Sorry but more on AVs

http://www.brentwoodhomepage.com/senate-to-vote-thursday-morning-on-regulations-for-autonomous-vehicles-cms-25888#.Vv1sGvkrLIV


Surprisingly this is from Tennessee ....

A bill to codify the definitions of autonomous, or self-driving, vehicle use is likely to become law soon when the Tennessee Senate votes on Sen. Mark Green's (R-Clarksville) bill this Thursday.

The bill, SB 1561, will be the first in the U.S. to codify the definition of autonomy, expanding the definition of a driver to include that a human isn't required to control the vehicle.

It will amend a section of the Tennessee Code by adding that "'autonomous technology' means technology installed on a motor vehicle that has the capability to drive the motor vehicle without the active physical control or monitoring by a human operator."

This bit is really interesting...

Director of Audi Government Affairs in D.C. Brad Stertz said that there are six levels of autonomous driving. A level zero AV is a vehicle with no advanced technology. A level one AV is one that has things like adaptive cruise control, blind spot detection and lane keeping technologies. A level two AV is one that is semi-autonomous and those are just now starting to come on the market.

Level three AVs are about two to three years away for Audi and allow hands-free operation in highway traffic at around 35 to 40 miles per hour. For a computer algorithm, it's easier to predict the highway environment rather than in suburban areas that have more stops and lines on the roads.
Level four AVs would include technology like detecting when a passenger is having a heart attack, even pulling over for them, calling 911 and driving them to the nearest hospital. A level five AV is one that is fully-autonomous. A driver can be completely hands-free and can get where they need to go with no input.

"Eventually the technology will get there," Stertz said. "But it's up to 30 years away."

What I like is the following comment.

"From a legislative standpoint it's important to have these different levels because we've seen in some states where lawmakers want to regulate the cars that might be here in 25 years, not the ones that will be here in two years," Stertz said.

 As always, go read the original.

I will post a link to the actual legislation next week.

Autonomous vehicles won't go away

From FT https://t.co/ZM4hdxMVk3

Daimler finesses its self-driving trucks

Other than the success of driving three trucks together without driver intervention, the important bit.....

India's Aadhaar

I first saw this mentioned in The Economist http://www.economist.com/news/books-and-arts/21694493-technological-blueprint-better-government-domesday-20

The article not only referred to an Indian Government ID database system and a book Rebooting India: Realising a Billion Aspirations (By Nandan Nilekani and Viral Shah.Allen Lane; 337 pages) and unlike the Economist which is generally very readable, this article got a bit confusing in places as it moved between the book and what is happening in India.

On this occassion I recommend the Wiki page - it is full of useful information - here is the intro.

The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) is a central government agency of India.^[3] Its objective is to collect thebiometric and demographic data of residents, store them in a centralised database, and issue a 12-digit unique identity number called Aadhaar to each resident.^[4][5] It is considered the world's largest national identification number project.^[6][7]

As of March 2016, the original legislation to back UIDAI is still pending in the Parliament of India.^[8] However, on 3 March 2016, a new money bill was introduced in the Parliament for the purpose.^[9] On 11 March 2016, the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Bill, 2016, was passed in the Lok Sabha.^[10]

Some civil liberty groups, like Citizens Forum for Civil Liberties and Indian Social Action Forum (INSAF), have opposed the project on privacy concerns.^[11][12][13]

On 23 September 2013, the Supreme Court of India issued an interim order saying that "no person should suffer for not getting Aadhaar" as the government cannot deny a service to a resident if s/he does not possess Aadhaar, as it is voluntary and not mandatory.^[14] In another interim order on 11 August 2015, the Supreme Court of India ruled that "UIDAI/Aadhaar will not be used for any other purposes except PDS, kerosene and LPG distribution system" and made it clear that even for availing these facilities Aadhaar card will not be mandatory.^[15][16][17]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unique_Identification_Authority_of_India

The unique registrations as percentage of the population census counts the wiki page suggest are truly impressive.

Finland crowdsourcing laws

http://blogs.oii.ox.ac.uk/policy/do-finlands-digitally-crowdsourced-laws-show-a-way-to-resolve-democracys-legitimacy-crisis/  - 16 November 2015

Based on ....Taneli Heikka  'The Rise of the Mediating Citizen: Time, Space, and Citizenship in the Crowdsourcing of Finnish Legislation' Policy & Internet Volume 7, Issue 3, pages 268–291, September 2015  Abstract. 

The digitally crowdsourced law for same-sex marriage was passed in Finland in 2014. Activists produced the draft text of the law on digital collaboration platforms, and support for the law was petitioned using strong digital identification. This article analyzes how the campaign for the Equal Marriage Law used new digital tools and created practices that affect democratic citizenship and power making. The campaigners succeeded in introducing to the national political debate the idea of a bill that had been twice rejected in the political process. This article introduces the typology of the mediating citizen to describe civic action that is able to affect representative politics in a constructive way and reprogram power. The radical legal framework, the Citizens' Initiative Act, offered a channel to pursue meaningful civic agency in Finland and counter the legitimacy crisis of representative democracies. In future efforts for enhancing digital civic participation such a channel for real impact should be part of the design.

Back to the source blog.

Ed: But realistically, how useful is the input of non-lawyers in (technical) legislation drafting? And is there a critical threshold of people necessary to draft legislation?

Taneli: I believe that input is valuable from anyone who cares to invest some time in learning an issue. That said, having lawyers in the campaign team really helps. Writing legislation is a special skill. It’s a pity that the co-creation features in Finland’s Open Ministry website were shut down due to a lack of funding. In that model, help from lawyers could have been made more accessible for all campaign teams.In terms of numbers, I don’t think the size of the group is an issue either way. A small group of skilled and committed people can do a lot in the drafting phase.

Ed: But can the drafting process become rather burdensome for contributors, given professional legislators will likely heavily rework, or even scrap, the text?

Taneli: Professional legislators will most likely rework the draft, and that is exactly what they are supposed to do. Initiating an idea, working on a draft, and collecting support for it are just phases in a complex process that continues in the parliament after the threshold of 50,000 signatures is reached. A well-written draft will make the legislators’ job easier, but it won’t replace them.

I recommend reading the whole blog.

Urgent research needed into risks from nanomaterials in household waste

From the OECD.

http://www.oecd.org/newsroom/urgent-research-needed-into-risks-from-nanomaterials-in-household-waste.htm

22/2/2016 - Urgent research is needed to assess the possible risks to human health and ecosystems from the ever-increasing amounts of engineered nanomaterials going into household waste and ending up in the environment, according to a new OECD report.

 Nanomaterials in Waste Streams: Current Knowledge on Risks and Impacts says engineered nanomaterials are entering landfill sites, incinerators, and wastewater treatment facilities that are not designed to filter out particles as tiny as a millionth of a millimetre in size. Nanoparticles are thus ending up in sewerage sludge used as agricultural fertiliser and in sewage plant effluent that flows into rivers and lakes, as well as in recycled goods.

 “Nanomaterials are revolutionising everyday products, with benefits to society, but there are many unanswered questions about the risks some may pose to our health and the environment,” said OECD Environment Director Simon Upton. “We urgently need a better understanding of these risks so we can assess whether our waste treatment systems should be adapted to contain them.”

Engineered nanomaterials are valued for the novel properties caused by their near-atomic size. The number of products containing them leapt fivefold from 2006 to 2011 as manufacturers used them to improve performance in more than 1,300 products from car tyres and tennis rackets to smartphone batteries, deodorant and hair conditioner.
The report says that while state-of-the-art waste treatment plants may collect a large share of nanomaterials from waste, less efficient processes used in much of the world mean a significant amount is likely released into the environment as exhaust gas from incineration, as ash applied on roads, as treated wastewater or leaches into soil and water sediment.

Most concerning is the existence of nanomaterials in the dried and composted wastewater sludge that is often spread on farmland as fertiliser. In France, for example, half the national wastewater sludge is used for agricultural fertilisation. The potential transformation of engineered nanomaterials in soil, their interactions with plants and bacteria and their transfer to surface water has never been studied in depth.
The report calls for research into the type and amount of nanomaterials entering waste streams, what happens to it inside treatment facilities and the potential impacts of residual waste containing nanomaterials. It recommends greater safety measures for workers at recycling facilities.

Existing research suggests the distinctive properties of nanomaterials – which can more easily penetrate skin and cells than larger compounds – may carry health and environmental risks including cancer causing properties in lungs, toxic effects to the nervous system and antibacterial properties that could harm ecosystems. Despite this, waste containing engineered nanomaterials is disposed of along with conventional waste, with no special precautions or treatment.

2015 Analysis (including 2014)

Last year I did an analysis of the coverage of topics. Doing that again I can include a comparison with 2014.

2015 Coverage of technology regulatory issues

	Counts
Regulation issues & commentary	7
European laws & courts	3
Uber	2
Autonomous vehicles	2
Energy	2
Patents copyright etc	2
cybersecurity and dark net	2
Bitcoin	1
Space mining	1
Tax digital companies	1
Cloud computing	1
Wearables	1

What is noticeable about this list and was actually clear during the year 'regulation' as topic emerged as its own topic very clearly. The obvious omission as I look back over the year is that I didn't cover the drones as much as was present in the press.

Comparison 2014-2015

• 
  

Here is the table comparing the two years.

	2014	2015
Cybersecurity	4	2
Drones	4	X
New vehicles	3	2
Policy issues and analysis	3	7
Nanotechnology	2
Digital and data law	2	3
Uber	2	2
Mining / space mining	1	1
Labour markets	1
Bitcoin	1	1
Energy		2
Patents / copyright		2
Cloud computing		1
Wearables		1
Taxing digital companies		1

2015 Rate, Direction and Coupling

Economist cover topics for 2015

As an added bonus this year I have conducted an analysis of Economist cover page technology topics during 2015. Only stories on the cover are mentioned here + highlighted points = a link to the cover picture.

3-01-2015

•     Workers on Tap
•   Hacking and the Hermit Kingdom
•    Betting the Farm on Faming
•    Silicon Valley’s robber barons

10-01-2015

•       How microeconomics got hot (story about internet shopping etc)
•    The internet’s hidden benefits

31-01-2015

•        Gold & delicious: Apple’s profits

21-02-2015

•        The tech talent war

28-02-2015

•     Planet of phones
•        America’s oversold manufacturing boom

14-03-2015

•      Apple and the age of wearables

28-03-2015

•  The whole world is going to university
•   Coal’s dark future

04-04-2015

•     Sexism in Silicon Valley

11-04-2015

•       The promise of Sky-Fi

18-04-2015

•       Europe v Google: The gloves come off
•       A Robot can do the cooking

02-05-2015

•     How to down a drone

09-05-2015

•      Artificial Intelligence
•     The self-service economy
•      Why humans cause heatwaves

30-05-2015

•       The weaker sex

13-06-2015

•     Where Uber goes next
•      The robots are coming slowly

20-06-2015

•      Computers make a quantum leap

27-06-2015

•      Electricity without wires

04-07-2015

•     Uber jobs in the modern worker

18-07-2015

•   The Internet of Things, a hacker’s paradise

25-07-2015

•    Empire of the geeks

08-08-2015

•   Set innovation free – time to fix the patent system
•    Regulators: masters of the universe

15-08-2015

•   Google does a Buffett

22-08-2015

•    Editing humanity

29-08-2015

•    The scam of pay-as-you-go government
•     Spycraft and corporate security
•     Visions of virtual reality

12-09-2015

•     Learning to love Siri

19-09-2015

•   Electric aircraft on the runway

26-09-2015

•     Car industry’s dirty secrets
•    Welcome to the drone age
•     Pornography and generation XXX

10-10-2015

•     Kill seven diseases, save 1.2m lives per year
•     An end to corporate tax dodges

17-10-2015

•    Piggy in your middle: gene edited organs
•     Dell, EMC and the cumulus effect

24-10-2015

•     Reinventing the company
•    Online reviews: five star fakes

31-10-2015

•   The trust machine: How the technology behind bitcoin could change the world

14-11-2015

•    Softbank: a rare risk taker in Japan

21-11-2015

·         Does German industry do digital (not on the cover- displaced by Paris shootings)

28-11-2015

• Tech unicorns, a species in trouble