Welcome to WileyConnect, the Internet of Things blog by
Wiley Rein LLP.
Attorney General Nominee William Barr weighed in on supply chain risks in his testimony yesterday, previewing a possible extension of the hard line the Administration has taken against what it sees as cyber and economic threats from Chinese companies and the government. Barr testified that China—not Russia—is “the primary rival of the United States,” and specifically called out Chinese telecommunications companies Huawei and ZTE.
Despite the government shutdown, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has finally released two highly-anticipated rulemaking documents related to commercial unmanned aircraft system (UAS) operations. Yesterday, the agency published a draft Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (draft NPRM) on the Operation of Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems over People and a draft advanced NPRM (draft ANPRM) on the Safe and Secure Operations of Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems.
Last year, it was apparent at the Detroit Auto Show that car companies still had not figured out how to market autonomous cars. Despite the widespread excitement about this technology, it was barely mentioned on the show floor, where the displays instead focused on the traditional elements of automotive marketing—speed, power, and personal expression.
CES 2019 focused again this year on connected cars – not just fully autonomous vehicles but also improvements in connectivity that will be used to enhance both safety and the customer experience. We’ve noted before that deployment of vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communications have the potential to greatly improve safety. The presentations at CES also highlighted that greater connectivity will be used to provide customized user experiences, enhanced entertainment options, and seamless integration with other IoT services (like voice assistants and payments).
Drones featured prominently at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, as in previous years. While last year Intel dazzled attendees with a 250-drone light show above the Bellagio fountains using its Shooting Star drones, the drone-related events grabbing attention this year concern the applications and technologies that will bring commercial drones into the future.
In this episode of Wiley Connected, Wiley Rein attorney Duane Pozza talks with Kevin Werbach, Professor of Legal Studies & Business Ethics at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, about how blockchain enables trust in transactions, ways to resolve potential disputes, and the trajectory of blockchain regulation.
The internet of things is a promising platform for all sorts of consumer services — and one coming fast is IoT payments. This holiday season, for example, Amazon reported huge sales of internet-connected home devices and a jump in consumers ordering products using those same kinds of devices. The development of IoT payments will bring great benefits to consumers, but just as with the move to mobile over the last decade, companies need to carefully think through implementation. How do existing laws apply to transactions executed using a wide range of connected devices? How should companies proactively address the attendant risks?
In case you missed it, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) last month issued final guidance on its Breakthrough Devices Program, hoping to provide manufacturers more clarity on how the agency will evaluate the safety and effectiveness of devices that treat or diagnose life-threatening or irreversibly debilitating conditions.
