April 2021

There were 5 posts published in April 2021 (this is page 1 of 1).

Weekly#426

  • What history tells you about post-pandemic booms (The Economist)
  • Enabling the mass adoption of autonomous driving
  • Amazon crosses $100 billion in sales in huge first quarter
  • Among Us is finally coming to PS4 and PS5, three years after its 2018 debut
  • China to report first population drop in five decades
  • Report: Apple’s M2 chip has entered production and will ship as soon as July
  • Between “pay with your face” programs in supermarkets and facial recognition cameras in the metro
  • Instead of rushing to rebuild Barbados’ Covid-ravaged tourism industry, one startup is opting for slow investment.
  • ‘Disaster Girl’ has sold her popular meme as an NFT for $500,000
  • What cities need now
  • The climate solution actually adding millions of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere
  • Michael Collins, who piloted the Apollo 11 command module, has died
  • Smartphone shipments jumped 27% globally in Q1, 347 milion units
  • Blue Origin will start selling tickets for New Shepard space tourism flights on May 5
  • Waymo’s New CEOs Say Self-Driving Unit Eyes Outside Funding
  • Amazon’s ads business is generating nearly $7 billion a quarter, and growth is accelerating
  • China plans to launch the core module for its first permanent space station this week in the latest big step forward for the country’s space exploration program.
  • Instacart Expands Online Food-Stamp Payments, Challenging Rivals
  • Microsoft is changing the default Office font and wants your help to pick a new one
  • ‘Self-driving’ cars to be allowed on UK roads this year
  • Google Is Saving Over $1 Billion a Year by Working From Home

Weekly#425

  • everything Apple announced at its ‘Spring Forward’ event, link2
  • Apple’s AirTag relies on a feature no competitor can match: One billion iPhones
  • just become a big week for AI regulation
  • How a tiny media company is helping people get vaccinated
  • NASA has just flown a helicopter on Mars for the first time…Ingenuity flew up by 3 meters then hovered for 40 seconds.
  • The Case for Universal Creative Income
  • Who will win the self-driving race? Here are eight possibilities
  • Call of Duty: Warzone now has 100 million players
  • Apple targeted in $50 million ransomware attack resulting in unprecedented schematic leaks
  • Amazon One’s palm-scanning payments are coming to Whole Foods
  • Magic Leap CEO says second-generation headset will ship later this year…It’s 20 percent lighter, with a doubled field of view
  • World’s first public cloud-based 5G network will run on AWS in major test for global telecoms (FT)
  • Sleeping less than 6 hours a night in midlife raises risk of dementia 30%, study finds
  • PDF: Fostering Effective Energy Transition 2021 edition (WEF)
  • Where New Ideas in Management Come From?
  • Volvo Group Sees More Risk From ‘Unstable’ Chip Supply Chain
  • Bank of England to consider digital money plan
  • Teaching children to play chess found to decrease risk aversion
  • “…How often do people actually copy and paste from Stack Overflow? Now we know…One out of every four users who visits a Stack Overflow question copies something within five minutes of hitting the page. That adds up to 40,623,987 copies across 7,305,042 posts and comments between March 26th and April 9th. People copy from answers about ten times as often as they do from questions and about 35 times as often as they do from comments…”
  • Microsoft Outlook now lets you end all meetings early to give your brain a rest…Back-to-back meetings can now have a break in between
  • “…In certain applications, hydrogen is a promising contender for a carbon-zero fuel. Which countries are leading the race for its implementation?Hydrogen is the lightest gas with the lowest density. It is also plentiful; it is stored in water (H2O) and hydrocarbons, such as methane (CH4), but cannot be captured. It has to be separated in its compound state to produce a useable fuel. (In liquid form, hydrogen is 1/800 the volume of hydrogen in its gas state.)…”
  • Elon Musk’s SpaceX wins $2.9 billion NASA moon landing contract
  • Amazon Opens London Augmented Reality Salon to Showcase Tech
  • Chat App Discord Ends Takeover Talks With Microsoft…now focused on a potential public listing in the long term

Weekly#424

  • Microsoft’s Nuance Gambit Shows Healthcare Is Shaping Up as Next Tech Battleground
  • Nvidia Plans New Chip to Compete With Intel in Data-Center Market…Product named Grace uses technology licensed from SoftBank Group-owned Arm
  • Nvidia to Make Server Processor, Targets Intel Profit Center
  • Autodesk acquires Upchain
  • Livestreaming has taken over Chinese e-commerce. Now, online shopping giants are trying to replicate the model in Russia.
  • EU to consider ban on using A.I. for mass surveillance and social credit scores
  • How Amazon Strong-Arms Partners Using Its Power Across Multiple Businesses (WSJ)
  • Cable Companies Emerge as Force in Cellphone Business…More than five million Americans have turned to cable providers for cellphone service, attracted by lower prices and ease of adjusting plans
  • Garry Kasparov launches a community-first chess platform
  • France is giving citizens $3,000 to get rid of their car and get an ebike
  • Intel, Nvidia, TSMC execs agree: Chip shortage could last into 2023
  • Ford’s BlueCruise self-driving tech did a 110,000-mile road trip
  • Coinbase opens at $102 billion valuation on first day of public trading
  • Apple Working on Combined TV Box, Speaker to Revive Home Efforts
  • Google Shopping for Android, iOS shutting down in favor of the web
  • Ferrari’s Electric Reluctance Eases as Chairman Sees 2025 Debut
  • World-first hologram dining experience opens

Weekly#423

  • China Creates its Own Digital Currency, a First for Major Economy (WSJ)
  • Hitachi Ltd. ’s $9.6 billion purchase of digital-engineering firm GlobalLogic Inc. amounts to a big bet that enterprise software will unleash the power of big data on heavy industry. (WSJ)
  • The rise and fall of a massive industry based on missed calls
  • What the SPAC explosion means for Latin America
  • T-Mobile 5G home Internet: $60 a month, 100Mbps speeds, and no data cap
  • Sixty-Week Delay on Router Orders Shows Scale of Chip Crisis
  • A pair of robot legs called Cassie has been taught to walk using reinforcement learning
  • Consumers now average 4.2 hours per day in apps, up 30% from 2019
  • A monkey equipped with Elon Musk’s Neuralink device play Pong
  • Verizon and Honda want to use 5G and edge computing to make driving safer
  • Broadband use surged more than 30% during pandemic, industry group says
  • Why Shortages of a $1 Chip Sparked Crisis in Global Economy
  • NASA’s Mars Helicopter Survives First Cold Martian Night on Its Own
  • Turkey E-commerce Statistic (in Turkish)


Weekly#422

  • Global Gender Gap Report 2021
  • Chip Shortage Costs Carmakers Output of 1.3 Million Vehicles
  • Google Is Ending Cookies and the Ad Industry Has an Alternative
  • Google Maps has a wild new feature that will guide you through indoor spaces like airports
  • Containerize all the things! Arm v9 takes security seriously
  • Spotify Acquires Sports-Talk App Locker Room…Deal values the company at around $50 million (WSJ)
  • Microsoft wins US army contract for augmented reality headsets worth up to $21.9bn (FT)…Microsoft is supplying 120,000 HoloLens-based headsets to the US Army
  • Google is accelerating partial reopening of offices and putting limits on future of remote work…Google employees will begin returning to offices in a “limited” capacity in April, according to a memo on Wednesday…If after Sept. 1, employees want to work remotely for more than 14 days per year, they will need to formally apply.
  • Amazon says it expects some employees to return to the office this summer, most will return in fall
  • ILM shows off the new Stagecraft LED wall used for season 2 of ‘The Mandalorian’
  • What Covid-19 Taught Us About Telemedicine (WSJ)
  • TSMC to Invest $100 Billion to Increase Semiconductor Output (WSJ)
  • High-Frequency traders eye satellites for ultimate speed boost (WSJ) …but one satellite operator has touted speeds of less than 29 milliseconds from Chicago to London.
  • Apple to build battery-based solar energy storage project in Monterey County