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Today's Topics:
1. America's foreign news deficit may benefit BBC (George Antunes)
2. With Software and Soldering, a Non-AT&T iPhone (George Antunes)
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Message: 1
Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2007 20:47:49 -0500
From: George Antunes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [Medianews] America's foreign news deficit may benefit BBC
To: medianews@twiar.org
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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America's foreign news deficit may benefit BBC
Thu Aug 23, 2007 1:25 AM ET
By Steve Brennan
Reuters/Hollywood Reporter
http://today.reuters.com/misc/PrinterFriendlyPopup.aspx?type=industryNews&storyID=2007-08-23T052502Z_01_N22209237_RTRIDST_0_INDUSTRY-BBC-DC.XML
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Who would have thought that the cynical
adage "no news is good news" could in fact be the best calling card
Britain's BBC might have when knocking on the door of the potentially
gigantic U.S. market for its storied news operations?
But the fact is that the perceived dearth of international news and
analysis on U.S. mainstream broadcasters is one of the big marketing ploys
the BBC is using to create a bigger footprint in the U.S. for its global TV
news. BBC World News' slogan is "See the world you've been missing."
The campaign approach follows a recent research study carried out by U.S.
pollster Frank Luntz for BBC World News, which outlines viewers'
dissatisfaction with stateside news outlets' provision of international
news and sees them as "sensationalist," "superficial" and offering only a
"narrow news agenda," according to executives at "the Beeb."
A spokeswoman says that the availability of BBC World News as a 24-hour
service is being hyped on the popular BBC America as well as on the
Internet. The general idea is to get Americans to flood their local cable
and satellite providers with demands for serious international coverage in
the form of BBC World News.
This might seem boldly optimistic: Fewer Americans read newspapers than
ever in the country's history, and Americans' taste for news seemingly
always has drifted to the domestic angle. But the BBC is -- in the words of
Mel Gibson in "Braveheart" -- "out to pick a fight" in America.
"There has been unparalleled interest in international news in the U.S.
since 9/11, and (the) latest nationwide research results clearly show BBC
World News is compulsory viewing for anyone who wants to keep on top of
global news and current affairs," BBC World News CEO Richard Sambrook says.
"The demand for the channel -- which is known throughout the world for its
depth of analysis -- can only be encouraging news to cable operators across
the U.S. who are looking to offer their subscribers and viewers the news
behind the headlines from the world's largest global broadcasting
newsgathering operation."
Among the findings of Luntz's BBC-commissioned survey last year:
-- Sixty-five percent of people questioned believed it is extremely
important or very important to have access to international news.
-- There is a significant gap in the amount of international news demanded
and what is being supplied.
-- Forty-seven percent of those questioned rate current coverage of
international news as only fair or poor.
-- The biggest frustrations with national cable news are too many tabloid
stories (40% name it as their biggest or next-biggest frustration), too
repetitive (32%), biased (31%) and too much politics (20%).
"Americans increasingly recognize the importance of international news,"
Luntz says, "and they perceive a gap between what they are getting and what
they need."
The BBC World News service reaches a tiny 3 million viewers in the U.S. If
the BBC's marketing campaign pays off, it should see a sizable increase. If
not, well, it would be fair to quote another adage: "Plus c'est la meme
chose, plus ca change."
================================
George Antunes, Political Science Dept
University of Houston; Houston, TX 77204
Voice: 713-743-3923 Fax: 713-743-3927
antunes at uh dot edu
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Message: 2
Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2007 23:07:15 -0500
From: George Antunes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [Medianews] With Software and Soldering, a Non-AT&T iPhone
To: medianews@twiar.org
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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August 25, 2007
With Software and Soldering, a Non-AT&T iPhone
By BRAD STONE
NY Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/25/technology/25iphone.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&ref=business&pagewanted=print
AT&T is paying millions to be the exclusive United States provider of
Apple?s much-hyped and glowingly reviewed gadget, the iPhone.
It took 17-year-old George Hotz two months of work to undermine AT&T?s
investment.
Mr. Hotz, a resident of Glen Rock, N.J., published detailed instructions
online this week that he says will let iPhone owners abandon AT&T?s service
and use their phones on some competing cellular networks.
Mr. Hotz?s method, which requires a soldering gun, a steady hand and a set
of obscure software tools, is one of several techniques that have emerged
over the last week to break the technological locks confining the iPhone to
AT&T?s network.
?This was about opening up the device for everyone,? Mr. Hotz said in an
interview over his iPhone, which he was using on the network of T-Mobile, a
rival to AT&T.
Carriers like Verizon, AT&T and Sprint seek to keep their customers in two
ways. They force them to sign multiyear contracts, which are expensive to
break. And the carriers put complex technological locks on phones to ensure
that they run only on a given carrier?s wireless network. Without the
locks, the phones could be used on rival networks that use the same
underlying technology.
People who work on unlocking cellphones say those technical locks unfairly
restrict customer choice. They want to give cellphone users the flexibility
to take their phones with them overseas without incurring heavy roaming
fees, or to transfer the devices to other networks once a user?s service
contract has expired.
Mr. Hotz says it took him about 500 hours to unlock two iPhone units. He
put one of them up for sale on eBay, and by late yesterday, bids on the
phone had reached many thousands of dollars. An unmodified iPhone sells for
$499 at an Apple store.
His technique is probably not accessible to most people. But Mr. Hotz
described it in detail on his Web site in the hopes that others could
simplify the procedure.
Neither Apple nor AT&T would comment on Mr. Hotz?s handiwork or on another
unlocking technique revealed yesterday by an anonymous group calling itself
iPhoneSimFree.
Members of that group demonstrated their technique to a writer for the Web
site Engadget. They said they had developed a way to unlock iPhones with a
software update, without any hardware changes to the device.
IPhone owners presumably would be able to run that software and then insert
another carrier?s SIM card, the small card inside phones that run on G.S.M.
networks. A SIM card stores information about the subscriber.
The writer for Engadget verified that the iPhoneSimFree technique worked.
Apparently only one feature, AT&T?s visual voice mail system, which lets
users retrieve voice mail in whatever order they choose, stopped working
when an iPhone was removed from the AT&T system.
The six-man iPhoneSimFree group says that it has been working on unlocking
the iPhone since June and that it plans to start selling its software to
parties that want to unlock large numbers of iPhones.
The members have not disclosed what they intend to charge, and they
declined to reveal their identities.
?We?re a bit paranoid about privacy because we don?t know how things are
going to evolve,? said one group member, who identified himself only as Jim
in a brief phone interview.
His caution stems from the murky legal status of unlocking cellphones.
Last fall, the Librarian of Congress issued an exemption to the Digital
Millennium Copyright Act, ruling that people can legally unlock their
cellphones. But the ruling does not specifically apply to people like Mr.
Hotz and the iPhoneSimFree group who distribute the unlocking tools.
Apple and AT&T could conceivably sue such distributors under the copyright
act. The companies could also argue that people sharing modifications to
iPhones are interfering with a business relationship, between Apple and
AT&T and the customers.
Apple might also seek to block the unlocking tools with its regular
software updates to the iPhone. Mr. Hotz says he thinks his unlocking
process is immune to such changes, because he is making a change to the
device?s read-only memory, which cannot be changed with a software patch.
One other approach to unlocking the iPhone has made some waves recently.
Two weeks ago, a company called Bladox, based in the Czech Republic, began
selling an $80 device called a Turbo SIM. The thumbnail-size card, attached
to another carrier?s SIM card and inserted into an iPhone, tricks the
iPhone into thinking it is running on the AT&T network even when it is not.
The company has reportedly been overwhelmed by orders and is not selling
the product on its site. But Jes?s D?az, a technology writer in Madrid,
said he bought the Turbo SIM last week and was now using his iPhone on
Spain?s Vodafone network.
?Everyone here asks me: ?What is that? Can I see it, can I touch it?? ?
said Mr. D?az, whose iPhone draws a lot of attention because Apple has not
yet announced a deal to sell the device in Europe.
The iPhone unlocking craze may have reverberations beyond Apple and AT&T.
Cellphone carriers in the United States generally subsidize the initial
purchase of a phone and then work to keep customers paying the lucrative
monthly fees. That is why operators offer incentives for loyalty and
require long contracts.
But people now want the same freedom with their cellphones that they have
with other devices, like televisions and computers.
Mike McGuire, an analyst at the research firm Gartner, says that even
though few consumers will try these sophisticated alterations, the iPhone
modifications point to ?the rather rapid erosion of the carrier control of
handset distribution.?
?This has been going on for a while,? he said, ?and this is the latest salvo.?
================================
George Antunes, Political Science Dept
University of Houston; Houston, TX 77204
Voice: 713-743-3923 Fax: 713-743-3927
antunes at uh dot edu
------------------------------
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End of Medianews Digest, Vol 361, Issue 1
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