Category Archives: Technology

Black Bess; or The Knight of the Road, aromanticized tale of Dick Turpin.

Edward Viles, Wikipedia.

In the history of information technologies, Gutenberg and his printing press are (understandably) treated with the kind of reverence even the most celebrated of modern tech tycoons could only imagine. So perhaps it will come as a surprise that Europes literacy rates remained fairly stagnant for centuries after printing presses, originally invented in about 1440, started popping up in major cities across the continent. Progress was inconsistent and unreliable, with literacy rates booming through the 16th century and then stagnating, even declining, across most of Western Europe. Great Britain, France, Belgium, Switzerland, and Italy all produced more printed books per capita in 16511700 than in 17011750.

Then came the early 19th century, which saw enormous changes in the manufacture of paper and improvements on the printing press. These changes both contributed to and resulted from major societal changes, such as the worldwide growth increase in formal education. There were more books than ever and more people who could read them. For some, this looked less like progress and more like a dangerous and destabilizing trend that could threaten not just literature, but the solvency of civilization itself.

The real price of books plummeted by more than 60 percent between 1460 and 1500: A book composed of 500 folio pages could sell for as much as 30 florins in 1422 in Austriaa huge amount of money at the timebut by the 1470s, a 500-folio book would fetch something in the neighborhood of 10 florins. There were even books on the market that sold for as little as 2 or 3 florins. In 1498, a Bible composed of over 2,000 folio pages sold for 6 florins. Costs continued to decline, albeit at a much slower rate, over the next three centuries. As a result, books were no longer reserved only for the clergy or for kings: Owning a printed Bible or book of hours became a coveted status symbol for the emerging class of moderately wealthy merchants and magnates.

Books remained, however, far outside the range of the common man or woman, until the price plummeted once again in the 19th century. No longer was literacy necessarily a signifier of wealth, class, and status. This abrupt change created a moral panic as members of the traditional reading classes argued over who had the right to informationand what kind of information ought to be available at all.

The shift happened thanks to major developments in both printing and paper technology. The printing press had not changed much between 1455, when Gutenberg printed his famous Bible, and 1800: The letters had to be hand-placed in a matrix, coated with a special ink that transferred more cleanly from tile to pageanother of Gutenbergs inventionsand pressed one-by-one onto the pages. The first major change to this tried-and-tested design came with Friedrich Koenigs mechanized press in 1812, which could make 400 impressions per hour, compared to the 200 impressions per hour allegedly accomplished by printers in Frankfurt, Germany, in the second half of the 16th century. In 1844, American inventor Richard March Hoe first deployed his rotary press, which could print 8,000 pages in a single hour.

Naturally, faster prints drove up demand for paper, and soon traditional methods of paper production couldnt keep up. The paper machine, invented in France in 1799 at the Didot familys paper mill, could make 40 times as much paper per day as the traditional method, which involved pounding rags into pulp by hand using a mortar and pestle. By 1825, 50 percent of Englands paper supply was produced by machines. As the stock of rags for papermaking grew smaller and smaller, papermakers began experimenting with other materials such as grass, silk, asparagus, manure, stone, and even hornets nests. In 1800, the Marquess of Salisbury gifted to King George III a book printed on the first useful Paper manufactured solely from Straw to demonstrate the viability of the material as an alternative for rags, which were already in extraordinary scarcity in Europe. In 1831, a member of the Agricultural and Horticultural Society of India tried to convince the East India Company that Nepalese ash-based paper ought to be generally substituted for the flimsy friable English paper to which we commit all our records.

One newspaper was so unsatisfied with the quality of its straw paper that it apologized to readers.

By the 1860s, there was a decent alternative: wood-pulp paper. Today, wood-pulp paper accounts for 37 percent of all paper produced in the world (with an additional 55 percent from recycled wood pulp), but when it was introduced, the prospect of a respectable publication using wood-pulp paper was practically unthinkablehence pulp fiction, the early 19th-century literary snobs preferred way to insult a work as simultaneously nondescript and sensational.

The problem with wood-pulp paper was its acidity and short cellulose chains, which made it liable to slow dissolution over decades. It couldnt be used for a fine-looking book that could be passed through a family as an heirloom: It neither looked the part, nor could it survive the generations.

Traditional rag paper, on the other hand, was smooth, easy to write on, foldable, and could be preserved for centuries. Paper made from nontraditional materials, especially wood pulp, was acidic and rough. (Paper from straw, which enjoyed brief popularity in 1829 thanks to the chance invention of a Pennsylvania farmer, is durable, but brittle and yellowed. One newspaper was so unsatisfied with the quality of its straw paper that it apologized to readers.)

Wood pulp or straw, the cheap paper used in mass-market books sold at extremely low prices. There were a few different kinds of these books, all with descriptive (and usually pejorative) names: the penny dreadfuls (gothic-inspired tales sold for a penny each), pulp magazines (named after the wood-pulp paper of which they were composed), yellowbacks (cheap books bound using yellow strawboard, which is then covered with a paper slip in yellow glaze), and others. The cheapness that had made them so unsuitable for fine books and government records made them excellent fodder for experimental, unusual, and controversial literary developments.

Detractors delighted in linking the volatile matter of wood-pulp paper with the volatile minds of pulp readers. Londoner W. Coldwell wrote a three-part diatribe, On Reading, lamenting that the noble art of printing should be pressed into this ignoble service. Samuel Taylor Coleridge mourned how books, once revered as religious oracles degaded into culprits as they became more widely available.

By the end of the century there was growing concernespecially among middle class parentsthat these cheap, plentiful books were seducing children into a life of crime and violence. The books were even blamed for a handful of murders and suicides committed by young boys. Perpetrators of crimes whose misdoings were linked to their fondness for penny dreadfuls were often referred to in the newspapers as victims of the books. In the United States, dime novels (which usually cost a nickel) were given the same treatment. Newspapers reported that Jesse Pomeroy, a teenage serial killer who targeted other children, was a close reader of dime novels and yellow covered literature [yellowbacks], until, as was argued in his trial, his brain was turned, and his highest ambition was to emulate the violent dime novel character Texas Jack. Moralizers painted the books as no better than printed poison, with headlines warning readers that Pomeroys brutality was what came of reading dime novels. Others hoped that by providing alternativespenny delightfuls or penny popularsthey could curb the demand for the sensational literature. A letter to the editor to the Worcester Talisman from the late 1820s tells young people to stop reading novels and read books of substance: [F]ar better were it for a person to confine himself to the plain sober facts recorded in history and the lives of eminent individuals, than to wander through the flowery pages of fiction.

These books represent the beginnings of modern mass media. At the confluence of increasing literacy rates and ever-growing urban populations looking for recreation, cheap imprints flourished. But it wasnt just social change driving the book boom: It was technological change as well. In 1884, Simon Newton Dexter North, who would later become superintendent of the Census Bureau, wrote in his intensive study of the 10th census that the chief cause for the reduction in the price of paper is the successful useof wood pulp.

For a material meant to be transient, wood-pulp paper has left its mark and the world. Forests have shrunk while literacy rates have soared, and today the hunt is on for wood pulps replacement. We are living in the ironic epilogue to a triumph of a hard-won Victorian-era innovation. Wood pulp paper took on a life of its own as soon as it hit the presses, and it demonstrates to a modern audience the crucial lesson that the impact of a technology goes beyond what it does: what it is made of, who uses it, who doesnt use it, and what it represents to the people who buy it.

This article is part of Future Tense, a collaboration among Arizona State University, New America, and Slate. Future Tense explores the ways emerging technologies affect society, policy, and culture. To read more, follow us on Twitter and sign up for our weekly newsletter.

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The 19th Century Moral Panic Over Paper Technology - Slate Magazine

The decision of a company to offer its employs the option to hack their bodies to function better in the workplace has raised eyebrows and, no doubt, generated publicity.

But it also gives us a chance to turn a light on hidden attitudes about the nature of the self.

Imagine that you could pay for your morning coffee with the swipe of your hand, or that you didn't need to have a key on your person to start up your car. Pretty convenient, huh?

And not really that futuristic at all. In principle, you could wear a chip-enabled ring or bracelet that would let you seamlessly navigate the walls and marketplaces of the electronic world.

Well, if that would work, then why not enjoy the extra added convenience of having the chip inserted into your body the way we put finder chips into dogs and cats?

A company in Wisconsin made news last week by offering its employees the option of getting a chip surgically implanted so that they would be able to navigate electronic pathways at the company's headquarters more easily. The company's move has gotten tons of attention (including here and here at NPR).

Many concerns have been raised. Health is a big one: Do we know the long-term effects of having something inside of you emit a signal to an external receiver? And then there's privacy: Assurances to the contrary notwithstanding, how do you know a device like this won't be used to track you? It says on my Social Security card that it isn't meant to be a means of identification. But that's exactly how it is used in our daily life.

And then there are concerns about whether an employee is free to say "no" to a company initiative of this sort.

If we put all that aside, though, I find myself wondering: What's the big deal? Does it make a difference, beyond shear convenience, that the transmitter is in your hand (like a splinter, say) rather than on your hand, like a ring?

If you think it does, this may be because you take for granted that to put something in you is to bring about a more basic alteration in who or what you are.

But is that really true? Just because something is inside you, that doesn't make it a part of you. My dental work isn't part of me, is it? The fact that it is cemented in place and, so, that it is difficult to remove doesn't make it me. Ditto, I would say, for the grain-of-rice-sized-chip-in-the-hand. It might as well be the stud of an earring as something inserted beneath the skin for all that it forces us to rethink our natural limits.

In fact, it is easier, I think, to find conditions on the outside that more truly get under our skin and change what we are. A blind person and her cane, or even the guitarist and her instrument, these seem to be examples where the true boundaries of a person defined not by the limits of the skin, but by the limits of what a person can do are altered. Consider the way learning a new language, or the way learning to read, can alter a person by, in effect, altering their reality.

The body and the person are different things. Just because something is in me doesn't mean, really, that it is in me; and just because something is outside me, doesn't mean that it isn't, really, part of what I am.

There may be interesting borderline cases. Drugs (e.g. medicines) are technologies that we consume to alter ourselves. This may be why we feel that athletes who use drugs as part of their training are only partially responsible for what they accomplish. What they have done, we some how feel, wasn't really done by them. We don't, in the same way, begrudge an athlete the benefits of good coaching, healthy diet, the best equipment and sports science. But is this rational?

Plastic surgery is another borderline case. Although some celebrities have proudly declared that they have had plastic surgery, there remains a lingering idea, I think, that surgically enhanced good looks is somehow inauthentic. Curiously, surgically enhanced achievements in sports is almost normal and is not associated with the stigmas of performance enhancing drugs.

Body hacking is "cool" these days. Despite the widespread practice of piercing and tattooing, the willingness to mark-up and alter one's body still somehow carries the air of individual freedom and daring. I suspect that one reason the Wisconsin story gets so much airplay is that it is tied to this kind of buzz.

But it is harder by far, and maybe more transformative, to build shared structures tools, technologies, ideas, memes on which we can rely, and thanks to which we can do new things and reach new heights.

Alva No is a philosopher at the University of California, Berkeley, where he writes and teaches about perception, consciousness and art. He is the author of several books, including his latest, Strange Tools: Art and Human Nature (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2015). You can keep up with more of what Alva is thinking on Facebook and on Twitter: @alvanoe

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Technology Gets Under The Skin - NPR

President Donald Trump announced new efforts Thursday to use technology to improve veterans' health care, saying the programs will greatly expand access, especially for mental health care and suicide prevention. Veterans living in rural areas will also benefit, he said.

Initiatives include using video technology and diagnostic tools to conduct medical exams. Veterans also will be able to use mobile devices to make and manage appointments with Veterans Administration doctors.

"We call it 'anywhere to anywhere' VA health care," VA Secretary David Shulkin said. Shulkin said the goal is better health care for veterans wherever they are. He said existing "telehealth" programs provided care to more than 700,000 veterans last year.

A medical doctor, Shulkin wore his white coat to the White House announcement, during which he demonstrated the technologies for Trump.

Trump said, "This will significantly expand access to care for our veterans, especially for those who need help in the area of mental health, which is a bigger and bigger request, and also in suicide prevention. It will make a tremendous difference for the veterans in rural locations in particular."

A regulation will need to be issued for these services to be provided anywhere in the country.

Shulkin was the VA's undersecretary for health in the final years of the Obama administration.

Associated Press writer Ken Thomas contributed to this report.

Follow Darlene Superville on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/dsupervilleap

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Trump promotes technology to improve veterans' health care - ABC News

August 4, 2017 SFU Mechatronics Systems Engineering graduate student Oldooz Poyanfar and her bee monitoring system PRO. Credit: Simon Fraser University

Biologists are working to better understand Colony Collapse Disorder given the value of honey bees to the economy and the environment. Monitoring bee activity and improving monitoring systems may help to address the issue.

Simon Fraser University graduate student Oldooz Pooyanfar is monitoring what more than 20,000 honeybees housed in hives in a Cloverdale field are "saying" to each otherlooking for clues about their health.

Pooyanfar's technology is gleaning communication details from sound within the hives with her beehive monitoring systemtechnology she developed at SFU. She says improving knowledge about honey bee activity is critical, given a 30 per cent decline in the honeybee population over the past decade in North America. Research into the causes of what is referred to as Colony Collapse Disorder continues. The presence of fewer bees affects both crop pollination and the environment.

Pooyanfar's monitoring platform is placed along the wall of the hive and fitted with tiny sensors containing microphones (and eventually, accelometers) that monitor sound and vibration. Temperature and humidity are also recorded. Her system enables data collection on sound within the hives and also tracks any abnormalities to which beekeepers can immediately respond.

The high-tech smart system is being used to gather data over the summer.

Pooyanfar, who has been working with Chilliwack-based Worker Bee Honey Company, believes that better understanding the daily patterns and conditions, using an artificial neural network in the hive, will help to improve bee colony management. Current methods of monitoring provide less detailed information and can disrupt bee activity for up to 24 hours every time the hive is opened.

"To learn about what bees are communicating, we can either look at pheromonesthe chemical they produceor sound," says Pooyanfar, who initially received funding through the MITACS Accelerate program. The City of Surrey is providing the field space for her research.

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"With this monitoring system, we are collecting data in real time on what the bees are 'saying' about foraging, or if they're swarming, or if the queen bee is present right now we are collecting as much data as possible that will pinpoint what they are actually doing."

Pooyanfar, a graduate student in SFU's School of Mechatronics Systems Engineering, plans to eventually manufacture a sensor package for this application to help lower the costs of monitoring and allow more beekeepers to monitor their hives in real-time. Her initial-stage research was featured at the Greater Vancouver Clean Technology Expo last fall.

Explore further: Vibrating bees tell the state of the hive

Before eating your next meal, pause for a moment to thank the humble honeybee. Farmers of almonds, broccoli, cantaloupe and many other nuts, vegetables and fruits rely heavily on managed honeybees to pollinate their crops ...

It was a sticky situation.

Honey bees are responsible for pollinating crops worth more than US$19 billion and for producing about US$385 million in honey a year in the United States. In Australia, honey bee production is a A$92-million industry.

Thousands of honey bees in Australia are being fitted with tiny sensors as part of a world-first research program to monitor the insects and their environment using a technique known as 'swarm sensing'.

Molly Keck, a Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service entomologist and integrated pest management specialist in Bexar County, has been receiving a number of phone calls from area residents bewildered by recent bee activity.

Despite having few taste genes, honey bees are fine-tuned to know what minerals the colony may lack and proactively seek out nutrients in conjunction with the season when their floral diet varies.

(Phys.org)An international team of researchers has found evidence showing that maize evolved to survive in the U.S. southwest highlands thousands of years ago. In their paper published in the journal Science, the group ...

A chance discovery has opened up a new method of finding unknown viruses.

When trouble looms, the fish-scale geckos of Madagascar resort to what might seem like an extreme form of self-defensetearing out of their own skin.

Scientists have developed a computational method to detect chemical changes in DNA that highlight cell diversity and may lead to a better understanding of cancer.

A new study led by the Australian National University (ANU) has found that plants are able to forget stressful weather events to rapidly recover.

In the last 20 years, the field of animal coloration research has experienced explosive growth thanks to numerous technological advances, and it now stands on the threshold of a new era.

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Technology tracks 'bee talk' to help improve honey bee health - Phys.Org

After lagging behind other courts for years, the Supreme Court is finally catching up on a key technological feature that will be a boon to researchers, lawyers and analysts of all kinds. It's moving to adopt electronic filing.

The change will allow the public to access legal filings for all future cases free of charge. Beginning Nov. 13, the court will require parties who are represented by counsel to upload digital copies of their paper submissions. Parties representing themselves will have their filings uploaded by thecourt's staff.

All those submissions will then be entered into an online docket for each case, and they will be accessible from the court's homepage.

The move brings the Supreme Court fully into the Internet age, and it fulfills a promise outlined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. in 2014.

While courts routinely consider evidence and issue decisions concerning the latest technological advances, they have proceededcautiously when it comes to adopting new technologies in certain aspects of their own operations, he said at the time.

By as soon as 2016, Roberts said, the court would offer an online system that can handle all types of filings, including petitions, motions and briefs.

Roberts's timing, it turns out, was not far off.

Virtually all federal courts are already on board with electronic submissions. As early as 2001, some federal court documents were available over the Internet through a system known as PACER, or the Public Access to Court Electronic Records. Even before the Internet, the public could get to filings electronically by using special terminals at libraries and other institutions.

PACER has its shortcomings. It charges users a fee of $0.10 per page, which can add up if you're going through hundreds or thousands of documents. Because federal court recordsare considered public domain, those charges can also be a waste of money for researchers unaware that documents for a case have already been downloaded by somebody else and made available for sharing. To circumvent this problem, independent researchers have built their own tool, RECAP, to save people money.

But the Supreme Court tool goes further, making all its filings free. For some, that's not just a step forward it's a leapfrog ahead.

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The Supreme Court is about to become more transparent, thanks to technology - Washington Post

Teri Takai, former CIO for the U.S. Department of Defense and two of the nations largest states, will lead the Center for Digital Government (CDG)*, e.Republics national research and advisory institute on IT policy and best practices for state and local governments.

Takai brings unique skills and experience to her new role as CDGs executive director. As the first female CIO for the DoD, she spearheaded efforts to consolidate technology infrastructure and create a cybersecurity workforce strategy at the federal governments largest agency. Prior to her federal service, Takai led state government technology offices in California and Michigan.

Teris deep experience will be a huge asset to the Center for Digital Government, says Cathilea Robinett, president of e.Republic*. Her insight into technology and government is unparalleled. Theres no one better qualified to help state and local governments as they continue to deploy digital services to serve the public.

CDG is best known for its Digital States Survey, which has graded state governments on their use of technology to increase efficiency and improve services since 1998. CDG also conducts annual Digital Cities and Digital Counties surveys which benchmark technological progress in local government and advises governments and private companies on effective use of technology in the public sector.

Takai says the new role gives her a chance to help state, city and county IT leaders succeed in a time of extraordinary change and opportunity. Cloud-based technology platforms and applications give IT leaders unprecedented flexibility, she says, but they also trigger new demands.

Were rapidly leaving the world where CIOs owned their technology and could only transform at the rate they could change their physical environment, she said. Now there are so many innovative options that support rapid technology evolution. But doing this right requires effective leadership, relationships and change management.

Over her career, Takai built a reputation as one of government ITs premier change agents.

She was an early proponent of merging multiple data centers and reducing the amount of redundant technology equipment typically operated by large government organizations. Serving as CIO of Michigan from 2003 to 2007, Takai reduced the number of state data centers from 38 to three and created a centralized IT department changes that saved the state millions of dollars. In California, Takai launched a massive reorganization and consolidation of the states IT organization an effort that included reforming procurement, governance and strategy.

In addition to her government service, Takai was CIO of Meridian Health Plan, a Detroit-based health insurer, and spent 30 years at Ford Motor Company in strategic planning and global application development. She will continue to serve on the board of FirstNet, the national public safety broadband effort, in addition to her new role with CDG.

Takai succeeds longtime CDG Executive Director Todd Sander, who left in July to become CIO of the Lower Colorado River Authority in Texas.

I intend to continue the great work that the Center did under Todd, says Takai, a former Governing* Public Official of the Year and Government Technology Top 25 Doer, Dreamer and Driver. Im really looking forward to working with city, county and state colleagues, as well as our industry partners during this exciting time of digital transformation.

*The Center for Digital Government is part of e.Republic, which also is the parent company of Government Technology and Governing magazines.

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Former DoD CIO Teri Takai to Lead Center for Digital Government - Government Technology

By some measures, investors are more crowded into technology stocks than ever before.

Information technology is the best-performing sector this year. Shares of Apple just surged on its earnings Tuesday, sending the Dow Jones industrial average to new heights. And according to a new Bank of America Merrill Lynch report, mutual funds' exposure to technology reached a record "overweight" position last month.

One technical analyst says this might not be a good thing.

In fact, Rich Ross of Evercore ISI said in a recent interview that he has been recommending to clients in the last month to position themselves as underweight in technology stocks, and said a chart of one of the most popular technology exchange-traded funds, the XLK, is flashing a "very troubling sign."

Ross said he has recommended this underweight position in technology as the S&P 500 enters its worst two months of the year (August and September) with "stocks at record highs, volatility at record lows, and more importantly" what he sees as a "tactical sell signal" in a chart of the XLK.

The fund has risen nearly 19 percent this year.

"We see a false breakout to an all-time high and clear signs of exhaustion, a bearish reversal here. And once again you're looking at a potential double top at the high end of that trading range; we could just as easily go to the low end of that range where we were just a month ago. So, once again, we are poised here on the back of that resistance for weakness in technology more broadly," Ross, head of technical analysis, said Tuesday on CNBC's "Trading Nation."

"And, if we look at a subsector, let's look at the hottest subsector of technology the semiconductors," he said, referring to the SMH, a popular exchange-traded fund that tracks semiconductor stocks.

In some ways, Ross said the group is almost a bit worse off than technology. In the SMH, he sees a similar "exhaustive" reversal that he has observed recently in the XLK. Specifically, the fund failed to reach a "higher high," and as a whole the setup appears weak heading into August and September.

These signs of exhaustion in the technology space give Ross pause about the space as a whole. The XLK was trading slightly higher on Wednesday.

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As Apple surges to all-time high, analyst sees a 'very troubling sign' for technology stocks - CNBC

What do fluorescent lights that scan for Salmonella, remote sensors for testing bridge stability and a tool to identify bee mites have in common?

Theyre part of the latest crop of innovative ideas that make up the244 new inventions and 109 patent applications included in the Agriculture Departmentsannual report on technology transfer.

The report itself tries to compile new inventions, patents, technology breakthroughs, new methodologies; really the kinds of collaborations that USDA science and technology folks have with the private sector through special agreements, said acting USDA Undersecretary Ann Bartuska. So you have an incredible array of things that are in the annual report. My favorite ones happen to be the things that clearly demonstrate breakthroughs and innovations. In fact, they really do represent the range of work that happens at the 16 agencies that comprise USDA.

The report started being published within the last 20 years. Each year, theres a call for what everybody throughout the USDAand its components is working on.

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It covers the gamut of agreements like CRADAs, which are cooperative research and development agreements with the private sector. It includes patents. It includes licenses. It includes new exploratory work thats happening, said Bartuska, whois also serving asacting chief scientist for research, education and economics at USDA.So its really quite diverse in what its capturing. There is in the report tables that capture the data in those categories by agency, and then we roll it all up to one for the department.

Bartuska said this years report is pretty consistent with past years numbers of patents and inventions, though the output can be impacted by technological breakthroughs. In fiscal 2015, the report included 222 new inventions and 125 new patent applications.

For example, gene sequencing has created a whole new set of processes and products and subsequent opportunities for research and development, Bartuska said.

The outcomes that especially our intramural agencies Agricultural Research Service, Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), the Forest Service I think the work that they have done, the production of new things, has beenpretty constant over time, with some blips, Bartuska said. The genomic sequencing probably is one area. Theres been some advances inpest protection and quarantine matters, that really track where theyve had infestations, so you might be able to follow some increases and outcomesfollowing a particular pest outbreak, and then it goes back. Theres a lot of interest in disease transmission right now. If I look at that report, theres a lot on mosquitoes and transmissions.

That includes the enhancement of clothing worn by Marines to better prevent bug bites.

Bartuska said if she had to look to future reports, she would expect to see an increase in water use and drought response.

New bill would loosen restrictions on TSP withdrawals

Were really interested in reducing the amount of water used by Agriculture and being more responsible in the water that we use, Bartuska said.

She said sensor technology and the use of aerial vehicles [drones], and how those technologies can be more effective and efficient, is another area where future technology transfer reports mightshow an increased interest.

Effectiveness and efficiency are things USDA always has in mind, especially when it comes to a return on investment for taxpayers, Bartuska said.

One hundred percent of the people use our product because we produce food, Bartuska said. And so wetouch everybody, but to do it in a sustainable way, to be able to meet other peoples values on the environment and water quality, were very conscious of that. A lot of this return on investment is how you do work more efficiently, more effectively. And again, get a lot of benefit by that dollar that weve been investing.

Bartuska said according to USDA math, for every dollar invested in research and development, $20 is returned to taxpayers.

One example in the report that highlights USDAs mission is an anti-cancer drug developed by Penn State University researchers. The drug comes from parts of Omega-3 fatty acids.

The connection back to USDA is that other than not only funding good science,but Omega-3s are found in agricultural and aquacultural products, so youre extracting from one of our products into something that would then benefit human health, Bartuska said. It really does reflect that Agriculture is in part about farming, but Agriculture is so much about all kinds of food technology that we have, diseases; the diversity, again, of activities under USDA is incredibly broad.

The report also highlights the work USDA does with universities, the private sector and other agencies, Bartuska said.

Agreements with the private sector can come in the form of cooperative research and development agreements, and at some point, those products can be moved into the private sector.

In some cases, the patent would be held by us and they get exclusive license on the product, but it allows us then to form and both mutually invest in an outcome, Bartuska said. So weve really been trying to promote especially when we see the potential for a particular line of research to become a commercial activity, to build these private sector partnerships.

The report also complements the administrations Made In America, campaign, through contributing to job growth and supporting new business, especially in rural areas, Bartuska said.

Allthose products that you see in the technology transfer report, we can see them as helping to contribute to this overall Made In America process, Bartuska said. Technology transfer is all about development of a research product and then moving it to somebody to use it. It is as fine to me thata CEO of a company uses something as you [would] in your home, because hopefully what youre using is creating a better quality of life, a safer environment, a better use of resources so that were reducing waste, were reducing water consumption. So all of those things really add upto the value of what our research products can do.

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USDA creating better quality of life, safer environment through technology transfer - FederalNewsRadio.com

LONDON, Aug 2Asian technology stocks hit 17-year peaks and Wall Street's Dow index looked set to break 22,000 points later on Wednesday, as blockbuster earnings from Apple rippled out to component makers globally.

Shares in the world's most valuable company surged 6% after-hours to a record of more than $159 each, taking its market capitalization above $830 billion.

That should help carry the Dow through the 22,000 mark when trading resumes in New York. E-Mini futures for the Dow were up 0.2 percent despite a lower Europe as disappointing results from Societe Generale and Commerzbank weighed on the bank stocks.

Apple reported better-than-expected iPhone sales , revenue, and earnings per share and signaled its upcoming 10th-anniversary phone is on schedule.

It helped dispel one of the few nagging doubts of the corporate earnings season so farthat Amazons lackluster results last week might have revealed some tiredness among the giant U.S. tech and internet stocks that have been driving the stock market rally all year.

"It is all about Apple," said Naeem Aslam chief market analyst at Think Markets. "The firm comfortably topped its forecast and produced stellar numbers for its revenue and profit."

Among Asia's Apple suppliers, LG Innnotek jumped 10 percent and SK Hynix, the world's second-biggest memory chip maker, rose 3.8 percent.

Murata Manufacturing firmed 4.9 percent and Taiyo Yuden 4.4 percent, helping Tokyo's Nikkei up 0.47 percent.

The MSCI tech index for Asia also climbed 0.9 percent to ground not trod since early 2000, bringing its gains for the year to a heady 40 percent.

Those gains balanced losses in basic materials and energy to leave MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan steady near its highest since late 2007.

There was a note of caution over reports that U.S. President Donald Trump was close to a decision on how to respond to what he considers China's unfair trade practices.

Tepid U.S. inflation along with political turmoil in Washington has lessened the possibility of another Federal Reserve rate hike this year, lowering bond yields across the globe.

Improving data in other major economies has also served to push the greenback down nearly 11 percent from January peaks, benefiting commodities and emerging markets.

A swathe of manufacturing surveys (PMIs) out on Tuesday had underlined how the improvement in activity had broadened out from the United States to Asia and Europe.

Alan Ruskin, head of G10 forex at Deutsche Bank, noted the top five PMIs were all Northern European economies and every index in Europe was now in expansionary territory above 50.

"That will do nothing to hurt ebullient global risk appetite," said Ruskin. "This phase of the risk rally is based on growth data, but even more on subdued inflation measures."

MSCI's gauge of stocks across the globe was just below an all-time peak.

On Wall Street later electric car maker Tesla, gadget firm Fitbit and insurance provider AIG will report results.

In currency markets, the dollar index was stuck at just under 93, after touching 92.777, the lowest since early May 2016. It was aided by gains on a softer yen which saw it creep to 110.80.

Yet the euro also benefited from buying against the yen , reaching its highest since February last year. It nudged up against the dollar and Swiss Franc too, briefly striking new 2-1/2-year highs against both at $1.1846 and 1.1468 francs per euro respectively.

Euro zone June producer price inflation data helped it on its way as it topped analysts' forecasts. There was a slowdown in the pace overall, but it bolstered bets that the European Central Bank could soon start winding down its more than 2-trillion-euro stimulus program.

"The ECB is going to be the central bank to watch for the rest of the year," said JP Morgan Asset Management global market strategist Alex Dryden.

"We think they are going to take 9-12 months to get out of the market but that is a big question ... it could even be six months," he added.

Bond markets were largely quiet, with the premiums investors demand to hold South European government debt over the German equivalent close to their lowest levels in weeks and both 2- and 10-year U.S. Treasury yields barely budged.

In emerging markets, MSCI's EM stocks index was near a three-year high. India's central bank became the first in Asia to cut interest rates this year, while Venezuela's bonds continued to slid amid rising political tensions there around President Nicolas Maduro.

Oil prices were under pressure again too amid rising U.S. fuel inventories and as major world producers kept pumping, causing investors to worry that several weeks of steady gains had pushed the rally too far.

Brent crude eased to $51.80 a barrel, while U.S. crude lost 8 cents to $49.07.

(Additional reporting by Wayne Cole in Sydney; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

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Asian Technology Stocks Just Hit 17-year Peaks - Fortune

Jack Hogan CTO Lifescript

For pharmaceutical companies, deploying programmatic technology is a sticky subject. Because of strict privacy and patient protection laws, pharma companies are limited in how they can target individual consumers, which makes programmatic advertising more of a guessing game. But that doesnt mean it cant be done. Jack Hogan, CTO at medical publisher Lifescript, spoke with eMarketers Maria Minsker about how pharma companies can use publishers data to leverage programmatic technology.

eMarketer: How can medical publishers create proxy audiences to power programmatic technology for pharma brands?

Jack Hogan: Medical publishers have vast audiences of opt-in consumers with targetable IDs and declared health interests. Were talking about first-party data, not third-party health and medical data, which is inaccurate 50% of the time. By decoupling that first-party, declared health data from any private information, publishers enable brands to reach desired audiences with specific medical interests across the entire ad ecosystemwithout breaking any HIPAA rules.

Publishers are able to create segments of users interested in certain conditions, and feed these audience sets to pharma companies.

eMarketer: How does this make it possible for pharmaceutical companies to leverage programmatic advertising technology?

Hogan: While the guidelines for HIPAA are very stringent and strict when it comes to the type of data that can be accessed and shared, medical publishers typically dont touch any medical records or confidential medical data. Rather, publishers have access to declared interest in specific conditions or symptoms, which falls under other guidelines. As a result, publishers are able to create segments of users interested in certain conditions, and feed these audience sets to pharma companies through programmatic pipelines for ad targeting.

Plus, once a publisher zeros in on a users interests and pinpoints that users identity using a primary identifier such as an email address, that anonymized identity can then be extended to a mobile device for programmatic advertising via mobile as well.

eMarketer: Can you share an example of how a brand might work with a publisher to target a specific audience segment using programmatic technology?

Hogan: Lets say a statin drug manufacturer is looking to target people who have high cholesterol with a marketing campaign. A publisher can create a segment of people who have self-identified as showing interest in this topic while engaging with the publishers site. The publisher can then make that segment available to the advertiser through a programmatic pipeline, enabling them to work with their technology vendors to target that segment through programmatic display, video or mobile advertising.

There are some marketers in the space who dont understand the marketing technology requirements for handling private data.

eMarketer: Are enough pharmaceutical marketers taking advantage of programmatic advertising, or are they missing an opportunity when it comes to health data?

Hogan: There are some marketers in the space who dont understand the marketing technology requirements for handling private data. For example, all user data should be de-identified, and not tied back to an individual. Personal health data like that should not be used in any marketing or advertising efforts. Marketers should be using smart tools that can decouple data from individuals identifiers, starting at the point of opt-in through collection and use.

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Pharmaceutical Brands Can Use Programmatic Technology, Too - eMarketer