Tag: USA

Intel to build up semiconductor manufacturing in US and Europe

Articles

Intel Corporation is introducing the 8th Gen Intel Core processor with Radeon RX Vega M Graphics in January 2018. It is packed with features and performance crafted for gamers, content creators and fans of virtual and mixed reality. (Credit: Walden Kirsch/Intel Corporation)

Intel to have factories capable of working as semiconductor foundries for other manufacturers

Intel to spend US$20 billion on US chip plants – Hardware – iTnews

Intel announces massive shift in processor strategy, including making chips for other companies | Windows Central

My Comments

Intel is intending to increase its semiconductor manufacturing capacity within the United States as part of their latest vision speech they held at their American headquarters.

One of the goals behind this push is to challenge Asian dominance in microelectronics manufacturing. This is of concern since most of the silicon used in today’s electronics is being manufactured in Taiwan. Here, if political tensions between China and Taiwan escalate, it could lead to disaster for IT and allied industries including the automotive, aerospace and defence sector thanks to continued concentration of microelectronics manufacture there.

Range Rover Sport

This will be important also for vehicle manufacturers and the like as well as computer and consumer-electronics manufacturers

It also has been underscored by the recent shortage of advanced microelectronics components. This is impacting the manufacture of finished computer hardware products but also is impacting the manufacturer of other products like cars that effectively have their own computers. For example some vehicle builders were even keeping finished cars at their factories until certain silicon chips are available before they could release them to the dealerships.

Intel intends to set up and open two new semiconductor factories in Arizona and mot just use them for Intel’s own microelectronics products. Here, they will be capable of working as semiconductor foundries who manufacture silicon chips for other vendors who are typically “fabless” semiconductor manufacturers like Qualcomm or Apple who outsource their actual manufacturing.

Intel will undertake further work to open up factories within the USA and Europe with the goal of tipping the scales in favour of these areas when it comes to manufacturing advanced silicon. It will underscore these countries’ sovereignty when it comes to advanced microelectronics manufacture allowing them to make their own cutting-edge technology from the drawing board to the finished product themselves.

Another direction that Intel sees for their silicon design and manufacture is for them to license out Intel’s intellectual property to third parties to add value to or turn in to finished product. It will also mean that Intel’s factories will end up making silicon based on RISC-based microarchitectures like the open-source RISC-V technology or the established ARM technology.

If Intel gets this idea up off the ground, it could be a chance for semiconductor foundries capable of advanced microelectronics manufacturer to appear within USA, Canada, Europe and Australasia. This will help these countries with industries dependent on this kind of technology like green tech, consumer electronics or transport.

The US now takes serious action about electoral disinformation

Article

Now Uncle Sam is taking action on voter suppression

US arrests far-right Twitter troll for 2016 election interference | Engadget

From the horse’s mouth

United States Department Of Justice

Social Media Influencer Charged with Election Interference Stemming from Voter Disinformation Campaign (Press Release)

My Comments

Previously, when I have talked about activities that social media companies have undertaken regarding misinformation during election cycles, including misinformation to suppress voter participation, I have covered what these companies in the private sector are doing.

But I have also wanted to see a healthy dialogue between the social-media private sector and public-sector agencies responsible for the security and integrity of the elections. This is whether they are an election-oversight authority like the  FEC in the USA or the AEC in Australia; a broadcast oversight authority like the FCC in the USA or OFCOM in the UK; or a consumer-rights authority like the FTC in the USA or the ACCC in Australia. Here, these authorities need to be able to know where the proper communication of electoral information is at risk so they can take appropriate education and enforcement action regarding anything that distorts the election’s outcome.

Just lately, the US government arrested a Twitter troll who had been running information on his Twitter feed to dissuade Americans from participating properly and making their vote count in the 2016 Presidential Election. Here, the troll was suggesting that they don’t attend the local polling booths but cast their vote using SMS or social media, which isn’t considered a proper means of casting your vote in the USA. Twitter had banned him and a number of alt-right figureheads that year for harrassment.

These charges are based on a little-known US statute that proscribes activity that denies or dissuades a US citizen’s right to exercise their rights under that country’s Constitution. That includes the right to cast a legitimate vote at an election.

But this criminal case could be seen as a means to create a “conduit” between social media platforms and the public sector to use the full extent of the law to clamp down on disinformation and voter suppression using the Web. I also see it as a chance for public prosecutors to examine the laws of the land and use them as a tool to work against the fake news and disinformation scourge.

This is a criminal matter before the courts of law in the USA and the defendent is presumed innocent unless he is found guilty in a court of law.

The first proven retail 5G device comes in the form of a Mi-Fi router

Netgear Nighthawk 5G Mobile Hotspot press image courtesy of NETGEAR USA

Netgear Nighthawk 5G Mobile Hotspot – first retail 5G device

Article – From the horse’s mouth

NETGEAR

NETGEAR Nighthawk® 5G Mobile Hotspot – World’s First Standards-Based Millimeter Wave Mobile 5G Device (Blog Post)

My Comments

There has been a lot of talk about 5G mobile broadband lately with Telstra running consumer trials of this technology in the Gold Coast using 5G “Mi-Fi” devices installed at fixed locations.

Of course, some people are seeing it as an alternative to wireline and fibre next-generation broadband deployments. Here, they are trying to see the technology as an enabler for the “digital nomadic” lifestyle where people live and work while roaming from place to place, keeping in touch with the world with mobile telecommunications technology.

But NETGEAR and AT&T have stepped forward with a production-grade consumer endpoint device as part of a production-grade 5G network being rolled out across the USA. It is typically assumed that the first production-grade consumer endpoint device for a new mobile broadband technology will be a smartphone of some sort or a USB wireless-broadband modem. But this time it is a highly-portable “Mi-Fi” router in the form of a NETGEAR Nighthawk 5G Mobile Hotspot.

Here, it is to use a device that could support high-throughput data transfer arrangements with a network of mobile devices and take advantage of what a production 5G network could offer. As well, the WAN (Internet) aspect of the NETGEAR Nighthawk 5G Mobile Hotspot is based on millimetre-wave technology and is designed according to standards.

Being the first device of its kind, there could be issues with connection reliability because of it implementing technology that is too “cutting-edge”. As more service providers “light up” standards-based 5G networks in more areas and more device manufacturers offer 5G mobile-endpoint devices, it will be the time to show whether 5G can really satisfy mobile-broadband users’ needs or be a competitor to fixed broadband.

I will update this article as NETGEAR and AT&T release more information about this Mi-Fi’s capabilities.

Facebook clamps down on voter-suppression misinformation

Article

Australian House of Representatives ballot box - press picture courtesy of Australian Electoral Commission

Are you sure you are casting your vote or able to cast your vote without undue influence?

Facebook Extends Ban On Election Fakery To Include Lies About Voting Requirements | Gizmodo

From the horse’s mouth

Facebook

Expanding Our Policies on Voter Suppression (Press Release)

My Comments

Over recent years, misinformation and fake news has been used as a tool to attack the electoral process in order to steer the vote towards candidates or political parties preferred by powerful interests. This has been demonstrated through the UK Brexit referendum and the the USA Presidential Election in 2016 with out-of-character results emanating from the elections. It has therefore made us more sensitive to the power of misinformation and its use in influencing an election cycle, with most of us looking towards established news outlets for our political news.

Another attack on the electoral process in a democracy is the use of misinformation or intimidation to discourage people from registering on the electoral rolls including updating their electoral-roll details or turning up to vote. This underhand tactic is typically to prevent certain communities from casting votes that would sway the vote away from an area-preferred candidate.

Even Australia, with its compulsory voting and universal suffrage laws, isn’t immune from this kind of activity as demonstrated in the recent federal byelection for the Batman (now Cooper) electorate. Here, close to the election day, there was a robocall campaign targeted at older people north of the electorate who were likely to vote in an Australian Labour Party candidate rather than the area-preferred Greens candidate.

But this is a very common trick performed in the USA against minority, student or other voters to prevent them casting votes towards liberal candidates. This manifests in accusations about non-citizens casting votes or the same people casting votes in multiple electorates.

Facebook have taken further action against voter-suppression misinformation by including it in their remit against fake news and misinformation. This action has been taken as part of Silicon Valley’s efforts to work against fake news during the US midterm Congressional elections.

At the moment, this effort applies to information regarding exaggerated identification or procedural requirements concerning enrolment on the electoral rolls or casting your vote. It doesn’t yet apply to reports about conditions at the polling booths like opening hours, overcrowding or violence. Nor does this effort approach the distribution of other misinformation or propaganda to discourage enrolment and voting.

US-based Facebook end-users can use the reporting workflow to report voter-suppression posts to Facebook. This is through the use of an “Incorrect Voting Info” option that you select when reporting posted content to Facebook. Here, it will allow this kind of information to be verified by fact-checkers that are engaged by Facebook, with false content “buried” in the News Feed along with additional relevant content being supplied with the article when people discover it.

This is alongside a constant Facebook effort to detect and remove fake accounts existing on the Facebook platform along with increased political-content transparency across its advertising platforms.

As I have always said, the issue regarding misleading information that influences the election cycle can’t just be handled by social-media and advertising platforms themselves. These platforms need to work alongside the government-run electoral-oversight authorities and similar organisations that work on an international level to exchange the necessary intelligence to effectively identify and take action against electoral fraud and corruption.

Lexington residents undertakes their own effort to push a competitive broadband service

Article

Lexington Kentucky downtown (CBD) view photo By Madgeek1450 at English Wikipedia [Public domain], from Wikimedia Commons

Lexington to benefit from real Internet-service competition thanks to an emergency meeting by the city’s council

Angry With Charter, Lexington Forces Broadband Competition | Broadband News and DSL Reports

Lexington Is Downright Pissed About Charter’s High Prices | Broadband News And DSL Reports

Lexington gears up for citywide gigabit-speed internet service | SmileyPete

My Comments

Over the last few years, it has become much easier for the incumbent “Baby Bells” and cable-TV companies to get away with providing a customer-hostile service to most of the USA’s Internet users. This has manifested through onerous terms and conditions, price gouging and poor customer-service quality from these businesses so much so that the average American doesn’t have any faith in them for their telecommunications services.

AT&T Touch-Tone phone - image courtesy of CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=936797

Lexington to keep the city from heading back to the Ma Bell days

It is while these established telcos and cablecos keep lobbying federal, state and local governments to prohibit the deployment of competitive telephony and Internet service and even have a new FCC chairman as their lapdog. In some ways, I describe this current situation as leading the USA’s telecommunications, cable-TV and Internet-service market back to the “Ma Bell” days before Carterfone and the AT&T breakup decree.

But Lexington, Kentucky have undertaken local-government action to facilitate competitive Internet service.

This was achieved through an emergency meeting of the municipal council to open the doors for MetroNet to set up shop in Lexington and provide their own Gigabit fibre-optic infrastructure in order to offer competing Internet service. It was in response to Charter, an incumbent cable-TV company offering cable-modem broadband, taking over Time-Warner Cable and Bright House Networks thus leading to rubbishy customer service and price-gouging.

Regular readers will be aware of the values of a next-generation broadband network based on Gigabit fibre technology. Here, these include home users benefiting form Internet-delivered 4K UHDTV content being quickly streamed or downloaded or reduced lag for online gameplay. Business users and people working from home can also benefit from being able to upload and download business-critical data quickly, implement streamed-video delivery without issues and see reliable use of cloud-driven “as-a-service” computing, amongst other things.

The fibre-optic service is to start coming on line late Northern Summer. Initially it will be rolled out to the area bracketed by east of Lexington’s downtown area and north of Richmond Road, East New Circle Road and the I-75 Interstate highway. The work had started off in January this year and is progressing smoothly.

The goal is to make Lexington, Kentucky the second Gigabit City in the USA, after Chattanooga in the neigbouring state of Tennessee. Here, the Chattanooga effort was facilitated by the city’s Electrical Power Board in 2009. The goal will also be for Lexington to be the USA’s largest Gigabit City. But could these efforts come on as a way to light up various Southern states of the US as places to conduct tech-focused business?

As has been achieved with real service competition especially on an infrastructure level, it will mean that the incumbent operators will have to lift their game to maintain customer loyalty. Infact Charter have registered interest to offer Gigabit-speed cable modem service in a few of their markets but could this competitive pressure have it happening in Lexington?

Seattle starts attempts to regulate online political advertising

Article Seattle Space Needle photo by Chris Noland (Wikimedia Commons)

Seattle demands Facebook disclose campaign ad information | Engadget

Seattle says Facebook violated a political advertising law | FastCompany

My Comments

In most of the Western democracies, the election process is subjected to oversight by various local, regional or federal government election-oversight departments. These departments oversee the campaign activities that the political parties or candidates engage in during the election cycle; and this includes oversight of the kind of advertising that is being shown to the populace as part of a campaign.

As well, traditional radio and TV broadcasters, whether they are public or private, free-to-air or subscription-driven, are subject to oversight by federal or regional broadcast authorities. These authorities also work with the election-oversight authorities to oversee radio or TV election-campaign advertising in the context of the election process’s integrity.

All this oversight is to achieve a level playing field for the candidates and issues along with identifying and working against sources of undue influence upon the voters. This oversight also enforces various rules and practices regarding pre-poll campaign blackouts, mandatory sponsor identification for campaign messages and reporting of when and where the advertising appears.

But the online advertising platforms including the Social Web have, for a long time, escaped the stringent oversight of the various governments’ election-oversight and broadcasting-oversight authorities and this has recently raised questions in relationship to the integrity of a number of recent polls around the Western world such as the US Presidential Election.

Here, questions have been raised about the presence of troll ads sponsored by the Russian Government appearing on Facebook concurrent with the UK Brexit poll, the US Presidential Election and recent national elections that took place in France and Germany. Now the Seattle local government are raising issues with Facebook regarding advertising that was booked through that platform regarding their council elections. This was about Facebook violating a city bylaw that required advertising platforms like newspapers, radio or TV broadcasters to disclose who is buying political advertising targeted at that election.

One of the issues that are being raised include the ability with online advertising platforms for an individual or organisation no matter where they are located to target particular geographic areas down to the size of a suburb or town; or other particular user classes based on one or more particular attributes with a particular message.

It can become more disconcerting whenever firms in the TV and video industry implement directly-addressable advertising as part of their TV-advertising product mix, which allows for advertising campaigns to be directed at particular households or neighbourhoods like what happens with online advertising. This is because households seem to give a significant amount of trust to what is shown on the big screen in the living room when it comes to advertising.

Another is for the advertising to be presented as though it is part of legitimate editorial content in order to lower one’s “advertising-awareness” radar. This can be through comments that appear in a social-network’s main user feed or spam comments inserted in a comment trail or discussion forum. Similarly bloggers, podcasters and other influencers could also be paid to post political content supporting a particular candidate by a sponsoring entity.

This could breed situations where misinformation could be targeted at a “suburb of disadvantage” or an ethnically-focused community in order for them not to show up to vote or to vote against a candidate they are normally sure about and who represents their interests. This situation is considered of high risk in the USA where the election process supports voluntary attendance along with a significant number of citizens there not being “politically literate” and able to cast their votes astutely.

If Seattle tests this issue before the USA’s judiciary, other jurisdictions within and beyond the USA could watch these cases to observe how they can regulate online content and advertising in relation to the integrity of civic life.

Congress attempts to restore competition to telephony and Internet in the USA

Article

Eshoo Pushes Bill to Prevent Protectionist State Broadband Laws | Broadband News & DSL Reports

My Comments

AT&T Touch-Tone phone - image courtesy of CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=936797

Is the US telecommunications industry heading back to the days of these phones?

An issue that I have been regularly covering is the reduction of competitive telephony and broadband service in the USA. This is thanks to incumbent “Baby Bell” telcos and cable-TV companies effectively paying state governments to pass legislation to proAhibit local governments from setting up their own broadband infrastructure to compete with these established providers.

The FCC had attempted to use its federal mandate to override these laws but these efforts were being struck down thanks to litigation instigated by these established companies. Again this was leading towards a telecommunications and Internet-service environment that is reminiscent of the “Ma Bell” era, with the price-gouging, poor customer service and onerous terms and conditions.

But Anna Eshoo, a Democrat who represents the Silicon-Valley area in the House of Representatives, had submitted a bill to Congress in order to assure the provision of infrastructure-level competition by local governments and communities. Here, this law – the Community Broadband Act of 2016 (PDF) would prohibit state governments from passing the telco-funded legislation that proscribes this infrastructure.

There is some doubt about the proposed legislation becoming law thanks to the US Congress also being subjected to lobbying and graft from big-business interests including the telecommunications and cable-TV cartels. But most of the US’s consumer-advocacy groups are behind the law in order to defend a competitive telecommunications and Internet market.

One major quote that was called out was the fact that the current situation is placing rural communities at a disadvantage because the “Baby Bells” or cable-TV companies wouldn’t either roll out decent-standard broadband or people in those areas would be paying monopoly prices for poor service.

As I have said before, the telecommunications and Internet-service market in the USA would need to be under strong surveillance in the context of antitrust and competition issues. This would include control over company mergers and acquisitions; and even the issue of whether legal action similar to what was initiated in 1974 with “Ma Bell” needs to take place with Comcast, AT&T and co.

CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=936797

Detroit now benefits from 10Gb competitive Internet service

Article

US Flag By Dbenbenn, Zscout370, Jacobolus, Indolences, Technion. [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

More it’s about access to real competitive broadband in the USA

Detroit Rock(et Fiber) City: Startup brings 10Gb service to Motown | The Register

My Comments

Another US city is now to benefit from high-speed competitive Internet service. This time, it is Detroit, Michigan which excelled through the automotive boom, carrying along the Motown funk, soul and disco music with it, but went seriously downhill thanks to the recent financial turmoil.

But two former Quicken Loans employees built the Rocket Fiber startup to provide 10Gb FTTP fibre-optic broadband in to Detroit’s central business (downtown) district. This had been pitched at both householders and businesses and became a way for Detroit to regenerate itself by attracting newer startup businesses in to that city. But there are plans to take this further to Detroit’s Midtown district and then further out to the rest of Detroit which I would say places the cable-TV company and the Baby Bell telco operating in that area “on notice”.

At the moment, the called price for these services is US$69 per month for a 1Gb service and US$299 per month for a 10Gb service. Rocket Fiber are also investigating an IPTV service that will work on these lines. Rocket Fiber also want to raise the bar for support by providing exact appointment times for service calls along with phone support with “walk-through” troubleshooting.

Personally, could this be about raising the bar for Internet service in Detroit especially as a way to reinvigorate that city and bring it out of the doldrums? If so, this could be an example for towns and cities which suffered financially but want to get back to prosperity.

Cable One pushes towards a Gigabit Arizona city

Article

Cable One Launches Gigabit Speeds in Arizona | Broadband News & DSL Reports

From the horse’s mouth

Cable One

Press Release

Product Page

My Comments

In some areas, a small firm focuses on providing next-generation broadband to those areas, whether be FTTC fibre-copper (VDSL2), FTTP fibre-optic or HFC fibre-coaxial. This allows them to concentrate on enriching those areas’ Internet service and has been taking place mainly in rural UK.

Now this practice is taking place in some parts of the USA, especially Arizona, thanks to Cable One. Here they have rolled out in to Cottonwood and Clarkdale a DOCSIS 3.0 HFC service which can yield 1Gigabit/second downstream and 50 Megabit/second upstream. The cost of this service, known as Gigabit One, will be US$175/month with a 500Gb data plan, but will make sure it is able to be delivered across all of both towns. There are other plans being put up for this service including one that has a 2000Gb allowance.

It is the first of the cable-based firms to offer a Gigabit service and has been seen as a way to call those small towns “Gigabit cities”. But the idea of smaller companies focusing on smaller neighbourhoods allows them to concentrate on making sure that these neighbourhoods can benefit from current technology and may even allow larger businesses to set up shop there especially when they want to encourage telecommuting.

FCC has now identified existence of reduced broadband service competition in the US

Article

The FCC aims to restore competition in the business broadband market, may help slash costs | PC World

My Comments

AT&T Touch-Tone phone - image courtesy of CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=936797

Is the US telecommunications industry heading back to the days of these phones, where competition didn’t exist?

The US-based broadband and IT press are identifying that the country is slowly creeping back to days of “Ma Bell” where there wasn’t any lively competition occurring in the telecommunications and Internet-service sector. They see the recent behaviour exhibited by AT&T, Verizon, Comcast and co as the undoing of the work by previous administrations to bring competition to this sector.

Examples of this include established “Baby Bell” telcos and cable-TV companies frustrating the provision of Internet service by private or public competitors such as Google Fiber or local governments. This is being facilitated through state governments passing model legislation to prohibit local governments from providing Internet service or communications-service infrastructure; or litigation taking place concerning the provision of infrastructure for competing communications services.

This is leading to situations where customers face poor customer service, price-gouging and onerous terms and conditions when they sign up for communications services like telephony, cable-TV or Internet service. But it isn’t only affecting households, rather the same situation also affects businesses who are after the essential communications services that “keep their axe sharp”.

For example, businesses are paying through the nose to set up any kind of leased-line or “middle-mile” telecommunications services that facilitate such things as ATMs or credit-card terminals. Even competitive wireless telecommunications providers are paying through the nose for the necessary backhaul from the mobile-antenna towers so their customers’ phones can work. Even if you just have an Internet service for your business like a DSL service, you will also end up paying dearly for this service to match your business’s needs and this can be a noose around your business’s neck especially if you are a small or medium-sized business.

One of the many consumer-activist groups, the Consumer Federation Of America, came forth with the results of a study on this topic. Here they identified that the incumbent carriers were overcharging businesses by US$71 billion for broadband services over last the 5 years.

The FCC are addressing this issue by focusing on how competitive the different communications and Internet-service markets really are and looking at ways to regulate to assure competition.

Here, according to FCC’s Chairman Tom Wheeler, the FCC would identify markets that aren’t competitive and make sure established players don’t harm consumers and businesses or kill innovation. This would be approached by creating a tailored regulatory framework to address non-competitive markets with the barometer for a non-competitive market being with two or less independent operators providing telecommunications and Internet service.

I would look at issues like the ability for a company to lease access to infrastructure whether as full copper or fibre infrastructure; or as access to the “poles, pits, pipes and towers” that the infrastructure runs through. This can also include the ability for a European style of operation where there is a “wholesale-retail” method of selling communications services, allowing for different retail operators to sell the same wholesale bandwidth.

Other issues that Uncle Sam would need to examine include continual surveillance of the market on an antitrust basis such as potential mergers or buyouts to assure competition. This would include dealing with the political influence that established operators are waging with state legislatures and the judiciary to prevent the existence of competitive markets.

To the same extent, the issue of broadband deployment in to the USA’s underserved areas like poorer communities or rural areas still needs to be tackled so as to prevent carrier “redlining”.

CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=936797