congress
Cameras
Congressman Wants All Cameraphones to Make Sounds, Foil Covert Pervtography
8:05PM John Herrman | Representative Pete King of New York has introduced a bill to Congress that would require all new cameraphones to have shutter sounds. Why? For the children! More »
Vehicles
Congressman’s Fuel Cell Road Trip Was Horrifically Inefficient
11:30AM Jason Chen | Congressman Eric Massa of NY tried to drive a fuel cell car from NY to DC to make an environmental point and to show how great fuel cell cars are. He failed at both. More »
Entertainment
Obama Asks for Analogue TV Shutdown Delay
5:43AM Jesus Diaz | President-elect Barack Obama has asked Congress to stop pulling the plug on analogue TV broadcasts. The shutdown is due on February 17. The reasons: “Inadequate funding” and problems with the DTV-to-analogue converter box program. More »
Press
Congress Says FCC Chairman Abused Power, Played Favourites with Verizon
2:30AM Matt Buchanan | What’s up with corrupt politicians this week? Congress just filed a 110-page report on FCC Chairman Kevin Martin’s “egregious abuses of power,” documenting his favouritism for companies, and possibly impropriety with some, like Verizon. More »
Phones
Your Tax Dollars at Work: iPhones for Congress
9:30AM Matt Buchanan | Right now, the dudes responsible for bailout bills, freedom fries and like, laws I think, carry the standard corporate drone equipment: BlackBerrys. To be precise, House of Representatives members and their staffs have about 8200 BlackBerrys between them. But for a few of the fancier ones, that’s not good enough. They want iPhones. More »
Entertainment
Pandora and Other Webcasters Saved By Act of Congress
9:50AM Wilson Rothman | Today the otherwise preoccupied Senate quickly passed the Webcaster Settlement Act many of you petitioned for, granting Pandora and other net radio services the right to negotiate royalties with the record industry’s SoundExchange coalition for the years 2006 to 2015. OK, that’s a mouthful—what it means is, they will likely not be driven to bankruptcy due to unreasonable royalty rates. I say “likely” because they still need to dot i’s and cross t’s on the royalty deal itself, but here, Congress approved their ability to do that, and just in the nick of time. Anyway, the world itself may be collapsing, but at least you know our legislators listened to your pleas to keep your favourite web radio broadcasters in business. [Digital Media Association] More »
Press
Congress Takes First Steps in Banning In-Flight Calling Permanently
2:30AM Jason Chen | Like a gaggle of schoolgirls, Congress traded stories about how they too were annoyed by people using their phones before and after takeoff on flights. Well, I never! One House member relayed the story of how his delicate sensibilities were stomped all over by some woman who talked about her sex life on the phone, shortly to be one-upped by another congressman saying that his wife overheard someone receiving a “Dear John” call before takeoff. Good sir! After the jab-fest portion of this sleepover was concluded, the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee approved, via voice vote, a bill that would make the current FCC ban on in-flight calling permanent. And then one of their dads took them out for ice cream. Best night ever. [Yahoo] More »
Phones
FCC Asked to Get Carriers to Hurry Up Local Number Portability Already
7:30AM Gizmodo US Edition | With all the advances in technology we’ve had over the last couple of decades, you’d think that something as simple as changing your land line number into a cellular one would take hours at most. At least Congress does, and its now urging the FCC to put rules in place that will speed up local number portability processing. More »
Networks
Dems Launch Net Neutrality Bill, GOP Says “Hands Off the Poor ISPs!”
3:00AM Wilson Rothman | Yesterday on Capitol Hill, two Democratic representatives introduced a House bill that would require broadband ISPs to “interconnect with the facilities of other network providers on a reasonable and nondiscriminatory basis.” It also requires them to treat all content, applications and services as the same, with “equal opportunity to reach consumers,” says an IDG story in the New York Times. Any ISPs who start messing around with packets could be subject to antitrust enforcement. Republicans weren’t so happy with the bill. More »
Press
