Innholdsfortegnelse for #532 i Techlife News

The U.S. trade deficit surged to a near-record high of $80.2 billion in November as exports slowed at the same time that imports jumped sharply. The November deficit was 19.3% higher than the October deficit of $67.2 billion and was just below the all-time monthly record of $81.4 billion set in September, the Commerce Department reported Thursday. November imports, goods Americans bought from other countries, jumped 4.% to $304.4 billion in November while exports, those the U.S. sends overseas, edged up a scant 0.2% to $224.2 billion. Through the first 11 months of 2021, the U.S. trade deficit is 28.6% higher than during the same period last year with the economic recovery in the United States outpacing other nations, as is the readiness of Americans to spend. For all of…

The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits rose last week but remained at historically low levels, suggesting that the job market remains strong. U.S. jobless claims rose by 7,000 last week to 207,000. The four-week average of claims, which smooths out week-to-week gyrations, rose by nearly 4,800 to just below 205,000. Despite the increases, the numbers show that weekly claims are below the 220,000 typical before the pandemic struck the U.S. economy in March 2020. The highly transmissible omicron variant so far does not appear to have triggered significant layoffs. Altogether, nearly 1.8 million Americans were collecting traditional unemployment aid the week that ended Dec. 25. “Assuming any layoffs related to Omicron are limited amid tight labor market conditions, we expect initial claims to continue to hover around the…

In addition to the new year bringing confetti and a fresh calendar, it’s a time to set big money goals for the next 12 months. That might mean finally paying off debt, buying a house or taking a long-delayed vacation. With inflation and economic uncertainty clouding 2022, shoring up your finances this month can feel even more urgent. “When you plan to start in the new year or some other important date for you, it can be easier to make that behavioral change, because we feel like we’re making a fresh start,” says Jeremy Burke, a senior economist at the University of Southern California’s Center for Economic and Social Research. Here are five steps money experts recommend to help you reach your money goals in 2022: GET A CLEAR VIEW…

China is calling on the United States to protect a Chinese space station and its three-member crew after Beijing complained that satellites launched by Elon Musk’s SpaceX nearly struck the station. A foreign ministry spokesman accused Washington of ignoring its treaty obligations to protect the safety of the Tiangong station’s three-member crew following the July 1 and Oct. 21 incidents. The Tiangong performed “evasive maneuvers” to “prevent a potential collision” with Starlink satellites launched by Space Exploration Technologies Corp., the government said in a Dec. 6 complaint to the U.N. Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space. The United States should “take immediate measures to prevent such incidents from happening again,” said the spokesman, Zhao Lijian. Zhao accused Washington of failing to carry out its obligations to “protect the…

Ford says it will nearly double the annual production of its electric F-150 Lightning pickup truck based on a high number of advance reservations. The company said that it will be able to build at a rate of 150,000 pickups per year at its electric vehicle factory in Dearborn, Michigan, by the middle of next year. Previously Ford had expected to build 80,000 per year at the new factory, which likely will have to be expanded to handle the increased output. The company says nearly 200,000 people have put down $100 refundable deposits on the trucks. It’s now sending out emails asking customers to convert their reservations to actual orders by picking a dealer and agreeing on a price. Workers are now making pre-production versions of the trucks that will…

A couple of months ago, a woman paid a visit to Jeff Schrier’s used car lot in Omaha, Nebraska. She was on a tight budget, she said, and was desperate for a vehicle to commute to work. She was shown three cars priced at her limit, roughly $7,500. Schrier said the woman was stunned. ‘‘‘That’s what I get for $7,500? ’” he recalled her saying. The vehicles had far more age or mileage on them than she had expected for something to replace a car that had been totaled in a crash. The woman eventually settled on a 2013 Toyota Scion with a whopping 160,000 miles on it. Schrier isn’t sure he made any profit on the deal. “We just helped her out,” he said. As prices for used vehicles…

Hollywood closed out 2021 with more fireworks at the box office for “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” which topped all films for the third straight week and already charts among the highest grossing films ever. But even with all the champagne popping for “No Way Home,” the film industry heads into 2022 with plenty of reason for both optimism and concern after a year that saw overall ticket revenue double that of 2020, but still well off the pre-pandemic pace. Movie theaters began the year mostly shuttered but ended it with a monster smash. Sony Pictures’ Marvel sequel “No Way Home” grossed an estimated $52.7 million over the weekend to bring its three-week total to $609.9 million. That ranks 10th all-time in North America. Worldwide, it’s made $1.37 billion, a total…

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention explained the scientific rationale for shortening its COVID-19 isolation and quarantine recommendations, and clarified that the guidance applies to kids as well as adults. The CDC also maintained that, for people who catch COVID-19, testing is not required to emerge from five days of isolation — despite hints from other federal officials that the agency was reconsidering that. The agency announced the changes last week, halving the isolation time for Americans who catch the coronavirus and have no symptoms or only brief illnesses. Isolation should only end if a person has been fever-free for at least 24 hours without the use of fever-reducing medications and if other symptoms are resolving, the CDC added. It similarly shortened the time that close contacts need to…

To help make China a self-reliant “technology superpower,” the ruling Communist Party is pushing the world’s biggest e-commerce company to take on the tricky, expensive business of designing its own processor chips — a business unlike anything Alibaba Group has done before. Its 3-year-old chip unit, T-Head, unveiled its third processor in October, the Yitian 710 for Alibaba’s cloud computing business. Alibaba says for now, it has no plans to sell the chip to outsiders. Other rookie chip developers including Tencent, a games and social media giant, and smartphone brand Xiaomi are pledging billions of dollars in line with official plans to create computing, clean energy and other technology that can build China’s wealth and global influence. Processor chips play an increasingly critical role in products from smartphones and cars…

Growth in the U.S. service industry, where most Americans work, pulled back in December after expanding at a record pace the previous two months. The Institute for Supply Management reported Thursday that its monthly survey of service industries declined to a reading of 62 last month, from an all-time high of 69.1 in November. Any reading above 50 indicates growth. Since recording two months of contraction last year in April and May when the pandemic was raging, the overall index has now grown for 19 consecutive months. Anthony Nieves, head of the ISM services sector survey committee, said growth in the services industry is still strong and that it didn’t appear that the recent surge of the COVID-19 omicron variant had any impact on the December activity in the sector.…

French regulators on Thursday fined Google and Facebook a total of more than 200 million euros ($226 million) for not making it as easy for people to opt out of online tracking as it is for them to accept it. The CNIL data privacy watchdog said its investigations found that while the U.S. online giants gave French users a single button to immediately accept cookies, there wasn’t an equally simple way for them to decline because “several clicks are required to refuse all cookies.” Cookies are snippets of code used to target internet users for digital ads and other purposes. European governments have stricter regulations than the U.S. that require websites to ask for permission before tracking a user’s activity. That means people face pop-up menus when they visit new…

A company that aims to recycle lithium ion batteries from vehicles and other uses will build its first large plant in suburban Atlanta, investing $43 million and hiring 150 people. Battery Resourcers, based in Worcester, Massachusetts, made the announcement Wednesday, saying it would take over an existing building in Covington and ramp up to full operation by August. The company is betting that the battery supply chain, now concentrated in Asia, is about to spread out to other regions, and that its recycling process will be cleaner and cheaper than mining new materials. “Automotive manufacturers are sitting on mountains of discarded batteries and scrap, and right now they have very few options for responsible and cost-effective disposal,” Battery Resourcers CEO Michael O’Kronley said in a statement. Battery Resourcers will take…

AT&T and Verizon have agreed to delay the launch of a new slice of 5G service by two weeks after airlines and the nation’s aviation regulator complained about potential interference with systems on board planes. President Joe Biden said the agreement reached this week will help avoid further disrupting flights that bad weather and the surging coronavirus have already delayed and canceled by the thousands over the past several days. The telecom giants agreed to delay Wednesday’s planned launch of the new C-Band strand of 5G, which promises faster speeds for customers, in order to implement changes around airports. They still dismiss concerns that it could negatively affect aviation equipment. The companies already postponed the C-Band rollout by a month when, over the weekend, they rejected a request by Transportation…

Tesla is recalling certain Model 3s because a coaxial cable for its backup camera can become worn and fail to transmit images to the dashboard console. All Model 3s from model years 2017 to 2020 are included in the recall, with as many as 356,309 cars affected, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Tesla is not aware of any crashes, injuries or deaths caused by the defect. The coaxial cable is attached to a harness on the trunk lid and can become worn after repeated opening and closing of the trunk. If the core of coaxial cable separates due to excessive wear, the rearview camera feed will not be visible on the center display, affecting the driver’s view and increasing the risk of collision, the NHTSA said. Tesla…

His hair is graying. His nerves are fraying. Denzel Washington’s Macbeth is a man quite literally running out of time — even before he meets those witches. At 66, Washington is certainly at the older end of the spectrum of conceivable Macbeths. But it makes wonderful sense: In Joel Coen’s brilliantly imagined, brilliantly executed “The Tragedy of Macbeth,” we confront a man who knows in his bones — his aching bones — that the witches’ prophecy has given him his last chance to be what wants, no, deserves! King of Scotland. For an actor of Washington’s unique skill set, not to mention facility with Shakespearean verse, Macbeth at any age would be right, frankly. But there’s something wonderful about the fact that it took this long, with all the experience…

The extensive music catalog of David Bowie, stretching from the late 1960s to just before his death in 2016, has been sold to Warner Chappell Music. More than 400 songs, among them “Space Oddity,”“Ziggy Stardust,”“Fame,”“Rebel Rebel” and “Let’s Dance” on 26 Bowie studio albums released during his lifetime, a posthumous studio album release, Toy, two studio albums from Tin Machine, as well as tracks released as singles from soundtracks and other projects, are included. Financial details of the sale were not released. Warner Chapell is the music publishing wing of Warner Music Group Corp. Bruce Springsteen sold his catalog to Sony Music last month for a reported $500 million. Among others that have sold their catalogs in recent years, either in part or in their entirety, are Bob Dylan, Neil…

A Moscow court slapped Google with a nearly $100 million fine and also fined Facebook’s parent company Meta $27 million over their failure to delete content banned by local law, as Russia seeks to step up pressure on technology giants. The Tagansky District Court ruled that Google repeatedly neglected to remove the banned content, and ordered the company to pay an administrative fine of about 7.2 billion rubles (about $98.4 million). Google said it would study the court documents before deciding on its next steps. The court also slapped a fine of nearly 2 billion rubles ($27.2 million) on Meta for failure to remove banned content. Russian courts had previously imposed smaller fines on Google, Facebook and Twitter, and the rulings marked the first time the size of the fine…

COVID-19 vaccines and testing boosted Walgreens store sales growth to levels not seen in more than two decades, pushing the drugstore chain well above Wall Street expectations for the first quarter. Walgreens doled out 15.6 million vaccines in the quarter that ended November 30, up 16% from the previous quarter, as more Americans sought booster shots. Also, federal regulators expanded eligibility for Pfizer’s vaccine to children ages 5 to 12. The company administered 6.5 million COVID-19 tests in the first quarter, which ended before the omicron variant of the virus sent case numbers soaring in the United States and stoked the need for testing even higher. Sales from Walgreens’ established U.S. stores shot up more than 10% compared to the previous year’s fiscal quarter, which ended before mass vaccine distribution…

China has recommitted itself to completing its orbiting space station by the end of the year and says it is planning more than 40 launches for 2022, putting it roughly level with the United States. Launches would include those of two Shenzhou crewed missions, two Tianzhou cargo spacecraft and the station’s additional two modules, the official Xinhua News Agency reported Thursday, citing a recent announcement by the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation known as CASC. Named Mengtian and Wentian, the science modules will join the Tianhe core module that is currently home to a three-person crew. The launch schedule shows how China’s traditionally cautious program is increasing the cadence of its missions as it seeks to take a leading role in space exploration. The U.S. expects around the same…

Serving as a Christmas gift to space fans the world over, NASA launched its revolutionary new space observatory, the James Webb Space Telescope, on December 25, from South America. The launch marks the start of one of the most anticipated missions in years and could change the way we study astronomy and both the history and the future of our planet. THE JAMES WEBB SPACE TELESCOPE The James Webb Space Telescope could just well become one of the most important tools in our arsenal and help us understand our universe that little bit better. The successful Christmas Day launch is the start of a whole new adventure, and as the spacecraft continues its one-million-mile journey away from Earth, it’ll unfold and reshape to reach its full potential and configuration. The…

Chrysler plans go all electric by 2028, the latest automaker to announce a shift away from gasoline-powered engines under rising pressure to act on climate change. The company said this week that it will launch its first electric vehicle by 2025. Chrysler announced its electric plans along with a new AI-enabled vehicle system powered by a battery that it says can travel 350 to 400 miles (563 to 644 kilometers) per charge. Fiat Chrysler is part of Europe’s Stellantis, the parent company that also owns PSA Peugeot. “Our brand will serve at the forefront as Stellantis transforms to deliver clean mobility and connected customer experiences,” Chris Feuell, CEO of the Chrysler brand, said in a news release. Stellantis last month announced a strategy to embed AI-enabled software in 34 million…

Tesla delivered a record 936,000 vehicles last year, up 87% from its 2020 delivery count, the company said. The Austin, Texas-based electric vehicle company announced its fourth-quarter production and delivery results. The carmaker said it delivered 308,600 vehicles in the final quarter of 2021, which is also a record for the company and thousands more cars than Wall Street analysts expected. Wedbush Securities analyst Daniel Ives says the numbers are“jaw-dropping”given the ongoing global chip shortage affecting the automotive industry. Ives says the production increase was likely boosted by growing demand from car buyers in China, as well as broader enthusiasm for electric vehicles.…

How deep does the rabbit hole go? Deep enough, it turns out, to accommodate at least four movies, several videogames, a comic and countless pairs of sunglasses. In the 22 years since the “The Matrix” debuted, it has never left us — or depending on your pill of choice, we have never left it. Despite two largely disappointing sequels, “The Matrix” still hasn’t quite gone out of style — neither its long leather jackets nor its sci-fi vision of an illusive reality beyond what’s in front of us. It’s gotten easier and easier to think maybe Morpheus really was onto something about that whole simulation business. So when green lines of code again rain down across the screen in the opening of “The Matrix Resurrections,” it’s a little like a…

Riddell has developed a football helmet that might not be just the next big step in design and player safety, but a major leap. While there has been a focus on position-specific headgear for sometime, Axiom is a personal-fit helmet. It is designed and manufactured player by player rather than position by position. Axiom’s features are based on data and designed to improve impact response, reduce head impact exposure (HIE), and deliver unprecedented protection. Axiom includes a new fitting system, a redesigned helmet shell platform, reimagined face-mask system and integrated smart helmet technology called InSite — which analyzes and reports on HIE compared to Riddell’s database of 8 million on-field player impacts. Axiom also features a removable visor. “We don’t want to call it a crowning achievement, we get up…

Germany’s antitrust watchdog paved the way this week for extra scrutiny of Google by designating it a company of“paramount significance,”the first to get that label since regulators got more power to curb abusive practices by big digital companies. The Bundeskartellamt said its decision comes after rules were introduced last year that allow it “to intervene earlier and more effectively”to ban companies from using anti-competitive practices. The regulator’s decision, which lasts five years, gives it extended powers to supervise Google for “abuse control.” The watchdog said Google has“significant influence”over other companies’access to its users and advertising customers through search, YouTube, Android and its online Play Store“and can set rules and conditions for other businesses across markets.” It’s the latest example of how big tech companies are facing pressure over concerns their…