Communications

The communications sector of an economy comprises a range of technologies, physical media, and institutions/rules that facilitate the storage of information through means other than a society\u27s oral tradition and the transmission of that information over distances beyond the normal reach of human conversation. This chapter provides data on the historical evolution of a disparate range of industries and institutions contributing to the movement and storage of information in the United States over the past two centuries. These include the U.S. Postal Service, the newspaper industry, book publishing, the telegraph, wired and cellular telephone service, radio and television, and the Internet

Precision Targets: GPS and the Militarization of U.S. Consumer Identity

For most people in the United States, war is almost always elsewhere. Since the Civil War, declared wars have been engaged on terrains at a distance from the continental space of the nation. Until the attacks on the World Trade towers and the Pentagon in September 2001, many people in the United States perceived war to be conflicts between the standing armies of nation-states conducted at least a border—if not oceans and continents—away. Even the attacks of September 11 were localized in such a way as to feel as remote as they were immediate—watching cable news from elsewhere in the country, most U.S. residents were brought close to scenes of destruction and death by the media rather than by direct experience. Thus, in the United States, we could be said to be "consumers" of war, since our gaze is almost always fixed on representations of war that come from places perceived to be remote from the heartland

The Silence After the Beep: Envisioning an Emergency Information System to Serve the Visually Impaired

Due to a series of legal and regulatory setbacks, media accessibility regulations for consumers who are blind and visually impaired have lagged significantly behind those for deaf individuals. Until April 2014, when the Federal Communications Commission’s Emergency Information Order took effect, blind consumers were left “in the dark” when their safety mattered most—during weather emergencies—because visual emergency information displayed in the on-screen crawl during television programming was not accessible in an aural format. The Commission now mandates that this information be provided in an aural form through the secondary audio stream for linear programming viewed on televisions and mobile devices and other “second screens” used inside the home over the MVPD’s network, but this requirement leaves many issues unresolved. This Issue Brief examines and analyzes the arguments made by industry and consumer groups for and against expanded regulation, and makes several recommendations that efficiently fill gaps in the current regulatory requirements for accessible emergency information. These recommendations are technically feasible, not unduly burdensome, and necessary to effectuate the purpose of the Twenty-First Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2010. Specifically, the Commission can extend emergency information regulations to the entities it failed to reach with its Emergency Information Order and Second Report and Order by adopting the Linear Programming Definition of an MVPD that it puts forth in its MVPD Definition NPRM. The Commission should adopt this definition, thereby expanding the scope of entities required to comply with the Emergency Information Order, but it should curtail the Order’s rigidity by not passing prioritization guidelines and by removing the requirement to include school closures and changes in the bus schedule in the secondary audio stream

Workshop proceedings: Information Systems for Space Astrophysics in the 21st Century, volume 1

The Astrophysical Information Systems Workshop was one of the three Integrated Technology Planning workshops. Its objectives were to develop an understanding of future mission requirements for information systems, the potential role of technology in meeting these requirements, and the areas in which NASA investment might have the greatest impact. Workshop participants were briefed on the astrophysical mission set with an emphasis on those missions that drive information systems technology, the existing NASA space-science operations infrastructure, and the ongoing and planned NASA information systems technology programs. Program plans and recommendations were prepared in five technical areas: Mission Planning and Operations; Space-Borne Data Processing; Space-to-Earth Communications; Science Data Systems; and Data Analysis, Integration, and Visualization

Military Procurement and Technology Development

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that military and defense related research and procurement have been a major source of commercial technology development across a broad spectrum of industries that account for an important share of United States industrial production. I discuss the development of five general purpose technologies: (1) military and commercial aircraft, (2) nuclear energy and electric power, (3) computers and semiconductors, (4) the Internet, and (5) the space industries. The defense industrial base has become a smaller share of the industrial sector which is itself a declining sector in the U.S. economy. It is doubtful that military and defense related procurement will again become an important source of new general purpose technologies. When the history of U.S. technology development for the next half century is eventually written it will almost certainly be written within the context of slower productivity growth than the relatively high rates that prevailed in the U.S through the 1960's and during the information technology bubble that began in the early 1990's.Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies,

What's Going on in Community Media

What's Going On in Community Media shines a spotlight on media practices that increase citizen participation in media production, governance, and policy. The report summarizes the findings of a nationwide scan of effective and emerging community media practices conducted by the Benton Foundation in collaboration with the Community Media and Technology Program of the University of Massachusetts, Boston. The scan includes an analysis of trends and emerging practices; comparative research; an online survey of community media practitioners; one-on-one interviews with practitioners, funders and policy makers; and the information gleaned from a series of roundtable discussions with community media practitioners in Boston, Chicago, Minneapolis/St. Paul, and Portland, Oregon

Network strategies for the new economy

In this paper we argue that the pace and scale of development in the information and communication technology industries (ICT) has had and continues to have major effects on the industry economics and competitive dynamics generally. We maintain that the size of changes in demand and supply conditions is forcing companies to make significant changes in the way they conceive and implement their strategies. We decompose the ICT industries into four levels, technology standards, supply chains, physical platforms, and consumer networks. The nature of these technologies and their cost characteristics coupled with higher degrees of knowledge specialisation is impelling companies to radical revisions of their attitudes towards cooperation and co-evolution with suppliers and customers. Where interdependencies between customers are particularly strong, we anticipate the possibility of winner-takes-all strategies. In these circumstances industry risks become very high and there will be significant consequences for competitive markets

The Critical Challenges from International High-Tech and Computer-Related Crime at the Millennium

The automotive industry stands in front of a great challenge, to decrease its impact on the environment. One important part in succeeding with this is to decrease the structural weight of the body structure and by that the fuel consumption or the required battery power. Carbon fibre composites are by many seen as the only real option when traditional engineering materials are running out of potential for further weight reduction. However, the automotive industry lacks experience working with structural composites and the methods for high volume composite manufacturing are immature. The development of a composite automotive body structure, therefore, needs methods to support and guide the conceptual work to improve the financial and technical results. In this thesis a framework is presented which will provide guidelines for the conceptual phase of the development of an automotive body structure. The framework follows two main paths, one to strive for the ideal material diversity, which also defines an initial partition of the body structure based on the process and material selection. Secondly, a further analysis of the structures are made to evaluate if a more cost and weight efficient solution can be found by a more differential design and by that define the ideal part size. In the case and parameter studies performed, different carbon fibre composite material systems and processes are compared and evaluated. The results show that high performance material system with continuous fibres becomes both more cost and performance effective compared to industrialised discontinuous fibre composites. But also that cycle times, sometimes, are less important than a competitive feedstock cost for a manufacturing process. When further analysing the manufacturing design of the structures it is seen that further partition(s) can become cost effective if the size and complexity is large enough.      QC 20140527</p

Is War Necessary for Economic Growth? Military Procurement and Technology Development

New radical general purpose technologies have been the drivers of economic growth in the United States economy in recent economic history. In this paper I review the role of military and defense related research, technology development, and procurement in the development of the aircraft, nuclear power, computer, semiconductor, internet and the space communication and earth observing industries. The development of each of these industries would have been substantially delayed in the absence of support for research, technology development and procurement by the military and defense related agencies. Rates of productivity and output growth would have been substantially slower. By the early 1990's it was becoming clear that changes in the United States economy, of the defense industrial base, and in United States military and defense strategy meant that the defense and defense related industries would no longer play a prominent role in the development of new general purpose technologies. There has been a relative decline in investment in basic research and in early stage technology development in the private sector. The United States has yet to develop a coherent strategy for the public support of commercial technology development. My own sense is that when the history of United States technology development for the next half century is eventually written it will be characterized by incremental rather than revolutionary changes in both military and commercial technology. It will also be written in the context of slower productivity and output growth than the rates that prevailed in the United States during the first several post war decades or since the beginning of the information technology bubble that began in the early 1990s.International Development, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies,