The industry has been waiting for Facebook to launch location/check-in features for the better part of the year, but now CNET reports that such features could be here within weeks, citing "multiple sources familiar with the matter".

Former Senator Ted Stevens was killed in a Plane crash. As MG Siegler points out, the timing of this is somewhat odd, as Stevens is known around the web as the guy who described the Internet as s "series of tubes" in the context of net neutrality. Net neutrality is of course a big item in the news currently, as Google and Verizon have released a proposal. More on Stevens here.

IBM announced today that it has acquired Datacap, which it calls "a provider of software than enables organizations to transform the way they capture, manage, and automate the flow of business info". IBM intends to integrate Datacap within its ECM business, which is part of IBM’s Software Solutions Group.

GeoEye, the satellite provider, whose GeoEye-1 provides Google with what the company calls the world’s most advanced commercial satellite imagery, was just awarded a new $3.8 billion contract from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) for increased commercial satellite-imaging capacity.

Nieman Journalism Lab has an interesting piece looking at tiered data plans and the possibility that they may "water down" advertising possibilities for news publishers.

Malware reached its highest levels ever in the first six months of 2010, according to a new report from McAfee.

In the first quarter of next year, HP will release a webOS tablet, if what Engadget has learned is true. Employees from the company have reportedly revealed that the device, nicknamed internally "Hurricane" was revealed in a company meeting.

Netflix announced a new deal with Epix, which will give its users streaming access to more content from Paramount, Lionsgate, and MGM. Not to be outdone, however, Blockbuster announced that its mail subscription customers can now rent video games.

Neither Stevens nor the pollsters mention that Verizon paid $60,000 for the poll, or that the questions were phrased using classic push-poll tactics.

In fact, the poll didn’t seem to even be about the “series of tubes” that comprises “an internet.”

The poll questions centered around cable TV choice and didn’t mention anything related to Net Neutrality until the end of the poll. There was mention of a Consumer Bill of Rights, which would guarantee full access to legal Internet content, matching language already in Stevens’ telecom bill. Opponents have said the “bill of rights” doesn’t provide any meaningful protection of Net Neutrality.

The majority of respondents agreed that the bill of rights was important, but it was last on the list of important issues when compared to making sure nobody dies because communications networks don’t work, or ensuring that poor kids get an education, or getting more TV channels, or making sure the blind and deaf can “participate more fully in the modern information economy.”

But the real kickers came at the end of the poll. When the 800 respondents were asked if they’d heard of Net Neutrality (this is the first mention of the concept in the poll), about 7 percent had heard of it.

Does this mean that Net Neutrality is a non-issue because America doesn’t care? Or does it mean that the pollsters at Glover Park Group and Public Opinion Strategies conducted a biased, telecom-funded poll, asking people that know nothing about the issue how they felt about it?

The last question tops it off:

Which of the following two items do you think is the most important to you:

Delivering the benefits of new TV and video choice so consumers will see increased competition and lower prices for cable TV

OR

Enhancing Internet neutrality by barring high speed internet providers from offering specialized services like faster speed and increased security for a fee

Well, since you put it that waymore TV sounds a lot better than slow Internet and bad security. Turns out 73 percent of respondents agreed.

“The rest of the questionnaire is similarly structured along the lines of ‘do you want lots and lots of pie or would you like a kidney infection’,” writes Matt Stoller.

“What’s particularly amazing is that 17 percent of the respondents chose the kidney infection,” answers Tim Karr at SaveTheInternet.com, where 1.3 million people have heard of Net Neutrality, compared to Stevens’ 800 people who missed part of a Seinfeld rerun to answer the poll.

A rough translation of the questions:

Stevens and company interpreted the results to mean that “onerous Net Neutrality regulations” would interfere with the nation’s TV watching and therefore should be put to rest.

This poll is the next in a string of recent dirty tricks attempted by bridge-to-nowhere-but-a-series-of-tubes Stevens. The octogenarian telecom-funded senator in charge of rewriting telecommunication laws recently tried to sneak a vote while opposition was away for the August recess, and secretly put a hold on a bill that would make federal funding more transparent.

But it’s not all so bleak. Rumor has it that Stevens plans to retire soon. But then, who will protect our TV?

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Blogosphere Uncovers The Truth

Who put the secret hold on S.2590? CNN.com revealed the mystery Senator’s identity today.

Here’s a hint: “The internet is not something that you just dump something on. It’s not a truck. It’s, it’s a series of tubes.” Did you guess correctly?

Of course you did.

Ted Stevens (R-AK) has been revealed as the one with his thumb on the throat of S.2590, the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act. Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) and several other co-sponsors supported the Act, which will require full disclosure of all entities and organizations receiving Federal funds.

The CNN report confirmed what many had suspected: Stevens was behind the hold. Senators have long enjoyed the privilege of being able to unilaterally object to a bill and block it. Coburn called out Stevens on the issue a few weeks ago, according to TPMMuckraker.com, but there was no confirmation immediately from Stevens’ office.

Meanwhile, political bloggers began weighing in with opinions and calls to action. Daily Kos discussed it, and immediately pointed a finger at Stevens, correctly as it turns out. Also, Porkbusters asked readers to call their Senators and ask them to state, on the record, if they would deny placing a hold on the bill.

When CNN came calling on Stevens, Aaron Saunders, a spokesperson for the Senator, denied any attempt to keep the hold anonymous:

Notice the choice of phrase: “we don’t consider it a secret.” More from Saunders:

Which Coburn’s office refuted:

Issues like the hold on S.2590 and the imposing and withdrawal of new fees on DSL service by Verizon and BellSouth may have received a little coverage in the days of newspaper and TV-only media. Maybe people are starting to learn the lesson that Flik and company realized in “A Bug’s Life” – a lot of little ants can stand up to bigger, meaner grasshoppers and fight back.

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David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.

According to numerous sources, Stevens (R-AK), whose anti-Net Neutrality telecommunications bill is facing a filibuster from opponents, is planning a small coup in Congress once all his opposition has gone home.

Just as Congress is about to take a recess, Stevens has tapped the strength of three sweet-spot senators (among 60 others) to lag behind and vote for cloture on the debate so the bill can move forward.

With enough votes to officially vote down the filibuster, Stevens’s bill would meet the Senate floor for a vote during the lame duck session just after the November elections. That means even if his cronies are voted out of office, they can still do some damage.

According to Matt Stoller of MyDD.com, the three senators on Stevens’ cloture hit list are Blanche Lincoln (D-AR), Ben Nelson (D-NE), and Joe Lieberman (D-CT). Net Neutrality proponents have called an emergency powwow, urging citizens to contact these senators as well as others to ensure their presence at the vote.

SavetheInternet.com provides a full list of US Senators, their contact information and their stance on Net Neutrality.

“Ted Stevens wants his bill, said Stoller, “and he’s pushing like crazy to get it. It’s going to be very hard for him to lobby Senators during the August recess, so he’s looking to sign up 60 Senators who will commit to cloture during the lame duck session before the recess starts. In case you’re wondering, that’s unusual and somewhat sleazy.”

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Recent law school graduate Andrew Raff liked Sen. Stevens’ explanatory speech on the system of tubes making up various internets so much that he wrote a song about it. Raff created “The Ted Stevens Internet Fan Club” on MySpace and posted his song entitled “The Internet is a Series of Tubes” for all to hear.

Three days later Raff’s account was deleted.

He received a notice from MySpace informing him that his profile was deleted because of a credible complaint about the violation of the site’s terms of services. Raff sifted through the TOS and only found one term that he may have violated:

That’s only part right. MySpace was held liable, at least in the court of public opinion. A little press from Boing Boing, Wired Magazine, Public Knowledge, and the Washington Post led to an admission that the song was “incorrectly deleted.”

But as Public Knowledge’s Art Bodsky points out, the timing and details make the deletion and reinstatement a little fishy:

He also mentions how once accounts are deleted they cannot be reinstated.

So one complaint from a “credible” source, seemingly offline, got the song booted from MySpace. But why?

Bodsky goes on to detail a bit of MySpace parent company News Corp.’s relationship with Sen. Stevens and the stake the Rupert Murdoch-owned company has not only in Net Neutrality legislation but also in another Stevens-backed broadcasting legislation. Of course we already knew that News Corp. was Stevens’ biggest campaign contributor.

So nobody’s saying that News Corp. and its interests had anything to do with Raff’s disappearance from MySpace. It’s just interesting when you think about it. And could it be an example of what happens when the Internet is no longer a neutral open medium?

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A short while ago, Washington Post Online columnist, Richard Morin, brought up the concern that Comedy Central’s The Daily Show host Jon Stewart was breeding a political cynicism among young viewers that was “poisoning democracy.”

Even if Morin missed the concept of “demystification” in media and communication theory that has been around for decades, Stewart showed the world last night that politicians are quite adept at breeding cynicism on their own. Stewart’s just there to pull the punch line out of the air for us.

The July 12, 2006 broadcast of The Daily Show began with a long segment dedicated to exploring the concept of Net Neutrality. After Stewart gets bogged down trying to explain the complicated topic (probably to an audience who’d never heard of it), he defers to 82-year-old Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK).

If you’ve been following, you’re familiar with Stevens’ diatribe about dump trucks and tubes and “internets” and the internet that took five days to arrive. Just to move things along without describing the entire segment, here’s the juicy part:

So maybe Morin and the East Carolina University study he cited was right. Stewart’s cynicism is an “enemy of democracy.” Or maybe it’s the politicians that keep youngsters away from the polls. Would you like a glass sandwich or a cactus washcloth? Um, neither, thanks. But you go ahead. I’ll hang back and laugh with Jon Stewart.

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Said the 82-year-old Alaska Republican with the onus of rewriting telecommunications law for the 21st Century:

“I just the other day got, an internet was sent by my staff at 10 o’clock in the morning on Friday and I just got it yesterday [five days later].”

Well, internets are really big, you know. But Stevens appears to realize that as he explains how this complex system works. Did you know the Internet is kind of like a stuffed sausage?

You can’t go overfilling the tubes! Can you imagine if you put too much cream into a Long John? Your fingers get all sticky and you walk into the Commerce Committee covered in internet.

What he lacks in analogous explanatory power, he doesn’t make up for in eloquence. But perhaps that was how it was explained to him by his contributors. This is complicated stuff. Verizon and AT&T wouldn’t want to confuse an old man. I know my grandpa, also born in 1923, glazes over when any of us mention “that ol’ computer stuff.” Maybe we should bring in the tube angle. He gets tubes.

At Wired.com’s 27B Stroke 6 weblog, the authors obtained a copy of Stevens’ internet for a forensic investigation on why it took nearly a week to get to him. They had it sent Fed-Ex “to avoid internet rush hour.” It appears the internet was broken into packets, each one going on its own misadventure for finally appearing in Stevens’ inbox.

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