Volume 10, Issue 40 October 28, 2011

National Security Agency Helps Banks Battle Hackers The National Security Agency, a secretive arm of the U.S. military, has begun providing Wall Street banks with intelligence on foreign hackers, a sign of growing U.S. fears of financial sabotage.

By Andrea Shalal-Esa and Jim Finkle, Reuters

The assistance from the agency that conducts electronic spying overseas is part of an effort by American banks and other financial firms to get help from the U.S. military and private defense contractors to fend off cyber attacks, according to interviews with U.S. officials, security experts and defense industry executives.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has also warned banks of particular threats amid concerns that hackers could potentially exploit security vulnerabilities to wreak havoc across global markets and cause economic mayhem.

While government and private sector security sources are reluctant to discuss specific lines of investigations, they paint worst-case scenarios of hackers ensconcing themselves inside a bank's network to disable trading systems for stocks, bonds and currencies, trigger flash crashes, initiate large transfers of funds or turn off all ATM machines.

It is unclear if hackers have ever been close to producing anything as dire, but the FBI says it has already helped banks avert several major cyber attacks by helping identify network vulnerabilities.

NSA Director Keith Alexander, who runs the U.S. military's cyber operations, told Reuters the agency is currently talking to financial firms about sharing electronic information on malicious software, possibly by expanding a pilot program through which it offers similar data to the defense industry.

He did not provide further details on his agency's collaboration with banks.

More at http://reut.rs/tgn4sq

Figure of the week

26% About 26% of U.S. adults used their mobile phones to access health information in 2011, up from 12% who reported doing so in 2010, according to a recent Manhattan Research report

Volume 10, Issue 40 October 28, 2011 Page 2

Health IT EHR Market To Reach $6.5 Billion By 2012

Hospital EHR adoption is expected to expand significantly as advanced systems are implemented to meet Meaningful Use criteria, a Frost & Sullivan study says.

By Nicole Lewis, Information Week

Total market revenue for electronic health records (EHRs) is expected to hit $6.5 billion in 2012, which is more than a sixfold increase from the $973.2 million posted in 2009, a study from Frost & Sullivan predicts. The rise in EHR revenues is primarily due to new licensing and upgrades as hospitals get their EHR systems ready to meet Meaningful Use requirements.

The new report, U.S. Hospital EHR Market, 2009-2016: Charting the Course for Dramatic Change, found that today's IT infrastructure at many hospitals is very different from 2009 when approximately 12% of hospitals were using what could be considered either a basic or advanced EHR, and only 2% of those hospitals were using EHRs in a way that would qualify for Meaningful Use.

"Sales of EHR systems doubled from 2009 to 2010 so you can really say that that was a direct impact of the HITECH Act," Nancy Fabozzi, industry analyst at Frost & Sullivan, told InformationWeek Healthcare. "There was such a low baseline to move up from and everyone I talked to said there is an almost singular focus in hospitals today in terms of purchasing EHRs and getting that functionality to be able to meet Meaningful Use."

Fabozzi, who is also the report's author, said she relied on existing research and spoke with key market participants such as technology vendors, healthcare CIOs, and payers to develop its findings.

She said key executives stressed the importance of the Medicare and Medicaid EHR Incentive Programs, saying that for many hospitals EHR incentive payments are worth millions of dollars, which is money that these organizations can't afford to leave on the table. Hospitals are also very aware of the penalties they will face if they don't implement EHRs after 2015.

More at http://bit.ly/trs2gc

A New Age of Biosurveillance Is Upon Us

The CDC will overhaul BioSense in November, amid a wave of new data-sharing tactics rolling in from other fields that promises to bolster surveillance methods and architectures.

By Gregory Goth, Government Health IT

Krista Hanni doesn't consider herself an expert on the latest developments in IT-enabled syndromic and biosurveillance, but she does recognize that a groundswell of change is about to hit the discipline.

“We're at the beginning of a new field here,” said Hanni, the surveillance and preparedness manager for the Monterey County, Calif., Public Health Department. “That’s what we’re running into.”

The traditional epidemiological approach, which helps public health officials deal in an authoritative but delayed manner with outbreaks and disease caused by calamities, is being challenged by new forms of data and new approaches using methodologies from other fields.

Researchers and clinicians will see a huge boon in November,

when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s redesigned BioSense program is scheduled to go live with a new data-sharing approach in which local jurisdictions – not the CDC – maintain ownership of their data.

Coincidentally or not, the new willingness to research and perhaps use new data types and methodologies will converge with meaningful use mandates set out in the HITECH funding.

“BioSense will help the community ‘open for business,’” said Taha Kass-Hout, the CDC’s deputy director for information science and program manager for BioSense. “That is, any health department in the country could ask their providers to share healthcare information with them in a meaningful use-ready environment. That will remove a lot of the barriers from the providers as well as the health departments.”

What’s more, Hanni co-authored a recent report evaluating the CDC’s Early Aberration Reporting System’s (EARS) performance in detecting the H1N1 influenza that was published in Statistics, Politics, and Policy in tandem with researchers from the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey.

More at http://bit.ly/tPUL5k

Volume 10, Issue 40 October 28, 2011 Page 3

Privacy and Security FBI Official Calls for Secure, Alternate Internet

By Lolita C. Baldor, Associated Press

The computer networks that control power plants and financial systems will never be secure enough and a new, highly secure alternative Internet should be considered for development, a top FBI official said Thursday.

Shawn Henry, the FBI's executive assistant director, said critical systems are under increasing threat from terror groups looking to buy or lease the computer skills and malware needed to launch a cyber attack.

In an Associated Press interview Thursday, Henry said jihadist militants looking to harm the U.S. can tap organized crime groups who are willing to sell their services and abilities to attack computer systems. He would not say which terror group or whether any insurgent networks have actually been able to acquire the high-tech capabilities.

But he said one way to protect critical utility and financial systems would be to set up a separate, highly secure Internet.

Henry sketched out the Internet idea to a crowd at a conference of the International Systems Security Association, saying that cyberthreats will always continue to evolve and outpace efforts to defend networks against them.

"We can't tech our way out of the cyberthreat," Henry said. "The challenge with the Internet is you don't know who's launching the attack." A key step, he said, would be to develop networks where anonymity is not an option and only known and trusted employees have access.

The vulnerabilities of critical systems such as power plants, the electric grid or Wall Street were a prime topic during the conference, reflecting growing concerns by U.S. officials.

Government security officials say cyber attackers are using the Internet to steal money, ferret out classified secrets and technology and disturb or destroy important infrastructure, from the electrical grid and telecommunications networks to nuclear power plants and transportation systems.

More at http://bit.ly/uyKyYW

Homeland Security Adding Drones But Lacks Pilots

By Brian Bennett, Tribune Co.

The Homeland Security Department is adding three surveillance drone aircraft to a domestic fleet used mostly to patrol the border with Mexico, even though it doesn't have enough pilots to operate the seven Predators they already have.

The drones are being purchased after lobbying by members of the so-called drone caucus in Congress, many from Southern California, a major hub of the unmanned aircraft industry.

"We didn't ask for them," said a Homeland Security official who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Officials said the Customs and Border Protection Office of Air and Marine, which operates the drones, has enough pilots to fly the current fleet only five days a week.

Congress approved $32 million to buy the new drones in August 2010. But the authorization did not include money to train or hire pilots or crews, or to buy spare parts, officials

said.

Every unmanned aircraft requires not just a ground-based pilot but surveillance analysts, sensor operators and a maintenance crew.

Homeland Security officials say they hope eventually to deploy 18 to 24 drones along the borders.

For now, however, they say they must shift money from other programs to buy the satellite bandwidth required to fly the seven drones they use.

"That is year-by-year, hand-to-mouth living," said a federal law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

Customs and Border Protection has paid $240 million to manufacturer General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc., a private company in San Diego, for drones and maintenance since 2005.

More at http://bit.ly/rJBfoq

Page 4 Volume 10, Issue 40 October 28, 2011

Privacy and Security - (cont.) Balancing Act: Cybersecurity vs. Cuts

By Jennifer Martinez, Politico Pro

While Defense Secretary Leon Panetta recently warned of “a cyberattack that could be the equivalent of Pearl Harbor,” some worry that cuts being mulled over by Congress and the White House could sink the nation’s nascent cyberdefenses.

The Defense Department is trying to beef up protection of the nation’s computer networks and, at the same time, embrace cyberwarfare as part of the nation’s potential offensive arsenal — but in an era of tighter budgets.

Amid that fiscal reality, some Pentagon officials, lawmakers and military experts are urging deficit-reduction politics be put aside to ensure the nation’s cyberforces get the resources they need to prepare for a looming digital Cold War.

“The capability exists to deny and degrade our networks, or worse, to cause catastrophic damage to them,” former Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn told POLITICO. “As we look forward, the importance of protecting our networks is going to grow, and that’s one of the reasons we need to invest more in cybersecurity — regardless of what the budget situation is.”

Attacks against military networks are growing — the Air Force’s drone program was recently breached, for instance. The Defense Department is also faced with working with the Department of Homeland Security and the private sector to protect the nation’s critical infrastructure — such as electric grids and telecommunications services — potentially with less money next year.

In addition, American military leaders are starting to weigh using cyberattacks against foes. The New York Times reported last week that the U.S. mulled over taking out Libya’s air defense system with cyberforce this spring.

The Pentagon’s elevation of cyberspace as a new domain for warfare — joining land, sea, air and space — comes as Washington is in the throes of a debt ceiling battle. President Barack Obama has already proposed $350 billion in defense spending cuts over the next decade.

Meanwhile, if the so-called supercommittee fails to broker a deal, that will set off a trigger of more than $600 billion in mandatory military cuts over the next decade. Panetta told the House Armed Services Committee recently that those cuts “will badly damage our capabilities for the future.”

That message has resonated with lawmakers. Sen. Susan

Collins (R-Maine), ranking member of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and one of the chief sponsors of cybersecurity legislation in the upper chamber, told POLITICO in a statement that “it would be the height of irresponsibility for Congress to allow indiscriminate, automatic cuts to take place.”

So far, cyberdefense spending hasn’t taken a direct hit.

The 2012 White House budget requests “a little over” $3.2 billion to support DoD’s improved cybersecurity capabilities, according to the military’s news service. That’s slightly up from the budget for 2011, which allocated just under $3.2 billion.

Despite the likelihood the Pentagon faces budget cuts, former government officials believe spending on cybersecurity will continue to grow because of the seriousness of the threats in cyberspace.

Highly placed champions, including Obama and Panetta, have listed it as a top defense priority. There’s growing awareness that the Pentagon’s traditional military capabilities have become increasingly dependent on information technology and/or its computer systems and networks.

An attack on a military IT system could affect the Pentagon’s ability to dispatch a plane or ships to a certain location or launch an offensive strike.

“Many of our military advantages stem from our ability to use the IT better than anyone else in the world,” said Lynn, who stepped down as Panetta’s No. 2 in command earlier this month.

More at http://politi.co/sadhBX

The Defense Department hopes to beef up protection of the nation’s computer networks.

Page 5 Volume 10, Issue 40 October 28, 2011

New Reports and Papers

Gains Seen in Use of Electronic Disease Surveillance Data, CDC Says

By Paul Barr, Modern Healthcare

State public health agencies' ability to accept and use electronic disease surveillance data has improved significantly, though some states still lag, according to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (PDF) .

The number of states reporting fully operational general communicable disease electronic surveillance systems rose to 47 in 2010 from 40 in 2007, according to the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report for Oct. 21.

In addition, the number of states that could receive electronic laboratory reports climbed to 42 from 28 in the same periods.

States also reported significant gains in having communicable disease surveillance systems that were integrated—meaning

The World in 2011: ICT Facts and Figures

One third of the world’s population is online

International Telecommunications Union

Share of Internet users in the total population

The world is home to 7 billion people, one third of which are using the Internet. 45% of the world’s Internet users are below the age of 25.

Over the last five years, developing countries have increased their share of the world’s total number of Internet users from 44% in 2006, to 62% in 2011. Today, Internet users in China represent almost 25% of the world’s total Internet users and 37% of the developing countries’ Internet users.

Younger people tend to be more online than older people, in both developed and developing countries.

In developing countries, 30% of those under the age of 25 use the Internet, compared to 23% of those 25 years and older.

At the same time, 70% of the under 25-yearolds — a total of 1.9 billion — are not online yet: a huge potential if developing countries can connect schools and increase school enrolment rates.

Almost 6 billion mobile-cellular subscriptions

With 5.9 billion mobile-cellular subscriptions, global penetration reaches 87%, and 79% in the developing world.

Mobile-broadband subscriptions have grown 45% annually over the last four years and today there are twice as many mobile-broadband as fixed-broadband subscriptions.

Home ICT access

Of 1.8 billion households worldwide, one third have Internet access, compared to only one fifth five years ago.

In developing countries, 25% of homes have a computer and 20% have Internet access, compared to 20% and 13%, respectively, 3 years ago.

Growth in bandwidth facilitates broadband uptake

International Internet bandwidth, a key factor for providing high-speed Internet access to a growing number of Internet users has grown exponentially over the last five years, from 11’000 Gbit/s in 2006, to close to 80’000 Gbit/s in 2011.

More at http://bit.ly/vBwsby

different diseases systems could work together—and for those that are interoperable within the state or with other states. That said, an editorial note accompanying the report states that the needs for such surveillance systems is growing too, and not all states are well prepared.

“Progress has resulted in substantial variation among states in the electronic systems used for disease surveillance,” the report states.

“Over time, independent decisions have produced electronic surveillance systems that range from narrowly focused disease-specific systems to systems used for monitoring a broad spectrum of conditions of public health interest.”

More at http://bit.ly/tijcn0

Volume 10, Issue 40 October 28, 2011 Page 6

Reports and Papers - (cont.) The Difficulty with Regulating Network Neutrality

By Eric Null, Cardozo Law School

Abstract

Network neutrality is, and has been, an essential design element of the Internet. Increasingly, there has been pressure to move from a neutral network to a network that is optimized for particular functions (such as video streaming), and technology has responded to that call through the creation of a powerful technology called Deep-Packet Inspection. DPI allows access providers to directly violate the neutrality principle because it provides a mechanism for unequal treatment of content. The tension between network neutrality and DPI is significant – so much so that the Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”) has intervened. The FCC recently published its final Report and Order for Preserving the Open Internet in the Federal Register, which establishes a general principle that neutrality should be safeguarded. Despite this safeguard, the FCC provided for a reasonable network management exception to neutrality, which allows access providers to treat content unequally if the

provider is reasonably managing its network. The reasonable network management exception is a broad exception. However, a broad exception, potentially overbroad, may not be the most prudent form for regulating network neutrality. To determine what form is appropriate for network neutrality regulation, one should engage in a rules-versus-standards analysis specifically in this context. There is no obvious choice, but context can provide useful background when determining whether to regulate with rules or standards. Network neutrality regulation should be written as a rule, not a standard. Establishing a rule-like regulation will deter non-neutral behavior by access providers, and will preserve the Internet’s neutral architecture and the benefits that equal treatment of content provides. In addition, rule-like regulations reduce the burden placed on enforcers, typically users, of the regulation. For these reasons, the reasonable network management exception should also be worded like a rule; those arguing for a broad, standard-like exception have not successfully demonstrated why a broad exception is required.

More at http://bit.ly/trB9rK

An Agent‐Based Model of Centralized Institutions, Social Network Technology, and Revolution

By Michael D. Makowsky, Towson University & Jared Rubin, Chapman University

Introduction

Recent uprisings in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, and other parts of the Arab world have come quite unexpectedly to most observers. Although the seeds of discontent had been sown for decades in these countries, public anti-government displays barely existed. Such rapid changes in publicly displayed preferences are not a new phenomenon; precedents include the fall of Communism in the Eastern bloc, the end of apartheid in South Africa, and the civil rights movement (Kuran 1989; Kuran 1991a; Kuran 1991b; Lohmann 1994; Kuran 1995a; Kuran 1995b; Wright 1999).

We argue that economies containing two features – highly centralized power and widespread information and communication technology (ICT) – are conducive to massive and rapid preference revelation. We define power centralization as the ability of one actor to impose multiple sanctions on individuals. Examples include national and

localized sanctions in autocracies, economic and religious sanctions in theocracies (such as Iran), or political and legal sanctions against dissidents (as in Burma). The ability of central authorities to impose sanctions on individuals, coupled with heterogeneous citizens whose true preferences are hidden, can calcify a society – leaving it stuck at sub-optimal equilibria despite changes to individual preferences. These sub-optimal equilibria can be escaped in a cascade of sudden preference revelation initiated by a shock which encourages some individuals to publicly reveal their preferences, which in turn alters norms and triggers a cascade.

Centralization can encourage individuals to publicly lie about their privately-held preferences because those who transgress centralized authorities incur sanctions over numerous dimensions. For example, if one breaks religious dictates in Iran, they may suffer consequences in the afterlife as well as economic consequences in the present.

Such societies are prone to cascades of preference revelation if preferences are inter-connected; that is, if individuals derive utility from conforming to the actions of others (Granovetter 1978; Kuran 1995).

More at http://bit.ly/tNcGNP

Volume 10, Issue 40 October 28, 2011 Page 7

Reports and Papers - (cont.) Competition and Innovation-Driven Inclusive Growth

By Mark A Dutz; Ioannis Kessides, World Bank; Stephen A. O'Connell, University of Oxford; & Robert Willig, Princeton University

Introduction

This paper brings enterprise-level empirical evidence to bear on the important policy debate regarding whether innovation-driven growth is inclusive.1

The conventional view is that the force of economic innovation mainly creates and commercializes sophisticated new-to-the-world frontier products. As such, the benefits of innovation are traditionally perceived to flow disproportionately to the investors in and managers of larger, technically sophisticated corporations; highly skilled workers; stakeholders with control over channels of distribution of inputs and outputs that are needed by technically sophisticated enterprises; and ultimately higher-income households as consumers of innovative products.

From this perspective, innovation-driven growth is not inclusive, at least not until that growth generalizes to portions of the economy beyond the sectors involved directly in

innovation.

We empirically explore an alternative view that innovation, especially in the context of development, should be recognized as applying to a broader range of non-replicative entrepreneurial accomplishments. Value and productivity-enhancing activities that commercialize ideas embedded in product, process, and organizational and marketing technologies that are new-to-the-firm and possibly new to the local economy, are apt to drive enterprise growth, even if they are not new-to-the-world.

Such innovation-driven growth is indeed far more likely to be inclusive, in the sense of providing new employment and consumption opportunities for the segments of the population that are without secure prior participation in the organized developing economy.

Local innovation and its consequent inclusive growth are apt to be enabled and spurred by the type of market competition that ensures opportunities for grass-roots entrepreneurs to access essential business services, as well as other required local inputs and distribution outlets.

More at http://bit.ly/tus2EJ

Global Data Privacy Laws: Forty Years of Acceleration

By Graham Greenleaf of the University of New South Wales

Abstract

It is almost forty years since Sweden’s Data Act 1973 was the first comprehensive national data privacy law, and the first to implement what we can now recognize as a basic set of data protection principles. This article surveys the forty years since then of global development of data privacy laws to mid-2011. How many countries now have data privacy (‘data protection’) laws that at least cover most of their private sector and include privacy principles meeting or exceeding the minimum standards of international data protection and privacy agreements? As of mid-2011there are now seventy six such countries (or otherwise independent legal jurisdictions), as identified in this article for the first time. A Table lists all such countries and their main data privacy laws, when first enacted and most recent versions, and the international commitments of each country, or the international recognition their laws have received.

The picture that emerges is that data privacy laws are

spreading globally, and their number and geographical diversity accelerating since 2000. There are some surprising inclusions, and some illuminating trends in the expansion of these laws. The total number of new data privacy laws globally, viewed by decade, shows that their growth is accelerating, not merely expanding linearly: 7 (1970s), 10 (1980s), 19 (1990s), 32 (2000s) and 8 (1.5 years of 2010s), giving the total of 76. In the first 18 months of this decade 8 new laws have been enacted (Faroe Islands, Malaysia, Mexico, India, Peru, Russia - more accurately, brought into force - Ukraine and Angola), making this the most intensive period of data protection developments in the last 40 years. Geographically, almost two thirds of data privacy laws are in European states (48/76), EU member states are little more than one third (27/76), even with the expansion of the EU into eastern Europe. There are data privacy laws in all 27 member states of the European Union, and a further 21 laws in other European countries or jurisdictions. There are now 27 data privacy laws outside Europe, which considered by region are as follows: Latin America (6); North America (1); Caribbean (1); Asia (7); Australasia (2); North Africa/Middle East (3); Sub-Saharan Africa (6); Central Asia (1); Pacific Islands (0).

More at http://bit.ly/vR3R3f

Volume 10, Issue 40 October 28, 2011 Page 8

Reports and Papers - (cont.) Health Information Technology: Keep It Simple

Report says records systems must be easy to operate if dangerous medical errors are to be avoided

By Kimberly Leonard, iWatch News

Making electronic record-keeping systems easier for health providers to use can help prevent dangerous or even fatal mistakes, says the draft of a project by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

The draft, titled “Technical Evaluation, Testing and Validation of the Usability of Electronic Health Records,” is available for informal public comment until Nov. 10, 2011. It provides guidance from NIST, a technical research agency within the Department of Commence, for testing electronic health record-keeping systems to make sure they are understandable for health care practitioners. The draft was released last month.

One of the aims of simplifying the devices is to avoid potentially dangerous medical errors, says the report. At the moment, though, there is no government agency specifically directed to regulate or enforce the safety of the devices being sold to medical offices.

“We didn’t specify in the report who should use the guidelines,” said Svetlana Lowry, NIST’s project leader on usability for health information technology. “This is for anybody who would like to apply the structure — government agencies, industries, academia — anyone involved in the development of electronic health records.”

A variety of studies have concluded that the use of health information technology may improve health care outcomes and improve patient safety, but the electronic systems can also

facilitate problems. An allergy might be omitted from a computer record, for example, or the name of a medication might be entered into the wrong portion of the patient record because the system is daunting to practitioners.

Health care providers might also be confused about how to access the information they need.

User error can decrease when the systems are easier to use, the report says, but guidelines must be established to ensure that the devices are tested by both those who use them and by experts.

Making the systems simpler to operate can increase efficiency, reduce user frustration, lower costs and cause fewer workflow disruptions, says the draft.

“We wanted to provide a methodology for the world of health information technology,” Lowry said.

Millions in federal dollars have already been pumped into the offices of doctors, hospitals and clinics under a Recovery Act provision encouraging the widespread use of electronic health records.

The government will begin deducting Medicare payments from providers if they do not go digital by 2015.

However, the money isn’t flowing as quickly as predicted.

That may in part be attributable to the perplexing nature of the technology, the report says.

More at http://bit.ly/thmNlK

The New Role of Technology in Consumer Health and Wellness

Consumer Electronics Association

With consumer population this is both aging and becoming more health conscious, what is the role of technology? A number of products currently on the market help users track their workouts, count calories, and gauge any number of vital signs, but what is the potential for adoption among our increasingly health focused population? The New Role of Technology in Consumer Health and Wellness delves into this topic, measuring consumer attitudes and usage of a number of core health technology products.

Among the topics covered:

--To what extent are consumers willing to introduce health technology into their lives

--Attitudes regarding privacy and access of health data

--The role of applications and services in improving health and wellness

--Interest in emerging technologies aimed at improving health

More at http://bit.ly/s9CnZh

Volume 10, Issue 40 October 28, 2011 Page 9

Reports and Papers - (cont.) The Global Innovation 1000: Why Culture Is Key

Booz & Company’s annual study shows that spending more on R&D won’t drive results. The most crucial factors are strategic alignment and a culture that supports innovation.

By Barry Jaruzelski, John Loehr, and Richard Holman, Booz & Company

The elements that make up a truly innovative company are many: a focused innovation strategy, a winning overall business strategy, deep customer insight, great talent, and the right set of capabilities to achieve successful execution. More important than any of the individual elements, however, is the role played by corporate culture — the organization’s self-sustaining patterns of behaving, feeling, thinking, and believing — in tying them all together. Yet according to the results of this year’s Global Innovation 1000 study, only about half of all companies say their corporate culture robustly supports their innovation strategy. Moreover, about the same proportion say their innovation strategy is inadequately aligned with their overall corporate strategy.

This disconnect, as the saying goes, is both a problem and an opportunity. Our data shows that companies with unsupportive cultures and poor strategic alignment significantly underperform their competitors. Moreover, most executives understand what’s at stake and what matters, even if their companies don’t always seem to get it right. Across the board, for example, respondents identified “superior product performance” and “superior product quality” as their top strategic goals. And they asserted that their two most important cultural attributes were “strong identification with the consumer/customer experience” and a “passion/pride in products.”

These assertions were confirmed by innovation executives we interviewed for the study. Fred Palensky, executive vice president of research and development and chief technology officer (CTO) at innovation leader 3M Company, for example, puts it this way: “Our goal is to include the voice of the customer at the basic research level and throughout the product development cycle, to enable our technical people to actually see how their technologies work in various market conditions.”

If more companies could gain traction in closing both the strategic alignment and culture gaps to better realize these goals and attributes, not only would their financial performance improve, but the data suggests that the potential

gains might be large enough to improve the overall growth rate of the global economy.

To that end, we continue to emphasize the key finding that our Global Innovation 1000 study of the world’s biggest spenders on research and development has reaffirmed in each of the past seven years: There is no statistically significant relationship between financial performance and innovation spending, in terms of either total R&D dollars or R&D as a percentage of revenues. Many companies — notably, Apple — consistently underspend their peers on R&D investments while outperforming them on a broad range of measures of corporate success, such as revenue growth, profit growth, margins, and total shareholder return.

Meanwhile, entire industries, such as pharmaceuticals, continue to devote relatively large shares of their resources to innovation, yet end up with much less to show for it than they — and their shareholders — might hope for.

Last year, we looked at the innovation capability sets companies put together, how they vary by innovation strategy, and which groups of capabilities can best enable companies to outperform their peers. This year, we took a different vantage point, analyzing the ways that critical organizational systems and cultural attributes support those capability sets that are most likely to promote innovation success.

More at http://bit.ly/uth6Lr

Volume 10, Issue 40 October 28, 2011 Page 10

Points of View Why Geeks Should Care About Meaningful Use and ACOs

How healthcare data reforms and incentive reforms are connected.

By Fred Trotter, O’Reilly Radar

Healthcare reform pairs two basic concepts:

Change incentives: lower costs by paying less for "better" care not "more" care

Use software to measure whether you are getting "better" care

These issues are deeply connected and mostly worthless independently. This is why all geeks should really care about meaningful use, which is the new regulatory framework from the Office of the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology (or ONC for short) that determines just how doctors will get paid for using electronic health records (EHR).

The clinical people in this country tend to focus on meaningful use incentives as "how do I get paid to install an EHR" rather than seeing it as deeply connected to the whole process of healthcare reform. But any geek can quickly see the bottom

line: all of the other healthcare reform efforts are pointless unless we can get the measurement issue right.

Health economists can and do go on and on about whether the "individual mandate" will be effective. Constitutional law experts fret about whether the U.S. federal government should be able to force people to purchase insurance. We are all concerned about issues like the coverage of pre-existing conditions. Hell, I am certainly in the 99%.

Make no mistake, the core problem with healthcare in the United States is that costs are out of control. Under the current system, absent better health information technology, any kind of major system change — like the individual mandate — will simply assure that you get lots more of what you already have. That would be a disaster.

The only way to make healthcare in the U.S. both better and cheaper is to use health information technology. I recently was able to have a whiteboard session with Dr. Farzad Mostashari, and he drew out his view of the whole reform system. It was nice to be able to have such an intimate explanation, but I can think of nothing that he told me that he does not also say in his frequent public appearances (he was awesome at Health 2.0).

More at http://oreil.ly/tgYgC3

An IT-Driven Colonoscopy: What Hospitals Can Learn From Other Industries

By Doug Thompson, iHealth Beat

When I went in for my first-ever screening colonoscopy, I was worried about complications or the doctor finding cancer. The procedure was routine, my results were good and I was back at work the next morning; however, the process was uncoordinated, inefficient and lacked a customer focus. The experience could have been improved with IT solutions common in other industries.

The GI Referral and Initial Office Visit

My first colonoscopy began with a routine visit to my primary care practitioner. When I mentioned that I had not had my recommended colonoscopy after turning 50, she referred me to a gastroenterologist. My PCP uses an electronic health record, but the gastroenterologist to whom she referred me does not. So when I visited the gastrointestinal (GI) practice for my pre-procedure exam, I had to complete all the same paperwork, including a detailed medical history, and I had the same

physical exam I had just gone through with my PCP. I also re-ceived printed instructions about what I needed to do and what to expect the week of my colonoscopy.

Problems and Re-engineering: I had to remind my PCP that I was two years late for my screening colonoscopy. Ideally, she would have reminded me after receiving an EHR-driven alert that I was over 50 with no colonoscopy in the record. It would be similar to how Amazon.com reminds me about things it thinks I might buy. Electronic self-entry of my history informa-tion would have saved time and avoided potential data entry errors. An electronic referral and transfer of my history and physical examination to a GI practice EHR would have saved time and avoided potential errors.

A relevant example: When I book a flight through one airline on a "code share" with another airline, the details are seam-lessly and automatically transferred to the second airline's system. A patient portal could have provided more details about my procedure and what to expect before and afterward.

More at http://bit.ly/usX9fo

Volume 10, Issue 40 October 28, 2011 Page 11

Points of View - (cont.) The Quiet Health-Care Revolution

While legislators talk about “bending the cost curve,” one company serving Medicare patients has discovered how to provide better care at lower cost—with wireless scales, free transportation, regular toenail trimmings, and doctors who put the patient first.

By Tom Main & Adrian Slywotzky, The Atlantic

Ellen, an 82-year old widow, lives in Anaheim, California. One Wednesday morning last year, she got on her scale, as she does every morning. One hundred and forty-six pounds—wasn’t that a little high? Ellen felt vaguely troubled as she poured herself a bowl of oat bran.

Half an hour later, the phone rang. It was Sandra at the clinic. She too was concerned about Ellen’s weight, which had jumped three pounds since the previous day. Sandra knew this because Ellen’s scale had transmitted its reading to the clinic over a wireless connection.

Given that Ellen had a history of congestive heart failure, a three-pound weight gain in 24 hours was a potentially dangerous development, a sign of possible fluid buildup in the

lungs and increasing pressure on an already stressed heart. Sandra wanted her to come in for an immediate visit: the clinic would provide a car to pick her up and bring her back home. Ellen’s treatment began that very morning and continued for two weeks until she was out of danger. Had the warning signs not been noticed and addressed so quickly, she might easily have suffered a long, painful, and expensive hospitalization.

Dan, a retired letter carrier, is a patient at a clinic in the same system. At 87, he is decidedly frail, his once-sturdy legs now weak and unsteady.

He is a classic candidate for a fall of the kind that has injured many of his friends, in some cases leading to weeks in the hospital and months of rehab. The elderly are prone to falls for many obvious reasons, including weak limbs, impaired vision, and medication side effects. But Dan’s doctors knew that some less obvious causes included shag carpets and long, untrimmed toenails. Because of this, they’d sent someone from the clinic to visit Dan’s apartment and make sure that his daughter replaced the 1980s-vintage carpets with low-pile rugs. Dan also visits the clinic regularly for light muscle-training sessions and periodic toenail clipping.

More at http://bit.ly/vKbdtL

Op-ed: The Shocking Strangeness of Our 25-year-old Digital Privacy Law

Twenty-five years after it was passed, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act still governs much of our privacy online, and the Center for Democracy and Technology argues that ECPA needs an overhaul.

By Jim Dempsey, Center for Democracy & Technology

Cell phones the size of bricks, "portable" computers weighing 20 pounds, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, and the federal statute that lays down the rules for government monitoring of mobile phones and Internet traffic all have one thing in common: each is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year.

The Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) was signed into law on October 21, 1986. Although it was forward-looking at the time, ECPA’s privacy protections have remained stuck in the past while technology has raced ahead, providing us means of communication that not too long ago existed only in the minds of science fiction writers. Citing ECPA, the government claims it can track your movements without having to get a warrant from a judge, using the signal your

mobile phone silently sends out every few seconds. The government also claims it can read your e-mail and sneak a peek at your online calendar and the private photos you have stored in “the cloud," all without a warrant.

The government admits that if it wants to seize photos on your hard drive, it needs a warrant from a judge. And if it wants to intercept your e-mail en route, well, it needs a warrant for that, too. But once the data comes to rest on the Internet’s servers, the government claims you’ve lost your privacy rights in it. Same data, different rules.

Sound illogical? Out of step with the way people use technology today? It is. Most people assume the Constitution protects them against unreasonable searches and seizures, regardless of technology. The Justice Department thinks differently. It argues that the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement does not apply to data stored online.

That’s the same argument the government made about telephones 80 years ago.

More at http://bit.ly/v6NKuG

Volume 10, Issue 40 October 28, 2011 Page 12

Points of View - (cont.) Profiting (Legally) From Cyber Insecurity

By John Moore, CNBC

No one wants to see the hackers who prey on cyber security flaws profit from their actions. But given the widespread nature of the threat, investors have an opportunity to capitalize on a sector that’s only growing in importance.

The recent security breach of Sony’s PlayStation Network and Qriocity music service has once again put the issue of cyber security front and center. Additionally, the proliferation of mobile devices has created a whole new demand for security.

“Sony’s just one of many. We’ve seen several major intrusions that have happened over the last 12 to 18 months,” says Rob Owens, analyst at Pacific Crest Securities.

He cites the 2010 attack on Google’s corporate network that originated in China and the intrusion into the Nasdaq’s computer servers earlier this year.

“I believe at some point this is going to start to drive an accelerated pace of adoption of these technologies,” Owens says.

But analysts point out that while the security sector as a whole stands to benefit in the long run, there are near-term hurdles to overcome, which means investors will need to place their bets wisely.

Adapting to New Threats

Analysts believe the computer security sector as a whole stands to benefit from an ever-increasing cyber security threat environment.

But Timothy Quillin, analyst at Stephens Inc., says it’s best to focus on a company that can respond quickly to the dynamic nature of cyber threats. That’s his rationale for being bullish on Sourcefire (FIRE), which develops intrusion prevention systems that are used heavily in government environments.

“They are located in Columbia, Md., close to where the National Security Agency is headquartered,” Quillin says. “There’s probably no organization in the world that’s seen the type of threats that NSA has. You tend to learn at the speed of your customers. .

More at http://bit.ly/vzHxyr

The Dark Side Of Biometrics: 9 Million Israelis' Hacked Info Hits The Web

Biometrics are the next big thing in government and homeland security. But the recent theft of the personal information of 9 million Israelis living and dead--including the birth parents of adoptees and sensitive health information--could have big ramifications for foreign governments.

By Neil Ungerleider, Fast Company

Every time a foreigner comes to the United States, their biometric data--fingerprints and photographs--are processed into a massive database called US-VISIT. The service prevents identity fraud and helps find criminals, and countries all over the world have adopted similar systems.

Now Israel's has been hacked, leading to the leak of personal information of nearly every single citizen there (even some dead ones) onto the Internet.

Authorities in the Middle Eastern country announced the arrest on Monday of a suspect responsible for the massive data

theft. He's a contract worker at the Israeli Welfare Ministry who was allegedly engaged in small-scale white collar crimes after-hours and who is accused of stealing Israel's primary national biometric database in 2006. He had access to the database, which is part of the country's population registry, through his office.

The stolen database contained the name, date of birth, national identification number, and family members of 9 million Israelis, living and dead. More alarmingly, the database contained information on the birth parents of hundreds of thousands of adopted Israelis--including children--and detailed health information on individual citizens.

Shortly after being fired from his job for unrelated offenses, the unnamed suspect began passing the database around to members of Israel's surprisingly numerous Hasidic Jewish criminal underworld. According to the ultra-Orthodox Jewish Yeshiva World News, the stolen biometric database was passed around by six separate suspects, who made copies of the records in exchange for cash.

More at http://bit.ly/sujhOc

Volume 10, Issue 40 October 28, 2011 Page 13

Points of View - (cont.) How Text Messages Could Change Global Healthcare

There are now more than 5 billion mobile phone subscribers, and 90 percent of the world’s population is covered by a cell signal. Josh Nesbit, the 24-year-old CEO of Medic Mobile, is on a mission to use these far-reaching networks to change how patients and doctors interact. Can low-tech SMS programs revolutionize global health?

By Chris Sweeny, Popular Mechanics

Josh Nesbit sees a bright future for the cellphones that most of us see as antiquated. The 24-year-old Nesbit is the CEO of nonprofit Medic Mobile, and this startup exec’s vision is to take those chunky Nokias and other phones of the recent past—the kind that most Americans threw out or relegated to the junk drawer long ago—and use them to radically change how health care is delivered in developing nations. These old phones don’t have the touchscreens and slick software features of our shiny new smartphones. But they can text, and in Nesbit’s eyes, a simple technology like text messaging is a tool that can be used to track disease outbreaks,

help first responders quickly locate victims after disasters, and more.

Nesbit and I first met on a drizzling Tuesday morning in New York, as he was getting ready to deliver a presentation to the United Nations Foundation’s mHealth Alliance about mobile health—more specifically, on what he calls the calls the marriage of “techies and healthies.” He knows that SMS and SIM card applications are not sexy technologies.

For him, though, it’s the numbers that are so attractive. There are more than 5 billion mobile phone subscribers across the globe, while 90 percent of the world’s population is covered by a cell signal. In sub-Saharan Africa, an area plagued by public health woes and a lack of infrastructure, 50 percent of people now have access to a cellphone. Within two years, if not sooner, that figure will jump to 100 percent. “Ubiquity is the killer app,” Nesbit says.

The notion that SMS could revolutionize healthcare first entered Nesbit’s mind in 2007, when he was still a Stanford undergrad.

More at http://bit.ly/sFTMzH

Mostashari to Medical Group Management

Association (MGMA): Time Is Right to Adopt EHRs, Show Meaningful Use, Move to Accountable Care Organizations

By Eric Wicklund, Healthcare IT News

To all those healthcare CIOs out there worried about ICD-10, meaningful use, accountable care organizations, patient-centered medical homes and a host of other government-backed efforts to reform healthcare, Farzad Mostashari, MD, has some words of advice: Don’t stay on the sidelines.

In other words, the Department of Health and Human Services’ National Coordinator for Health Information Tehnology says, “it’s never going to be an easier time than now” to adopt an electronic health record, meet meaningful use guidelines and move toward an ACO.

Mostashari offered those words of advice during a session Monday at the Medical Group Management Association’s 2011 conference at the Las Vegas Convention Center. While offering brief answers to more pointed questions from MGMA members and several media, his mood was optimistic.

“There’s not a big, bad wolf at the door,” he said.

Mostashari pointed out that the EHR has evolved significantly since its inception about 25 years ago, from “just little notes to remind us of the patient we’re seeing” to a tool for care coordination. He expects to see the rate of adoption among physician practices to top 40 percent this year and 50 percent next year.

Adopting EHRs, he said, will enable physician practices to develop the “information foundation” to coordinated care and demonstrate meaningful use.

“There’s this – frankly – largely unproductive anxiety out there right now,” he said. That anxiety is doing more harm than good in that it’s compelling physician practices to delay implementing IT, he said.

Mostashari fielded a number of questions about the size and volume of quality reports needed for such programs as meaningful use, ICD-10 and ACOs.

More at http://bit.ly/tt1Z47

Volume 10, Issue 40 October 28, 2011 Page 14

Points of View - (cont.) How Doctors Could Rescue Health Care

By Arnold Relman of Harvard Medical School

The US is facing a major crisis in the cost of health care. Corrected for inflation, health expenditures in the public sector are nearly doubling each decade, and those in the private sector are increasing even more rapidly. According to virtually all economists, this financial burden, which is now consuming about 17 percent of our entire economic output (far more than in any other country), cannot be sustained much longer. The federal share, including payments for Medicare and Medicaid, was 23 percent of the national budget in 2009 and is a prime cause of the deficit.1

There is no current prospect of raising taxes. If the federal long-term debt is to be reduced, government health expenditures on Medicare and Medicaid must be controlled. However, there is no agreement in Washington on how that can or should be done. Both parties claim to have the answer but, as I will make clear, no initiatives proposed by either party have much chance of significantly slowing the rise in federal health costs without reducing access to needed services. Major reform will be required, but that is not even under consideration. In any case, health legislation is currently stalled by a bitter political deadlock. No initiatives to improve health care will come out of Congress until after the 2012 elections and, unless the results are unexpectedly decisive, probably not even then. Still, as I will explain here, there is a chance that new developments in the way physicians are organizing themselves to deliver care might improve the currently dismal prospects for action on major reform and cost control.

In his September 8 address to Congress, the President spoke of the urgent need to control the costs of Medicare. To do this he is relying principally on the Affordable Care Act, passed by Democrats in March 2010. The Act expands insurance coverage but, as already explained in these pages,2 it is not likely to slow the rise of costs significantly.

Republicans in Congress are seeking to stop it from being implemented and their potential candidates for president are demanding its repeal, while state governments that are controlled by Republicans are challenging its constitutionality in federal courts. They question the Act’s mandate that all citizens not covered by public or private insurance plans be required to purchase private insurance or incur a tax penalty. The Republican legal challenge has so far received a divided reception in lower courts and will probably reach the Supreme Court next year. The mandate is a critical part of the Act because private insurers will not offer coverage at affordable prices to all applicants, as the Act assumes, unless everyone—

young and healthy included—is required to be insured. Whatever the Court’s decision, it will not have much effect on health costs because the law does very little or nothing to address some of the most important causes of the high cost of care and its rapid inflation.3

First, the Act does not replace—but expands—the investor-owned private health insurance industry. According to the actuary for the government’s Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), this industry’s overhead and profits currently add over $152 billion to the cost of care.4

Second, the Act does not change the method of payment for most medical care, which is based on fees for each procedure and therefore encourages specialists to use expensive procedures excessively, while giving all physicians strong financial incentives to provide more services than needed.

Third, it does nothing to change the current fragmentation of medical care. This allows specialists to practice in isolation without restraints on cost, causes duplication and disorganization of services, and discourages the use of primary care physicians. The latter are essential to cost-effective care because they help patients avoid unnecessary, expensive procedures. But with specialists earning much higher incomes per unit of working time, primary care doctors are disappearing. The Act addresses this problem, but only by providing minimal financial incentives to primary care doctors; they are unlikely to make much difference.

More at http://bit.ly/tNARon

A nurse consulting a doctor via Mr. Rounder the Robot, Hack-ensack University Medical Center,

Volume 10, Issue 40 October 28, 2011 Page 15

Internet Governance Chinese Government Defends Its Internet Policies as Open and Clear

By Michael Kan, IDG News

China on Thursday responded to U.S. concerns about its blocking of company websites, saying that China's Internet policies are open and clear. However, China said it objected to the U.S. exploiting the issue of Internet freedoms to interfere in its internal affairs.

"The Chinese government encourages and actively supports the Internet's development and we also protect the freedom of expression of citizens in China," said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu. "We welcome foreign companies to invest and develop here, and we will continue to foster an open policy market."

"To promote the healthy development of the Internet, we are willing to work together to set up communication and exchanges," she said.

On Wednesday, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative announced it was asking China to explain its policies covering the blocking of U.S. company websites in the country. The request, filed under World Trade Organization rules, is an

effort to understand the trade impact of such blocking after a number of U.S. businesses have made complaints about access to their websites in China.

China heavily censors the Internet for anti-government and politically sensitive content. As a result, popular U.S. websites including Twitter, Facebook and YouTube have all been blocked in the country. The censorship is so prevalent, that companies including Google, have complained that the Internet blocking acts as a kind of trade barrier.

While China's foreign ministry said the country's Internet policies have been open and clear, the country's online censorship has often occurred without explanation when in practice. At times, Twitter-like services operated by local Chinese companies have blocked certain terms linked with protesting or Internet freedoms. Google also reported in March that its Gmail service was being blocked, a move experts said was part of a government-backed information clampdown.

The U.S. Trade Representative requests specifically seeks to understand how China's Internet policies work so that U.S. companies can avoid disruptions to their websites.

More at http://bit.ly/ufSkJs

U.S. Government Requests for Google User Data Jump

By Jessica Guynn. Los Angeles Times

The U.S. government wants your information.

It's flooding Google with requests for personal information about users for criminal investigations, according to a so-called transparency report the Internet search giant released Tuesday.

The number of such requests jumped 29% in six months, Google reported. U.S. government agencies sent Google 5,950 criminal investigation requests during the first half of 2011 compared with 4,601 requests during the last six months of 2010. Google complied in part or completely with 93% of those requests which can include court orders and subpoenas.

The number of users and accounts affected: 11,057.

"For the first time, we're not only disclosing the number of requests for user data, but we're showing the number of users or accounts that are specified in those requests too. We also

recently released the raw data behind the requests. Interested developers and researchers can now take this data and revisualize it in different ways, or mash it up with information from other organizations to test and draw up new hypotheses about government behaviors online," Dorothy Chou, a Google senior policy analyst, wrote in a blog post.

Google said it also received 92 requests to remove 757 pieces of content from its services including YouTube. Google complied in part or completely with 63% of those requests.

Google has an agenda here. It wants to spread this kind of information -- albeit incomplete as it does not include certain terrorism-related requests -- to push for reform of federal laws that give law enforcement unfettered access to online communications without a judge's order.

"We believe that providing this level of detail highlights the need to modernize laws like the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, which regulates government access to user information and was written 25 years ago -- long before the average person had ever heard of email," Chou wrote.

More at http://lat.ms/uBlpBs

Page 16 Volume 10, Issue 40 October 28, 2011

Calendar of Events OCTOBER 31 Book Forum: The Relationship between Intelligence and Policy At the heart of recent national security controversies, including 9/11 and the war in Iraq, lies the troubled relationship between intelligence and policy. Two timely new books shine a spotlight on the problem. In Fixing the Facts, Joshua Rovner chronicles major episodes in the history of American foreign policy that have been closely tied to the manipulation of intelligence estimates and considers how these have affected military strategy, and the conduct of foreign policy. In Intelligence and U.S. Foreign Policy, Paul R. Pillar challenges the belief that intelligence drives major national security decisions, and he casts doubt on fixes intended to prevent future failures. Please join the authors as they discuss their books, with comments by intelligence veteran and scholar Mark Lowenthal.

Location: Washington, DC

More at http://www.cato.org/event.php?eventid=8423

NOVEMBER 2 Health Care Innovation in a Time of Fiscal Austerity Please join the Instituto Bruno Leoni and the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation as a team of international experts host a forum to investigate the future of international healthcare systems, in the context of what looks like a permanent fiscal crisis. We will focus on alternatives developed so far to combine the essential goals of access, sustainability, and innovation— in a global context which is, in the West, shaped by the rise of life expectancy and the shrinking of government resources.

Location: Washington, DC

More at http://www.itif.org/events/health-care-innovation-time-fiscal-austerity

NOVEMBER 2 The Role of Philanthropy in Disaster Preparedness, Relief, and Recovery In an era of shrinking federal and state budgets, philanthropic efforts are sometimes mistakenly thought of as simply a means to supplement government disaster aid. Please join the Center for Strategic and International Studies and Louisiana State University for an on-the-record easy-chair discussion concerning the crucial role of private philanthropy in disaster preparedness, relief, and recovery.

Location: Washington, DC

More at http://bit.ly/us7eEX

NOVEMBER 2-3 2011 HIMSS Virtual Conference & Expo: Visualizing Healthcare Transformation in the 21st Century incorporates online learning, live chat, dynamic, real-time participant movement in and out of exhibit booths and education sessions, industry solutions seminars, contests and more. Because the virtual conference is 100 percent virtual, attendees experience the conference and expo from the comfort of their own desks!

Location: Webinar

More at http://www.himssvirtual.org/2011_nov_VCE/index.asp

Featured Conference of the Week

Digital Technologies for 21st

Century Democracy

November 8-9, 2011

The Club de Madrid’s 2011 Annual Conference Digital Technologies for 21st Century Democracy provides a unique opportunity to take an in-depth look at the way citizens and governments are interacting through technological platforms, building a sustainable and inclusive environment in which citizens can fully exercise their social and economic rights and contribute to p o l i t i c a l t r a n s f o r m a t i o n s a n d democratic development.

Not without also taking a critical look at the risks and limits that the scale and new forms of information and network technology present to political institutions.

Location: New York, NY

More at http://bit.ly/vQQkwC

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Page 17 Volume 10, Issue 40 October 28, 2011

Sites Compendium www.arstechnica.com

www.cnbc.com

www.fastcompany.com

www.google.com

www.govhealthit.com

www.healthcareitnews.com

www.ihealthbeat.org

www.informationweek.com

www.itu.int

www.iwatchnews.org

www.latimes.com

www.modernhealthcare.com

www.mycea.ce.org

www.nybooks.com

www.nytimes.com

www.pcworld.com

www.politico.com

www.popularmechanics.com

www.radar.oreilly.com

www.reuters.com

www.sfgate.com

www.theatlantic.com

Book Review More Jobs Predicted for Machines, Not People

By Steve Lohr, The New York Times

A faltering economy explains much of the job shortage in America, but advancing technology has sharply magnified the effect, more so than is generally understood, according to two researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The automation of more and more work once done by humans is the central theme of “Race Against the Machine,” an e-book to be published on Monday.

“Many workers, in short, are losing the race against the machine,” the authors write.

Erik Brynjolfsson, an economist and director of the M.I.T. Center for Digital Business, and Andrew P. McAfee, associate director and principal research scientist at the center, are two of the nation’s leading experts on technology and productivity. The tone of alarm in their book is a departure for the pair, whose previous research has focused mainly on the benefits of advancing technology.

Indeed, they were originally going to write a book titled, “The Digital Frontier,” about the “cornucopia of innovation that is going on,” Mr. McAfee said. Yet as the employment picture failed to brighten in the last two years, the two changed course to examine technology’s role in the jobless recovery.

The authors are not the only ones recently to point to the job fallout from technology. In the current issue of the McKinsey Quarterly, W. Brian Arthur, an external professor at the Santa Fe Institute, warns that technology is quickly taking over service jobs, following the waves of automation of farm and factory work. “This last repository of jobs is shrinking — fewer of us in the future may have white-collar business process jobs — and we have a problem,” Mr. Arthur writes.

More at http://nyti.ms/uwdlQg

Research and Selection: Stefaan Verhulst Production: Kathryn Carissimi & Lauren Hunt

Please send your questions, observations and suggestions to

sverhulst@markle.org

The views expressed in the Weekly Digest do not necessarily reflect those of the Markle Foundation.