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Tech lobby can’t win changes in CA online privacy law

With the California Legislature in the final three weeks of its session, big tech companies and business lobbies have so far had little success in getting changes to the California Consumer Privacy Act. The landmark online privacy law – enacted

DMV preps test rules for driverless delivery vehicles

Chris Reed April 25, 2019

In December 2015, when the state Department of Motor Vehicles released draft regulations for the testing of driverless vehicles, California tech firms were stunned by their onerousness. Google immediately objected to a proposed requirement that drivers always had to be

Major online privacy bill becomes law after whirlwind week

Chris Reed July 2, 2018

A far-reaching online privacy bill that got next-to-no vetting or legislative debate was signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown last Thursday – the product of a quickly hammered-out agreement among state legislators, privacy advocates, tech firms and a real estate

Paid to protest the president? Bay Area employees get days off for civic engagement

Drew Gregory Lynch May 12, 2017

While many conservative claims about paid protesters demonstrating against President Trump have been met with skepticism and dismissal — in the Bay Area — some of them might actually be getting money for being there. Companies in the region are

Silicon Valley faces slowdown

James Poulos April 12, 2017

Market watchers have keyed in to a series of statistics suggesting breakneck growth in Silicon Valley has begun to slow down. “Tech companies in San Francisco and San Mateo counties lost 700 jobs from January to February and tech employment

Google takes lead on California driverless cars

James Poulos February 15, 2017

As Silicon Valley rushes to stake out a lead in what’s hoped to be a robust market for driverless cars, the company spun off of Google has established a clear lead — perhaps giving the competition a reason to consider focusing

Google driverless car hits bus, stokes controversy

James Poulos March 4, 2016

The controversy over driverless cars shifted into high gear as an automated vehicle built by Google hit a passenger bus. “The crash may be the first case of one of its autonomous cars hitting another vehicle and the fault of

CA could ban encrypted smartphones

James Poulos February 2, 2016

A worldwide controversy over whether to ban encrypted smartphones has opened a new front in California, where lawmakers introduced legislation that would crack down on the devices. Assembly Bill 1681, introduced by Assemblyman Jim Cooper, D-Elk Grove, would mandate that phones

DMV won’t unleash robocars on CA roads

James Poulos December 26, 2015

California’s Department of Motor Vehicles has put the brakes on driverless cars. Although the agency’s new proposed regulations would technically allow new self-driving vehicles on Golden State streets, the strict regulations surrounding their use would all but foreclose the fully automated future envisioned

Report: Wealthy tech firms create few jobs

Chris Reed December 22, 2015

Two years ago, a report from Oxford University’s Martin Programme on the Impacts of Future Technology made waves in the United States with its prediction that 47 percent of the 700 largest U.S. job categories could disappear in coming decades