analog

Amid the companies unveiling new laptops, smartphones and electronic book readers is an auto company that has tapped several partners to help make the automobile a moving technology machine. Ford unveiled a slew of innovative technologies on Thursday at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

AT&T is joining Verizon Wireless in an effort to even out the costs of wireless and landline services. AT&T has requested that the Federal Communications Commission approve replacing legacy circuit-switched or public-switched telephone networks (PSTN) with broadband and IP-based connections.

AT&T's request comes after the FCC issued a public notice on Dec. 1 asking for input on what it would take to move from the legacy system to Internet protocols.

What could be cooler than surfing the Web and watching your big-screen TV at the same time? Getting rid of your cable box, perhaps. The folks who brought you the free Boxee software that transfers streaming video, music and other media from a computer to a TV announced upgraded features this week and debuted the first piece of hardware: A little black box (of course).

A "looming spectrum crisis" threatens the future of mobile networks in the U.S., Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski told a CTIA meeting Wednesday in San Diego, Calif. He said that while the short-term outlook for 4G networks is "adequate, the longer-term picture is very different."

Mobile data usage, the FCC chief said, is growing fast. He cited estimates that by 2013, mobile traffic will grow to 400 petabytes (one million gigabytes) per month from six petabytes today.

The British government has told civil servants: Go forth and tweet.

The government published guidelines Tuesday for its departments on using the microblogging service Twitter.

In contrast to Twitter's limit of 140 characters per message, the document runs 20 pages, or more than 5,000 words.

It tells civil servants their tweets should be "human and credible" and written in "informal spoken English."

It advises government departments to produce between two and 10 tweets a day, with a gap of at least 30 minutes between each "to avoid flooding our followers' Twitter streams."

I had my second night out with the Atlanta Social Media Club this past Thursday. And, while I have to admit, I miss my social media gurus in DC - it’s great to get out down here, meet new people and learn/discuss the social media scene in ATL.

The shutdown of U.S. analog TV service on Friday appears to have gone relatively smoothly, but as expected, a lot of viewers are having problems getting the stations they want.

The problems have ensnared even the technologically sophisticated.

Wally Grotophorst in Hamilton, Va., got a "digital" antenna for his digital TV last year. But on Friday, he lost the Washington-based ABC and CBS stations, channels 7 and 9, which he could pick up digitally before the transition.

On Friday, the United States brought a formal end to more than 60 years of analog broadcast of television signals, when television stations across the nation complied with a Federal Communications Commission order to switch to digital transmission.

The last major TV stations that are still broadcasting in analog will turn those signals off Friday and go all digital. And this time, they really mean it.

The original Feb. 17 deadline for the shutdown was delayed by the Obama administration after funding ran out for $40 coupons the government offered to help people buy converter boxes for old TVs.

Now officials say the country is much better prepared than in February, though they still expect some viewers to be confused.