Innholdsfortegnelse for #368 i Techlife News

Investor Warren Buffett’s company picked up nearly 36 million shares of JP Morgan Chase stock in the third quarter and eliminated its stake in Walmart as part of a number of changes in its portfolio. Berkshire Hathaway Inc. filed a quarterly update on its stocks with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday. Buffett’s Omaha, Nebraska-based company also revealed a new stake in software maker Oracle of 41.4 million shares. Investors follow what Berkshire buys and sells closely because of Buffett’s successful track record. Berkshire officials don’t generally comment on these quarterly filings. And the quarterly filings don’t make clear who made all the investments. Buffett handles the biggest investments in Berkshire’s portfolio, such as Coca-Cola, Apple and Wells Fargo. He has said that investments of less than $1 billion…

Snap Inc. has received federal subpoenas related to a class-action lawsuit stemming from its 2017 initial public offering. The lawsuit, filed last May, claims that Snap misled investors about its user growth before going public. The company said in a statement this week that it has been responding to subpoenas and requests for information from the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Justice. The company says its understanding that the regulators are looking into disclosures during its initial public offering about competition from Instagram. The SEC and the DOJ declined to comment. Snap says it believes that the lawsuit is “meritless” and its IPO disclosures were “accurate and complete.” Snap has struggled to compete with Instagram especially after the Facebook-owned app successfully copied its popular “stories” feature.…

American office space-sharing company WeWork has obtained $3 billion in funding from Japanese technology conglomerate SoftBank Group Corp. The new funding comes in addition to the $1 billion raised from SoftBank last quarter, WeWork spokesperson Kumiko Hidaka said Thursday. WeWork, which targets startups, is operating not only in the U.S. but also India, China, Peru, Israel and other nations, as well as Japan, where real estate is relatively expensive, allowing WeWork an opportunity to grow. SoftBank confirmed the investment but referred queries to WeWork. SoftBank has been scrutinized for the funding it has received from Saudi Arabia. Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a columnist for The Washington Post, was killed at the Saudi consulate in Turkey last month. SoftBank Chief Executive Masayoshi Son, has been partnering with Saudi Arabian Crown Prince…

Amazon, which started as an online bookstore two decades ago, has grown to a behemoth that had nearly $180 billion in revenue last year. It now owns well-known brands including grocer Whole Foods and online shoe-seller Zappos. It also makes movies and TV shows, runs an advertising business and offers cloud computing services to corporations and government agencies. The company has more than 610,000 employees worldwide, making it the second largest U.S.-based, publicly-traded employer behind Walmart. But it was the prospect of 50,000 jobs that led 238 communities across North America to pitch Amazon on why they should be home to the next headquarters. Amazon could have picked a struggling city desperate for new jobs. But instead it went with two of the nation’s largest and most powerful metro areas.…

No, “The Girl in the Spider’s Web” isn’t a Spider-man spinoff about a young woman ensnarled by Peter Parker. But you’d be forgiven for thinking the latest, revamped iteration of Stieg Larsson’s thrillers has some superhero DNA. This, Lisbeth Salander’s third big-screen incarnation in nine years, has morphed the avenging Stockholm hacker into a blander action hero, complete with a Batman-and-Robin-like band of white across her eyes. Following the spikier Swedish trilogy, with Noomi Rapace, and David Fincher’s menacing and murky “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo,” with Rooney Mara, we can almost palpably feel Lisbeth (Claire Foy this time) being lured out of the shadows and toward a more mainstream movie realm. In this latest chapter, Lisbeth strives, like a Scandinavian 007, to keep a world-threatening atomic weapons program…

The eighth and last season of “Game of Thrones” finally has a date with destiny. HBO said this week that the series will return in April 2019 with six episodes to conclude its run. The fantasy series based on the George R.R. Martin novels has been one of HBO’s most successful shows. A video touting the show’s return next year included clips from seasons past showing both living and dead competitors for the crown of Westeros but didn’t give a taste of the final episodes. HBO isn’t getting out of the “Game of Thrones” business. A prequel created by Martin and writer-producer Jane Goldman is underway, with Naomi Watts set to star, and other spinoffs are possible.…

The kilogram is getting an update. No, your bathroom scales won’t suddenly become kinder and a kilo of fruit will still weigh a kilo. But the way scientists define the exact mass of a kilogram is about to change. Until now, its mass has been defined by the granddaddy of all kilos: a golf ball-sized metal cylinder locked in a vault in France. For more than a century, it has been the one true kilogram upon which all others were based. No longer. Gathering in Versailles, west of Paris, governments are expected on Friday to approve plans to instead use a scientific formulation to define the exact mass of a kilo. The change is expected to have practical applications in industries and sciences that require ultra-precise measurements of mass. And…

All of it is possible due to the Smart Lab at the Mitchell Middle School, which is now fully implemented after receiving an additional $25,000 in grant money from America’s Farmers Grow Rural Education program, sponsored by Monsanto. Principal Justin Zajic started looking into replacing the industrial technology course last December and put together a committee involving the Mitchell Area Development Corporation, Toshiba, Muth Electric, Mitchell Technical Institute and other community members, the Daily Republic reported. “We discovered we were having problems getting people into these major tech industries that we have here in Mitchell, so we brainstormed on how to grow locally. We wanted to look at curriculums that would put our middle schoolers on the right path to develop skills for these industries,” Zajic said. The program offers…

The Trump administration’s Environmental Protection Agency is proposing to rewrite rules that limit pollution from heavy trucks but that the EPA says slow the economy. Acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler argues that new technology can help improve air quality, noting that the regulation of harmful nitrogen oxide emissions hasn’t been revamped since 2000. EPA officials were to announce the plans Tuesday but offered few details and said they were just beginning a regulatory process that can take years. “We are doing it because it’s good for the environment,” said Wheeler, who notes that the EPA is under no requirement to redo the regulation. “Our goal is to update our standards so that we can get these new technologies in use across the country.” The proposed “Cleaner Trucks Initiative” is drawing…

Virginia State University is offering is offering a new event for children designed to spark interest in science, technology, engineering, agriculture and math. STEAM Fest will be held at the VSU Multipurpose Center on Jan. 26. As many as 300 students and their parents are expected to participate in hands-on activities and experiments, and to design and build products. The event is free and open to the public. STEM is an integral part of Virginia’s K-12 curriculum. STEAM Fest is based on STEM NOLA, a New Orleans-based nonprofit organization that delivers STEM programs, events and activities in underserved communities.…

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 this week. 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. Volkswagen personnel head Gunnar Kilian said that workers were given a jobs guarantee through 2028, but that the company would work to reduce positions “in a socially responsible way” since electrics require fewer production steps. Analysts say carmakers will need to add electric cars to their sales lineups to meet the new European Union rules on greenhouse gas emissions from 2021. Volkswagen and other car makers had…

F. Scott Fitzgerald, who said there are no second acts in American lives, might have felt differently had he seen this year’s Oscar race. In mid-November, there is much solidifying, scrapping and self-promotion to come (not to mention a few potential awards heavyweights). But most of the expected contenders have by now been seen and there’s a definite theme: Reinvention is the season’s most sought-after attribute. One after another, potential contenders have trotted out new iterations of themselves: Lady Gaga, the actor; Alfonso Cuaron, the re-made filmmaker; Melissa McCarthy, dramatic actress; Peter Farrelly, a million miles from “Dumb and Dumber.” From Lady Gaga to Peter Farrelly, reinvention is this season’s most sought-after attribute in the competition for an Oscar. Metamorphoses, like that of Rami Malek’s prosthetic-toothed, full-bodied performance as Freddie…

GOODBYE, STAN LEE Stan Lee, the legendary Marvel Comics writer, and publisher, has died aged 95. The icon was responsible for characters including Spider-Man, Thor, Iron Man, Black Panther, and the X-Men, making him a real-life superhero around the world, with millions of adoring fans. In this special edition of TechLife News, we look back on his impressive career and explore how his imaginative mind helped create one of the world’s most successful movie franchises. HUMBLE BEGINNINGS Born Stanley Martin Lieber, Stan Lee started his career back in 1939, when he became an assistant at Timely Comics, a firm that would evolve into Marvel Comics by the 1960s. The job paid just $8 per week, and during his early years at the company, he was responsible for filling inkwells, proofreading,…

When Jude Law met with J.K. Rowling about portraying the younger version of Albus Dumbledore, the two discussed how to rebuild the fan-favorite character from the “Harry Potter” films. Law spent an afternoon jotting down notes from Rowling who talked to him about Dumbledore’s life before becoming the world’s most powerful wizard. The British actor walked away with a vote of confidence from the famed author, alleviating some pressure on him. Eddie Redmayne shares his excitement about his first day on set opposite Jude Law’s Dumbledore, while Katherine Waterston says the new movie’s links to “Harry Potter” are strong. “When the boss says ‘I like you,’ it gives you a little bit of comfort,” Law said of Rowling, screenwriter of the “Harry Potter” prequel series that is based on her…

Canadian actor Douglas Rain, who played some of Shakespeare’s most intriguing characters onstage but perhaps is best known for supplying the creepily calm voice of the computer HAL in Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” has died at 90. The Stratford Festival said Rain died Sunday of natural causes at St. Marys Memorial Hospital, just outside of Stratford, Ontario. He was one of the festival’s founding company members and spent 32 seasons performing there, until 1998. His roles at Stratford included playing Claudio in “Measure for Measure” in 1954, Malvolio in “Twelfth Night” in 1957, Edgar in “King Lear” in 1964 and Prince Hal in “Henry IV, Part 1’ in 1958, a play and a role he would return to in 1965 and would eventually take on the title role…

In three years, the Uber Eats restaurant food delivery service has grown from an experiment to serving much of the U.S. and major cities worldwide. By year’s end, the ride-hailing company says it will cover 70 percent of the U.S. population and be in 243 metro areas, mainly by expanding into smaller cities. It’s already in over 300 cities in 36 countries with many international deliveries done by bicycle. Jason Droege, an Uber vice president who leads Uber Everything, the unit that explores how to build new businesses off the Uber network, says Eats is growing as fast as the ride-hailing service did in its early days. He talks about the future of the service and demand for getting food delivered to your home. Questions and answers have been edited…

For kids growing up in today’s cashless society, the piggy bank is going virtual. Father of two Roland Hall turned to a British startup’s digital pocket money app because his kids were still too young to get bank cards from traditional banks. With prepaid debit cards linked to the app, Hall’s kids, aged 8 and 10, can spend their allowance and chore money by shopping online or by tapping at contactless payment terminals in stores. Sound like a recipe for splurging? Not so, he said. “When kids have cash they want to spend it quickly. They want to go to the shops and spend it on rubbish,” said Hall, an IT project manager. But an app lets them check their balances online, “which actually makes them start thinking about saving…

A congressional advisory panel says the purchase of internet-linked devices manufactured in China leaves the United States vulnerable to security breaches that could put critical infrastructure at risk. In its annual report this week, the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission warns of dangers to the U.S. government and private sector from a reliance on global supply chains linked to China, which is the world’s largest manufacturer of information technology equipment. China’s push to dominate in the high-tech industry by 2025 already is a sore point with Washington and a contributing factor in trade tensions that have seen the world’s two largest economies slap billions of dollars in punitive tariffs on each other’s products this year. The U.S. also has had long-running concerns about state-backed cyber theft of corporate secrets,…

Commuters beware: New York and Washington’s clogged streets and creaky subway systems are about to feel more pain as 50,000 more people descend on the two metro areas where Amazon will open new headquarters. An expansion of that scope in a city such as New York — where the regional subway, bus and commuter lines move more than 8 million people every day — sounds like something a transit system should be able to absorb. Not so, some experts say. “Congestion will get worse. Buses will probably get a little bit slower. There are going to be more people traveling at a specific time of day to a specific place,” said Eric Guerra, assistant professor of city and regional planning at the University of Pennsylvania. “But at the same time,…

Cows that can withstand hotter temperatures. Cows born without pesky horns. Pigs that never reach puberty. A company wants to alter farm animals by adding and subtracting genetic traits in a lab. It sounds like science fiction, but Recombinetics sees opportunity for its technology in the livestock industry. But first, it needs to convince regulators that gene-edited animals are no different than conventionally bred ones. To make the technology appealing and to ease any fears that it may be creating Franken-animals, Recombinetics isn’t starting with productivity. Instead, it’s introducing gene-edited traits as a way to ease animal suffering. “It’s a better story to tell,” said Tammy Lee, CEO of the St. Paul, Minnesota-based company. For instance, animal welfare advocates have long criticized the way farmers use caustic paste or hot…

Amazon is hard to escape. Whether you’ve bought shoes at Zappos, picked up milk at Whole Foods or listened to an audiobook on Audible, you’ve been caught up in Amazon’s growing web of businesses. And now, Amazon’s sprawling empire will stretch even further. The company announced Tuesday that it will open two more bases outside of its Seattle headquarters: one in Arlington, Virginia and the other in New York’s Long Island City neighborhood. Amazon, which got its start as an online bookstore two decades ago, has grown to a behemoth that had nearly $180 billion in revenue last year. Its workforce has ballooned to more than 610,000 employees worldwide, making it the second largest U.S.-based, publicly-traded employer behind Walmart, according to FactSet. That growth has also made its founder and…

Celebrities offer their thanks, remembrances and condolences in the death of Marvel legend Stan Lee, who died Monday at age 95. “Sad, sad day. Rest In Power, Uncle Stan. You have made the world a better place through the power of modern mythology and your love of this messy business of being human...”The “Hulk” actor Mark Ruffalo, via Twitter. Stan Lee, the creative dynamo who revolutionized the comic book and helped make billions for Hollywood by introducing human frailties in Marvel superheroes such as Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four and the Incredible Hulk, is dead at 95 “Thank you, Stan, for making me not only the boy I was but also the man I am today. You had great power and you always used it responsibly, fostering billions of dreamers who…

Like the bottomless trunk totted by “magizoolologist” Newt Scamander, “Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald” is a mixed bag of wonders. Newt (Eddie Redmayne) can reach into his suitcase and, like Mary Poppins before him, pull out just about anything. And it sometimes feels as though J.K. Rowling — a screenwriter here for the second time — is similarly infatuated by her unending powers of conjuring. In this overstuffed second film in the five-part Harry Potter prequel series, every solved mystery unlocks another, every story begets still more. Narratives multiply like randy Nifflers (one of the many species of creature in Newt’s bag). The usual problem for spinoffs is their thinness or their unfulfilled justification — especially ones that stretch an already much-stretched tale. (There were eight Potter movies.) But…

Shares of Yelp Inc. took a beating Thursday (08) after the online-reviews site reported soft third-quarter sales and indicated the current period would also be weak. Yelp’s stock was down $12.50, or 29 percent, to $31 in after-hours trading. CEO Jeremy Stoppleman blamed the revenue miss on the company’s new non-term advertising, intended to encourage advertisers to try the site without being tied to longer-term contracts. “While the shift to non-term advertising has opened our sales funnel, it has also made our results more sensitive to short-term operational issues,” Stoppleman said in a new release. He said the company said expected revenue would also take a hit in the fourth quarter. The San Francisco-based company reported revenue of $241.1 million in third quarter, up from $223 million during the same…

Ford and Walmart are teaming up to test a self-driving grocery delivery service. The pilot program in Florida’s Miami-Dade County will incorporate Postmates, a logistics company that operates a network of couriers, to deliver groceries and more. The vehicles will collect data on consumer preferences to help the companies understand what people want. Ford said that it’ll also look at different vehicle configurations or modifications that may be needed to accommodate orders such as perishable goods, or when a vehicle is making multiple deliveries on a single trip. Ford will work with Walmart over the next couple months to determine what goods it can feasibly transport and figure out any issues that may need to be addressed to successfully deliver orders via self-driving vehicles.…

Spain’s government is eyeing ambitious steps to tackle climate change, including a ban on the sale of gas and diesel cars from 2040. The government presented a blueprint Tuesday that foresees an end to state financial subsidies for fossil fuels and a prohibition on fracking. The working document, obtained by The Associated Press, contains plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 37 percent by 2030 and to feed the national energy grid exclusively from renewable sources by 2050. Other European Union countries are assessing similar groundbreaking measures as they look to combat climate change. The minority Spanish government’s goals for its climate policy will need the support of other parties to win approval in parliament. It wasn’t immediately clear when a vote on the measures might take place.…

Japanese technology company SoftBank Group Corp. will carry out an initial public offering of its Japanese mobile subsidiary, set for Dec. 19, in what will likely be one of the world’s biggest IPOs. The Tokyo Stock Exchange approved the listing of 1.6 billion shares of SoftBank Corp. Monday, at 1,500 yen ($13) a share, raising potentially more than 2 trillion yen ($20 billion). Founded in 1986, initially running software, broadband and fixed-line telecommunications businesses, the company has expanded to become one of Japan’s top mobile service providers. It was the first carrier to offer the Apple iPhone in Japan. The parent is investing in a range of companies globally, including U.S. wireless company Sprint, British IoT company ARM, Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba and U.S. ride-sharing service Uber. Recently, SoftBank Group…