Tag Archives: technology

Redefining Your Business Strategy for Post #Covid – 19: A Free @Simio Webinar Tomorrow May 7, 11:00 AM – #DataSimulation*

How do you plan for today and the future in a time of uncertainties? Do you simply wait out the pandemic, or apply analytics to develop workable strategies that keep your business functional?  

This FREE and short Simio webinar TOMORROW on May 7th, 2020 at 11:00 am ET (3:00 pm UTC) will share insights that will allow you to see how you can apply simulation to evaluate different response scenarios for your business.  
  Tomorrow’s webinar will give a glimpse into data simulation and how it can be used to predict outcomes based on your available options. It will also showcase the importance of data simulation modeling in providing insight for capacity planning and predictive analytics during a pandemic and a post-pandemic scenario. Stakeholders, managers, and decision-makers will learn valuable lessons on advanced planning and resource management using Simio as an analytical tool. This webinar will also help employees across every industry understand why certain decisions are been taken and the importance of resource management.  Regardless of your industry, you will learn how to apply simulation to enhance daily operations and manage complex processes.  
Presenters: 1) Dan O’Neil, Health Systems Innovation Lead at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory 2) Adam Sneath, Application Engineer at Simio.
Click Here to Register Today: or use this link to Simio, LLC in Pittsburgh: https://www.simio.com/resources/webinar/2020-05-07-Simio-Webinar.php

* This announcement is not providing legal advice or is it in any way an endorsement of SIMIO by any lawyer or law firm, but merely a suggestion of a possible resource for businesses and individuals as businesses and health care facilities re-open. Houston Harbaugh and Henry Sneath are not involved in the content development, nor presentation of this program.

BLOCKCHAIN: Is it the Next Big Step in Data Security?

From Law.Com and its Legaltech news former Microsoft CTO Adrian Clarke (Evident Proof) reports on the technology of Blockchain and its purported major security benefits for the supply ecosystem. “The blockchain is a transaction ledger that is uneditable and virtually unhackable. New information can be written onto the blockchain, but the previous information (stored in what are known as blocks) can’t be adjusted. Every single block (or piece of data) added to the chain is given an encrypted identity. Cryptography effectively connects the contents of each newly added block with each block that came before it. So any change to the contents of a previous block on a chain would invalidate the data in all blocks after it.” Clarke’s report here is perhaps some comfort for an exponentially growing sector of the world wide economy which relies on supply chain management on a massive scale. See his piece in Law Journal Newsletters at http://tinyurl.com/y7mqfnem 

Attorneys Bill Cheng and John Frank Weaver at McLane Middleton, P.A. in New Hampshire posted this piece in the NH Business Review at: http://tinyurl.com/yblh6nqp regarding the interaction between Blockchain and Bitcoin and how the GDPR for example will struggle to deal with these technologies, given the protections that GDPR attempts to provide to data owners so that they can control their personal information and data. Blockchain, particularly in conjunction with Bitcoin as the currency for a Blockchain secured transaction will prove a challenge to the GDPR rules. CTOs, Industrial Engineers and Supply Chain designers have big decisions to make in the years to come regarding security and whether Blockchain is the answer to some data protection issues. Photo courtesy of Law.Com.

Posted by Henry M. Sneath, Esquire Co-Chair Litigation Practice Group and Chair of the IP Practice Group: Houston Harbaugh, P.C.  401 Liberty Avenue, Pittsburgh, Pa. 15222Sneath is also an Adjunct Professor of  Law teaching two courses; Trade Secret Law and the Law of Trademarks and Unfair Competition at Duquesne University School of Law. Please contact Mr. Sneath at 412-288-4013 or sneathhm@hh-law.com

 

 

From Relecura: Semiconductor Sensors. Building the Wave in IoT Development

As the Internet of Things (IoT) develops, there is an increasing need to “sense” changes in the atmospherics which surround semiconductors. In other words, the working chips must get smarter and smarter and have feel! Some of that AI feel in chips is being supplied by sensing chips – the layered structure of wafers of semiconductor material which can “sense” changes in the environment it is measuring or into which it is placed. Gas sensors are particularly important and patent applications for these devices are on the upswing internationally, with Sony and Samsung leading the way. See Relecura article at http://tinyurl.com/ybrojuq2
Edaphic Scientific describes a gas sensor’s performance as follows:  “Semiconductor gas sensors rely on a gas coming into contact with a metal oxide surface and then undergoing either oxidation or reduction. The absorption or desorption of the gas on the metal oxide changes either the conductivity or resistivity from a known baseline value. This change in conductivity or resistivity can be measured with electronic circuitry. Usually the change in conductivity or resistivity is a linear and proportional relationship with gas concentration. Therefore, a simple calibration equation can be established between resistivity/conductivity change and gas concentration.” http://tinyurl.com/y6ufz7vx
The IoT relies on smarter and smarter technology as it governs many things around us. Products will have this smarter and smarter technology and converting “sensing” into electronic circuitry will likely have a positive impact on performance, but will present new challenges as products fail and cause damage to person or property. How deep a dive will be required in products liability litigation for example when a “sensor chip” fails to sense. Sensor chips have been around for a while, but they are becoming tremendously sophisticated and integral to the virtual world in which we operate.

Posted by Henry M. Sneath, Esquire Co-Chair Litigation Practice Group and Chair of the IP Practice Group: Houston Harbaugh, P.C., 401 Liberty Avenue, Pittsburgh, Pa. 15222. Please contact Mr. Sneath at 412-288-4013 or sneathhm@hh-law.com

 

 

 

 

 

Quantum Computing – The Next Tech Frontier – Qubit by Qubit?

(“This superconducting chip, with a total area of one square centimeter, consists of nine qubits in a 1D array. Microwave pusles are applied to control their states and their interaction, and consequently control the dynamics of the system. Such Josephson-junction based superconducting systems are a leading physical implementations for quantum computation and simulation processing. Credit: Eric Lucero/Google, Inc.”

Is Quantum Computing the next Tech frontier? Collaboration between researchers at Google and UC Santa Barbara are working on super computing qubits which might lead to “quantum supremacy” in the computing world. One chief researcher describes it as the desire to “perform an algorithm or computation that couldn’t be done otherwise.” Where classical computers function in two states, zeroes and ones – qubits perform in three states with the extra state being a “superposition” of both zero and one “raising exponentially the number of possible states a quantum system can explore.” For more details see Phys.ORG

Posted by Henry M. Sneath, Esq.                                              Shareholder and Director;                                                                                        Co-Chair of the Litigation Department;                                                    Chair of the IP Department;                                                                         Houston Harbaugh, P.C.  (www.hh-law.com)                                                    Pittsburgh, Pa.                                                                                                              Please contact Mr. Sneath at 412-288-4013 or sneathhm@hh-law.com

Business: Seeking Predictability in an Era of Uncertainty

Here is an article I wrote which was published by DRI in their IDQ (In-house Defense Quarterly) to promote the DRI Corporate Counsel Round Table meeting in Washington D.C. which was held in January. It highlights the uncertainty in business markets and the role of the courts in same. See the article at this link: http://tinyurl.com/y9mov84l 

Posted by Henry M. Sneath, Esq.                                                         Shareholder and Director;                                                                                    Co-Chair of the Litigation Department;                                                    Chair of the IP Department;                                                                         Houston Harbaugh, P.C.  (www.hh-law.com)                                                    Pittsburgh, Pa.                                                                                                              Please contact Mr. Sneath at 412-288-4013 or sneathhm@hh-law.com 

 

 

Pittsburgh Court Rules on Data Breach Class Claims – Denying Cause of Action

Posted By Henry M. Sneath, Chair of the Cybersecurity and Data Breach Prevention and Response Team at Pittsburgh, Pa. law firm Picadio Sneath Miller & Norton, P.C.  hsneath@psmn.com or 412-288-4013

537047_70437721A Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Judge has ruled at the trial court level that there is no private cause of action for the alleged failure of a major hospital network to secure and protect PII and PHI. Denying Class claims, Judge Wettick has ruled that because the legislature has not created such a right, that only the Pennsylvania Attorney General has the right to bring a claim in this circumstance. See the Legal Intelligencer article here: http://tinyurl.com/nphostc  We will get more details on this case and pass them along with our analysis.

Business Leaders Rank Cyber Risk #2 on List of Main Concerns

Posted By Henry M. Sneath, Chair of the Cybersecurity and Data Breach Prevention and Response Team at Pittsburgh, Pa. law firm Picadio Sneath Miller & Norton, P.C.  hsneath@psmn.com or 412-288-4013

Travelers Business Risk ImageTravelers Indemnity and Insurance released its annual Business Risk Index, which is a survey of the concerns of business leaders and decision makers. Not surprisingly, for 2015, Cyber Risk moved up to the number 2 concern on that list, right behind rising healthcare costs. In some industry sectors it is the number 1 concern. The Banking and Financial Services, Professional Services, and Technology sectors each ranked cyber risks as the main driver of sleepless nights.  The chart on page 3 of the survey is very instructional as to the different concerns between small, medium and large businesses. Small businesses have less concern about data breach than larger businesses, but perhaps small businesses are overlooking their vulnerability and attractiveness as targets. If they care less, they will likely protect less, and become easy targets for hackers. It should be a huge concern for all businesses in all industries as no one appears immune. If you data store or deal in Personal Identifiable Information (PII) or Personal Health Information (PHI) as part of your business, then you are a valuable target. If you have financial or credit information, or trade secrets to protect, then perhaps your competitors, foreign governments and political hackers want to look inside your data. Many insurers are now offering Cyber Risk Insurance to provide defense and indemnity against these risks. Every business should have a data breach prevention and response team of employees and outside consultants and lawyers to audit the company’s vulnerability and to set the plan for a response when a breach occurs.  See the complete Travelers Business Risk Index at: https://www.travelers.com/prepare-prevent/risk-index/business/index.aspx

Target Agrees to Settle Class Claims Over 2013 Data Breach for $10M

Posted By Henry M. Sneath, Chair of the Cybersecurity and Data Breach Prevention and Response Team at Pittsburgh, Pa. law firm Picadio Sneath Miller & Norton, P.C.  hsneath@psmn.com or 412-288-4013

Data Breach broken_security_lock photo Target Corp. agrees to settle the 2013 data breach class claims prior to argument on class certification. Lead plaintiff’s counsel admitted the uphill battle he faced to obtain class certification due primarily to the difficulty in these consumer data breach cases of proving commonality of claims. This settlement, which still needs court approval for its proposed $10M payout, will not settle claims by commercial entities, but only individual consumer claims. Here is a good article with more detail from the National Law Journal. We will continue to follow this settlement and the handling of the commercial claims as this blog increases our focus on Cybersecurity and Data Breach Prevention and Response issues.

See this link to the NLJ for more info:  http://tinyurl.com/kxwjrb9

 

 

Pittsburgh Technology Council Tech 50 Award Winners Announced

By: Joseph R. Carnicella, intellectual property attorney with Picadio Sneath Miller & Norton, P.C.

On behalf of our firm, I would like to thank The Pittsburgh Technology Council for hosting such a spectacular event last evening.  Also, I would like to congratulate all of the award winners who were recognized by the Council as leaders in technology and innovation within the Pittsburgh area.

The Pittsburgh Technology Council holds an annual Tech 50 awards presentation as a way to honor companies that have demonstrated an ability to grow and succeed as technology-oriented companies in Pittsburgh.  The event last evening provided an excellent opportunity for business leaders to come together and recognize and celebrate all of the creative contributions made by these companies on a local, national and global stage.  The Tech 50 award winners are as follows:

  • Calgon Carbon Corporation – Advanced Manufacturer of the Year
  • Epiphany Solar Water Systems, LLC – Innovator of the Year
  • ERT, formerly invivodata, inc. – Life Sciences Company of the Year
  • TrueFit – New Media Company of the Year
  • Summa Technologies – Solution Provider of the Year
  • Branding Brand – Start-Up of the Year
  • ANSYS, Inc. – Tech Titan of the Year
  • Scott Pearson, Aquion Energy, Inc. – CEO of the Year

Again, congratulations!  We wish you and all of the other Pittsburgh tech companies the best.

Who Will Inherit Your Digital Music–Bruce Willis to Sue Apple?

by: Robert Wagner, intellectual property attorney at Picadio Sneath Miller & Norton, P.C. ()

Earlier this week, an interesting story emerged that Bruce Willis was considering suing Apple over whether his children could inherit his iTunes collection after his death. The story turned out to be a hoax, but the questions it raises regarding ownership and rights in this digital age are very interesting.

Decades ago, music, movies, and books were exclusively purchased in a tangible form—records or CDs, videotapes or DVDs, and paperback or hardback books. While these formats are still largely available, more and more people are purchasing this type of content in an intangible digital format through services like Apple’s iTunes and Amazon’s Kindle stores.

In the past, the purchase of a tangible product like a record or book made transferring the product easy. Under the first sale doctrine, one simply could give or sell the record or book to another without any constraints. Thus, inheriting the record or the book did not pose any problems from an intellectual property or legal perspective. (Whether anyone wanted grandma’s or grandpa’s record or book collection is another matter).

When one purchases a song from iTunes or a book for Amazon’s Kindle store, the issue gets more complicated. One is actually purchasing a limited license to listen to the song or read the book on a limited number of devices. No physical, tangible products are purchased. Normally, the license is limited to the purchaser and is arguably valid only during the lifetime of the purchaser (assuming there are no other restrictions, as there sometimes are with video “purchases”). Thus, there is nothing tangible to give to another. Indeed, the licenses often explicitly restrict the giving or selling of the product to another.

Getting back to the situation that Bruce Willis was supposedly concerned about—what would happen to all of the music he purchased after he died? Most of the time, families will likely not be particularly concerned about whether they inherit grandpa’s music collection, but not always. For instance, what if the father or mother dies prematurely, and everything that the family was listening to or watching on a regular basis was purchased through that person’s iTunes account? The shift to a digital medium could have a very real and expensive consequence (in addition to whatever emotional trauma the family has to deal with from the untimely death).

I think a more concerning issue is the potential effect on a family’s photographs and letters, which can be some of the most treasured possessions a family has. With the shift to storing photographs on-line and corresponding through e-mail rather than letters, we are moving some of our most prized possessions and memories from tangible forms that can easily be preserved and given to others to an intangible form that may have unexpected and unanticipated restrictions. For example, if an individual stores all of his or her photographs on-line, what happens when that person dies? Will the account be closed and all the files deleted once the annual payments stop? Even if it is not, who will be allowed to access it, especially if the passwords were never written down or are lost?

We are still in the infancy of the digital age in many respects and questions like these are only beginning to be considered, and many companies’ terms and conditions are simply not designed to deal with circumstances like these. So, what should one do?

Where possible and when the ability to transfer the item to your spouse, children, or others is important, then efforts should be made to make sure the item is in a tangible form or resides on a computer in a way that is accessible regardless of whether you are alive or whether you fail to make an annual payment to a particular cloud service. In the case of pictures, that could mean having them printed out or storing them in a folder on your hard drive (instead of in the cloud). The same is true of e-mails. If there are particularly important e-mails, make sure that they have been saved on your hard drive, instead of leaving them in the cloud, or print them out.

Finally, it is a good practice to leave instructions as to what important on-line accounts you have (e-mail, Facebook, iTunes, cloud storage, banking, etc.) and how to access them so that others can get access to these accounts where appropriate if you are no longer able to. Given the important nature of these accounts, you should only leave this information with people you trust or in a location that is secure (e.g., a bank box).

It will be interesting to see how companies respond to issues like the one that Bruce Willis supposedly raised (even though he didn’t actually). The cloud provides many great conveniences, but as is often true with new technologies and ways of doing things, there are many unexpected issues that emerge. Hopefully, people, companies, and the law will find solutions to preserve those family treasures without too many hassles.

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