The Frontiers of Tech Policy in The Economist’s Technology Quarterly

The most recent Technology Quarterly issue of The Economist highlights emerging technologies, several of which present new challenges to regulators and policymakers.

Virtual worlds similar to those popularized by games like World of Warcraft, Sims Online, and Second Life have potential applications in health care, education, business and military training. This of course raises the issue of the commercial use of virtual worlds, litigation in virtual worlds, and the necessity for regulation.

Blitz Games produces a medical-triage simulator to train physicians, paramedics, and fire fighters in prioritizing care in disaster situations. Cisco systems uses a virtual world to improve internal collaboration. Despite the entertainment value the benefits to the workforce, disputes in these environments can lead to litigation in the real world—because virtual goods and services sell for real money. In South Korea, courts have heard over 300 cases of fraud and over 60 cases of hacking in virtual game worlds.

Sean Kane, a virtual-worlds expert at Drakeford & Kane explains that the value of virtual goods traded worldwide hit $1 billion in 2006 and interests governments eager to tax the sales of the commodities. The United States, Britain, and Australia are all considering taxes on real-world profits from virtual trade.

Where a third of drug candidates do not pass into clinical trials for evaluation, microdosing provides a potential solution for cost-minded pharmaceutical companies to test drug promise before investing. Using technology similar to radio carbon dating, researchers observe the absorption and persistence of the active ingredients of a drug, inserting a few radioactive carbon atoms into drug molecules and then administering the tagged drugs to participants in doses small enough to ensure safety. Tests on blood, urine, and fecal samples every few hours for two or three days reveals the presence of radioactive carbon. If the radiocarbon is absorbed and persistent, then the drug is worthy of further consideration.

The Economist reports that, “crossing mobile phones with social-networking sites would help people find friends, and potential friends, nearby.” Using Bluetooth and short-range radio technology built into mobile devices, one company Aka-Aki, allows subscribers to check for nearby friends or other registered members with similar interests. If someone similar is nearby, the program displays whatever information the person allows. But there are of course questions of privacy, as the unique Bluetooth identifier associated with a device could be used to tag people with derogatory messages.

New nanotechnology uses a method similar to screen-printing in which researchers build nanoscale devices using stencils. First, researchers make a patterned template coated in gold ink. Then they transfer the gold from the stencil to a screen by pressing the template onto it. Dr Kraus, of IBM’s Research Laboratories in Switzerland, believes that future researchers could use this technology to print biosensative particles onto solid surfaces to make biosensors. While there is concern about the unforeseen behavior of particles with such small surface areas, the larger issue is the current lack of a regulatory framework for nanotechnology despite calls for legislation.

With the use of unmanned aircrafts in warfare comes the possibility of civil applications of this useful technology. This feature reports that “civil regulators are worried about unmanned aircraft sharing the sky with the usual manned variety, since UAVs have previously been limited to war zones or remote areas.” Wireless data connections allow control of unmanned aircrafts. However, even with the Pentagon’s current expenditure on satellite bandwidth the necessity of piping full-motion video back from UAVs requires a new method of communication. Further, allowing UAVs to fly alongside commercial airliners presents a new set of challenges, including the development of “sense and avoid” programs and new air traffic control systems based on electric signals rather than voice communication. The Centre for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments suggests cutting back the next generation of manned jets and using more UAVs. But despite the technology’s promise, there must be coherent regulations to address even benign issues like whether a human directing a military UAV should receive a medal for combat performance.

Several large retail chains utilize various technologies to monitor customer habits, increase profit margins, and enhance product delivery. Some of these systems, like Smartlane, monitor the number of customers entering and exiting the stores and the number of patrons in the shopping lanes and use the data to improve efficiency at checkout. Some retailers use BehaviorIQ to reengineer store layout; the system gathers data on where customers go, how long they stop, and how they react to products. Pioneering Research for an In-Store Metric, one of the largest of such enterprises, just ran a trial in over 160 stores in the United States. As it is somewhat invasive, this technology raises privacy concerns. Recordant, however, is an even more invasive marketing technology. It involves tethering a recording device to the neck of a store clerk and recording dialogue between the clerk and customer to evaluate employee performance and customer behavior. Despite in-store signs explaining the technology to customers, and the fact that a dispassionate computer, not a human, analyzes the conversations, the devices, its use concerns employees and customers alike.

Tags: Innovation

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