Eideard

The Illinois Supreme Court’s recent decision to permit the televising of trials in the state’s circuit courts brings to mind another question of television in a court: the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court will soon hear oral argument — the fascinating, highly informative back-and-forth between the justices and the lawyers before them — in a monumental case that will determine the constitutionality of the government’s new health care plan.

Everyone is interested. C-SPAN has asked the justices for permission to televise the extraordinary five-and-a-half hours of oral argument (most cases get just one hour) scheduled for March 26 through 28. But the Supreme Court, despite numerous requests and even proposed congressional action extending over several decades, has never permitted television.

The justices fear the presence of cameras would tarnish the court’s dignified proceedings. But bear in mind that the Supreme Court doesn’t try cases, so there’s no danger of uncorking sensational trials like those of O.J. Simpson, Casey Anthony or Michael Jackson’s doctor. That’s not the issue.

Chief Justice John Roberts — offered the usual crap arguments politicians always come up with about undue influence, blah, blah.

In fact, there’s lots of experience to point to, and the precedents are clear: television would not impair the Supreme Court’s dignity or its proceedings.

Two-thirds of the state supreme courts admit cameras to their oral arguments. Two federal appellate courts have allowed them. They’re standard in the Supreme Court of Canada. Most of these courts have welcomed cameras for years without adverse consequences, effectively dispelling the vague worries of the justices in Washington…

In Canada the proceedings of the nation’s Supreme Court have been televised since the mid-1990s. Four fixed cameras, mounted high on the walls of the courtroom in Ottawa, face the bench and the counsel’s podium. When a judge asks a question, she pushes a button that both opens her microphone and focuses a camera on her.

“Our judges are proud of it,” said Andres Garin, executive legal officer of the Supreme Court of Canada. “There’s no downside. It has not been disruptive. There’s no playing to the camera.”

Of course, if the U.S. Supreme Court should allow television, but then finds that its presence is deleterious, the justices could always reverse their own decision. They’ve done it before.

Political cowards are usually political hypocrites. Please, let’s don’t ascribe legitimate motives to the hacks in black robes who oppose transparency. There are members of the court who support the broadcasts. They’re the one who weren’t appointed by Republicans.

Go to AlJazeera to find out what’s really going on.

Click the link above if you’re at your desktop computer. There is an App for iPod, iPhone and iPad as well.

It’s a sad commentary on American news organizations they have so little direct coverage – especially outfits like CNN which used to field direct satellite communications back to North America from around the world. They were the inspiration for AlJazeera – which now surpasses the mediocrity that CNN has become.

If it weren’t for the Web, of course, we’d have little access to AlJazeera and their peers around the world. Broadcast television, cable and satellite broadcasters are too afraid of offending the ignorant to carry primary source media.

UPDATE: AlJazeera has been “officially” shut down; but, is continuing to broadcast live.

Guardian Unlimited is doing a superb job of live blogging everything associated with the uprising in Egypt – from around the world and on the ground in Egypt.

The Federal Communications Commission is poised to release the first batch of unlicensed wireless spectrum in 25 years tomorrow, which could lead to “Wi-Fi on Steroids,” giving consumers, device makers, entrepreneurs and service providers more connectivity over wider areas.
 
The FCC is scheduled to vote tomorrow morning on a set of rules that will set the release of this so-called “white spaces broadband” into motion, giving device makers and others the guidelines on how they can use the spectrum. This could inject new competition in the wireless broadband space and provide a boost to technology companies hoping to connect more consumers. Just as Wi-Fi tapped unlicensed spectrum and untethered millions of consumers, white spaces could have a similar effect on a broader scale.

White spaces refers to the unused television spectrum that traditionally existed between channels as buffers or empty spectrum left over or vacated by TV stations through the transition from analog to digital TV. The FCC voted two years ago to approve the unlicensed use of whites spaces. Here’s what you need to know about white spaces.

Because of its lower frequency, white spaces can offer much broader reach and better penetration through walls than the current spectrum used for Wi-Fi…

The added range and performance could help connect rural communities, allow schools to light up entire campuses, help service providers relieve burdened cellular networks and could help with things like in-home video streaming and smart meter monitoring…

Since white spaces would remain unlicensed, the use of it could interfere with local broadcasters…so, of course…the National Association of Broadcasters has filed a lawsuit.

Though, no evidence of problems exists because the use of white spaces hasn’t yet started.

And here we are with the results of the vote and lots more detail.

One of the latest snaps from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan – showing progress on getting the DirecTV D12 satellite ready for launch on 28th December.

Russian crew from ILS and American crew from Boeing. Taking their work very seriously.

Actually, they do. They’re working on a satellite the size of a schoolbus costing $9-figures. But, you have to behave a little silly once in a while to keep your sanity.

There’s a link behind the photo where you can follow months of discussion among completely batshit, Hi-Def TV and engineering nerds.

Britain’s oldest working television has been tracked down in a house in London.

The 1936 Marconiphone is thought to have been made in the months that Britain’s first “high-definition” television service began.

The set belongs to Jeffrey Borinsky, an electrical engineer and collector of antique television and radio sets. He bought the set, which has a 12-inch (30cm) screen from another collector 10 years ago and is still working on restoring it to its original state.

The screen is mounted inside a wooden cabinet. The image from the cathode ray tube, mounted vertically inside the cabinet, is reflected onto a mirror.

The few controls include volume and vertical hold, but there is no channel changer, as there was only one channel when it was made: the BBC…

Mr Borinsky only keeps the set turned on up to two hours at a time, and he uses it to view films from the 1930s and 1940s.

He says he enjoys watching the kind of pictures that might have been seen by the original owners.

First TV set in a home that I ever saw was in the summer of 1946. The father of a girl I was in school with was an engineer at the local GE plant.

I was one of her classmates invited over on a Saturday afternoon when cameras fired up down in New York City to telecast a Yankees game. Then, the channel would go back off the air. Pretty exciting stuff.

The digital transition has begun in earnest, and early reports suggest a relatively modest level of disruption for television viewers.

The National Association of Broadcasters said stations are averaging 50 to 200 calls from viewers with questions about the switchover from analog transmission, while the Federal Communications Commission has received 28,000 phone calls from viewers. From the whole country.

That’s with one-third of TV stations having switched to digital signals. The NAB said 421 stations flipped the switch Tuesday, joining 220 local affiliates that had already made the change in advance of the June 12 deadline for compliance.

“These findings from local stations, coupled with the FCC data, paint the picture that, by and large, TV households affected in those markets were ready,” said Jonathan Collegio. “Given the large number of broadcast-only households affected during (Tuesday’s) transition, a relatively small percentage of viewers so far have needed assistance.”

The NAB said call centers in Virginia received about 150 calls. Stations in Rockford, Ill., received 200 calls, and stations in Topeka, Kan., received 300.

Nielsen released an update saying that 5 million U.S. households — or 4.4 percent of all homes — remain unprepared. This is an improvement of more than 800,000 homes since Nielsen reported readiness status at the beginning of February. The Albuquerque/Santa Fe, N.M., market continues to be the least prepared.

That’s us, folks. Even in the “least prepared” market, there has barely been a peep about the transition. Yes, only about 20% of the signals have converted to digital in the Abq/Santa Fe DMA; but, so far, I can’t even find a post-transition news article!

The-sky-is-falling crowd got it wrong.

Are they reviewing the guest list – or body parts washed ashore in Florida?
Daylife/AP Photo

“Dexter” star Michael C. Hall has married co-star Jennifer Carpenter, who plays his sister on the television show.

They wed on New Year’s Eve in picturesque Big Sur, California, and she had a wedding ring linked to a bouquet, Hall’s representative Craig Bankey said in a statement.

In “Dexter,” Hall plays Dexter Morgan, a Miami police analyst who moonlights as a serial killer targeting sociopaths. Carpenter plays Debra Morgan, Dexter’s adoptive sister, a tomboyish cop. “Dexter” is on U.S. cable channel Showtime.

The show is a gas!

Har!

Barack Obama accepted the Democratic nomination for president on Thursday as an estimated 38 million viewers watched on television, setting a new record for convention viewership.

Furthermore, the four-night Democratic convention ranks as the most-watched convention of either party, Democratic or Republican, since Nielsen began measuring conventions in 1960.

The 38 million figure from Nielsen includes the audience on ten networks: ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, FOX News Channel, MSNBC, BET, TV One, Univision and Telemundo. It does not include PBS or C-SPAN, which also carried the address live. PBS estimated that it averaged 3.5 million viewers between 8 and 11 p.m.

Now, if all those folks will just get off their couches and vote – this nation might once again prove worthy of its heritage.