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June 2021- Things of Interest

 


The Walkman, forty years on. The gadget that taught the world to socially distance (I loved mine!)

It’s time to ditch Chrome. As well as collecting your data, Chrome also gives Google a huge amount of control over how the web works

You're probably not using the web's best browser. With endless new customisation options like new email clients and a feed reader, Vivaldi 4.0 just got better

MIT engineers have discovered a completely new way of generating electricity

From smartphones to electrical vehicles, here's how solid-state batteries are the future

Bezos and Branson reveal the flaw in Elon Musk's vision of space. The three billionaires are locked in a race to reach space — but some future visions look more promising than others

The six cities building the future of the global tech industry. Indian entrepreneurs are returning from Silicon Valley to invest in Bengaluru

Back in the first half of the 20th century, a group called Technocracy Incorporated wanted to reorganize society by putting scientists in charge. The movement flamed out, but its underlying message still appeals to many in Silicon Valley

How underground fibre optics spy on humans moving above. Vibrations from cars and pedestrians create unique signals in cables. Now scientists have used the trick to show how Covid-19 brought life to a halt

How Huawei became America’s tech enemy No. 1

Why is Mukesh Ambani building an international undersea cable system?

Congress targets tech giants Apple, Google, Amazon, and Facebook in new series of antitrust laws

Congress looks to break up Big Tech with bold new antitrust bills

House lawmakers release bipartisan antitrust bills aimed at tech giants like Amazon and Google

Japan to start antitrust probe on Apple, Google, Nikkei says

U.S. seizes share of ransom from hackers in Colonial Pipeline attack. Investigators traced 75 Bitcoins worth more than $4 million through nearly two dozen cryptocurrency accounts. More than 800 people were arrested in many countries

How an informant and a messaging app led to huge global crime sting

Bitcoin and encryption: a race between criminals and the F.B.I. The F.B.I. scored two major victories, recovering a Bitcoin ransom and tricking lawbreakers with an encryption app. But criminals may still have the upper hand

The US government reportedly traced and reclaimed much of the cryptocurrency paid in last month’s ransomware attack using the private key. Pipeline investigation upends idea that bitcoin is untraceable. The F.B.I.’s recovery of Bitcoins paid in the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack showed cryptocurrencies are not as hard to track as it might seem

Hackers can’t get enough of the United States

Want to stop ransomware attacks? Ban Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Hackers extorted millions from Colonial Pipeline, and now they’ve struck the meatpacking giant JBS. From gas to meat, hackers are hitting the nation, and consumers, where it hurts. There’s one clear way to prevent future attacks

How to negotiate with ransomware hackers

McDonald’s suffers data breach in the US, South Korea, and Taiwan. The company claims no customer financial information was accessed

Bombshell report finds phone network encryption was deliberately weakened. A new paper shows that two old encryption algorithms still used in mobile networks can be exploited to spy on phones' internet traffic

LinkedIn user data involving 700 million accounts is being sold on the dark web

NSA spying row: US and Denmark pressed over allegations

20 best books of Summer 2021 will expand your mind as you lounge on the beach

The Guardian’s 50 hottest new books everyone should read

Esquire’s 34 best books of 2021 (so far)

The female CEOs on this year’s Fortune 500 just broke three all-time records

Why we need better corporate governance data

Buffeted by political upheaval, a crackdown by mainland China and the pandemic, global companies are leaving Hong Kong and heading for rival cities such as Singapore and Shanghai

EU agrees to force multinationals to disclose tax, piling pressure on UK. Companies with revenues above €750m will be required to publish a country-by-country breakdown

The new geopolitics of global business

Meet the Indian merchant waging war on Jeff Bezos. Praveen Khandelwal has built a name fighting against e-commerce. Now, he’s launching his own online marketplace

The Amazon that customers don’t see. Amazon is now using algorithms to fire Flex delivery drivers

RCEP Explained: the world’s biggest trading bloc will soon be in Asia-Pacific

How 'chaos' in the shipping industry is choking the economy

Basic Instinct defined the erotic thriller – and killed it

A brief history of Netflix personalisation. From startup in 1998 to today, a detailed history of the strategy, metrics, and experiments Netflix executes to develop a personalized experience focused on delivering its members movies they love

Biden tries to rally G7 nations to counter China’s influence. The president urged the leaders of wealthy democracies to offer hundreds of billions in loans to developing nations in a direct challenge to Beijing’s Belt-and-Road Initiative in the Build Back Better World partnership

11 Trans-Pacific Partnership members to start talks concerning Britain's entry

BBC removes kids' educational videos about Palestine after pressure from pro-Israel lobbyists

See which countries rich people are leaving

The force that could redraw the peninsula of India

Carbon dioxide levels hit 50% higher than preindustrial time

How many people die on European motorways?

I am Palestinian. Here’s how Israel silences us on social media

Global Happiness Levels in 2021

How the drug industry has exploited reforms started in the fight against AIDS

The mRNA vaccine revolution is just beginning. mRNA brought us a Covid-19 vaccine in record speed. Next it could tackle flu, malaria, or HIV

The 60-year-old scientific screwup that helped Covid kill. All pandemic long, scientists brawled over how the virus spreads. Droplets! No, aerosols! At the heart of the fight was a teensy error with huge consequences

China is vaccinating a staggering 20 million people a day, a vaccination drive through which it is currently administering nearly 60% of all COVID-19 vaccine doses globally

Two Americas’ may emerge as Delta variant spreads and vaccination rates drop. Biden’s 70% vaccination target by Fourth of July likely to fall short as efforts to entice people to get shots have lost their initial impact

Even mild COVID in young people often leads to long-term symptoms, study finds. Common symptoms among young adults included fatigue and cognitive problems

The WHO’s director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says the ‘time has come’ for a global pandemic treaty

How soon do we become unfit when we stop exercising?

Anti-aging protein discovered in blood prevents mental decline

Why are so many men afraid of going to the doctor? Is it fear? Toxic masculinity? Illusions of immortality? Whatever's going on, men are living shorter lives because of it

How palm oil became the world’s most hated, most used fat source

The brain-changing magic of new experiences. The psychological reasons why novelty—from visiting new places to socialising—makes us happier and healthier people

How to think clearly. By learning to question and clarify your thoughts, you’ll improve your self-knowledge and become a better communicator

The neuroscience of intellectual openness

Mansplainers at work? Here’s how to deal when you go back to the office. For most women, mansplaining has long been a backdrop of navigating the world

This is the Number 1 sign of high intelligence, according to Steve Jobs

The Precautionary Principle: better safe than sorry?

The neuroscience behind why your brain may need time to adjust to ‘un-social distancing’

FACT SHEET: Biden-Harris Administration announces supply chain disruptions task force to address short-term supply chain discontinuities defined in the report

How Biden can strengthen the federal workforce. There is no better way to understand how the work experience has changed and how it can be improved than meeting with front line employees

Scott Galloway on the ‘MeWork Generation’ – the executives who burn millions daily and enrich themselves while creating no real value – and the 2 metrics that define them

Employees are quitting instead of giving up working from home. With the coronavirus pandemic receding for every vaccine that reaches an arm, the push by some employers to get people back into offices is clashing with workers who've embraced remote work as the new normal

People are quitting their jobs in record numbers. Companies should take note – and treat them better

Companies are finally getting rid of dumb work perks. Work-from-anywhere policies spell doom for in-house DJs, yoga teachers and corporate food providers

Seizing the middle: chess strategy in business

For almost 60 years, Charlie Watts has set the pace for the Rolling Stones. As the drummer celebrates his 80th birthday, he's going back on the road with the band

The Guardian’s best albums of 2021 so far

Dave Chappelle joins Foo Fighters on stage to sing ‘Creep

Evolution has spent 3.5 billion years testing and proving the idea that some inefficiency is good. So maybe the rest of us should pay more attention to it

The Utopian World of SUVs. It’s a 100-year-old formula: the world of advertising exploits nature to sell us polluting cars. So why do we keep buying them?

But then again, here’s why electric cars will take over sooner than you think

The world's largest producer of cocoa, Ivory Coast, has found an inventive use for the cocoa plant that could power millions of homes

Securely erasing your iPhone or iPad — with a power drill. If you can’t power on your mobile device, Apple has no answers for you. But you can still obliterate the data

Five of America’s most invincible hotels. From Miami to San Francisco, these luxury establishments survived their share of crises before the Covid-19 pandemic

The Real Ace Aggressor Pilots. To prepare fighter pilots for combat, you need a convincing stand-in for the enemy. That's the aggressor squadron

The German Autobahn system: The benefits of unlimited speed

India brings forward target of 20% ethanol-blending in petrol to 2023. India is the world's third-biggest oil importer, relying on foreign suppliers to meet over 85 per cent of its demand.

The craziest conspiracy theories that people actually believe. According to the internet, we should steer clear of the Denver airport....and Bill Gates

The Pentagon UFO report is out — here's what it says (and doesn't say). 5 mind-blowing revelations finally confirmed

What is the value of “intellectual diversity”? Multiple points of view are valuable in many domains, but consensus is often critical

Why there's a bite in the Apple logo

Boris Johnson, the Minister of Chaos, knows exactly what he’s doing

John McAfee found dead in Barcelona prison, authorities say. Reports indicate he died by suicide

Don't let social media think for you

Instagram to change stories algorithm after staff raised concerns about censoring of pro-Palestinian content

Trump shuts down his blog after less than a month

The future of work according to Zoom

5 apps for learning about Indigenous life and history. At-your-fingertips reading, streaming, and resources to educate yourself about Indigenous history and life

The U.S. remains light-years behind in maternity leave

Taiwan’s punishing work culture is forcing young people to game the system

Where did the microchip vaccine conspiracy theory come from anyway? How an innocuous Reddit thread mutated into a dangerous, viral lie

The Illuminati: 13 questions about the clandestine secret society answered

Britain has legalised rape, torture, and war crimes by the state

Why it is no longer cool to be a crazy rich Asian in China

50 Years of the War on Drugs, 'what good is it doing for us?'

How fraudsters exploited our fears during the 'scamdemic'

How equality slipped away. For 97 per cent of human history, all people had about the same power and access to goods. How did inequality ratchet up?

People in advanced economies say their society is more divided than before pandemic. Publics disagree about whether restrictions on public activity have gone far enough to combat COVID-19

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