muggs sends word that the U.S. Federal Communications Commission has voted 3-2 to approve an expansion of their ability to regulate ISPs by treating them as a public utility. Under the rules, it will be illegal for companies such as Verizon or Cox Communications to slow down streaming videos, games and other online content traveling over their networks. They also will be prohibited from establishing “fast lanes” that speed up access to Web sites that pay an extra fee. And in an unprecedented move, the FCC could apply the rules to wireless carriers such as T-Mobile and Sprint — a nod to the rapid rise of smartphones and the mobile Internet. … The FCC opted to regulate the industry with the most aggressive rules possible: Title II of the Communications Act, which was written to regulate phone companies. The rules waive a number of provisions in the act, including parts of the law that empower the FCC to set retail prices — something Internet providers feared above all. However, the rules gives the FCC a variety of new powers, including the ability to: enforce consumer privacy rules; extract money from Internet providers to help subsidize services for rural Americans, educators and the poor; and make sure services such as Google Fiber can build new broadband pipes more easily. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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FCC Approves Net Neutrality Rules
Despite “Gangnam Style” having over two billion views , hosting countless other viral clips and netting over a billion users per-month, YouTube can’t seem to turn a profit. How’s that? Well, after paying for the infrastructure that makes Google’s video empire possible (and its content partners), The Wall Street Journal says that YouTube didn’t contribute to Mountain View’s earnings. The culprit, apparently, is that most users arrive at videos via links, rather than daily visits to the YouTube homepage where Google could charge a premium for ads. WSJ also reports that the site’s reach isn’t very wide either, with one source’s estimate that nine percent of viewers account for a whopping 85 percent of online-video views. That makes it a much less appealing audience for advertisers than traditional TV programming, despite the outfit’s increasing investment in original content . Google’s hoping that things the Music Key subscription service can hold the tide of red ink back and turn that sea black. Another method is with targeted ads, so you can get inundated with sales pitches for stuff you’ve recently browsed on Amazon. WSJ ‘s sources say that those might be a bit harder to add than Google previously expected, though, and thankfully could take some time to roll out. At least there’s some form of silver lining here. Filed under: Home Entertainment , Internet , HD , Google Comments Source: The Wall Street Journal 
Add / Remove Nowhere is the potential of image sharing more powerful than in the medical profession, where photos and videos of real cases provide infinitely superior resources compared to text descriptions. We have already seen Figure 1 — the ‘medical Instagram’ — which enables health professionals to upload and share photos of conditions, creating online discussion as well as crowdsourcing a database of reference images. Now, ReelDx is aiming to become the YouTube of the medical world — an easy to use platform for creating, sharing and storing videos of medical procedures and conditions. Medical professionals can capture real, interesting cases using traditional video cameras, mobile devices or Google glass and upload the videos to ReelDx’s secure HIPAA-compliant servers. They are then converted into a common format and reviewed by the company’s medical editorial board, before being published on ReelDx’s peer-reviewed online libraries. The video cases can then be viewed by medical students and professionals to enhance learning and diagnostics. In order to protect patient’s privacy, last names, medical records and other identifiers are omitted, and cases are only included with patient or family consent. The database is only available to registered professionals and institutions who sign up to ReelDx Education. Are there other industries where video sharing could prove a useful, educational tool? Website: www.reeldx.com Contact: info@reeldx.com 