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The Morning Download: VW CIO Takes Quantum Computing for a Drive
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Good morning, CIOs. Imagine a traffic optimization application capable of creating individualized routes in real-time for tens of thousands of vehicles through busy city streets.
Martin Hofmann, Volkswagen’s chief information officer, has been applying the power of quantum computing to just such a problem, working with technology from British Columbia-based D-Wave Systems Inc. “We’ll change the way traffic moves, which is a milestone for us,” Dr. Hofmann tells CIO Journal's Sara Castellanos.
Next week in Lisbon VW will be testing just such a quantum-powered application—but on a much smaller scale. Nine public buses ferrying riders between the Web Summit conference and other parts of the city will be equipped with a “quantum routing” application that will calculate in milliseconds the fastest route for each individual bus, taking into account millions of real-time data points about traffic congestion and ridership demand. In Lisbon for Web Summit? Tell us about your bus ride.
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German Economy Minister Peter Altmaier at a digital conference in Dortmund, Germany, where the Gaia-X project was announced. PHOTO: BERND THISSEN/ASSOCIATED PRESS
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European cloud project moves forward. Meet Gaia-X, a European cloud infrastructure project built to help local providers compete with U.S. technology giants. WSJ Pro Cybersecurity's Catherine Stupp reports that French and German government officials are set to meet this month with companies interested in participating. The plan is to create a governance structure for the initiative before the end of the year.
One factor driving the initiative: Customer data. Companies in Europe are concerned about depending on technology providers that must comply with the U.S. Cloud Act, a 2018 law requiring American firms provide law enforcement with customers’ personal data on request.
Another factor: Bragging rights. “We need something like an Airbus for artificial intelligence,” said German Economy Minister Peter Altmaier.
American cloud giants are not quite buying it. Both Microsoft and Amazon say they are able to host corporate data securely. A Microsoft spokesperson said digital sovereignty is a legitimate goal, adding, “in the cloud age, however, we think it is wrong to define sovereignty solely along territorial borders.” Instead, sovereignty needs “the most powerful cloud solution.”
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Los Angeles has about 32,000 scooters registered to eight companies. Here, people riding Bird scooters along Venice Beach. PHOTO: MARIO TAMA/GETTY IMAGES
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Nobody walks in LA (2019 remix). The Download earlier this week pointed to a decision by Uber not to comply with a City of Los Angeles deadline to report real-time data of its dockless scooters. Uber's concerns over privacy and security was echoed by privacy advocates. City officials, many nursing bruised ankles after tripping through waylaid scooters from Venice to Santa Monica, believe tracking is necessary to manage some 32,000 scooters registered to eight companies, as WSJ Pro Cybersecurity James Rundle reports.
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The MDS [Mobility Data Specification platform] is essentially a series of communication protocols between scooter companies and the city, allowing them to exchange data. Los Angeles wants to track scooters’ use and location in real time, saying that will allow the city to prevent them from being dumped en masse in popular areas, to monitor whether scooter companies are following circulation caps, and to assist with city planning.
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The legislation would provide for searches that aren’t filtered based on the user’s browsing activity, search history and geographical location. PHOTO: DAVID PIERCE/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
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Senate lawmakers to propose Filter Bubble Transparency Act. Legislation would require search engines to disclose the algorithms they use in ranking internet searches and give consumers a means to opt for unfiltered searches that does not employ user-specific profile data.
“People are increasingly impatient with the lack of transparency,” Sen. John Thune (R., S.D.) who is filing the bill. He added that the legislation would avoid heavy-handed and legally dicey regulation of algorithms. (WSJ)
Samsung’s earnings fall sharply, dragged down by chip slump. Samsung’s third-quarter net profit fell sharply, pressured by a downturn in the memory-chip market. The South Korean company reported a net profit of $5.4 billion, a 52% drop from a year earlier. Samsung is the world’s largest producer of memory chips. (WSJ)
Interior finds another way to cut back on oversight. The Interior Department is grounding its entire fleet of aerial drones, one of the largest in the federal government, citing increasing concerns about the national security risk from Chinese manufacturers. (WSJ)
How not to cyber. Rudy Giuliani had to go to an Apple store in San Francisco in 2017 after repeatedly entering the wrong passcode into his iPhone, locking him out of the system, NBC News reports. The incident occurred less than a month after being named President Donald Trump’s cybersecurity adviser. "Very sloppy," a former employee recalls. (NBC News)
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Everything Else You Need to Know
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The House passed a resolution laying out the framework for the next phase of the impeachment inquiry, the first significant vote since the probe into President Trump’s actions regarding Ukraine began last month. (WSJ)
The Trump administration is backing away from a plan to freeze tailpipe-emissions targets for new vehicles through 2025, say people familiar with the process. (WSJ)
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad clawed back control over much of his country with the help of Russia and Iran. Now he is poised to take back much of the rest—in large part because of the U.S. (WSJ)
Qantas Airways Ltd. became the latest airline to ground some older Boeing Co. 737s for structural cracks, another headache for the plane maker grappling with the global grounding of the newer MAX model. (WSJ)
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