Daily Archives: January 9, 2022

Debate around how to rein in the power of giant tech companies like Amazon, Facebook, and Google continues.

For nearly five years, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have promised to rein in the power and influence of Big Tech. Increasingly alarmed by the power that giants like Amazon, Apple, Google, Facebook and Twitter wield, they've targeted how these companies harm consumers by allegedly choking competition from smaller players, exploiting personal data for profit and controlling what is shared and consumed online.

Despite theflurries of congressional hearingsthat started with Russia's use of social media to interfere in the 2016 election, little has changed so far. House and Senate members have introduced dozens of bills including a comprehensive federal privacy law, a modernization of antitrust laws and a rethinking of tech companies' sweeping federal liability shield. But to date, none of them has become law.

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The inaction has become a source of frustration.

"It's frankly nothing short of pathetic," Sen. Mark Warner, a Democrat from Virginia, told The Wall Street Journalin November. He warned that "it would be a fairly damning commentary on Congress" if lawmakers don't act soon.

But the latest cycle of congressional outrage hasn't spurred congressional action yet. In October, whistleblower Frances Haugen leaked internal Facebook documentsthat illustrate how the company puts profits over user safety. Facebook, which rebranded itself as Meta later that month, has said that Haugen mischaracterizes the company's actions.

Haugen, who testified twice in front of Congress in the waning months of 2021, showed through the documents and studies that the company knew its products were harmful, especially to teenage girls. But while politicians from both parties expressed disgust and outrage and promised action, they are still far apart on many details.

Haugen warned lawmakers that this is what the tech giants hoped would happen.

"Facebook wants you to get caught up in a long, drawn-out debate over the minutiae of different legislative approaches," Haugen told a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee in December. "Please don't fall into that trap. Time is of the essence You have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to create new rules for our online world."

So will 2022 be any different than the preceding five years? Some observers are cautiously optimistic.

"There's a narrow window between now and the spring when we start getting into election season that Congress could get something done, particularly around privacy, where there's a lot of bipartisan support," said Samir Jain, policy director for the Center of Democracy and Technology. "But it will require both Congress and the White House prioritizing these issues."

Here's a look at the state of things in Washington, DC.

If there's one area where legislative movement may be possible in 2022, it would be on protections for kids and teens. Since Haugen's assertions that Instagram parent company Meta knew the platform worsened the mental and physical health of some users, Democrats and Republicans in Congress have promised legislation to protect teens' privacy and to shield them from damaging effects of these apps.

"Privacy is definitely one area where they could get something done, especially when it comes to protecting privacy for children," Jain said.

One of the more promising pieces of legislation is an expansion of the 1998 Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, or COPPA, which already has bipartisan support and is backed by children's advocacy groups. The current law places stricter restrictions on the use of data about children under 13 than about older people. It also offers parents the ability to monitor and approve some of the information their children share.

In May, Sen. Ed Markey, a Democrat from Massachusetts, who helped write the 1998 law when he served in the House, and Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Republican from Louisiana, introduced an update to COPPAthat would increase the age restriction for data use from 13 to 15.

The revised law would not just affect change at Meta, but it would also apply to other platforms like Snap's Snapchat and ByteDance's TikTok, which have large teen audiences.

"Big Tech has a voracious appetite for kids' attention and data, and these companies have no problem prioritizing their own profits over children and teens' right to privacy," Markey said when he introduced the bill. "It's time for Congress to swiftly put in place strict safeguards that stop these powerful platforms from tracking young people at every turn in the online ecosystem."

The bill still has a long way to go. It must pass the Senate and House and be signed by President Joe Biden before it would become law. It's currently still being considered in committee.

While an updated COPPA could extend existing privacy protections for teens, a more comprehensive federal privacy law for everyone has stalled in Congress. This has happened despite broad bipartisan agreement over the need for federal legislation, as well as buy-in from the tech industry.

As states like California, Colorado and Virginia have pushed through their own privacy legislation and more states say they plan to do the same, companies like Amazon and Meta say they're open to federal legislation to avoid following a patchwork of state laws.

Still, federal lawmakers have been unable to agree on the details, such as whether federal law should preempt state law and whether individuals should be allowed to sue over privacy violations. Cameron Kerry, a general counsel and acting secretary of the US Department of Commerce under President Barack Obama and a fellow at the Brooking Institution, has followed privacy legislation closely. He said he's optimistic that the revelations from the Facebook documents that Haugen leaked could be the spark needed to get privacy legislation passed this year.

"We have never seen passage of a broad privacy law as close as it is now, and no other issue targeting the major tech platforms is anywhere near as ripe for action," he said in aBrookings blog post in November. He added that it's time for Congress to "finish the job of enacting a privacy law that began with its first Facebook hearings in 2018."

It's a similar story for Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, which shields platforms like Facebook, Instagram and YouTube from lawsuits over the content that their users post. Democrats and Republicans both say they want to make changes, but they're split along party lines on how to do it. Democrats want to focus on holding social media platforms accountable for moderating hate speech and disinformation, while Republicans have accused the companies of censoring conservative voices.

The result has been lots of hearings, but no legislative wins.

The most recent bills on Section 230 reform take different tacks. Instead of focusing on content moderation, they look at regulating the ranking algorithms designed to maximize engagement on these platforms.

Some lawmakers have proposed carveouts of the Section 230 protections for when algorithms amplify certain kinds of content. For instance, a bill from Democrat Reps. Tom Malinowski of New Jersey and Anna Eshoo of Californiaremoves Section 230 protections when algorithms boost content related to civil rights violations or international terrorism. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat from Minnesota, has introduced a bill that removes the liability shield when platforms promote medical misinformation during a public health emergency, such as the coronavirus pandemic.

"Earlier this year, I called on Facebook and Twitter to remove accounts that are responsible for producing the majority of misinformation about the coronavirus," Klobuchar said in July when her bill was introduced. "But we need a long-term solution. This legislation will hold online platforms accountable for the spread of health-related misinformation."

Other legislation, such as a bill from House Democrats led by Rep. Frank Pallone of New Jersey would make internet platforms liable when they "knowingly or recklessly" use algorithms to recommend content that leads to physical or "severe emotional" harm.

Republicans have laid out their own algorithm-focused Section 230 reforms. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida introduced a bill that would remove tech companies' liability shield when they either promote or "censor" certain political viewpoints.

The idea is that putting limits on the algorithms could force tech companies to be more careful about the content they amplify and could force the companies to change how the algorithms work. Haugen emphasized this point in her testimony.

"If we reformed 230 to make Facebook responsible for the consequences of their intentional ranking decisions, I think they would get rid of engagement-based ranking," Haugen told a Senate subcommittee in October.

But critics say this approach could have unintended consequences, something Haugen also warned of. A 2018 law signed by President Donald Trump that provided such a Section 230 carveout aimed at cracking down on sex traffickers online, ended up pushing such activity to more fringe sites where marginalized and vulnerable groups were put at greater risk of harm.

Civil rights and human rights organizations have cautioned about further targeted reforms to Section 230.

"It's irresponsible and unconscionable for lawmakers to rush toward further changes to Section 230 while actively ignoring human rights experts and the communities that were most impacted by the last major change to Section 230," said Evan Greer, director of the grassroots group Fight for the Future. "The last misguided legislation that changed Section 230 got people killed. Congress needs to do its due diligence and legislate responsibly."

Like privacy legislation and Section 230 reform, politicians in both parties say they want antitrust reforms to rein in the power and dominance of the tech giants. But a year after the House Judiciary subcommittee on antitrust published its 450-page report concluding that Amazon, Apple, Google and Facebook use their monopoly power to stifle competition, legislation has stalled in the House. The House Judiciary Committee in June approved six bills but has yet to schedule a floor vote.

Meanwhile, efforts in the Senate are picking up steam. In October, a bipartisan group of senators, led by Klobuchar and Sen. Chuck Grassley, a Republican from Iowa, introduced the American Innovation and Choice Online Act. A companion bill to one of the House bills approved in June, it would make it illegal for Amazon's marketplace or Google's search engine to favor their own products and services at the expense of other businesses that rely on the platforms.

If passed and signed into law, the legislation would mark the most meaningful change to antitrust law in decades. It would force changes in how the companies do business and how their products operate, and it could even break up companies.

The tech platforms oppose these measures and argue that such laws will actually mean fewer choices for consumers and higher prices for products. While much of the groundwork has been laid and there is some bipartisan support for these bills, there is still a very long way to go, say experts like Jain.

"There's definitely an avenue for reaching agreement on many of these issues, like privacy and antitrust," he said. "But it's really about whether these issues are a priority for both Congress and the administration. That's really what it will take to get this done."

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Regulating the tech giants may finally be within reach - CNET

One may understand how the underlying macroeconomic theme has changed by looking at the market capitalisation of some of the world's top corporations over the last 20 years or so.

According to the data, tech-based industries have grown in significance while others have declined. Let's take a look at how the leading firms in the worldwide spectrum market have changed over the last two decades.

Dotcom Bubble (1999): At the pinnacle of the dot com bubble in 1999, Microsoft, the first software monopoly in the IT industry, had a market valuation of $531 billion ($931 billion in today's figures). Although this was just a short triumph for the tech corporations in the Top 10, which also included Intel ($271 billion), Lucent Technologies ($252 billion), and Nokia ($197 billion).

Post-Boom (2004): The dot-com bubble crash ended tech firms' dominance in the Top 10, with Microsoft slipping to second place with a market valuation of $282 billion the only other major tech company represented on the list was Intel at number 9 with a market cap of $184 billion.

Financial Crisis (2008): After the financial crisis of 2008, Microsoft was the only remaining IT business in the Top 10, with a total market valuation of $212 billion, falling to fourth place.

Oil Boom (2014): The commodities boom, fueled by a $100 barrel of oil, ushered in a resurrection of the tech boom, spearheaded by Apple, whose flagship smartphone, the iPhone, debuted in 2007 and quickly became a household name. The company's innovation has propelled it to the top of the most valuable corporations list, with a total market capitalisation of $560 billion, followed by Google at $358 billion and Microsoft at $344 billion.

The Big Tech Era (present): Apple hit a market cap of $3 trillion briefly during trading on 3 January 2022. The milestone is mostly symbolic but it represents investor recognition of Apple's success over the past few years as the company has reported several record-breaking quarters of big growth in all of its product lines. As of 5 January 2022, Apple's market cap stands at $2.870trillion.

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Age of the tech giants - The Business Standard

By Yifan Wang

China has fined several of the country's largest tech giants for violations of anti-monopoly laws by failing to properly report certain acquisition and investment deals.

China's top market regulator, the State Administration for Market Regulation, said Wednesday that it found antitrust violations in more than a dozen deals involving Tencent Holdings Ltd., Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., JD.com Inc. and Bilibili Inc., some of the country's most valuable internet companies. The regulator said it fined the companies 500,000 yuan ($78,680) for each violation.

Alibaba, Bilibili, and Tencent didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.

The penalties come a day after Beijing passed two key new regulations for China's tech industry, triggering a sector-wide selloff.

Tech losses deepened in Hong Kong on Wednesday. The Hang Seng TECH Index was down 4.0% in early afternoon trade after sliding to the lowest point since its launch earlier in the day. Bilibili dived 9.0%, Tencent was down 3.8%, JD.com shed 6.3% and Alibaba edged down 0.9%.

Write to Yifan Wang at yifan.wang@wsj.com

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China Fines Top Tech Giants for Antitrust Violations - MarketWatch

Elon Musk may soon have some serious competition. Sony Group just debuted its latest electric concept car: the Vision-S 02 SUV.

According to the company, the electric prototype vehicle accommodates diverse values and lifestyles. Its similar in size to the Tesla Model Y and can seat up to seven passengers. The dual-motor powertrain setup delivers all-wheel drive and 536 horsepower. The SUV can reach a top speed of more than 112 mph. Sony has yet to confirm details about the vehicles battery size and range.

Considering an electronics and entertainment giant masterminded this prototype, its no surprise that technology is front-and-center. The SUV is equipped with 5G network connectivity, sensors for 360-degree vision around the car, and seat speakers. Its dashboard sports a large, high-definition panoramic screen. There are also screens for rear passengers, who can play Playstation games by connecting remotely to a PlayStation console at home.

The Japanese corporation showcased the electric prototype vehicle at CES 2022. The consumer electronics show, organized by the Consumer Technology Association, takes place in January at the Las Vegas Convention Center each year and showcases some of the worlds most innovative tech.

The Vision-S 02 features the same EV/cloud platform as its predecessor. Sony debuted its first prototype electric vehicle, the Vision-S 01, at CES 2020. It began testing the sedan on public roads in Europe later that year.

Eager to get your hands on the sleek, new electric SUV? It may be hitting showroom floors sooner than you think. Sony has also unveiled plans for becoming a car manufacturer. It will be launching a subsidiary electric car companySony Mobility Inc.this spring, which will allow it to enter the burgeoning EV market.

Automakers like Ford Europe, Honda, and Volvo have all announced ambitious plans for going all-electric. With more than ten million electric cars on the road today, companies are forgoing gas in order to meet the growing demand for emissions-free vehicles.

According to the International Energy Agency, electric car sales around the world increased from zero to 10.2 million between 2010 and 2020. Last year alone, 6.4 million electric cars were sold, a surge of 26 percent.

Big tech companies like Sony are increasingly venturing into the EV space. Many of them have already been involved in the automotive market in some capacitycreating components like audio systems and console interfaces for electric cars. Many of the electronics companies also already produce the lithium-ion batteries found in EV vehicles.

One such company is Apple, which has been working on an electric car concept since 2014. Rumor has it that the iPhone giant will announce its Apple Car this year with an expected launch by 2025.

In October 2021, technology group Foxconnwhich supplies products for Apple and Sonyunveiled three electric vehicle prototypes: a sedan, an SUV, and a bus. Earlier that year, Chinese smartphone producer Xiaomi revealed plans to invest $10 billion over the next decade to manufacture electric vehicles. The company, which registered its own EV division in September 2021, is expected to launch its first electric car in 2024.

About the author

STAFF WRITER | LOS ANGELES, CA Audrey writes about sustainability, food, and entertainment. She has a bachelor's degree in broadcast journalism and political science.

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Even Tech Giants Are Getting Into the Electric Car Biz - LIVEKINDLY

In a dramatic reversal of fortune for the big tech companies, Amazon and Facebook capitalised on being seen as essential for people in lockdown, while Google and Apple built tools that enabled state health departments to provide critical public services like contact tracing for Covid-19 infections. Be it through shifting focuses, introducing new products or refining recruitment strategies, here's how the five big tech companies took advantage of the pandemic.

Amazon

According to Forbes, Amazon's revenues were expected to grow by 27% to US$488 billion by 2021. True to those predictions, consumers being trapped indoors only spelt opportunities for the e-commerce giant. Besides seeing a staggering rise in Amazon deliveries, the tech giant also profited from the increased viewership on its streaming platform throughout the pandemic.

While services like Amazon's were naturally expected to thrive with travel restrictions and lockdowns, another example of company success in the pandemic comes from Zoom. From rising through the share market ranks to becoming a verb in our day-to-day lives, video chatting services by Zoom also played a part behind Amazon's flourishment. With a chunk of Zoom hosted by Amazon's cloud services division AWS, the tech giant only stood to gain from Zoom's success.

Google

Alphabet, Google's parent company, has proven more than resilient during the pandemic, reaching a market value close to US$2 trillion.

Raking in most of its earnings from Google's advertising and YouTube, sales and profits for Alphabet reached record highs throughout the pandemic. Following the closure of most nurseries, schools and educational institutions, Google's services like Google Classroom and YouTube Kids saw an unprecedented rise in users.

Besides more revenue from paid advertisements targeting home-bound shoppers, Google Workspace services like Meet, Docs, Sheets and more became indispensable parts of working from home. Paired with their innovation in terms of contact tracing technology, Google Pixel phones and more, the pandemic presented many wins for the tech giant.

Apple

Besides having deeper pockets than most companies heading into the pandemic, Apple continued to thrive with sales of Macs, iPads and iPhones. While the shift to remote work and school only drove up demands for new Apple devices, digital subscriptions for Apple TV and iTunes also helped the big tech company flourish this year.

Reporting a revenue of US$365.8 billion in 2021, Apple also witnessed a boost in their sales with the release of the low-cost iPhone SE which put the company in a better position, despite the financial pitfalls of the Covid-19 crisis.

Facebook

From connectivity to entertainment and news, throughout the pandemic, Facebook has kept us tethered to friends, family, workgroups and more. Reaching 2.89 billion users across Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp, the tech giant also saw considerable profits from its targeted online advertising as well as moderate non-advertising revenue from sales of the Oculus Quest VR headset.

Another key aspect of Facebook's rise in the pandemic came from an auction-like system to increase advertisement charges alongside increased demand, with their average price per ad growing by 47% in the second quarter of 2021.

Microsoft

Even in the pandemic, Microsoft remained one of the most valuable companies in the world, worth nearly US$1.3 trillion.

The tech giants' deep pockets enabled them to withstand the financial downfalls of the pandemic, while also allowing the company to benefit from increased demand for Microsoft hardware, software and cloud systems for remote and hybrid work. Besides, the tech giant also benefited from the uptick in the gaming and entertainment industry with its Xbox series X consoles and game streaming services.

While each of the big tech companies followed their own unique strategies to take advantage of the pandemic, all of them shared some common perks, namely- deeper pockets, better recruitment capacity and swiftly adapting to the new normal. Where traditional companies declared bankruptcy and laid-off workers in hordes, companies like Amazon lead hiring sprees for nearly 175,000 new warehouse jobs.

Therefore, while the economic contraction killed off more and more businesses, more spaces were opened up for the big tech companies to occupy, with the largest firms being some of the only companies in the position to do any hiring in the pandemic. Snapping up the best talent, taking over competitors and positioning their own services as essential parts of life in the pandemic were the factors that not only kept big tech companies afloat but helped them thrive overall.

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How tech giants took advantage of the pandemic - The Daily Star

David Chavern| Guest columnist

Michael J. Fox talks about the USA TODAY newspaper in Back to the Future

Do you remember that USA TODAY newspaper cover in Back to the Future Part II? Michael J. Fox does too.

Staff video

The internet is thoroughly embedded into our day-to-day lives, and its impact has only amplified as the world continues to grapple with the global pandemic. It has increasingly become the primary way we connect with loved ones, buy the things we need, and get the news.

While the internet has succeeded in becoming a fundamental part of modern life, it is hard to shake the feeling that it has fallen woefully short of its highest aspirations promised by Silicon Valley. In the internet's nascent days, its innovative possibilities seemed limitless, and its open and democratic culture created a feeling that it would drive opportunities that would benefit everyone.

That is clearly not how things have played out. Today the internet has become controlled by a handful of companies who exercise an unprecedented level of control over people's lives. When these companies were in their infancy, like the internet itself, they were synonymous with innovation. However, these tech giants are abusing their market power to undermine fair competition and free-market capitalism.

Those sympathetic to Big Tech would argue that reining in these companies would harm consumers because of the low prices and broad services they provide.

Big Tech sympathizers are undermining the long-term welfare of consumers and small businesses because these companies use their market power and low prices to crowd out competition, further perpetuate their monopoly and reduce incentives for innovation.

For example, some Big Tech companies have portrayed themselves as benevolent members of their community while simultaneously deploying business practices that have steadily hollowed out small businesses across the nation. During Big Tech's ascent over commerce, the number of small retailers has fallen by 65,000, and today three-quarters of independent retailers see Big Tech's dominance as a major threat to their survival.

Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, a veteran of fighting consolidation in the agriculture industry, has been able to see through the shaky arguments made by Big Tech champions and propose real solutions to hold the tech giants accountable. Grassley has introduced a bipartisan bill, the American Innovation and Choice Act, that would prohibitdominant platforms from abusing their gatekeeper power by favoring their own products or services over their rivals, often small and local businesses, and to establishsignificant penalties for violations.

The senator understands that legislation reining in Big Tech is not an indictment of Big Tech's success or a repudiation of their excellent products and services for their consumers. It is simply a way to provide common-sense, pro-market guardrails to ensure that small and local businesses have a fair and level playing field when using these dominant platforms to conduct their business.

We hope that the senator could extend his leadership further to support other pro-competition and bipartisan pieces of legislation such as the Journalism Competition and Perseveration Act, or JCPA. The JCPA allows a four-year antitrust exemption to permit news organizations big and small to work together to negotiate with Google and Facebook to secure fair compensation for local journalism. Google and Facebook's stranglehold on the online news and ad market has allowed them to benefit from journalistic content without paying for it cutting off revenue needed to pay reporters, photographers, and editors to cover local news in their communities.

More than 1,800 communities have lost their local newspapers since 2004, including 52 in Iowa. Consequently, today, more than half of Iowans get their news from Facebook, which is increasingly filling the journalistic void with untrustworthy sources and misinformation and becoming America's de facto local news source.

More: 3 Iowa newspapers disappear in a week. The pandemic threat is real for the industry, and for Iowans.

More: Opinion: Documentary 'Storm Lake' is turning heads on the film festival circuit, and it explains a real threat

The American economy's dynamism was built on a foundation of open markets and fair competition. However, Big Tech's monopoly power is destabilizing the systems that are central to our prosperity, and American consumers, workers, businesses, and democracy are paying the price.

While legislation is by no means a silver bullet to the sweeping economic and societal problems caused by Big Tech, it is an important way to help bring us closer to the egalitarian ideals that Silicon Valley promised us when the possibilities of the internet were limited only by our imagination.

We encourage the rest of Congress to follow Grassley's lead and act to rein in the unprecedented control that the tech giants increasingly have asserted over the internet and our daily lives.

David Chavern is president and CEO of the News Media Alliance, a nonprofit that represents over 2,000 U.S. news organizations.

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Opinion: Big Tech is ruining the promise of the internet, and Americans are paying the price - Des Moines Register

Days after the Delhi Police lodged a case in connection with photos of Muslim women being misused on a website, a Delhi-based journalist has sent a legal notice to tech companies Twitter and GitHub seeking details of people who created the website and shared her doctored photos alongside objectionable comments.

The website hosted by US-based open-source platform GitHub had published photos of more than a hundred Muslim women with lewd and vulgar remarks. The screenshots of these photos with the caption Deal of the Day was shared largely on Twitter.

Last Saturday, the journalist filed a complaint with the Delhi Police and a case of sexual harassment and promoting enmity between groups was registered.

The cyber cell of Delhi Police has sent a request to GitHub through Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT) to help in the investigation.

In the notice sent to GitHub and Twitter offices in the US and India, the womans lawyer has asked the companies to help them with the identification of the accused persons who created and uploaded photos on the website. The complainant also demanded that all such offensive posts must be removed from GitHub and Twitter and the companies must take preventive measures.

Bulli Bai (the website) and the subsequent tweets are deeply disturbing as they demean and insult women in general and Muslim women in particular. These are inherently violent, threatening and are designed to intimidate my Client, and others. Such abusive statements on social media, regardless of format or intricacies of technology, cannot be tolerated and neither can the platforms run by you, Notices, be used in such an illegal manner by bigoted and misogynistic sections of society, reads the notice drafted by the lawyer.

The complainant has asked the companies to provide details of users who created the website, names of all users who accessed the website and users who posted tweets and retweets supporting the website.

There must be mechanisms in the form of monitoring, automatic or human, that can stop websites/ portals/ apps like Bulli Bai or the earlier Sulli Deals at their very inception, as being violative of human dignity and of Indian and International laws, reads the notice.

The companies have seven days to produce a response failing which the complainant said they will take further legal action.

Meanwhile, the Mumbai police on Wednesday made the third arrest in the matter based on an FIR registered in Mumbai

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Womens doctored photos online: Journalist sends legal notice to tech giants GitHub, Twitter - The Indian Express

Its not easy to predict what will happen with Pittsburgh tech and, really, its not easy to predict anything right now. But one thing is certain. The city is finally firmly on the map as a technology center.

Pittsburgh now has multiple unicorns worth more than a billion dollars Duolingo, Argo AI, Aurora and keeps attracting tech giants such as DoorDash and Waymo (Googles self-driving car division) to the city. Just as interesting is the proliferation of startups, many of which are growing quickly.

Theres a lot going on, so we asked experts in the tech sector to help form our picks for 10 tech companies to watch in 2022. We looked beyond the perennial big players and the companies we featured last year (with a few exceptions). This years list shows that Pittsburghs tech sector is much broader than robots and computer science.

Photo courtesy of Locomation.

Locomation

Youve likely heard about all the supply chain problems as a result of a global economy snarled by Covid disruptions. One of those choke points is truck drivers or a lack thereof. Though it generally pays well, its a demanding job that requires special training. Locomation is applying Pittsburghs expertise in autonomous vehicles to the problem but doing it carefully and in stages.

The Strip District-based company offers an Autonomous Relay Convoy system, which tethers together two trucks electronically. The (human) driver pilots the lead truck with a second driver as a backup in the autonomously-driven follower truck. Periodically, they switch places. This enables two trucks to operate for 20 to 22 hours a day, delivering double the cargo faster, at twice the distance. Independent analysis indicates that this will also reduce a trucks greenhouse gas footprint by 22%, fuel consumption by 21% and operating costs by 19%.

More than 1,000 Wilson Logistics trucks will be equipped with Locomation technology this year, the worlds first commercial autonomous truck order.

Gecko Robotics photo by Quinn Holub.

Gecko Robotics

Wall-crawling robots! No, not creepy at all. Actually, pretty useful its hard to inspect tall things like power plants and pipelines by hand and with the human eye. Cracks and damage need to be detected before its too late, and Gecko Robotics wall-crawling robot does just that, for giant companies such as BP, Marathon and Duke Energy. Their robots perform ultrasonic and visual inspections that were previously too dangerous or costly to do.

Gecko is expanding into Nova Place on the North Side, taking approximately 70,000 square feet of space. Gecko has 185 employees, with about half located in Pittsburgh, and is looking to double its workforce in 2022.

Koop Technologies

Sure, autonomous vehicles are seemingly straight out of science fiction. But somebody has to do the actual homework and find out a way to insure these things and Koop wants to do that here in Pittsburgh.

For everything from robotaxis to shuttles, drones and autonomous trucking, Koop has insurance technology solutions for all kinds of risks, from sensor damage to cybersecurity and software errors. The company recently raised $2.5 million in seed funding and plans to partner with some of the worlds largest insurance companies to develop programs for robotics and autonomous vehicles.

Photo courtesy of MagicMed.

Cognistx

Psychedelic drugs stigmatized for decades as dangerous, illegal substances represent perhaps the final frontier in psychiatric care. (Call it higher tech.) Psilocybin (magic mushrooms), LSD and mescaline are being studied as potential game-changers for alleviating treatment-resistant psychiatric problems, ranging from anxiety and depression to post-traumatic stress disorder.

Downtown-based Carnegie Mellon University spinoff Cognistx is working with Canadian biotech firm MagicMed (recently acquired by Enveric Biosciences) to develop an artificial intelligence platform to streamline pharmaceutical research and accelerate the development of psychedelic medicine. Millions of molecules must be tested for efficacy (and side effects) and Cognistx can use past tests and data to help figure out which ones are the most promising, and rule out those that are not.

Govenda

Formerly BoardBookit, this recently rebranded, woman-founded company made Inc. 500s list of Americas fastest-growing private companies in 2020, with a three-year revenue growth of 340%. It has also grown into a complete board management platform for clear communication between CEOs, compliance executives and boards of directors.

As a bonus, Govenda is designed to keep up with changing needs for diversity, equity and inclusion imperatives, as well as environmental and social goals.

astroboticGecko RoboticsPittsburgh startups 2022Pittsburgh tech

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From self-driving trucks to psychedelic drugs: 10 Pittsburgh tech companies to watch in 2022 - NEXTpittsburgh

With the assuredness of a cultish chant and the unity of a national anthem, many of us wouldn't hesitate before singing the remainder of phrases like "Like a good neighbor," "Ace is the place," "1-8-7-7-Kars," and so on. You can hear them in your head now, can't you? The jingle: capitalistic nursery rhymes played for us over and over again during television commercial breaks and radio spots.

The jingle was once a marvel of advertising ingenuity a way to cement a brand into the minds of every unwitting watcher or listener in the country, relevant or not. Since the success of the radio broadcasting of a jingle for Wheaties in 1926, these short pithy tunes have been a favorite tool of advertisers to get products ingrained into the psyche of the consumer.We might not be able to remember how many members of Congress there are, but we do know the phone number to the Empire carpet company.

But a lot has changed since the days of hand-held radios and cable television. With e-commerce, digital analytics, data collection, and artificial intelligence, the world of advertising looks very different in 2022.And as brands continue to learn more and more about us, the less use they'll have for the jingle.

Sure, there are still somepeople whoresignedly sit through commercials on cable TV and listen to the FM radio in their cars, but those numbers are dwindling, making it less cost-effective for ad agencies to spend the money and time crafting jingles that only a few will hear. Turbo-charged by the pandemic, the number of Americans who ended their traditional pay-TV service reached a record high in 2020, totaling 7 million American households. And as jingle-writer Steve Karmen, dubbed "King of the Jingle" by People magazine, said in a 2016 interview with NPR, "Unfortunately, jingle is an unacceptable word today. Jingle implies old. Jingle implies stodgy. Jingle implies not with it."

Today, capturing customers is no longer as quaint as crafting an earworm, but reliant instead on the culling of data on millions of users across the internet, personal devices, and even smart TVs. With interactive data from tech giants Facebook and Google who together own almost 50 percentof the $200 billion digital advertising market in the U.S. as well as details gathered from the likes of your credit card company or social media apps, marketing companies can craft ads based on your preferences. Many of these details are compiled into what Joel Cox, co-founder of advertising technology firm Strategus, calls "identity graphs." These help marketing companies better understand what, how, and when to try to sell you products.

And as streaming services gradually eclipse cable television, advertisers are increasingly investing in personalized commercials that appear on streaming platforms. Spending on streaming service and smart TV advertising grew by 40.6 percent from 2019 to 2020. AsConsumer Reportsnotes, almost every streaming service that shows ads, including Hulu, Peacock, and YouTube TV, presents targeted commercials.

When we think about the extent and success of algorithmic personalization, it's hard not to discuss TikTok, now the most successful video app in the world. Through its unique algorithm,TikTok is able to keep you scrolling, drop you down into a rabbit hole you never knew you wanted to be in, and bring you back again and again. The app's algorithm, in its most simplistic version, largely relies on three pieces of data:likes, comments, and playtime.

Not all companies or advertisers rely on an algorithm quite like TikTok's, but most do know more about their average consumer than they ever did before. And since 31 percent of American adultsare on the internet "almost constantly" and 85 percent are on at least once a day, there are few moments when we are not being confronted with targeted ads.

That raises the question: Do consumers even need to remember brands if the brands are remembering us? Do we need a jingle to recall the existence ofa furniture store or clothing brand if we've already been identified as an interested consumer and getrelatedads on Instagram and Facebookfor the companyalmost constantly?

In this era of personalization, it seems wasteful that the jingle for Kars4Kids was heard by many who did not own a car, were not planning to donate their car, or were not even of age to drive a car. Many individuals of a certain age grew up knowing that Nationwide was "on their side" far before they knew a thing about insurance companies, or even what insurance was.

Today, visit a website a few times or leave a couple of items in your online shopping cart, and you could be receiving promotional emails and texts from a brand for years.Not only are we more reliant on the internet to remind us, or even tell us what we like, need, or want, but we're also more inclined to move from one thing to the next at a faster pace. Today there is a shortening time frame for digital impact or relevancy, making it more necessary for brands to capture your attention while they can, rather than in the hopes of holding it for a lifetime.

Thus, the more companies know about you, the less you need to know about them. Folgers no longer needs you to sing, "Every morning waking up, it's Folgers in your cup." They already know what's in your cup.

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How the algorithm killed the jingle - The Week Magazine