October 2013

Amazon has won the latest round in a battle with IBM to build a massive computer cloud for intelligence agencies.

Judge Thomas Wheeler of the US Court of Federal Claims ruled in Amazon’s favor after oral arguments held behind closed doors. The ruling was in favor of Amazon’s motion for judgment on the administrative record, which means Judge Wheeler concluded there was sufficient evidence in Amazon’s favor that it was not worth proceeding with a trial. Judge Wheeler ordered that Amazon may immediately re-start work on the CIA contract, according to a written record of his order from the bench. A more detailed written order will follow shortly, according to the court docket.

Silicon Valley has recently sought to reverse its longstanding aversion to politics. Lobby shops for companies like Google and Facebook have ballooned, campaign contributions have started to flow, new organizations have formed, and high-profile advocacy campaigns have made headlines across the country.

On the fight over the government shutdown and debt ceiling, though, they've been almost entirely absent. While it's possible pressure is being applied behind closed doors, industry trade groups like the Consumer Electronics Association have remained publicly silent, and no tech groups signed on to the Chamber of Commerce's letter urging Congress to get its act together and fund the government. Besides, as long as their main priorities, like patent trolls, are getting taken care of -- and companies can still go public -- techies figure everything else will sort itself out. "I think right now there's a lot of wait and see from the tech community on the shutdown," says Engine Advocacy strategist Mike McGeary, who translated the shutdown for his start-up types. "On one level, business is continuing on a whole lot of the issues that we've been working on, so that coupled with the relatively negligible impacts felt thus far, may have led to a copacetic sense of letting Washington work out its own problem here."

The ongoing trend of digitization and connectedness has finally entered the industrial sector and that is about squeeze out inefficiencies from the manufacturing and industrial processes. That will not only lead to more productivity, but will also lead to creation of a new jobs, according to The Industrial Internet@Work, a new report from GE written by GE Chief Economist Marco Annunziata and GE’s Director of Global Strategy and Analytics, Peter C. Evans.

GE’s idea of Industrial Internet is a marriage of data (much of it coming from machines) and analytics coming from their connected machines. The argument is that while GE and manufacturers have pushed the material and physical sciences for their products, connectivity, data and the ability to analyze that data into actionable information is the next way forward to make industries more efficient. And creating a more responsive and nimble workforce that is in tune with these changes is the next step. The report authors argue that industries such as power, aviation, railways and healthcare (four areas in which GE is a dominant force), the digitization allows the businesses to become more realtime which in turn transforms how the workforce responds to the needs of the businesses. Maintenance crews don’t have to work on a rigid time schedule but instead be more nimble and responsive in-tune with the data and information coming out of the machines that are part of the new industrial internet.

Athletes and spectators attending the Winter Olympics in Sochi in February 2014 will face some of the most invasive and systematic spying and surveillance in the history of the Olympic Games, documents shared with the Guardian show.

Russia's powerful state security service FSB plans to ensure that no communication by competitors or spectators goes unmonitored during the event, according to a dossier compiled by a team of Russian investigative journalists. Government procurement documents and tenders from Russian communication companies indicate that newly installed telephone and Internet spying capabilities will give the FSB free rein to intercept any telephony or data traffic and even track the use of sensitive words or phrases mentioned in e-mails, webchats and on social media. Ron Deibert, a professor at the University of Toronto and director of Citizen Lab, which co-operated with the Sochi research, describes the Sorm amendments as "Prism on steroids," referring to the program used by the National Security Agency in the US and revealed to the Guardian by the whistleblower Edward Snowden.