I have finally the right to be forgotten in Google!!!

Google a facut primul pas in vederea conformarii cu hotararea Curtii de Justitie a UE si a pus la dispozitia tuturor un formular prin care pot solicita eliminarea continutului irelevant sau inadecvat din rezultatele afisate la cautare.

Read this post: http://ec-insider.blogspot.be/2014/03/the-new-ec-data-protection-reform-right.html 

O decizie recentă a Curții de Justiție a Uniunii Europene stabilit că anumiți utilizatori pot solicita ca motoarele de căutare să elimine rezultatele pentru interogările care le includ numele, atunci când rezultatele respective sunt inadecvate, irelevante sau nu mai sunt relevante ori sunt excesive în raport cu scopurile pentru care au fost procesate.

Larry Page, seful companiei, spune ca decizia va afecta start-up-urile care vor sa se dezvolte si va ajuta guvernele represive sa limiteze dreptul la exprimare. El spune insa ca Google va privi lucrurile si din perspectiva europenilor si se va dezbate mult pe subiect.

 

thanks to economist.com

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!

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.

Only 9 in 100 European app developers are female! Tech is too important to be left to men!

Facts about women in the digital economy:

•  Only 9 in 100 European app developers are female.

•  Only 19% of ICT managers are women (45% women in other service sectors)

•  Only 19% of ICT entrepreneurs are women (54% women in other service sectors) 

•   Less than 30% of the ICT workforce is female

•  Number of female computing graduate is dropping (3% of female graduates compared to 10% of male graduates)

This campaign builds on a Commission study on women in the ICT sector, which found that the best way to get more women into tech jobs is by giving visibility to inspiring tech professionals, thus turning them into role models. Identifying career paths to inspire can also help women already working in technology stay in the sector throughout their career.

European Commission Vice-President @NeelieKroesEU said:

"Tech is too important to be left to men alone! Every week I meet more and more inspiring women in tech. ICT is no longer for the geeky few – it is cool, and it is the future!”

Join the campaign: Check out this collection of video's at ICTLadies.

You can make your own video with your story about life in the digital sector. Share your video to the "Every Girl Digital" Facebook page.

Happy Women Day!!!

The €63 billion app economy boom in Europe - an amazing scale-up !!!

The study Study "Sizing the EU App Economy" shows that The EU's app sector has gone from zero to digital superhero in less than five years. By 2018 it could employ 4.8 million people and contribute €63 billion to the EU economy.

Today the app economy employs 1 million developers, and 800,000 people in marketing & support posts. This could rise to 2.7 million developers + 2.1 million support staff by 2018. EU buyers and advertisers spent €6.1 billion on apps in 2013, 30% of total global app spending, growing to €18.7 billion in 2018. Consumer spending combined with advertising and contract work could lead to €63 billion annual revenue for the app sector within five years.

The study is part of Startup Europe, a Digital Agenda initiative supported by Neelie Kroes to promote ICT and web entrepreneurship in Europe and to help the companies flourish in Europe.

It includes six activities: The Accelerator Assembly, the European Crowdfunding Network, The Web Investors Forum, the Leaders Club, the Startup Europe Partnership and improving Web Skills via MOOCS (being launched in 2014).

Some other insights:

European cool robots

The EU Robotics Week 2013 has just started!

The European Commission funds over 100 collaborative projects under the 7th Framework Programme on advanced research into robots. The projects aim at helping robots better understand the world around them through sensing, perception, understanding, reasoning and action.

Here are some examples of the best EU-funded Robotics projects:

•   RoboHow – Can a robot learn to make pancakes on its own? The project enables robots to learn on their own how to carry out tasks in human working and living environments by finding instructions online or by observing humans doing them. The goal is to develop robots that can help people in everyday activities, as well as to find out to what extent a robot can learn by itself. 

•   RADHAR – Self-Driving. Driving a wheelchair can be difficult and very tiring. As a result, the user may over-steer the wheelchair or not have enough strength to steer it. The RADHAR (Robotic ADaptation to Humans Adapting to Robots) project has developed an intelligent wheelchair that enables people with cognitive or physical challenges to independently drive around in an everyday-life environment.

•   Stiff-Flop - A Surgical Robot based on an Elephant's Trunk. This robotic arm could be used in keyhole surgery, as it is able to adjust its texture and stiffness to organs inside the human body; it can soften to get through narrow passages and then stiffen again when needed avoiding damage to soft tissue.

•   STRANDS - The Last Robot Standing Wins! STRANDS is an EU-funded project enabling robots to achieve robust and intelligent behaviour in human environments.

•   ROBOFOOT – Robots bring manufacturing back to Europe. The industry for hand-made fashion shoes is one of the important industries in Europe, which faced intense competition from low-cost countries. The EU-funded ROBOFOOT project showed that robots can also be introduced in traditional footwear industry, maintaining most of the current production facilities and help Europe's footwear industry.

I'll end with a quote from Emil Cioran: "Man is a robot with defects."