Category Archives: Technology

Over the past two years, the World Economic Forum working in close collaboration with a diverse group of experts has been working on advancing the field of ethics in technology. This project, titled Responsible Use of Technology, began when more than 40 leaders from government, civil society, and business, some with competing agendas, met in The Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution in San Francisco. This group agreed on the important goal of providing tools and techniques that leaders can use to operationalize ethics during the lifecycle of technology.

This multi-stakeholder project community has made the case for both human-rights-based and ethics-based approaches to the responsible use of technology, promoted the use of behavioural economics principles in organizational design to drive more ethical behaviour with technology, and highlighted techniques for responsible technology product innovation. As we move into this project's third year, we have a few predictions about the future of responsible tech that we would like to share.

1. The rise of responsible investing in tech

When this project was conceived, the original intention was to provide practitioners with tools and techniques that they could use to create more ethical outcomes during the design, development, deployment and use of technology. One such technique is consequence scanning, which helps product managers, designers and developers identify upfront the potential intended and unintended consequences of a new product or feature.

However, as our society becomes more aware of the impact of technologies on human rights, leaders are looking at the earliest stages of technological innovation. They are beginning to ask whether investors are conducting ethics and human rights assessments of the start-ups they are investing in or incubating. A recent report published by Amnesty International reveals that none of the top-10 venture capital firms on the Venture Capital Journals top-50 list had adequate human rights due diligence policies in place when evaluating companies.

Our research has revealed that the vast majority of the worlds most influential venture capitalist firms operate with little to no consideration of the human rights impact of their decisions. With the stakes so high, investors need to embrace the idea of responsible investing in technology and commit to more robust human rights assessments in their due diligence process.

With human rights groups like Amnesty International putting a spotlight on this issue, along with the rise of environmental, social and governance (ESG) investing and increased calls for stakeholder capitalism, we predict that there will be more progress in responsible investing in tech especially in the venture capital space in the coming years.

2. Targeted tech regulations: just the beginning

The year 2021 will be remembered in history as a pivotal year for tech regulation globally. Indeed, earlier this year, the European Commission (EC) released its Artificial Intelligence Act, a comprehensive regulatory proposal that classifies all AI applications under four distinct categories of risks (unacceptable risk, high-risk, limited risk and minimal risk) and introduces specific requirements for each of them. Evidence suggests that US regulators are also taking enforcement action against biased AI systems while federal lawmakers have proposed various regulations to regulate facial recognition.

Public sentiment is shifting in the US as well. In an April 2021 Pew Research Center survey, 56% of Americans professed support for more regulation of major technology companies versus 47% in June 2020. In China, regulators have recently launched a tech crackdown. The Chinese government released a document in August 2021 stating that authorities will actively promote legislation in areas such as national security, technology innovation and anti-monopoly. These regulatory activities are likely to intensify because of the growing demand for trusted technology solutions.

The days of technology companies operating in the wild west are gone. Civil society and governments are beginning to hold companies accountable for how their products are deployed by end users, as well as the impact they can have on key societal processes and communities. We will continue to see a move toward government regulation disjointed across various markets. These changes are already impacting the way companies do business and executives need to keep these ethical and legal responsibilities top of mind.

We predict that future regulations will be more targeted towards specific technologies, industries, use cases, risk profiles and affected communities.

3. Tech ethics will be mandatory in higher education

Until recently, most students who studied computer science, electrical engineering, and data science could graduate without taking an ethics course. Universities that did offer technology ethics classes considered them as electives, not mandatory. This is unlike other disciplines such as law and medicine, which treat ethics as a key component of professional training. Most technologists in the workplace today were not even exposed to the social sciences or humanistic aspects of their future professions throughout their formal education. We believe this is going to change. As technology ethics issues continue to permeate public awareness, we predict that most universities will offer more courses on technology ethics and make them compulsory for students to graduate with degrees in technical fields.

Given computer scientists and engineers' prime role in reshaping every facet of human life, higher education institutions are beginning to redesign how these disciplines are taught. Central to this rethinking is requiring ethical reasoning courses to force computer scientists and engineers to examine their ethical obligations to the societies their technologies impact on a daily basis.

Some companies are already mandating responsible technology training for all employees. Professional associations such as the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) are hosting conferences dedicated to technology ethics, and non-profit organizations such as the Responsible Artificial Intelligence Institute are stepping in by offering options for certifying the skills included in these trainings. We believe that most universities will soon follow suit.

With new technologies permeating more and more of our daily lives, the field of responsible technology is expanding. What might previously have been considered a function of the financial sector, like ethical investing practice, is increasingly viewed as part of the technology life cycle. Laissez-faire approaches to governance that enable the use and misuse of technology platforms are no longer tolerated. And educators in technical fields such as data science must grapple with interdisciplinary studies of ethics and law.

Indeed, in our work on the Responsible Use of Technology project, we have seen growing interest and participation in sectors from banking to food and beverage -- reminding us that every company is now a technology company. The predictions outlined above demonstrate the ways in which disparate actors are beginning to come together to address issues of technology ethics. As the world becomes increasingly complex and interconnected, it is a holistic and multi-pronged approach to governance that will enable communities to experience the benefits and avoid the harms of these new technologies.

Written by

Daniel Lim, Senior Director, Scenarios, Salesforce

Lofred Madzou, Project Lead, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, World Economic Forum

Emily Ratt, Project Specialist, World Economic Forum

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.

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Three predictions for the future of responsible technology - World Economic Forum

As of April 5, 2021, health information technology companies and developers are required to comply with the information blocking provisions of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technologys (ONC) Information Blocking Final Regulation (Final Rule), implementing specific provisions of the 21st Century Cures Act (the Cures Act). The objective of the Final Rule is to (i) promote interoperability and support the access, exchange, and use of electronic health information; and (ii) reduce burdens and costs related to accessing electronic health information and to reduce occurrences of information blocking.

While compliance with the Final Rule is required, enforcement mechanisms are still evolving and are not yet final. This affords health information technology (Health IT) companies and developers the time and opportunity to familiarize themselves with the Final Rule and the exceptions outlined by the ONC.

What does the Final Rule require or prohibit?

The Final Rule prohibits so-called Actors from engaging in information blocking practicessuch as interfering, preventing, or substantially discouraging the use, access, and exchange of electronic health information. An Actor is any individual or entity that is a (i) health care provider, (ii) developer of Health IT, (iii) health information network, and/or (iv) health information exchange. There is no duty to proactively make electronic health information available, but these entities must not engage in information blocking practices in response to a legal request for electronic health information.

What is information blocking and why is it discouraged? What are examples of information blocking?

The Final Rule was promulgated by the ONC because Congress expressed concern that Health IT companies were knowingly interfering with the free exchange of information. Information blocking is such a practice, and involves any efforts that are likely to materially discourage the access, use, and/or exchange of electronic information when the entity knows that the practice is likely to do so.

The types of behavior that would be considered information blocking include (i) refusing to provide electronic health information or ignoring reasonable requests; (ii) imposing any unreasonable limitations on the use or requests for access to share electronic health information; (iii) establishing contracts, business associate agreements, licensing terms, and/or policies that would unnecessarily restrict the sharing of electronic health information; and (iv) configuring technology in a way to limit interoperability.

Put another way, if an electronic health record platform were to restrict its software such that a user is able to export electronic health information for its own use without a fee, but any request to transfer or exchange electronic health information to a competitors platform would require a fee, the companys activity would likely be considered inappropriate information blocking under the Final Rule.

What constitutes electronic health information?

Electronic health information includes electronic protected health information (ePHI) as defined under HIPAA, if such ePHI is maintained in a HIPAA designated record set (DRS). However, unlike HIPAA the new information blocking regulations do not apply to hand written or verbal health data. Additionally, it is important to note that records do not have to be used or maintained by or for a HIPAA covered entity to fall within the definition of electronic health information.

What agency is responsible for enforcement of the Final Rule?

The Cures Act authorizes the Office of Inspector General (OIG) to investigate any allegations of information blocking. Health IT companies and developers could face up to $1,000,000 in civil monetary penalties per violation. If an OIGs investigation and determines that an Actor has engaged in information blocking activities, the OIG will refer the provider to the appropriate agency to address the alleged violation (e.g. a HIPAA privacy violation would be referred to the Office for Civil Rights to address the violation). The OIG has issued a proposed rule for enforcement outlining enforcement priorities and has requested input on the proposed rule. Any conduct prior to the effective date of the OIGs rule will not be subject to civil monetary penalties.

How does the Final Rule impact the health information sharing community and Health IT companies and businesses?

Companies should ensure current privacy policies and practices with respect to sharing electronic health information comply with the Final Rule. Companies vendors and Health IT systems should also ensure that the information infrastructure simultaneously protects the transfer electronic health information and facilitates the flow of electronic health information between Health IT systems. Companies should also review current business associate agreements and consider any updates that may be necessary to comply with the new information blocking regulations.

Additionally, companies may also want to consider implementing a policy and procedure that covers the review of all proposed transactions and arrangements, which involve the transfer of electronic health information, to ensure compliance with the Final Rule. This is especially important for Health IT companies to consider as developers and managers of software solutions for providers and other customers.

As regulators continue to push for accountability in the Health IT industry and ultimately the improvement of overall patient care, Health IT developers and businesses must welcome and embrace software and technologies that facilitate compliant sharing of electronic health information.

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The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology Interoperability and Information Blocking Final Regulation: Key Concerns for...

Dear Tom,

Yourecentlymentionedthe improved technology and use of computer models as factor in the improvement in the accuracy of weather forecasts.There are so many computer models, how do you know which one to use?

Thanks,Tom Rowan, Park Ridge

Dear Tom,

Meteorologists have access to a plethora of computer models, often yielding widely divergent outputs. With a winter storm bearing down on Chicago, the same-storm computer guidanceoften variesfrom just rain or a few inches or snow to more than one foot. So much information is available to the forecaster, the guidance can often be a confusing and contradicting information overload. Experience teaches a forecaster which models are more reliable in different weather situations. One favorable tool is to ensemble the output data, giving the forecaster a consensus outcome, which frequently turns out to be the best solution.

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Improved technology and use of computer models in the accuracy of weather forecasts - WGN-TV

You can get paid very well in a hedge fund technology job. According to some of the most recent H1B visa salaries registered by Citadel in the U.S., senior software engineers at the fund are on anything from $120k to $225k in salary. Levels.fyi suggests this is supplemented by roughly equivalent bonuses - the median total package for a Citadel software engineer is $330k. In London, even new graduates working as engineers at the fund say they're on $170k.

But that kind of compensation isn't handed out for nothing. Both Glassdoor and Blind are also littered with complaints with engineers at the hedge fund who say they're working longhours.

"70+ hours per week. Insane meeting times, 7am, 10pm," wrote one Citadel engineer on Blind recently. "Work hours depend on the team, time of year/quarter, and the demands of the business," said another."In good times it hovers around 50ish hours per week. In rough times, it can be closer to 80 or higher."

Citadel isn't the only hedge fund struggling with technologists' complaints about hours. They are echoed atDE Shaw, where Levels.fyi puts the pay of a New York data junior at $200k and a more senior coder at $400k."Absolutely no work life balance. You might even have to work for 12-13 hours straight," says one reviewer of the fund on Blind. At Millennium, there similar gripes aboutintensity and burnout.

Long working hoursare part of theterritory in finance, buthedge funds also seem to suffer from the other curse of the finance sector - legacy technology.The code at Citadel is "quickly but poorly written" according to one anonymous Blind reviewer, adding that it's unstable as a result."There are so many legacy code no one really understand," (sic) says another. "The work at Citadelis a constant struggle with legacy technologyand management," says another reviewer, writing on Glassdoor. Code review is seemingly minimal. "If you're a software engineer on the wrong team (most of them), your time will be almost 100% consumed by either migrations or production support," writes anothercomplainant.

Citadel declined to comment for this article, but technologists contemplating the fund - or hedge funds in general - should know that there are also upsides beyond pay. Citadel purportedly offers excellent "intern swag" and "will spoil you". Most of the technologists who work for Citadel praise the extreme smartness of the people they encounter there.

Irrespective of short-term considerations, though, a technology job at a top hedge fund could set you up for life. After you've spent time at Citadel you can "get interviews wherever you want," notes one engineer: both banks and technology firms value top hedge fund experience. Think of it as an investment.

Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash

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Are high paying hedge fund technology jobs worth the hassle? - eFinancialCareers

With the COVID-19 pandemic still in full swing, and flu season on the way in much of the United States, clinicians need tools for differential diagnoses.

That tool may be in the offing. On September 20, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the MeMed BV test on the point-of-need platform MeMed Key for use in children and adults. The technology is designed to help healthcare providers distinguish between bacterial and viral infections and, hopefully, limit inappropriate antibiotic prescribing.

For those of us who care for acutely ill children, we have been waiting decades for accurate, rapid diagnostics to confidently guide the care of moderately ill children without a clear focus of infection or recognizable viral illness, Rich Bachur, MD, Professor of Pediatrics and Emergency Medicine, Harvard Medical School, and Chief, Division of Emergency Medicine, Boston Childrens Hospital, said in a press release issued by the company. This novel test offers promise to help differentiate those children with self-limited viral illness from those with possible bacterial infection, thereby supporting the judicious use of antibiotics.

According to the company, MeMed BV decodes the bodys immune response to infection, the host response, as opposed to merely detecting the presence of a microbe. This enables robust diagnosis when the infection site is inaccessible or unknown, even when the pathogen is undetectable using conventional tests, or when the cause of infection are emerging new pathogens, allowing for more informed antibiotic prescribing decisions, it said.

The technology identifies a host-protein signature using both viral- and bacterial-induced biomarkers: tumor necrosis factor-related apoptosis-inducing ligand (TRAIL), interferon gamma-induced protein-10 (IP-10), and C-reactive protein (CRP). In a study using samples collected from 175 patients with viral and 139 with bacterial infections, signature sensitivity was 93.5% and specificity 94.3%. Both were significantly higher than those for CRP, procalcitonin, interleukin-6, human neutrophil lipocalin, white blood cell count, absolute neutrophil count, and prediction rules. In addition, the signature identified as viral 50 of 57 viral patients prescribed antibiotics.

More recently, in a study that has been posted on a preprint site and has not yet been peer-reviewed, the signatures area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) in the accurate identification of patients infected with SARS-CoV-2 was 0.86. This performance was superior to IL-6 (AUC 0.77) and CRP (AUC 0.78). In addition, the signature differentiated patients who further deteriorated after meeting a severe outcome from those who improved and projected 14-day survival probabilities, according to the researchers.

As promising as the technology appears to be, clinicians would like to see how it performs in larger clinical trials before incorporating it into clinical practice.

Does it differentiate COVID-19 specifically from other viral respiratory infections such as flu, RSV, the familiar circulating coronaviruses such as OC43, etc.? If so, then it might be useful, an epidemiologist and infectious disease specialist told Contagion on the condition of anonymity. If not, what do I do with the result without further testing?

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New Technology Enables Differentiation of Bacterial and Viral Infections - Contagionlive.com

In recognition of Diversity Week, the National Association for Multi-Ethnicity in Communications (NAMIC) works with SCTE to inaugurate the award in 2022

Published: Oct. 8, 2021 at 8:05 AM CDT|Updated: 22 hours ago

EXTON, Pa., Oct. 8, 2021 /PRNewswire/ --The Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers(SCTE)and SCTE Foundation,in conjunction with the National Association for Multi-ethnicity in Communications(NAMIC), today announced the inauguration of an annual diversity in technology award that will recognize a diverse engineering technology leader who has contributed to the advancement of the cable, media, and entertainment industry and has demonstrated significant professional growth.

"The NAMIC award is an extremely importantrecognition of diversity, not just in our industry but across society. We are eager to highlight the accomplishments of our engineering leaders of color and to create pathways for the next generation of technologists," said Mark Hess, president of the SCTE Foundation and senior vice president, business and industry affairs for Comcast Technology Solutions.

"Diversity Week is an ideal time to announce this significant recognition for our engineering leaders," said A. Shuanise Washington, NAMIC president and CEO. "NAMIC is focused on providing resources that allow our members to cultivate their careers. This new award is a demonstration of that mission, particularly in the technology space. We are pleased that the SCTE Foundation also recognizes diversity as a business imperative and is partnering with us to optimize the strategic opportunities inherent in both workforce and consumer diversity."

Founded in 1980, NAMIC educates, advocates, and empowers for multi-ethnic diversity in the communications industry. NAMIC is at the forefront of driving diversity, equity, access and inclusion across all channels within the cable, media, and communications industry. Nominations for the first award will be accepted beginning in June 2022, with the winner being selected during August 2022. The honoree of the first award will be recognized during Diversity Week in October 2022 at NAMIC's annual conference.

SCTE will promote the honoree during SCTE Cable-Tec Expo 2022 on September 1922 in Philadelphia, where David N. Watson, president and chief executive officer, Comcast Cable, will serve as show chair.

About the SCTE Foundation The SCTE Foundation is a non-profit organization that is dedicated to ensuring the continued ability of a diverse workforce to positively impact the community, including in times of crisis. Using funds contributed by individual and corporate donors, the Foundation supports programs that: increase technical workforce skills; attract women, minorities and members of the armed forces to cable engineering careers; promote STEM activities among young people; and underpin cable workforce support for essential communication links that benefit the community in the face of natural or manmade disasters. For more information about the SCTE Foundation, please visit http://foundation.scte.org.

About NAMIC NAMIC is the premier organization focusing on cultural diversity, equity, access and inclusion in the cable and communications industry. More than 4,000 professionals belong to a network of 18 chapters nationwide. Through initiatives that support leadership development, advocacy and empowerment, NAMIC collaborates with industry partners to expand and nurture a workforce that reflects America's cultural richness. For more information, please visit http://www.namic.com or follow @NAMICNational on Twitter or our company page on LinkedIn.

About SCTESCTE is envisioning the future of connectivity, today. Through technological leadership and innovation, SCTE has served as the applied science leader for the cable telecommunications industry for more than five decades. As a not for profit, member organization, SCTE moves member companies forward through continuous training for the workforce of tomorrow and by putting leaders into the conversations that matter. SCTE is the force behind the annual SCTE Cable-Tec Expo, the largest cable telecommunications and technology tradeshow in the Americas. SCTE is a subsidiary of CableLabs. More at http://www.scte.org.

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SOURCE Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers (SCTE)

The above press release was provided courtesy of PRNewswire. The views, opinions and statements in the press release are not endorsed by Gray Media Group nor do they necessarily state or reflect those of Gray Media Group, Inc.

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SCTE and NAMIC Collaborate to Create an Annual Diversity in Technology Award - 1011now

Keep an eye on these emerging "moonshot" technologies.

Since the dot-com bubble of the early 2000s, new, complicated and often incomprehensible technologies have rapidly emerged and firmly rooted themselves in everyday life, like one-click online shopping, Facebook friends, and fully electric, self-driving vehicles. Today, technological transformation progresses faster than humans can comprehend, and investors should take note. Since the 1990s, more than $56 trillion in new wealth has been created through equity markets, but only 1.5% of companies account for that wealth creation, many of them fabled technological disruptors like Microsoft Corp. (ticker: MSFT), Apple Inc. (AAPL), Facebook Inc. (FB) and Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN). What's the next major trend? A recent report from Bank of America Global Research recommends that investors place these seven "moonshot" technologies on their radar, ranging from the inevitable to the seemingly impossible.

6G

In quick time, cellular networks have evolved to handle the rapidly growing amount of data the world produces. Ttoday, 5G networks stand prepared to process this generation's data. But according to Bank of America, if "global data doubles every two to three years, by around 2028, global data capacity will be beyond current 5G capabilities." Enter 6G, capable of downloading all the data on the internet in "only" 17,000 years, a massive improvement compared to 830,000 years on 5G networks. Expected to debut around 2030, Bank of America believes, 6G technologies will have a market capitalization of $1.77 trillion by 2035 and shake up industries ranging from the obvious -- telecommunications via network upgrades -- to the not so obvious, such as data center REITs, semiconductors and cybersecurity. In one way or another, all of the following emerging technologies rely on the processing capabilities of 6G.

Metaverse

Previously a term from science fiction novels, "metaverse" today refers to integrated virtual environments where people or their avatars can engage in ordinary activities like shopping, socializing or dining, often through a virtual reality headset and always without leaving their home. What's more, the metaverse will also redefine video games, making them more immersive through 360-degree experiences and by creating new interactions between players and their environment. If that sounds too futuristic, Facebook, Microsoft and Walt Disney Co. (DIS) will confirm the reality. In 2014, Facebook acquired virtual reality company Oculus VR for $2 billion and has since launched beta phases for VR communities and work rooms. Meanwhile, Microsoft has invested in an "enterprise metaverse," which aims to create a digital twin for anything logical or physical, and Disney envisions a "theme park metaverse" where users can "visit a galaxy far, far away without ever leaving their home," according to former chief technology officer Tilak Mandadi.

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Holograms

Holograms take the metaverse one step further, using light to create full-size, scaled representations of any graphic a computer can render. Before Super Bowl LV this past February, famed coach Vince Lombardi, who passed away in 1970, appeared before the crowd and gave a rousing pregame speech in hologram form. And in May, technology company Musion 3D brought together loved ones 400 miles away for a first-of-its-kind holographic dining experience. Beyond these publicity stunts, expect holograms to accelerate work from home, transform schooling and add a tinge of reality to the nascent metaverse. Holograms will also increase demand for cloud computing and 6G; according to Bank of America, a hologram display over a mobile device requires at least half a terabyte per second, far more than what 5G can handle. Currently, Microsoft has developed HoloLens 2, an augmented reality headset, and emerging start-ups include Hypervsn, AV Concepts, Digital Domain and Base Hologram.

Brain-Computer Interfaces

Perhaps one of the spookier emerging technologies to watch, brain-computer interfaces, or BCIs, connect human brains directly with digital interfaces to augment human cognition and thoughts. In 1997, IBM's computer Deep Blue defeated world champion Garry Kasparov in chess, marking the first major victory for artificial intelligence, and since, AI has increasingly challenged humans in all almost activities, from shooting a basketball to identifying errors in legal documents. The next step: merge human and machine intelligence. Many companies already use BCI technology to find digital cures for cognitive and physically debilitating diseases, but into the future, BCIs could fundamentally change humanity's interactions with smartphones or computers and make dangerous, demanding jobs the work of robots controlled by human brains. Bank of America expects the market to reach $5.46 billion by 2030 and points to Neuralink, Synchron and Neurable as startups to watch.

eVTOL Technology

eVTOL stands for electric vertical take-off and landing, a technology under development that could bring air taxis to life and reduce congestion on roads. In 2016, Uber Technologies Inc. (UBER) published a white paper that outlined its Project Elevate, an on-demand air transportation system, increasing the viability and validity of a once-futuristic concept. Uber spent four years spearheading the project before selling it in 2020 to Joby Aviation Inc (JOBY) for an undisclosed amount. This past August, Joby closed a business combination with Reinvent Technology Partners, a special-purpose acquisition company led by LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, valuing the company at $4.5 billion in enterprise value and raising cash on the balance sheet to $1.6 billion. The company expects to have fast, quiet and efficient taxis in the air by 2024. Into the future, Bank of America expects eVTOL technologies to disrupt the automotive and commercial airline industries while demanding more data processing capabilities and accelerating the need for 6G.

NextGen Batteries

It's worth remembering that a Tesla Inc. (TSLA) battery was once hundreds of lithium-ion computer batteries stacked together. Since then, efficiency and capacity have improved, but almost all batteries remain lithium-ion, and peak single-charge mileage and total lifespan may have already been reached. In 2020, Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd. (300750.SZ), a Chinese company that manufactures batteries for Volkswagen AG (VWAGY), Tesla, and Toyota Motor Corp. (TM), unveiled a battery that will last at least 1.2 million miles before needing replacement, compared to a current average of 150,000 miles, and would cost only 10% more. But this is just the tip of the iceberg. NextGen batteries will likely be powered by solid-state lithium, replacing the current flammable and environmentally harmful liquid solution and ultimately requiring far less mined metals and specialty chemicals, a major plus for the environment. Bank of America expects NextGen batteries to disrupt the automotive, metals and mining, chemicals and renewable energy industries.

Green Mining

Over the past 20 years, improvements in mining technologies and increased regulations have both improved mining efficiency and marginally reduced its environmental footprint. Current mining techniques, such as open pit mining, underground mining and brine mining, often release toxic chemicals into the ozone, destroy natural lands and habitats, and present dangerous work conditions for miners. Enter "green mining." Green mining aims to reduce the negative externalities associated with traditional practices as well as move mining activities from land to ocean. In fact, according to Bank of America, "deep sea mining could produce metals with 70% less CO2 emissions," and the bank projects that "by 2030, the global ocean economy could reach a gross value of around $3 trillion."

Seven moonshot technologies to keep an eye on:

-- 6G

-- Metaverse

-- Holograms

-- Brain-Computer Interfaces

-- eVTOL Technology

-- NextGen Batteries

-- Green Mining

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Investing in 'Moonshots': 7 Emerging Technologies to Watch - Yahoo News

BATON ROUGE, La (BRPROUD) Baton Rouge General has new state-of-the-art lung cancer-fighting technology. The hospital isamong the first in the United States and the first in Louisiana to use the Monarch.

According to the CDC, lung cancer is one of the leading types of cancer deaths worldwide. Baton Rouge General Chief of Critical Care and Pulmonology Dr. Stephen Brierre said this is because there are no symptoms in its early stages.

Technology has given us so many tools to fight horrible diseases. If we can catch it before symptoms, its at an earlier stage, and if its an earlier stage, we can cure it with surgery, said Brierre.

The Monarch uses robotics, data science, and small cameras and tools to enter the body through its natural openings. It will be used to see inside lungs to diagnose nodules or hard-to-reach abnormal tissue growth.

For some people, in whom we discover an abnormality, on their chest x-rays or CAT scans, they will have that abnormality in a part of the lung that we cannot get to with standard technology, said Brierre

With a 20-30 minute procedure, Dr. Brierre said the Monarch will provide a safer, quicker diagnosis cutting out the time that patients would normally remain in care.

They would be in the hospital anywhere from three to five days, they would need tubes to help reexpand the lung after the surgery, which is painful, said Dr. Brierre.

Brierre said the new device is a game-changer for Baton Rouge General, and physicians will begin training on the Monarch soon. Patient procedures are set to start in November.

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Baton Rouge General to train staff on new innovative technology - BRProud.com

Healthcare is undoubtedly one of the most complex and nuanced industries there is, especially in the U.S. So, it is no surprise that the relationship between physicians and pharma is complicated at best.

It is a partnership that has been litigated, regulated and scrutinized beyond imagination. Yet, despite all this, it remains an essential part of the health delivery dynamic.

Even with its codependencies, the pharma-to-physician relationship is showing signs of weakness. According to research from Accenture, only 64% of the meetings healthcare professionals (HCPs) had with pharma sales reps prior to COVID-19 were held in person.

During the pandemic, those numbers have plunged to 35%, with nearly half of the HCPs reporting that this would continue for the foreseeable future.

One of the contributing factors for this strained relationship is that physicians just dont have time in their day to meet with pharma reps. According to a study published in the Annals of Family Medicine, for every hour spent with a patient, physicians spend at least two hours working on EMRs.

This added clinical work is responsible for work-life imbalance and has contributed to a higher-than-normal attrition rate (> 50%). First-year medical doctors spend three times as many hours updating EMRs than they spend on patient care.

In addition, doctors are under stain in keeping up with all the medical knowledge thats now available to them. It is estimated that medical knowledge now doubles every 73 days. In 1950, the doubling of medical knowledge was 50 years; in 1980, 7 years; and in 2010, 3.5 years.

Adding to this, the worlds top medical journals in aggregate publish roughly 7,200 articles each month. To evaluate all this information, it would take a physician more than 620 hours per month. There literally isnt enough time in the day.

This is not to say that COVID-19 has not had a devastating impact on the traditional pharma-to-physician relationship, but full disclosure regarding the situation can help put the current decline in face-to-face interactions into perspective.

According to double board-certified physician Dr. Mandira Mehra, there are several factors that are playing into the trend.

There are a lot of different reasons for why physicians and their staff are limiting sales visits, said Dr. Mehra. For some hospitals, its part of their policy, even before COVID-19. But from a doctors standpoint, communication with pharma reps has become inefficient. Although an integral part of our work, the process of accessing or contacting reps can be frustrating.

Efficiency is the key takeaway here. Physicians and their staff dont have much time for unplanned visits. And getting time on the book can be near impossible.

Physicians have way more on their plates today than they did even five years ago, added Dr. Mehra. With increased patient loads, added responsibilities and more administrative tasks to tackle, there isnt time for much else.

There is hope for the struggling relationship, however, because innovative companies like P360, Veeva Systems and IQVIA are working hard to make it more streamlined and efficient, less abrasive and more secure. And physicians can play an important role in deciding what systems pharma uses.

Here are some of the leading options:

When we first started exploring the dynamic between healthcare professionals and pharma, we knew that technology could provide a much-needed solution, said P360 CEO Anupam Nandwana.

The hard part was deciding what that solution should look like. It had to be flexible, and we knew that it had to be based on the physicians point of view, and not pharmas. Thats really what guided our development of the ZING communication module.

Late last year, as the FDA authorized the first at-home coronavirus test, P360 introduced a solution of its own the ZING communication module. According to Nandwana, ZING is a multimodal communication platform that enables pharmaceutical reps and healthcare professionals to exchange compliant, two-way unified messaging.

"There are no apps for end-users to download, and there are no subscriptions for them to deal with. To the healthcare professional, the solution is seen as nothing different than their normal method for receiving texts."

According to Campaign Monitor's marketing research, text message open rates areas high as 98%, compared with just 20% for email. This makes text-messaging a great alternative to in-office visits. Not only do text messages get read, they also arent as disruptive to physicians as in-person visits, phone calls and emails can be.

According to Nandwana, messages through ZING can be automatedas well. For example, if a physician needs a coupon, all they have to do is text their rep the name of a product and the word coupon.

Veeva Systems, another leading PharmaTech company, has answered the call with a technology solution of its own. In October of last year, Veeva Systems revealed MyVeeva For Doctors. MyVeeva For Doctors is a mobile app for physicians that enables them to find and communicate with sales reps, medical science liaisons (MSLs) and other life science professionals.

Veeva has a strong track record when it comes to developing innovative solutions for the life sciences industry. From both the pharma and HCP perspective, a downloadable app checks off a lot of boxes.

As HCPs continue to incorporate mobile devices into their daily routines, the case for pharma-related apps makes a lot of sense, said industry analyst Brian Fitzgerald. Not only do mobile apps enable pharmaceutical companies to more easily connect with HCPs, they also help with brand-building as well.

IQVIA is taking a far different approach to how they are helping pharma connect with physicians. The company believes that targeting stakeholders with the right message at the right time dramatically improves engagement. Its model is based on an Orchestrated Customer Engagement approach that includes content-targeting and a mix of engagement options, including web chat, video calling and more. Some refer to this as a sales funnel.

Veeva Systems has a similar model with their Veeva CRM Engage Meeting product.

Although robust, the funnel approach to HCP engagement hinges on web traffic and online visits, Fitzgerald said. If physicians dont have time for in-person meetings or phone calls, they definitely dont have time to navigate through sophisticated online funnel processes.

Although industry trends are still laying the foundation for a new normal in pharma-to-physician relations, one thing is clear: Pharma needs to make the relationship as streamlined and easy as possible. Busy physician schedules are increasing on-demand and off-hour engagements. And this need that has been accelerated by COVID-19. Regulations and the pandemic have forced physicians and pharma sales teams to embrace new, mostly digital approaches.

Some of these approaches have been highly effective, as both pharma and physicians are becoming adept at utilizing new technologies to engage. However, there is still a learning curve for all. But pharmaceutical companies that put physicians and their staff first will ultimately win.

Pharma is a key ally in the advancement of lifesaving treatments and therapies, and that will not change for the foreseeable future, Dr. Mehra said. But we need to find a better way to work together, because in the end it will only help the patient. I believe technology holds the key for whats next.

As pharma reps work to reengage, theyll need to develop a clearer understanding of when to utilize virtual engagement and when in-person meetings are more appropriate.

Physicians should help guide pharma as to which technologies and which communication channels are the best fit. Virtual interactions provide physicians the flexibility to meet on-demand, or at a time that works best with their schedules. However, virtual engagement provides fewer opportunities for formal and informal collaboration.

There is a lot to consider when it comes to this complex relationship. Its an intricate dance that is sure to continue.

About the author

Jay T. Ripton is a freelance healthcare, technologyand biomedicine writer out ofScottsdale. He loves to write to inform, educate and provoke minds. Follow him on twitter via@JTRipton.

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Contributed: Technology is helping physicians and pharma to better coexist - Mobihealth News

Asia Defense|Security

The namesake of the famous prize believed that more destructive weapons would make war unthinkable. Few people believe that anymore but we have new delusions to contend with.

This week, the Nobel Prizes are being announced. The Nobel Prizes, generally considered to be among the most prestigious international awards in the fields of science, literature, and peace, are named for Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, who made a number of important advancements in martial technology, including dynamite and smokeless gunpowder. Toward the end of his life, Nobel expressed the view that his efforts had been directed at making war so horrifying that the world would come together and ban it.

More than a century later, not only does war remain unbanned, but the way that martial technologies impact our imagination has fundamentally changed.

Nobel was not alone in his aspirations to end war by creating machines so powerful they would make it unthinkably brutal. Hiram Maxim, the inventor of the worlds first practical single-barrel machine gun, held similar views, only to see them proved horrifically wrong on the killing fields of World War I. And after the advent of nuclear weapons, influential physicists and political scientists advanced different elements of an argument that the unimaginable destruction wrought by nuclear weapons would make war obsolete, or at least marginalize it. War, as it does, transformed conventional wars grew rarer while irregular wars did not but did not disappear.

Other types of particularly brutal weapons chemical and biological agents, for example ended up hived off into their own category of shame rather than rendering war unthinkable. After the abundant use of chemical weapons in World War I, subsequent conflicts they have been largely (though not entirely) used as a weapon of terror or extermination against civilians though this also reflects the degree to which military forces can be successfully hardened against such attacks.

Today, it seems as though the aspiration of weaponeering our way out of armed conflict has been left behind. Novel weapons and categories of weapons are being developed at a rapid clip, and yet there are few claims that tomorrows arms will make tomorrows wars too costly to consider.

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Have we simply become more cynical about the characteristics of technology? That seems unlikely, given the continuing strain of techno-optimism embedded in Western discourses about societal progress (notwithstanding the actual impacts of novel technologies, which are more mixed).

Instead, something about the character of new weapons has changed. The advantages conferred by dynamite and the machine gun and nuclear weapons were of scale: a Maxim gun could generate more firepower than a platoon of riflemen; an artillery piece firing explosive shells could do far more damage than one firing solid shot; a single nuclear weapon could devastate a city. There is little to be gained by making more destructive weapons at this point modern nuclear weapons, for example, are considerably less powerful in terms of sheer explosive force than their predecessors, because they can be delivered with enough accuracy to achieve their objectives at a lower force factor.

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As a result and to oversimplify somewhat modern military technological advancement tends to be focused on increasing speed and accuracy rather than sheer destructive power. Whereas it was possible to imagine ever-more destructive weapons causing such outcry as to end war inaccurate, as it turns out, but possible a faster, more precise weapon seems to push the imagination in other directions.

We can see this in our cultural products. The first Iron Man film contained a two-minute sequence that neatly summed up the entire fantasy of technologically empowered, righteous warfare. As a besuited Tony Stark arrives in the midst of an Afghan village being overrun by Taliban surrogates, his AI instantly categorizes the people in sight as either hostile or civilian, and his shoulder-mounted antipersonnel guns wreck the former while leaving the latter utterly untouched. And when, a dozen films later, the Avengers are called to account for their collateral damage, the numbers of civilian casualties listed from their actions are laughably low.

Needless to say, this representation of exceptionally high accuracy and nearly zero tolerance for collateral damage is a fantasy. In the real Afghanistan, highly sophisticated coalition intelligence assets and airpower were brought to bear on civilian targets again and again, including in the wars very final act.

And yet the fantasy persists. Instead of making war so terrible it can never be considered, we are now led to believe that technology will make war so fast and precise that we wont even to borrow the words of Dr. Strangeloves General Buck Turgidson get our hair mussed. Yet in reality, our wars continue to result in a huge expenditure of blood and treasure and little in the way of intended political progress.

Our view of technologys impact on war may have moved on from Nobels, but it is still a long way from accurate.

The rest is here:

Alfred Nobel, Technology, and the End of War - The Diplomat