Most U.S. manufacturers are stagnating in the initial stages of smart manufacturing technology adoption, the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation reported Monday. Nearly 80 percent of small U.S. manufacturers “lack plans to implement Internet of Things applications over the next three years,” they said. U.S. manufacturers should leverage “smart, cyber-physical systems that combine model-based definitions, an end-to-end digital thread, modeling and simulation, the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence and machine learning, and seamless supply chain collaboration,” ITIF President Robert Atkinson and Vice President-Global Innovation Policy Stephen Ezell said with Korea Institute for Industrial Economics and Trade Executive Director-Center for Global Industrial Strategies Inchul Kim and institute fellow Jaehan Cho.

Tech interests virtually struck out in their attempts to persuade U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to spare their products and components from a second tranche of 25 percent Trade Act Section 301 tariffs on imports from China. Despite heavy industry lobbying to exclude semiconductors and other key parts from the second round of new levies, the list Lighthizer released Tuesday contains 279 tariff lines of goods worth about $16 billion in trade value, a mere 2 percent reduction from 284 lines in the originally proposed list released June 15 (see 1806150030). The new tariffs will take effect Aug. 23, said Lighthizer, who soon will announce a "process" for seeking exclusions from the new duties.

Tech interests virtually struck out in their attempts to persuade U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to spare their products and components from a second tranche of 25 percent Trade Act Section 301 tariffs on imports from China. Despite heavy industry lobbying to exclude semiconductors and other key parts from the second round of new levies, the list Lighthizer released Tuesday contains 279 tariff lines of goods worth about $16 billion in trade value, a mere 2 percent reduction from 284 lines in the originally proposed list released June 15 (see 1806150030). The new tariffs will take effect Aug. 23, said Lighthizer, who soon will announce a "process" for seeking exclusions from the new duties.

Tech interests virtually struck out in their attempts to persuade U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to spare their products and components from a second tranche of 25 percent Trade Act Section 301 tariffs on imports from China. Despite heavy industry lobbying to exclude semiconductors and other key parts from the second round of new levies, the list Lighthizer released Tuesday contains 279 tariff lines of goods worth about $16 billion in trade value, a mere 2 percent reduction from 284 lines in the originally proposed list released June 15 (see 1806150030). The new tariffs will take effect Aug. 23, said Lighthizer, who soon will announce a "process" for seeking exclusions from the new duties.

The American Civil Liberties Union’s “flawed” methodology in criticizing Amazon’s Rekognition for racial bias was a setback for legitimate use of facial identification (see 1807270040), blogged Information Technology and Innovation Foundation Vice President Daniel Castro and Research Assistant Michael McLaughlin Monday. “It is unclear what error rate and level of bias groups such as the ACLU are willing to accept,” they wrote. “The standard should not be perfection, but rather better than the rates humans achieve today. And by that metric, facial recognition technology is clearly a positive step forward.” Amazon says ACLU’s results could be improved by following best practices on boosting confidence thresholds from 80 to 95 percent.

The American Civil Liberties Union’s “flawed” methodology in criticizing Amazon’s Rekognition for racial bias was a setback for legitimate use of facial identification (see 1807270040), blogged Information Technology and Innovation Foundation Vice President Daniel Castro and Research Assistant Michael McLaughlin Monday. “It is unclear what error rate and level of bias groups such as the ACLU are willing to accept,” they wrote. “The standard should not be perfection, but rather better than the rates humans achieve today. And by that metric, facial recognition technology is clearly a positive step forward.” Amazon says ACLU’s results could be improved by following best practices on boosting confidence thresholds from 80 to 95 percent.

The American Civil Liberties Union’s “flawed” methodology in criticizing Amazon’s Rekognition for racial bias was a setback for legitimate use of facial identification (see 1807270040), blogged Information Technology and Innovation Foundation Vice President Daniel Castro and Research Assistant Michael McLaughlin Monday. “It is unclear what error rate and level of bias groups such as the ACLU are willing to accept,” they wrote. “The standard should not be perfection, but rather better than the rates humans achieve today. And by that metric, facial recognition technology is clearly a positive step forward.” Amazon says ACLU’s results could be improved by following best practices on boosting confidence thresholds from 80 to 95 percent.

The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation urged Congress Monday not to enact a ban on paid prioritization as part of a net neutrality legislative compromise. The issue has been a sticking point in the search for a compromise, with two net neutrality bills taking opposing positions. The Open Internet Preservation Act (HR-4682) doesn't include language on paid prioritization, while the more recent 21st Century Internet Act (HR-6393) would ban the practice (see 1712220043 and 1807170048). "Prioritization is not a zero-sum game," ITIF said. "It is possible to both see a benefit without an offsetting loss, and maintain the characteristic openness of the Internet that has generated so much innovation in recent decades, while also allowing for traffic differentiation that enables new, real-time applications with very strict performance requirements." There should be room for "specialized services' that run over the same infrastructure as the Internet," ITIF said. "With simple governance rules and ongoing oversight, a non-neutral network can unlock new, real-time services without harming general best-effort traffic."

The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation urged Congress Monday not to enact a ban on paid prioritization as part of a net neutrality legislative compromise. The issue has been a sticking point in the search for a compromise, with two net neutrality bills taking opposing positions. The Open Internet Preservation Act (HR-4682) doesn't include language on paid prioritization, while the more recent 21st Century Internet Act (HR-6393) would ban the practice (see 1712220043 and 1807170048). "Prioritization is not a zero-sum game," ITIF said. "It is possible to both see a benefit without an offsetting loss, and maintain the characteristic openness of the Internet that has generated so much innovation in recent decades, while also allowing for traffic differentiation that enables new, real-time applications with very strict performance requirements." There should be room for "specialized services' that run over the same infrastructure as the Internet," ITIF said. "With simple governance rules and ongoing oversight, a non-neutral network can unlock new, real-time services without harming general best-effort traffic."

Lawmakers can't ignore cost to innovation when considering stringent privacy regulations, said the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation Wednesday. Senior Policy Analyst Alan McQuinn and Vice President Daniel Castro said that if European digital advertising revenue grew at the same rate as in the U.S., the EU, where "strict privacy regulations reduce the revenue digital companies can earn from online ads," would have had an additional 11.7 billion euros flow through its digital ecosystem 2012-17. The report suggested a three-part test for adopting potential privacy regulations: Lawmakers should “target specific, substantial harms,” “directly limit those harms,” and “the costs of the regulations must be outweighed by their countervailing benefits.”