Daily Archives: August 31, 2020

In June, the U.S. Commerce Department announced changes to restrictions imposed last year on Chinese telecom giant Huawei to ensure that American companies and organizations are not left out of international standards development activities for 5G and other technical challenges.

Had the U.S. not reversed its isolationist course, Americans would have been hamstrung internationally at a time when U.S. leadership is critically needed. But it begs the question: Why did the administration implement restrictions in the first place?

A little over a year ago, the Department of Commerces Bureau of Industry and Business (BIS) hastily added Huawei to the Entities List, which restricted American companies from doing business with Huawei. This created another problem: It compelled American engineers to disengage from international standards development activities for fear of running afoul of the BIS restrictions. In their absence, Huawei and non-U.S. companies, not subject to the same limits, filled the influence vacuum.

The BIS decision only exacerbated an atrophying of U.S. leadership in standards activity. A 2018 report prepared for the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission on the internet of things noted that, in the global standards race, U.S. interests are missing or under-represented in key international standardization organizations. At the International Standardization Organization, the U.S. ranks 16th in technical committee participation, while China ranks 4th. These examples are more the norm than the exception in international standards bodies.

Historically, the U.S. government has never been the most committed to international standards development. U.S. companies have often led to technological development. This allowed American companies, backed by modest governmental support, to advance American standards interests even without full-throated participation in international standards activities. But the dominance of the American industry is weakening amid the rise of international competition hungry to take advantage of a distracted America, flat-footed and mired in partisan political infighting.

While America withdraws, CNBC reports China is doubling down on their engagement, aiming to influence the standards for the next wave of technologies from telecommunications to artificial intelligence through an ambitious 15-year blueprint that will lay out its plans that could have wide-ranging implications for the power Beijing wields on the global stage. Through a Standards 2035 initiative to complement its highly effective China 2025 initiative, China is designing a playbook to assert leadership in technology R&D and production.

China is actively encouraging standards development activities through legal and policy changes and aggressive standard-setting activities. Chinas steps will advance its economic transformation with a shift from low value-add production to sophisticated technological products and services coming from its supply chain lines.

Chinas attention is a foil for Americas lack of focus. The U.S. for many years now has had no meaningful manufacturing strategy nor a strategy to preserve U.S. technological leadership. American leadership cannot be demonstrated behind high-walls, by scapegoating others, or with congratulatory nods to past success.

The welcomed BIS regulatory reversal comes at a time when standard-setting can be more beneficial than ever. A 2014 report by the National Institute on Standards and Technology observed that [s]tandards are more important today than ever before Nations that actively participate in developing international standards may be able to influence the provisions to favor their products or those that they prefer. Countries should use every lever at their disposal to exert more engagement withand therefore influence overglobal standards development. Failing to do so impoverishes not only their international objectives but their domestic companies who are best positioned to take advantage of them.

The BIS restrictions are indicative of a fear that seems to grip U.S. economic goals of late. The United States has been retreating from the global marketplace. Under the guise of America First, the U.S. is withdrawing from the kinds of international engagement that made the United States the worlds largest economy while also increasing economic prosperity globally.

The U.S. is now facing a familiar crossroads: will it reach into the future or cling to the past? While reaching into the future will require a greater commitment to international engagement than we are now espousing, it brings with it an incredible opportunity to shape positive change and advance American business interests. Rather than cede the field to China or any other country, America should seize the mantle of leadership, and help shape the future of global technology standards.

John Mitchell is president and chief executive officer of IPC, a global trade association representing the electronics manufacturing industry.

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The World Needs American Leadership in Setting the Technological Standards of the Future - Nextgov

CoilPod LLC Announces Allowance of Patent on Technology to Detect Coil Fouling in Refrigeration Units | 2020-08-31 | ACHR News This website requires certain cookies to work and uses other cookies to help you have the best experience. By visiting this website, certain cookies have already been set, which you may delete and block. By closing this message or continuing to use our site, you agree to the use of cookies. Visit our updated privacy and cookie policy to learn more. This Website Uses CookiesBy closing this message or continuing to use our site, you agree to our cookie policy. Learn MoreThis website requires certain cookies to work and uses other cookies to help you have the best experience. By visiting this website, certain cookies have already been set, which you may delete and block. By closing this message or continuing to use our site, you agree to the use of cookies. Visit our updated privacy and cookie policy to learn more.

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CoilPod LLC Announces Allowance of Patent on Technology to Detect Coil Fouling in Refrigeration Units - ACHR NEWS

The legal issues underlying worker misclassification claims are hardly new. Worker wage claims asserting misclassification of a workers status under state and federal law have been around for decades. Similarly, state claims seeking unemployment and certain tax contributions from employers have been increasing for many years. But despite these long-standing trends, the number of workers calling themselves independent contractors, gig workers or freelancers has dramatically increased for many years. Such growth can in part be explained by the desire to limit contributions towards benefit payments and social security contributions, but that is not the entire story. Many workers want the freedom and independence that such jobs bring, including flexible work schedules and other non-traditional benefits.

By way of background, according to one recent study by Paychex, the trend towards independent contractors peaked in 2017 with an 11% percent increase, year over year, which decreased to a 5% percent increase, year over year, in 2018. But this rate is still much greater than hiring by small business employers[1] in general, which has been tracking at about 1% per year, since 2013.

With respect to gig workers loosely defined as groups of employees who work for companies in the new technology-based economy millions have been added to the payrolls of technology companies over the last decade. Also, so-called freelancers are increasing in a number of industries, including graphic arts, literary works and IT-related fields, among others. In fact, McKinsey found that between 20-30% of the entire European and North American workforces are classified as independent workers. In short, over the last decade, there has been a dramatic shift in the workplace towards contracting with independent workers despite the ongoing legal misclassification risks associated with this trend.

These conflicting trends are clearly on display in a recent California Superior Court decision, California v. Uber and Lyft, et al. (the Uber decision). In the Uber decision, the trial court ruled on a motion to enjoin Uber and Lyft from characterizing their drivers as independent contractors under Californias newly enacted legislative framework to address worker status (AB 5). The court ruled that because it was unlikely that either Uber or Lyft would prevail, they were enjoined and ordered to treat their drivers as employees.

Under AB 5, Californias legislature codified its version of the ABC Test. Under this test, companies must show, in order to avoid the presumption that its workers are employees, that all three prongs of the test are met:

In reviewing these prongs, the court had little trouble enjoining Uber and Lyft, ruling that its this simple: [the] drivers do not perform work that is outside the usual course of [Defendants] business. As a result, Uber and Lyft failed, according to the court, to prove prong B, and for the purposes of the motion, its workers were deemed employees.

It would seem likely that under this rationale many gig companies would not be able to satisfy this prong of the ABC Test. Importantly, since roughly 33 states use some variation of the ABC Test, the Uber decision will have great significance to employers throughout the country and not just California.

In response to the courts injunction, on August 10, 2020, Uber and Lyft advised that they may each stop doing business in California and immediately appealed seeking a stay of the trial courts injunction which was granted, with an oral argument date set for October 13. Interestingly, Uber and Lyft must put together a plan of compliance by early September in case the preliminary injunction is affirmed on appeal and, as discussed below, Proposition 22 fails to pass.

As alluded to, this issue may be mooted by the upcoming November election in California. This is because thousands of California citizens petitioned for a public referendum Proposition 22 to be placed on the ballot seeking to undue AB 5.

Proposition 22 would consider app-based drivers to be independent contractors and not employees or agents. Therefore, the ballot measure would overrideAB 5 (signed in September 2019) on the question of whether app-based drivers are employees or independent contractors.

The ballot initiative defines app-based driversas workers who (a) provide delivery services on an on-demand basis through a businesss online-enabled application or platform or (b) use a personal vehicle to provide pre-arranged transportation services for compensation via a businesss online-enabled application or platform.Examples of companies that hire app-based drivers include Uber, Lyft and DoorDash, among many others. Notably, the ballot measure would not affect how AB 5 is applied to other types of workers.

If passed by Californias voters in November, some gig employers could avoid hundreds of millions of dollars in future liability associated with the misclassification issue. In short, it appears that many gig workers do not want to change their status, contrary to certain viewpoints that they are being taken advantage of by their employers. There is no doubt that companies will be closely watching this outcome as it could mark the beginning of a nationwide drive to blunt the force of the ABC Test.

At the same time, artificial intelligence (AI) may resolve this issue in another way: if driverless vehicles are accepted and implemented in California, there may be no workers to classify. In fact, in February, California agreed that Uber could begin re-testing its driverless vehicles on public roads. But the timeline is unclear as to when such a change would occur.

In the meantime, however, there is almost certainly going to be state-by-state battles over misclassification of workers and the Uber decision may mark the beginning of a long battle over tax revenue as well. The COVID-19 pandemic has created massive budget shortfalls for many states, namely the loss of tens of billions of dollars of tax revenue from business closures and a massive reduction in sales tax revenue. At the same time, and depending on whose numbers that you want to use, states (and the federal government) are losing billions of dollars in tax revenue due to worker misclassification. It would seem likely, therefore, that both the federal government (depending on the election outcome) and a majority of the states (given their depleted tax revenue base and unemployment funds) will aggressively enforce misclassification rules under the ABC Test. If so, this could be a multi-billion dollar liability for employers.

In the final analysis, the Uber decision may create legislative responses on how to deal with this growing class of workers in an attempt to harmonize the new gig workforce and the needs of business with the existing legal classification structures that largely prevent such changes with the attendant loss of tax revenue. In short, at least in the near-term, the path forward will be a rocky one.

It is also important to recognize that organized labor has an interest in this outcome, as the re-classification of millions of workers from independent contractor status to employee status would potentially provide millions of new employees to organize since the National Labor Relations Act does not apply to independent contractors, only employees. As mentioned above, it may also accelerate the use of AI.

The Uber decision is likely to be the first battle of what will likely be a long and drawn out affair between both sides of this issue. Potentially, states will likely take a more aggressive approach in the near-term, while workers and gig employers may indeed continue to seek political and legislative solutions. At the same time, AI may well change the workplace much faster than most people think given the extensive financial incentives to move in this direction given the economic fallout from the pandemic. Stay tuned.

[1] Small business employers are defined as an employer with less than 50 employees.

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Is the Gig Up? Worker Misclassification in the Technology Age - JD Supra

Dublin, Aug. 31, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "Ammonium Persulfate Market Insights 2020, Analysis and Forecast Global and Chinese Market to 2025, by Manufacturers, Regions, Technology, Application" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

This report is a professional and in-depth study on the current state of the global Ammonium Persulfate market with a focus on the Chinese market. The report provides key statistics on market of Ammonium Persulfate. It is a valuable source of guidance and direction for companies and individuals interested in Ammonium Persulfate industry.

Key points of Ammonium Persulfate Market Report:

Main Parameters for this report:

Application Segment:

Companies Covered:

Key Topics Covered:

1.: Introduction of Ammonium Persulfate Industry1.1 Brief Introduction of Ammonium Persulfate1.2 Development of Ammonium Persulfate Industry1.3 Status of Ammonium Persulfate Industry

2.: Manufacturing Technology of Ammonium Persulfate2.1 Development of Ammonium Persulfate Manufacturing Technology2.2 Analysis of Ammonium Persulfate Manufacturing Technology2.3 Trends of Ammonium Persulfate Manufacturing Technology

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4.: 2015-2020 Global and Chinese Market of Ammonium Persulfate4.1 Market Size4.1.1 2015-2020 Global Capacity, Production and Production Value of Ammonium Persulfate Industry4.1.2 2015-2020 Chinese Capacity, Production and Production Value of Ammonium Persulfate Industry4.2 2015-2020 Ammonium Persulfate Industry Cost and Profit Estimation4.3 Market Comparison of Global and Chinese Ammonium Persulfate Industry4.4 2015-2020 Global and Chinese Supply and Consumption of Ammonium Persulfate4.5 2015-2020 Import and Export of Ammonium Persulfate

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6.: Market Forecast of 2020-2025 Global and Chinese Ammonium Persulfate Industry6.1 2020-2025 Global and Chinese Capacity, Production, and Production Value of Ammonium Persulfate6.2 2020-2025 Ammonium Persulfate Industry Cost and Profit Estimation6.3 2020-2025 Global and Chinese Market Share of Ammonium Persulfate6.4 2020-2025 Global and Chinese Supply and Consumption of Ammonium Persulfate6.5 2020-2025 Import and Export of Ammonium Persulfate

7.: Analysis of Ammonium Persulfate Industry Chain7.1 Industry Chain Structure7.2 Upstream Raw Materials7.3 Downstream Industry

8.: Global and Chinese Economic Impact on Ammonium Persulfate Industry8.1 Global and Chinese Macroeconomic Environment Analysis8.2 Global and Chinese Macroeconomic Environment Development Trend8.3 Effects to Ammonium Persulfate Industry

9.: Market Dynamics and Policy of Ammonium Persulfate Industry9.1 Ammonium Persulfate Industry News9.2 Ammonium Persulfate Industry Development Challenges9.3 Ammonium Persulfate Industry Development Opportunities

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11.: Research Conclusions of Global and Chinese Ammonium Persulfate Industry

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/v7s20u

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Global Ammonium Persulfate Market to 2025 - by Manufacturers, Regions, Technology, and Application - GlobeNewswire

The particular deepfake algorithm that people were using comes from a 2019 research paper presented at NeurIPS, the largest annual AI research conference. Unlike other, more complex algorithms, it allows a user to take any video of a persons face and use it to animate a photo of someone elses face with only a few lines of code.

Windheim found the open-source algorithm in a YouTube tutorial and ported it into a Google Colab notebook, a free service for running code in the cloud. After a few tries, aided by the skills shed picked up in the occasional coding class in college, she got the script to spit out a deepfake video. She then synched the song to the video with Kapwings tools, creating a new version of the meme.

Since she posted her tutorial on Kapwings YouTube channel, a number of other YouTubers have also made tutorials using the same copy-and-pasted algorithm. The difference: many of them are teaching their audience how to make any kind of deepfake meme. One even teaches people how to make them on mobile.

These memes are now appearing everywhere on social media: on Twitter, Instagram, and especially TikTok. The platforms short videos, which often feature snappy choreography to catchy music, are particularly conducive to being deepfaked to mesmerizing effect. The #deepfake hashtag in the app has already racked up more than 120 million views.

Theres a telltale wonkiness to the faces in the videos made with this algorithm, which makes its handiwork easy to recognize; that is part of the deepfakes humor. These imperfectionsand the surrealist quality of the memeswill keep them from being confused for reality. At the moment, more hyper-realistic deepfakes are far more technically challenging and computationally expensive to create.

But at the rate that the technology is advancing, easy-to-make deepfakes that are nearly indistinguishable from reality are likely around the corner. Some companies like Chinese tech giant Tencent, owner of WeChat, have publicly announced their intentions to invest more resources into advancing the state of the art for commercial applications.

Deepfakes are not inherently bad. The technology has already been used by artists, educators, and others as a powerful new tool for creative expression. In February, for example, Time magazine used deepfakes to re-create the experience of Martin Luther King Jr. delivering his I Have a Dream speech in virtual reality. Ultimately, regulators need to define what is appropriate use and what could lead to harm.

For now, Windheim is relying on her own judgment to make that call. Before posting her video, she read up on the implications of deepfakes and had a conversation with her colleagues. Were never intending our products to help users spread misinformation, she says, so we just wanted to sanity-check ourselves.

In the end, they decided on some ground rules: they would focus their tutorials on making specific memes, never on creating deepfakes outside of that context. As long as its entertainment and within meme culture, she says, were in the clear zone.

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Memers are making deepfakes, and things are getting weird - MIT Technology Review