Cody Taylor

Hugh Pickens writes “A Pew study last year found that only 38 percent of rural American homes have access to broadband Internet, compared to 57 percent in cities and 60 percent in the suburbs. All that could be about to change with the announcement that Verizon plans to start introducing a new wireless network in the 700 MHz spectrum in 2010. ‘The licenses we bought in the 700MHz auction cover the whole US,’ says Tony Melone, a Verizon Wireless VP. ‘And we plan to roll out LTE [high-speed mobile service] throughout the entire country, including places where we don’t offer our [current] cell phone service today.’ Because the [700 MHz] spectrum is in a lower frequency, it can transmit signals over longer distances and penetrate through obstacles, and because the signals travel longer distances, Verizon can deploy fewer cell towers than if it used spectrum from a higher frequency band, which means it can provide coverage at a lower cost. President Obama’s administration is well aware of the high-speed Internet divide that exists today, and as part of the overall economic stimulus package passed by Congress, the government is allocating .2 billion for projects that bring broadband Internet access to rural towns and communities.”

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SpuriousLogic writes to mention that a new Interior Department report suggests that wind turbines off US coastlines could supply enough electricity to meet, or exceed, the nation’s current demand. While a good portion of this is easily accessible through shallow water sites, the majority of strong wind resources appear to be in deep water which represents a significant technological hurdle. “Salazar told attendees at the 25x’25 Summit in Virginia, a gathering of agriculture and energy representatives exploring ways to cut carbon dioxide emissions, that “we are only beginning to tap the potential” of offshore renewable energy. The report is a step in the Obama administration’s mission to chart a course for offshore energy development, an issue that gained urgency last year amid high oil prices and chants of ‘Drill, baby, drill’ at the Republican National Convention.”

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Ponca City, We love you writes “What did the Obamas give Queen Elizabeth II on Wednesday when they arrived at Buckingham Palace? An Obama aide reported the queen was given an iPod loaded with video and photos of her 2007 trip to the United States, as well as songs and accessories. She also received a rare songbook signed by the composer Richard Rodgers. The gift issue had come up after Prime Minister Gordon Brown visited the White House last month. Mr. Brown gave Mr. Obama a pen holder carved from the timber of an anti-slave ship, receiving in return a DVD box set of American movies, igniting a torrent of criticism in the British press. According to news reports, the queen gave the Obamas a silver-framed signed photograph — a gift she gives to all visiting dignitaries.”

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Arriving back home, PM Brown settled in to watch “Psycho” only to receive a far greater horror than the movie itself could bring — none of his DVDs would play, due to zone restrictions. While saddened and shocked, the PM maintains that American and Britain still have a “special partnership”.

The Obama administration for the first time is weighing in on a Recording Industry Association of America file sharing lawsuit and is supporting hefty awards of as much as 0,000 per purloined music track.

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes “The Obama Administration’s Department of Justice, with former RIAA lawyers occupying the 2nd and 3rd highest positions in the department, has shown its colors, intervening on behalf of the RIAA in the case against a Boston University graduate student, SONY BMG Music Entertainment v. Tenenbaum, accused of file sharing when he was 17 years old. Its oversized, 39-page brief (PDF) relies upon a United States Supreme Court decision from 1919 which upheld a statutory damages award, in a case involving overpriced railway tickets, equal to 116 times the actual damages sustained, and a 2007 Circuit Court decision which held that the 1919 decision — rather than the Supreme Court’s more recent decisions involving punitive damages — was applicable to an award against a Karaoke CD distributor for 44 times the actual damages. Of course none of the cited cases dealt with the ratios sought by the RIAA: 2,100 to 425,000 times the actual damages for an MP3 file. Interestingly, the Government brief asked the Judge not to rule on the issue at this time, but to wait until after a trial. Also interestingly, although the brief sought to rebut, one by one, each argument that had been made by the defendant in his brief, it totally ignored all of the authorities and arguments that had been made by the Free Software Foundation in its brief. Commentators had been fearing that the Obama/Biden administration would be tools of the RIAA; does this filing confirm those fears?”

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Was a king maker and social networking responsible for Obama’s successful political campaign?

“We need young people, instead of — a smart kid coming out of school, instead of wanting to be an investment banker, we need them to decide if they want to be an engineer, they want to be a scientist, they want to be a doctor or a teacher,” the president said.

After all of the uproar surrounding some of the Obama administration’s recent decisions, trade officials have promised a thorough review of the USTR policies regarding transparency. In an effort to ensure that the review includes all possible angles, the USTR is urging groups to make other proposals as well. “KEI is very impressed with the USTR decision to undertake a review of USTR transparency efforts. They are taking this much further than simply reviewing policies on the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), or recent controversies over the secrecy surrounding the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) negotiations. The review offers the possibility of more transformative changes, including pro-active measures to enhance transparency, covering all aspects of USTR operations, including multilateral, plurilateral, regional, bilateral and unilateral trade policies and negotiations. We are also grateful that USTR is offering to have a continuing dialogue on this issues. KEI will offer additional suggestions on transparency to USTR, and we encourage others to do so also.”

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Inspired in part by President Barack Obama use of the Internet as a fundraising tool, Harris said, “I decided to try and use the power of the Internet to help me pay for my college education.”