Innholdsfortegnelse for #518 i Techlife News

The United States and the European Union agreed Wednesday to carry on the work of 10 expert-level panels to explore and recommend solutions to a variety of trade disputes and challenges. During the first of two days of trade and technology talks in Pittsburgh, they instructed the working groups to continue deliberations on matters ranging from climate and clean tech and technology standards to global trade issues, including tariffs that have strained U.S.-EU relations and predatory commercial practices by China. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and Trade Representative Katherine Tai led the U.S. delegation, accompanied by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, for the inaugural meeting of the U.S.-EU Trade and Technology Council. The meeting took place in an atmosphere clouded by recent EU anger over being excluded from a new U.S.-British-Australian…

Brace for a rude surprise on your winter heating bills. After years of unusually inexpensive levels, the price of natural gas in the United States has more than doubled since this time last year. In Europe and Asia, wholesale prices are more than five times what they were a year ago. The surging costs have coincided with a robust recovery from the pandemic recession, with more homes and businesses burning all forms of fuel. That intensified demand is poised to contribute to higher heating costs in many areas of the world. Having enjoyed a prolonged period of low prices, consumers of natural gas are facing the burden of far more expensive fuel — and the prospect of much higher heating bills this winter. “Consumers got used to very low prices…

Facebook is putting a hold on the development of a kids’ version of Instagram, geared toward children under 13, to address concerns that have been raised about the vulnerability of younger users. “I still firmly believe that it’s a good thing to build a version of Instagram that’s designed to be safe for tweens, but we want to take the time to talk to parents and researchers and safety experts and get to more consensus about how to move forward,” said Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, in an interview on NBC’s “Today” show. The announcement follows a investigative series by The Wall Street Journal which reported that Facebook was aware that the use of Instagram by some teenage girls led to mental health issues and anxiety. Yet the development…

Amazon’s new robot can hear, see and follow you around the the home, but its no Rosey the Robot. Amazon’s version, called Astro, doesn’t cook or clean like the animated character from “The Jetsons,” but it can check if you left the stove on while you’re out or send an alert if someone enters the house it doesn’t recognize. It uses cameras, sensors and artificial technology to avoid walls or dogs, and Amazon said Astro — which also happens to be the name of the Jetson’s dog — will only get smarter as time goes on. It does do some housework: Snacks or a can of soda can be placed on its back to be carted to someone across the house. The $1,000 robot, which will be sent out to…

The U.S. Department of Defense is taking input on its plan to build an advanced mobile nuclear microreactor prototype at the Idaho National Laboratory in eastern Idaho. The department began a 45-day comment period last week with the release of a draft environmental impact study evaluating alternatives for building and operating the microreactor that could produce 1 to 5 megawatts of power. The department’s energy needs are expected to increase, it said. “A safe, small, transportable nuclear reactor would address this growing demand with a resilient, carbon-free energy source that would not add to the DoD’s fuel needs, while supporting mission-critical operations in remote and austere environments,” the Defense Department said. The draft environmental impact statement cites President Joe Biden’s Jan. 27 executive order prioritizing climate change considerations in national…

Luxury automaker Mercedes-Benz is teaming up with Stellantis and TotalEnergies in a European electric vehicle battery joint venture, Automotive Cells Co. Each will hold a one-third stake in the venture, which will have an investment of more than 7 billion euros ($8.2 billion). The partners in Automotive Cells plan to increase the company’s industrial capacity to at least 120 gigawatt-hours by 2030. The company was founded in August 2020 and is looking to develop and make battery cells and modules for electric vehicles with a focus on safety, performance, competitiveness and a low carbon footprint. In July, Mercedes-Benz said it is stepping up its transition to electric cars, doubling the share of sales planned by 2025 and sketching out a market scenario in which new car sales would “in essence”…

The latest in a series of U.S. satellites that has recorded human and natural impacts on Earth’s surface for decades was launched into orbit from California on Monday to ensure continued observations in the era of climate change. Landsat 9 was carried into space aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket that lifted off from foggy Vandenberg Space Force Base at 11:12 a.m. The satellite successfully separated from the rocket’s upper stage more than an hour later. A project of NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey, Landsat 9 will work in tandem with a predecessor, Landsat 8, to extend a nearly 50-year record of land and coastal region observations that began with the launch of the first Landsat in 1972. Landsat 9 will take the orbital track of Landsat…

Britain’s government plans to allow researchers to use gene-editing techniques to develop crops that can increase yields, reduce the need for pesticides and cut greenhouse gas emissions as the U.K.’s exit from the European Union allows it to deviate from the bloc’s rules. Gene editing could help scientists to quickly breed crops that are more nutritious or resistant to pests and diseases, the government said in announcing its plan to make it easier for scientists to conduct research in the field. Scientists draw a distinction between gene editing, which involves the manipulation of genes within a single species, and genetic modification, which moves DNA from one species into a different one. Under EU rules, however, they are regulated the same way. “Gene editing has the ability to harness the genetic…

Ugandan climate activist Vanessa Nakate said Wednesday that youth delegates meeting in Milan want to see immediate action from leaders at the U.N. climate talks in Glasgow, Scotland — not cheap, last-ditch grasps at polluting fuels before getting down to business. Nakate is among 400 activists invited to Italy’s financial capital for a three-day Youth4Climate meeting that will draft a document to forward to the 26th Climate Change Conference of the Parties, which opens on Oct. 31. “If leaders and governments are going to talk about net zeroes or cutting emissions, halving emissions by 2030 or 2040 or 2050, that means it has to start now,” Nakate told. ”It doesn’t mean, if we are going to do it by 2030, between now and 2030 let’s open a coal power plant,…

Merck will spend about $11.5 billion to buy Acceleron Pharma and its potential treatment for high blood pressure in vessels that connect the lungs and heart. Merck will pay $180 per share in cash for Acceleron, the Kenilworth, New Jersey, company said Thursday. Acceleron is running late-stage studies of a potential treatment, sotatercept, for patients with life-threatening pulmonary arterial hypertension. Blood vessels in the lungs become narrowed, blocked or destroyed in pulmonary arterial hypertension, according to the Mayo Clinic. Blood pressure in lung arteries rises and causes the heart to worker harder, which can lead to heart failure. Sotatercept represents a “potential blockbuster” and a way for Merck to add a new source of revenue, Mizuho Securities USA analyst Mara Goldstein wrote. Merck executives told analysts Thursday they hope to…

AT&T has become one of the largest employers in the U.S. to mandate vaccines for a significant number of frontline workers. The telecom company said Wednesday that its employees in the Communications Workers of America union will be required to be fully vaccinated by Feb. 1, “unless they get an approved job accommodation.” CWA represents about 90,000 AT&T workers, the union said. It is the largest union at the company, which had about 230,000 employees as of the end of January. The Dallas company said it is extending a vaccination policy that it set for managers in August that required them to be vaccinated by Oct. 11. Unlike the federal government’s vaccine mandate for large employers, AT&T is not offering employees the option to take a weekly test instead of…

Bowing — perhaps only for a moment — to pressure from lawmakers, critics, the media and child development experts, Facebook said it will “pause” its work on a kids’ version of its photo and video-oriented Instagram app. But what’s not yet clear is just how seriously Facebook is taking the concerns of experts and parents. Its decision to merely pause the project suggests it still plans to expose a much younger audience to Instagram, its well-documented harms and possibly the user profiling that feeds Facebook’s targeted ad machine. That ad machine, of course, has made the company one of the most profitable on the planet. WHY IS FACEBOOK DOING THIS NOW? The company’s move follows an explosive mid-September report by The Wall Street Journal that found Facebook knew from its…

Applying to be one of the first workers at Walt Disney World, high school graduate George Kalogridis made a split-second decision that set the course for his life: he picked a room where prospective hotel workers were being hired. Chuck Milam got a tip about a job opening from a transplanted Disney executive whose new house he was landscaping. Earliene Anderson jumped at the chance to take a job at the new Disney theme park in Florida, having fallen in love with the beauty of Disneyland in California during a trip two years earlier. At the time, the three were among the 6,000 employees who opened the Magic Kingdom at Disney World to the public for the first time on Oct. 1, 1971. Now, they are among two dozen from…

Japanese automaker Toyota is revving up acquisitions in mobility technology, adding Renovo Motors Inc., a Silicon Valley software developer, to its Woven Planet team, which is working on automated driving. The addition, announced this week, follows the purchase earlier this year of CARMERA Inc., a U.S. venture that specializes in sophisticated road mapping updates made cheaper and faster by using crowdsourced information obtained from millions of net-connected Toyota vehicles. The company has not disclosed the value of either deal. Renovo develops automotive operating systems, which Toyota Motor Corp. sees as essential for developing programmed vehicles so it can transition to what it calls “a mobility company” that includes more than just cars. Renovo means “new life” or “renew” in Latin. Renovo’s data-management platform enables automakers to continuously learn from their…

An emergency dispatch center doesn’t exactly sound like the most visually exciting place to set an entire film. But the technical limitation of being imprisoned in a soulless office while high stakes action takes place off screen can be an inspired storytelling gimmick in the right hands, as it is in “ The Guilty,” directed by Antoine Fuqua, written by Nic Pizzolatto and starring Jake Gyllenhaal. A remake of a 2018 Danish film by the same name, Fuqua’s “The Guilty” puts the audience in a Los Angeles 911 call center in the middle of the night as Gyllenhaal’s disgraced police officer Joe Baylor fields emergency calls from around the city. Joe probably isn’t the calmest man in the world under normal circumstances but take into the fact that he’s doing…

A federal agency said it’s once again delaying a final decision on whether to permit construction of a launchpad for commercial rockets on the Georgia coast. The Federal Aviation Administration now plans to issue a decision on Spaceport Camden by Nov. 3 “due to ongoing consultation efforts,” agency spokesman Steve Kulm said in a statement. Previously, the FAA had said it intended to make a final determination on the project by the end of July, then shifted its target date to the end of September. Camden County in Georgia’s coastal, southeast corner has spent nine years and $10 million seeking permission to build what would be the nation’s 13th licensed commercial spaceport. The proposal took a big step forward in June, when the FAA issued an environmental impact study that…

Days before Germany’s federal elections, Facebook took what it called an unprecedented step: the removal of a series of accounts that worked together to spread COVID-19 misinformation and encourage violent responses to COVID restrictions. The crackdown, announced Sept. 16, was the first use of Facebook’s new“coordinated social harm” policy aimed at stopping not state-sponsored disinformation campaigns but otherwise typical users who have mounted an increasingly sophisticated effort to sidestep rules on hate speech or misinformation. In the case of the German network, the nearly 150 accounts, pages and groups were linked to the so-called Querdenken movement, a loose coalition that has protested lockdown measures in Germany and includes vaccine and mask opponents, conspiracy theorists and some far-right extremists. Facebook touted the move as an innovative response to potentially harmful content;…

The U.S. economy expanded at a 6.7% annual pace from April through June, the Commerce Department said Thursday, slightly upgrading its estimate of last quarter’s growth in the face of a resurgence of COVID-19 in the form of the delta variant. The government’s estimate of growth in the second quarter — its last of three — was up from its previous estimate of a 6.6% annual pace that will likely mark a high point for the economy’s expansion this year as the virus slows some activity, government support programs wind down and manufacturing supply-chain issues persist. Thursday’s report from the government showed that the nation’s gross domestic product — its total output of goods and services — accelerated from a 6.3% annual rate in the first three months of the…

A ban on single-use plastic bags that was originally scheduled to begin on the first of this year will go into effect Friday across Washington state. The ban applies to single-use plastic carryout bags by restaurants, retail stories, small vendors, and grocery stores, KIRO-TV reported.Gov. Jay Inslee postponed the ban because there weren’t enough compliant paper or plastic bags available when the ban was supposed to go into effect. The Washington State Department of Ecology said plastic bags cause pollution other than the obvious litter. The department said harmful chemicals are released when plastics are made, used, burned, or slowly disintegrate. The bags are not easily recycled and clog sorting machines, which puts workers at risk. “Single-use plastic bags are not easily recyclable, which makes managing them at the end…

Although all eyes were on the Apple Watch Series 7 and iPhone 13 range at this year’s California Streaming event, the unexpected announcement of a refreshed iPad mini also got people talking. Bringing Apple’s smallest tablet in line with the iPad Pro and Air has helped to give consumers more choice, whilst a refreshed entry-level iPad remains a sensible buy. INTRODUCING THE NEW iPAD MINI Apple first introduced the iPad mini nine years ago, designed to appeal to consumers looking for a smaller tablet that they could take with them on the go, carry in their handbags, and give to the kids. After five generations, Apple has refined the iPad mini into a powerhouse, but it’s the all-new sixth-generation that’s getting people talking. The new iPad mini features a larger…

Austin Moody wanted to apply his cybersecurity skills in his home state of Michigan, teaming up with investigators for the State Police to analyze evidence and track down criminals. But the recent graduate set the idea aside after learning an unpaid internship was his only way into the Michigan agency. “I don’t know many people that can afford to take an unpaid internship, especially when it’s in such high demand in the private sector,” Moody said of fellow cybersecurity job seekers. “Unpaid internships in cyber aren’t really a thing beyond the public sector.” Hiring and keeping staff capable of helping fend off a constant stream of cyberattacks and less severe online threats tops the list of concerns for state technology leaders. There’s a severe shortage of those professionals and not…

Ford and a partner company say they plan to build three major electric-vehicle battery factories and an auto assembly plant by 2025 — a dramatic investment in the future of EV technology that will create an estimated 10,800 jobs and shift the automaker’s future manufacturing footprint toward the South. The factories, to be built on sites in Kentucky and Tennessee, will make batteries for the next generation of Ford and Lincoln electric vehicles that will be produced in North America. Combined, they mark the single largest manufacturing investment the 118-year-old company has ever made and are among the largest factory outlays in the world. Notably, the new factories will provide a vast new supply of jobs that will likely pay solid wages. Most of the new jobs will be full…

In an economy upended by the coronavirus, shortages and price spikes have hit everything from lumber to computer chips. Not even toilet paper escaped. Now, they’re cutting into one of the humblest yet most vital links in the global manufacturing supply chain: The plastic pellets that go into a vast universe of products ranging from cereal bags to medical devices, automotive interiors to bicycle helmets. Like other manufacturers, petrochemical companies have been shaken by the pandemic and by how consumers and businesses responded to it. Yet petrochemicals, which are made from oil, have also run into problems all their own, one after another: A freak winter freeze in Texas. A lightning strike in Louisiana. Hurricanes along the Gulf Coast. All have conspired to disrupt production and raise prices. “There isn’t…

Google headed to a top European Union court this week to appeal a record EU antitrust penalty imposed for stifling competition through the dominance of its Android operating system. The company is fighting a 2018 decision from the EU’s executive Commission, the bloc’s top antitrust enforcer, that resulted in the 4.34 billion-euro ($5 billion) fine — still the biggest ever fine Brussels has imposed for anticompetitive behavior. It’s one of three antitrust penalties totaling more than $8 billion that the commission hit Google with between 2017 and 2019. The others focused on shopping and search, and the California company is appealing all three. While the penalties involved huge sums, critics point out that Google can easily afford them and that the fines haven’t done much to widen competition. In its…

China’s central bank declared all transactions involving Bitcoin and other virtual currencies illegal, stepping up a campaign to block use of unofficial digital money. The notice complained Bitcoin, Ethereum and other digital currencies disrupt the financial system and are used in money-laundering and other crimes. “Virtual currency derivative transactions are all illegal financial activities and are strictly prohibited,” the People’s Bank of China said on its website. The price of Bitcoin fell more than 9%, to $41,085, in the hours after the announcement, as did most other crypto tokens. Ethereum skidded almost 10%, falling from $3,100 to around $2,800. Chinese banks were banned from handling cryptocurrencies in 2013, but the government issued a reminder this year. That reflected official concern cryptocurrency mining and trading might still be going on or…