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Daily Archives: December 21, 2017

New York State Courts Announce High-Tech Courtrooms

National Center for State Courts – “A state-of-the-art courtroom designed to speed the progress of complex commercial cases is now up and running in Westchester County Supreme Court’s Commercial Division, which serves as a forum for the resolution of complicated business disputes. The Division’s Integrated Courtroom Technology (ICT) part, located in Westchester County’s Supreme and County Courthouse in White Plains, has been specially outfitted to ease the handling of complex commercial cases, with such features as:

  • Atech-based evidence system that enhances the presentation of evidence, permitting attorneys to display physical and electronic evidence-and witnesses to annotate the evidence-in a controlled fashion to all court participants
  • Wireless internet access for all courtroom participants, including secure wi-fi access for judges with state-issued “smart” tablets and laptops
  • Advanced acoustical elements to ensure proper sound levels throughout the courtroom, including assistive-listening aids for hearing-impaired individuals
  • Real-time court reporting capabilities for instantaneous voice-to-text transcription•Advanced audio-recording equipment
  • Audio-visual conferencing capabilities
The White Plains ICT part seamlessly incorporates multiple high-tech components in a modular, user-friendly platform designed to ensure full access to all court participants. The New  York Courts’ first ICT part opened in Westchester, in Yonkers Family Court in 2016. The new White Plains high-tech courtroom is the latest in a series of technological advances introduced over the years by the New York State Supreme Court’s Commercial Division, which in addition to Westchester County operates in Albany, Kings, Nassau, New York, Onondaga and Queens counties and in the State’s Seventh Judicial District and Eighth Judicial District….”

Bank Systemic Risk Regulation: The $50 Billion Threshold in the Dodd-Frank Act

Bank Systemic Risk Regulation: The $50 Billion Threshold in the Dodd-Frank Act, December 6, 2017. The 2007-2009 financial crisis highlighted the problem of “too big to fail” financial institutions—the concept that the failure of a large financial firmc ould trigger financial instability, which in several cases prompted extraordinary federal assistance to prevent their failure. This… Continue Reading

CRS – Understanding the Speech or Debate Clause

Understanding the Speech or Debate Clause, Todd Garvey, Legislative Attorney. December 1, 2017. “The Speech or Debate Clause (Clause) of the U.S. Constitution states that “[F]or any Speech or Debate in either House, ”Members of Congress (Members)“shall not be questioned in any other Place. ”The Clause serves various purposes: principally to protect the independence and… Continue Reading

Bloomberg – How Facebook’s Political Unit Enables Dark Art of Digital Propaganda

Some of unit’s clients stifle opposition, stoke extremism. By Lauren Etter, Vernon Silver, and Sarah Frier, December 21, 2017. Bloomberg Technology. “Under fire for Facebook Inc.’s role as a platform for political propaganda, co-founder Mark Zuckerberg has punched back, saying his mission is above partisanship. “We hope to give all people a voice and create… Continue Reading

Newly discovered map shows what internet looked like in 1973

What the Entire Internet Looked Like in 1973: An Old Map Gets Found in a Pile of Research Papers – “Modern “maps” of the internet can indeed look like sprawling clusters of star systems, pulsing with light and color. But the “weird combination of physical and conceptual things,” Betsy Mason remarks at Wired, results in such an… Continue Reading

Dozens of Companies Using Facebook to Exclude Older Workers From Job Ads

Among the companies we found doing it: Amazon, Verizon, UPS and Facebook itself. “It’s blatantly unlawful,” said one employment law expert. by Julia Angwin, ProPublica, Noam Scheiber, The New York Times, and Ariana Tobin, ProPublica, Dec. 20, 2017. “A few weeks ago, Verizon placed an ad on Facebook to recruit applicants for a unit focused… Continue Reading