Waxman Postpones DTV Delay Vote [Multichannel News]
Here's the latest on the potential for an extention of the
digital television transition deadline - we're in a holding pattern.
Senator Jay Rockefeller's bill that would delay the transition until
June 12th has been delayed in the Senate due to objections raised by
other senators. Senator John McCain has raised concerns about
Rockefeller's bill on the basis that first responders won't be
receiving their part of the spectrum that will be freed up by digital
television on the original date of February 17th. Over in the House, a similar piece of legislation that would delay the
DTV date had its committee vote postponed by House Energy and Commerce
Committee chairman Henry Waxman.
The waiting list for digital converter box coupons from the halted federal government coupon program now stands at 2 million households. We're 25 days away from February 17th, and no one is yet sure whether the digital television transition will occur on that date or later.
Watch this issue through the end of this week. If there is no movement by then, it's time for the supporters of the delay to throw in the towel and get on with it. Real money is being spent right now by cable operators and broadcasters to be prepared for the onslaught of expected phone calls when the transition occurs. A delay will force us to duplicate some of that spending and probably confuse the market even more.
As I've previously written, a further delay won't solve the problem of educating consumers who remain unprepared at this late date -- they are the same people who waited until the night before a term paper was due to begin to write it. Instead, Congress should either make more funding available for the coupons to restart sending them out or change the rule that prohibits reissuing of new coupons until old ones expire. The experience has been that only 50% of those sent out are redeemed so, if they assume a 75% redemption experience (instead of the current 100%), many more coupons could be sent out immediately without the need for new funding.
Downandup/Conficker worm infects 9 million PCs [Yahoo Tech]
It's a virus that growth is exploding as it makes the rounds. Estimates of machines infected by the Conficker virus range from 9 million up to 20 million. What makes it particularly nasty is the fact that it morphs constantly, defying traditional, signature-based anti-virus detection. So once you've got it, it's very difficult to get rid of.
Users catch Conficker by using contaminated USB drives. The virus tricks users into clicking on an innocent looking button that installs the virus. Once it's installed, the virus spreads again by exploiting a flaw in Windows networking system. Since Conficker is difficult to remove from a machine, the best cure is prevention. This article details what the dialog box for the autoplay on an infected USB drive looks like. If you plug in a USB drive and see this particular dialog box, don't click anything and unplug the drive.
This article also details steps for removing a Conficker infection.
Finding the next Scorsese...on YouTube? [CNET News]
YouTube's Project: Direct is sending the winners of the film making contest to the Sundance Film Festival as an entrant. Erin Fede and Blake Edwards short film ?Perfecto! was the winner of the YouTube contest and a $25,000 prize. The aspiring filmmakers were also awarded an opportunity to screen their film for the prestigious film festival. The winner of YouTube's film contest last year is now starring in a Brazilian soap opera. Maybe we'll be seeing a future winner moving from the streaming screen to the silver screen in a local theater near you.
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