The 463: Inside Tech

Friendly Fire: A Prescription for the US to Get Its Mojo Back

One of the 463 partners participated in a book party last night for a friend, Julia Sweig, who's new book, Friendly Fire: Losing Friends and Making Enemies in the Anti-American Century, is a great read for those who want to learn more about US foreign policy.  Its got a lot of interesting points that the tech industry could learn about as we seek to maintain America's global competitive innovation edge.  From a Washington Post review:

Sweig "urges Washington to adopt a changed foreign policy style that develops empathy for foreign cultures, practices better manners and pays more attention to rules and fairness. Anti-Americanism will not go away, but it need not dominate the 21st century if Americans follow the advice of this well-reasoned book."

Give it a read!

20 Percent

   

From Drew Clark in this afternoon's Tech Daily (sub required):

Advocates of telecommunications legislation favored by Bell telephone firms acknowledged Thursday that the tie vote on a network neutrality amendment means they face an uphill battle in congressional passage of their measure this year...

... "I think we just reached the high-water mark," said another industry source, pegging chances of bill passage at less than 20 percent. Sens. Mike DeWine, R-Ohio, Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., and Tom Carper, D-Del, "are all saying they are going to stop the bill. You have Specter who has already said that he is going to take this bill up."

Will 2007 be the year for compromise?

Around the Horn: The Whatzupwitu Edition

In the name of understanding a major new technology trend, we done our best to surreptitiously slip random Internet videos out to you dear reader/viewer.  Who can forget the autistic basketball player or Lazy Muncie? How about Bus Uncle?  Our random offering of music videos?  Or YouTubed campaign ads?  We hope this has been an educational process and you're a better person for it -- because you'll need all the brain cells in your head to wrap your head around the Eddie Murphy/Michael Jackson video after the jump.  It's something that we've long repressed.  Help me, Mommy.

Oh, almost forgot, here's this week's run around the bases:

--In regards to Net Neutrality legislation, Michael Powell gives his "be careful what you wish for" message again, at the Convergence 2.0 event.

--On the other hand, Rocketboom tells you why NN legislation is essential.  Rocketboom may be the top "vlog" on the Web.  "Save the Internet" lists other pro-NN videos here.

--The Washington Post's Jeff Birnbaum -- who owns the lobbying beat -- looks from the outside at Net Neutrality and beats up both sides for obfuscation. 

--Congress has long had an informal Internet Caucus.  Now it has a RFID Caucus.  We're optimistic that it can be haven of well-reasoned discussion and education.

--The Los Angeles Times editorializes on the French iTunes interoperability issue that we noted here.

--Are there signs of life for eHealth legislation this Congressional session?

--Thanks to Tom Foremski for his 463 plugs on Silicon Valley Watcher.

Digital Media Conference Chatter

We didn't go to the Digital Media Conference last Friday in Virginia. Helpfully, Gary Arlen did and reported on it over at IP Democracy.  Some highlights:

On the Stevens' bill: 

Christopher Putala, Earthlink’s executive VP for public policy, told me that he expects the Senate Commerce Committee may split evenly at 11-11 or could come in at 12-10. In either case, he suggested, the close committee decision would not send a clear signal to the Senate to adopt Sen. Ted Stevens’ Communications, Consumers’ Choice, and Broadband Deployment Act of 2006 (S. 2686) if the bill actually comes up for a floor vote. “Unless there’s something that balances it out, we’re not going to get legislation this year,” Putala said hopefully.

(More after the jump)

French iPod Apparently Water-Proof

From AP (via BW):

Leading French lawmakers agreed Thursday to water down a draft copyright law that had threatened the future of the iPod in France....

....The compromise text, which is subject to a final vote in both houses before becoming law, still asserts that companies should share the data essential to such "interoperability."

But in what could be a significant loophole, it allows compatibility restrictions on music and video downloads to be decided by the copyright holders -- potentially allowing Apple and others to sidestep the information requirement by striking deals with record labels and artists.

What's not clear from the story is whether this is a false choice or not.  That is, could iTunes and others could simply refuse to offer the music of artists/labels who "choose" that their tracks to be interoperable? Or, is Apple (and others) required to abide by the choice?  And, even if they are, one would assume that that a music store could highlight those "who work with them" and bury content for those working "against" them?

Regardless, instead of legislation that attempts to create rules around a snapshot of time -- we hope that market solutions have a chance to prove themselves.  iTunes may be dominant today but so was AOL and Compuserve not so long ago.  If there can be content industry approved DRM solutions that focus on authentication at the individual consumer level -- instead of the device level -- than clumsy interoperability mandates can be rendered moot.  Sun's Open Media Commons attempts to hit this sweet spot.

Internet Privacy: An Industry Evolution

Yesterday...

Several large technology companies, including Google Inc. and eBay Inc., announced support yesterday for stronger federal regulations to protect consumer privacy on the Internet.

Twelve companies formed an advocacy group, the Consumer Privacy Legislative Forum, to lobby for greater protection of private information, and several members testified yesterday before a House subcommittee.  (Washington Post)

Thoughts (after the jump):

Bond to Join ITAA*

Nearly 14 months after joining Monster Worldwide, Phil Bond said this week that he'll be the next ITAA president and CEO.  The former undersecretary in the Commerce Department told Tech Daily that the job is the "kind of role I have always hoped to land."

Bond has lots of well-earned respect in the tech policy community and numerous loyalists.  Given this and despite his eagerness to run a top-tier trade group, he wouldn't have joined ITAA if he thought there was a good chance the group would be weakened by a merger.  ITAA was rumored to be part of an attempt for industry trade group consolidation when its last CEO Harris Miller left to run for the Senate.  (Called the "antichrist of outsourcing" by his opponent, Miller lost his bid in the Virginia Democratic primary this month.)

You don't hear much about that consolidation during this summer of fun for tech policy in DC.

*Dear reader:  We realize that this headline is far from witty, but we waded through dozens of too obvious Bond puns and plays-on-words before pulling the trigger on straightforward.  Feel free to do better (or worse) in the comments...

(Flickr photo credit)

Around the Horn: The Happy Morning Edition

We will never drink Folgers for its taste, but after watching their new ad, we may gulp it down for its hallucingenic qualities.  Check it out after the jump -- and after enduring another trip Around the Horn...

--Former HP CEO Carly Fiorina "is building a bridge between Silicon Valley and Washington, hoping to use her contacts in the nation's capital to help the technology industry fulfill its agenda" says the SF Chronicle.  Given her contacts and experience, we think that her sweet spot could be international trade/tech policy issues. 

--"If you thought the FCC’s regime of speech controls for broadcast television and radio was arbitrary and excessive, then just wait till we give similar authority to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to regulate video game content!", says PFF's Adam Thierer at the Technology Liberation Front.

--Why did Microsoft pick Massachusetts for a $30 million software donation to schools?  Ars Technica looks at the ODF connection and avoids making the obvious Spinal Tap reference.

--We told you Ze Frank's video blog would be big.  Four months into launching it, he scored a piece in the Sunday NYT and NPR.

(Flickr photo credit)

Read This Article, Boys... He's Not Bluffing! (NN)

Tom Abate of the SF Chronicle just led an extensive research and writing effort to kick off an ongoing effort to dig deep into the net neutrality debate.  Dripping with sweat, Abate writes on the Tech Chronicles blog:

"If you care about this issue and haven't already read the story, please take five minutes to scan the graphic and 20 minutes to read the story. It represents about 200 hours of work by 10 reporters, editors and artists. This is what newspapers do -- put hundreds of hours into stories that try to walk down the middle of passionate debates. And then we give this work away and hope people will think about it."

If you are trying to catch up to this debate, this piece is indeed a strong recap of the issues, players and key terminology tossed about.

Meanwhile, back to the horse race, Tech Daily's Drew Clark writes today of Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Stevens efforts to drive a Net Neutrality compromise.

Noteworthy Events in DC this Week

A very busy week on the Hill for the tech and telecom world.  All relevant lobbyists should plan on being in three different places at the same time come Wednesday and Thursday...