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On Tuesday, Karin Gilford, chief of Comcast’s online division, told PCWorld.com about the latest move by the cable giant. “The Comcast On Demand online video service will allow Comcast subscribers to sign in with a username and password, then access any standard or premium cable content that their cable subscription entitles them to [...]

• The new head of the FCC is an internet expert who is a strong advocate for net neutrality and cheaper broadband access.

As anticipated, Julius Genachowski has been tapped by President Barack Obama to head the Federal Communications Commission.

The move is another indication that incoming leadership in Washington will move decisively to protect the free flowing Internet from those seeking to become gatekeepers to new media.

It also fulfills Obama’s promise made on the campaign trail to appoint an FCC chair who shares his support for Net Neutrality.

• Obama’s secret letter to Russia purportedly said if Russia helps with Iran, the European missile defense system will no longer be needed.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama said on Tuesday he wanted to work with Russia to resolve a nuclear stand-off with Iran but denied reports he had offered to slow deployment of a missile defense shield in exchange for Moscow’s help.

The New York Times reported that Obama had sent a letter to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev suggesting he would back off deploying a system in eastern Europe to intercept and destroy missiles, a move Russia sees as a military threat, if Moscow helped stop Iran from developing long-range weapons.

• Department of Justice halts a death penalty case.

SAN FRANCISCO — President Obama’s Justice Department halted the death penalty trial of an alleged San Francisco gang leader Monday by accepting a 40-year prison sentence that the Bush administration had vetoed.

The plea agreement for Emile Fort remained on hold after a federal judge heard a tearful plea from a murder victim’s mother for a life sentence and summoned prosecutors to a closed-door session to describe their case against Fort.

• The days of no bid government contracts are now over.

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama on Wednesday ordered an overhaul of the way the U.S. government awards contracts for private sector work, reversing a Bush administration policy that in some cases led to federal investigations of procurement practices and no-bid contracts.

Obama joined Republican Sen. John McCain, his presidential campaign rival, and other congressional figures to announce an executive memorandum that commits his administration to a new set of marching orders for awarding contracts. Obama said “the days of giving government contractors a blank check are over” and said changes could save up to $40 billion a year.

After unblocking several sites during this summer’s Olympic Games, China has quietly begun preventing public access once again, according to the New York Times.

The bad guys are going virtual more and more, and American businesses and government networks are getting victimized at a record pace, according to an FBI report.
“The increasing number of such crimes not only impacts the economy but threatens national security,” the FBI said Friday.
The man at the head of the opposition is the FBI’s [...]

The day has come for all Comcast High-Speed residential Internet customers: You officially have a usage cap. [...]

Earlier this year, Comcast defended its position on its questionably lawful practice of “diurnal network pattern” (more active in the daytime than nighttime) stoppage, which informed users know as “bandwidth throttling.”
Filing against Comcast, the Free Press and Public Knowledge non-profit organizations prompted the FCC into litigious action. As the battle went on in the courts, [...]

Dear EarthTalk: What is the status of sharks around the world? I see occasional stories about sharks attacking humans, but on balance aren’t we a lot more brutal to them then they are to us? – Pam Hitschler, Radnor, PA
It’s true that humans do a lot more damage to shark populations than vice versa. Marine [...]