Roy Mark

The White House confirmed Jan. 22 that President Barack Obama will use a smartphone while in office, although it may not be his beloved BlackBerry e-mail device. The announcement represents a victory for Obama over the myriad security officials assigned to the president who wanted to strip him of his smartphone. White House Press Secretary […]

Whatever the symbolism of Barack and Michele Obama dancing the night away to Etta James’ “At Last” on inauguration night, for the U.S. intelligence community another seminal landmark has arrived: the ability to perform unified searches and provide classified e-mail access across 16 spy agencies. Known as the Intelligence Community Information Integration Program, the early […]

BlackBerry maker Research In Motion said Jan. 20 it is withdrawing its $53 million hostile takeover bid for Certicom after an Ontario Superior Court granted Certicom’s request for a permanent injunction blocking the deal. The Certicom board opposes the RIM bid as undervaluing the company that develops the elliptic curve cryptography technology coveted by RIM. […]

It should come as no surprise that Qualcomm opposes any delay in the digital television transition currently scheduled for Feb. 17. After all, the company has spent hundreds of millions to obtain a slice of the spectrum being vacated by television broadcasters. Qualcomm is anxious to expand its cell phone television service known as MediaFLO […]

Cable giant Comcast may again be in network neutrality hot water with the Federal Communications Commission. The agency is investigating concerns that Comcast’s new network management practices degrade the sound quality of VOIP (voice over IP) services such as Vonage and Skype that compete with Comcast’s own VOIP service. In a Jan. 17 letter to […]

President Barack Obama’s transition team wasted little time taking over the White House Web site, switching over from former President Bush’s site within seconds of Obama’s swearing in. The first post to the site was from Macon Phillips, the director of New Media for the White House, who wrote, “Change has come to WhiteHouse.gov.” Phillips, […]

WASHINGTON-President-elect Barack Obama’s Jan. 20 inauguration is widely expected to create the greatest single one-day stress test of U.S. wireless networks. Millions of people are pouring into the nation’s capital, all armed to the teeth with wireless devices, smart and not-so-smart alike. When Obama places his right hand on the Bible and accepts the oath […]

Wireless carriers may be hard pressed to meet President-elect Barack Obama’s campaign slogan of “Yes, We Can” when it comes to completing what is expected to be a record number of wireless messages containing voice, text, videos and photos sent from Washington for the presidential inauguration.No one is quite sure how many people will actually […]

A record 1.4 billion mobile messages are expected to be delivered nationwide on Inauguration Day, according to estimates based on industry analysts’ findings and calculated by VeriSign’s Messaging and Mobile Media division. VeriSign expects the flood of Jan. 20 messages to easily shatter the previous high mark of 803 million Election Day messages set on […]

The Feb. 17 deadline for television stations to switch to digital broadcasting would be moved to June 12 under legislation introduced Jan. 15 by Sen. Jay Rockefeller, the incoming chairman of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee.“President-elect Obama has asked Congress to delay the date of the transition,” Rockefeller said in a statement. “Over […]

The U.S. House Committee on Appropriations Jan. 15 revealed the first details of a massive $825 billion economic stimulus plan that would include $6 billion in grants for broadband and wireless services in rural and underserved areas. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 also spends liberally on a wide range of proposals the […]

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin said Jan. 14 he would resign as chief of the agency effective Jan. 20, the same day President-elect Barack Obama is sworn into office. Obama plans to nominate Julius Genachowski, Obama’s chief campaign technology adviser, as the next FCC chairman, according to a number of media reports.Martin, a lightning […]