On February 28, 2019, West Virginia Governor Jim Justice signed Senate Bill 267 which requires the state’s Board of Education to adopt and fund a policy describing the computer science instruction students receive at each grade level in K-12 schools. This move by Governor Justice makes West Virginia the first state to require a computer …
On March 15 the FCC voted to advance a Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (“FNPRM”) that would require wireless carriers to provide more accurate location data for emergency calls. Under the proposed rules, wireless carriers would have to give first responders three-dimensional location data instead of two-dimensional location data as currently required. Commissioners acknowledged that …
Once I told a friend that Wyoming was a place in the United States where innovative laws and legal practices were implemented and eventually accepted by the entire country. He thought I was joking. He only believed me after I explained the surprising history of the Limited Liability Company, how a form of business which …
New nuclear technologies such as Small Modular Reactors, advanced fission, and nuclear fusion are currently being developed to make nuclear energy safer and more efficient. The engineers of these technologies along with many scientists concerned about climate change believe that this “new nuclear” is likely to be a huge part of a carbon-free energy future. …
Apple faced public scrutiny when viral videos surfaced showing a glaring bug with Apple’s FaceTime feature that allowed the caller to hear conversations and even see video from the person being called before that person accepted or rejected the call. The bug appears to only appear during group chats (chats with more than 2 people), …
When designing intellectual property laws, the struggle inherent in legislating is designing a law that will ensure that creators and inventors have adequate incentives to continue revealing new knowledge to the public while also not overly limiting the public’s ability to interact with prior works or express their own useful ideas. This balance has been …
With the recent introduction of 230 new emojis for 2019, which brings the total number of emojis up to 3,053, consumers are presented with a seemingly limitless selection of emojis applicable to any given situation. With 3,053 options to choose from, and increasingly capable screen displays, emojis are becoming both more visually nuanced and increasingly …
Political firebrand and House Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Ed Markey released the Green New Deal (“GND”) in early February 2019. Spurred by recent findings from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that suggest humans have less than a decade to reverse course on climate change before it will be too late to prevent …
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and an Uber subsidiary have asked a Washington federal judge to invalidate Seattle’s ordinance letting ride hailing app-based drivers unionize. The allege the city’s law violates federal antitrust law by allowing independent contractors to unionize and fix prices. In 2015, Seattle became the first city to allow Uber and Lyft …
Facial recognition technology has experienced a boom this past year. Amazon launched Amazon Rekognition, which has been used in cities like Orlando, FL, to scan faces in public and flag criminal matches against its database. A handful of retailers have also begun using facial recognition cameras in their stores to primarily monitor shoplifting and stealing, …
