PFF has just published the transcript for an event we hosted last month asking “What Should the Next Communications Act Look Like?”  The event featured (in order of appearance) Link Hoewing of Verizon, Walter McCormick of US Telecom, Peter Pitsch of Intel, Barbara Esbin, Ray Gifford of Wilkinson, Barker, Knauer, and Michael Calabrese of the New America Foundation. It was a terrific discussion and it couldn’t have been more timely in light of recent regulatory developments at the FCC.  The folks at NextGenWeb were kind enough to make a video of the event and post it online along with a writeup, so I’ve included that video along with the event transcript down below the fold.

What Should the Next Coummunications Act Look Like [PFF Event Transcript] http://d1.scribdassets.com/ScribdViewer.swf

Today I appeared on CNBC [video here and embedded down below] to discuss concerns about emerging “smart-sign” technology, which could give rise to a new generation of interactive retail advertising and marketing efforts. This is in the news because, as Don Clark and Nick Wingfield report today in The Wall Street Journal (“Intel, Microsoft Offer Smart-Sign Technology: Retailers, Product Marketers Could Discern Viewer, Make Choices on What to Display and Transfer Coupons Via Phone“), Intel and Microsoft have announced that:

they will collaborate to help companies create and use new forms of digital signs. By exploiting Intel chips and Microsoft software, the companies hope to bring more interactivity to such devices and help retailers customized marketing offers to consumers. Signs equipped with cameras and specialized software could recognize the age, gender and height of people in front of them, and tell what products and images received the most attention, the companies said. By gathering information about which messages are more effective, they add, traditional retailers could develop marketing approaches that better counter Web-based competitors. “Every year retailers lose more ground to online [sellers], and they have to do something about that,” said Joe Jensen, general manager of Intel’s embedded computing division.

Down below, I have jotted down a couple of thoughts about the rise of “digital signage” and more targeted forms of retail marketing, only a few of which I was able to get across in this short TV spot. I think it’s an exciting new development for both retailers and consumers for the reasons I explain down below:

http://plus.cnbc.com/rssvideosearch/action/player/id/1383744249/code/cnbcplayershare

ACT represents the interests of software companies, but today we’ve released a new paper trumpeting the virtues of hardware.

We highlight how software developers and computer chip makers increasingly depend on one another for better products. This symbiotic hardware/software relationship is crucial for the sort of exponential innovation we’ve grown accustomed to in the IT industry. And it is something ACT recently highlighted in a letter to the FTC signed by 37 software developers.

The old days of understanding computer processors and its effect on software was easy. Chips increased in clock speed (first in MHz, then in GHz) and this made software run faster. This worked well for years, but then it became apparent that high clock speed processors often ran idle because other system components couldn’t keep up. These processors also ran very hot, consuming lots of power and creating heat problems.

Today’s chips take a different approach. Chips now have processors with multiple cores (or CPUs) to separately but simultaneously handle independent tasks. In a survey of ACT members that we conducted for the paper, 58% of the respondents identified multicore technology as the processor advancement that has most improved their software products. One member said “multicore makes programming harder, but when my apps leverage it, they can do more.”

But how do programmers know what to do so they can better leverage processor designs such as multicore? Every major chip manufacturer worth a grain of sand has established support programs and created tools for the developer community. Sun has its Sun Developer Network, Intel has a Software Partner Program (and just announced a new software development kit (SDK) for its mobile Atom processor), and AMD has the CodeAnalyst Performance Analyzer to analyze software performance and help developers optimize applications.

In some ways it seems like chip manufacturers are sucking up to software developers. We like this attention–after all, without software, silicon is just sand! Chip makers depend on software programmers to maximize new hardware features. For the development of Windows 7, Microsoft and Intel worked together to optimize the OS for multicore. Windows 7 divides tasks like video encoding over multiple cores and threads to run apps more quickly, and kernal changes improve power management. For example, DVD playback on a battery-powered Windows 7 laptop is 16 watts, compared to 20 watts on Windows Vista.

It’s not just the operating system that takes advantage of new processors. Software for gaming, HD video and video editing, cloud computing, database apps, mobile apps–it’s enough to make my head spin. Just compare the drastic differences in levels of detail in Pac-man, which was introduced in 1980, with Uncharted 2 (the image to the right), which won the E3 2009 Video Games award for best graphics (it’s cool stuff…see the game trailer here).

But my head is spinning even more with the thought that antitrust regulators are on the prowl. Intel is under the gun in the European Union and here in the U.S. I’m still trying to figure out…why? From 2000 to 2008, processor performance increased 28 times while prices fell by 50%. And according to the Department of Labor statistics, the quality-adjusted price of CPUs has declined more than any of the 1,200 products it has tracked (including software, storage devices, PCs). The real cost of processing power has dropped roughly 40% annually over the past 10 years.

The reason for increased power and decreased prices? AMD, IBM, Intel, Sun, Texas Instruments (among others) annually invest billions of dollars for R&D. And I’d expect this to be the case for a long time in the future, because competition is becoming fierce and is converging as smartphones become more PC-like and computers become more mobile. So watch out AMD and Intel…here comes ARM, Marvell, Qualcomm, Samsung and TI.

Innovation, R&D spending, increased competitive outlook…the processor market has all the hallmarks of a market working for consumers. Regulatory action is the wild-card here–let’s hope it doesn’t trump the benefits of the current ecosystem.

I’ve ranted on here before about technological etiquette, or that lack thereof by many people. (See my tedious screed from 3 years ago: “A Few Snooty Words about Technological Etiquette.” Man, I was really angry when I wrote that piece!)  As much as I love technology and defend its unrestricted use, I think it’s important to encourage social norms about proper technology use to make it less likely people will call government in to act as a nanny.

That’s why I found this new “Intel Holiday Mobile Etiquette” poll so intriguing. According to the poll, which was conducted by Harris Interactive and sponsored by Intel:

most online U.S. adults (80 percent) feel there are unspoken rules about mobile technology usage, and approximately 7 in 10 (69 percent) agreed that violations of these unspoken mobile etiquette guidelines, such as checking e-mails, sending text messages and making phone calls while in the company of others, are unacceptable.

Hmmm… While I’m glad that such a large majority still have a sense of propriety about such things, this sounds like a case of people saying one thing when they likely do quite another. Then again, my perspective might be biased by life in a big city where people have PDAs practically glued to their hands full-time.  I’ve even grown accustomed to people staring at their digital devices more than me during conversations and meetings.  Of course, that could just be because I am so damn boring.  [My colleague Jim Harper will, no doubt, suggest the latter.]  Regardless, I just remain shocked by how people feel they simply must take every call, answer every email, or do whatever else on their devices in the presence of crowds or others.  In my rant from 3 years ago, I offered “Two Simple Rules of Techno-Etiquette” that I will reiterate here as the first steps down the path to techno-etiquette recovery:

(1) If you absolutely MUST take that cell phone call or answer that e-mail right away, try saying this: “Excuse me, do you mind if I do this real quick?”

(2) Do not EVER, under any circumstances, answer a cell phone call while you are in a restaurant, movie theater or other public establishment where relative quiet is expected. If you have to take the call, go outside.

Seriously, would that be so hard?