austin a gigabit is an experiment. Is it a good one?
Filed Under: Benton Headlines
Hey Internet, where’s the outrage?
Filed Under: Benton Headlines
Compare, for a moment, the Internet industry’s outrage against potential government censorship, as they see it, with the seeming indifference to government surveillance. In 2012, major Web sites staged a massive global protest against a law that would have given the government new powers to shut down sites associated with piracy. Yet, as Congress considers sweeping new surveillance procedures over popular Internet companies, those same digital activists are largely silent. It begs the question, does this younger, tech-savvy generation care more about innovation than civil liberties?
Recalculating the privacy debate after Google Maps penalty
Filed Under: Benton Headlines
By now, consumers and citizens may have detected a pattern: New technologies allow new types of privacy invasions, which then lead to ad hoc remedies – until the next type of intrusion. As the string of Google violations shows – along with dozens of new privacy laws passed since the 1970s – the pace of this cat-and-mouse privacy quest has quickened in the Digital Age.
Tech-savvy Newark Mayor Booker: Government flunking social media
Filed Under: Benton Headlines
Cory Booker, the constantly tweeting mayor of Newark (NJ) who intends to run for the U.S. Senate, said that the federal government needs to reinvent the often overly formal way it uses social media.
Districts Forge School-to-Home Digital Connections
Filed Under: Benton Headlines
A look at the importance of using today's technological tools to bridge homes and schools in all kinds of communities—rural, suburban, or urban—and give students online access to learning resources well beyond the school day. As increasing numbers of school districts have put 1-to-1 computing programs in place, administrators are wrestling with whether to allow those devices to go home with students at the end of each day.
Telecom Firms Seek to Curb Publicly Funded Web Services
Filed Under: Benton Headlines
Sensing a threat to their business model, telecom companies are pushing more states to curb the spread of publicly funded high-speed Internet access, arguing the networks could squash competition.
When Will the Rest of Us Get Google Fiber?
Filed Under: Benton Headlines
A Google spokeswoman says the company “expects to operate profitably” and that Google Fiber is neither a loss leader nor a PR stunt. If that’s true, then why isn’t it being made available everywhere?
Open Government Data Spurs Entrepreneurship and Jobs
Filed Under: Benton Headlines
Our goal, as Presidential Innovation Fellows working with open data, has been to find, unlock, and promote the next wave of government data -- the next GPS -- that innovators can use to kickstart entrepreneurship, fuel new tools and apps, and create jobs.
Rupert Murdoch to spend billions on video rights
Filed Under: Benton Headlines
Rupert Murdoch’s newspaper and book publishing arm is to spend billions of dollars on video rights, as it seeks to turn the print business into a multi-media operation.
How social media is becoming as important a live event as the live event itself
Filed Under: Benton Headlines
In our age of the dual television and smartphone screen, watching Twitter during live events has become intertwined with the actual watching of the broadcast itself. You can always DVR a show for later, but experiencing the Twitter jokes as they happen is something else entirely.