Accurate, Focused Research on Law, Technology and Knowledge Discovery Since 2002

Daily Archives: April 1, 2019

2018 Financial Report of the United States Government

The Financial Report of the United States Government (Financial Report) provides the President, Congress, and the American people with a comprehensive view of the federal government’s finances, i.e., its financial position and condition, revenues and costs, assets and liabilities, and other obligations and commitments. The Financial Report also discusses important financial issues and significant conditions that may affect future operations, including the need to achieve fiscal sustainability over the medium and long term. The related Citizen’s Guide provides a concise overview of the information contained in the full Financial Report.”

Google announces Smart Compose and email scheduling updates

Google Cloud Blog: “…Assistive email, on the go – We introduced Smart Compose to help you draft new emails from scratch, faster. According to a report from International Data Corporation (IDC), by 2020 mobile workers will account for nearly three-quarters (72.3 percent) of the U.S. workforce. Smart Compose already saves people from typing over 1… Continue Reading

Visualizing Income Inequality in Boston

“The Atlas of Inequality is a project from the Human Dynamics group at the MIT Media Lab and the Department of Mathematics at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. It is part of a broader initiative to understand human behavior in our cities and how large-scale problems like transportation, housing, segregation or inequality depend in part… Continue Reading

CRS – Free Speech and the Regulation of Social Media Conteny

Free Speech and the Regulation of Social Media Content. March 27, 2019 – “As the Supreme Court has recognized, social media sites like Facebook and Twitter have become important venues for users to exercise free speech rights protected under the First Amendment. Commentators and legislators, however, have questioned whether these social media platforms are living up… Continue Reading

Congressional Subpoenas: Enforcing Executive Branch Compliance

CRS Report via FAS –Congressional Subpoenas: Enforcing Executive Branch Compliance, March 27, 2019. “Congress gathers much of the information necessary to oversee the implementation of existing laws or to evaluate whether new laws are necessary from the executive branch. While executive branch officials comply with most congressional requests for information, there are times when the… Continue Reading

House Judiciary to Hold Markup to Authorize Subpoenas for Full Mueller Report and Related Matters

The Committee Will Vote on Authorizing the Chairman to Issue Subpoenas – Washington, D.C. – On April 3, 2019 at 9 a.m., the House Judiciary Committee will markup a resolution to authorize subpoenas for Special Counsel Mueller’s full and complete report, its underlying evidence and related matters. This markup will provide the Committee an opportunity to… Continue Reading

Facebook has new tool that explains why you’re seeing certain posts on your News Feed

CNBC: “Facebook is rolling out a new tool that lets users find out why they’re seeing certain posts on their News Feed. The new feature, called “Why am I seeing this post?”, essentially does what it says on the tin, showing a user the reasoning behind Facebook’s ranking of posts from friends, pages and groups… Continue Reading

Archivists are cataloguing every tweet, article spreadsheet #MeToo movement has ever produced

Harvard University’s Schlesinger Library is preserving the history in case it disappears from the internet – The Challenge of Preserving the Historical Record of #MeToo.. The archivists use a tool, created at George Washington University and called Social Feed Manager, to perform weekly downloads of roughly fifty hashtags, which capture both trending conversations (#MuteRKelly) and… Continue Reading

Equifax and FICO selling consumer data to banks

Barron’s: “Equifax, the credit reporting company, is planning to team up with Fair Isaac (ticker FICO)), the creator of the FICO credit score, to sell consumer data to banks, the companies said Wednesday. The goal of the partnership is to take Equifax’s troves of data on millions of Americans and “connecting it and embedding with… Continue Reading

Trends in the Information Technology sector

Brookings: “The U.S. leads the global landscape in technology innovation. The country’s competitive edge, according to the World Economic Forum’s 2018 Global Competitive Index, is due to its business dynamism, strong institutional pillars, financing mechanisms, and vibrant innovation ecosystem. Innovation is a trademark feature of American competitiveness and has powered its global dominance since the post-World-War… Continue Reading

Tracking House oversight in the Trump era

“House Democrats in the 116th Congress have several oversight tools to hold the Trump administration accountable and investigate executive branch misconduct. Two of the most significant mechanisms include holding congressional hearings as well as sending letters to executive branch agencies and to individuals involved in executive branch operations. Developed by Governance Studies, Brookings’s House Oversight… Continue Reading