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News Alert! – Congress clears payroll tax cut deal

The Senate on Friday approved a conference report that includes an extension of the payroll tax break, sending the bill to the White House where it is expected to receive a signature from President Obama.  Read More   Stay tuned for more updates!      

Payroll tax cut deal may mean faster wireless connections

The need for revenue to cover the extension of the payroll tax cut and long-term unemployment benefits has pushed Congress to embrace a generational shift in the country’s media landscape: the auction of public airwaves now used for television broadcasts to create more wireless Internet systems. Read More

The Future of High-Tech Health Care — and the Challenge

Demos, talks and a paper-plate dinner buffet were the fare last Friday evening at the Computer Museum in Mountain View, Calif., and the subject was the high-tech future of health care. The gathering was hosted by FutureMed, a health-care program that is part of Singularity University, a networked organization dedicated to exploring how disruptive technologies more »

Obama Again Calls for ‘Incentive Auctions,’ Nationwide Public Safety Broadband Network

President Obama’s $3.803 trillion fiscal year 2013 budget plan retains previous administration proposals to nearly double the wireless spectrum available for mobile broadband and to create a nationwide, interoperable, public safety broadband network that would link fire, police, and emergency first-responders in the event of a national emergency, such as the terrorist attacks of Sept. more »

Cisco Says Mobile Data Traffic More Than Doubled as IPads Spread

Cisco Systems Inc., the biggest maker of networking equipment, saw the strain on global wireless networks more than double last year, fueled by more people watching mobile video and using tablets. Read More

Auction the Spectrum, Grow the Economy

It seems like a century, but just 16 years have passed since President Clinton signed the Telecommunications Act of 1996. The law was the product of a bipartisanship that now seems quaint. At a time when Republicans controlled both houses of Congress, the bill passed the Senate, 91-5, and the House, 414-16. Read More

Mooresville’s Shining Example (It’s Not Just About the Laptops)

MOORESVILLE, N.C. — Sixty educators from across the nation roamed the halls and ringed the rooms of East Mooresville Intermediate School, searching for the secret formula. They found it in Erin Holsinger’s fifth-grade math class. There, a boy peering into his school-issued MacBook blitzed through fractions by himself, determined to reach sixth-grade work by winter. Three more »

Tech experts see Macon poised to make push in technology gap

With the right amount of preparation, Macon and Bibb County are poised to make major strides in becoming competitive in the digital economy. That was the assessment of a group of speakers who made presentations Tuesday to more than 60 community leaders and stakeholders at Macon State College in a forum sponsored by the John more »

The 2012 Super Bowl: The Year Advertisers Gave It All Away

Sometime in the coming year, I predict a learned academic will discover that 2012 marked the end of the Super Bowl ad game as we know it. No longer content to wait for fan reaction after the game, so many marketers released their ads early — and often in longer versions that were more engaging more »

The Rural Broadband Evolution

When it comes to his relationship with his smartphone, Toby Ring is no different from millions of other tech-savvy gadget-huggers. If he goes a day without it, he gets withdrawal symptoms. “It’s like breathing,” he says. “It’s one of those things you’ve got to have to live. Read More