Big Tech Compliance Tracker: UK Regulators To Form Digital Markets Unit; Italy Fines Apple $10 Million Over Claims About iPhone Water Resistance

Big Tech Compliance Tracker: UK Regulators To Form Digital-Markets Unit; Italy Fines Apple $10 Million Over Claims About iPhone Water-Resistance 

Here’s the latest news from the technology industry, which is coming under increasing scrutiny from governments around the world.

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    UK Regulations to Create New Digital Markets Unit

    U.K. antitrust regulators are creating a Digital Markets Unit that will be given the duty to enforce rules applicable to Big Tech firms. That new division will fall under the country’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA).

    The rules, which are set to take effect in the spring, will provide consumers with the right to opt out of tailored advertising and make firms share more about the way in which they harness consumer data, among other elements.

    “Millions of people share creative content or advertise their small business’ goods online,” the British government said in a press release. “But there is growing consensus in the U.K. and abroad that the concentration of power amongst a small number of tech companies is curtailing growth in the tech sector, reducing innovation and potentially having negative impacts on the people and businesses that rely on them.”

    According to the U.K. government, the digital industry contributed almost 150 billion pounds (roughly $201 billion) to the country’s economy in 2018.

    Apple Faces $12M Fine Over iPhone Marketing

    Italy’s antitrust regulator has hit Apple with a 10-million-euro fine (approximately $12 million) for allegedly unfair business practices when it comes to its iPhone promotion in Italy, MacRumors reported.

    The news comes after Italy’s antitrust watchdog issued a 10-million-euro penalty in 2018 over “planned obsolescence” of phones.

    Apple reportedly noted in promotional materials related to various iPhones that the devices were water resistant for one to four meters for as long as a half hour, depending on the version purchased.

    But the watchdog contends that the messages didn’t make clear that the assertions held when certain conditions were in place (i.e., a lab with pure water). Regulators also called out the tech company’s warranty terms for not covering water damage.

    Canada Looks to Tax International Tech Firms

    Canada is proposing a new digital levy on international tech companies like Google, Amazon, Facebook and Netflix. A potential “Netflix Tax,” which is forecast to bring in more than $1.2 billion over five years, could come in effect as soon as next July 1.

    The digital tax would be collected from clients, and digital services companies would remit it. The levy would take the place of the current “honor system” through which residents are supposed to provide their fair portion of local and federal taxes on any merchandise or service they buy online.

    Google Unveils Healthcare Interoperability Readiness Program

    Google is rolling out the Google Cloud Healthcare Interoperability Readiness Program ahead of approaching implementation deadlines for the U.S. 21st Century Cures Act, according to a press release from the company. The legislation, enacted in 2016, requires patient information interoperability for payers, healthcare groups and providers.

    Google said the program aims to help healthcare groups make sense of their present “interoperability maturity levels” and plan a “stepwise journey” to allow for interoperability.

    It’s also meant to help them steer through transformations and bolster their readiness for novel Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) regulations.

    Apple, Amazon Have Not Joined French ‘Tech For Good Call’ Program

    Apple and Amazon have not joined a new French program to have Big Tech firms publicly agree to tenets like providing their fair portion of taxes, Reuters reported, citing government leaders.

    Advisers of French President Emmanuel Macron said officials had requested that tech firms join a “Tech For Good Call” program.

    The country’s government disclosed a list of 75 tech company leaders that had joined the effort to date, such as Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Microsoft President Brad Smith. However, Amazon and Apple were reportedly not included.

    Macron has aimed to convince large tech companies to work with governments on many international efforts, like combating hate speech on the web.


    MIT Student Invents Breakthrough Art Restoration Technique

    artwork

    Ever since he was a child, Alex Kachkine has been fascinated by paintings. He would visit museums and was drawn in by the visual art depicted in landscapes, historical figures and religious scenes.

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      “Anytime I visit New York City, the first place I go to is the art gallery,” Kachkine said in an interview with PYMNTS. “It’s been a lifelong passion of mine.”

      Such adoration naturally means Kachkine would look to acquire art works of his own. But with a limited budget, the MIT graduate researcher with a discerning eye instead bought damaged oil paintings he could restore.

      “I ventured into art conservation around 10 years ago when I realized that you can’t buy a Monet reasonably,” Kachkine said. “But you can, even with the limited income I had back then, buy damaged paintings. And I realized that I could take one of those damaged paintings, restore it, and then I would have a really nice painting.”

      Kachkine knew that restoration is manually laborious. The painting has to be cleaned of debris and any past restoration efforts have to be removed as well. Then, the damaged parts in paintings have to be manually painted while staying true to the artist’s style.

      This typically means months to years of painstaking work. Kachkine did it the traditional way at first, but thought there must be a better way. So, he invented a method using artificial intelligence (AI), transfer paper, printers and varnish. His paper describing the technique is published in the journal Nature.

      Kachkine said his method greatly speeds up restoration: In repairing a 2-foot by 2-foot painting, “The Adoration of the Shepherds,” from the late 15th century, he spent 3.5 hours compared to 232 hours it would normally take to do it manually. That’s faster by 66 times.

      Source: “Physical restoration of a painting with a digitally constructed mask,” Nature

      Taking the cleaning time into account, his method would speed up the entire restoration process by four to five times, Kachkine said.

      Around 70% of paintings in institutional collections are not displayed in public due in part of the cost of restoring them, according to Kachkine’s paper. Therefore, restoration efforts typically center around the most valuable pieces of art with the rest left buried in storage.

      Kachkine said various AI models are able to generate images of damaged paintings as they would look fully restored. But these would exist only virtually. He said his technique is the first to translate the digital restored image into physically restoring the actual painting.

      “This is the first time we’ve been able to take all of those digital tools and actually end up with a physically restored painting from them,” he said. “And it’s so much faster than doing these kinds of restorations by hand.”

      How Gen AI Helps Restore Paintings

      The process begins with cleaning the artwork of debris and old restoration efforts. Once cleaned, the painting is scanned to produce a high-resolution image. Kachkine then uses a variety of Adobe-integrated digital tools, including convolutional neural networks and partial convolution models, to reconstruct missing regions.

      Once the digital restoration is complete, a transparent film mask is printed with the reconstructed imagery. This laminate consists of nine ultra-thin layers, including a white backing for color vibrancy and laser-printed pigments. The result is an overlay that sits precisely on the original painting, with printed colors covering only the damaged areas.

      “It’s thinner than human hair,” Kachkine said, adding that the film is removable using standard conservation solvents, preserving the artwork underneath.

      The ethical implications of this method were also central to Kachkine’s design. He developed algorithms that determine which regions to restore based on how human vision perceives color and contrast.

      “We really only select the damages that human vision is sensitive to,” he said. “You can tell what areas have been restored and which have not. That’s really important from an ethical standpoint in conservation.”

      At first, Kachkine said he wasn’t sure how his method would be received. But he was gratified to see broad interest from conservators, cultural institutions and private equity firms. He also has a GoFundMe page.

      Kachkine said he is now collaborating with the Italian Ministry of Culture on restoring frescoes in earthquake-damaged chapels in Tuscany.

      His dream painting restoration job would come from the Italian Renaissance.

      “There are a number of Italian paintings, especially around the Renaissance, that have very bright colors” such as Raphael, Kachkine said. “I’d love to be able to restore one of those [paintings] where before restoration, it would be very difficult to appreciate all of the fun colors that might emerge and the interesting textures that are there.”

      “That’s the dream,” he said. “It might take a little bit before I could get my hands on one, but I’ll keep trying.”

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      Photo: MIT graduate researcher Alex Kachkine looking at a painting. Credit: Alex Kachkine