government – Page 8

Food, government, Science & Technology News, Shopping

The FDA Tells the Food Industry to Change How It Uses ‘Expiration’ Dates

June 2, 2019

The Food and Drug Administration is going after food waste with a new effort to make sure we don’t throw out groceries until they’re absolutely inedible.

On Thursday, the agency issued a letter to the food industry at large, throwing its support behind a growing trend to almost universally adopt a “Best if Used By” date label on products. At the same time, it’s also reminding the public that most foods can still be perfectly safe to eat if they’re past the marked date, even if they’re not necessarily quite as tasty anymore. The moves are part of a larger effort by the FDA to drastically cut down on America’s food waste problem.

Continue reading… “The FDA Tells the Food Industry to Change How It Uses ‘Expiration’ Dates”

government, Military, Science & Technology News, Weapons

The U.S. military is buying a $130 million laser weapon

May 23, 2019

A team of Lockheed Martin and Dynetics engineers just won a $130 million contract to provide a 100-kilowatt laser weapon for the U.S. Army.

The High Energy Laser Tactical Vehicle Demonstrator — evocatively abbreviated HEL TVD — laser system is slated to be tested at a missile range in New Mexico in 2022, Defense News reports.

“High energy laser weapons have been a system that the United States has wanted to add into their defense portfolio since the invention of the laser,” said senior VP of contracts at Dynetics Ronnie Chronister in a press release.

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Energy, government, Green Friendly, Science & Technology News

Germany to close all 84 of its coal-fired power plants, will rely primarily on renewable energy

April 26, 2019

Germany to close all 84 of its coal-fired power plants, will rely primarily on renewable energy

Germany, one of the world’s biggest consumers of coal, will shut down all 84 of its coal-fired power plants over the next 19 years to meet its international commitments in the fight against climate change, a government commission said Saturday.

The announcement marked a significant shift for Europe’s largest country — a nation that had long been a leader on cutting CO2 emissions before turning into a laggard in recent years and badly missing its reduction targets. Coal plants account for 40% of Germany’s electricity, itself a reduction from recent years when coal dominated power production.

“This is an historic accomplishment,” said Ronald Pofalla, chairman of the 28-member government commission, at a news conference in Berlin following a marathon 21-hour negotiating session that concluded at 6 a.m. Saturday. The breakthrough ended seven months of wrangling. “It was anything but a sure thing. But we did it,” Pofalla said. “There won’t be any more coal-burning plants in Germany by 2038.”

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AI, Artificial Intelligence, government, Legal Issues, Science & Technology News

Estonia plans an AI-powered “Robot Judge”

April 11, 2019

Can AI be a fair judge in court? Estonia thinks so.

GOVERNMENT USUALLY ISN’T the place to look for innovation in IT or new technologies like artificial intelligence. But Ott Velsberg might change your mind. As Estonia’s chief data officer, the 28-year-old graduate student is overseeing the tiny Baltic nation’s push to insert artificial intelligence and machine learning into services provided to its 1.3 million citizens.

“We want the government to be as lean as possible,” says the wiry, bespectacled Velsberg, an Estonian who is writing his PhD thesis at Sweden’s Umeå University on using the Internet of Things and sensor data in government services. Estonia’s government hired Velsberg last August to run a new project to introduce AI into various ministries to streamline services offered to residents.

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government, Military, Robots, Science & Technology News

Russia is planning a “ground force” of armed military robots

April 1, 2019

WAR MACHINE

BattleBots

The Russian military’s research division is working to develop ground-based, combat-ready robots to assist its infantry.

The heavily-armed robots, first displayed in a state-produced video last month, resemble miniature tanks that can be deployed alongside infantry or swarms of quadrotor drones — either of which, according to C4ISRNET, can send targeting information back to the killer robot.

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Big Problems, government, Human Behavior, Science & Technology News

Switzerland has a stunningly high rate of gun ownership — here’s why it doesn’t have mass shootings

March 28, 2019

Switzerland Swiss army honor guard soldiers troops military

Switzerland hasn’t had a mass shooting since 2001, when a man stormed the local parliament in Zug, killing 14 people and then himself.

The country has about 2 million privately owned guns in a nation of 8.3 million people. In 2016, the country had 47 attempted homicides with firearms. The country’s overall murder rate is near zero.

The National Rifle Association often points to Switzerland to argue that more rules on gun ownership aren’t necessary. In 2016, the NRA said on its blog that the European country had one of the lowest murder rates in the world while still having millions of privately owned guns and a few hunting weapons that don’t even require a permit.

But the Swiss have some specific rules and regulations for gun use.

Business Insider took a look at the country’s past with guns to see why it has lower rates of gun violence than the US, where gun death rates are now at their highest in more than 20 years.

Continue reading… “Switzerland has a stunningly high rate of gun ownership — here’s why it doesn’t have mass shootings”

government, Human Behavior, Internet

Putin wants his own internet

March 13, 2019

A new law would create a single command post from which authorities can manage—and halt—information flows across Russian cyberspace.

When anti-government protests erupted on Russia’s side of the Caucasus Mountains in October, authorities did something they’d never done before: cut mobile internet service to an entire geographical area.

Continue reading… “Putin wants his own internet”

Bitcoin, Blockchain, government, Money Talk, Science & Technology News

Sweden: How to live in the world’s first cashless society

March 8, 2019

Sweden goes from being the first in adopting banknotes in Europe in 1661 to introducing its own digital currency in 2021, and becoming the first world’s cashless society in 2023.

How is a country becoming the world’s first cashless society? Sweden, one of the most technologically advanced nations on the planet, is leading the way.

Sweden is expected to become the world’s first cashless society by March 2023. By then, cash will not be accepted any longer as a means of payment in Sweden.

Sweden has always been one of the first countries in embracing new technologies. There is a tradition in Sweden about being the first. This is noticeable throughout the Scandinavian country’s history. And its financial system is not the exception.

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Big Problems, government, Law Enforcement, Legal Issues, Science & Technology News

Police in Canada are tracking people’s ‘negative’ behavior in a ‘risk’ database

March 3, 2019

The database includes detailed, but “de-identified,” information about people’s lives culled from conversations between police, social services, health workers, and more.

Police, social services, and health workers in Canada are using shared databases to track the behaviour of vulnerable people—including minors and people experiencing homelessness—with little oversight and often without consent.

Documents obtained by Motherboard from Ontario’s Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services (MCSCS) through an access to information request show that at least two provinces—Ontario and Saskatchewan—maintain a “Risk-driven Tracking Database” that is used to amass highly sensitive information about people’s lives. Information in the database includes whether a person uses drugs, has been the victim of an assault, or lives in a “negative neighborhood.”

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government, Legal Issues, security

World leaders at Davos call for global rules on tech

February 2, 2019

DAVOS, Switzerland — Leaders of Japan, South Africa, China and Germany issued a series of calls on Wednesday for global oversight of the tech sector, in a clear signal of growing international interest in seizing greater regulatory supervision of an industry led by the United States.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan said his country would use its chairmanship of the Group of 20 nations this year to push forward a new international system for the oversight of how data is used. Data governance will be the theme when the group’s presidents and prime ministers gather in June in Osaka for their annual summit meeting.

The emphasis will be on expanding World Trade Organization rules to encompass trade in data as well as goods and services, he said. “I would like Osaka G20 to be long remembered as the summit that started worldwide data governance,” Mr. Abe said in a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

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China, government, Human Behavior, Science & Technology News

China reportedly made an app to show people if they’re standing near someone in debt — a new part of its intrusive ‘social credit’ policy

January 31, 2019

A province in northern China developed an app to tell users whether they are within a 500-meter radius of someone in debt, state media said.

It’s called a “map of deadbeat debtors,” the China Daily state-run newspaper reported.
It hopes to get citizens to monitor the so-called debtors and report them to authorities if they seem “capable of paying their debts.”

It’s part of China’s invasive “social credit” system, designed to judge a person’s trustworthiness. People have already been punished by it.

Continue reading… “China reportedly made an app to show people if they’re standing near someone in debt — a new part of its intrusive ‘social credit’ policy”

facebook, Google, government, Legal Issues, Science & Technology News

The dawn of a new Big Tech regulatory era?

January 6, 2019

At the ShellyPalmer Innovation Series Breakfast at CES 2018, I had a Socratic discussion about the influence of the big technology platforms and other emerging technologies on our lives and the need for responsible innovation with David Sapin, US Risk & Regulatory Leader, PwC. We also talked about the growing “techlash” buzz for more industry regulation and, while we agreed that there was a need for formal approach around some aspects of the industry, we felt that the best approach at the time might be an industry self-regulatory approach to responsible innovation (see A Case for Responsible Innovation).

Continue reading… “The dawn of a new Big Tech regulatory era?”