Globetrotters may soon be able to store their U.S. passport in a Google Wallet.

The tech giant has announced that it’s rolling out a variety of new Google Wallet updates aimed at travelers and commuters.

As part of that plan, Google is beta testing the ability to create a digital ID from a U.S. passport, according to a news release from Google. Once uploaded to a Wallet, the digital U.S. Passport ID could be used at select TSA checkpoints by those traveling within the United States.

Google expects that being able to store passports digitally in your Wallet will save “time and stress at the airport when traveling domestically.”

When the new digital passport feature becomes available to the public, users will be able to create their digital ID by selecting the “create an ID pass with your U.S. passport” function in the Google Wallet app.

After that, users will be required to scan the security chip located on the back of passports. The process also involves taking a selfie that will be used to verify identity.

From start-to-finish, creating a digital ID from a passport should take just a few minutes, per Google. The digitized version of one’s passport however, should not replace carrying your actual passport. Google has worked to stress this point.

The company has also underscored that your passport information will be safe when stored in a Wallet.

“ID passes are stored encrypted, meaning you must authenticate using your fingerprint, PIN or passcode before the ID pass is viewable or shareable,” Google said in a statement. “You’re in control of the information shared: before using your digital ID for identity verification, you can review what information is being requested.”

The passport news is just a small part of Google’s plans when it comes to digitized identification. Last year, the tech company introduced the ability to save select state-issued digital IDs to Wallet.

Now, Google is in talks with partners to make digital IDs acceptable for a variety of additional travel uses, including when renting a car.

“While ID passes are accepted at select TSA checkpoints today, we’re working with partners so you can use digital IDs in even more situations—for example, in the future we believe you should be able to use digital ID for things like account recovery, identity verification and even car rentals,” the company said in a statement.

In the future, the Google wallet will automatically import transit tickets from Gmail booking confirmations. With this upcoming function, users will be able to view live train status updates from the ticket in the Google app.

And yet another feature in the works would provide Google Wallet users with notifications if there’s a change to an assigned seat associated with a boarding pass.

Since launching two years ago, people in more than 90 countries and territories have begun using Google Wallet to save and access everything from payment cards to train and event tickets.

2024 Northstar Travel Media, LLC. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

A new study from the Fraunhofer Institute for Energy Economics and Energy System Technology IEE has analyzed the economic effects on the European energy system of introducing offshore hydrogen production.

The study considers the expansion of the German 70 GW buildout target of offshore wind and examines the economic effects by allowing offshore hydrogen production on two energy islands connected with 10 GW offshore wind each, compared to a scenario where all electricity from offshore wind farms is transported to shore and can be used within the German energy market without further restrictions.

The study concludes that Germany can achieve annual savings of up to 4.3 billion euros by establishing offshore hydrogen production on two energy islands. The two energy islands have a limited connection to the power grid and are located around +150 kilometers from the shoreline in the German economic zone of the North Sea.

The savings are primarily driven by reduced grid buildout costs, especially cables from the coastline to the center of Germany, as well as higher utilization of the HVDC cables.

Further, the study concludes that producing hydrogen offshore is more efficient than producing hydrogen onshore. The reason is that hydrogen production closely located to the renewable energy source reduces energy loss and investments in long transportation routes of the electricity.

Background of the case study

The study commissioned by Copenhagen Energy Islands ApS examined two scenarios up against the 70 GW buildout of offshore wind.

The first scenario includes only a hydrogen pipeline connection to the islands with no grid connection. This means that the entire energy produced from the 10 GW of offshore wind connected to each energy island will be used for hydrogen production transported to the mainland via a pipeline connection.

The second scenario includes a limited grid connection to the energy islands in addition to the hydrogen pipeline connection. The limited grid connection is an AC connection between the energy islands and offshore converter platforms of other wind farms, allowing for export of electricity from the energy islands to the grid, when there is free capacity in the grid, or import of electricity to the energy islands.

There are substantial positive effects of connecting offshore hydrogen production to the grid via a limited grid connection. The solution allows for flexible use of the energy generated by wind farms, either to be used to produce green hydrogen offshore or to be transported to the mainland via HVDC cables. This creates significant efficiency gains for the energy system.

In times of low prices and high supply of renewable electricity, the electricity from offshore wind will be fed into hydrogen production, whereas in times when renewable energy supply is low and prices tend to be higher, offshore electricity is used for supplying the electricity demand and hence directly fed into the German electricity grid. This increases flexibility of the overall energy system, creating positive system effects.

Provided by
Fraunhofer-Institut für Energiewirtschaft und Energiesystemtechnik IEE

Germany’s anti-cartel watchdog said Monday it had placed US tech giant Microsoft under closer surveillance for any possible abuse of its market position.

The Federal Cartel Office said it had determined Microsoft was “of paramount significance for competition across markets”, a move that would allow the watchdog to take action and prohibit “anti-competitive practices”.

Microsoft joins Apple, Amazon, Google parent company Alphabet, and Meta in falling under reinforced monitoring made possible by the German Competition Act, which came into force in 2021.

The act allows the watchdog, known in German as the Bundeskartellamt, to intervene earlier, particularly against the world’s tech giants.

“Microsoft’s many products are omnipresent in companies, authorities and private households and have become indispensable,” Bundeskartellamt president Andreas Mundt said in a statement.

The company has had a dominant position with its Windows operating system “for many years now”, he said, and has established a very strong presence for its Office products and other software.

Microsoft has also significantly grown its Azure cloud platform and is increasingly using artificial intelligence, including through its Copilot AI assistant and partnerships such as the tie-up with ChatGPT maker OpenAI.

“Today Microsoft’s ecosystem is stronger and more closely interconnected than ever before,” Mundt said.

Microsoft’s financial strength and wide reach have also allowed it to quickly build up strong positions in new markets, the statement added, citing video and messaging app Teams, the Xbox gaming console and professional networking platform LinkedIn as examples.

The watchdog stressed that its latest decision “applies to Microsoft as a whole, not only to individual services or products”.

In a response, Microsoft said it recognized its “responsibility to support a healthy competitive environment”.

“We will strive to be proactive, collaborative and responsible in working with the Bundeskartellamt,” a Microsoft spokesperson said.

Big tech companies have been facing increasing scrutiny around the globe in recent years over their dominant positions as well as their tax practices.

The European Commission has already opened an investigation into Microsoft’s Teams video and messaging app.

Microsoft tried to assuage the EU’s concerns by untying Teams in Europe before expanding the policy to around the world in April.

But in June, the commission indicated that the changes were not enough, saying Microsoft violated EU anti-trust rules by bundling Teams with its popular Office suite.

© 2024 AFP

Policymakers across the globe are grappling with the vast implications of advances in artificial intelligence technology, including how these tools will be used by international organizations.

Aaron Martin, an assistant professor at the University of Virginia’s School of Data Science, was recently invited to share his insights on this critical topic during a panel discussion at the International Organizations Workshop on Data Protection, which was held at the World Bank in Washington and co-hosted by the European Data Protection Supervisor. This year’s gathering marked the first time the conference took place outside of Europe.

Martin, who joined the School of Data Science faculty in 2023 with a joint appointment at UVA’s Department of Media Studies, specializes in data governance and how international bodies establish transnational policy, particularly as it relates to technology.

At the panel discussion, Martin shared his thoughts on the challenges global institutions face with data protection and why it is vital that they work to address them.

He recently chatted about his experience at the conference and his views on some of the many facets of this rapidly evolving global issue.

Your panel focused on AI use by international organizations. Broadly speaking, what is your impression of how widely used AI systems are by these agencies?

Suffice it to say, international organizations—including those that were represented at the workshop in D.C.—are very diverse in terms of their missions and mandates.

These range from U.N. agencies with development or humanitarian missions to organizations like NATO or Interpol, which facilitate security and law enforcement cooperation internationally. Each of them is exploring the use of AI in different ways, and my impression is that currently, their approach is a cautious one, which is encouraging.

A key feature of IOs is that they enjoy what are known as legal immunities and privileges—these help ensure their independence and effective functioning. What this means in practice is that national laws and regulations for data protection (like the General Data Protection Regulation) and AI (like the EU AI Act) won’t apply to IOs as they do for government bodies or commercial firms.

This becomes a real governance issue—how do we ensure that IOs are processing data and using new technologies responsibly? Most of these organizations have established policies for privacy and data protection, but AI introduces a new set of challenges that they need to grapple with. The point of this workshop is for the organizations to work together to develop good guidance and practices for data, and increasingly, AI.

The discussion in part focused on the risks of these systems. What should international organizations prioritize when it comes to mitigating the risks of AI to the many constituencies affected by their work?

Recently, I’ve been struck by news reports about the challenges AI companies face in terms of their access to new sources of quality data. There’s growing anxiety that AI models will become less useful and less reliable if they aren’t fed with more and more data—these models are “hungry,” as one of my co-panelists described it. There are fears that AI models will begin to collapse if they’re trained on too much synthetic (i.e., fake) or AI-generated data, so AI companies are scrambling for new data partners.

At the workshop, I focused my intervention on raising awareness about the varied risks of IOs’ oversharing data with AI companies. IOs have incredibly rich and diverse data, for example, about development indicators, global conflict, and humanitarian affairs.

They also have data from parts of the world that are very underrepresented online, which is where AI companies typically go to scrape data. IOs need to think carefully about how to ensure the confidentiality of this data and to take steps to protect it from misuse and toxic AI-business models.

International organizations, as you mentioned, are not a monolith, and the audience for your panel was composed of representatives from diverse groups. To what extent should various types of international organizations think about these issues differently based on their mission?

There will be some common challenges—every IO has a human resources department, for example, so enterprise applications exist in IOs just like they do any other organization. And many–if not most–IOs have important budgetary considerations that will shape and possibly limit their use of AI tools, including generative AI.

What I’m particularly interested in, including in my research, is how the use of AI by humanitarian IOs may impact the recipients of aid—so-called beneficiaries. Should IOs rely exclusively on AI to make decisions about who receives food aid, for example? What are the risks of doing so? These are hard questions that require engagement with a range of stakeholders, including those directly impacted by these decisions.

You’ve done a lot of work looking at technology’s impact on historically marginalized communities, particularly refugees. When it comes specifically to humanitarian organizations and AI, what are your biggest concerns?

Humanitarian organizations are generally being pretty thoughtful about their approach to AI. “Do no digital harm” is their mantra, which means they’re very sensitive to the potential and actual harms that AI might inflict on refugees and others impacted by conflict and crisis.

I do worry about what’s been referred to as “AI snake oil” in the aid sector, and organizations being sold technology that simply can’t deliver on the hype. It’s important that we continue engaging with these organizations to help them understand the possibilities and the risks.

What were some of your main takeaways from the other speakers for your panel and any others you heard at the conference?

Well, it was Chatham House Rule, so I ought to be careful here, but I was quite impressed by the strategic thinking that IOs are undertaking to incorporate AI into their organizations. I’ve attended other conferences where it feels like folks are mindlessly fishing for AI use cases, and that’s usually the wrong approach.

Another panelist explained how his organization is using AI to document human rights abuses around the world, which is a fascinating application and speaks to the potential for AI to have a positive impact in the world.

A new study from the Coller School of Management at Tel Aviv University sheds light for the first time on an important issue in the business world: employees withholding their inventions from the companies they work for.

Although the law and/or employment contracts typically grant organizations the rights to their employees’ inventions, the phenomenon of invention withholding is quite common and carries serious implications for businesses, especially in knowledge-intensive industries.

The study reveals alarming data: 1 out of every 4 employees in commercial organizations has withheld an invention from their employer at least once. In many cases, this withholding is done deliberately, with the intent to use the invention after leaving the organization.

The research was led by Dr. Sarit Erez, in collaboration with Prof. Yaniv Shani and Prof. Abraham Carmeli, all from the Coller School of Management at Tel Aviv University. The study was published in the journal Academy of Management Perspectives.

Dr. Erez explains, “Commercial organizations, particularly those in knowledge-intensive industries, encourage innovation among their employees, and their success largely depends on those employees coming up with groundbreaking inventions.

“In order to protect companies’ rights to these inventions, legal systems and standard employment contracts typically grant the employer ownership of inventions made by their employees, while requiring employees to disclose any invention they have come up with at work. This allows the employer to obtain patents and protect the invention.

“To increase employees’ motivation to disclose their inventions, many companies implement incentive systems, offering financial grants and/or recognition, such as badges of honor, to inventors.

“But at the end of the day, when an employee comes up with a new invention, they are faced with a behavioral dilemma: should they fulfill their legal obligation and disclose the invention to their employer, knowing they will lose ownership, or violate their obligation and hold on to the possibility of capitalizing on their invention outside the company?

“Indeed, it is a common scenario to see people leave one organization and either join another in the same field or even start their own company—often to develop an invention conceived in their previous workplace.”

Dr. Erez continues, “These types of cases often end up in court, where an employer sues a former employee—or their new employer—alleging that they are using an invention that the employee conceived while working for them, and that the patent rightfully belongs to the original employer.

“Having practiced law in the private sector for about 20 years, I often represented employees, employers, or employee organizations in disputes of this type. It became evident to me that the legal tools currently used to address this issue are not the most effective approach.

“I believed that management tools designed to increase employees’ willingness to disclose their inventions and reduce their tendency to withhold them could be far more effective. But when I looked for academic research on this subject, I found only a handful, and even those focused mainly on the withholding of inventions in academia rather than in commercial organizations.

“It became clear to me that the issue of withholding inventions, which is so vital to the growth of knowledge-driven companies, had not yet been thoroughly explored in management strategy. With this study, we aimed to shed light on this important phenomenon and begin to address it from a business perspective.”

For the purpose of the study, the researchers distributed an anonymous online questionnaire, asking inventors to report whether they had ever withheld one or more inventions from their employers. Participants were also requested to describe the event, including its reasons and circumstances. A total of 199 valid responses were collected.

Dr. Erez details the findings, “54 participants, or 27% of the respondents, reported withholding at least one invention from the organization in which they worked. Of these, 28% explicitly stated that they did so with the intention of developing the invention themselves after leaving the organization, or bringing it as a sort of ‘dowry’ to their next employer.

“The others cited a variety of reasons, some psychological and some financial. These included an emotional attachment and sense of ownership over the invention as a personal creation; fear that someone else would take credit; conflict with their employer; lack of trust in management; dissatisfaction with pay; and the belief that they would not be adequately compensated for an invention that would profit the organization.”

In the next phase, the researchers developed a unique and validated measurement scale, the first of its kind, to assess employees’ tendencies to either disclose or withhold inventions from their employers.

The findings revealed that withholding or disclosing inventions are not simply opposite sides of the same behavior, but rather two fundamentally different behaviors: an employee might refrain from disclosing a certain invention for a variety of reasons (such as a heavy workload or the belief that the invention still requires development and is not ready to be disclosed).

However, a deliberate and active decision to withhold an invention in order to prevent the transfer of ownership to the organization is a distinct behavior that may be influenced by completely different factors (for example, the employee’s feeling that they are poorly treated by the company regardless of the invention itself).

Dr. Erez explains, “This distinction is extremely important for organizations seeking to address the problem. Actions taken by companies today, such as offering financial incentives or recognition to inventors, may encourage more disclosures to the organization.

“However, such measures may be less effective for employees who deliberately withhold a promising invention with the intention of using it further down the road, outside the organization.”

According to the researchers, this newly developed scale can serve as a foundation for further studies on the subject. Additionally, it can help employers build an effective innovation management strategy that minimizes the withholding of inventions within the organization.

Dr. Erez concludes, “In this study, we conducted an in-depth exploration of a widespread phenomenon that has long concerned legal professionals around the world, but so far has hardly been examined from a managerial perspective: employees in the business sector who withhold their inventions from the company that employs them.

“We urge researchers in academia to continue investigating this important topic, and call on employers to take notice: these behaviors exist, and it is crucial to address them.

“For our follow-up studies, we are developing management tools to help employers tackle the issue in all its complexity. We believe that with the right management strategies, it is possible to encourage disclosure and significantly reduce the withholding of inventions—preventing the need for legal battles down the line.”