The House Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Communications and Technology held an oversight hearing on American Recovery and Reinvestment Act broadband grants and loans. Recipients of 233 National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) awards worth $4 billion have spent just $1.6 billion of it so far. Less than a dozen of the projects have been completed. Six of the awards worth $124.5 million have been returned or revoked. Recipients of 320 Rural Utility Service (RUS) awards worth $2.4 billion have spent $968 million. Five projects have been completed. As of July 2011, $124 million in grants and $35 million in loans have been rescinded or revoked. Allegations also persist that NTIA and RUS funds are not bringing broadband to unserved areas but instead are subsidizing competitors to overbuild privately financed networks.

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The full Senate Commerce Committee held an oversight hearing on the Federal Communications Commission on May 16. The hearing offered Committee members an opportunity to convey their priorities and to hear from the five FCC commissioners about efforts to protect consumers and carry out the public interest. Senators rushed through their questioning of FCC commissioners during the oversight hearing so they would not have to hold the panel over while they voted on the floor, but Commerce Committee members still hit on plenty of topics, including on the network neutrality.

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An executive of the holding company owned by Google executives that leases a hangar at a government airfield responded to questions from Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), saying Google has nothing to do with the aircraft in question.

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Time Warner Cable and Viacom announced a deal that will provide Nick, MTV and other networks to the MSO's TWC TV service for watching live TV on tablets, smartphones and PCs in the home, ending the companies' yearlong legal fight.

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As a result of comprehensive reforms of the Lifeline program over the last year, the Federal Communications Commission released new data about efforts to eliminate duplicate subscriptions and save tens of millions of dollars.

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Just when you thought that everyone was content to let debates about the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) simmer down, a group of American legal scholars has now submitted an open letter to the United States Senate, challenging the lack of a Congressional approval process for ACTA.

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So far, the Obama Administration's push to encourage software developers to use monstrous, freely available government datasets in consumer apps is generating more light than heat.

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Jason Seiken, PBS Interactive chief, told a packed audience at the PBS Annual Meeting that “a magical opportunity will slip through our fingers if we don’t have the courage to change” and fully embrace the potential that video presents to public TV.

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It's happening in several congressional races, in states like Nebraska, Montana and Ohio — millions of dollars from out-of-state donors and outside groups are fueling candidates' war chests.

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The Federal Communications Commission should “act decisively” to make high capacity broadband service cheaper for businesses and other large customers, said Members of the House Communications Subcommittee in a letter to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski.

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Shares in Samsung Electronics Co slumped more than 6 percent, wiping $10 billion off the electronics giant's market value, on a report that Apple placed huge chip orders with troubled Japanese chip rival Elpida.

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While Facebook may look like and function like a social network for the majority of its users, on the business side it looks almost exactly like a traditional media company, and that is both good and bad.

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After more than a year of active testing and debate over LightSquared's plan for a nationwide, wholesale 4G network, the now bankrupt company may end up as no more than a cautionary tale for mobile investors.

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The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 30 years ago that public schools cannot engage in viewpoint-based censorship of library books. Schools can keep books off the shelves if they are poorly written or inappropriate for a particular age group, but they cannot limit access to Harry Potter books out of a concern they glorify witchcraft, or remove Kurt Vonnegut novels because they perceive the books to be anti-American, the court held in Board of Education, Island Trees Union Free School District v. Pico.

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Netflix is turning up the heat on Comcast, Time Warner and AT&T over data caps that the cable companies place on unaffiliated streaming-video companies. In its latest attempt to end what it considers discrimination on the parts of the three cable companies, the rental and streaming giant is "shopping questions related to data caps to the Senate Commerce Committee members in anticipation of tomorrow's oversight hearing with all five [Federal Communications Commission] commissioners."

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How much does Facebook value its users? In strictly monetary terms, about as much as a bag of chips.

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Smartphones are now more common than "dumb" phones. For the first time, more than half of all American mobile customers own a smartphone, according to a report released by Nielsen.

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In separate transactions, AT&T Mobility and U.S. Cellular are looking to purchase 700 MHz licenses, mainly from Cox Communications. Terms of the deals were not disclosed. ...

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Verizon Wireless plans to eliminate the $30 per month unlimited data plan that it still provides to 3G customers who were "grandfathered" into the plan because they were data customers prior to the company's switch to tiered data pricing last July.

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Google launched the Knowledge Graph, which will help you discover new information quickly and easily. The Knowledge Graph enables you to search for things, people or places ...

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Using a device called a resonant tunneling diode, Tokyo University researchers were able to achieve a 3 gigabits per second data transmission over the terahertz band — double the speed of the previous record set back in November by chipmaker Rohm.

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Karl Rove’s super-PAC Crossroads GPS is launching a $25 million ad campaign in 10 battleground states that will be critical to determining the outcome of the 2012 presidential election.

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The Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology announced the creation of an Office of the Chief Medical Officer and an Office of Consumer eHealth.

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Now, with a user base of more than 900 million and plans for a blockbuster stock debut, Zuckerberg takes a decidedly deliberate approach to product development.

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Facebook is a fabulous engine for getting users to their personal data. Facebook's alleged mobile vulnerability, highlighted in the company's own offering documents, is ...

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In a move that could have far-reaching implications for the development of new distribution systems for content, the Federal Communications Commission is considering changing how it defines a multichannel video programming distributor.

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A number of states are now poised to let their residents gamble online in games of chance. With a few thumb punches on a smart phone, someone could wager a bet in a poker match as easily as texting a message – only with a predictable loss of money.

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A bipartisan group of senators had planned to discuss cybersecurity legislation May 15, but the meeting was postponed until next week.

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Verizon Wireless and AT&T are both preparing to roll out shared-data pricing plans this year. Whoever makes the first move will transform the way the industry charges for wireless service.

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Does Fox News make you dumb? No, but that was the headline generated by news aggregators re-reporting research by Fairleigh Dickinson University's PublicMind.

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