Volkswagen to Devote 3 German Plants to Electric Car Push
November 14th, 2018Via: AP:
German automaker Volkswagen will convert three factories in Germany to manufacture electric cars, ramping up production of zero-local emission cars ahead of tougher European emissions standards, the company said Wednesday.
Wolfsburg-based Volkswagen said Wednesday that it would begin local production of electric-powered vehicles at its facilities in Emden and Hannover in 2022. A plant in Zwickau was designated previously for e-car production.
How ZTE Helps Venezuela Create China-Style Social Control
November 14th, 2018Via: Reuters:
Chinese telecoms giant ZTE is helping Venezuela build a system that monitors citizen behavior through a new identification card. The “fatherland card,” already used by the government to track voting, worries many in Venezuela and beyond.
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The card is increasingly linked by the government to subsidized food, health and other social programs most Venezuelans rely on to survive.
NGO Teaching Migrants to Lie to Border Guards
November 13th, 2018Via: Russia Today:
A group that helped over 15,000 refugees and migrants to get into Europe has been caught on tape admitting to systematically training asylum seekers to exploit screening interviews by feigning trauma and persecution.
Ariel Ricker, the executive director of Advocates Abroad, a major non-profit NGO which provides legal aid to migrants, has been caught on tape openly discussing how she teaches refugees to lie to border agents. The video was released by Canadian right-wing activist, author and internet personality, Lauren Southern, and will be a part of her new documentary film project ‘Borderless,’ which takes on the European migration crisis.
In the footage, Ricker describes how the organization provides training sessions for migrants seeking entry into Europe, in which they are taught how to act during interviews with border agents:
“I tell them this is acting, all of this is acting… for them to get through, they must act their part in the theater.”
After Conquering the World, Smartphone Faces Uncertain Future
November 12th, 2018The last phone I bought was a heavily discounted Samsung Galaxy Note 4. It’s fine. I have no plans to upgrade.
I’d consider buying a “modern” flagship-grade phone if it included a 3.5mm headphone jack and an easily removable back and battery. There are no high end phones with easily removable batteries and the 3.5mm jack is going away. I chortle at the hair on fire insanity of these moves, but I’m simply not going along with this retrograde “progress” when it comes to phones.
(Never mind all of the surveillance issues with the damn things.)
Is this what it means to become a codger in the information age?
“When I was a boy, I could remove the battery from my phone and plug in my headphones without a stupid dongle. Now, get off my lawn!!!”
Via: AFP:
What is next for the smartphone, which has become the hottest-selling consumer device around the world in just over a decade?
Even as top makers like Apple and Samsung unveil new handsets with new features and improved performance, smartphone sales have flattened with most major markets largely saturated.
The next catalyst for smartphones could be the possibilities offered by the forthcoming 5G, or fifth generation wireless networks, new form factors or advances in virtual and augmented reality.
But some analysts contend that something entirely different may supplant the smartphone.
Future Today Institute founder Amy Webb said in her annual report on technology trends that 2018 “marks the beginning of the end of traditional smartphones” and sees a transition to a new era of computing and connected devices based on voice, gesture and touch.
Robots Are Coming for Europe’s Jobs
November 12th, 2018Via: Bloomberg:
Robots are coming for people’s jobs in Europe, and the countries in the ex-communist east are particularly vulnerable.
With the use of industrial robots rising globally, the average worker in Slovakia — the world’s top car producer per capita — faces a 62 percent median probability that his or her job will be automated “in the near future,” the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development said Tuesday.
In a report that compared 11 emerging countries with developed economies, the London-based development bank said workers in Lithuania are only slightly less at risk, and the chance hovers at around a coin toss for employees in Slovenia, Poland, the Czech Republic and Estonia. Robots will be most used in textiles, agriculture and manufacturing, it said.
U.S. Army Personnel to Compete in eSports to Boost Recruitment
November 12th, 2018In other news: Too Fat to Fight: Military Threatened by Childhood Obesity.
Via: Stars and Stripes:
The Army is putting together a team of video gamers from within its ranks to try to reach young Americans in the digital worlds where they spend much of their time.
More than 15 years after launching “America’s Army,” a first-person shooter game aimed at enlisting real world soldiers, the Army is calling for active duty troops and reservists to compete in video gaming tournaments, or esports, in one of its latest recruiting efforts.
The move follows the Army’s failure this year, for the first time in more than a decade, to meet the fiscal year target for bringing in new soldiers as it seeks to expand its ranks to more than 500,000 in the next four years.
The Army is also creating a “functional fitness” team to compete in CrossFit athletic events and is reportedly looking to spruce up recruiting efforts with more bonuses, more recruiters, better furniture and a new slogan to replace “Army Strong.”
The service plans to hold tryouts for a variety of electronic games, said Staff Sgt. Ryan Meaux, an Army recruiter, in a Facebook video on Wednesday.
Florida Airport Shut Down Over ‘Suspicious Package’ That Ended Up Being Provisional Ballots?
November 12th, 2018Via: TownHall:
Late Sunday evening the Ft. Lauderdale Airport was shut down due to a suspicious package left outside of one of the terminals. Reports are coming in that an Avis rental car employee discovered provisional ballot boxes left in the back of a rental car that had just been returned by a Broward County employee.
Alarm Over Talks to Implant UK Employees with Microchips
November 11th, 2018Via: Guardian:
Britain’s biggest employer organisation and main trade union body have sounded the alarm over the prospect of British companies implanting staff with microchips to improve security.
UK firm BioTeq, which offers the implants to businesses and individuals, has already fitted 150 implants in the UK.
The tiny chips, implanted in the flesh between the thumb and forefinger, are similar to those for pets. They enable people to open their front door, access their office or start their car with a wave of their hand, and can also store medical data.
Another company, Biohax of Sweden, also provides human chip implants the size of a grain of rice. It told the Sunday Telegraph that it is in discussions with several British legal and financial firms about fitting their employees with microchips, including one major company with hundreds of thousands of employees.
The CBI, which represents 190,000 UK businesses, voiced concerns about the prospect.
A CBI spokesperson said: “While technology is changing the way we work, this makes for distinctly uncomfortable reading. Firms should be concentrating on rather more immediate priorities and focusing on engaging their employees.”
The TUC is worried that staff could be coerced into being microchipped. Its general secretary Frances O’Grady said: “We know workers are already concerned that some employers are using tech to control and micromanage, whittling away their staff’s right to privacy.
“Microchipping would give bosses even more power and control over their workers. There are obvious risks involved, and employers must not brush them aside, or pressure staff into being chipped.”
Related: Cyborgs at Work: Employees Getting Implanted with Microchips
U.S. Crude Oil Posts Longest Losing Streak in Over 34 Years, Falling for 10th Day
November 9th, 2018Via: CNBC:
U.S. crude prices fell Friday for a 10th consecutive session, sinking deeper into bear market territory and wiping out the benchmark’s gains for the year.
The 10-day decline is the longest losing streak for U.S. crude since mid-1984, according to Refinitiv data.
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U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude settled 48 cents lower at $60.19 on Friday. The contract is now down nearly half a percent this year. It fell as low $59.26 on Friday, its weakest level in about nine months.
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Oil prices spiked in early October on fears that U.S. sanctions on Iran, OPEC’s third biggest oil producer, would thin out global petroleum supplies. However, the Trump administration granted temporary sanctions exemptions to eight countries, allowing Iranian crude exports to continue and easing concern about undersupply.
Analysts now expect the loss of exports from Iran to be less severe than anticipated.
Meanwhile, the world’s top three producers, the United States, Russia and Saudi Arabia are pumping at or near records. Other OPEC members and exporting nations are also turning on the taps.
Preliminary data this week suggests U.S. production has hit an all-time high at 11.6 million barrels per day.
Memory of Mankind Project
November 9th, 2018Via: GQ:
So it began in his shop six years ago, in 2012, this time capsule of his, what he calls the Memory of Mankind project (or MOM), with Martin making his first ceramic tablet, etching a greeting to future finders. The first tablet addresses creatures a million years from now—whoever they may be—explaining that here lies “a preservation project” meant to protect knowledge about “our present civilization from oblivion and collective amnesia.” It is dated by the signification of astronomical events, as it’s unclear whether those who come many millennia in the future will know how to read numbers. There’s also a pictionary, so they can understand our letters and words.
The act of creating that first tablet alone felt absolutely freeing. The ensuing tablets—roughly the size of bathroom tiles—were laser-engraved with personal recollections and global news, texts of books and scientific studies. By starting to build the collection himself first, he hoped to entice others—citizens, scholars, experts, enthusiasts—to add to it. Already he’s up to over 500 tablets, with participants from an array of countries, most of them sending files or e-mails through the website he’s created, with material they want printed on a tablet. They send their diary entries and love letters, newspaper articles and obscure dissertations, blogs and texts, the most important parts of us. “MOM is the first ‘bottom-up’ history of the world,” said Martin.
