EUROPEAN ICT Poles of Excellence - an Atlas of EU areas where digital technologies thrive

Wondering what makes an ICT hotspot? Take a look at Munich, London, Paris or smaller cities such as Darmstadt identified in a new EU Atlas of ICT hotspots. This atlas shows where digital technologies thrive and examines the factors contributing to this success. 

A European ICT Pole of Excellence (EIPEs) is a geographical area inside the EU, with best performing activities in ICT production, R&D and innovation, activities with a central role in global international networks.

The report looked at all EU regions in terms of ICT activity and assigned scores according to its relative weight; 14% of the regions scored above 20 points. The top 34 scored between 41 and 100.

The report analysed three elements (business activity, R&D and Innovation in the ICT sector) on the basis of their intensity (e.g. business turnover, turnover growth, number of employees), their internationalisation (e.g. how many international partners businesses/research centres/universities have) and networking (what is the role of each region in networks: which of them are hubs and connect directly to many partners, which of them have links that only allow few exchanges)

Check the Infograf for more details.

PS: Romania has no regions highligthed...

mHealth - what is it and do I want it?

There are nearly 100,000 mHealth #apps already available across multiple platforms such as iTunes, Google play, Windows Marketplace, BlackBerry World. The top 20 free sports, fitness and health apps already account for 231 million downloads worldwide. 
By 2017, 3.4 billion people worldwide will own a smartphone and half of them will be using mHealth apps. In 2017, if its potential is fully unlocked, mHealth could save €99 billion in healthcare costs in the EU.
 
The Commission is launching a public consultation on the Green Paper on mobile health, inviting comments on the barriers and issues related to the use of mHealth. Your input will help identify the right way forward to unlock the potential of mobile health in the EU. The Commission also publishes a Staff Working Document on the existing EU legal framework applicable to lifestyle and wellbeing apps, aiming at providing simple guidance to app developers on EU legislation in the field.

The Public consultation on the Commission's Green Paper on mobile health is open until July 2014!

OPEN access for internet service suppliers and BAN roaming fees

Two major legislative acts were approved by the European Parliament.

MEPs want clear rules to prevent internet access providers from promoting some services at the expense of others. EU telecoms regulator BEREC reported that several internet access providers were blocking or slowing down services like “Skype”, which is used to make phone calls over the internet.

Internet access providers would still be able to offer specialized services of higher quality, such as video on demand and business-critical data-intensive “cloud” (data storage) applications, so long as these services are not supplied to "the detriment of the availability or quality of internet access services" offered to other companies or service suppliers.

MEPs underline that internet access should be provided in accordance with the principle of "net neutrality", which means that all internet traffic is treated equally, without discrimination, restriction or interference, independently of its sender, recipient, type, content, device, service or application.

MEPs also amended the text to ban “roaming” charges (extra fees for using a mobile

phone to call, send text messages or access the internet in another EU country) anywhere in the EU as of 15 December 2015.

COPERNICUS - 1st satellite launch!

Copernicus is a European system for monitoring the Earth, previously known as GMES (Global Monitoring for Environment and Security), is the European Programme for the establishment of a European capacity for Earth Observation.

Copernicus consists of a complex set of systems which collect data from multiple sources: earth observation satellites and in situ sensors such as ground stations, airborne and sea-borne sensors. It processes these data and provides users with reliable and up-to-date information through a set of services related to environmental and security issues...

The services address six thematic areas: land, marine, atmosphere, climate change, emergency management and security. They support a wide range of applications, including environment protection, management of urban areas, regional and local planning, agriculture, forestry, fisheries, health, transport, climate change, sustainable development, civil protection and tourism.

Sentinel1-A, the first satellite of this family, is scheduled for launch on a Soyuz rocket from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana on Thursday, 3 Apr 2014. Sentinel-1B will be launched in 2015.

The launch was successful – find more pictures on ESA blog.

Unleashing the Potential of Cloud Computing in Europe - Trusted Cloud Europe

European Cloud Partnership Steering Board adopted recently the TRUSTED Cloud Europe framework to support the definition of common cloud best practices, linking them to use cases, and applying them in practice. This paper presents two groups of actions in order to reach this objective: 

• Firstly, a flexible common framework of best practices needs to be created, at the legal, technical and operational level. This common framework, consisting of legal and operational guidelines as well as technical standards, can be voluntarily adopted by cloud providers to show that their offering is in compliance with the common framework, and can be used by buyers of cloud services (in the public or private sector) in order to determine more easily whether a cloud service complies with the requirements of their use case.
• Secondly, systematic consensus building is required, through public consultations, workshops, coordination groups etc., targeting all stakeholders, including citizens, public administrations, the cloud industry and cloud users. This would result in a common understanding on issues such as risk management, security requirements, privacy needs, enforcement methods, procurement practices, and any need for legislative reform, all of which can differ from use case to use case. 

The expected cumulative economic effects of cloud computing between 2010 and 2015 in the five largest European economies alone is around € 763 Bn. 

The cloud economy is growing by more than 20% and could generate nearly € 1 trillion in GDP and 4 million jobs by 2020 in Europe4, with the support of the right policy framework. 

the new EC data protection reform - the right to be forgotten on social networks!

Three quarters of Europeans think that the disclosure of personal data is an increasing part of modern life. At the same time, 72% of Internet users are worried that they give away too much personal data online. They feel they do not have complete control of their data.

The Commission is proposing a strengthened right to be forgotten so that if you no longer want your personal data to be processed, and there is no legitimate reason for an organization to keep it, it must be removed from their system. Data controllers must prove that they need to keep the data rather than you having to prove that collecting your data is not necessary.

What will be the key changes?

• Strengthening the ‘right to be forgotten’ to help people better manage data protection risks online. When individuals no longer want their data to be processed and there are no legitimate grounds for retaining it, the data will be deleted. The rules are about empowering people, not about erasing past events or restricting the freedom of the press.
• Guarantee easy access to your own data.
• Establishing a right for individuals to freely transfer personal data from one service provider to another (data portability).
• Ensuring that individuals must give consent explicitly when it is required for certain types of data processing.
• Increasing the responsibility and accountability of those processing data by introducing data protection officers for companies over 250 employees, and the principles of ‘privacy by default’ and ‘privacy by design’ to ensure that individuals are informed in an easily understandable way about how their data will be processed.

In January 2013 the EC proposed a comprehensive reform of the data protection rules.

The European Parliament last week cemented the strong support previously given at committee level to the European Commission's data protection reform (MEMO/13/923 and MEMO/14/60) by voting in plenary with 621 votes in favour and 10 against.