Pentagon's New Cyber Rules Are “Stifling'”Foreign Suppliers, Advisors Say

by  Lauren C. Williams

The soon-to-be-mandatory cybersecurity certification — and a 2018 OSD reorganization — are slowing vital work, the Defense Innovation Board says.

Foreign suppliers are having trouble complying with new Defense Department cybersecurity requirements, and the Pentagon should try to ease their pain, an advisory board says.

“We have partners like Germany and Japan that want to work with us, given what's going on in the world,” Charles Phillips, a member of the Defense Innovation Board, said Wednesday. “We make it hard to work well with the DOD.The compliance standards, things called CMMC and ITAR, export controls— even for U.S. companies sometimes take years to get approvals.”

CMMC, formally, Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification, is the Pentagon's years-long effort to get its contractors to improve their network defenses. Compliance is set to become a contract requirement by 2025, but some defense companies have already found the certification process to be difficult and expensive. And those sentiments extend across the pond.

 Read full story at NextGov/FCW…

Report: EPA Needs Strategy for Water Sector Cybersecurity

by  GovTech News Staff

A new report from the Government Accountability Office released this week calls for a more thorough approach to improving cybersecurity for water and waste water systems nationwide.

With water and wastewater systems increasingly at risk of cyber attack, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) is telling the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to step up efforts to lead the sector in defense.

The water sector has struggled to stay safe for many reasons, the GAO notes in a new report. For one, utilities' old technologies are often hard to update. Plus, utilities tend to prioritize meeting regulatory goals over improving cybersecurity because the latter is still voluntary.

Nation-state-linked actors have also targeted the sector recently. Last year, for example, Iran-associated hackers hit a water system near Pittsburgh to protest Israeli actions. And China-backed hackers have been targeting drinking water systems, seeking access they could use later to disrupt services during a time of heightened political tensions.

 Read full story at GovTech …

The White House Thinks Better Tech Could Speed Up Permitting

by  Natalie Alms

The White House's Council on Environmental Quality says in a new, congressionally mandated report that better tech could help the permitting process, but it's unclear whether new efforts are in the offing.

Federal permitting is often opaque, lengthy and requires approvals from multiple agencies. The Biden administration is hoping tech can improve the process.

The White House's Council on Environmental Quality recommended that the federal government modernize and connect its technology and data to speed up federal permitting and environmental review processes in a new report last week.

Capitol Hill hasn't been able to lock in broad permitting reform, despite multiple attempts, including a new bipartisan bill …

 Read full story at NextGoc/FCW…

Intel to Cut 15% Jobs, Suspend Dividend in Turnaround Push; Shares Plummet

by  Arsheeya Bajwa

Intel said it would cut more than 15% of its workforce, some 17,500 people, and suspend its dividend starting in the fourth quarter as the chipmaker pursues a turnaround focused on its money-losing manufacturing business.

It also forecast third-quarter revenue below market estimates, grappling with a pullback in spending on traditional data center semiconductors and a focus on AI chips, where it lags rivals.

Shares of Santa Clara, California-based Intel slumped 20% in extended trade, setting the chipmaker up to lose more than $24 billion in market value. The stock had closed down 7% on Thursday, in tandem with a plunge in U.S. chip stocks after a conservative forecast from Arm Holdings ….

 Read full story at Reuters…

Meta Is Reportedly Offering Millions to Use Hollywood Voices in AI Projects

by  Mariella Moon

Awkwafina, Judi Dench and Keegan-Michael Key could voice Meta's digital assistant.

A future artificial intelligence product by Meta could have you chatting with celebrities. According to Bloomberg and The New York Times, the company is in talks with Awkwafina, Judi Dench and Keegan-Michael Key, among other celebrities from various Hollywood agencies for its AI projects. The company apparently intends to incorporate their voices into a conversational generative AI-slash-digital assistant called MetaAI, which is similar to Siri and Google Assistant.

Meta plans to record their voices and to secure the right to use them for as many situations as possible across Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, WhatsApp and even the Ray-Ban Meta glasses. Bloomberg says negotiations have started and stopped many times, because both sides can't seem to agree with the terms for use. For now, they seemed to have settled on a time limit, meaning any voice the company records can only be used over a set period. However, the deals with the actors could be renewed or extended by the time their contract is up.

 Read full story at Engadget…

Trusting Google to Deliver Best Search Results Can Hurt Your Wallet, Study Finds

by  Megan Cerullo

Google's search engine is a common place for users to start their hunt for everything from the best sunscreens to the top finance and budgeting tools that will stretch their dollars the furthest.

But Google's search hub doesn't always deliver the most accurate or useful results for financial products, according to a new study from personal finance website WalletHub. Far from showing searchers top-notch results, the search engine often yields responses that can cost people $202 on average, and up to more than $1,000 when looking for certain types of credit cards, the study found.

WalletHub evaluated Google's results for commonly queried credit card and banking terms, and conducted a survey in which it asked consumers about how useful, accurate and aligned with their searches the results they received were.

“Consumers are putting a lot of trust in Google and its top results,” WalletHub CEO Odysseas Papadimitriou told CBS MoneyWatch. “So what we asked was, 'Is Google really doing its job and serving the best results?'”

 Read full story at CBS News…

ArcGIS Solutions introduces Essential Data Models to Utility Network Foundation solutions

by  Mike Miller, Esri

The latest ArcGIS Solutions release introduces updates and enhancements that improve functionality and usability of our Utility Network Foundation solutions.

This blog explores the following updates:

• New Essential Data Models
• Redesigned solution item
• Enhanced help documentation

 Read full story at Esri Blog…

How an Offshore Electric Power Grid Could Solve the Transmission Lines Problem and Cut Costs

by  The Conversation

Energy researchers believe coordinated offshore transmission is important for the industry to succeed at scale.

Strong offshore winds have the potential to supply coastlines with massive, consistent flows of clean electricity. One study estimates offshore wind farms could meet 11 times the projected global electricity demand in 2040.

The U.S. East Coast is an ideal location to capture this power, but there's a problem: getting electricity from ocean wind farms to the cities and towns that need it.

While everyone wants reliable electricity in their homes and businesses, few support the construction of the transmission lines necessary to get it there. This has always been a problem, both in the U.S. and internationally, but it is becoming an even bigger challenge as countries speed toward net-zero carbon energy systems that will use more electricity.

 Read full story at FastCompany…

The 25-Year Battery Is Here

by  Alex Koyfman

The most overlooked story in battery stocks today is Vanadium, and it's easy to understand why.

Vanadium batteries, which contain no lithium and boast operational lives of up to 25 years or 25,000 charge cycles, will never go into your fancy new smartphone or the hottest new electric vehicle to hit the market this year.

Instead, they'll be supplying storage capacity to solar and wind farms across the nation and doing their part to slowly and quietly decentralize our aging power grid.

For savvy investors, the recipe couldn't get much better.

Because utility-scale power storage is the fastest growing of the major rechargeable battery segments.

 Read full story at Energy & Capital…