Business, Financial & Legal - Page 60

It's not like it wasn't expected, where nearly 6 months ago I was writing news about up to 25% increases in chip prices by TSMC -- and now we have The Wall Street Journal all but confirming it.

According to sources of The Wall Street Journal (with the article dated June 21... yet it seems everyone is reporting on it like it's new), TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company) will be increasing chip production costs by up to 10-20%. For the more advanced chips that the likes of Apple, AMD, Intel, NVIDIA, Qualcomm, and others have TSMC make for them -- costs could increase up to 10%.

Meanwhile, less advanced chips fabbed by TSMC will increase by up to 20% according to The Wall Street Journal's sources. TSMC is the only player in the game able to do what it does right now, so they can do, and charge whatever the hell they want and get away with it. It's not like AMD, Apple, Intel, NVIDIA, and Qualcomm can go get their chips fabbed at this level, in this quantity, anywhere else on the planet -- and that's why China has its targets set on Taiwan.

NVIDIA is seeing its acquisition of Arm impeded in multiple ways, with the gigantic acquisition that is worth up to $54 billion hitting speedbumps with the FTC and now the EU.

The European Commission will raise their concerns from regulators soon, with NVIDIA saying it is ready to answer "any concerns" the board may have about its acquisition of Arm. NVIDIA is expected to notify the commission in early September of its plans to acquire Arm -- at this time, the EU regulators will look into the inner movements of the $54 billion deal.

There are the obvious concerns that a US company is buying a major UK company, with the UK government concerned of the deal over what they're calling national security, and the fact that NVIDIA will gain access to Arm and its vast IP... and block it from being used on their competitors' products. Arm chips are used in many more technology products than people know, and you'd be giving those keys to NVIDIA.

I stumbled onto someone sharing an anonymous post from 4chan, which might turn out to be totally full of shit, but with the way the world is going right now -- Afghanistan, is one large part, and secondly -- China invading Taiwanese airspace and the Taiwan government preparing for war, it kinda makes sense.

A new post on 4chan starts off with: "You're probably going to have to see it in action to believe it" and then dives right into what could be a horrific event in the very near future. The poster warns of China invading Taiwan, but that an "agreement in principle has been reached" between the US and China over this upcoming attack.

The post explains: "Low-level, preliminary negotiations have been completed and an agreement in principle has been reached between the United States and China concerning Taiwan. There are approximately 6 people who are aware of this in the United States up until right now".

OnlyFans will be changing in a huge way starting October 1, 2021 when sexually explicit material will be banned from its website, with "sexually explicit conduct" no longer allowed to be posted.

Creators will be able to post nude photos and videos, but it will have to be under the new rules within OnlyFans' new policy. The thing is, no one knows what that policy is just yet -- nudity is still allowed, but sexually explicit conduct is banned. Confused face.

Recently, payment companies like Visa and MasterCard have been acting as much larger gatekeepers between consumers and companies, with updated requirements for banks that process payments for websites that offer and sell adult content.

It shouldn't surprise you by now, but President Trump was fighting battles in every single corner for over 4 years but the battle at the end was really just an algorithm...

We now have Google whistleblower Zach Vorhies explain how the Big Tech search giant "re-wrote their news algorithms to specifically go after Trump", something he reveals in his new book Google Leaks: A Whistleblower's Expose of Big Tech Censorship, and during an interview with the Epoch Times. In the interview, Vorhies shows he has internal Google documents that shows how the company ranks news stories.

Vorhies explains: "This is called realtime, hive-mind scoring. They literally built it, they re-wrote it according to the fight that Trump was having with [James] Comey".

One of, if not the most trusted name in "fact-checking" is reeking like hot garbage right now and has been for years but it is only getting worse -- Snopes co-founder David Mikkelson was busted over "mass plagiarism" and now Snopes has retracted 60 articles.

Snopes pulled the articles after their co-founder and still -- even after this -- chief executive officer David Mikkelson had his world imploded in on himself again. Mikkelson owns half of Snopes Media Group, and has been plagiarising articles from major outlets like The Guardian and the LA Times, because he was hungry for traffic.

BuzzFeed News busted Snopes' co-founder and his major plagiarism, and within hours 60 articles were retracted according to The New York Times. Mikkelson admitted he had "multiple serious copyright violations of content that Snopes didn't have rights to use". He added: "There is no excuse for my serious lapses in judgment. I want to express how sorry I am to those whose copyright I violated, to our staff, and to our readers".

Well, if you didn't already know that Snopes co-founder David Mikkelson was a piece of sh*t, you should now -- BuzzFeed has discovered that the Snopes co-founder has committed mass plagiarism that has reached reputable websites like The Guardian, and the LA Times.

First off, years ago the trusted "fact-checking" service saw its co-founder allegedly embezzling close to $100,000 and then left his wife for an actual prostitute. Snopes had major financial problems in 2017, where Mikkelson begged his readers to help him and raised over $500,000 in 24 hours.

Here's where I'd like to say that the Snopes co-founder is "back to his old tricks" but it seems those old tricks aren't old, they never stopped -- BuzzFeed has uncovered that his mass plagiarism has spread far and wide. BuzzFeed writes that Mikkelson "wrote and published 54 articles with plagiarized material".

GIGABYTE has confirmed it has been hacked, with hacking group RansomEXX claiming it had access to 112GB of confidential information that included secret goodies about AMD, Intel, and AMI documents.

The huge 112GB amount of documents and data is a very large amount, where it could be the very foundations and blueprints of next-generation technologies, product roadmaps, security keys for UEFI/BIOS/TPM data/keys, and so much more.

A message that TechPowerUp posted says that the hackers will only speak with an "OFFICIAL REPRESENTATIVE" of GIGABYTE, and they must have the power to act on behalf of the company -- if someone without that power contacts them, the ransom will be "RAISED" warns the hackers.

It's official: Sony now owns the Crunchyroll anime streaming service.

Today Sony announced that it has finalized its acquisition of popular streaming service Crunchyroll. Sony paid AT&T nearly $1.2 billion for the service. The buyout is the second salvo in Sony's push for anime dominance following the initial buyout of Funimation in 2017 for $143 million. Crunchyroll will be nestled under Sony's Funimation label, which is handled by Sony Pictures Entertainment and subsidiary Aniplex.

Crunchyroll has seen strong growth in the last six months since the buyout was announced. The service's overall registered users grew by 30 million people to 120 million, and paying subscribers have grown from 3 million to 5 million.

Uh, ya think, Billy Boy? Meeting with a known pedophile with ties to some of the most evil filth on this planet, was a good thing? Sure. Anyway, Bill Gates with all his smarts and brains said during an appearance on CNN's Anderson Cooper 360 that meeting with Jeffrey Epstein was a "huge mistake".

During the interview, Cooper asks about the fact that his wife -- Melinda Gates -- wasn't happy about Bill's close relationship to Jeffrey Epstein. Epstein, who had his own private island for god knows what happened, connected to major pedophiles worldwide, Hollywood, politicians, government staff, ex and current presidents, and many more.

Cooper said: "The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal both reported in recent months that Melinda was concerned about a relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, who at the time when you met him in 2011, had already been convicted of soliciting prostitution from a minor. The Times reported that she hired divorce attorneys around the time in October 2019, when that contact with Epstein became public. Can you explain your relationship with Epstein? Was there ever any concerns about it?"

A new article on Bloomberg has stated that Elon Musk, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of SpaceX and Tesla, is the highest-paid CEO in the US.

The Bloomberg piece states that Musk has actually held the role as the highest-paid CEO in the US for three consecutive years. Musk's ambitious drive comes, at least in part, from his all-or-nothing moonshot CEO package with Tesla from three years ago. The package gave him a $33 billion stock award payout if Tesla grew to $650 billion in size within 10 years, which it did - netting Musk that $33 billion.

Since the details of Musk's ambitious package deal surfaced, many executives began to follow with board members, and corporate chiefs reevaluated their current packages. According to Bloomberg, an anonymous consultant that worked with boards at some of the country's largest countries said Tesla executives felt, "The takeaway from Musk's package was that if performance requirements are high enough, it doesn't matter how much we pay."

The United Kingdom's Navy has warned of a "potential hijack" of an oil tanker located off the coast of the United Arab Emirates.

According to the warning from the British navy, an oil tanker boat located off the coast of the United Arab Emirates in the Gulf of Oman was potentially hijacked as the British military's United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations warned on Tuesday that "an incident was currently underway", and that the incident was a "potential hijack".

The oil tanker is located around 60 miles off the coast of Fujairah, and according to a report from Sky News, a group of nine individuals is suspected of boarding the vessel Asphalt Princess. A security source close to the matter said, "It was an unauthorized boarding in the Gulf of Oman". Iran has denied involvement and according to Saeed Khatibzadeh, a Foreign Ministry spokesperson who spoke about the matter to Iran's state-run media, the attacks in the region were "completely suspicious".

Steve Jobs applied for a job at Apple all the way back in 1973, with his job application selling for a whopping $343,000 -- hell, even the NFT version of it sold for $27,497 (12x less).

The signed job application will be a prized possession of someone, who paid $343,000 for it... but if you're collecting physical Steve Jobs memorabilia, this is one of the more unique ones, that's for sure. The auction was kicked off by Olly Joshi, who wanted to create awareness regarding the change in "perceived value"... or whatever that means.

He explained: "Will this open a whole new market for decentralized collectibles? Will this cement the status-quo? Or could we see a stalemate with a fresh understanding that both can coexist and even complement one another as we traverse the next 50 years of innovation? Whatever the outcome, the worlds of finance and art will be watching with anticipation".

The Supreme Leader of North Korea seems to be going through some health-related issues, something that the state media tightly controls any news of -- but recently, North Korea's main TV channel, Korea Central Television, had North Korean citizens concerned for Kim Jong-Un's health.

This was a month ago... and now, Kim Jong-Un has been spotted with a "strange green dark spot" on the back of his head. The North Korean Supreme Leader was spotted in recent public activities during the week, where there were some photos of him with a green dark spot, and another photo where it was covered up with a rather large bandage.

Kim attended a military event between July 24-27, and then again at a war veteran conference and other events between July 27-29. Before his last public meetings on June 29, Kim Jong-Un did not have these green marks on the back of his head, nor did he have them during his meeting with his favorite band -- the Band of the State Affairs Commission (SAC), a mixed orchestra and chorus band named after Kim's quasi-presidential office.

Can you imagine if Apple had acquired Tesla last year? It could've happened, as Elon Musk requested a meeting with Apple CEO Tim Cook about the company buying Tesla. Cook refused the meeting, and that was that.

We're hearing about this again because of a new book by Wall Street Journal reporter Tim Higgins, called Power Play. Elon tweeted out a few days ago to clarify what happened, where he first off called Higgins' new book "both false *and* boring".

Musk continued, adding: "Cook & I have never spoken or written to each other ever. There was a point where I requested to meet with Cook to talk about Apple buying Tesla. There were no conditions of acquisition proposed whatsoever. He refused to meet. Tesla was worth about 6% of today's value".

This is another one of those articles that I never thought that I would be writing, but Martin Shkreli who is better known as "Pharma Bro" has had his one-of-a-kind Wu-Tang Clan album seized and sold by the Department of Justice.

Pharma Bro purchased the only copy ever made of Wu-Tang Clan album "Once Upon a Time in Shaolin" back in 2015 for $2 million, but the US Department of Justice cashed in on it, selling it for an undisclosed amount of money. But whatever they sold it for, it has cleared the "Forfeiture Money Judgment" that Shkreli had (around $7.4 million) which with the sale of the one-of-a-kind album, Pharma Bro has now fully paid off.

The DOJ used the sale of the album as a "substitute asset" and as a "forfeiture money judgment" towards Shkreli's debts.

Elon Musk is no stranger to making headline-creating comments, this time he has tweeted about his worries of population collapse being the greatest risk to the future of the human civilization. At the end of the article, I've got a great video that compiles the many times Musk has talked about population collapse.

The Wall Street Journal penned a piece titled "US Population Growth, an Economic Drive, Grinds to a Halt" -- Musk shared the article and then added: "Population collapse is potentially the greatest risk to the future of civilization". Well, I guess we're all doomed -- especially if you've watched the TV show "Utopia".

Things begin to make sense when you consider Musk wants off this planet ASAP, and wants to colonize Mars. This isn't the first time that the SpaceX and Tesla founder has talked about his concerns over population collapse, where two weeks ago on July 15, he tweeted: "I'm trying to set a good example! Population collapse is a much bigger problem than people realize and that's just for Earth".

An app launched in 2016 called Vigilante, but was quickly removed from the iOS App Store -- returning as Citizen, and is paying Americans to live stream crime scenes and emergencies -- and they pay really, really well.

Citizen is hiring "field team members" with offers of $200 to $250 per day if they can find, and live stream events in their areas. These events can include children going missing, house fires, or "anything else". Citizen would like you to interview witnesses and police officials, too.

The company is posting job listings, which state: "You will need to be very quick on your feet, not only in terms of going live during moments that provide value to its users and support the app's mission, but being able to locate and incorporate interviews on-the-fly that contribute to the live stream".

Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned that Russian military forces are authorized to carry out what he describes as an "unpreventable strike" if required.

On Sunday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Russia is capable of detecting any underwater, above water, or airborne enemies. Putin continued and said that "if required," the Russian navy will "carry out an unpreventable strike against it [detected enemies]". Putin dropped this warning on Sunday during a navy day parade in St Petersburg.

These heavy words from the Russian president come only weeks after Russia said that it had fired warning shots and dropped bombs in the path of a British warship that was in Crimea waters. However, the British military said that all of the shots fired were a pre-announced Russian "gunnery exercise" and that there were no bombs dropped at all. If you are interested in reading more about this story, check out this link here.

A gender reveal party sparked a Southern California wildfire that killed a leader of an elite firefighting team.

Authorities announced on Tuesday that the couple has been charged with involuntary manslaughter and has pleaded not guilty. CBS Los Angeles reports that the couple is facing up to 20 years behind bars if the court convicts them of their many charges. The wildfire was sparked on September 5 when the couple decided to have a baby gender reveal at El Dorado Ranch Park in Yucaipa, at the foot of the San Bernardino Mountains.

According to Cal Fire, the wildfire was ignited by a "smoke generating pyrotechnic device, used during a gender reveal party." The wildfire raged on for many weeks and was eventually put out on November 16 after it had burned 22,680 acres throughout the Oak Glen/Yucaipa Ridge area. On September 16, firefighters were caught in a remote area where they were cutting fire breaks. Unfortunately, Charlie Morton, the 39-year-old leader of the Big Bear Interagency Hotshot Squad, was caught in the blaze and was killed.