Tesla to buy cobalt from Glencore for new car plants
By: Financial Times June 16, 2020 Tesla Inc. will buy cobalt from from Glencore Plc, the world’s biggest miner of the metal, as the carmaker looks to avoid a future supply squeeze on the key battery metal, a person familiar with the matter said. The contract will help Tesla shore up its cobalt supply for new […]
China’s quantum satellite helps send secure messages over 1200km
By: New Scientist August 15, 2020 Two observatories in China have used a quantum communications satellite to send an encrypted message a record-breaking 1200 kilometres – a major step towards building a secure quantum internet. China launched its Micius quantum satellite in 2016. It produces pairs of photons that are quantum entangled, meaning the measured state of one […]
Ethical investments are outperforming traditional funds
By: The Guardian Jun 13, 2020 Environmentalists cheered by huge improvements in air quality during the lockdown – and the collapse in coal power generation – have another reason to celebrate. Even the stock market has gone in their favour. A detailed number-crunching of environmentally sustainable funds has revealed that they have outperformed traditional funds across […]
Amazon Halts Police Use Of Its Facial Recognition Technology
By: NPR June 12, 2020 Amazon announced on Wednesday a one-year moratorium on police use of its facial-recognition technology, yielding to pressure from police-reform advocates and civil rights groups. It is unclear how many law enforcement agencies in the U.S. deploy Amazon’s artificial intelligence tool, but an official with the Washington County Sheriff’s Office in Oregon confirmed […]
Corporate kowtow to China’ lands HSBC in a deep political hole
By: The Guardian June 10, 2020 Now it gets serious for HSBC. It’s one thing to be accused, rightly, by pundits and even the odd shareholder, of “kowtowing to China” by supporting publicly the security crackdown law for Hong Kong. The stakes become higher when the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, makes the same […]
The Global Implications of “Re-education” Technologies in Northwest China
By: Newlines Institute June 08, 2020 Since May 2014, when Chinese Communist Party Secretary Zhang Chunxian announced the People’s War on Terror in the Uighur region, Chinese technology firms have received billions of dollars in Chinese state capital to build a comprehensive Muslim “re-education” system in Northwest China. Over the same period of time they have created a […]
Zoom to exclude free calls from end-to-end encryption to allow FBI cooperation
By: The Guardian June 04, 2020 Zoom, the popular video conferencing platform, has announced it will provide end-to-end encryption after facing a litany of privacy and security concerns – but only to users who pay for it. Eric Yuan, the company’s CEO, raised alarm among privacy advocates on Wednesday by saying Zoom planned to exclude […]
ESG investors get their heads around social risks
By: The Economist June 04, 2020 Covid-19 has brought out the best and the worst of the corporate world. Carmakers are producing ventilators, and consumer firms are making hand-cleaning gels. Some others, though, have drawn complaints for their treatment of their employees during the pandemic. Such considerations touch on what sustainable investors call “social” risks, part […]
AI firm that worked with Vote Leave given new coronavirus contract
By: The Guardian June 02, 2020 An artificial intelligence firm hired to work on the Vote Leave campaign may analyse social media data, utility bills and credit rating scores as part of a £400,000 contract to help the government deal with the coronavirus pandemic. The company, Faculty, was awarded the contract by the Ministry of Housing, […]