About one-third of U.S. employees, 51 million, worked remotely in 2019, NTIA said Thursday in initial results on internet use. The survey was done in November.
Silicon Labs hardware and software got IoT security certifications from PSA Certified and the ioXt Alliance, said the company Wednesday. Its Secure Vault, a set of security features designed to guard against IoT security threats in connected devices, will be available in the company’s multiprotocol wireless SoCs, due Sept. 9, it said. The EFR32MG21B SoC is the first radio to get PSA Certified Level 2 accreditation for providing protection against scalable software attacks, said Andy Rose, chief system architect. Silicon Labs' xG22 Thunderbird and EFR32MG21B development kits got SmartCert security certification status from the ioXt Alliance. IoT security threats are “continuously evolving, and the demands on IoT product developers to keep up can be difficult -- particularly in low cost, resource-constrained IoT products,” said Matt Johnson, senior vice president-IoT. Customer data and cloud-based business models are “increasingly targeted for costly hacks, and IoT security requirements are quickly becoming law.”
Customs and Border Protection should update and make privacy notices available for its face-scanning technology, GAO recommended Wednesday. CBP’s privacy notices aren’t always available where the technology is used or online, GAO said, noting CBP deployed the equipment in at least 27 U.S. airports. The Department of Homeland Security concurred with the recommendation.
A new family of integrated power management ICs from Dialog Semiconductor is designed to meet power and thermal efficiency requirements of in-cabin automotive electronics systems, including infotainment, navigation, telemetry and advanced drive assistance systems, said the company Monday. The DC-DC converters are said to require fewer external components than competing systems.
President Donald Trump’s social media executive order violates platforms’ First Amendment protections “to curate and fact-check content and ensure that accurate information ... is not undermined by misinformation on their platforms,” advocates argued in a lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California Thursday (see 2008040059). Common Cause, Rock the Vote, Voto Latino, Free Press and MapLight filed the lawsuit. “Users have rights to receive accurate information without this kind of government interference,” Common Cause Special Adviser Michael Copps said. DOJ didn’t comment.
Instacart charged Washington, D.C., residents “millions of dollars in deceptive service fees” and failed to pay “hundreds of thousands of dollars in District sales tax,” D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine alleged in a lawsuit Thursday. For 18 months, the grocery delivery app “failed to clearly disclose to consumers that optional service fees were added on their bills and led them to believe these fees were tips for their delivery workers,” Racine alleged in a D.C. Superior Court filing, noting the fees didn’t increase employee pay. Customer transparency is “incredibly important,” an Instacart spokesperson emailed, saying service fees are clearly marked. Racine’s complaint is without merit, the company said: “We’re disappointed with today's action by D.C. Attorney General Racine’s office and we welcome the opportunity to continue an open dialogue on these matters.”
Most annual fees for telemarketers accessing phone numbers on the FTC’s National Do Not Call Registry will increase “slightly” for fiscal 2021, the agency announced Wednesday with a proposed Federal Register notice. Telemarketers would pay $66 for yearly access to registry “numbers in a single area code,” an increase of $1 from 2020, the agency said. The max charge for entities accessing all area codes nationwide will increase from $17,765 to $18,044 in 2021. Telemarketers will pay $33, an increase from $32 in 2020, to access “an additional area code for a half year,” the FTC said. The commission voted 3-0-2, with Commissioners Rebecca Kelly Slaughter and Christine Wilson not voting. Slaughter is on maternity leave and Wilson is on temporary medical leave, a spokesperson said.
The U.S. will spend more than $1 billion to establish 12 artificial intelligence and quantum information science (QIS) research institutes, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy announced Wednesday (see 1911200040). The investment will create seven National Science Foundation AI Research Institutes and five Energy Department QIS Research Centers over five years. The University of Oklahoma; University of Texas at Austin; University of Colorado Boulder; University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; University of California, Davis and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology will host the AI Research Institutes. DOE’s Argonne, Brookhaven, Fermi, Oak Ridge and Lawrence Berkeley National laboratories will help establish the QIS Research Centers. “Emerging technologies like AI and QIS will lead to transformative benefits for the American people in healthcare, communications, manufacturing, agriculture, transportation, security, and beyond,” said U.S. Chief Technology Officer Michael Kratsios and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Chris Liddell in a joint statement.
Ongoing participation and development of international standards topped the security and privacy agenda for the National Institute of Standards and Technology in 2019, the agency reported Tuesday. The 2019 NIST/Information Technology Laboratory Cybersecurity Program Annual Report outlines NIST’s research agenda. Enhancement of privacy and security risk management models, “advancement of cryptographic technologies” and “preparation for post-quantum cryptographic methods” were included on the agenda. NIST also highlighted the goal to improve “infrastructure protection in areas such as zero trust architectures and advanced networking security.”
Walmart scheduled an online wellness event Friday-Sunday to give consumers tips on improving their nutritional, heart and mental health, it said Monday. As part of the three-day event, singer Patti LaBelle will discuss how to manage diabetes through diet and exercise; Univision medical correspondent Juan Rivera will discuss ways to lower blood pressure; and Christine Crawford, assistant psychiatry professor at Boston University, will address managing anxiety. The goal is to help customers improve their health from home, said Walmart Chief Medical Officer Tom Van Gilder. Walmart operates 4,700 pharmacies nationwide.