Columbia University plans to explore these issues, Emily Bell, director of the Columbia J-School’s Tow Center for Digital Journalism, said at Betaworks Betaday on Thursday. To that end, the Tow Center will run a weekend workshop on sensor journalism in June and will fund a few projects. And next year, Bell said, the Tow Center plans to run a “sensor newsroom classroom” in partnership with the architecture school.

Some of the challenges are technical: How can journalists and newsrooms build their own low-cost sensing techniques? WNYC’s John Keefe, for instance, built a cicada tracker to figure out exactly when the expected cicada plague will hit New York City this summer. Can other organizations do the same thing?

“How do you get the really efficient things from sense networks in a way that helps you do human reporting?” Bell said. The techniques also create ethical questions: “We are moving into this world where the line between transparency and privacy is constantly in tension. When you can survey everything, what do you report?”

“Practically, we’re very close to being able to survey most of what people do most of the time,” Bell told Betaworks’ Andrew McLaughlin. “I come from Europe, where everything is solved by regulation, In America, the momentum is very much with business rather than the individual. [Google CEO] Eric Schmidt said at the journalism school the other day that privacy is all about making good judgment calls about what you put online. That’s just not true. You can’t make adequate judgment calls to control your own data. That’s only going to get worse.”

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Speaking on Friday at the Google Big Tent, a free speech event in Washington, Schmidt said he is “worried” about a “balkanized” internet as governments try to chop up the web just as people in places like Burma are discovering it for the first time.

Schmidt also offered examples, drawn from his just-published book The New Digital Age, of how the internet is helping in some of the world’s most benighted places. He cited women in Pakistan with faces and eyes burned by acid, who could nonetheless have lives as “virtual people,” earning a living and connecting with the world online. He also described smuggling systems for micro SD cards in South Sudan to show how people will go to desperate lengths to get information.

Schmidt’s anecdotes come partly from his extensive tours of scary countries, which included a stop in North Korea that brought criticism from the State Department.

For Schmidt, his travels reinforced how sinister governments are casting a growing shadow over the mobile phone revolution.

“We’ll hear the distinct voices of the citizens of these countries that we haven’t heard before,” he said. “These people are just like us but their governments are not like ours.”

The situation creates moral dilemmas for companies that make technology that connect people but that can also be co-opted as tools for oppression. As Google’s head lawyer, David Drummond, explained at the outset of the event, the most important battles over free speech have shifted from books and newspapers to technology. Drummond warned that bad governments are now turning to the United Nations and international treaties in an effort to exercise control over the world’s telecommunications infrastructure.

The event, which was hosted by Google and Bloomberg and included media executives discussing Chinese censorship, took place a day after the company’s latest update to its Transparency Report on global censorship.

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David Girouard, founder of Upstart.com

The company also gets two new board members, Bob Kerrey, the former senator from Nebraska and former president of the New School, and Jessica Jackley, co-founder of Kiva, which helps organizations obtain microfinancing.

David Girouard, the former president of Google Enterprise, founded Upstart last year because he thought that the difference between a smart grad starting his or her own company or not often boils down to relatively small amount of money. “At Google, we hired hundreds of great young people who couldn’t put together $30,000 to buy a car if their life depended on it without going into credit card debt,” he told me last year.

Goal: Helping  students stick with school, then launch

Upstart’s goal is to match those students with backers/mentors — mostly tech industry veterans like Andy Palmer, co-founder of Vertica. The Upstart entrepreneurs agree to give up  a set percentage of future earnings — capped at 7 percent — in return for the backer or backers’ investment.

“An upstart can have as few as 3 or up to 30 backers,” Girouard said in an interview. “How much they can raise can vary to over $100,000 but the sweet spot is $30,000 to $40,000.”

In the past year, more than 80 grads have been funded and 135 backers signed on. And Upstart, which started out focusing on select universities, has now opened up the program to all comers. This is not a charity: Upstart gets 3 percent of the patron’s initial contribution. If the effort pans out and the entrepreneur repays the patron, it also collects a 0.5 percent service fee, down from 1.5 percent last year.

Kicking the can down the road?

Upstart, based in Palo Alto, Calif., stands in contrast to the Thiel Fellowship, which pays smart college kids to drop out and pursue their business objectives rather than staying in school. Girouard has said repeatedly that degrees have value and hopes his program will encourage students to stick with their studies until completion..

Still, Upstart came under some fire — including from some GigaOM commenters — who said it just encourages students to incur more debt, “kicking the can down the road,” when they should just dig in and self-fund or take their first jobs to make money before setting out on their own.

Girouard maintains it’s a creative and low-risk way for these would-be entrepreneurs to get funding that could mean the difference between founding a startup or not.

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“Android is by far the primary vehicle by which people are going to see smartphones,” he said. It’s clear that while Android is growing, its rate of growth is plateauing a bit: Android activations were at 1.3 million per day back in September 2012.

Schmidt didn’t share a lot more news about the current state of Android, but he did warn people to not assume too much about the future with Sundar Pichai’s promotion to lead the Android group in addition to the Chrome business. He suggested the Android OS and the Chrome OS won’t be merging: “Don’t confuse organization design and product design,” he said.

He’s also a big fan of creativity with Android. Regarding Facebook Home, which is a launcher that morphs the standard Android home screen, he said, “I think it’s fantastic. This is what open source is about.”

He tried to dispel the notion that Facebook is threatening Android on its own platform, but he maintained that Facebook is acting properly. “They read the manual, they read the rules and they adhered to them. Shocking.”

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Seoul, South Korea

Sept. 27, 2012: Last year Schmidt took a trip to much less controversial South Korea, where he met with Samsung execs, promoted Nexus 7 and showed a sillier side by dancing along with Psy and his viral “Gangnam Style.”

Pyongyang, North Korea

A March cyber attack on South Korean computer networks has been traced to an IP address in China, despite many experts suspecting the attacks to originate in North Korea.  (Photo by Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images)

Jan. 7, 2013: Google’s executive chairman took what many saw as a strange and controversial trip to North Korea, where he advocated for a free and open internet in what he calls “the last really closed country in the world.”

Beijing, China

During a April 2006 trip to Beijing, Google chief executive Eric Schmidt spells Chinese characters “Gu Ge”  at the inauguration of the company new Chinese brand name. (Photo by Guang Niu/Getty Images)

Feb. 20, 2013: Attending a TED-like event known as Geek Park, Schmidt made his first public appearance in China in three years. In his hour-long talk, he discussed Google’s Android operating system and encouraged developers to write apps for it.

New Delhi, India

New Delhi (Thinkstock)

March 21, 2013: While on a trip to the Big Tent Activate Summit in New Delhi, Schmidt warned about heavyhanded control over the internet in China, where he had visited the month before, and advocated for better IT infrastructure in India.

Yangon, Myanmar

Old colonial palace in Yangon, Myanmar. (Thinkstock)

March 22, 2013: Schmidt became the first top  U.S. executive to visit Myanmar after its decades-long military dictatorship. There he promoted a free and open internet in a country ripe for IT expansion.

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At the Google Big Tent Summit, he was asked by the event’s moderator when Google Now would come to iOS. His response? Well, he played coy, as Mahendra Palsule noted on Twitter:

Alan: "When can I get Google Now on my iPhone?" Schmidt: "You'll have to ask Apple" #BigTentIndia—
Mahendra Palsule (@ScepticGeek) March 21, 2013

Schmidt went on to say, somewhat cryptically, “Apple has a policy of approving or disapproving apps that are submitted into its store, and some of them they approve and some of them they don’t.” That could be read as a hint that Google is simply waiting for Apple to approve the app.

The reason the question is on many people’s minds is because last week a video surfaced online that was purportedly a promotional video for Google Now coming to the iOS platform. The video seemed to have the same narrator as an earlier video promoting Google Now for Android, but the iOS video was promptly pulled from YouTube after discovery; usually that’s a tell-tale sign the promotion is legitimate.

Google Now was very well received when it was launched as part of the Android Jelly Bean operating system in mid-2012. By knowing the user’s location, the time of day, and search habits, it can offer properly contextualized search results.

It seems a lock that Google would want it to be on iOS. Google Now is a solid competitor to Apple’s own Siri. And Google has made it its goal to make better iOS apps than Apple, recent releases and revamps of Google apps for iOS include Capture, YouTube for iPhone and iPad, Google Maps, Gmail, Google Voice Search and Chrome for iOS.

Update: Well, Apple has shot down one possibility: the company told some news outlets that Google has not submitted a Google Now app for review.

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In a blog post Friday, Google CEO Eric Schmidt announced two new initiatives to appease France: “First, Google has agreed to create a €60 million [USD $82 million] Digital Publishing Innovation Fund to help support transformative digital publishing initiatives for French readers. Second, Google will deepen our partnership with French publishers to help increase their online revenues using our advertising technology.” Google won’t pay for links, however.

As paidContent’s Jeff John Roberts reported recently, French publishers had wanted more money, between €70 and €100 million euros. And a tweet from Frédéric Filloux suggests that more details still have to be worked out. The agreement is similar to one that Google reached with Belgian publishers in December; in that deal, Google agreed to buy around $6 million worth of advertising.

Thumbnail image courtesy of Shutterstock user alp33.

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I fall into the second camp for a variety of reasons, all of which have been brought to the fore by the revelation that Google is paying France Telecom-Orange to deliver its data to users. It’s not clear how much Google is paying Orange, or what the precise terms of the deal entail (I’ve asked both parties for clarity), but it does look like a line has been crossed. Here’s why that’s bad.

Google is rewarding greed

Telcos are very fond of complaining about the cost of building out modern mobile networks that can support the explosion in data traffic — despite the fact that mobile broadband usage is the carriers’ current cash cow. A group of European operators even tried (and failed) to get net neutrality banned globally, so that they could try getting content providers to pay for having their traffic reach the consumer in a usable state.

But this is not necessary. The carriers already make money off delivering data, and they make it from the consumer who signs up for a data tariff or pays by the megabyte. The content providers, meanwhile, already pay on their end to deliver that data – through their own internet service provider and/or through a content delivery network such as Akamai, and also through investing in private delivery networks.

If the receiving ISP wants more money on top of that, you’d think that they would provide extra value in turn. That’s not what’s happening here. So Google generates half the traffic on Orange’s network? That helps drive and develop Orange’s business, so it’s not something that should be penalized.

Google is abandoning its principles

Let me briefly pass the mic to one Eric Schmidt, who said back in 2006:

“Today the internet is an information highway where anybody — no matter how large or small, how traditional or unconventional — has equal access. But the phone and cable monopolies, who control almost all internet access, want the power to choose who gets access to high-speed lanes and whose content gets seen first and fastest. They want to build a two-tiered system and block the on-ramps for those who can’t pay.”

Those were the days. Fast forward six-and-a-half years and Google finds itself in a somewhat different position. The main agent of that shift is Android, which makes the company both a content and platform provider in a hugely competitive market.

The biggest gains to be made there lie in emerging territories such as Africa, where people are currently abandoning feature-phones for low-cost smartphones. When he revealed the hitherto secret Google deal this week, Orange CEO Stephane Richard was clear that his carrier’s strong position in Africa gave it the leverage it needed to extract cash from the U.S. firm. In other words, Google stuck by its principles until self-interest dictated otherwise, and in the process…

Google is messing things up for other content providers

As Schmidt’s words from 2006 make clear, one of the key attractions of net neutrality is the fact that both large and small players get equal access to the information highway. As he went on to say in that screed: “creativity, innovation and a free and open marketplace are all at stake in this fight”.

This is really all about barriers to entry. If Google is paying a carrier such as Orange to handle its traffic better than it might otherwise be handled, then Orange has the incentive to demand the same from other content providers. Even if it does not, we hit the problem of telecoms network capacity being a zero-sum game – if it weren’t, Orange wouldn’t have any leverage here, short of blocking Google outright.

In other words, Google has not only set a terrible precedent for up-and-coming mobile innovators, but it has also made it more likely that the quality of new services will be degraded over Orange’s networks — all so that the quality of Google’s services can be maintained.

It’s probably not a deliberate tactic on Google’s part to disadvantage potential rivals, but it could sure work out that way. And for that alone, Google should hang its head in shame.

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In the coming years, access to spectrum will be an increasingly important foundation of America’s leadership as mobile broadband becomes a major driver of our nation’s future economic growth, and faster and more capable mobile connections become essential in improving every facet of society. Expanding the amount of spectrum available for mobile broadband use is an important part of a broader strategy to improve the speed and accessibility of wireless service in America.

Capacity hindered by inefficiency

Recently there has been considerable discussion about a looming spectrum shortage. Yet the reality is that most of our spectrum is unused most of the time. This is because spectrum is managed by often assigning exclusive rights to a particular “licensee” to use a specific frequency in a specific location, and often only for a very specific purpose or service. This approach, which is analogous to building a private road for every different type of vehicle, leads to inefficient utilization of our nation’s spectrum resources, and impedes the introduction of new technologies.

A large percentage of these frequencies service the thousands of government systems that provide the essential functions for our national security. And, in most cases, even if it were possible to reallocate their spectrum for new commercial uses and technologies, the process of doing so is extremely expensive and incredibly slow, taking on the order of a decade or more – far too slow to keep up with our fast-paced digital economy.

For these reasons, the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) recently recommended a new approach to federal spectrum management. With a new approach, we can transform the availability of a precious national resource – spectrum – from scarcity to abundance, and do so rapidly. It is time to start building the first shared-use spectrum superhighways.

Automation of spectrum analysis

PCAST’s report calls for a new spectrum architecture that uses an automated “spectrum access system” that will enable new and inexpensive technologies to coexist with legacy federal systems. The combination of smaller radio cells and a spectrum access system could make underutilized spectrum, much of which is currently assigned to the federal government, available to commercial users in just a few years, rather than a decade or more.

As dynamic sharing evolves and spectrum is reused in smaller and smaller cells, capacity can be improved thousands of times. Likewise, capacity effectiveness can be improved thousands of times, thereby enabling less expensive mobile broadband access using technologies like LTE.  Just as we have seen with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, innovation in wide area mobile communications, sensor networks – even whole new industries and products that we cannot yet foresee – will emerge.

A pioneering first step

Last month the Federal Communications Commission voted unanimously to approve an important proposal to begin building the nation’s spectrum superhighways. These new rules would unlock 100 megahertz of spectrum in the 3.5 GHz band for commercial use. In response to a directive from President Obama, this spectrum was identified by the Commerce Department as ripe for sharing because it is only sporadically used by shipborne military radars, mostly located along the East and West Coasts.

This new spectrum management model builds upon the FCC’s pioneering experience allowing database-driven access to vacant channels (so-called “white spaces”) in the TV bands. Over time, this new model should be extended into other frequency bands as well. Building on the farsighted and ongoing work of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, the Department of Defense, and other federal agencies, the PCAST report calls for the eventual sharing of up to 1,000 megahertz of federal spectrum with the commercial sector.

A key to our future competitiveness

It is great progress that the FCC’s proposal is moving forward, and both the FCC and NTIA deserve our praise. However, it is important to note that any real value to the economy and consumers will start to accrue only when the review process has concluded, new rules put in place, and infrastructure is deployed. Reaching that goal quickly should remain our focus.

The European Commission recently introduced the outline for a proposal for spectrum sharing in the European Union, reminding us that we are in a world-wide innovation race. By adopting a new approach to spectrum management first, the U.S. can lead in both the amount of spectrum available and in continuing to advance the technologies required for the future.

We applaud the FCC for proposing this crucial first step. Much like the creation of interstate highways, it will catalyze innovation, fuel our competitiveness and demonstrate global leadership.

Mark Gorenberg, PCAST and Managing Director, Hummer Winblad Venture Partners

Eric Lander, PCAST and President, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard

Craig Mundie, PCAST and Chief Research and Strategy Officer, Microsoft

William Press, PCAST and the University of Texas at Austin

Eric Schmidt, PCAST and Chairman, Google 

Photo courtesy of Andrey Titarenko/Shutterstock.com.

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In many ways, Peek is the opposite of the travel guidebooks you might be used to. You won’t find long lists of restaurants, or a comprehensive guide to all kid-friendly activities within a single place. Instead, the site, which launched in October, goes under the assumption that people are overwhelmed with choices when it comes to travel, and they just want to be given a few high-quality options to choose from.

The site is optimized for mobile browsing but has no native apps, an odd choice in an industry that clearly hinges on searching and planning on the go. But Peek, which has the backing of an impressive list of investors including Jack Dorsey, Eric Schmidt, SV Angel and Khosla Ventures, started out with a short list of curated city guides in California and Hawaii, as well as “Perfect Days” designed by celebrities including Piers Morgan (he likes the hot air balloons in San Diego), Tory Burch (she has tips for catching some Hawaiian music in Oahu), and Jack Dorsey (he likes the roasted chicken at San Francisco’s Zuni.) Changes coming to the site on Tuesday will allow anyone to contribute ideas as well.

At first, the ability to create “perfect days” was limited the famous and relatively famous, but Bashir said they had so many requests from people who wanted to post their own “perfect days” that they decided to create a separate version of the site where anyone can post their suggestions for a city. This new version debuts on Tuesday.

“The average person spends an hour planning a trip, and goes to up to 20 different websites,” said founder Ruzwana Bashir, the British CEO and founder of Peek. “In the end, you create a long list of things you want to do and you don’t know where to start.”

The suggestion page looks very much like Pinterest, and users can “re-plan” (like re-pin) suggestions from other people, creating their own “perfect day” as a compilation of other people’s suggestions. Even if you’re not currently planning a trip, it’s fun to browse the suggestions and photos, which can be organized by location around the globe.

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