Fri, 09/03/2021
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
COVID-68512: Sampling wastewater at ZIP code scale may help isolate hotspots
Nebraska Today
- Nebraska’s Xu Li, Megan Kelley and colleagues at Lincoln Transportation and Utilities explored the feasibility of tracking coronavirus trends and identifying hotspots at the scale of ZIP codes. From July through September 2020, the team took weekly wastewater samples from five manholes and two wastewater treatment plants that collectively covered about one-third of ZIP codes and more than half the population of Lincoln.
- The findings indicate that monitoring wastewater at the ZIP code scale could reveal COVID-19 hotspots with greater spatial precision, potentially ahead of corresponding rises in reported COVID-19 cases, the researchers said.
Carbon Capture from Nebraska Ethanol Plants Proposed
Nebraska Public Media
- Big plans are being proposed to capture carbon dioxide from ethanol plants in Nebraska and pipe it away for storage. Supporters say that’ll help fight climate change, but critics say it’ll just postpone long-range solutions.
- Soon, carbon dioxide from Nebraska ethanol plants could be captured and sent via pipeline hundreds of miles for storage in North Dakota.
La Vista PD Wants Phone Info From Google in Case of Missing Boy
Nebraska Public Media
- Investigators in La Vista are trying to get information on phone usage from Google for the area where a 12-year-old boy went missing in May. Ryan Larsen still hasn’t been found despite multiple searches over the past three months.
Agricultural Genome to Phenome Initiative
- Jennifer Clarke, director of the Quantitative Life Sciences Initiative at Nebraska, was interviewed for an Aug. 3 segment on RFD-TV. She discussed the Agricultural Genome to Phenome Initiative, which brings together researchers from Nebraska and three other institutions to better understand how a plant’s or animal’s genes affect its physical traits and how that relationship can improve crops and livestock.
NSF-funded, Husker-led project to evaluate open-access educational resources
Nebraska Today
- With the support of a nearly $2 million grant from the NSF, University of Nebraska–Lincoln’s Brian Couch is now leading a five-year, multi-institutional effort to gauge the creation, evolution and implementation of open educational resources.
- A 2010 NSF report called on educators to prioritize conceptual understanding over facts, emphasize the scientific process as much as the result, and explore ways to give students a greater stake in their own learning. Couch will be assessing the degree to which open educational resources have helped to implement a change in educational priorities.
Charles E. Lakin Foundation supports AIM Institute tech training initiative in Southwest Iowa
Silicon Prairie News
- The nonprofit AIM Institute recently received a $20,000 grant from the Charles E. Lakin Foundation, Inc., to support the Southwest Iowa Tech Training Initiative, which will allow AIM Code School to expand its web development skills training to residents of southwest Iowa.
- In addition to AIM Code School, AIM also provides hands-on STEM education to youth, code camps for underserved high schoolers, leadership development programs and conferences for tech professionals, including HDC.
Local Startup Spotlight
- “Invest Nebraska builds a better future for our state by providing financial and operational assistance to high growth companies, advancing the entrepreneurial economy, and attracting out-of-state capital to Nebraska.”
National/International
Only Humans, Not AI Machines, Can Get a U.S. Patent, Judge Rules
Bloomberg Law
- A computer using artificial intelligence can’t be listed as an inventor on patents because only a human can be an inventor under U.S. law, a federal judge ruled in the first American decision that’s part of a global debate over how to handle computer-created innovation.
- Federal law requires that an “individual” take an oath that he or she is the inventor on a patent application, and both the dictionary and legal definition of an individual is a natural person, ruled U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema in Alexandria, Virginia.
- The Artificial Inventor Project, run by University of Surrey Law Professor Ryan Abbott, has launched a global effort to get a computer listed as an inventor.
The Road to Self-Reproducing Machines
Wall Street Journal
- Advances in technology will soon allow us to build machines that replicate themselves and evolve like living beings.
- Self-reproducing machines could unleash the power of exponential growth, thus enabling audacious engineering projects. (...) Most profoundly, by embodying biology’s deep structure, they would blur the distinction between life and non-life.
FTC Bans SpyFone for App That Secretly Tracked People’s Devices
Bloomberg Law
- The Federal Trade Commission banned from the surveillance business the company behind an app that allegedly spied on people’s phones through a hidden device hack.
- The ban against SpyFone and its chief executive Scott Zuckerman marks the first such enforcement action from the FTC, according to the agency’s Wednesday announcement. The commission has previously gone after so-called stalkerware that monitors consumers’ mobile devices, though past actions haven’t included a ban.
Bitcoin: El Salvador divided over legal tender law
BBC
- There is growing scepticism in El Salvador as the country prepares to be the first in the world to recognise Bitcoin as legal tender on September 7.
- The government has presented the measure as a way to boost economic development and jobs. Polls suggest Salvadorians are not prepared for the move, and the World Bank has warned against its adoption.
- Analysts say it is an "attention-seeking move" from an "authoritative regime".
- Under the country's Bitcoin Law, businesses will be obliged to accept it or the US dollar, the country's other official currency, as payment.
The Economist
- A research group at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, in China, have just come up with what looks to be a significant advance—an affordable prosthetic hand that not only responds like a real one to signals from the wearer’s brain, but is also able to signal back to the brain what it is touching and doing.
Pew Research Center
- 90% of adults in a recent Pew Research Center poll said that “the internet has been essential or important for them personally during the coronavirus outbreak.”
Elsbeth Magilton, Executive Director of the Nebraska Governance and Technology Center, brought our attention to this article from NPR:
Feds Are Reportedly Looking Into Why McDonald's Ice-Cream Machines Are Always Busted
NPR
- “I scream. You scream. We all scream ... out of sheer rage that the McDonald's ice-cream machine is busted again.”
- The problem has gotten so widespread there's even an online tool that lets you track malfunctioning machines across the United States.
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