Give and get

One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) is an education project to provide the world's children "with new opportunities to explore, experiment and express themselves.".

Any nation's most precious natural resource is its children. We believe the emerging world must leverage this resource by tapping into the children's innate capacities to learn, share, and create on their own. Our answer to that challenge is the XO laptop, a children's machine designed for "learning learning."

The XO laptop is a "a flexible, ultra-low-cost, power-efficient, responsive, and durable" laptop. Its operating system is built from free and open-source software:

The children-and their teachers-will have the freedom to reshape, reinvent, and reapply their software, hardware, and content.

Beginning November 12, OLPC will offer its Give 1 Get 1 Program: $399 will provide one XO laptop to be "sent to empower a child to learn in a developing nation," and one will be sent to your home.

Plugged into science

The National Academies offers a weekly series of podcasts "focusing on a wide range of critical issues in science, engineering, and medicine." Begun in early March 2007, the many podcast topics include:

• None of Your Business: Privacy in the Information Age (Fri, 14 Sep 2007)
• Critical Issues in Transportation (Fri, 31 Aug 2007)
• Uninsured in America (Fri, 6 Jul 2007)
• Progress in Preventing Childhood Obesity: How Do We Measure Up? (Wed, 6 Jun 2007)
• Tech Tally: Approaches to Assessing Technological Literacy (Fri, 23 Mar 2007)
• Engaging Schools (Fri, 16 Mar 2007)

The shows are ten minutes in length and, like all podcasts, may be donwloaded and played on one's computer or loaded onto an MP3 player for playback on the go. The National Academies also provides a subscription link for automatic download.

The Sounds of Science Podcast - key findings and important recommendations made by The National Academies.

Tracking bill status Hawaii style

The Hawaii State Legislature's website currently offers bill status via RSS syndication. To monitor the status of any bill, users can obtain the feed link for their RSS feed readers on the bill's status page. The website's RSS help page explains it clearly for those unfamilar with RSS syndication and its benefits.

Visit the Hawaii State Legislature Status and Documents to search current legislation.

D.C. beat, e-style

National politics press gets a new online news provider. Recruiting writers from such established press as The Washington Post and launched January 23, The Politico self-described emphasis is "on the 'backstories' -- those that illuminate the personalities, relationships, clashes, ideas and political strategies playing out in the shadows of official Washington."

We will focus on three arenas. The first is Congress and the constant flow of agendas, personalities and power struggles that define daily life on Capitol Hill. The second is the 2008 presidential campaign, a race already churning and one likely to shape history in ways far beyond the typical election. The third is lobbying and advocacy, a part of the capital economy undergoing rapid growth and change.

With a slick, sophisticated look of an east coast news magazine, The Politico offers the expected modern, blog features of permanent links to articles and columns, reader comments interaction, and registered user access to email alerts and participation in chats and forums.

Running on the broadband

A post-election survey by Pew/Internet reports "the number of Americans using the Internet as the source of most of their political news doubled since the last mid-term election." Examining the rate of primary use of news sources (TV, newspapers, radio, Internet, magazines), the survey finds only the Internet steadily increased in popularity . The remaining sources lost in popularity: TV and newspapers the bigger losers reporting political source popularity dropping from 82% to 69% and 57% to 34% respectively, with radio rising from 12% to a high of 19% then dropping to 17%. Magazines lost a 11% popularity among voters to a low of 2%.

The survey also reported:

• 31% of Americans used the internet during the 2006 campaign to get political news and information and discuss the races through email.
• Relatively young broadband users say the internet is a more important political news source than newspapers.
• A new online political elite is emerging as 23% of campaign internet users became online political activists.
• A majority of Internet users now get political material from blogs, comedy sites, government websites, candidate sites, or alternative news sites.
• More than half of campaign Internet users cite the Internet's breadth of information and perspectives as a major reason for their online activity.

Election 2006 Online
(January 2007, pdf, 33pp/308kB)

Video watch

The National Institute on Media and the Family issued its 11th annual video game report card at the end of November. The Institute stated:

For the past ten years, we have used this annual report card to challenge the video game industry to improve its record of attending to the welfare of younger players. More recently, we urged retailers to step up to their reponsbility to keep adult games out of the hands of children and youth. This year we acknowledge the strides taken by both sectors of the industry.

In October, the Institute and Iowa State University sponsored the first National Summit on Video Games, Youth and Public Policy at which academics, public health officials, child health advocates and video game industry representatives convened. There the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) pledged additional funding for ratings education for parents. ESRB ratings include E (Everyone) and E10+ (Everyone 10+).

The report noted:

...some video game makers are focusing on kid-friendly games and technologies. The Nintendo DS, for example, has gained a reputation as a "clean console" because of the vast number of E-rated games it supports, and Microsoft is said to be investing heavily in E and E10+ games.

According to its website, the Institute is "the world's leading and most respected research-based organization on the positive and harmful effects of media on children and youth."

11th Annual Video Game Report Card (pdf, 13pp/84kB), November 28, 2006

See related FR post, Minors and violent, sexual video games, Jan. 06

Online learning

The Sloan Consortium (Sloan-C) is a "consortium of institutions and organizations committed to quality online education...[and] encourages the collaborative sharing of knowledge and effective practices to improve online education in learning effectiveness, access, affordability for learners and providers, and student and faculty satisfaction."

Sloan-C maintains a catalog of certificate and degree programs offered by accredited members (both University of Hawaii at Manoa and at Hilo offer certificate and degree programs); provides workshops, conferences, consultants; and publishes studies and surveys on online learning.

Associated Press (AP) reports today on the Sloan-C fourth annual survey of online learning in U.S. higher education. Findings include:

• Nearly 3.2 million students were taking at least one online course during the fall 2005 term, a substantial increase over the 2.3 million reported the previous year.
• The more than 800,000 additional online students is more than twice the number added in any previous year.
• Online students, like the overall student body, are overwhelmingly undergraduates.
• More than 96 percent of the very largest institutions (more than 15,000 total enrollments) have some online offerings.
• Doctoral/Research institutions have the greatest penetration of offering online programs as well as the highest overall rate (more than 80%) of having some form of online offering (either courses or full programs).
• 62 percent of academic leaders rated the learning outcomes in online education as the same or superior to those in face-to-face.
• Faculty issues, both acceptance of online and the need for greater time and effort to teach online, are also important barriers.

Making the Grade: Online Education in the United States, 2006
(November 2006, pdf, 27pp/424kB)

FTC - T is for Tech

November 6-8, 2006, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) will host hearings on Protecting Consumers in the Next Tech-ade. The Commission encourages participation by "consumers, government regulators, industry members, technologists, consumer advocates, academics, law enforcement officials and other interested members of the public."

The hearings will provide an opportunity to examine changes that have occurred in marketing and technology over the past decade, and to garner experts' views on coming challenges and opportunities for consumers, businesses, and governmental bodies.

To provide continuous coverage of the hearings, the FTC launched their FTC Tech-ade Blog focusing on the new technologies and developing business practices especially impacting the consumer. The blog will offer interviews with hearing participants and tech experts and will provide live coverage of the hearings. The blog includes full blog interactive features allowing comments.

The hearings will run three days on the campus of The George Washington University and is open to the public, with a final day on November 9 open only to law enforcers and government officials. A sampling of topics include:

• How Will We Communicate in the Next Tech-ade?
• Social Networking
• User-generated Content
• Benefits to Consumers of Living in an Instant Information Culture
• RFID Technology
• New Products - New Challenges
• How to Make Sense of it All - Consumers' Perspective

The full agenda of workshops may be viewed on the Tech-ade site.

Back from the future: the world is flat

As the Internet becomes easier in which to participate and cheaper to implement, techies, thinkers and stakeholders share certain concerns and beliefs on the global flattening. The network will be lowcost; English will continue as the global language of communication yet will not displace other languages; national boundaries will blur; the transparency v. privacy conflict will struggle to build and define the better world; and there will be some reaction to the reaches of technology resulting in planned disruption and refusal to be "on the grid."

Pew Internet published Sunday the results of their survey in the 115 page report on the future of the Internet. Not all positive, the predictions also expressed the dread of control, overregulation and abuse by those in power:

By 2020, intelligent agents and distributed control will cut direct human input so completely out of some key activities such as surveillance, security and tracking systems that technology beyond our control will generate dangers and dependencies that will not be recognized until it is impossible to reverse them. We will be on a "J-curve" of continued acceleration of change.

The Future of the Internet II (September 2006, pdf, 115 pp/524 kB)

Marketplace on the Capitol steps

eBay, the hugely successful Internet marketplace with "193 million registered users from around the world," is now putting out a call for political action. From their eBay Government Relations web site, eBay Main Street, they declare:

eBay's Government Relations team is working to make sure your voice is heard in Congress and state capitals...
Join eBay's Main Street Program. By signing up to receive updates on the legislative issues that affect you as a member of the eBay Community, you'll be able to take quick action to protect your business.

Organizing members into a grassroots network of activists, eBay monitors such issues as distant state sales tax, state autioneering license requirements, Net neutrality, and current regional regulation of health insurance. eBay also owns PayPal and Skype, respective internet players in the online banking and telecommunications arenas.

eBay Government Relations provides state profiles ("300,000 registered users in the state of Hawaii"); generated letters of position to elected officials; a newsletter, The Mainstreet Crier; and a meeting program:

The Main Street Meeting Program educates sellers about both national and state specific threats to eCommerce. Our program will include a detailed presentation explaining these threats, a question and answer session and a complimentary working lunch or breakfast. Our team will then escort you to your state capitol to speak directly with state legislators about these crucial issues.

eBay's activist approach is not just national. eBay is also known as The World's Online Marketplace®, and "currently employ[s] more than 20 Government Relation (GR) Specialists around the world to monitor and engage in the political, legislative, and regulatory activities of governments," cooperatively working with their "Army of Entrepreneurs".

Internet content driven by speed not class

Pew Internet released a report Sunday describing the surge in home broadband Internet use. Compared to a similar survey last year, "home broadband adoption grew by 40% in the year prior to March 2006, twice the growth rate of the year before."

A few of the report's findings include:

• Growth in broadband adoption has been very strong in middle-income households.
• 48 million internet users have posted content to the internet and the large majority of them are home broadband users.
• Having a fast, always-on internet connection at home is associated with users' posting content to the internet and thereby shaping the environment of cyberspace.
• User-generated content is driven by young home high-speed users. Fully 51% of "under 30" home broadband users have posted content to the internet compared with 36% of home high-speed users older than 30.

Home Broadband Adoption 2006 Home broadband adoption is going mainstream and that means user-generated content is coming from all kinds of internet users.
(available in pdf, 128KB, from PEW Internet)

A closed door (for now) on open standards

Seems Massachusetts' Peter Quinn got the wrong side of a slammed door for his troubles to open state IT wide open - "open standards, open documents, open-source software." Governing magazine's May 2006 issue reports on the tribulations and resignation of Mass. CIO, Peter Quinn. FR reported last year of the excitement in public, state and IT circles to Massachusetts' embrace of open standards. However, that turned out to be more the thrown gauntlet.

Government's responsibility is to keep its information open and unimpeded, not only today but also tomorrow.

Not quite the last words in the ensuing battle to be open, but no longer issuing as state policy. Governing reports of the efforts, soon after Mr. Quinn's public support of open standards, by lobbyists supportive of Microsoft and by legislators concerned with Mr. Quinn's management vision and tactics, as well as of a press attack on his ethics. His decisions denounced by a Senate audit committee, his vision accused as being "unworkable," and questioned by the press of improper use of travel expenses (later retracted), Mr. Quinn resigned.

Microsoft products are used on 90 percent of the desktops in Massachusetts government, all based on proprietary software code.

"They're not the 900-pound gorilla, they're the 1,800-pound gorilla in this marketplace," says John Weathersby, executive director of the Open Source Software Institute, a nonprofit organization that promotes adoption of open technology in government. "They own the desktop space. They're going to fight against it tooth and nail, and I expect nothing less."

Read the Governing article:
Open Sorcerer A crusade for open standards in technology cost one top official his job in Massachusetts. But the issue isn't going away.

also, the online special face-off between Peter Quinn and Microsoft's Alan Yates:
Open Standards: a Face-off

Legislative blogs on the rise

Legislative blogs are adding their presence to the rapidly growing blogosphere. A Stateline.org article today reports on a blog of Utah's Senate Republicans. Launched in September 2005, the blog calls itself the Unofficial Voice of the Utah Senate Majority. Stateline notes that it "was the first of its kind to strike up a digital dialogue that included entries not just from state Senate Republicans but also from minority Democrats and lawmakers in the opposite chamber."

The article also references a table of legislative blogs and RSS feeds compiled by the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) which links to 53 blogs in 24 states.

See related FR posts:

• Capitol blogs
• Statehouse blogging
  
• Legislative group blog

Right to real privacy

FR first reported on the federal Real ID Act, P.L. 109-13 (pdf), with a post on the state of Virginia's creation of a task force to review the Act and its potential impact on Virginia, "including but not limited to the potential increased cost." As Associated Press (AP) reports in a Tuesday story, the Real ID Act "requires states by 2008 to verify documents such as birth certificates, Social Security cards and passports when people apply for driver's licenses," employing a common machine-readable technology and state databases with linked state driver information and photos. However, now it seems, according to AP, states are viewing the issue more as a "fight over privacy rights versus homeland security."

New Hampshire's House overwhelmingly passed HB 1582 which prohibits the state from participating in a national identification card system or amending the procedures for applying for a driver's license or identification card. The strongly worded bill is supported by the American Civil Liberties Union as well as conservative privacy advocates. The Senate is expected to return a vote in early May.

AP reports many state governors and most state legislatures are opposed to the Real ID and wait "to see regulations for implementing it from the federal Department of Homeland Security before acting."

The general court finds that the public policy established by Congress in the Real ID Act of 2005, Public Law 109-13, is contrary and repugnant to Articles 1 through 10 of the New Hampshire constitution as well as Amendments 4 though 10 of the Constitution for the United States of America.

House Bill 1582, 2006, State of New Hampshire

Hawaii State Capitol Hotspot

Hawaii has joined the growing number of states providing free Wi-Fi Internet connectivity at their State Capitols. Wednesday, April 12, the Hawaii State Legislature launched its broadband Wi-Fi, HISTATELEG, available throughout the Capitol. Citizens using their own laptops and PDAs are now able to access the Internet from House and Senate conference rooms, the Capitol Auditorium, the central corridors outside conference rooms and offices, the Public Access Room, and from the chamber level hallway.

States' voting systems not ready for November

The deadline reported by the Federal Election Commission for states to comply with three specific requirements of the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) was January 1, 2006:

• Each state and jurisdiction was required to comply with the voting systems requirements in Section 301 (voting systems standards providing vote verification and correction opportunities).


• States needed to implement a computerized statewide voter registration database.


• All punchcard and lever machines were to be replaced in states accepting Section 102 payments who qualified for a waiver of the original deadline (January 1, 2004).

According to a recently released report by the electionline.org, described in their press release (pdf) as providing information on the election changes in each of the 50 states over the past five years, "The lack of progress in nearly half of the states throws into doubt whether HAVA’s goals can be achieved in time for the November 2006 vote."

The report expressed concerns about the reliability of electronic voting machines and the paper audit trail requirements; the questionable legality of required identification of all voters; the capabilties, functions and designs of statewide voter registration databases or lack thereof; and provisional ballots and determinations of eligibility and different state-to-state counting rules. The press release quoted Doug Chapin, director of the non-partisan group:

In a number of states, the lack of HAVA compliance is the result of inaction on the part of elected officials. Other states have tried to take action, but have had their efforts hindered by other barriers.

Election Reform: What's Changed, What Hasn't and Why 2000-2006
(available in pdf, 4.8MB, from electionline.org)

Minors and violent, sexual video games

The Congressional Research Service (CRS) issued a report on Jan. 18 on the constitutionality of limiting minors' access to video games rated M (Mature) or AO (Adults Only). These ratings, which have no legal effect, are given by the Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB), a non-governmental entity established by the Interactive Digital Software Association (ISDA). ESRB's criteria for its M and AO ratings are found on its website:

Titles rated M (Mature) have content that may be suitable for persons ages 17 and older. Titles in this category may contain intense violence, blood and gore, sexual content, and/or strong language.

Titles rated AO (Adults Only) have content that should only be played by persons 18 years and older. Titles in this category may include prolonged scenes of intense violence and/or graphic sexual content and nudity.

The CRS report states that the primary constitutional issue is whether a statutory ban of these videos to minors would violate the First Amendment right of free speech. According to CRS, the U.S. Supreme Court has never ruled on the constitutionality of such a statute, but every lower federal court has found such statutes unconstitutional or issued a preliminary injunction on the likelihood that the statute in question would be found unconstitutional.

The report analyzes the application of First Amendment principles to violent and sexual material and discusses violent and sexually explicit video games decisions. It concludes that for an effective ban, the government would have to present empirical evidence that the games harm minors or cause them to become violent. Even so, because of the vagueness of the M and AO ratings, a law prohibiting video games with these ratings could be found "unconstitutional on its face."

Constitutionality of Proposals to Prohibit the Sale or Rental to Minors of Video Games with Violent or Sexual Content or "Strong Language", CRS report, RL33232
(pdf, 72KB, 15p., from Open CRS)

Internet: not quite Mars nor Venus

American men and women both embrace the Internet for its efficiency and as a gateway to information. According to the latest PEW Internet & American Life survey, while gender dynamics on the Net vary, usage rate is equaling. Men are still more intense users, quick to embrace new Net technologies, and tend to see the Net as a destination for recreation, to organize, and to conduct transactions. The survey finds that women are the more enthusiastic communicators on the Net, viewing the Net more as a textured environment than a tech experience, and tend "to penetrate deeper into areas where they have the greatest interest," finding more satisfaction than men with their online activities.

How Women and Men Use the Internet
(available in pdf, 815 KB, from PEW)

Wi-Fi courtesy of your city

Small cities, low-cost Wi-Fi - OK. Big cities, low-cost Wi-Fi - not OK? Government Technology (Nov. 2005) reports on the growing controversy of large municipalities establishing their own wireless networks. Private telecommunications companies claim that they cannot match the low prices for subscribers set by government. Early on, small communities created their own Wi-Fi networks because the big companies weren't interested in them. Now Philadelphia and San Francisco, and other cities, have announced wireless intitiatives, and major telephone and cable companies are counterattacking. There has been legislative activity at the state level to restrict municipalities from creating wireless broadband networks (a sidebar in the article lists 14 such states).

The battle has moved to Congress, GovTech continues. Two bills, of opposing viewpoints, have been introduced in the House and Senate. HR 2726, the Preserving Innovation in Telecom Act of 2005 (PDF, 32KB, 3p., from GPO), prohibits municipal governments from offering telecommunications services "except to remedy market failures by private enterprise to provide such services." Counter-legislation was introduced with S 1294, the Community Broadband Act of 2005 (PDF, 32KB, 3p., from GPO), "to preserve and protect the ability of local governments to provide broadband capability and services."

Meanwhile, the article notes, Philadelphia is proceeding with its network, having selected EarthLink to deploy Wi-Fi over 135 square miles, to be completed by the fourth quarter of 2006.

Govt open document standards

Christian Science Monitor (CSM) commented today Monday on Massachusetts' policy to adopt open document standard by 2007. Though the policy is opposed by proprietary software companies such as Microsoft, CSM writes:

An open-documents world can ensure that hundreds of years in the future people will still know the code to read mankind's records. And it will spur price and quality competition. Just look at the telecom industry, whose intense rivalries have brought price cuts and innovative services.

Massachusetts' open-document system would "require vendors to sign on to a technological standard whereby documents could be transferred and read using any open-document software," thus allowing electronic records to be readable into the future since they were not dependent on any one company's proprietary product. "Among products already compliant with the open-document system are OpenOffice, Sun Microsystems' StarOffice, and IBM's Workplace," CSM reports.

Massachusetts Enterprise Open Standards Policy
Policy #: ITD-APP-01, Effective Date: January 13, 2004
(available in PDF, 20KB, from Mass.gov)

See also,
CIO Peter Quinn's Testimony to (MA) Senate Committee on Open Document Format, October 31, 2005

Honolulu Hale lukewarm

Doug White spotlights in a Saturday post to his blog, Poinography! a Pacific Business News (PBN) story on Honolulu's hesitant step into free wireless. According to the PBN story, city locations including Kapolei Hale will be free wireless hotspots, but only to access the City web site and other Skywave sponsored accounts. (Skywave is the company providing the service to the County.) Doug muses:

Does the City think that people are actually going to be happy when they find a “free” Wi-Fi access point at Kapolei Hale and then discover that they can only look at the City’s website—and a bunch of advertising?! That’s ridiculous.

What did the City get out of this? A few hundred dollars worth of wireless routers and tech support would be enough to give visitors to City Hall real access to the entire Internet.

The PBN article further writes of another company, ShakaNet, which plans to blanket Waikiki with free access. "Access to ShakaNet's wireless network will require acceptance of a user agreement and viewing of an advertising page, but no registration and no fee." PBN reports Nam Vu, ShakaNet's vice president and chief technology officer, as saying:

As more residents adopt wireless Internet on open networks, giving access to many living around them, free access has become commonplace and making money off of that model is the best way to go...especially in residential areas.

Doug White concludes his post with:

In any case, the Capitol and City Hall should both have free Wi-Fi. It just makes sense.

Real ID and reality

Govtech.net alerted readers today to Virginia Governor Warner's news release announcing the creation of the Task Force on the Real ID Act. The Real ID Act of 2005 prohibits Federal agencies from accepting State issued driver's licenses or identification cards unless such documents are determined by the Secretary to meet minimum security requirements. Minimum requirements include: verification of identity and lawful residency; the incorporation of specified data; a common machine-readable technology; and certain anti-fraud security features. The Act became law, P.L. 109-13 (HTML or PDF), on 5/11/2005. Warner's news release states, "Cost estimates to implement the program nationally range from $700 million to $1 billion. Congress has proposed approximately $100 million in funding to be distributed among the states."

Some of the task force responsibilities include reviewing the Real ID Act and its potential impact on Virginia, including but not limited to the potential increased cost; identifying a timeline for implementation; and recommending strategies to minimize impact of underfunded federal mandates.

E-Rate program mismanaged

An Associated Press (AP) article Oct. 19 reported on congressional findings of mismanagement in the E-rate program which funds Internet connections in schools and libraries, especially in rural and low-income areas. Administered by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the $2.25 billion program is financed by telephone companies through the universal service charge on consumers' phone bills. The House Committee on Energy and Commerce issued a press release Oct. 18 on the report of its Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee which found the E-Rate program "a well-intentioned program that nonetheless is extremely vulnerable to waste, fraud, and abuse, is poorly managed by the FCC, and completely lacks tangible measures of either effectiveness or impact."

Waste, Fraud, and Abuse Concerns With the E-Rate Program
(PDF, 372KB, 51p., from the Committee on Energy & Commerce)

Capitol blogs

Washington Post (WP) offers a look (Oct 11; Page A15) at the growing popularity of blogging from the Hill. Though the federal foray into blogging is more sedate and restrained than the customary bluntness of the known blogosphere, the paper writes that many feel the public can only benefit, "the sites can give constituents glimpses into their representatives' personalities, opinions and day-to-day responsibilities." Finding many lawmakers have launched blogs or blog-like pages on their official web sites, such as Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.), WP reports more than a dozen regularly contribute to established popular blogs like The Huffington Post, The Blog and Daily Kos. Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), who not only blogs on his official web site, but cross posts to the Daily Kos and publishes a podcast page, is reported to have said in an interview, "If you take these blogs seriously, they'll take you seriously."

Electronic voting in California

Govtech.net reports that California's Secretary of State Bruce McPherson has imposed "stringent new conditions on voting systems being considered for use in California elections, outlining ten critical requirements for any vendor applying for certification of voting equipment" in California. The Secretary also announced the creation of the Office of Voting System Technology Assessment in the Secretary of State's Office, described as "a permanent, professional and fully staffed voting system technology and testing unit and a one-stop-shop for voting system certification."

Secretary McPherson Announces Statewide Electronic Voting System Requirements and New Office of Voting System Technology
(available in PDF, 64KB, California Secretary of State news release)

No Internet for 65 million Americans

PEW Internet & American Life Project released a new study on the digital divisions: Americans with broadband, dial-up or no access to the Internet. The survey findings reported:

Sixty-eight percent of American adults, or about 137 million people, use the internet, up from 63% one year ago. Thirty-two percent of American adults, or about 65 million people, do not go online, and it is not always by choice...At the other end of the spectrum, 53% of home internet users have high-speed access, creating a new divide among internet users.

Digital Divisions
(available in PDF, 264KB, from PEW)

Counties go wireless

Government Technology Digital Communities, reports on the growth of wireless broadband networks of U.S. municipalities. At the September Muniwireless conference, a published study found that U.S. cities, towns and counties "will spend nearly $700 million over the next three years to build municipal-owned wireless networks." Washington Post (WP) reported Wednesday that Philadelphia plans to build such a network offering the service to low income households for as low as $10 per month. An Associated Press (AP) story reported Sunday that Google recently filed an application to build a free wireless network for the city of San Francisco. Free Press, "a nonpartisan organization working to involve the public in media policymaking and to craft policies for more democratic media," believes cities view municipal wireless as a means "to spur economic growth: on the one hand to put tools in the hands of the underprivileged and give them a leg up, and on the other to provide incentives to small businesses to locate in these cities and to expand their operations."

Cool blog from Governing

I just discovered a neat blog by the writers and editors of Governing magazine, called 13th Floor, because they're in Suite 1300. It blogs on "what's up in statehouses, county courthouses and city halls." (Governing is based in Washington, DC, but it covers state and local government.) 13th Floor apparently started in June, as their archives begin then. First Reading started in June too, so I feel a kinship.

On the left sidebar of 13th Floor is an array of categories, beginning with All Arnold - yes, it's all about Ahnold. Other categories, to pick a few, are: Big Business, Gay & Lesbian Issues, Katrina, Legislatures, Off The Record, and Scandal Watch. Worth a look, and probably a feed.

To become the Google of blogs (WSJ)

Blogs are proliferating. The exact number is unknown, but Technorati, a blog-search site, recently tracked about 16.5 million. Established search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and MSN include blog pages in Web and news searches but for now don't allow blog-only searches and so may not catch the latest in blogs or their updates. "New search engines help users find blogs" (Wall Street Journal, Sept. 7, D1) describes a few "upstart" search sites dedicated to blogs and tracking them almost in real time. But even they are as different from each other as from the giants.

To follow prominent bloggers, DayPop searches fewer than 60,000 blogs selected by editors. Technorati, Feedster, IceRocket, and BlogPulse scour from 15 million to 20 million blogs. Technorati and BlogPulse search only blogs, while Feedster and IceRocket also search mainstream news sources. There is still a vast difference in scale. The larger blog searchers cover under 20 million blogs, while Google, Yahoo, and MSN search billions of Web pages. Technorati is the only blog search engine busy enough to register on an Internet-tracking firm. It had 642,000 unique visitors in July, less than 1% of Google's July count.

Blog search engines:
Technorati
Feedster
IceRocket
DayPop

Blogger sued over readers' comments (WSJ.com)

Worried about their own liability, bloggers are "buzzing" about a lawsuit brought by an Internet company against a blogger for readers' comments posted to his site, reports the Wall Street Journal Online in an Aug. 31 story. Aaron Wall runs a blog (SEOBook.com) on search engine optimization - how companies get themselves to appear higher in searches at Google, Yahoo, etc. He was sued in Nevada earlier this month by Traffic-Power.com for publishing trade secrets and "false and defamatory information" about the company on his blog. Some readers of Mr. Wall's blog have posted complaints of unprofessional business practices by Traffic-Power.com or that its tools were ineffective. Mr. Wall himself had criticized the company on his blog prior to the lawsuit.

The federal Communications Decency Act (1996) protects providers of computer services from liability for content posted by others. In 2003 the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a Web site operator can post material from others without liability for content. A technology law expert feels that the Decency Act can apply to bloggers but the Act does not protect the posting of intellectual property, and trade secrets may fall under "intellectual property."

Federal agencies fail to safeguard privacy

A newly released Government Accountability Office (GAO) study on the use of data mining by five federal agencies found that none of the agencies complied with all rules for gathering citizen information, leaving individual privacy rights inadequately protected. The report was requested by Hawaii's Senator Daniel Akaka, who issued a news release Aug 29 :

In light of the high number of data mining activities in the federal government and the use of personal information, we must ensure that the federal government is following the laws set up to protect the privacy rights of all Americans. Having policies and safeguards in place will not work if agencies are not following the law.

The study investigated the data mining activities at the Internal Revenue Service, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Small Business Administration, the Department of Agriculture Risk Management Agency, and the Department of State.

Data Mining: Agencies Have Taken Key Steps to Protect Privacy in Selected Efforts, but Significant Compliance Issues Remain
(available in PDF, 1.3 MB; Abstract also available in HTML)

Internet, teens and school

Pew/Internet released a study Tuesday reporting on Internet use in schools among teens. According to the collected data, in just four years, school Internet usage by teens between 12 and 17 has grown roughly 45%, accounting for nearly 21 million online users. The reports further finds that "68% of all teenagers have used the internet at school" and 20% of all teens who access the Internet from multiple locations respond that school Net access is the location most often used. The study's researchers observe, "The internet is an important element in the overall educational experience of many teenagers," finding agreement among teens and parents that the Internet is a valuable tool for study.

Teens, technology, and school
(available in PDF, 288K, from Pew/Internet & American Life Project)