From the article: "Surgeons,
doctors, nurses, residents, and other medical professionals all regularly use
iPads on the job. The practice has inspired a cottage industry, health care
innovation, and privacy concerns." Read more
Thursday, December 20, 2012
Did the U.N. Internet Governance Summit Actually Accomplish Anything?
From the article: "The latest battle over the Internet ended in an éclat. On
the final day of the World Conference on InternationalTelecommunications in Dubai, representatives from the United
States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and several other countries walked out in
protest of an attempt by countries such as Russia and Iran to extend
governmental control over the Internet. Rather than reaching an accord, the
world remains as divided on
Internet governance as it was when the summit opened." Read more
White House Releases New National Strategy for Information Sharing and Safeguarding
From the article: "In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, our government not only needed to
improve its counterterrorism intelligence, but also share information better,
faster, and smarter. We found that our national security relies on our ability
to share the right information, with the right people, at the right time – and
we must “enlist all of our intelligence, law enforcement, and homeland security
capabilities,” as the National Security Strategy states.
On December 19, the President signed the National Strategy for Information Sharingand Safeguarding (NSISS). This new National Strategy is part
of a policy continuum that includes Section 1016 of the Intelligence Reform and
Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, the 2007 National Strategy for
Information Sharing, Executive Orders 13587 and 13388, the ISE
Presidential Guidelines, and the National Security Strategy." Read more
The Benefits of a Big Tent: Opening Up Government in Developing Countries
From the report: "Bringing open data and open government under a single
banner, Yu and Robinson argue, leads to conceptual muddling that ultimately impedes
progress for both projects. They express a concern that superficial commitments to open
data “can placate the public’s appetite for transparency.” Drawing on our experiences with the
Kenya Open Data Initiative and the Open Government Partnership, we argue that this need not
be the case for three reasons." Read more
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
UN Telecom Treaty Approved Amid U.S. Web-Censorship Concerns
From the article: "An agreement to update 24-year-old United Nations telecommunications rules
was approved against the opposition of countries including the U.S. and the
U.K., whose officials walked out on the talks on concerns about Internet
regulation and censorship.
The new pact includes measures that would give countries a right to access
international telecommunications services and the ability to block spam, which
delegations declining to sign the amended text argued would pave the way for
government censorship and control over the Web." Read more
The Emperor of All Identities
That’s a worthy sentiment — though a bit surprising coming from the Web’s
emperor.
For that, arguably, is what Google has become." Read more
The Robotics Revolution
From the report: "Whether it is a report about the latest drone strike into Pakistanor an awesome web video of a cute robot dancing in the latest style,
it seems like robots are taking over the world, figuratively if not yet
literally. But within their growing appearance in the news is perhaps something
bigger, a story that is reshaping the overall history of war and politics, and
even humanity." Read more
The Future of Scientific Knowledge Discovery in Open Networked Environments
From the report: "Digital technologies and networks are now part of everyday
work in the sciences, and have enhanced access to and use of scientific data,
information, and literature significantly. They offer the promise of
accelerating the discovery and communication of knowledge, both within the
scientific community and in the broader society, as scientific data and
information are made openly available online. The focus of this project was on
computer-mediated or computational scientific knowledge discovery, taken broadly
as any research processes enabled by digital computing technologies. Such
technologies may include data mining, information retrieval and extraction,
artificial intelligence, distributed grid computing, and others. These
technological capabilities support computer-mediated knowledge discovery, which
some believe is a new paradigm in the conduct of research. The emphasis was
primarily on digitally networked data, rather than on the scientific,
technical, and medical literature. The meeting also focused mostly on the
advantages of knowledge discovery in open networked environments, although some
of the disadvantages were raised as well." Read more
Code of EU Online Rights
From the article: "As
part of the Digital Agenda for Europe actions, the Code of EU online rights
compiles the basic set of rights existing in EU legislation and related to the
digital environment. The objective of the Code is to find simple explanations
of their legal rights and obligations, set out in a transparent and
understandable way.
As foreseen in
the Digital Agenda for Europe, this list of online rights and principles will
be an important tool for inspiring trust and confidence among consumers and
contribute to promote greater use of online services." Read more
Digital "To-Do" List: New Digital Priorities for 2013-2014
From the article: "The European Commission has today adopted seven
new priorities for the digital economy and society. The digital economy is
growing at seven times the rate of the rest of the economy, but this potential
is currently held back by a patchy pan-European policy framework. Today's
priorities follow a comprehensive policy review and place new emphasis on the
most transformative elements of the original 2010 DigitalAgenda for Europe.
European Commission Vice President Neelie Kroes
said: "2013 will be the busiest year yet for the Digital
Agenda. My top priorities are to increase broadband investment and to maximise
the digital sector's contribution to Europe's recovery."
Full implementation of this updated Digital Agenda
would increase European GDP by 5%, or 1500€ per person, over the next eight
years, by increasing investment in ICT, improving eSkills levels in the labour
force, enabling public sector innovation, and reforming the framework
conditions for the internet economy. In terms of jobs, up to one million
digital jobs risk going unfilled by 2015 without pan-European action while 1.2
million jobs could be created through infrastructure construction. This would
rise to 3.8 million new jobs throughout the economy in the long term." Read more
2013 Forecast: Managing HIT and Patient Engagement on the Edge of the Fiscal Cliff
From the article: "Federal legislation, economic market realities and
technology-supported patient-centered health care shape what 2013 will hold for
health IT." Read more
FTC Launches Probe of Data Broker Privacy Practices
From the article: "Last week's Congressional Bipartisan Privacy Caucus
briefing on data brokers and privacy must have left quite an impression on
Federal Trade Commission chairman Jon Leibowitz, who opened a probe today to
study the privacy practices of the data broker industry.
The agency issued orders to nine data brokerages to
provide information to the FTC about how they collect and use data about
consumers by Feb. 1. Acxiom, Corelogic, Datalogix, eBureau, ID Analytics,
Intelius, Peekyou, Rapleaf and Record Future all received the 15-page
order." Read more
Web of Failure: How China’s Internet Policies Have Doomed Chinese Soft Power
From the article: "When it comes to the web, China has continually struggled to
choose between its impulse to control things as tightly as possible and its
recognition of web platforms as a powerful way to broadcast its propaganda both
at home and abroad. In the past few years, its apparent strategy has been to
attempt to have its cake and eat it too: to broadcast its own message using all
the Western web channels at its disposal while blocking those channels for
domestic web users. Unfortunately for the government, having your cake and
eating it is impossible, and this policy — if it is continued — will prove to
be an utter failure." Read more
Cookies and Electronic Commerce: A Survey About Actual Knowledge of the Issues Concerning Privacy
From the report: "This
paper discusses the issues concerning cookies and privacy and electronic
commerce. After analysing the European and national legislation about
protection of privacy and distance selling and electronic commerce, the
attention is focused on consumers actual knowledge of cookies. The second part
of the paper is a survey realized in 2010 in two high schools of Modena. The
survey uncovers that the knowledge about cookies and related issues is
superficial. The paper concludes that there are many instruments to protect
consumers' privacy while they are surfing on or buying in the Internet.
However there is the need to improve the effective knowledge of the so-called
cyberconsumers about cookies and issues concerning privacy." Read more
\
Can Trade Policy Set Information Free?
From the report: "This
policy brief examines how the US, the EU and Canada use trade policies to
govern the Internet
at home and across borders. The three trade giants use trade agreements to
encourage e-commerce, reduce online barriers to trade, and to develop shared
policies in a world where technology is rapidly changing and where governments
compete to disseminate their regulatory approaches. Policymakers use export
controls, trade bans or targeted sanctions to protect Internet
users in other countries or to prevent officials of other countries from using Internet
related technologies in ways that undermine the rights of individuals abroad.
Finally, policymakers may use trade agreements to challenge other governments’
online rules and policies as trade barriers. We discuss how these policies,
agreements, bans and strategies could affect Internet
openness, Internet
governance, and Internet freedom. We do not address
telecommunications or e-commerce definitional issues." Read more
Crowds Are Not People, My Friend
From the article: "This assumption that crowds have some non-fragmented
consciousness leads us to the false dichotomy we draw between physical and
virtual crowds: one is dumb, the other is smart. But in both cases, we’re
placing too much emphasis on the crowd as distinct from the people involved in
it. …
At the same time, knowing that virtual crowds are merely
human helps us better predict when one is likely to be smart and when it’s
likely to be stupid. Reddit can help someone understand a medical diagnosis
just as easily as it can foster a men’s rights movement. Scientists, working as
a virtual group, are capable of sharing diverse research to reach a consensus
on climate change, but they’re also capable of passing down the received wisdom
that crowds have minds. The group itself isn’t what matters. What matters is
who they are, what they know and how they interact." Read more
EHRs May Turn Small Errors Into Big Ones
From the article: "As electronic health record systems become more interconnected, errors may
propagate much farther than under old paper-based systems, a recent study
suggested.
According to a review by the PennsylvaniaPatient Safety Authority, mistakes and near misses involving
electronic health records were analogous to those made with paper-based records
with one caveat: those made with EHRs tend to be amplified and can affect a
larger group of people.
The Authority's study looked at 3,099 reports from Pennsylvania hospitals detailing 3,946 problems. More than 2,700 incidents involved near misses and 15 involved temporary harm to patients.
The study focused on incidents from 2004 to 2012 in which electronic health records were the root cause in the event, as opposed to being incidental.
Electronic health records are designed to be more efficient than paper-based records, but the two systems have one thing in common: they're developed and maintained by people. The most common source of problems identified in the study rested with data entry and, to a much lesser extent, with technical glitches.
Medication errors accounted for about 80% of the cases, or 2,516 reports. Many of the remainder involved lab tests." Read more
Monday, December 17, 2012
UN Internet Conference: The SOPA That Wasn’t
Milian, Mark. "UN Internet Conference: The SOPA That Wasn’t." Bloomberg Tech Blog, December 14, 2012.
From the article: "For the past couple of weeks, Google and other Internet
companies have protested a United Nations conference over concerns that a new
treaty will lead to censorship of the Web.
Despite their campaigns, they weren’t able to drum up the kind of widespread
indignation that elevated the Stop Online Piracy Act
to national prominence earlier this year, according to studies of online
discussions commissioned by Bloomberg.com." Read more
The U.N. Isn’t Regulating the Internet–but Governments Still Exert Control
Talbot, David. "The U.N. Isn’t Regulating the Internet–but Governments Still Exert Control." MIT Technology Review, December 14, 2012.
From the article: "Is the U.N. now somehow regulating the Internet now that its International Telecommunications Union—after a two week meeting in Dubai that centered largely on whether it should include the Internet in its telephone-centric regulations—has today declared the existence of a new global telecom treaty?
No. First, the United States, Canada, and many European nations declined to sign the new International Telecommunications Regulations. Some 89 countries were in favor and 55 opposed or abstained. If you go to the actual new wording of the regulations–which haven’t been changed since 1988–and search for “Internet” you find it mentioned in fairly bland language within a one-page nonbinding resolution." Read more
From the article: "Is the U.N. now somehow regulating the Internet now that its International Telecommunications Union—after a two week meeting in Dubai that centered largely on whether it should include the Internet in its telephone-centric regulations—has today declared the existence of a new global telecom treaty?
No. First, the United States, Canada, and many European nations declined to sign the new International Telecommunications Regulations. Some 89 countries were in favor and 55 opposed or abstained. If you go to the actual new wording of the regulations–which haven’t been changed since 1988–and search for “Internet” you find it mentioned in fairly bland language within a one-page nonbinding resolution." Read more
Number of Jailed Journalists Sets Global Record
From the report: "Imprisonment of journalists worldwide reached a record high
in 2012, driven in part by the widespread use of charges of terrorism and other
anti-state offenses against critical reporters and editors, the Committee to
Protect Journalists has found. In its annual census of imprisoned journalists,
CPJ identified 232 individuals behind bars on December 1, an increase of 53
over its 2011 tally." Read more
Thursday, December 13, 2012
U.S. Terrorism Agency to Tap a Vast Database of Citizens
Now, NCTC can copy entire government databases—flight records, casino-employee lists, the names of Americans hosting foreign-exchange students and many others. The agency has new authority to keep data about innocent U.S. citizens for up to five years, and to analyze it for suspicious patterns of behavior. Previously, both were prohibited. Data about Americans "reasonably believed to constitute terrorism information" may be." Read more
Slactivists or Activists?
From the report: "Social media have come to form an inherent part of most
activist campaigns today. Yet, their potential to foster political
participation and mobilization remains debated. While cyber-utopians insist on
the positive contribution of social online-activism to participatory democracy,
supporters of the "slactivism” argument dismiss it as a hedonist activity
that carries little societal benefit. Our analysis of the Brazilian
anti-corruption campaign Ficha Limpa picks up on this debate. We present
original survey data concerning citizens’ use of social media and their offline
participation in the context of this campaign. Using a binary logit model that
estimates the relation between the use of different communication features
supported by social media and contacting elected officials, we show that online
activities involving relatively high transaction costs in terms of time and
effort contribute more positively toward offline participation than simple
single-click activities. Our findings indicate that the choice of appropriate
social media formats may be a decisive element for the success of campaigners who
seek to mobilize citizens via the Internet." Read more
Social Networking Popular Across Globe
From the report: "Social networking has spread
around the world with remarkable speed. In countries such as Britain,
the United States, Russia, the Czech Republic and Spain, about half of all
adults now use Facebook and similar websites. These sites are also popular in
many lower-income nations, where, once people have access to the internet, they
tend to use it for social networking. Meanwhile, cell phones have become nearly
ubiquitous throughout much of the world, and people are using them in a variety
of ways, including texting and taking pictures. Smart phones are also
increasingly common – roughly half in Britain, the U.S., and Japan have one.
Globally, most smart phone users say they visit social networking sites on
their phone, while many get job, consumer, and political information." Read more