From counting calories to tracing COVID-19, there are hundreds of thousands of health and wellness apps on the market. However, many have access to highly sensitive personal information, whilst others may offer advice that is not always supported by scientific evidence. To effectively evaluate the quality and reliability of such apps, a new technical specification has just been published. 

CEN ISO/TS?82304-2 ‘Health software — Part 2: Health and wellness apps—Quality and reliability’ brings together and builds on guidelines and requirements for apps by many local and national health organisations around the world to ensure they are safe, reliable, and effective.   Recommended by the European Union in their European toolkit for COVID 19 tracing apps to "filter out qualitative and trustworthy health apps", the guidance provides an internationally-agreed set of specifications to assess the apps, with a scoring methodology that gives a 'traffic light' themed label.  The Technical Specification will help the industry for health apps realize its potential in managing chronic diseases, tackling unhealthy lifestyles, and supporting ageing populations. 

Together with the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU), the German Institute for Standardization (DIN) and the German Commission for Electrical, Electronic & Information Technologies (DKE) of DIN and VDE and the Association of German Engineers (VDI) have announced the launch of the German Standardization Roadmap Circular Economy. The aim of the Standardization Roadmap is to provide an overview of the status quo of standardization in the field of Circular Economy, describe the requirements and challenges for seven key topics, and identify possible concrete needs for action for future standards and specifications.

Essential support for climate targets: The Circular Economy is of particular importance in achieving the goals of the Green Deal and the Climate Change Act 2021. To achieve the ambitious climate protection targets, new and revised technical rules for the Circular Economy are now needed. The Standardization Roadmap Circular Economy will set the path for this, thus driving forward the green transformation of Germany and Europe.

From counting calories to tracing COVID-19, there are hundreds of thousands of health and wellness apps on the market. However, many have access to highly sensitive personal information, whilst others may offer advice that is not always supported by scientific evidence. To effectively evaluate the quality and reliability of such apps, a new technical specification has just been published. 

CEN ISO/TS?82304-2 ‘Health software — Part 2: Health and wellness apps—Quality and reliability’ brings together and builds on guidelines and requirements for apps by many local and national health organisations around the world to ensure they are safe, reliable, and effective.   Recommended by the European Union in their European toolkit for COVID 19 tracing apps to "filter out qualitative and trustworthy health apps", the guidance provides an internationally-agreed set of specifications to assess the apps, with a scoring methodology that gives a 'traffic light' themed label.  The Technical Specification will help the industry for health apps realize its potential in managing chronic diseases, tackling unhealthy lifestyles, and supporting ageing populations. 

The European Commission kick-starts two new Industrial Alliances: The Alliance for Processors and Semiconductor technologies, and the European Alliance for Industrial Data, Edge, and Cloud. The two new alliances will advance the next generation of microchips and industrial cloud/edge computing technologies and provide the EU with the capabilities needed to strengthen its critical digital infrastructures, products, and services. The alliances will bring together businesses, academia, users, as well as research and technology organisations.

Industrial Alliance for Processors and Semiconductor technologies: The Industrial Alliance on processors and semiconductor technologies will be a key instrument to further industrial progress in the EU in this area. It will identify and address current bottlenecks, needs and dependencies across the industry. It will define technological roadmaps ensuring that Europe has the capacity to design and produce the most advanced chips while reducing its overall strategic dependencies by increasing its share of the global production of semiconductors to 20% by 2030.

The Commission takes an important step against e-waste and consumer inconvenience, caused by the prevalence of different, incompatible chargers for electronic devices. Years of working with industry on a voluntary approach already brought down the number of mobile phone chargers from 30 to 3 within the last decade but could not deliver a complete solution. The Commission is now putting forward legislation to establish a common charging solution for all relevant devices.

With proposal for a revised Radio Equipment Directive, the charging port and fast charging technology will be harmonised: USB-C will become the standard port for all smartphones, tablets, cameras, headphones, portable speakers, and handheld videogame consoles. In addition, the Commission proposes to unbundle the sale of chargers from the sale of electronic devices. This will improve consumers' convenience and reduce the environmental footprint associated with the production and disposal of chargers, thereby supporting the green and digital transitions.

The European Commission and the High Representative adopted a Joint Communication on the EU Strategy for cooperation in the Indo-Pacific. The Joint Communication contains concrete actions to Implementing the strategy: The EU and the Indo-Pacific are highly interconnected, with many shared interests and solid ties, from trade and investments to research and innovation, as well as sustainable development, climate change, biodiversity protection and security.

The EU is stepping up its strategic engagement with the Indo-Pacific region. This region is increasing in strategic importance for Europe. Its growing economic, demographic, and political weight makes it a key player in shaping the rules-based international order and in addressing global challenges. The EU aims to contribute to the region's stability, security, prosperity, and sustainable development, in line with the principles of democracy, rule of law, human rights and international law.

STAIR4SECURITY (Standards, Innovation and Research for Security) is a project funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme. The project has been coordinated by CEN with the involvement of four National Standardization Bodies (AFNOR, ASI, DIN and SIS), together with the Chairperson of CEN/TC 391 'Societal and Citizen Security', TFC Research and Innovation Limited, National University of Ireland Galway, and KPMG Future Analytics. The project started in January 2019 and ended in June 2021.

The project developed a digital platform for better coordination of research-related standardization activities in the security sector, and to meet the growing needs of operators in the fields of Chemical-Biological-Radiological-Nuclear and small- sized quantity Explosives (CBRNe) and Disaster Resilience/Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR). The platform builds on a legacy of identified projects and provides a “single entry point” for any query related to pre-standardization and standardization in the CBRNe/DRR sectors.

Improving the way to measure particulate emissions of road vehicles, and thus contributing to reducing transport pollution? This is now possible, thanks to recently published standard EN 17507 ‘Road vehicles - Portable Emission Measuring Systems (PEMS) - Performance assessment’.

This standard, developed by 'CEN/TC 301 - Road vehicles', aims to qualify the measurement uncertainties of portable particle emission measurement systems (PEMS) used in real driving tests. The qualification of the different components of PEMS is of particular importance in the context of the tightening of particulate emissions thresholds. EU legislation foresees the definition of tolerated emission thresholds by taking measurements of an uncertainty factor, based on the objective precision of the portable measuring means. Thanks to the new standard, this precision is now set to improve and the uncertainty factor to be reduced. The new EN 17507 provides the elements to assess this progression. With this new standard, CEN – the European Committee for European Standardization - brings a new contribution of European standardization to the efforts to address transport pollution, a major challenge in the context of the EU Green Deal.

From counting calories to tracing COVID-19, there are hundreds of thousands of health and wellness apps on the market. However, many have access to highly sensitive personal information, whilst others may offer advice that is not always supported by scientific evidence. To effectively evaluate the quality and reliability of such apps, a new technical specification has just been published. 

CEN ISO/TS?82304-2 ‘Health software — Part 2: Health and wellness apps—Quality and reliability’ brings together and builds on guidelines and requirements for apps by many local and national health organisations around the world to ensure they are safe, reliable, and effective.   Recommended by the European Union in their European toolkit for COVID 19 tracing apps to "filter out qualitative and trustworthy health apps", the guidance provides an internationally-agreed set of specifications to assess the apps, with a scoring methodology that gives a 'traffic light' themed label.  The Technical Specification will help the industry for health apps realize its potential in managing chronic diseases, tackling unhealthy lifestyles, and supporting ageing populations. 

European Standards play an indispensable role in the market development for biobased products. The standards developed by CEN/TC 411 cover a variety of areas, such as:

• measurement/analysis methods: demonstrating biobased levels

• sustainability criteria

• terminology and communication: streamlining concepts and claims. 

In order to provide an overview of standards for biobased products, NEN, the Dutch National Standardization Body, which holds the Secretariat of CEN TC/411, developed a handy infographic.