publicity

There's a tremendous amount of attention focused on whether the Federal Communication Commission's September auction of new wireless spectrum in the 700 MHz band will be "open access," available to many mobile providers and applications, or be limited to whatever the auction winner wants to do with it.

There is also an important public safety issue in this debate that is not getting as much attention. That is whether some of this valuable wireless real estate should be reserved by the FCC for our first responders--the people who drive our ambulances, show up for fires, and … Read more

The latest on the Internet radio saga bears some positive news for people who like to stream music from public radio's online presence.

Recall that starting on Sunday, new federal rules requiring higher royalty payments to the music industry from Webcasters--commercial and non-commercial alike--are scheduled to take effect. In recent days, Internet radio outlets have been stepping up negotiations with SoundExchange, the nonprofit entity charged with collecting the fees, over compromises aimed at blunting the increases' impact.

Now public radio says it has reached at least a temporary agreement with the record industry.

Thanks to a "productive" … Read more

Hip hop giants Public Enemy will release their next album via digital distributor TuneCore, according to a story in yesterday's New York Times.

As a musician who's recorded a lot of CDs with unsigned bands, I'm a longtime fan of CD Baby, which provides an online store for selling physical CDs, as well as digital distribution through iTunes and other online services. How do the services compare for digital distribution?

CD Baby charges a one-time $35 fee for each album you want to sell through them (digital or physical), and takes a 9% cut of each download. … Read more

I took a look at Mindquarry today, a new open source collaboration company funded by Hasso Plattner Ventures. The company is based in Germany. Mindquarry licenses its software under the MPL.

Mindquarry's core product is a collaboration server that allows teams to collaborate on documents, as well as via wikis and shared tasks. It's an interesting product now, but should get much better with the release of its email integration, due out this summer according to the company's roadmap. All in all, it feels like a simple alternative to Sharepoint or Basecamp, a comparison the company has made.… Read more

Google early on Monday went public with a wonkier sibling to its longer-standing "official blog."

The new project, which goes by the straightforward moniker "Public Policy Blog," is slated to house entries penned by its growing global policy team about topics the company perceives as key to the Internet's future: privacy, censorship, copyright, patent law changes and Net neutrality, to name a few.

Because the blog began an internal trial run a few months ago, it's already populated with a handful of entries about the company's outlook on H-1B visas (more, please), its … Read more

Is your Google Calendar looking lonely? Is it filled with boring things like work, family obligations, or vacation plans that loom far, far away? Worse yet, is it sitting there, empty and useless? To spice things up, Google has launched a fairly extensive listing of calendars you can subscribe to. They range from important schedules--like national holidays and Presidential candidates' 2008 touring dates--to things that are bound to fill up your days, like TV listings and DVD releases.

The service is launching with schedules from several large brands like Netflix, Disney, and the NBA. Alternately, you can search through publicly … Read more

A recent Associated Press article on Lompoc, Calif.'s public broadband project was a key topic at this week's MuniWireless New England.

The AP article, which was run by many newspapers around the country, used that town project's failures as an example of how municipal Wi-Fi is wasting taxpayer dollars. The article said that "many cities are finding their Wi-Fi projects costing more and drawing less interest than expected, leading to worries that a number will fail, resulting in millions of dollars in wasted tax dollars or grants when there had been roads to build and crime … Read more

NEWTON, Mass.--Many people think municipal broadband is only used for free public outdoor Wi-Fi, but it may be its lesser known uses that get it paid for.

According to presenters here at MuniWireless New England, some towns are using public safety grants for law enforcement wireless networks to cover their initial costs for building a broadband infrastructure.

"Police are the biggest users of the network and they all are telling me their cruiser has become their desk. The only time they need to come to headquarters now is to book someone, deliver physical evidence or to get their … Read more

Beijing's subway is a little grimy, the air conditioning is fairly weak, and during rush hours it's like being packed into canned ham.

But it's far superior to the public transportation options in San Francisco and San Jose, the so-called hubs of the tech world.

Unlike in San Francisco, the trains show up on time. Every two to three minutes a new car shows up during rush hours. On a Sunday, you might wait five minutes. It doesn't go everywhere, but the line is being expanded. All the station signs are also in English, and you … Read more