budget documents. they are distributed to reporters across our newsroom. everybody looks on their own individual beats at how the decisions would affect programs they cover. there's an enormous amount of expense covering the budget rollout. it's a little ironic, given the fact this is a large

>> we are not red americans, we're not blue american, we are red, white, and blue, and president obama, we are done with you. >> they can come at our throat as long as we throw money in the center of the table, and then they get along like the scene in the movie after the bank robbery, one for you and you, and they are all happy. >> see videos at

c-span.org/videolibrary. >> well, this week, "the communicators" wraps up the visit at the consumer electronics show in las vegas talking with tech company executives about technology and public policy looking at the latest technology on display by some of the 3,000 exhibiters. this week, we'll look at some of that technology as we visit some of the exhibiter's booths. well, "the communicators" is on location in las vegas, nevada, held at the las vegas convention cementer, but even in the parking lot of the center are more exhibiters, and joining me is joe adkin with goal zero. what is that? >> we make portable solar products that charge cell phones, laptops, refrigerators,

started in africa, but selling here in the u.s. now. >> how did you get started 1234 >> humanitarian efforts. our founder was in africa finding ways to create jobs and looking for needs, and the first need that came up is everybody has cell phones, but nobody has power, so he said if i get you power, can you sell it, and, so, yeah, that created jobs over in africa. >> are your products on the market? >> they are. we're releasing new product as we typically do, but in great retailers, costco, bass pro shops, so, yeah. >> show us some products. >> small, medium large, and this is a small system here, a 7-watt solar panel with a little battery pack that selects the power, charge your iphones and all that stuff directly, or if you want, you can store the power in this battery pack, the only one like it on the market with double --

aa batteries to put them in like a flashlight or whatever, and you can charge devices right off of that, the cell phone, you'll never be without power. >> what's it cost? >> $159msrp. >> yeal? >> yeah. >> where's it manufactured? >> in china. it's designed here in united states, but we produce it in china. >> what else do you have here? >> if you have a laptop, we have a charger. this won an innovation award. you'll never need a power outlet at the airport again. carry this with you, your plugs to plug the laptop in or an iphone or ipad, or, you know, galaxy, whatever you have, droids, everything charges here. charge your laptops directly off of this product. it's small, portable, weighs like a pound and you're done.

>> joe, what if you're in a place where there's no sunshine. >> so they also charge off the wall, and they also charge off car chargers, and so if there's no place where, i guess, there's no sun, that's a pretty dark place, because they charge off of cloudy conditions or if it's raining. the users in europe or london or u.k. or whatever, they power it up, no problem. it doesn't have to be sunny like it is right now. it just -- it can charge in cloudy conditions. >> how long does it hold a charge? say you charge it for three hours in the sun and then you travel. >> yeah, so typically, batteries like this last four to six months so it's like a battery in your car that you want to be using it, but this will power a laptop for a couple hours, recharge an ipad a couple times, or if you have a smart phone, two to four times it

recharges it off of one charge. if you travel around, charge this up from your house like a wall plug, and take it with you on a plane or event, and if you're away from the sun, that's when you pull out the solar panel and it recharges it. >> what do yo do with this thing? >> lay it out in the sun like this, and then you plug this into the battery pack, and it just immediately starts to charge. there's no delay or anything, and it's water proof. >> how long does it take to fully charge this? >> six to eight hours depending on the sun, so this is, yeah. >> so when you look at the emissions and greenhouse environmental issues, although they use electricity, are you saving -- are you cutting down on emissions 1234 >> yeah, of course. you know, that's one of the great advantages of solar panels is the solar panels we see on roofs are rated for 25 years so you buy it and can use it for 25 # years. it's cutting down, gaining

popularity, and prices came down. a panel like this used to be $600, and now they are $199, you know, and that's been in the last two years. >> is that technology changes, is it more consumption, what about government grants towards these products? >> it's really all three, you know, so things are getting more efficient, getting smaller, volumes increased because of that, and the government has been subsidizing, you know, they don't necessarily subsidize the small portable stuff, but they do for homes and we benefit from that because of the increase in volume. >> what else do you have? >> looking more for like a refrigerator for emergencies or for a cabin, 24 is -- this is the yeti1250 and it can power anything that the wall outlet in the house can. we ran subzeros for a couple

days off of one charge. you can do hair driers, anything you want. usb, 12 12*-volt, and there's a lot of smart to protect the battery, and here's some of the solar panels. this is one of the smaller ones, but you can start with one, and then you can chain as many as you want together. say, hey, i want to charge it in two days or charge it in a day or half a day, just double the solar panels. this is basically power on the go, power anywhere really. >> what's that sell for? >> $1500msrp, the first silent generator on the market. you can use it indoors, no gas, no noise, so, yeah. >> why not manufacture in the united states? >> it's purely cost. >> you can see this episode of the communicators online at the c-span video library. we're going to take you now to

another series of interviews from the consumer electronics show in las vegas with the ceo and president of the erickson and a look at smart phones with the manager of intel. >> "the communicators" coverage continues this week. over 3,000 companies showed off the latest technology at the show in january of this year. this week, we visit with the ceo of erikson as well as visit the intel booth at the consumer electronics show. first up, the ceo of erikson. >> pleased to be join here by the president and ceo of erikson. first of all k welcome to las

vegas. >> thank you. >> tell us about your company. >> the company was founded 1876, and we have since then been the world leader in communication equipment, 46% of all mobile networks are erikson mobile networks supporting operators. we have roughly 100 worldwide where they are in 180 countries, a company that are doing research and development, getting products in order to enable the mobile broadband and networks all around the world spinning roughly $4.5 billion of u.s. dollars a year on research and development. >> where are you based on how large in the u.s.? >> we are based in sweden, swedish company, however, u.s. is the largest market, both on volume, but the largest --

16,000 in the north american market today. >> now, when mobile phones in the u.s. started to become ubiquitous, the ericcson name was pop popular, but not today,y is that? >> in the beginning of the mobile networks, the mobile phone was an extension. we actually started -- when we started the networks, we started with ericcson on mobile phones. after a couple years, we merged with sony and had a joint venture that's going on for ten year, and that's in the october time frame, last year, decided to split that and selling that back to sony. sony will now run the mobile hand set business. we're leaving the hand set. we're parted from it in the beginning because it was an extension of the mobile network. today, the phone is so much more than than extension of the

network. >> why are you leaving the joint venture? >> i think the mobile phone has evolved so much, and today, it's much more than a voice gadget. it's a lifestyle gadget that you need to -- ericcson is the best thing, the technology, developing what's inside. we are developing inside the mobile phone and the whole mobile networks and the fissioned networks. that's what we are doing and what we are at the best. >> so if a u.s. consumers a customer of verizon, at and -- at&t, sprint, ect., what ericcson products are they using? >> the switching equipment as we are the main supplier to all of those that you mentioned. that means we are catering for the data sessions they are doing on their smart phones, when they are checking the twitter or the facebook, and then it's an

ericcson session set up by that, and so we are sort of all the coverage and data capability of the networks. >> now, you're doing one of the keynote addresses here at the consumer electronics show, and one of your topics is the network society. what is that? >> i think that when we talk about the network society, we talk about it in two phases. one is the society is anything that benefits from being connected will be connected in the future. now there's more other side of it is that we believe that this is the technology revolutions, this what we're into it, and there's two phases and installation phase where you build out all the network, and today we're 6 billion mobile subscriptions, 1.6 billion lines, increased as the years have come, but we reached a huge installed base, and based on that, we start to see now

innovation that we never thought about. i mean used to imagine when we started to build the mobile network, just one service was, and that was voice. we wanted to call each other. today, it's totally different thing, and you start actually connecting calls here and here, the health care device for the mobile networks, that's the second phase. that's the network society. everything is connected in the network, and that was different from what we saw when we started the process of building the networks together. we thought it was you and me calling each other and others said it's a craze, why do i need to move around when i take to you, but today it's given and we transform your life with a form, business, and we transform society by health care, education being resigned, and that's what i'm going to talk about, the network society is here and it's so important that

consumer electronics is part of that because they are a huge part of that change. >> 5.8 billion mobile subscriptions at this point world wide and in a recent interview with the consumer electronics association, you said that 85% of the world has a mobile phone subscription. does that raise the issue of spectrum shortage, of spectrum usage? >> i think what we see in the world right now is that we still going to see growth. we believe that over 90% of the population has more coverage by 2015, and, of course, spectrum is what we use, and there's two things that are important. one is we spend $4.5 billion in research and development, and we're in the new ways of using spectrum more efficient. different ways of allocating a spectrum in the smarter way. that's what we will do. on the other hand, spectrum is a scarce resource, and the more

you have, the better it is because there's better service to the consumers and operators can operate belter, and in many cases, we need to understand the social impact of the mobile networks. we have done collected 124 studies down on broadband with two conclusions. for every 90%, you get 1% sustainable gdp, and for every connections, you get 80 net jobs. this is a massive thing for the country as well. it's transforming a country. that's why spectrum is, of course, very important piece in that puzzle to gain and get those efficiencies in transforming a country. >> as a multinational corporation dealing in 180 countries, do you have to deal with 180 federal communications commissions and different spectrum requirements?

>> i think that one thing that is unique, you know, in our industry is that we share a lot of technologies. we share a lot of how we use spectrum, and we expect that we use them, and there's a reason it can move from sweden to u.s. to pakistan wherever because it works. it's innovation. the industry is based on standards. ericcson has the 3g and 4g. we license that out to whatever wants to use it because then the scale and prices come down. however, of course, i did with the commissioners or in every country, talk to them what this one country to the other country, and it's very normal that the means of communication or the regulator to talk about the latest development, how you can use spectrum. >> two of the issues that we worry about here in the united

states is piracy and privacy, what are they doing about the issues 1234 >> you're right. you need to be careful because everything is going to be huge massive networks and people get the benefits. we have to get things in the society, and now, on the other hand, you also have to understand the privacy issues and what they are giving into, and the piracy has been there for quite a while, and we have to be clear that piracy is not fair and is not a way to do business because there are many people that are investing quite a lot of money in order to do these brands, these products, and piracy is not fair. i think that we need industries to come together and see we're not accepting that. given a society has more and more connection, these will, of course, be very important challenges in the network

society. >> has ericcson suffered from piracy issues? >> i think as a world leader in telecommunication, but they will -- it was difficult because we are in a very -- of course, that's probably happening, but that's not the main concern. i think that we share our technologies. we standardize technologies so that's part of the game if you want to use what we have, then you can use it, and then you'll cross license with them, and i think that's a little bit different is that we're sharing in between each other in order to get the lowest cost with the most efficient solutions. we have the same solutions in africa as here in the u.s.. the same technologies is coming out here, but then we can bring down the costs and benefit for the consumers and find what is most important. >> have you been to the consumer electronics show before? what are your impressions of the

2012 show? >> i have to be honest. i've never been to the show before. this is the first time. i have been browsing around, and it's an amazing show i have to say. it really shows the gathering of all the consumer electronics and all application developers in the world, and i think it also shows the power of how fast these developments have come. i see everything, of course, is almost wireless enabled when you go around there, so amazing in such a short time where nobody knew what a smart phone was four years ago, and now everything is built around that application. it's amazing to see. i'm really excited. >> cloud computing. how does that figure into your business plan? >> i think that cloud computing figure very well into our plan because we are going to see the three pillars for transformation which is connectivity or the

mobile coverage, the broadband, and cloud services. those three will transform the industry. i can take example like education where you can be in a very rural area if you have connectivity and broadband and put education digital or in the cloud, then actually can educate the people or student in a very rural area. that is the transformation so the cloud is a very important way to bring down the barrier further for efficiency. it can be health care, it can be another application in the cloud together with the connectivity and broadband, and then you can transform any industry and get the new efficiencies. i think the cloud is saying very much in the certain products or in the cloud, certain services it gives to operators in the cloud, but then, of course, we see more enterprise solutions in the cloud in order to redefine, redesign processes for different enterprises.

>> when you look 10-20 years out, what are you most excited about technology-wise? >> when i look out and think about the future, fist of all, i'm excited that the technology that we are providing's going to be used in a totally different way in the next ten years, and sometimes probably only our imagination is putting a liment here to what we believe, but if we look at technology, i'm going to see more speeds coming up, meaning that the 4g will give higher speeds, with higher speeds, new services can come, and we will talk about here about that connected core with 4g, will have only 100 milliseconds, and that might not say much to you, but what that mean actually is one call with communicate with a call behind you, and when you push the break on the car in front of you, that sends a signal to the car behind you and that hits brakes.

then you can think about how you can rethink the whole connected car because you connected car, and they can actually see the traffic and avoid accidents and hassles. >> higher speeds, tab lets, ect., they use a lot of spectrum. is there a solution? does ericcson have a responsibility to development efficient products? >> yes. we have, i think that we have a responsibility as the leader in this industry to develop new ways of using spectrum in a smarter way. we'll come with new solutions and i'm certain that we'll be able to use different technologies at the same time, different spectrums at the same time, to bundle them and use them more because it's always inefficient in spectrum between bands and frequencies, and here, of course, there's innovations we are doing with our engineers

all around the world that want to do that. yes, we feel a big responsibility for actually proving you can use spectrum more efficient. >> in the last couple of years, the u.s. rolled out a national broadband plan. what's the experience been in sweden? >> in sweden when it comes to broadband, we work on the fixed broadband and the mobile broadband, and it has been a very good, i would say, impact on the society because we look for new invasion from the society piece, but also on the enterprise piece that they use the broadband in order to innovate businesses, ect., and in sweden, they have shared broadband that can be shared among operators. that was our country, but in speeden, it works. we have a good feeling for that. sweden was first with 4g in the world, very proud of, and we

supplied it to an operator in sweden, and so sweden is still in the forefront of a lot of broadband ect., although we're a small country. >> how's the recession affected your company? >> i think that after the third quarter when we reported, we have had this southern europe impact. yes, we have the instabilities in the markets from the economy that's actually taken down investments. now there's been the middle east and part of northern africa with their challenges which also have taken down the investments so that's what i've seen so far. the most important that we've seen so far is the underlying demand for people using networks, smart phones, ect.. that's remained, and that's, of course, reflecting also the investment levels, but we will see when we report the fourth quarter, we're going into this year, 2012, how this

macroeconomics really impact or company. >> what devices do you use personally? >> for obvious reason, i'm using a sony ericcson. we still own sony ericcson although we're departing now. i have an android phone that i have with all the different type of news i need for work, and i guess this is part of my life, and i take it extremely regularly. >> what about the future of apps? do you see those continuing? >> i think that apps will, in many cases, continue to be extremely vital. as the interpret is growing with information, i think you and i, as users, want the easy way to find it and not search all the time, so absolutely important to find your way. i also think that the app providers will be one way promoting their brands and getting the loyal community of users that are using that, that

they can sort of understand so they can establish the relationship with their consumers through an app which nobody thought about for five years before an app existed. i think that we still are going to see quite a lot of development on the app side, how it develops, how we use it, and how it interacts with you and me. >> finally, what do you say to somebody who can look at and see all of these brand names and all of this new technology and words that perhaps they never heard before, and they are scared of the technology future? >> of course, the first answer is don't be find of technology or the evolution because that's really bringing benefits, and what you see out here, that's what we're creating in the whole mobility and the networks, build together and operates around the world. now we see the innovation on top of it, and that's what i'm talking about, the second phase

in the network society, bringing a lot of efficiencies for you and me and enterprise in the societiment i don't think anybody should be afraid of it. the technology evolution is a must for us to actually handle all the growth that we have on these standards. >> hans vestberg, the ceo of ericcson, and he's been our guest. that was hans vestberg, ceo of ericcson based in sweden. next, a visit to the intel booth. here at the booth, joined by the brand manager of intel. what is intel introducing here at the 2012 consumer electronics show? an exciting show this year. >> i think the big story for us this year is the experience that the consumers really have, and

intel has great technology and product that really power a lot of the new ultra books and smart phones and what we're talking about we really have the brains behind the technologies. we have an interesting reason to be here in that we're the innovation of the industry. >> well, mr. deaner, one of the themes of the show this year seems to be ultra books. what is that? >> it's all about mobility, taking what you kind of know about performance and computing and putting it in a new style and a new design. >> are these ultra books here? >> they are. they look like laptops. there's a couple things that macon ultrabook. it starts with the second generation core processer, the heart and brains of the overall book. what you see, i think, quickly, is that while it has the full performance of a traditional laptop, it's anything but traditional. there's a couple things. one, there's a really sleek design and really