Communications media internet

Legislative Activity House Subcommittee to Examine Seven Communications BillsThe Subcommittee on Communications and Technology (Communications Subcommittee) of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce (House Commerce Committee) will hold a legislative hearing on April 13 during which it will review seven communications-related bills. The following legislation will be considered during the hearing:H.R.2031, the Anti-Swatting Act of 2015: a bill authored by Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY) and previously discussed here that would enhance penalties for “swatting” which occurs when individuals use false or misleading caller identification information to trigger a response by law enforcement.H.R.3998, the Securing Access to Networks in Disasters Act (SANDy Act): legislation authored by House Commerce Committee Ranking Member Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ) and introduced in response to Hurricane Sandy that would require mobile service providers to ensure that consumers have access to … [Read more...] about House Communications Subcommittee to Examine Seven Communications Bills

The phenomenal growth of the Internet of Things (IoT), widely hailed in 2015, has been greater than originally forecast. Gartner, Inc. estimates a 30 percent increase in IoT devices connected to the Internet in 2016, which equates to 6.4 billion devices, and forecasts that more than 20 billion devices will be connected to the Internet before 2020. On average, 5.5 million new devices are connected to the Internet each day. As the IoT becomes part of the everyday lexicon, there remains a need to examine the myriad risks associated with this explosive growth across multiple industry sectors to address the inevitable weaknesses with software and security that will be part of the foreseeable future of the IoT. In turn, these vulnerabilities can and will lead to property damage, bodily injuries and deaths. Internet attacks leading to physical damage date back to the 2010 cyberattack on the Iranian nuclear energy plant in Natanz that destroyed or disabled centrifuges. Later, in 2014, a German … [Read more...] about The Internet of Things: The Cyber Vulnerability Landscape Emerges

When one thinks of industries where union activity remains strong and additional organizing is likely, one may think of health care, education, retail, heavy manufacturing, and other “old school” fields, but not high tech and “new media.” Recent developments, however, including targeted campaigns focusing on employers in the Silicon Valley, its East Coast cohort Silicon Alley, and online, demonstrate that these assumptions may not be correct. High tech and new media are in the sights of not only some of America’s most actively organizing unions but also a coalition of interest and advocacy groups that are partnering with a coalition of unions with the common goal of increasing union representation at high-tech companies and the various contractors, subcontractors, and vendors that clean their facilities, feed their employees, and drive them to and from their facilities.Taken together with the recent rule changes adopted by the National Labor Relations … [Read more...] about High Tech and New Media: Organized Labor’s New Frontier

As we have been reporting, the Writers Guild of America East has been actively pursuing writers in the new media arena.   On Friday August 7th, the Guild announced that Vice had agreed to recognize the Guild as the bargaining representative of its editorial staff without an election. It is reported that there are approximately 80 employees in the unit. While VICE’s management’ statement this past Friday concerning the Guild’s campaign and demand for recognition left some room for doubt as to whether VICE would recognize the union without an election,  they announced today that they would grant recognition without a vote. These developments reinforce the fact that unions like the Guild are actively organizing in the tech and new media fields where they are finding a receptive audience. It is clear that as expected, the NLRB’s adoption of more union friendly rules for representation elections has expanded union organizing and employee … [Read more...] about Vice Editorial Staff to be Represented by Writers Guild – Unions Continue New Media Push

Earlier this month, in the waning moments of the Obama Administration, the U.S. Architectural and Transportation Barriers Compliance Board (the “Access Board”) took the long-anticipated step of requiring websites of federal government agencies to comply with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (“WCAG”) 2.0 Levels A and AA.  (The Access Board was established in 1973 to develop and maintain standards for accessible design in the built environment, transit vehicles and systems, telecommunications equipment and electronic and information technology.)On Thursday, January 5, 2017, the Access Board announced the release of the long anticipated “Information and Communication Technology (“ITC”) Standards and Guidelines,” which update and combine the previously separate requirements of Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (requiring federal agencies to make their electronic and information technology accessible to people with … [Read more...] about U.S. Access Board Releases Information and Communication Technology Standards and Guidelines