Good morning tech

Good morning!

FCC: Fewer than half of homes have fast enough broadband speeds

A Federal Communications Commission (FCC) report released Thursday found "only 44 percent of fixed residential subscriptions have advertised speeds of at least 3 Mbps down, 768 kbps up."

That means most homes fail to meet the FCC target speed of 4 megabits per second download speed and 1 megabit per second up.

Mobile subscriptions soar

The report also found subscriptions to mobile data services for full Internet access increased by 40 percent in just six months.

"That increase underscores how critical it is to free-up more spectrum to support these popular, innovation-driving services, as called for in the National Broadband Plan and by the President in his June 28th Executive Memorandum," said a blog post by the FCC's Steven Rosenberg.

Cable broadband subscriptions, meanwhile, grew at a rate of 3 percent. DSL subscriptions grew at a rate of 1 percent.

50: The number of text messages that teens send each day. Adults send 10, according to a new report from Pew. http://bit.ly/bIDq20

Can't miss news

Hill notes

Kerry says net-neutrality 'progress' has been made. Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) agreed on Thursday with a statement from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that it has made progress in the net-neutrality debate by narrowing the scope of disagreement. http://bit.ly/cOB5dd

Rep. Gene Green commends FCC decision.  He lauded a decision that could keep net-neutrality rules off the books until at least late 2010. Green took the FCC's decision as a sign that Chairman Julius Genachowski had "heeded the advice" of Democrats who have written him in recent months urging him not to increase the agency's authority over broadband services. http://bit.ly/bBw0Sq

Executive notes

Title II is not on the FCC's September agenda. Net-neutrality proponents had hoped it would be but saw it as increasingly improbable. The September agenda includes a long-delayed "white spaces" proceeding that the wireless industry and bipartisan members of Congress have pushed for because it will free up spectrum for mobile broadband. http://bit.ly/aqGAnD

Industry notes

Apple, Facebook spar over Ping. Wednesday's new product announcement from Apple CEO Steve Jobs included the roll-out of a new, iTunes-based social network called Ping. When asked why Apple chose to start its own network instead of, say, building services on top of Facebook, Jobs said the social media giant's terms were "onerous." But Ping users could still find their Facebook friends using the service — until Thursday, when Facebook blocked the application claiming it was sending enough traffic to Facebook to cause site stability problems. http://nyti.ms/bMpIU0

HP wins bidding war over 3PAR. Dell announced Thursday it is pulling out of the bidding for data storage firm 3PAR, handing Hewlett-Packard an important victory as well as a foothold in the rapidly expanding market for high-end cloud storage. Dell originally agreed to purchase 3PAR for $18 a share on August 16, only to see its bid topped several times as rival HP attempted to block the transaction. HP's final offer was $33 for a total of $2.1 billion; 3PAR shares traded below $10 for most of this year. http://bit.ly/dvEvTk

Consumer Watchdog pokes Google on privacy. A new animated advertisement from the advocacy group Consumer Watchdog depicts Google CEO Eric Schmidt using an ice cream truck to steal secrets from children. The group has been a harsh critic of Google, particularly when it comes to privacy issues and is lobbying the federal government to create a "Do Not Track" list similar to the FTC's "Do Not Call" registry for telemarketers. http://bit.ly/aq62pm

Juror punished for Facebook post. A judge in Michigan has removed a juror and assigned her to write a five-page essay on the constitutional right to a fair trial in response to a message posted by the woman on her Facebook page predicting a guilty verdict for the defendant — before the defense had even begun it's case. The judge accused Hadley Jons, 20, of violating her oath as a juror and making up her mind about the case without first considering all the evidence. Jons said she was "very, very sorry" for the post. http://bit.ly/aoQafI

YouTube ads turn video into revenue. "Last month, a YouTube user, TomR35, uploaded a clip from the AMC series “Mad Men” in which Don Draper makes a heartfelt speech about the importance of nostalgia in advertising," The New York Times reports. http://nyti.ms/aMBqYH

Said

“Our logic is different – we think about what users need most."

- Wang Mengqiu, senior director of technology and products at Chinese Internet company Baidu. She was comparing Baidu's focus to Google's emphasis on "very cool" technology, The Financial Times reports.

Watercooler

Searching…There may be no such thing as stupid questions, or, on the other hand, that might not be true. When silly questions do arise — or at least questions that seem like they could be easily solved by a search engine — a website offers the latest in passive-aggressive solutions, allowing you to create a link that provides step-by-step instructions on how to Google something. Asked, for instance, what the capital of Argentina is? Send this: http://tinyurl.com/3xfpcq5