Business, Financial & Legal - Page 63

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.

Samsung has just announced that it is boosting its investments in bleeding-edge chip manufacturing, with the South Korean giant spending $151 billion between now and 2030 to boost research into next-gen process technology, and the construction of a new production facility.

The company had previously said that it would be investing $115 billion between now and 2030 but has now revised that, with a larger $151 billion. Samsung Electronics will be pumping the investments into its System LSI and Foundry business, with Samsung "closely collaborating with various semiconductor design companies, component and equipment manufacturers, as well as academia in making progress towards that goal".

Samsung said that the expansion of its Foundry Business will "fuel entire new industries on next-generation technologies like AI, 5G and autonomous driving".

Trading cards are leaving Target after a man pulled a gun out in a dispute over trading cards in a Target parking lot.

Target has announced that it will be removing all trading cards from store shelves from May 14 onward after a man on May 7 pulled a gun out during a fight over trading cards. Target states it is temporarily suspending the "sale of MLB, NFL, NBA and Pokemon trading cards within our stores, effective May 14." Target added that it decided to remove these trading cards "out of an abundance of caution", and that shoppers can still purchase them online "Guests can continue to shop these cards online at Target.com."

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused the value of trading cards to increase drastically, with some Pokemon cards such as a mint condition Charizard sold for $300,000 in January - it was worth $16,000 in 2019. According to Joe Maddalena, executive vice-president at Texas-based Heritage Auctions said, "When Covid-19 hit, a lot of Gen X and Millennials were looking for things to do and we found a lot of these guys and girls started playing Pokemon again because they grew up with it."

A new alliance of powerful US tech companies has joined forces to create the Semiconductors in America Coalition (SIAC) which has urged US congressional leaders to secure $50 billion for the CHIPS for America Act.

The Semiconductors in America Coalition has pushed congressional leaders to secure $50 billion in funding for US-based chip manufacturing incentives and research initiatives. SIAC says that its mission is to "advance federal policies that promote semiconductor manufacturing and research in the U.S. to strengthen America's economy, national security, and critical infrastructure".

The CHIPS for America Act legislation may have been enacted earlier this year, but the funds are not flowing -- something Intel has voiced its opinion on with the Biden administration recently. SIAC's first actions included a letter to congressional leaders to support this legislation, and fully fund the $50 billion asked for in the CHIPS for America Act.

Last week Bill and Melinda Gates announced that they would be divorcing, and now new reports have come out about why.

The Wall Street Journal has reported that Melinda Gates has been considering divorcing Bill Gates for two years before the divorce was made official. The two were married for 27 years, and according to the Journal, Melinda had been meeting with lawyers across multiple different firms since 2019 in an attempt to fix a marriage that was "irretrievably broken."

Bill and Melinda haven't said what has caused the two to split up, but the Journal reported that the main speculative reason is that Melinda has been upset with Bill over his friendship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Bill and Melinda first met Epstein in 2011 after Epstein pleaded guilty to soliciting an underage girl in 2008 - "still haunts" Melinda Gates. People who were close to the meeting said that Melinda was "furious" over the relationship Bill had with Epstein.

The hunt for former President Donald Trump's financial records has been reignited by a Democrat-led House committee.

The committee is currently pushing a federal judge to order former President Donald Trump to comply with a subpoena to release his financial records. The argument the committee is pushing is that Trump has no reason or claim not to release his financial records now that he is no longer the President of the United States.

The effort is being led by the chair Carolyn Maloney, and according to a source close to the matter, if the committee is successful, it would be moving closer to obtaining Trump's tax records. Douglas Letter, the general counsel for congressional Democrat, wrote, "While the committee's need for the subpoenaed information has not changed, one key fact has: plaintiff Donald J Trump is no longer the president".

Colonial Pipeline is recovering from a ransomware attack over the weekend which forced the largest US fuel pipeline operator to shut its critical networking supplying the US east coast.

Reuters reports the story explaining that the "attack is one of the most disruptive digital ransom schemes reported and has prompted calls from American lawmakers to strengthen protections for critical U.S. energy infrastructure from hacking attacks".

The Biden administration and Washington are reportedly doing what they can behind the scenes to ensure that fuel supply remains solid and that Colonial Pipeline is back and operating ASAP. The gigantic cross-US pipeline runs between Texas and New Jersey, a distance of around 5500 miles (8850km).

A new craze has sparked outrage online as people in China are ordering what is called a "blind box", which is a mystery parcel that is shipped to the buyer that contains a random pet.

BBC News reported that on Monday, 160 distressed cats and dogs were found inside a courier company's truck in Chengdu. Chinese law states that it's illegal to transport live animals. However, local media has reported that these "blind boxes" are overwhelmingly popular. These "blind boxes" can contain any animal from tortoises, lizards, rats, dogs, and cats.

As you can imagine, the cruelty of this entire practice has sparked outrage online, with some users saying, "Have we made any achievements in the rescue and management of stray animals? Now there is a pet blind box industry?". State media outlet Xinhua even went as far to say "blind boxes" are a "desecration of life". Online buyers of these "blind boxes" have been urged to have "more goodwill and more respect for life".

A Black man who has intellectual disabilities was forced to work unpaid by a former South Carolina restaurant manager.

The former restaurant manager is 56-year-old Bobby Paul Edwards, and in 2019 Edwards was sentenced to 10 years in prison after he plead guilty against forced labor chargers. Edwards enslaved 43-year-old John Christopher Smith, who was forced to work 100 hour weeks, at zero pay, with no days off, for 5 years. Now, Edwards is being forced to pay Smith an entitled total of $546,000 as a rightful compensation.

Court documents state that Smith began his full-time employment in 1990 at the age of 12 under the ownership of Edwards' relatives. In 2009 Edwards took over the operation and allegedly moved Smith into an apartment described as "sub-human," "deplorable" and "harmful to human health", according to Smith's lawyer.

I think that even if you were living under a rock you'd have to have known about the "Disaster Girl" meme purely with a 1-second look, with the super-popular internet meme selling for over $500,000 in NFT form.

The NFT (non-fungible token) version of Disaster Girl recently sold for 180 Ethereum, which at the time was worth $500,000 and at the time of writing was worth just over $550,000. The original photo of "Disaster Girl" saw then-four-year-old Zoe Roth standing in front of her father's camera in front of a burning house.

The house wasn't exactly burning normally, as firefighters had intentionally set fire to the house and then let the kids play around with the fire hose and pumping water into the house on fire. The picture set the internet on fire, pun intended, and became an instant meme of the ages. Even the NFT caption explains it perfectly: "Discovered by internet connoisseurs it rapidly spread to every corner of the world, becoming one of the most recognizable images of the 21st century".

Bill and Melinda Gates have announced their divorce after 27 years of marriage, with the ex-CEO of Microsoft taking to Twitter to announce the news.

The now-split couple wrote together, but published on Bill Gates' personal Twitter: "After a great deal of thought and a lot of work on our relationship, we have made the decision to end our marriage. Over the last 27 years, we have raised three incredible children and built a foundation that works all over the world to enable all people to lead healthy, productive lives".

"We continue to share a belief in that mission and will continue our work together at the foundation, but we no longer believe we can grow together as a couple in this next phase of our lives. We ask for space and privacy for our family as we begin to navigate this new life".

Last Thursday, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced it will be working towards banning menthol cigarettes across the US.

The FDA Commissioner, Janet Woodcock stated that the reason the FDA is looking to ban menthol cigarettes is because it will help save lives. Woodcock says, "Armed with strong scientific evidence, and with full support from the [Biden] Administration, we believe these actions will launch us on a trajectory toward ending tobacco-related disease and death in the U.S."

Additionally, the FDA said that the menthol flavor masks the harshness of tobacco products, which makes them easier to start using, thus making them more addictive and harder to quit "by enhancing the effects of nicotine." 18.6 million people in the US smoke menthol cigarettes, and out of all Black smokers 85% smoke menthol cigarettes, while 30% of White smokers smoke menthol, according to the FDA.

Elon Musk might be going from strength to strength with Tesla and SpaceX -- but brain-computer interface startup Neuralink lost its co-founder Max Hodak quietly "a few weeks ago".

Hodak took to his personal Twitter to announce the news, where he said: "I am no longer at Neuralink (as of a few weeks ago). I learned a ton there and remain a huge cheerleader for the company! Onward to new things". Neuralink hasn't announced a replacement for Hodak at the time of writing.

Musk and Hodak started Neuralink together, with Hodak barely even a month ago saying that the technology exists right now to "build Jurassic Park if we wanted to". Because that isn't a scary thought at all, given how that went in all of the Jurassic Park movies. In departing Neuralink, Hodak was asked what he plans to do next where he simply replied "Not Jurassic Park".

Elon Musk will be hosting Saturday Night Live on May 8 and with it is a storm of controversy brewing just off the coast, with Musk's appearance on SNL triggering some cast members.

SNL cast members won't be forced to appear alongside Musk on May 8 when he hosts the show, which Musk has teased that he wanted to see "just how live Saturday Night Live really is". I guess this has broken the programming of the SNL cast members brains, with a source telling Page Six: "Speaking historically, if a cast member has been that unhappy, they don't have to do it. ['SNL' boss Lorne Michaels] won't ever make them do anything they don't want to do".

Musk followed him his tweet announcing he'd be hosting SNL with another tweet on April 28 which simply read "The Dogefather SNL May 8" which sent the price of Dogecoin pumping upwards.