Posts Tagged ‘fcc’

150,000 take FCC broadband speed test in first week

// March 18th, 2010 // No Comments » // Tech News

The FCC has had it with ISPs. For more than a decade, the agency has relied on ISP reports to get a picture of broadband speeds and availability in the US, and the results have been uniformly terrible. The ISPs don’t want to report numbers detailed enough to be useful, so the feds finally dropped a pile of cash on the table last year to do some proper broadband mapping. Last week, the FCC went a step further, rolling out tools for Android, the iPhone, and the Web that enable users to test—and, crucially, to report—their broadband speeds. In addition, it decided to fund a third-party measurement company that will use hardware devices to test actual line speeds in tens of thousands of US homes. It’s all about the data, and the FCC is determined to get it one way or another. Read the comments on this post

Unitasking in a sandbox: Windows Phone 7 Series’ philosophy

// March 18th, 2010 // No Comments » // Tech News

Windows Mobile 6.x can multitask, and it can run applications written in native code. Windows Phone 7 Series can do neither of these things. The reasons are not philosophical, however: Microsoft has no problem with either concept per se . They’re practical. The hardware is powerful enough. The underlying operating system, Windows CE 6, can multitask just fine. The built-in applications also have multitasking capabilities—mobile IE will, for example, continue to download pages in the background, and the Zune application will play music in the background. Where multitasking is absent is with third-party software. Though this has been expected for weeks, it’s only with the release of the development environment that positive official confirmation has arrived: any time the Start hardware button is pressed (which returns the phone to the Start screen), the current third-party application is terminated. Read the comments on this post

Apple Stores still selling screen protectors, but not for long

// March 18th, 2010 // No Comments » // Tech News

Reports have been swirling that Apple plans to ban screen protectors from its brick and mortar retail stores, but for the time being, the items seem to be plentiful throughout many store locations. Several Apple Stores we contacted Thursday afternoon assured Ars that there were currently “plenty” of screen protectors in stock, and did not indicate that this would change anytime soon. (One sales associate went as far as listing off all the variations that were in stock.) None of the outlets mentioned anything about the impending ban or removing the product from inventory in the future. Rumors of Apple’s supposed ban started Wednesday when  iLounge reported  that several companies had been informed that, starting in May, Apple would no longer carry screen protectors in their retail stores. According to iLounge’s sources, stand-alone solutions as well as those bundled with cases will eventually be removed.  There were so many pundit theories about what could have sparked the decision that iLounge wrote a follow-up article to address them. The conspiracy theorists came up with all kinds of reasons: Apple is making room for iPad accessories, Apple wants you to ruin your phone so you have to buy another, the iPhone is too classy for a flimsy piece of plastic, etc. Our personal favorite theory was that Apple might be planning a new product or technology that doesn’t work properly with the film applied. iLounge even got an e-mail from an Apple Store employee, suggesting that the ban might be due to the difficulty in applying the protective layer. Apparently, this employee’s store barred employees from doing this for customers some time ago. In our experiences here at Ars, the iPhone screen is extremely hard to scratch , though some of us have admittedly had much better luck than others. It seems much more likely that an iPhone screen will crack due to a fall than it will develop noticeable scratch. In that case, no amount of thin, flimsy, plastic is going to save your device from that. What Apple is up to is really anyone’s guess. We would like to think that Apple is coming out with its own line of overpriced iPhone screen protectors, but it’s more likely they are just more trouble than they’re worth for Apple. Screen protectors may still be available at Apple Stores, but probably not for long. Don’t worry—you can get the exact same thing for your iPhone from places like Best Buy, Fry’s, and almost any other outlet that sells iPhone accessories.  Read the comments on this post

Years late, Universal cuts CD prices to combat poor sales

// March 18th, 2010 // No Comments » // Tech News

Sales of digital downloads have not been enough to make up for the decline of CD sales since its peak in 2000. Universal Music Group plans to soften the fall of CD sales by dropping prices across the board , to a maximum of $10. The company plans to test lower prices beginning next month and continuing throughout 2010. Nearly all of UMG’s CDs will priced between $6 and $10. UMG is hoping that increased volume will make up for the price drop, and the company plans to create more higher-priced “deluxe” versions for more hardcore fans. “We think [the new pricing program] will really bring new life into the physical format,” Universal Music Group Distribution president and CEO Jim Urie told Billboard . Retailers have been clamoring for lower retails prices, with many believing that $10 is the magic number to spur sales. (I’ll admit, I rarely buy a physical CD for more than $10 these days). A recent test from Trans World Entertainment showed that a $9.99 price point doubled CD sales in over 100 of its stores. Forrester analyst Mark Mulligan thinks labels may have to consider pushing prices as low as $5 to further slow the decline of CD sales. “The CD is a dying music product format, but it has some life left in it because downloads haven’t generated the format replacement they were expected to,” he wrote. “With all previous music formats the successor format was firmly in the ascendancy by the time its predecessor was in terminal decline.” However, digital downloads won’t ever generate format replacement. Music on CDs is already in digital format—if you own the CD already, there’s no benefit in “replacing” it with a digital download. Furthermore, it will be hard to justify spending $10 on a compressed digital download over $6 for an actual physical disc that can be ripped into iTunes or any other media software in a matter of minutes, and can be done using lossless encoding (if so desired). iTunes LP, thought by the record labels to help  save the digital album from succumbing to single track downloads , isn’t making much of a splash with consumers, either. Effectively, what UMG is doing—and what other labels will do if they also decide that lowering prices will prop up dying CD sales—is giving consumers the expectation that albums should cost even less than $9.99. Because once consumers become accustomed to getting a whole album in physical form for $6, you’ll have a much harder time convincing them to buy downloaded albums for more money later. Lowering prices on CDs will increase sales in the short term—good for labels because CD sales still account for about 65 percent of their revenue—but it will only slow its demise, and slow the uptake of digital as a primary format. Read the comments on this post

NBP: FCC proposes "video.gov" public archive

// March 18th, 2010 // No Comments » // Tech News

Say what you want about the Federal Communications Commission’s National Broadband Plan . You like it. You don’t. Its proposals will work. They won’t. But one thing is clear: this FCC loves video. IP video, video conferencing, mobile video, video devices—the NBP can’t talk about video enough, and the hope is obvious. While Internet TV watching only represents a very small percentage of total broadband consumption at this point (2 percent of all time viewing), it has the potential for huge expansion over the next decade, driving broadband growth. So passionate is the FCC for video that the Plan recommends that the White House launch video.gov—a platform to house the federal government’s public digital video content of today and yesteryear.  “All agencies should be encouraged to release as much video content as possible onto Video.gov,” the FCC recommends. “Additionally, Congress should consider making a one-time appropriation to fund the creation of this federated collection of national digital archives.” The site isn’t up yet, even in beta form. But it’s part of the FCC’s grand master plan to drive both broadband adoption and civic engagement. And pursuant to that, the NBP also asks Congress to modify the Copyright Act to make it easier for broadcasters to hand over their archival materials to a digital national archive. “Today, public media and much of broadcast media sit on a wealth of America’s civic DNA in the form of millions of hours of historical news coverage of wars, elections and daily life,” the agency notes. “This archival content could provide tremendous educational opportunities for generations of students and could revolutionize how we access our own history.” Happily, one broadcast venue isn’t waiting for Congress to act on this issue. C-Span unveiled its new video library on Wednesday—160,000 hours of politics covered by the service since 1987. I got so excited about the site that I forgot that I was writing this story! (And now, back to the videos…) Read the comments on this post

NBP: Broadband for everyone by 2020, but who foots the bill?

// March 17th, 2010 // No Comments » // Tech News

“Everyone in the United States today should have access to broadband services supporting a basic set of applications that include sending and receiving e-mail, downloading Web pages, photos and video, and using simple video conferencing,” opens the chapter of the Federal Communications Commission’s National Broadband Plan titled “Availability.” What would that mean in terms of performance? “An initial universalization target of 4Mbps of actual download speed and 1Mbps of actual upload speed, with an acceptable quality of service for interactive applications, would ensure universal access,” the NBP says. The document calls this the “National Broadband Availability Target.” Read the comments on this post

Microsoft to appeal $106 million VirnetX patent verdict

// March 17th, 2010 // No Comments » // Tech News

VirnetX , a software corporation founded in 2005, has prevailed in a patent-infringement lawsuit accusing Microsoft of willfully infringing on two patents for automatic and secure Virtual Private Network (VPN) technology. The Texas jury recommended an award of $105.75 million, which is less than half of the $242 million that VirtnetX asked for. Still, the verdict was a very positive one for VirtnetX. “Our clients are very happy with today’s verdict,” said VirnetX counsel Douglas Cawley in a statement. “We hope this decision sends a clear message to patent infringers everywhere that they will be held responsible for wrongly profiting off the hard work of others.” Microsoft is not happy with the decision and plans to fight on. “We are disappointed by the jury’s verdict,” a Microsoft spokesperson told Ars. “We respect others’ intellectual property, and we believe the evidence demonstrated that we do not infringe and the patents are invalid. We believe the award of damages is legally and factually unsupported, so we will ask the court to overturn the verdict.”  The case was tried in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, the favored venue for patent infringement cases. In its original lawsuit filed in February 2007 , VirnetX alleged that Microsoft Office Communicator included technology covered by its patent No. 6,502,135 and that Windows Meeting Space infringed its patent No. 7,188,180 . The $105.75 million breaks down as $71.75 million for the former and $34 million for the latter, according to the Scotts Valley, California company. VirnetX acquired the rights to the patents from the government-contracting company Science Applications International in 2006. Microsoft accused VirnetX of being a patent troll during the trial, and it was revealed that the company’s business model was based on winning the lawsuit, though it does have a licensing agreement with VeriSign. Read the comments on this post

iMacs expected to boost desktop market growth in 2010

// March 17th, 2010 // No Comments » // Tech News

Mobile computing has taken over as the main driver of growth in PC sales for the past year, with notebooks overtaking desktops in late 2008 and sales of desktops declining for the last two years. However, Caris & Company analyst Robert Cihra is expecting desktops to show a small positive growth this year, due in large part to brisk sales of Apple’s iMac . Cihra still expects notebooks and netbooks to account for 90 percent of overall growth in the market for the current year. But the increased demand driven by emerging markets, a slight increase in corporate IT spending, and “power gamers” should result in a 3 percent uptick in desktop sales over last year. “[B]elieve it or not,” Cihra wrote in a note to investors, “we estimate Apple’s iMac accounting for a full one quarter of ALL desktop market growth in calendar year 2010.” The number isn’t so surprising when you consider that the iMac pushed an impressive 70 percent year-over-year growth in desktop Mac sales for 2009. Contrast that with a 12 percent drop in overall sales of desktops for the same time frame. Apple’s second fiscal quarter sales are already looking healthy , with sales up 36 and 43 percent year over year for January and February respectively. Those figures led Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster to peg Mac sales at about 2.9 million for the quarter. That’s less than the recent record quarters of late, but would still mark a 31 percent year-over-year growth compared to the second quarter last year . Sales of iMacs resumed in earnest recently after

NBP: inside the FCC’s spectrum revolution (and its problems)

// March 16th, 2010 // No Comments » // Tech News

In the months preceding the release of the Federal Communications Commission’s National Broadband Plan , the agency made clear that it wants to broker a huge transfer of licensed spectrum away from the television broadcasting sector and toward the wireless phone/broadband industry. FCC Chair Julius Genachowski has long called for 500MHz of bandwidth to be found in the TV bands and elsewhere, then moved to the wireless sector over the next decade. In fact, the NBP calls for freeing up 300MHz starting just below the UHF zone (300MHz to 3GHz) to be made “newly available for mobile use within five years.” On top of that, the Plan wants to open up 20MHz of licensed space in the little-known 2.3GHz Wireless Communications Service (WCS) band for mobile broadband use. Read the comments on this post

FCC Commissioner rips ISPs on broadband prices, competition

// March 11th, 2010 // No Comments » // Tech News

Federal Communications Commissioner Mignon Clyburn solidified her role as the agency’s tail gunner on Wednesday with a warning to the big ISPs that the FCC’s patience with rising broadband subscription rates is wearing thin. “When prices rise across the industry, and where there are only a limited number of players in the game, we have to ask ourselves whether there is any meaningful competition in the marketplace,” Clyburn declared in a public statement. “Moreover, when executives from major broadband providers indicate that they will only roll out faster speeds in the few markets where they have competition, our fears about whether meaningful competition exists should grow.” Read the comments on this post

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