Spiwak contemplates the notion of States Rights as applied to the Open Internet order in his latest Perspectives piece for the Phoenix Center.

On Thurs, Feb. 17, House Financial Services will have a hearing on“Understanding the Federal Reserve’s Proposed Rule on Interchange Fees: Implications and Consequences of the Durbin Amendment.” 10:00 a.m. in 2128 Rayburn HOB. From the perspective of DS, the relevance is twofold: (1) The connections between this regulation and regulations of other networks, such as [...]

On Wed., Feb. 16, Senate Judiciary will have a hearing on “Targeting Websites Dedicated To Stealing American Intellectual Property.” In other words: COICA. 10:00 a.m. in Dirksen 226. Prior DS commentary here, here, here, here, here : Witnesses: Tom Adams – President and CEO, Rosetta Stone Inc. Scott Turow  – President, Authors Guild Christine N. [...]

The litany of posts and pontifications about cord cutting continues unabated, yet few people take the time to actually look at what’s really going on. The Washington Post’s Rob Pegoraro recently touted the benefits of ditching cable, but in the same breath admitted that it works best for people who a) don’t watch much TV, b) live in an area with great OTA reception, c) don’t watch live sports much, and d) don’t mind relying on DVD rentals to catch first-run movies. This isn’t to say that the cable industry doesn’t face challenges from online video. It’s just that the challenge is somewhat different from what’s being reported.

Consumers Union is acting more like the professional whiner’s association. What next, refunds on new cars when next year’s model comes out? It’s also strange that they’re complaining about CDMA and GSM interoperability now when the entire industry is moving towards GSM.

Schulz comments on the implementation of Net Neutrality rules and the appointment of Tim Wu to the FTC as further evidence that Washington does not understand technology. He believes these two gentlemen see the “health and vigor” of the tech sector and destructive.

Google’s Gmail service has added a two-factor authentication mode for users who want a little more security in their Gmail account.  Gmail users can now have Google send them an SMS text message with a numeric code that would be used as a secondary pin in addition to the normal Gmail account password.  Gmail users [...]

For over 20 years, I have observed with alarm the steady expansion of legal and regulatory quantity and complexity, combined with serious excesses in the use of criminal sanctions. I have so often voiced an anguished “this can’t go on” that I have become an object of mockery to my children, who have known no [...]

With every millimeter shaved off the thickness of laptops and smartphones over the years, the cameras on those devices got substantially worse in quality because of the required shrinkage of the lens optics. Pelican Imaging aims to fix all this with their new image array sensor.

Ken Olsen, the founder of Digital Equipment, died last week, and Paul Kedrosky, who worked for Olsen for a time, has an interesting and touching tribute at Infectious Greed. Among his perceptions: The rise of Digital marked the beginning of the end of computers as scarce resources, something to be hoarded and parceled out in small pieces [...]