Tag Archives: White House
White House releases "Bioeconomy Blueprint"
White House science officials and cabinet chiefs have unveiled plans to spur biomedical research and related partnerships between industry, schools and government, a “Bioeconomy Blueprint.”
“The U.S. bioeconomy is all around us: new drugs and diagnostics for improved human health, higher-yielding food crops, emerging biofuels to reduce dependency on oil, and biobased chemical intermediates,” says the plan report released Thursday, calling for a series of step to increase economic returns from the long-running federal investment in basic biomedical research.
Beyond medicine, the report notes that advances in energy, agriculture and industry increasingly rely on innovations springing from biomedical research.
The report comes as an election-year budget battle shapes up on in Washington D.C., one that has seen science advocates strongly defending increases in federal support for basic research.
In the blueprint report, the White House calls for steps
Article source: http://rssfeeds.usatoday.com/~r/usatoday-TechTopStories/~3/kxIxjJrZe8Q/1
White House touts ‘challenge’ prizes for tech solutions
And if the government dangles prize money in front of inventors to come up with technology solutions to common problems, it can get results just as in the private sector, suggests a White House report out today that documents its successes in offering “challenge” prizes.
The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) report follows passage last year of the America COMPETES Act, which streamlined federal research funding rules, and gave agencies wider latitude to solve problems by offering competitive prizes. Prizes such as 2004′s Ansari X Prize, where philanthropists awarded $10 million to the first private spacecraft to reach 62 miles high twice in two weeks, helped inspire the move.
“Prizes are an old idea whose time has come again,” says
Article source: http://rssfeeds.usatoday.com/~r/usatoday-TechTopStories/~3/jR-QzqTgzSE/1
FTC urgers laws to protect consumers’ privacy
The FTC said in a report Monday that privacy legislation should include providing consumers access to the information amassed on them by so-called data brokers. The report also said companies should build privacy practices into every stage of product development, give consumers simple choices about privacy and make data practices transparent, including for mobile use.
“Americans have enthusiastically migrated more and more of their lives online,” FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz said in a news conference Monday in Washington, D.C., after the report was released. “As a result we have had to ask how can consumers continue to enjoy the riches of a thriving online and mobile marketplace without surrendering their privacy as the price of admission.”
The privacy framework envisioned by the agency would for the first time impose limits on the collection and use of consumer
Article source: http://rssfeeds.usatoday.com/~r/usatoday-TechTopStories/~3/gUfGuGxi99E/1
Youth especially need protection
Getting a divided Congress to pass any hard-edged privacy legislation is the next big hurdle President Obama faces in making his Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights the law of the land.
“We urge the administration to ensure that it carries out this process in a fair and transparent manner, and that consumer voices are heard and acted on,” Susan Grant, director of Consumer Protection at Consumer Federation of America, adds.
In an unusual move, the White House convened a press conference at 4:30 p.m. Eastern on Wednesday to announce the details, imposing an embargo – which all media outlets accepted without question – until midnight. Here are the seven rights:
- Individual Control: Consumers have a right to exercise control over what personal data organizations collect from them and how they use it.
- Transparency: Consumers have a right to easily understandable information about privacy and security practices.
- Respect for Context: Consumers have
Article source: http://rssfeeds.usatoday.com/~r/usatoday-TechTopStories/~3/5W-RwbmQco4/1
White House pushes for online privacy rights
The announcement came as Maryland Attorney General Douglas Gansler and attorneys general from 35 other states sent a letter to Google complaining about a new privacy policy that will give the search giant greater latitude to track people using computers and mobile devices, with no way to opt out of being tracked.
One of the seven privacy rights, unveiled at a press conference by Commerce Secretary John Bryson, guarantees consumers the “right to exercise control over what personal data organizations collect from them and how they use it.”
The Commerce Department will now commence a series of meetings inviting privacy advocates, consumer groups and key players in the tech and online advertising industries to hash out “enforceable privacy policies,” Bryson said.
In a statement, President Obama said, “American consumers can’t wait any longer for clear
Article source: http://rssfeeds.usatoday.com/~r/usatoday-TechTopStories/~3/OslMzeqAUow/1
