The blogosphere seems upset about AT&T’s announcement to increase its Early Termination Fee (ETF) for smartphones from $175 to $325 while decreasing standard phones from $175 to $150.  Given the fact that smartphones are becoming more capable and more expensive, and given the fact that consumers don’t want to pay up front, it seems only [...]

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is seeking volunteer lawyers to help defend illicit BitTorrent downloaders of movies against suits brought by the U. S. Copyright Group. The producers of the estimable Hurt Locker are apparently in the vanguard of this effort by the Hollywood Empire to strike back. Now if only someone will tell me why [...]

Thierer and Wendy author an article suggesting that the Federal Communications Commission has positioned themselves to force Internet regulation in an “any means necessary” approach.

With the announcement of Google TV, we have yet another box to connect in the living room though it seems a bit half baked at the moment. Many have tried their hand at convergence of TV and Internet such as Microsoft with their media center PC or other various Linux based devices such as Boxee or Roku. Even the mighty Apple has had a difficult time carving out anything more than a niche in the TV market.

Over at the Progress & Freedom Foundation blog, in Takedowns and Daiquiris: Viacom v. YouTube Hosts a Grokster Reunion, Tom Sydnor channels Ezekiel, laying waste the Free Culture Movement and taking no prisoners: For example, the too-radical-even-for-Grokster gang at Public Knowledge signed the . . . amicus brief [defending YouTube]. So did the technologically oblivious [...]

Two video codec experts have examined Google’s VP8 video compression codec and they don’t bode well for the new codec. VP8 is supposed to be at the heart of the new WebM open media project for squeezing video down to a much smaller size while minimizing the noticeable loss of quality.

Castro describes that the world that we live in supplies information in a mostly passive manner. If information is desired, to collect it requires an individual going to the place of interest and observing and gathering the information they are interested in. Castro believes this will be changing very soon.

Connected Planet says: Telcordia pitches dynamic pricing to optimize the network (May 17).

Marguerite Reardon of CNET has this nice little interview with CTIA CEO Steve Largent and head of regulatory affairs Chris Guttman-McCabe. Reardon asked some important questions on wireless policies, Title II reclassification, and Net Neutrality.

Public Knowledge recently published the second in a series of reports on copyright reform, this one entitled Updating 17 U.S.C. §1201 for Innovators, Creators, and Consumers in the Digital Age (May 13, 2010), written by students and faculty from the Samuelson Law, Technology & Public Policy Clinic at the UC Berkeley Law School and the Stanford Cyberlaw Clinic.