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November 2021 - Things of Interest

 


Microsoft rolls out new tech to connect its cloud to rivals. Rather than ruling one metaverse, Microsoft wants its Mesh platform to be the glue that holds a multiverse of many worlds together, adding cartoony avatars to Teams video chats

What Big Tech’s vision of transportation gets horribly wrong. Autonomous vehicles are pitched as the solution to all our transit woes, leading to disinvestment in public transit that’s safer, cheaper, and more sustainable

Why US big tech is quitting China. Yahoo is pulling out of China, following LinkedIn and Fortnite

ADB’s publication on Digital Technologies for Climate Action, Disaster Resilience, and Environmental Sustainability

The browser wars are back

Apple will finally let you fix your own devices — sort of. The announcement comes as regulators prepare to crack down on restrictive device repair policies

Component shortage sends smartphone market into decline. Scarce parts equals slower production, resulting in low stock, fewer options

Battery arms race’: how China has monopolised the electric vehicle industry

Jack Dorsey resigns as Twitter CEO, giving him more time to focus on his passion for bitcoin. Board unanimously appoints Parag Agrawal as CEO. Dorsey has had an interesting journey from microblogging pioneer to billionaire

Should we worry about artificial intelligence?

As the golden age of silicon comes to an end, Silicon Valley risks becoming another rust belt, says theoretical physicist Michio Kaku

The Internet Is not the enemy, says Andrew Sullivan. Many of the problems people ascribe to the internet are neither new nor caused by it, but governments are seeking to regulate the internet as though they are.

[PAPER] Regulating Big Tech: From Competition Policy to Sector Regulation?, October 2021

Googler who helped lead 2018 walkout will join the FTC. Meredith Whittaker was also an advocate for AI ethics during her time at the company

Republican FTC Commissioners issue dissenting statement on use of prior approval provisions in merger orders

Senate confirms Big Tech critic Jonathan Kanter to lead DOJ Antitrust Division

UK orders in-depth probe of Nvidia's Arm acquisition, as does the US

Meta suffers blow as deal to acquire Giphy set to be blocked by UK’s CMA

Amazon and Apple handed $225 million in Italian antitrust fines

Washington is trying to create true tech monopolies

OECD on the important role of competition authorities in promoting competitive neutrality

Why Hollywood’s streaming strategy is killing its releases in China

The Beatles three-part docu-series is called Get Back!

DUEL touches 50: Spielberg’s car chase thriller speeds across Nixon-era America (brought back a lot of memories)

Only Dave Grohl could pull this off

NPR’s best 50 albums of 2021

Clearview AI ordered to delete all facial recognition data belonging to Australians. The company breached Australian privacy law

Too many eyes on the road. Existing federal privacy laws may not cover data collected from autonomous vehicles

New Federal Trade Commission regulations could protect big business and the FTC says that it’s going to ramp up enforcement against illegal dark patterns that trick or trap consumers into subscriptions

End the ‘reasonable expectation of privacy’ test

Amazon says it will stop accepting Visa credit cards in the UK because of its high fees

Malls across America face uncertain future as e-commerce, Covid-19 pandemic push many Facebook and Instagram encryption plans delayed by Meta until 2023

Facebook and Instagram encryption plans delayed by Meta until 2023. Move comes as child safety campaigners express concern plans could shield abusers from detection

Council agrees position on the Digital Services Act: What is illegal offline should be illegal online!

The rise of intangible capitalism

[PAPER] Data governance and the platform economy

Malcolm Gladwell, Susan Cain, Adam Grant, and Daniel Pink have compiled their list of 59 winter nonfiction books

What to do with fake comments and feedback and how to improve the management of public comments in a digital age

Indian tech companies made big “Work from Home” promises. Now they’re calling millions of workers back

Electric car companies and their race for EV dominance. Tesla had crossed the $1 trillion mark in October

How corporate governance is changing

Amazon’s strategy to squeeze marketplace sellers and maximise its own profits is evolving, according to a report from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR)

Business, Economics, Management, Leadership

If everyone hates meetings, why do we have so many of them?

Chinese stock market investors are swapping big tech names for “small giants” and luxury brands for mass market companies, aiming to cash in on President Xi Jinping's “common prosperity” plan for the economy

Japan tortoise will outpace U.S. hare

3 skills new managers need to succeed. To start, recognise that entire teams – and not just individuals – require clear feedback

Biden signs $1 trillion infrastructure bill into law

U.S. consumer prices jump 6.2% in October, the biggest inflation surge in more than 30 years. This is even more than the figures for the Euro zone, the UK, and Canada. On the flip side, Walmart reported good earnings as price sensitive grocery shoppers flocked to its stores amid rising costs for household staples

[PAPER] Creative Destruction: How Capitalism Undermines Rule of Law, October 2021

Is the U.S. really less corrupt than China?

The rise of populism in advanced economies: is globalisation to blame?

Climate Visuals is a website and image library that draws evidence from "over 350 climate change and environmental groups, journalists, educators, and businesses," to illustrate the ways in which climate change is physically affecting the planet, its people, and their lives

India writes itself off

Facebook failing to protect users from Covid misinformation, says monitor

Country by country, scientists eye beginning of an end to the COVID-19 pandemic…until Omicron!

The omicron variant is cause for concern — but not panic, Biden says. And it was in Europe before South African scientists detected and flagged it to the world

Pfizer to share license for covid-19 pill, potentially opening up treatment to millions in low-income nations

Georgetown immunologist who has accurately predicted coronavirus trends says there are only 3 ways the pandemic could end

The Vaccine Confidence Project works to counter the polarisation, mistrust, and disinformation surrounding immunisation

This checklist can make you a better leader

And learn more about how to give good feedback [Podcast]

If organisational culture is so important, why do so many companies struggle to change?

How a company made employees so miserable, they killed themselves

Hubert Joly, former CEO of Best Buy, shares his thoughts

The list of three things. I started noticing the pattern in many of my work

20 monthly goals ideas to help you grow in 2022

Online courses that are actually worth taking. Navigate the avalanche of web learning and find classes that can help with your work and life

Inquiring Minds is a weekly podcast, hosted by neuroscientist and musician Indre Viskontas, for listeners interested in exploring “what's true, what's left to discover, and why it matters” with scientists, writers, and other thinkers

Merriam-Webster’s Editor at Large Peter Sokolowski explained why the company chose “vaccine” as its 2021 word of the year. Lookups for the word surged 601% over 2020, when “pandemic” was Merriam-Webster’s word of the year

Why the 10-80-10 Rule is key to achieving success, why do we seek comfort in the familiar, and 24 cognitive biases that are warping your perception of reality

Elon Musk asked Twitter if he should sell 10% of his Tesla stock to pay taxes. Twitter voted yes. He’s incommunicado since the poll closed. His tax payment in 2018 was $0

ProPublical reveals how the wealthiest avoid income tax

Facebook will shut down facial recognition system and is working on ways to protect users in the 'metaverse'

Facebook’s ‘meta-existential’ pivot for survival

Here’s what happened when Facebook stopped protecting users — on purpose. Internal documents reveal the impact of withholding certain integrity protections from a subset of Facebook users. As the report's author wrote, referring to the company's news feed protections at the time, “We are likely having little (if any) impact on violence.”

And Frances Haugen says Mark Zuckerberg should resign. Haugen also responded to Facebook's complaint that she cherry-picked documents. And she still believes in Silicon Valley and thinks people can still make a positive impact at the company

Widely Viewed Content Report: What People See on Facebook. Facebook isn’t telling you how popular right-wing content is on it. It insists that mainstream news sites perform the best on its platform. But by other measures, sensationalist, partisan content reigns

If Facebook is the problem, is a social media regulator the fix? Facebook whistleblower wants a devoted regulatory company to supervise firms like Facebook over its impact on teens

But the rest of the world merely shrugged at the Facebook Papers. “Very little of what I have read about the papers comes as a surprise”

Facebook will be making major changes to its advertisement policy from 19 January 2022

Instagram tests new feature, Take a Break, after Haugen's testimony against Facebook and its impact on teenagers

This 31-year-old earns $120,000 a year from his TikTok side hustle

How a brutal beating and a 68-second video set Los Angeles on fire

What the great resignation tells us about our flawed work culture—and how we can reimagine it

The U.S. Federal Government gave billions to America’s schools for COVID-19 relief. But he Education Department’s limited tracking of $190 billion in pandemic support funds sent to schools has left officials in the dark about how effective the aid has been in helping students

Growing share of childless adults in U.S. don’t expect to ever have children

The podcast, Working Over Time, examines society through the lens of work, over time and across cultures

Some figures on the state of philanthropy in the US…Americans gave $471.44 billion in 2020, which accounted for 2.3% of GDP. More charitable dollars went to religion (28%) than anywhere else. Jeff Bezos was the top donor in 2020, giving $10.2 billion, followed by MacKenzie Scott ($5.7 billion) and Michael Bloomberg ($1.6 billion)

The end of trust. Suspicion is undermining the American economy.

 

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