Latest Posts
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Patent Fights Fuel US DTV’s Slide from World Stage
The “FATT” is fighting back this week in comments filed at the US FCC against the “Coalition United To Terminate Financial Abuses of the Television Transition” (CUT FATT) proposal to address patent overreaching in the US DTV system. Filings from Valley View, Philips/LG Electronics, Funai, Thomson, ATSC, Harris, Zenith, MPEG LA, Philips/Qualcomm, and Retire Safe…
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Wake-Up Call to US FCC: Argentina Looks to Follow Peru in Adopting Japanese-Brazilian Digital TV Standard
What a telling and timely juxtaposition. On the day responses are due to the US FCC’s request for comments to the CUT FATT request for an official inquiry into patent overcharging in the US digital TV transition (the “ATSC standard”), Argentine President, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, is reported to have confirmed that Argentina is about…
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Carterfone is Not Enough: The Missing Broadband Policy Link
Royalty-free standards, the very foundation of the Open Internet, are not even mentioned in the FCC’s 60-page Broadband Plan notice of inquiry. Surprising? Not really. Bridging even first principles of the Internet era to the realities of telecommunications policy since 1934 is a high order challenge for communications policy scholars, regulators, and network practitioners. But…
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Royalty-Free Brazil Java DTV Highlighted at JavaOne Conference
Good to see prominent billing for “Java in Brazilian Java DTV” at the upcoming JavaOne conference. Second topic listed in the press release right after cloud computing! SANTA CLARA, Calif. April 13, 2009 Sun Microsystems, Inc. (NASDAQ: JAVA) today announced the 2009 JavaOne conference schedule … Some of the accepted sessions include: Cloud Computing: Show…
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Why Did the FCC Broadcast the Broadband Plan Kickoff in a Proprietary Format?
Yesterday’s kickoff of the FCC’s Broadband Plan proceedings were broadcast over the Internet in a proprietary video format. Worse, it was likely converted from a standards-based format to a proprietary format before it was put on the Internet! (The tip-off is that the closed-captioning overlay was already composited in). Clearly, a proprietary broadband internet would…
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Broadband Recovery Needs A Policy Preference for Royalty-Free Standards
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, the “Recovery Act”, has allocated an unprecedented $7 Billion to broadband and has launched a new chapter of broadband policy in the US. The coming months will inspire an accelerated debate and consideration of what this can, and should, mean, on many levels from tactical grant-making to…
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Why the Sad State of Interactive TV Matters and What to Do About It
What would the Internet look like today if history had been just slightly different? Say for example the Internet’s open, royalty-free foundation — protocols, HTML, etc. — hadn’t mostly won out? Leaving only proprietary solutions or shifting interest groups (and their designates) maneuvering to disadvantage, overcharge, or end-run each other as the only — and…
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FCC Agrees to Hear DTV Patent Comments
The FCC has requested comments on the CUT FATT petition (discussed here) to review DTV patent abuses. Some articles on the FCC request are here and here, the FCC notice (comments due April 27) is here, and filings will be posted here (select “Search for Filed Comments” on right, proceeding 09-23) A related petition in…
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Open Video Movement Gains Steam
The crying need for Open Video continues to break out from under the radar, as evidenced by the blue-ribbon sponsors and diverse community of the just-announced inaugural Open Video Conference to be held June 12. Organizers include Yale Law School’s Information Society Project and partners include the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard…
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Java@Digital TV Conference
A bright potential is shining for interactive TV in Brazil, which has a unique moment of opportunity to start from a complete, royalty-free specification — Ginga — and avoid the systemic stalling gridlock that has plagued patent-based/industry-segment-controlled interactive TV in the US and elsewhere. The first developer conference is announced here for April 2. It…