Outgoing U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman asked the International Trade Commission to do investigations of business-to-business and business-to-consumer digital technologies developed for overseas sale, including the IoT, cloud and software, in a letter to the ITC released Tuesday. He asked the ITC to review: the broad landscape and recent developments of B2B digital technology principally used by the private sector; foreign market policies that affect U.S. firms’ overseas supplies of B2B digital products and services; and foreign measures that affect international inventories of U.S. firms’ business-to-consumer digital products and services. The investigations would help the Office of USTR evaluate ways companies and workers use the internet and related data networks to ship innovative products and services overseas, and will help the agency assess the impact of trade barriers on manufactured goods trade powered by data networks and digitally enabled services, Froman said. He asked the ITC to complete the first report by Aug. 30, the second report by Oct. 29, 2018, and the third report by March 30, 2019. USTR plans to make the first report public and Froman asked that it not contain confidential business or national security classified information, and asked the ITC to make portions of the second and third reports confidential for 10 years, where warranted.

The FTC will hold a FinTech forum March 9 at the University of California-Berkeley focused on consumer implications for artificial intelligence and blockchain technologies, said the commission in Friday news release. AI may be used to provide personalized financial services for consumers, while blockchain, which is a foundation for digital currency, may be used for payment systems, among other applications, said the FTC. The half-day free event will convene consumer groups, government representatives and researchers to study ways in which the technologies are used to offer consumer services, and their benefits and implications.

Reps. Suzan DelBene, D-Wash., and Darrell Issa, R-Calif., who formed the Congressional Caucus on the Internet of Things two years ago (see 1501130038), said during a C-SPAN interview that House members are more knowledgeable about the technology but unaware of the growth rate and challenges faced. The IoT must be multi-jurisdictional and that means actively recruiting lawmakers from several committees, including the House Commerce Committee, to work together and ensure that any legislation that reaches the floor won't have huge opposition, said Issa. DelBene said members should understand the IoT's use in infrastructure and be reminded of consumer protection, interoperability and privacy and security. In the interview for a segment of C-SPAN's The Communicators, which was to have been televised Saturday, both also said the Email Privacy Act, which updates the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act, is again a priority of theirs. DelBene said ECPA was written when people didn't use email to communicate. "We need to update our laws so that we have a warrant standard for all information," she said. The House last year unanimously passed the bill, which never advanced out of the Senate Judiciary Committee. It was reintroduced recently (see 1701090017 and 1701100071). Issa also brought up the government's fight with Apple over unlocking the iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino, California, mass shooters. "It created a question that hadn't been a question before about privacy," said Issa. "If you ask someone to break into a safe to get documents that's a reasonable thing to do. If you design a safe that's not safe, there's a question." He also cited the Arkansas murder investigation case in which police are seeking voice recordings captured on an Amazon Echo device (see 1701060025). DelBene and Issa are both members of the House Judiciary Committee, which jointly issued a report with the House Commerce Committee, against weakening encryption (see 1612200073 and 1612210005).

The federal government should take additional steps to encourage IoT growth, including creating a multistakeholder process to identify related policy challenges, NTIA said Thursday in a green paper. NTIA had been collecting stakeholders' feedback on IoT issues since April, though some critics suggested in comments the agency's investigation into those issues was a waste of time (see 1606060042). Stakeholders identified multiple challenges and barriers to IoT growth during a September event, suggesting the federal government employ only a light regulatory touch (see 1609010063). NTIA said it “heard a strong message from the submitted comments that coordination among U.S. government partners would be helpful, because of the complex, interdisciplinary, cross-sector nature of IoT. A federal coordination structure for these issues may also be helpful when working with international and private sector partners.” The Department of Commerce can promote IoT advancement through its own usage of the technology, and highlight its benefits to foreign partners, NTIA said. Commerce can encourage global development of technical standards on the IoT to ensure interoperability and advance tech development, NTIA said. The department should examine “removing barriers” to IoT innovation and promote norms that will protect the technology's users, NTIA said. Commerce also should enable the allocation of spectrum and other infrastructure developments to support IoT growth, NTIA said. The IoT “promises to revolutionize our world from increasing efficiency and convenience for industry, consumers, and government to improving safety,” said Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker in a news release. “Today’s report affirms the Department’s commitment to creating the conditions for emerging technologies to thrive, and it identifies future actions necessary to support the evolution and expansion of the IoT.” NTIA said it planned to publish a request for comment on the green paper in Friday's Federal Register. NTIA “has built a strong case for a proactive and coordinated effort throughout the federal government to support [IoT] on a national scale,” said Information Technology and Innovation Foundation Center for Data Innovation Director Daniel Castro in a statement: “Because of the unique characteristics of [IoT], including its potential scale and scope, the United States will not be able to capture the full social and economic benefits of the technology without a concerted effort from policymakers throughout government to promote the development of the technology. We hope this report builds further momentum for Congress to move forward with establishing a national strategy” for IoT.

Uber will be introducing a website with "anonymized and aggregated" trip data from the 450 cities it serves to better help transportation planners deal with infrastructure needs, wrote Jordan Gilbertson, product manager, and Andrew Salzberg, head of transportation policy, in a Sunday blog post. By analyzing trips over time, the firm can provide estimates for how long it takes to get from one place to another, they wrote. "We can compare travel conditions across different times of day, days of the week, or months of the year -- and how travel times are impacted by big events, road closures or other things happening in a city." The company will work with planning agencies and researchers over the next several weeks to access the data on the website called "Movement," they said. The website will soon be available to the public, they added.

Ixia and K2 are collaborating on a solution targeting appliance manufacturers, giving them an on-ramp to the IoT, said the companies in a Monday announcement. K2’s IoT platform allows equipment makers to build IoT applications that can monitor, analyze and visualize data in real time and provide controllable actions that make use of the data, it said. K2 is using Ixia’s test solution to qualify wireless chipsets for IoT deployments and test IoT devices. The integration of the two platforms, scheduled for availability this quarter, will enable K2 OEM customers to cost effectively add Wi-Fi to mainstream products, said the companies. Analytics on performance and insights into failures will enable vendors and OEM partners to identify potential performance issues and evaluate their final products before deployment, they said. The companies cited Markets and Markets research pegging the smart home appliance market at $37.2 billion by 2020.

The IoT provides many benefits, but there are "existential dangers" such as erosion of privacy, wrote Mozilla Foundation Executive Director Mark Surman in a Thursday blog post. "Legions of connected microphones and cameras unknowingly track our movements and conversations," he wrote. "Governments surveil citizens en masse, and profit-minded businesses horde personal data. IoT also means more vulnerabilities, from the recent Dyn attack (see 1610210056) to the hacking of elections" (see 1612290040). Surman said there's "an opportunity to head off future dangers proactively" and "IoT will be the first big battle of 2017." He co-wrote a paper, issued in October by the NetGain Partnership, a coalition of philanthropic organizations, including the Ford, Knight, MacArthur and Open Society foundations and Mozilla. The paper outlines six principles, from an open and free internet to digital security. The partnership will issue several papers and host discussions over the next year on how it can address IoT challenges.

To help address security vulnerabilities from outdated software in consumer IoT devices, the FTC is offering a $25,000 cash prize for the best technical solution, said the agency in a Wednesday news release. Contestants can develop a physical device, which consumers can plug into their home networks to check for and install updates, or an app or cloud-based service, dashboard or other interface, the commission said. Contestants can also add features that "address hard-coded, factory default or easy-to-guess passwords," it added. “Consumers want these devices to be secure, so we’re asking for creativity from the public -- the tinkerers, thinkers and entrepreneurs -- to help them keep device software up-to-date,” said Consumer Protection Bureau Director Jessica Rich. Submissions are due May 22. Winners will be announced around July 27. An NTIA multistakeholder group is also addressing the issue of IoT security upgrades and patching (see 1610190051).

More investment in "hybrid infrastructure" -- tying physical structures with technology such as water mains embedded with internet-connected sensors to detect leaks or smart traffic lights to create more efficient transportation -- is "likely to have bigger productivity payoffs than simply pouring more concrete or laying pipe," the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation said in a Tuesday report. Written by Peter Singer, a policy adviser at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Washington office, the ITIF report said studies showed "investments in IT-enabled infrastructure can have 60 percent greater productivity impacts than investments in roads alone." The report said a smart infrastructure is one part of an "innovation infrastructure" that President-elect Donald Trump, who emphasized investing in physical infrastructure during his campaign, should adopt. That means expanding public and private R&D investments, advanced technology like exascale computing, scientific infrastructure and advanced manufacturing, it said.

Results of a national survey determining the country’s “sleep score” will be released at the Digital Health Summit at CES on Jan. 6, said a blog post by celebrity physician Mehmet Oz on the CTA website Tuesday. The survey, launched Oct. 20 and backed by Oz, ResMed and Six Senses Hotels Resorts Spas, had a goal of building more than 1.5 million records of data to assess the nation’s sleep fitness in the form of a national sleep score. Early data from the SleepScore campaign indicate Americans are sleep deprived and “more stressed out” in the time since the Nov. 8 election than at other times in two years of baseline data, said Oz. After a “significant spike in stress levels” and reduced sleep time since election night, Americans in the Eastern and Western time zones “have not returned to normal sleeping patterns,” Oz said. The study used data from ResMed S+ sleep tracking devices and the company’s SleepScore technology, which monitors and calculates the four stages of sleep (onset, light, deep and rapid eye movement), sleep duration, nightly awakenings, and light and temperature levels in order to assign users a nightly “SleepScore” as a metric of individual sleeping patterns. “If America improved its SleepScore collectively, there would be more productivity and better health overall,” said Oz, who will speak at “Confronting the Sleep Epidemic Head-On,” at 11:30 a.m. in Lando 4303 at the Venetian.