Tuesday, March 20, 2018

Not guilty? Should self-driving cars be required to “see in the dark?”
Exclusive: Tempe police chief says early probe shows no fault by Uber
Pushing a bicycle laden with plastic shopping bags, a woman abruptly walked from a center median into a lane of traffic and was struck by a self-driving Uber operating in autonomous mode.
… Traveling at 38 mph in a 35 mph zone on Sunday night, the Uber self-driving car made no attempt to brake, according to the Police Department’s preliminary investigation.
… The self-driving Volvo SUV was outfitted with at least two video cameras, one facing forward toward the street
… From viewing the videos, “it’s very clear it would have been difficult to avoid this collision in any kind of mode (autonomous or human-driven) based on how she came from the shadows right into the roadway,” Moir said. The police have not released the videos.
… “I suspect preliminarily it appears that the Uber would likely not be at fault in this accident, either,” Moir said.
However, if Uber is found responsible, that could open a legal quagmire.
“I won’t rule out the potential to file charges against the (backup driver) in the Uber vehicle,” Moir said.
But if the robot car itself were found at fault? “This is really new ground we’re venturing into,” she said.


(Related) Instant commentary.
Self-Driving Cars Still Don't Know How to See
Cars don’t see well
Autonomous cars don’t track the center line of the street well on ill-maintained roads. They can’t operate on streets where the line markings are worn away—as on many of the streets in New York City. These cars also don’t operate in snow and other bad weather because they can’t “see” in these conditions. A LIDAR guidance system doesn’t work well in the rain or snow or dust because its beams bounce off the particles in the air instead of bouncing off obstacles like bicyclists.




For my Computer Security students.
John Amabile and Micheal Binns of Parker Poe Adams & Bernstein write:
A change in emphasis in disputes over data security breaches is coming. To date, the focus has been on issues and potential damages arising from the breach itself and the subsequent loss of private, personal information. In light of recognized delays from both Equifax and Uber, combined with the confusing array of breach notification responsibilities, we believe 2018 will see a growing emphasis on disputes arising from a corporation’s delay in notifying the public, the affected individuals and regulatory bodies about the breach.
Read more on Law.com Daily Report.




Implications for my Software Architecture students? Sounds like they are rather low on the Maturity Model.
Why Process Is U.S. Health Care’s Biggest Problem
… It only takes 10 minutes of direct observation of a nurse in a hospital to understand care-delivery processes are not standardized and are dependent on individuals, not systems. This lack of reproducibility leads to errors. Since every caregiver does it his or her own way, it’s difficult to improve anything. Stable systems that are reproducible are required to deliver consistently high quality. Industrial companies figured this out 50 years ago. The writings of manufacturing gurus Imai and Shingo provide insight into how quality is built into processes. A process must first be stabilized then standardized before being improved. Because few standardized processes exist in care delivery there are many possibilities for error. That’s why simply making a poor process electronic by implementing an electronic health record (EHR) doesn’t lead to better quality or cost.
When it comes to change, the technology is the easiest part. Most health systems in America have or are implementing the EHR. And the vendor processes for implementation have become very good. The hard part is to get the doctors, nurses, and administrators to agree on what is the best way to deliver the care. Since the doctors control most care decisions, the rest of the provider team follows the doctors’ lead. If the doctor wants to do things a certain way, that’s what is done. The problem is the next doctor wants it his way and so on.




My students should think about what Gartner is saying.
Gartner issues four-part prescription for data and analytics leaders
“It's such a consequential time to be a data and analytics leader," said Rita Sallam, research vice president at Gartner and master of ceremonies of the recent Gartner Data & Analytics Summit 2018 event. Consequential because companies deemed info-savvy are valued at nearly twice the market average, she said, citing Gartner research. And consequential because data, as regarded by the information experts attending the event, is under attack.
"Just as fake news became a viable political weapon – and make no mistake, fake news is fake data, which makes it our problem – ensuring data quality, providing a foundation of trust, just became job No. 1 for everyone in this room," Sallam said.
… Sallam and her Gartner colleagues warned attendees they must overcome four "tough challenges" as they strive to help their companies capitalize on data. To succeed, they will have to:
  1. Establish trust in the data;
  2. Promote diversity – of people and skills, as well as types of data;
  3. Manage complexity through automation; and
  4. Develop data literacy programs.




How to learn what your citizens are talking about? Telegram Secret Chats are one-on-one chats wherein messages are encrypted with a key held only by the chat’s participants. Secret Chats is different from what is used for cloud chats
Telegram Must Give FSB Encryption Keys: Russian Court
Russia's Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled the popular Telegram messenger app must provide the country's security services with encryption keys to read users' messaging data, agencies reported.
Media watchdog Roskomnadzor instructed Telegram to "provide the FSB with the necessary information to decode electronic messages received, transmitted, or being sent" within 15 days, it said on its website.
Telegram had appealed against an earlier ruling that it must share this information, but this appeal was rejected on Tuesday.
If it does not provide the keys it could be blocked in Russia.
Durov wrote last year that the FSB's demands are "technically impossible to carry out" and violate the Russian Constitution which entitles citizens to privacy of correspondence.
Tuesday's ruling is the latest move in a dispute between Telegram and the Russian authorities as Moscow pushes to increase surveillance of internet activities.




Because we need more data?
IBM working on ‘world’s smallest computer’ to attach to just about everything
IBM is hard at work on the problem of ubiquitous computing, and its approach, understandably enough, is to make a computer small enough that you might mistake it for a grain of sand.
It’s an evolution of IBM’s “crypto anchor” program, which uses a variety of methods to create what amounts to high-tech watermarks for products that verify they’re, for example, from the factory the distributor claims they are, and not counterfeits mixed in with genuine items.
The “world’s smallest computer,” as IBM continually refers to it, is meant to bring blockchain capability into this; the security advantages of blockchain-based logistics and tracking could be brought to something as benign as a bottle of wine or box of cereal.
In addition to getting the computers extra-tiny, IBM intends to make them extra-cheap, perhaps 10 cents apiece.




Perspective.
More than half of US homes now subscribe to a streaming service, spending $2.1 billion a month
Deloitte found in its 12th annual digital media trends survey that the percentage of American households that subscribe to a streaming service has grown to 55 percent. Last year, the firm reported that 49 percent of households reported at least one video subscription service.
Kevin Westcott, vice chairman and U.S. media and entertainment leader at Deloitte, told CNBC that exclusive original content is a major driver for customers when they're choosing subscriptions. In its survey of 2,088 consumers, Deloitte said more than half of current streaming customers chose to subscribe to a service based on access to exclusive content.




Worth browsing?
MIT SMR Unlocked for All Visitors
In celebration of growth, please enjoy full access to the MIT SMR site on March 20 and 21.


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