House Representative Tom Allen (D-ME) today introduced H.R. 5682, the Rural America Communication Expansion (RACE) for the Future Act, a push to bring broadband and its economic and social benefits to rural areas across the country.
COMMUNICATIONS
Virginia rolls out high-speed Internet programs to boost jobs, health care, education, and commerce. It’s a model that works.
The United States Department of Agriculture Rural Development Agency today announced a $267 million loan to Open Range Communications to bring portable, wireless broadband connectivity to rural areas in 17 states.
INTERNET
Tomorrow’s House Judiciary Committee hearing on net neutrality and free speech on the Internet brings the controversial issue back into congressional crosshairs. To help make sense of the issue, Science Progress and the Center for American Progress have put together this net neutrality 101, a beginner’s guide to understanding the debate that could alter the very future of the Internet.
Good news for large-scale solar power generation arrived yesterday with bad news for photovoltaic technology; we need names for the next administration’s science advisors; and Google launches a pilot program for electronic medical records.
Edward Markey (D-MA) and Chip Pickering (R-MS) introduced the “Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2008″ bill last week, the most recent legislative foray into the “net neutrality” debate. A look at the competing interests.
CULTIVATING SCIENCE
Students and teachers alike must understand how systems of knowledge creation and archivization are changing. Encyclopedias are no longer static collections of facts and figures; they are living entities. Just check the entry on Global Warming.
Scientists working in developed and developing nations will soon have a new organization to integrate their efforts; the New York Academy of Sciences is spearheading the formation of “Scientists Without Borders.”
TELECOMMUNICATIONS
Rather than pretending there are more broadband links across our country, as the administration does in its latest report, we should instead get down to the business of creating a networked nation.
The National Telecommunications and Information Administration issued a report from the alternate reality of the Bush administration yesterday, cheering “the nation’s broadband success story.” Despite President Bush’s suggestion in 2004 that the United States should have “universal, affordable access to broadband technology by the year 2007,” we have nothing resembling this system.
Business and blogs in the Middle East, Asia and, North Africa ground to a halt after damage to two undersea communications cables in the Mediterranean crippled Internet services. The incident could be a “wake-up call” to a region heavily dependent on underground lines without much of a back-up infrastructure.
TELECOMMUNICATIONS
Yesterday, the Federal Communications Commission began auctioning off licenses to a portion of the 700 MHz band of the radio frequency spectrum. The decisions of companies that win those national licenses will determine the shape of wireless communications in the United States for years to come. Science Progress offers this short guide to the issues involved.
TELECOMMUNICATIONS
National security and public safety require a coherent national strategy for investing in a range of telecommunications technologies.
India ramps up science and engineering education; the European Commission has more questions for Microsoft; the International Linear Collider may end up in Japan; Supreme Court rules that terminally ill patients do not have a constitutional right to developmental drugs; FCC could have trouble selling all its wireless licenses.
Tracking broadband speeds for the FCC; bioterrorism sensors in NYC; China revises its patent policy.
The Navy must turn off its sonar around whales; Britain readies for new nuclear power plant construction; Illinois will host the first commercial carbon capture and sequestration project; the OPEN Government Act of 2007.
Thirty-seven states, along with the District of Columbia, require businesses and institutions to publicly disclose incidents of data loss in which personal consumer information is compromised. But with tens of millions of records reported compromised each year, and incidents on the rise, the government and businesses need to do more to protect consumer information.
TELECOMMUNICATIONS
Policymakers need to give consumers the choice to protect their privacy or allow e-commerce companies to profile their web travels.
Vint Cerf leaves his post as Chairman of the Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers this Friday. ICANN has drawn criticism in the past for U.S. control of the Internet, but new changes will expand and internationalize possibilities for domain names.
Science Progress and American Progress's Doing What Works project teamed up to produce a set of policy proposals that the Obama administration and Congress can adopt to reinvest in the building blocks of American science, innovation, and economic competitiveness. Read the overview of the five reports.
Science Progress proceeds from the propositions that scientific inquiry is among the finest expressions of human excellence, that it is a crucial source of human flourishing, a critical engine of economic growth, and must be dedicated to the common good. Scientific inquiry entails global responsibilities. It should lead to a more equitable, safer, and healthier future for all of humankind.