Business, Financial & Legal - Page 61

A single password... that is all it took to bring down most of the fuel supplies to the US Southeast, with Colonial Pipelines claiming it was the victim of a vicious cyberattack.

We then heard that Colonial Pipeline CEO Joseph Blount approved paying $4.5 million in Bitcoin to the ransomware hacking collective DarkSide, and then the US Department of Justice announced the FBI had "recovered most" of the $4.5 million ransomware payment.

But it was all from a single password, with the attack using a legacy Virtual Private Network (VPN) system that didn't have two-factor authentication. Colonial Pipeline CEO Joseph Blount said: "In the case of this particular legacy VPN, it only had single-factor authentication. It was a complicated password, I want to be clear on that. It was not a Colonial123-type password".

The Senate has passed the US Innovation and Competition Act, with the new legislation unleashing over $200 billion into scientific and technological innovations on US soil over the next 5 years.

The money will go into semiconductor manufacturing, R&D, next-gen chips, robotics, AI, and more. The US Innovation and Competition Act (USICA) legislation being passed means $52 billion for US-based semiconductor manufacturing, a 30% increase in funding for the National Science Foundation, and $29 billion for a new science directorate that will focus on applied sciences.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. said: "It's the largest investment in scientific research and technological innovation in generations. It sets the United States on a path to lead the world in the industries of the future".

Google has been slapped with a $267 million fine over abusing its own ads and will now be changing its own ad practices.

Google was slapped with the fine by Frances competition authority, who found that Google used its own dominant position on advertising servers to "favor its own services over competitors on both ad servers and SSP [sell-side] platforms," said Isabelle de Silva, head of the Autorite de la concurrence.

Google has taken to a blog post to explain that it will be changing its ad policy to allow for publishers to have "increased flexibility". Additionally, Google stated, "Also, we are reaffirming that we will not limit Ad Manager publishers from negotiating specific terms or pricing directly with other sell-side platforms." This isn't the first time Google has felt the force from French regulators, as the company was slapped with a $167 million fine for unclear advertising rules that resulted in a Google Ad's account of a French company being suspended.

Americans will no longer be able to invest in 59 China-based companies as what they are developing poses a national security risk.

President Biden has issued a new executive order that will stop 59 different defense and tech firms in China from receiving any United States investments. According to a press release from the White House, the new executive order was created to stop a continuous "threat posed by the military-industrial complex of the People's Republic of China (PRC)." The White House also said that the development of certain pieces of technology in China and its deployment in other countries poses a national security risk to the United States.

US citizens are now prohibited under the revised E.O. 13959 to make any new investments into the 59 companies listed or "engaging in the purchase or sale". All of the companies that the executive order lists are China-based companies that are involved in the development of surveillance, aviation, and more. All of which are directly linked to the military-industrial complex. The list may not even be completed yet either, as the White House has said that more companies' names could be added to the list on a "rolling basis".

European Union lawmakers have asked top technology companies to increase the efforts being made to stop COVID-19 misinformation.

Currently, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, TikTok, and Twitter are all participants in the (non-legally binding) Code of Practice on Disinformation, which is an agreement that compels the tech giants to provide monthly reports in how they are stopping COVID-19 misinformation. The European Commission has said the companies have shown the inability to police "dangerous lies" on their own, and that the quality of the data being given to them is not at satisfactory standards.

Vera Jourova, the EU's VP for values and transparency, said, "We decided to extend this programme, because the amount of dangerous lies continues to flood our information space and because it will inform the creation of the new generation Code against disinformation. We need a robust monitoring programme, and clearer indicators to measure impact of actions taken by platforms. They simply cannot police themselves alone."

A new report from Reuters has revealed that Iran's largest warship has caught fire and sunk in the Gulf of Oman.

At the time of writing this, Iranian officials have revealed the exact reason why the IRIS Kharg has sunk, but reports are indicating that the ship's crew was safely rescued before the ship went down. Speculation is growing that the ship's sinking may have something to do with its connection with the Strait of Hormuz, which connects the Persian Gulf to the Arabian Sea and is responsible for around 21 million barrels of oil per day, or around a fifth of the world's oil.

So how did the fire start? And who is responsible? At the moment, no one knows, but there has been a focus on the Strait of Hormuz, with both Iran and Israel claiming that each other have attacked ships operating in the area. Additionally, there have been many explosion accusations tossed around by both parties. If you are interested in reading more about Iran and Israel, check out this link here.

AMD is simply unstoppable right now: fighting Intel on one side with CPUs, NVIDIA on the other with GPUs and what seems like everyone in between when you throw Tesla + Microsoft + Sony in with electric cars and infotainment systems and next-gen Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5 consoles.

But now, AMD and Magic Leap have partnered up on an "AR technology solution" that includes a semi-custom SoC that will "enable enterprise users to re-imagine and transform how virtual content and information is visualized and merged with real-world environments".

The announcement was on Magic Leap's website and I only spotted it on Sasa Marinkovic's Twitter -- the Director, Gaming Marketing for AMD.

A new report from The Wall Street Journal has revealed Elon Musk is receiving some heat from the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) over some unvetted tweets.

Back in August 2018, Musk tweeted that he had "[f]unding secured" to take Tesla private at the stock price of $420 per share. The SEC ended up charging Musk with securities fraud in September, and after both parties settled, Musk agreed that he would have his public communications (tweets) vetted by the company before they were posted.

The following year Musk tweeted that Tesla would manufacture more cars than what the company officially said it would, as a result, the SEC dragged Musk back to court, where Musk agreed that more specific vetting by Tesla lawyers (two are needed to approve a tweet) would take place before a tweet is posted. Now, the SEC is coming back at Musk over an unvetted tweet from May 2020 where Musk said that Tesla's stock price was "too high imo".

TSMC hit a masterstroke with 7nm... the right place, right time, the right partners, the right products... while its competitors (mainly Intel and NVIDIA at least for consumer technology) lagged behind so badly.

The company announced during its 2021 Online Technology Symposium event, TSMC shared more details on its future N6, N5, N4, and N3 nodes and also announced that it has shipped over 1 billion chips manufactured on its 7nm process node.

Most of the 7nm chips were for AMD designs across Ryzen, Radeon, EPYC, and the next-gen consoles are all using TSMC 7nm chips. AMD was truly in the right place and right time as well, but their competitors didn't fair so well and won't for the next few years either.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) are already years ahead of the competition, leaving Intel in its proverbial dust and Samsung not able to catch up until 2030 according to recent reports.

But during TSMC's 2021 Online Technology Symposium which started today, alongside Computex 2021, we found out more details about TSMC's upcoming N6, N5, N4, and N3 process nodes. TSMC provided the world with new details on their defect densities, yields, and production timelines -- as in when you can expect to find these next-gen chips in your favorite products (CPUs, GPUs, game consoles, smartphones).

TSMC's senior vice president of research and development, Dr. Yuh Jier Mii, explained that the 3nm process node will have power consumption and performance improvements over the new 5nm node, which the first-gen N5 chips just went into production.

Bernie Sanders is coming between NASA funding and Jeff Bezos' space exploration company Blue Origin.

In April this year, the Endless Frontier Act was created with the main objective being to keep the US space program competitive with other countries around the world. On Monday, Sanders submitted an amendment to the act that states its purpose is to "eliminate the multi-billion dollar Bezos Bailout."

The "Bezos Bailout" is referencing an amendment submitted by Democratic Sen. Maria Cantwell, which asked NASA for an additional $10 billion in funding and instructed NASA to select a second company to construct a moon lander for the coming Project Artemis lunar landing missions. Both amendments come after Elon Musk's SpaceX won the original $2.9 billion NASA contract to construct moon landers that will carry astronauts to the moon.

Luxury brand empire owner Bernard Arnault briefly became the world's richest man, with a net worth of $186.3 billion at the time... versus Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and his net worth of around $186 billion ($300 million less).

Well, it has been barely 24 hours and those few hundred million dollars matter a great deal when you're this rich and want that coveted "world's richest person" title. Well, Arnault is out -- his real-time net worth has dropped to $188 billion, meanwhile, Bezos has his net worth jump to $188.9 billion.

Bezos was behind by $300 million yesterday and is now $900 million ahead... all in less than 24 hours. I cannot fathom having that much money ($900 million) let alone $188 billion behind it. We should expect this fight to continue until one of their companies sees its share value drop by a few percentage points, but who will be first? Bezos or Arnault?

A court has found that Tesla is guilty after owners of one of the electric vehicles sued the company for their cars battery life being reduced.

Tesla has been ordered by a court in Norway to pay 136,000 kroner, or $16,000 each to owners of specific Model S's after owners of the vehicles complained that the vehicle's battery capacity and charging speeds were reduced. According to Nettavisen, paying out these fines could cost Tesla hundreds of millions of dollars.

Owners complained that there was a drop in range of up to 30 miles after Tesla implemented a 2019 software update. Additionally, these owners also noticed that the DC fast-charging at Tesla Supercharger stations were reduced. These issues are reportedly present in 2013 - 2015 models, and according to Tesla, the update was rolled out to "protect the battery and improve battery longevity". Tesla also said that it would only affect "a small percentage of owners."

In the early years of YouTube, a video of two young children took off on the platform, garnering millions of hits and eventually becoming the internet phenomenon that we know today as "Charlie Bit My Finger".

That 56-second long video has now amassed more than 850 million views and has been sold as a non-fungible token (NFT) via an auction. Origin Protocol ran the auction and has said that the plan was to remove the original video from YouTube and take it to be "memorialized on the blockchain." Now, 3F Music, which already owns other popular meme-NFT's, picked up the "Charlie Bit My Finger" NFT for $760,999.

Apart of owning the NFT, 3F Music also has the opportunity to create a parody video of the 2007 video with the brother's Harry and Charlie Davies-Carr, who are 15 and 17. The auction website states that the winner of the Charlie Bit My Finger NFT could "recreate a hilarious modern-day rendition of the classic clip". For more information on this story, check out this link here.

Bernard Arnault has overtaken Amazon founder Jeff Bezos as the richest person on the planet, with Arnault having an estimated net worth of $186.3 billion against Bezos and his $186 billion. Because that $300 million really, really makes a difference at this level, I guess.

Right behind Arnault and Bezos is SpaceX and Tesla founder, as well as The Dogefather himself, Elon Musk with an estimated net worth of around $151 billion. Behind Musk, we have Bill Gates, who recently announced he is divorcing his wife, Melinda Gates, with a net worth of $124 billion. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is next, staying in the top three with his $97 billion in net worth.

Arnault has amassed luxury goods brands under his LVMH umbrella, with the likes of Louis Vuitton, Sephora, Marc Jacobs Christian Dior, Fendi, and many others. The thing is, in March 2020 Arnault was worth around $76 billion but in a post-pandemic COVID-19 fueled world he (and many other billionaires and corporations) are now worth magnitudes more money.

Apple is currently building out its new "Guizhou-Cloud Big Data (GCBD)" which is its new data center that will house iCloud data of its Chinese customers.

Chinese government laws changed back in 2016, which required all "personal information and important data" that was collected in China, was to remain in China. This forced Apple to move its iCloud data of its Chinese customers out of its US-based servers (and other servers globally) to the new GCBD facility.

This new facility is codenamed "Golden Gate" and allows Apple to slip something through: it can break US laws which stops US-based companies from giving data to Chinese authorities. Well, Apple seems to have no problem in doing this as... well... it seems to already be a done deal.

A few weeks ago, it was announced that Bill and Melinda Gates are divorcing, and since then, reports have surfaced regarding why they have divorced.

Last week, a report from The Wall Street Journal suggested that Melinda was considering divorcing Bill for two years before the divorce was official. The Journal also suggested that the main speculative reason behind the divorce was that Melinda was upset with Bill's close friendship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

According to people who had knowledge of his companies and financial dealings and told The New York Times, Bill had pursued other women who worked at Microsoft and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. At the moment, six former employees of Gates have said that the billionaire's actions caused them to feel "uncomfortable".

AT&T and Discovery are reportedly set to announce that they will be combining their media assets into one, super-gigantic content beast that will fight Netflix and Disney in the current -- and more importantly, future content and streaming wars.

If you consider AT&T has a huge amount of media corporations under its umbrella, including Time Warner which it acquired a few years back in a landmark $85 billion deal -- on top of the likes of CNN, HBO, the Cartoon Network, TBS, TNT, and many more -- then the picture becomes much more clear.

Discovery on the other hand offers up some of that binge-worthy reality cable TV programming and networks including HGTV, the Food Network, TLC, and many more. Millions are moving from the normal cable TV package and into streaming packages, so media companies are scrambling to get shift with the times as quickly as they can.

TSMC was expected to spend between $10 billion and $12 billion on its next-gen 3nm chip factory in Arizona, USA -- but it seems that the Taiwanese semiconductor world leader has much bigger plans.

According to people familiar with the matter, Reuters reports that TSMC is "weighing plans to pump tens of billions of dollars more into cutting-edge chip factories in the U.S. state of Arizona than it had previously disclosed, but is cool on prospects for an advanced European plant".

TSMC is building a next-gen 3nm fabrication plant in Arizona and could spend somewhere between $23 billion and $25 billion to get it operational, which would put them ahead of Samsung which has just begun construction of its new 5nm plant in South Korea. TSMC is already pumping out 5nm chips for companies, with Apple using a custom M1 chip on 5nm inside of its new MacBook and iPad Pro.

Samsung has announced that construction of a new production line has started and that the company expects the plant to be operational in the second half of 2022. This is part of a $151 billion investment into Samsung aiming to be the world leader in advanced semiconductor technology against the likes of so-very-dominant TSMC, Intel, and others.

The new state-of-the-art facility will be making 14nm DRAM and 5nm logic semiconductors, both of which will be based on extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography technology. NVIDIA's next-gen Hopper GPU architecture will be made on 5nm and according to my sources, NVIDIA suffered the blows it has taken with Ampere on the 8nm node from Samsung -- against TSMC and its 7nm node for AMD with Radeon (and Ryzen) because after that, it could get to tap Samsung's new 5nm tech.

This is where NVIDIA will play catch up in a big way, with Samsung's new 5nm plant up and operational in the second half of 2022 we can begin to expect that NVIDIA's next-gen Hopper GPU will be unveiled sometime in the second half of 2022. NVIDIA itself even teased "Ampere Next" for 2022 just last month.