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April 2021 - Things of Interest

 


NASA’s Mars helicopter completed its first and second flights on another planet

Goldman Sachs clients will soon be able to invest in bitcoin. The investment bank joins Morgan Stanley in offering access to digital currencies

The race to replace cash with crypto is hotting up. Worried by crypto’s ascent, central banks are designing official digital money. But what’s the need for it?

In MBS’s Saudi Arabia, tech, not oil, is the hot new thing. As Riyadh vies to be a tech hub, young Saudis find new cachet in the startup scene

The robots of the future are already among us. From robot priests to apple pickers, these machines are bringing a robotic touch to the workplace

AI is getting more life-like by copying a trick from human children

Is there an antidote to 'digital intensity'?

Here’s why your Android apps were randomly crashing last month

Why are airplanes slower than they used to be?

What will happen to all the dead batteries of electric cars?

Visualising the power consumption of Bitcoin mining

Apple has a very good Jan-Mar quarter, with revenues up by 54% ($89.6 bn). It dominates the tablet market but Apple AirTags could enable domestic abuse in terrifying ways

Google Messages is getting a makeover on Samsung phones. Is your phone eligible?

Google saving $1 billion a year with its employees working from home

For the wannabe Nate Silvers, this interactive map allows you to play around with different scenarios for the 2024 election

Is San Francisco finished as the capital of tech?

Kara Swisher on tech in the post-pandemic world

A global tipping point for reining in Tech has arrived. Never before have so many countries, including China, moved with such vigour at the same time to limit the power of a single industry

Russia fines Apple $12 million for 'abusing' dominant position. The move comes as Russia ratchets up pressure against Western tech companies

EU charges Apple with App Store antitrust violations in Spotify case. European Commission accuses Apple of forcing many apps to use its in-app payment system

Antitrust and privacy are on a collision course. Facebook is being sued for weakening data protections. Google is being sued for strengthening them. Can that paradox be resolved?

The big tech oligarchy calls out for trustbusters. Concentrations of power in business or government endanger the popular rule envisioned by the founders

Regulators have a new tech target: Dark patterns that dominate the web. Washington wants to crack down on the deceptive designs that trick people into making decisions online

Data from 500 million LinkedIn users has been scraped and put online

TikTok sued for billions over use of children's data. Legal claim argues video app collects huge volumes of personal information without sufficient consent

Facebook accidentally emails its strategy to downplay leak of userdata

Apple’s C.E.O. is making very different choices from Mark Zuckerberg. Tim Cook views privacy as ‘one of the top issues of the 21st century.’ Other tech leaders don’t seem to agree.

Apple takes on the internet: the Big Tech battle over privacy. The iPhone maker is taking on developers as well as Facebook and Google, transforming the $400 bn digital ads market

Apple's privacy battle with Facebook just became all-out war. Tim Cook and Mark Zuckerberg's relationship status has changed to enemies

‘They’re playing chicken’: inside Mark Zuckerberg and Tim Cook’s feud. Tensions between Facebook and Apple have been growing, but is it just an attempt to get ahead of US antitrust regulators?

Inside Netflix’s quest to end scrolling. How the company is working to solve one of its biggest threats: decision fatigue

The hybrid office will create great opportunities—for companies and cybercriminals

We’re in a cybersecurity arms race

China poses biggest threat to U.S., intelligence report says. The annual assessment does not predict a military confrontation with either Russia or China, but it suggests that intelligence operations, cyberattacks and global drives for influence will intensify

8 new books that will make you the smartest person in the room (not sure about the last part, though)

Another book on antitrust. Amy Klobuchar writes about breaking up giant corporations in ANTITRUST: TAKING ON MONOPOLY POWER FROM THE GILDED AGE TO THE DIGITAL AGE. Matt Stoller, author of “Goliath: THE 100-YEAR WAR BETWEEN MONOPOLY POWER AND DEMOCRACY,” reviews it in the Washington Post. Also, Why Big Tech Should Fear Amy Klobuchar. The Minnesota senator presents her case for why regulating companies like Facebook and Google is crucial for the future of our democracy.

11 books to pull you out of a reading rut

Is there a war coming between China and the U.S.?

Apple Event 2021: Everything Apple announced at its 'spring loaded' event in just 6 minutes

The 2021 TIME100 MOST INFLUENTIAL COMPANIES can be seen here

Amazon shut out merchants from Pakistan, but they’re still finding a way onto the platform. It is courting the country’s largest manufacturers, but smaller sellers must still use workarounds to reach customers

Amazon crosses $100 billion in sales in huge first quarter. It’s predicting even bigger numbers for next quarter

Facebook reveals new features for creators to earn money from e-commerce sales. It will build an affiliate program that will let creators earn a cut of sales from the products they recommend

Senator John Thune gets the math wrong about a $15 minimum wage. The $6 an hour he earned as a teenager in the 1970s would be more than $20 today

Here's what's in President Biden's $2 Trillion infrastructure proposal and also about connecting Americans better to the information superhighway. President Biden’s $4 trillion economic plan, in one chart

Binyamin Appelbaum on why the meaning of ‘infrastructure’ matters so much

The 'Capitalism is Broken' Economy

Biden, the anti-Reagan: His speech to Congress calls for era of more government. Two speeches, exactly 40 years apart, reveal clashing philosophies. And clashing realities

What do Seth McFarlane and Mark Wahlberg have in common?

Oscars 2021: Full list of winners at the Academy Awards

What happens to television pilots that don’t get picked up by the networks?

Netflix nabs record Oscar haul but misses out on big wins

Which world leader has the worst pandemic record? The competition is fierce

India is what happens when rich people do nothing. The chamber of horrors the country now finds itself in was not caused by any one man, or any single government.

A study finds that coffee pulp, a waste product of coffee production, can be used to speed up tropical forest recovery on post agricultural land

Space junk map tracks 200 ‘ticking time bombs’

Chernobyl – 35 years on, a journey into tragedy and hope

Climate change and the people who fear society is doomed. No scientific study has found that climate change is likely to wipe out civilisation, but for many even the possibility is terrifying enough to upend their lives

U.S. military spending outstrips these countries combined

The 'Stomp Reflex': When governments abuse emergency powers

Biden calls for U.S. to enter a new superpower struggle. Competition with China and containment of Russia were the subtext of the president’s call for action

The place with surprisingly high vaccine hesitancy. Hong Kong has the doses. What it lacks is trust between its leaders and its people

How mRNA technology could change the world. mRNA’s story likely will not end with COVID-19: Its potential stretches far beyond this pandemic

One million coronavirus sequences: popular genome site hits mega milestone. GISAID’s impressive effort to understand the spread of COVID-19 has seen scientists upload sequences from most nations on Earth.

The fourth surge is upon us. This time, it’s different because a deadlier and more transmissible variant has taken root. But now we have the tools to stop it if we want, says Zeynep Tufekci

The obscure maths theorem that governs the reliability of Covid testing

Bill Gates on the 5 things you should know about variants

Inactivity is currently the world's fourth leading cause of death. It's often confused with laziness and personal choice, but in reality, the issue is geographic, systemic, and woven into the structure of modern living. Movement is a simple cure for everybody

Why does India have so many COVID cases? A combination of the UK variant and a new “double-mutant” variant emerging has overwhelmed India. Oxygen gets armed escort in India as supplies run low in COVID crisis. Also, the tragedy of India’s second wave and ‘This Is a Catastrophe.’ In India, illness is everywhere. As Covid sweeps India, experts say cases and deaths are going unreported. As Covid-19 reaches rural India, “people are dropping dead like flies” and Sadanand Dhume says India’s covid crisis could reach you too. Modi’s pandemic choice: Protect his image or protect India. He chose himself.

How safe is flying during the COVID pandemic?

This is your brain on exercise. The brain cares about exercise, just not always for the reasons that you think

How many hours of exercise do you need? Study finds new optimal number

With impressive accuracy of up to 96%, dogs can sniff out coronavirus

The surprising success story of Fish Sticks. The 1950s convenience food has enjoyed a winning streak—no less so than during the Covid-19 pandemic

Mathematics for gamblers. If philosophers and mathematicians struggle with probability, can gamblers really hope to grasp their losing game?

Follow the Rule of 3 Questions to be more likable. Three simple questions vastly improved conversational outcomes

Authenticity is a sham. From monks to existentialists and hipsters, the search for a true self has been a centuries-long project. Should we give it up?

5 tips for showing emotional intelligence during a video interview. Here’s how to make sure your soft skills shine through on your next big Zoom interview

Can you make yourself sound more attractive?

Most start-ups don’t succeed: More than two-thirds of them never deliver a positive return to investors. But why do so many end disappointingly?

The new frontiers of hybrid work take shape. The post-pandemic ‘third way’ of working is going to be hard for businesses to navigate well

Why productivity growth has stalled since 2005 (and isn’t about to improve soon)

The rise of the independent worker: Why everyone wants to work in the gig economy now

Brain chips and biometrics: The future of how we’ll consume music

Intentional learning in practice: A 3x3x3 approach

Microsoft Office is ditching Calibri, switching up its default font for the first time since 2007. Five new custom fonts—Tenorite, Bierstadt, Skeena, Seaford, and Grandview—are in the running to be the new default. Even Calibri’s creator is glad that Microsoft is moving on

If you can make New York Cheesecake in Japan, you can make it anywhere. The U.S. Navy shared its recipe with Yokosuka, its largest foreign base. It comes with a big helping of strict regulations

Ray Dalio’s new personality test gave me and my co-workers a shared identity crisis

The hidden upside of imposter syndrome

The most popular paid subscription news websites

Glaring 'Digital Divide' must be bridged: President of UN Economic and Social Council

The rise and fall of a double agent. Cameron Ortis was an RCMP officer privy to the inner workings of Canada's national security—and in a prime position to exploit them

Mark Zuckerberg talks with Casey Newton

UK prime minister Boris Johnson’s (current) scandals

India asks Twitter to take down some tweets critical of its COVID-19 handling

MI5 is on Instagram, but only to help in its efforts to recruit new talent, but it also uses LinkedIn to help protect people in sensitive positions from scams

Why China is pioneering the next generation of social media

Was the Web a better place before social media?

Google earnings smash sales records as digital ad market booms. YouTube helps power search giant to profits that far exceeded analyst expectations. And guess what? Facebook sales and profits leap as ad prices rise. Pandemic spurs boom in demand for digital advertising ($26.2 billion in Jan-Mar) but Apple privacy changes cloud outlook. Here’s a visual look at the profits

Inside the ‘digital cleanse’ companies taking on cancel culture. A single tweet can now kill a career – but is a digital clean-up the answer?

YouTube's ad business is almost matching Netflix in revenue

The CIA’s top technologist is uncomfortable with Facebook

Punched, kicked, shoved: Documenting the anti-Asian violence

The Derek Chauvin trial is over but some of testimony was painful to hear, like this first responder’s

Power drinkers - Aussie brewer offers beer for excess solar energy

German gymnasts' outfits take on sexualisation in sport

The slander industry is … alarming and growing

The guards caring for Chernobyl's abandoned dogs

Do mass shootings inspire more mass shootings? If so, what can be done about that? Both advocates and sceptics of the copycat theory recommend self-restraint by the news media

Denmark is trying to send its Syrian refugees back. The Danish government says that it’s now safe enough to return to Damascus, and that refugees were never meant to stay permanently. The UN, EU, and human rights groups dispute that assessment

Human rights experts called for an international investigation into US police killings of Black Americans. The 188-page report accused US authorities of tolerating an “alarming national pattern of disproportionate use of deadly force” against Black people

How the middle class became downwardly mobile. ‘Nowadays bank managers, teachers and lawyers can find themselves living in their childhood bedrooms’

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