The patent system is badly in need of reform:
For inventors, patents are an essential protection against theft. But when patent trolls abuse the system by stockpiling patents and threatening lawsuits, businesses are forced to shell out tons of money.
It has finally happened:
In a world first, Chinese scientists have reported editing the genomes of human embryos. The results are published in the online journal Protein & Cell and confirm widespread rumours that such experiments had been conducted—rumours that sparked a high-profile debate last month about the ethical implications of such work.
In the paper, researchers led by Junjiu Huang, a gene-function researcher at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, tried to head off such concerns by using 'non-viable' embryos, which cannot result in a live birth, that were obtained from local fertility clinics. The team attempted to modify the gene responsible for β-thalassaemia, a potentially fatal blood disorder, using a gene-editing technique known as CRISPR/Cas9. The researchers say that their results reveal serious obstacles to using the method in medical applications.
...and much more, as vehicles, gadgets, even clothing becomes computerized and Internet-friendly.
What this all means is that we have to start thinking about the security of the Internet of Things--whether the issue in question is today's airplanes or tomorrow's smart clothing. We can't repeat the mistakes of the early days of the PC and then the Internet, where we initially ignored security and then spent years playing catch-up. We have to build security into everything that is going to be connected to the Internet.
This is going to require both significant research and major commitments by companies. It's also going to require legislation mandating certain levels of security on devices connecting to the Internet, and at network providers that make the Internet work. This isn't something the market can solve on its own, because there are just too many incentives to ignore security and hope that someone else will solve it.
That last sentence is the kicker. We've seen the largest companies almost completely ignore security basics over just the past few years (e.g., the Target credit card breach), even companies whose services are almost entirely online (LinkedIn). Once damn near everything is connected to the Internet, new forms of catastrophe are possible, ones we can control, if enough of society cares.
The future of local news looks bleak. I hope this is a temporary trend, that local reporting can adapt to the Internet age.
One of today’s Pulitzer winners for local reporting isn’t actually a reporter anymore.
The Daily Breeze’s Rob Kuznia won the prize alongside Rebecca Kimitch for a series on corruption in the Torrance, California school district. Now the former reporter, who had more than 15 years’ experience covering local affairs, is celebrating the career high in his new job... as a publicist.
A growing number of political committees known as super PACs have become instruments of single donors, according to a ProPublica analysis of federal records. During the 2014 election cycle, $113 million – 16 percent of money raised by all super PACs – went to committees dominated by one donor. That was quadruple their 2012 share.
The rise of single-donor groups is a new example of how changes in campaign finance law are giving outsized influence to a handful of funders.
...
Beyond the single-donor groups, big donations are dominant across all kinds of super PACs, according to the analysis. Six-figure contributions from individuals or organizations accounted for almost 50 percent of all super PAC money raised during the last two cycles.
“We are anointing an aristocracy that’s getting a stronger and stronger grip on democracy,” said Miles Rapoport, president of Common Cause, an advocacy group that seeks to reduce the influence of money on politics.
ProPublica’s analysis identified 59 super PACs that received at least 80 percent of their funding from one individual during the 2014 cycle. They raised a total of $113 million, compared with the $33 million raised by the 34 such groups that existed in 2012.
Well, this isn't good:
Corporations now spend about $2.6 billion a year on reported lobbying expenditures – more than the $2 billion we spend to fund the House ($1.16 billion) and Senate ($820 million).
Those numbers come from political scientist Lee Drutman, author of the book The Business of America Is Lobbying, who notes, over email, that they've fallen slightly out of date. In 2014 the House's operating budget was $1.18 billion, and the Senate's operating budget was $860 million. That pays for, among other things, all congressional staff. Add in the funds for the Congressional Budget Office and the Congressional Research Service — the two most important agencies meant to inform members of Congress about the issues corporate America is lobbying them on — and you've added another $150 million to the tab.
Which is to say, Drutman's point stands: businesses* are spending more money lobbying the House and Senate than taxpayers are spending running the House and Senate and informing its members. And that should scare you, for two reasons...
U.S. intelligence document obtained by The Interceptconfirms that the sprawling U.S. military base in Ramstein, Germany serves as the high-tech heart of America’s drone program. Ramstein is the site of a satellite relay station that enables drone operators in the American Southwest to communicate with their remote aircraft in Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan and other targeted countries. The top-secret slide deck, dated July 2012, provides the most detailed blueprint seen to date of the technical architecture used to conduct strikes with Predator and Reaper drones.
Spurred by Sunday’s migrant disaster, which authorities feared would be the deadliest ever in the Mediterranean Sea, the European Union on Monday vowed to ramp up lifesaving search-and-rescue operations even as more rickety vessels bound for Europe fell into distress.
In a candid mea culpa, European officials conceded that they had acted too slowly to address what has become a mounting humanitarian emergency on the continent’s southern flank. They announced a 10-point proposal to shore up its refugee management system, including an effort to seize and destroy the ships used by migrant traffickers.
...
The dangerous journeys from North Africa and elsewhere have gone on for years, but now a surge is unfolding. Officials estimate that as many as 1 million migrants are bottlenecked in lawless Libya, having arrived there from pockets of misery and conflict in Africa, the Middle East and beyond.
The number of migrants crossing the Mediterranean rose sharply last year to more than 220,000, with the majority arriving in Italy, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. This month alone, more than 13,300 migrants have arrived — a number roughly equal to the first three months of the year combined.
The death toll has also jumped. Even before Sunday’s disaster, 950 migrants had died in the central Mediterranean this year, compared with only 50 during the same period last year, the U.N. refugee agency said.