Fri, 07/30/2021
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
Attorney General: Nebraska To Receive Over $100 Million as Part of Pharmaceutical Settlement
Nebraska Public Media
- Nebraska Attorney General Doug Peterson says drug settlement money announced last week will mainly be a boon for opioid treatment services and programs managed through the Nebraska Coalition to End Opioid Misuse. That’s a partnership between state and federal law institutions, including the University of Nebraska Medical Center, Nebraska State Patrol, and the DEA, among others.
- “Frankly, there's no citizen in the state of Nebraska who won't be able to get strong opioid abuse treatment through their physicians and into the programs we hope to develop here in Nebraska,” said Peterson.
Colorado startup incubator surveys Nebraska VC landscape, affirms what we’re all thinking
Silicon Prairie News
- A new report released by start-up incubator Innosphere Ventures, a nonprofit based in Fort Collins, Colo., takes a deep look at recent venture capital (VC) funding trends in Nebraska. The report finds that, even in the middle of a global pandemic, 2020 was a banner year for VC across America, including Nebraska.
The Forest Floor May Be Untapped Agricultural Land
Harvest Public Media
- Still, forest farming advocates say it is an underutilized form of agriculture. The challenge is finding the right crops to plant in the right type of forest — and some, like Lindberg, are doing that.
- Forest farmers are also finding markets for products, including black walnuts, witch hazel, mushrooms and ramps — a type of wild onion.
Nebraska Public Media
- University of Nebraska Extension entomologist Jody Green first created "Tick Tag Go," the tick tracking technology in 2019. Cristiano uses that database, along with others, to ultimately focus on our perceptions of tick risk and compare that to the actual threat of the bugs.
- "I think we're only going to see (the number of ticks) increase as climate changes, host pattern movement changes, as we see more deer spreading across the country, and different patterns of vegetation change as well," Cristiano said.
Researchers develop simple, inexpensive method for guarding carbon fiber
Nebraska Today
- For the past 50 years, manufacturers have considered carbon fiber a dream material: Though individual fibers are thinner than a strand of human hair, they can be twisted together and fused with a matrix material to form a lightweight composite that is stronger than steel, twice as stiff and a good conductor of heat. But carbon fibers do have one major drawback, under extreme temperatures when exposed to oxygen, they will burn.
- Yongfeng Lu, a Professor Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, has developed a low-cost, scalable method for guarding carbon fiber against oxidation. The process is also fast and clean, poising it for widespread industrial use.
Education summit aims to expand sustainability, resilience instruction
Nebraska Today
- A workshop series is providing an opportunity for University of Nebraska–Lincoln instructors to shape the ways in which sustainability and resilience are integrated into campus instruction.
- “Ultimately, we hope this leads to the creation of a sustainability and resilience education community that will improve our university’s capacity to educate and develop students for the sustainability and resilience workforce,” said Dave Gosselin, director of environmental studies and a co-director of the commission.
Through technology and pandemic, KRNU keeps on rockin’
Nebraska Today
- From vinyls and cassette tapes to CDs and streaming services, 90.3 KRNU has seen (and heard) it all.
- It was originally housed in Nebraska Hall and could only be heard in residence halls through a campus electrical system. Today, KRNU is a full-service studio in Andersen Hall with its own radio frequency and two online stations.
Local Startup Spotlight
- “Drones are changing how things are done across many industries today. IGNIS puts drones to work managing prescribed burns and monitoring fires. In fact, we were the first to use this technology to ignite prescribed burns on private and federal lands. Now it is available to you.”
National/International
Amazon Hit With Record EU Privacy Fine
The Wall Street Journal
- Amazon.com Inc. has been fined 746 million euros, equivalent to $887 million, by a European Union privacy regulator for violations related to its advertising, by far the largest-ever fine under the EU’s data-protection law.
- The fine, which Amazon disclosed Friday in a securities filing, was issued two weeks ago by Luxembourg’s privacy regulator, the CNPD, and accompanied by an order to revise certain business practices that Amazon didn’t specify.
Lawfare
- Researchers writing in Lawfare argue that “existing FTC rules, crafted in a bygone era, now have the counterproductive effects of causing technical experts to avoid working on key investigations at the agency while simultaneously preventing those who previously worked there from engaging in critical work overseeing Big Tech, such as consulting with state attorneys general.”
- “The FTC interprets its own rules so broadly as to prohibit former employees from working on most state investigations of competition and consumer protection violations relating to many of the large tech companies,” the researchers said.
Biden Signs Memo to Defend Industrial Controls From Hackers
Bloomberg Law
- The Biden administration on Wednesday will release a national security memorandum aimed at improving voluntary cybersecurity standards for companies that provide critical services.
- The memorandum directs the Department of Homeland Security and the Treasury Department to create baseline cybersecurity goals for all critical infrastructure sectors. It also establishes an Industrial Control Systems Cybersecurity Initiative, a partnership between the federal government and companies that run industrial control systems.
Covid-19: The pandemic explored in maps and data
BBC
- In this set of data representations curated by the BBC, the consequences of COVID on everything from global greenhouse gas emissions to public transport levels to vaccine uptake are represented in a compelling way.
Warnings That Work: Combating Misinformation Without Deplatforming
Lawfare
- Academics writing for Lawfare find that warnings accompanying misinformation on social media platforms as presently used are rarely effective. Instead, the researchers find that “interstitial warnings,” meaning warnings that “interrupt a user's actions and force them to make a choice about whether to continue” are a much more effective way of blunting the effectiveness of misinformation short of deplatforming the speaker.
Microsoft Vulnerabilities Highly Exploited, U.S., U.K. Say
Bloomberg Law
- In 2021, malicious cyber actors continued to target vulnerabilities in perimeter-type devices. Among those highly exploited in 2021 are vulnerabilities in Microsoft, Pulse, Accellion, VMware, and Fortinet, agencies say
Cyber Attack Hobbles Major African Port Network: Supply Lines
Bloomberg Law
- A devastating cyber attack at South Africa’s state-owned ports and freight-rail operator that hobbled trade at key container terminals led the company to declare its second force majeure this month.
- Transnet took the measure after a July 22 security breach that forced the company to manually process container shipments at affected ports. It covered the Port of Durban, sub-Saharan Africa’s biggest container hub, as well as the Ngqura, Port Elizabeth and Cape Town harbors.
Intel chief warns of two-year chip shortage
BBC
- Intel's chief executive, Pat Gelsinger, says the worst of the global chip crisis is yet to come. Mr Gelsinger predicts the shortage will get worse in the "second half of this year" and it will be "a year or two" before supplies return to normal.
What We Are Reading
Elana Zeide, Professor of Law at the University of Nebraska College of Law and a scholar whose work focuses on student privacy, data-driven education, and algorithmic assessment and credentialing, suggested this article for the Roundup:
Can A.I. Grade Your Next Test?
New York Times
- A team of researchers at Stanford University has developed an AI system known as a “neural network” capable of providing students with meaningful, tailored feedback on their computer coding exams.
- While the system was designed solely for Stanford’s programming class, the developers techniques “that could automate student feedback in other situations, including for classes beyond programming.”
Zeide offered this perspective:
The dream of “robot” teachers goes back more than a century . . . and we’re still waiting for anything that’s close to interactive human education. Adaptive learning tools may be an excellent option for some kinds of classes like straightforward math, but have significant limits in more complex situations - and prompt serious concerns about student privacy and school surveillance.
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