Fri, 07/09/2021
Welcome to ‘Tech Roundup,’ where we highlight some of the most significant/thought-provoking news items from the world of tech, especially at the nexus of law and technology. We are particularly interested in foregrounding tech news that is happening in Nebraska, and our region more broadly. If you have a news item you would like to see in the Roundup, please email neil.rutledge@unl.edu.
Local/Regional
Why A Lincoln Nebraska-Based Insurance Company Launched A Podcast Focused On ‘Good Business’
Forbes
- Assurity, a life insurance company headquartered in Lincoln, hosts a podcast called “Good Business.”
- The podcast focuses on interviewing social-focused business leaders concerned with sustainability and acting as a force for good.
- Good Business shares “some of the best stories from companies like Ben & Jerry’s, Whole Foods Market, Arbor Day Foundation, B Lam, and more, including some of their successes and the challenges they’ve faced along the way to building more sustainable businesses.”
Farritor engineers musical solution for art exhibit
Nebraska Today
- Nebraska artist Charley Friedman, assisted by University of Nebraska-Lincoln student Luke Farritor, has created an art exhibit called “Soundtracks for the Present Future,” featuring 59 acoustic guitars, bass guitars and mandolins that hang via clear string from the ceiling at Omaha’s Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts. From a distance, it appears as though the instruments are floating through the air. And as one draws closer, another surprise awaits.
- “Suddenly music begins to fill the room. But it isn’t coming from a speaker or a hidden guitarist. Instead, each stringed instrument is playing a single assigned note from the piece. On their own, they sound strange; together, they create a new listening experience. As the notes bounce back and forth, a sonic symphony builds and fills the space.”
High school students discover sustainable fashion
Nebraska Today
- A recent summer camp at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln offered youth the opportunity to explore careers in the apparel industry and ways to create sustainable fashion.
- Students learned about the environmental impact of fashion and explored ways to create sustainable fashion during various faculty-sponsored workshops, such as sustainable fashion and entrepreneurship, rapid prototyping, quilt making, block printing, garment upcycling and visual merchandising.
Inside Outside Innovation Podcast
Inside Outside
- “The Inside Outside Innovation podcast explores the ins and outs of innovation. We focus on raw stories, real insights, and tactical advice from the best and brightest in startups and corporate innovation. Each week, we highlight people in innovation, perspectives, and processes.”
- The podcast is hosted Brian Ardinger, founder of the seed-stage accelerator NMotion and co-founder of the corporate innovation consultancy Econic. He’s received awards for his work from the Lincoln Partnership for Economic Development, Prosper Lincoln, and two coveted Prairie Dogs from Silicon Prairie News.
The new core web vitals: what should be on your checklist to pass it?
Silicon Prairie News
- In this article from Silicon Prairie News, Itamar Gero, founder and CEO of SEOResller.com, discusses a new set of metrics released by Google called the Core Web Vitals, aimed to provide searchers with the best information and experience possible.
- “In this rollout, Google highlights the inclusion of Page Experience as a main ranking signal. This means that aside from quality content and beautiful web design, websites should also ensure that they provide the best user experience. The design and content should work together to make browsing more enjoyable for users across all web browsers.
- Google provided information about their core updates here.
Local Startup Spotlight
- “Travefy’s mission is to power the success of travel professionals. Our award-winning itinerary management and client communication tools help Travel Agents and professionals save time and impress clients.”
- “Travefy powers thousands of travel businesses ranging from small, independent travel advisors to the largest travel agencies, consortia, and organizations. Travefy has been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Forbes among other publications and has won numerous industry honors including the Brand USA Marketing Innovation Award at Phocuswright and the 2017 ASTA Entrepreneur of the Year Award.”
National/International
Colorado Privacy Law Ups Compliance Ante as U.S. Patchwork Grows
Bloomberg Law
- The law gives residents the right to opt out of the sale of their personal data from businesses, and it also gives them the right to request that information be deleted. Businesses will have to complete data protection assessments for processing activities.
- Variations in language among the laws can have large implications for compliance, and what works in one state may not necessarily work in another, said Duane Pozza, a partner at Wiley Rein LLP in Washington. Regulations issued before the Colorado law takes effect are likely to increase compliance preparations from businesses, he said.
Federal Trade Commission
- The Federal Trade Commission has issued a complaint charging Broadcom with illegally monopolizing markets for semiconductor components used to deliver television and broadband internet services through exclusive dealing and related conduct.
- The Commission has also issued a proposed consent order that would settle the Commission’s charges. Under the consent order, Broadcom must stop requiring its customers to source components from Broadcom on an exclusive or near exclusive basis.
Biden Order Targets Competition
Bloomberg Law
- The order will encourage federal agencies to scrutinize the way major tech companies grow through mergers, according to the New York Times, citing unidentified people familiar, Rebecca Smith reports. The paper said the order includes several measures that will target big tech companies such as Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple, and that it will instruct federal agencies that approve mergers to scrutinize the tech industry’s practices more closely.
- A second provision will encourage the Federal Trade Commission to write rules limiting how the tech companies use consumer data.
Has the Carbontech Revolution Begun?
New York Times
- Science can now pull carbon out of the air. For that to make a difference, though, businesses need to find profitable places to put it.
- One company named Interface has developed a “carpeting (that) was a result of four years of intensive research and development, according to Interface. It incorporated a material made from recycled vinyl and processed vegetation; it was infused with a latex created from smokestack exhaust. It was topped and tufted with salvaged nylon. And it had been manufactured in the least environmentally demanding way possible. By Interface’s reckoning, the carpeting had a carbon footprint of negative 300 grams per square meter.”
Trump Sues Facebook, Twitter, Google to Restore Social-Media Accounts
The Wall Street Journal
- Former President Donald Trump has sued Facebook, Twitter and Google, seeking to restore his online profile after he was suspended from most social-media platforms following the Jan. 6 riots in the U.S. Capitol.
- Mr. Trump was the most prominent plaintiff seeking class-action status against the tech companies, claiming he has been wrongly censored by them in violation of his First Amendment rights.
Google faces new anti-trust lawsuit over app store
BBC News
- The lawsuit claims that the tech giant has used "monopolistic leverage" to generate large profits from purchases made within its own store.
- It criticises the commission Google takes on purchases made within Google Play, which can be up to 30%, in line with Apple's App Store policies and the stores of other rivals such as Amazon and Microsoft XBox.
AI is transforming the coding of computer programs
The Economist
- By feeding oodles of pre-existing code into (AI powered coding packages), they can be trained to predict the lines a programmer needs next. As a programmer types, potential “code completions” of one or a few lines pop up on the screen.
STEM Jobs See Uneven Progress in Increasing Gender, Racial and Ethnic Diversity
Pew Research Center
- Current trends in STEM degree attainment appear unlikely to substantially narrow gaps in the employment of Black and Hispanic workers in STEM fields, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of federal employment and education data.
- And while women now earn a majority of all undergraduate and advanced degrees, they remain a small share of degree earners in fields like engineering and computer science – areas where they are significantly underrepresented in the workforce.
Newport Wafer Fab: Chip plant's purchase by Chinese company reviewed
BBC News
- The prime minister's national security adviser is examining the purchase of the UK's largest computer chip plant by a Chinese-backed company.
- Mr Johnson told Westminster's Liaison Committee on Wednesday: "We have to judge whether the stuff that they are making is of real intellectual property value and interest to China, whether there are real security implications. "I have asked the national security adviser to look at it."
Can Massive Cargo Ships Use Wind to Go Green?
New York Times
- Cargo vessels belch almost as much carbon into the air each year as the entire continent of South America. Modern sails could have a surprising impact.
What We Are Reading
Adam Thompson, Lecturer and Assistant Director of the Kutak Ethics Center at the University of Nebraska Lincoln, commented on an article in Communications of the Association for Computing Machinery.
Ethics of Technology Needs More Political Philosophy
Communications of the ACM
Thompson offered the following perspective:
When attempting to answer questions like, 'Should I eat meat?', 'Is abortion ever morally permissible?', 'Am I partly morally responsible for the slave labor that produced the raw materials for my Smart-Phone?', or 'Ought I spank my children?' we tend to focus on considerations of personal morality. For instance, individuals are typically drawn to thoughts about animal welfare, monetary costs, personal preferences, what constitutes a life, and general obligations to prevent suffering if they can without sacrificing something of equal moral value in the face of such questions.
But, as Johannes Himmelreich observes in this article, considerations of personal morality compose only part of the realm of ethics. Ethics is further filled out by value theory, social-political philosophy, moral psychology, and meta-ethics. Himmelreich reminds us that answering ethics questions requires properly dealing with consideration and reasons that arise from the whole of ethics rather than those that merely arise in the areas of personal morality. In particular, he draws attention to the way in which political philosophy bears on the ethics issues stirred up at the prospect of self-driving cars.
Tags: Tech Round-Up
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