FCC offers $50,000.oo to Kill Robocallers

submit your idea from October 25 to January 17.

Be a hero. Help the FTC block illegal robocalls. Accept our challenge today.

Entrants keep the intellectual property rights of their submission.
The Federal Trade Commission is offering a cash reward of $50,000 to whoever develops a solution to block robotic calling on both landlines and mobiles. Entries can be in the form of idea proposals, fully functional solutions, and proofs of concept.
The solution has to be tailored for illegal robocalls, and so must permit legal calls including being reached out to by political parties, charities, and health care providers. It must not block reverse-911 calls.
The FTC Robocall Challenge = robo-marketeers can submit their idea from October 25 to January 17.
The FTC is asking these basic questions: does it work? Is it easy to use? And can it be rolled out? In addition, your idea will be marked on ease of customer use, the variety of consumer phones that can be protected, and whether it can be used by those with disabilities. The flexibility of an idea is also important, as the FTC wants to know how easily robocallers could adapt or counter a scheme if it were rolled out nationwide.
From a commercial perspective, ideas will gain hefty points if they are compatible with today’s marketplace — in other words, would an idea require changes to all phone switches worldwide — or could it simply be distributed by line providers?
The winner will get $50,000 and a trip to D.C, where the creator or team will present the winning solution.

Internet providers to begin warning customers who pirate content

Internet providers to begin warning customers who pirate content
(“We accuse you, and even if we’re wrong, you need to pay us $35 to research the case.” which means for Hollywood, “heads they win, tails, they get something anyway.”
The Center for Copyright Information says a new system AT&T, Cablevision, Comcast, Time Warner, or Verizon will warn users when accounts are used to illegally download content.
The entire system will be overseen by an organization called the Center for Copyright Information, which includes content owners, such as the Motion Picture Association of America and Recording Industry Association of America, as well as individual members including Disney, Sony Pictures, Fox, EMI and Universal. Each ISP will have a slightly different version of the system.

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Educational CyberPlayGround, Inc. K12 Newsletter and NetHappenings News Letter

Just one in four children in Kentucky is prepared for kindergarten, according to preliminary data presented to the Kentucky Board of Education.
<SHAME> Where is the Separation between Church and State? In private Pocket$
The Florida Board of Education has adopted a new strategic plan that envisions about 17 percent of one-time public school students attending either charters or using taxpayer-funded vouchers to attend private schools by the 2017-18 school year.
http://www.orlandosentinel.com
School officials have formally approved a one-year agreement for evaluating principals in the Los Angeles Unified School District, but the head of the administrators union also asserted that principals will be overburdened by a new teacher-evaluation system.
A San Francisco Unified School District administrator urged teachers to re-evaluate whether to offer summer school to special education students as a way to cut costs, a move that special education teachers and attorneys say violates federal regulations.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s hand-picked choice to head the Chicago public schools, Jean-Claude Brizard, has resigned just three weeks after the end of the city’s first teachers strike in a quarter century.
The State Educational Technology Directors Association has announced the launch of a new online database intended to help policymakers, researchers, corporate and philanthropic investors, and educators keep track of developments in state-level policy directly affecting the realm of educational technology.
http://ow.ly/eCEME

National Center for Education Statistics POSTSECONDARY DATA

POSTSECONDARY DATA
A new “First Look” report from the Department’s National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) presents some preliminary findings from the spring 2012 data collection of the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS). For example:
·         In fall 2011, institutions enrolled 18.6 million undergraduate and 2.9 million graduate students. Among the 18.6 million undergraduates, 57% were enrolled in four-year institutions, 41% in two-year institutions, and 2% in less-than-two-year institutions.
·         Approximately 59% of first-time, full-time students at four-year institutions in 2005 who were seeking a bachelor’s degree or equivalent completed a bachelor’s degree or equivalent within six years at the institutions where they begin their studies.
·         During fiscal year 2011, public, four-year institutions and administrative offices received 19% of their revenues from tuition and fees, compared with 29% at private, non-profit institutions and 90% at private, for-profit institutions. Moreover, 29% of expenses at public, four-year institutions were for instruction, versus 42% at private, non-profit schools and 54% at public, less-than-two-year schools.
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