Fri, 08/06/2021
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
The Smell of Money: Mead, Nebraska's Fight For Its Future
Nebraska Public Media
- This documentary from Nebraska Public Media tells the story of the environmental disaster at an ethanol plant utilizing promising new technology near Mead, Nebraska, and the real-world environmental consequences of the failure to follow operational guardrails.
Silicon Prairie News
- No More Empty Pots, a North Omaha-based nonprofit improves self-sufficiency, regional food security and economic resilience of urban and rural communities through advocacy and action. A variety of services are offered, including a gardening education program for youth, an entrepreneurial skills development program, and classes in cooking and nutrition, among others.
Should a "Posting Index" be a New Economic Indicator?
Nebraska Public Media
- In a dashboard released late last month, researchers at Facebook have been tracking how often small businesses post on their Facebook businesses pages. Using pre-pandemic posting levels as a baseline, the researchers tracked the rate of posting by different business sectors.
- The article contains graphs of online social media post rates in Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska throughout the pandemic.
- Valerie Jones, an advertising and public relations professor who teaches classes on digital analytics at The University of Nebraska-Lincoln, described the data as a potentially useful tool, but warns that the enormity of the information can make drawing conclusions difficult.
UP's 'Big Boy' Steam Locomotive Touring Nebraska This Weekend
Nebraska Public Media
- A famous steam locomotive will tour parts of Nebraska starting Thursday, August 5. The western Nebraska town of Sidney will be the first stop for the Union Pacific No. 4014 ‘Big Boy’ steam tour.
- Big Boy’s final Nebraska destination will be Fairbury on Sunday.
- Mike Jaixen with Union Pacific Railroad said the engine was developed to pull large quantities of freight through Utah’s Wasatch Mountains during World War II.
- “It’s 132-feet long and it’s the largest operating steam locomotive in the world, more powerful than anything else at that time,” he said.
Silicon Prairie News
- To help remove barriers to tech education, address the ongoing shortage of tech workers in the Silicon Prairie, and spark interest in science, technology, engineering and math careers, the Omaha STEM Ecosystem and the AIM Institute have launched the online STEM Community Platform, presented by Cox.
- The STEM Community Platform, located at stemplatform.org, connects youth, parents, educators and professionals to an online hub of high-quality STEM programs, resources and events in the Greater Omaha area. The website is the first of its kind in Omaha to have a comprehensive list of STEM programs all in one place.
Applications open for entrepreneurship program
Nebraska Today
- Nebraska faculty, staff and students are invited to join a fall semester program to learn strategies about connecting research innovation with market applications.
- The program begins Sept. 8, and participants may sign up individually or in teams of up to five people by Sept. 3. Interested individuals can find more information and sign up here.
Implant shows extreme promise for regenerating bone
Nebraska Today
- Its powers may not rival Wolverine’s, but a regenerative implant engineered by researchers at the University of Nebraska Medical Center and University of Nebraska–Lincoln could help repair bone-deep damage following physical trauma, surgery or osteoporosis.
- The team has developed a biodegradable, nanofiber-based implant, or scaffold, whose design could better regenerate bone by effectively guiding the migration of recuperative cells to the injury site.
Local Startup Spotlight
- Vericred is a data platform powering digital experiences in health insurance and employee benefits. The company describes itself as the “pipes” that simplify the complex exchange of quoting, enrollment and eligibility data between carriers and the technology partners responsible for delivering health and employee benefits, transmitting billions of data points between insurtech and insurance carriers.
National/International
Schools Look for Help from AI Teacher’s Assistants
The Wall Street Journal
- Typically, AI education products serve one function, such as assessing a student’s literacy, tailoring tools to individual learners or performing administrative functions such as grading. Next-generation tools may do all of this in a single platform, serving at times as a peer learning partner, a group facilitator and a monitor for educators—a sort of superpowered teacher’s assistant personalized for each student.
China’s Huawei Reports 38% Revenue Drop as U.S. Sanctions Bite
Wall Street Journal
- China’s Huawei Technologies Co. reported a 38% fall in quarterly revenue Friday, as the damage U.S. sanctions have done to its sales of smartphones and telecommunications equipment worsened.
- Huawei’s smartphone sales, once a top revenue driver for the company, have fallen dramatically since the Trump administration imposed restrictions last year blocking the company from buying most advanced semiconductors.
New York City’s Vaccine Passport Plan Renews Online Privacy Debate
New York Times
- The mainstreaming of (vaccine passport) credentials could also usher in an era of increased digital surveillance, privacy researchers said. That’s because vaccine passes may enable location tracking, even as there are few rules about how people’s digital vaccine data should be stored and how it can be shared. While existing privacy laws limit the sharing of information among medical providers, there is no such rule for when people upload their own data onto an app.
‘Welcome to the Mesh, Brother’: Guerrilla Wi-Fi Comes to New York
New York Times
- NYC Mesh, a band of a few dozen tech volunteers, takes on Verizon and the big “incumbent providers,” with the promise of inexpensive community internet.
- While a fiber connection remains the gold standard, “fixed wireless” options like the rooftop routers used by NYC Mesh can deliver a signal that is plenty strong for most residential uses and usually much faster and cheaper to deploy. NYC Mesh has a subsidized option for installations, and members pay a suggested monthly donation of $20 to $60.
HILL TECH & CYBER BRIEFING: FTC Official Blasts Facebook Over Access
Bloomberg Law
- A top Federal Trade Commission official blasted Facebook over its decision to disable the personal accounts of a group of New York University researchers studying political ads on the social network -and blaming the consent decree with the agency to justify the action.
- Samuel Levine, the FTC’s acting director of the bureau of consumer protection, also criticized the company for failing to “honor its commitment” to consult with the agency about whether the agreement applied to the researchers.
ANALYSIS: Should Legal Tech Knowledge Be Tested on the Bar Exam?
Bloomberg Law
- Lawyers are currently using more legal tech than ever before. Many law schools offer legal tech training to students. And yet, we currently have no industry-wide standard method of establishing and measuring a lawyer’s legal technology skills, understanding, and competence. This made me curious: Is it time for the bar exam to begin formally testing knowledge of legal technology?
Meng Wanzhou: Final arguments in extradition battle
BBC
- A lengthy legal battle over the extradition of Huawei's chief financial officer reaches a crucial stage in Canada on Wednesday.
- She will appear in court as a judge begins hearing the final arguments over whether to send her to the US.
- The US alleges Ms Meng misled the bank HSBC over the true nature of Huawei's relationship with a company called Skycom and this, in turn, put the bank at risk of violating sanctions against Iran.
What We Are Reading
Adam R. Thompson, Lecturer and Assistant Director of the Kutak Ethics Center for the Teaching & Study of Applied Ethics at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, suggested this article for the Roundup:
Institute for Laboratory Animal Research Journal
- In this article, Nathan Nobis argues that “philosophical ethicists have the expertise that makes them the likely best candidates” for identifying wrong or bad animal research and advocating for improvements.
- As Nobis states, “insofar as Institutional Animal Care and Use Committees are expected to ensure that research is ethical, they must have philosophical ethicists as members.”
Thompson offered this perspective:
Many are ethicists--that is, roughly, many spend time formally or informally studying moral considerations that arise in a domain of practical life. Some ethicists even serve in a professional capacity that calls on them to render judgments about a co-worker's or colleague's behavior or (proposed) course of action. In the article, Nathan Nobis reminds us that, all those who study moral considerations or render moral judgments are working within a branch of philosophy. As such, across all domains, ethicists should not only work to gain an expertise in their field, but they should also seek philosophical training to build their expertise as ethicists.
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