Bureaucracy
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Hitting the Books: Beware the Tech Bro who comes bearing gifts
In 'Optimal Illusions' UC Berkeley applied mathematician Coco Krumme explores our historical fascination with process optimization and how that pursuit has led to unintended is in the systems we're streamlining.
Google's 'Project Wing' commercial drone service to launch in 2017
We've seen Project Wing, the air-delivery service from Google, tap NASA to help sidestep reams of bureaucratic red tape and get off the ground before, and it looks like the service could soon launch in earnest. The outfit's laying the groundwork right now and says that its goal is having the commercial flights up and running in 2017, according to Reuters. The company is one of several working with the Federal Aviation Administration to develop a registry for drones and eventually dedicated air traffic control system. The former would ideally be in place by this December 20th, making sure operators are aware of rules on where, when and how to fly their aircraft.
Customs stops delaying HTC One X and EVO 4G LTE devices after 'review'
HTC-branded crates have been trickling through customs for ten days already, following a total clamp-down earlier in May, but it's only now that they're able to pass through without lengthy extra checks. The manufacturer says it has "completed the review process with US Customs" and that it is "confident that we will soon be able to meet the demand for our products." That obviously raises the question as to why the HTC One X and EVO 4G LTE devices were held up in the first place. The ITC had earlier ruled that HTC infringed on an Apple patent about data detection, concerning a handset's ability to recognize and move around personal data, for example between the contact entry and the calendar, and it had given HTC until April to remove that feature. HTC agreed to that, but it appears customs officials initially needed to check every box to ensure that products arriving in the US were of the compliant type. Meanwhile, the LTE part of the EVO 4G is still waiting for its luggage.
British police force tweeting every emergency call over 24 hours, ironically keeps getting TwitJailed
The Greater Manchester Police team has decided to show the world how busy law enforcement can get by tweeting out every enquiry/emergency call it has to deal with. Only problem is that it keeps ending up in Twitter jail for posting too much. This one-day-only experiment (or is it a publicity stunt?) will detail every local call to 999 (the British 911) and the GMP's switchboard, uncovering such exciting episodes as "concern for welfare in Rusholme" and "report of threats and abuse on Facebook in Salford" (we're not making this up). It's intended to illustrate to the public and politicians alike the real life daily grind that police officers go through; and we see their point, it must be hell setting up all those new accounts to avoid Twitter's own rule enforcers. Tsk tsk.
