Montana has become the first US state to ban video-sharing social media app TikTok. The Republican-controlled state legislature has made it illegal to download the app and imposed a fine of $10,000 per day on app stores or TikTok itself for every available download, although users won't be penalised. Opponents have called the law unconstitutional and warned that it can easily be circumvented by using a virtual private network. Montana's own measures to ban TikTok on government devices have been followed by more than half of US states and the federal government.
Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes will begin serving her prison sentence on May 30 for defrauding investors in the failed blood-testing startup once valued at $9 billion. US District Judge Edward Davila set the date on Wednesday for Holmes, 39, to begin serving 11 years and three months in prison. Holmes rose to fame after claiming Theranos' small machines could run an array of diagnostic tests with just a few drops of blood.
Sony is considering a partial spin-off of its financial business, Sony Financial Group, within the next two to three years, with the conglomerate retaining a stake of slightly less than 20%. The move comes as Sony focuses on expanding its entertainment business, centred on games, music and movies, as well as its image sensor business. Shares in the company rose 6% in morning trading in Tokyo.
The Japanese Prime Minister, Fumio Kishida, has met with top executives, including senior representatives from Intel and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, amongst others, ahead of the Group of Seven leaders’ summit in Hiroshima to discuss additional investment from global chipmakers into Japan and the G7 leaders’ discussion on stabilising supply chains.
The former CFO of a Seattle-based startup, Nevin Shetty, has been accused of taking $35m in company funds and using it to invest in cryptocurrency via a platform he owned. He hid the transactions from Fabric, secretly transferring the money to his HighTower Treasury platform, said the federal indictment. The funds invested soon became worthless. Shetty was subsequently fired and is now facing indictment charges on four counts of wire fraud regarding the incident. His lawyer Cooper Offenbecher, said Shetty disputed the accusations, arguing that the catastrophic crypto market crash following his investment lost the money, rather than the decision to invest itself.
Montana has become the first state to ban TikTok due to security concerns. State Governor Greg Gianforte signed the bill into law that prohibits any company owned by the Chinese Communist Party from operating in Montana, specifically citing TikTok at his press conference, as the belief that people’s data was being transacted to the Chinese government was an issue of national security. The bill gives Chinese technology companies one year to divest and cease operations in Montana.
Micron Technology will receive about $1.48bn in government financial incentive funding to help develop its advanced memory chip-making capabilities in Japan. The funding is expected to be announced when Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida meets with chipmaker executives on Thursday. Micron will use the funding to add advanced chip-making equipment, from ASML, to its Hiroshima facility so it can fabricate DRAM memory chips. The funding is part of Japan's wider strategy to counter China's strong position in advanced technology development. Micron has not commented on the reports.
Panasonic plans to establish a large-scale production capacity for 4680 battery cells in North America by 2030 to meet the increasing demand for electric vehicle batteries. The company aims to achieve a production capacity of 200 gigawatt-hours per year for automobile batteries by March 2031. Panasonic's energy unit makes batteries for Tesla, which has announced plans to develop its own 4680 battery cells to enhance the performance of its cars and reduce battery costs.
US banks are rethinking the role of social media, as the speed at which panics can strike, and stock prices offered by short sellers, threaten financial stability. Following the recent internet-fuelled run that toppled Silicon Valley Bank, lenders across America are focussed on adapting to changing times, devising emergency plans to counter online threats, including rumours around the health of banks that could lead to deposit outflows. The effects on local banking institutions have illustrated the essential need to manage social media risks responsibly, with efforts designed to measure, prepare and respond to such threats being set to escalate.
AI pioneer Yoshua Bengio, a 2018 Turing Award recipient and founder of Mila, the Quebec Artificial Intelligence Institute, has said governments must quickly intervene and “protect the public” as powerful AI machines such as OpenAI’s GPT grow increasingly common and accessible. Bengio noted that indiscriminate access to large language models without sufficient scrutiny could pose a threat to political systems, democracy and truth itself. Google and Microsoft-backed OpenAI have both launched revolutionary, generative AI products in recent months, prompting a global debate about the ethics and future of the technology.
The Architecture Biennale has offered a fresh view on the development of modernist architecture in Africa. Tropical Modernism reflects how architects from the continent were at the forefront of innovation in the postwar period rather than simply adopting existing European ideas. The exhibition explores the extent to which traditional building methods in Africa served as a template for modernist architects, as well as the effect of the pan-African movement and the former British Empire. Concerns about climate are also a key factor in the rise of tropical modernism, with architects offering designs that moderated the impact of the sun's rays.
Amazon Web Services plans to invest $13bn in its cloud infrastructure in India by 2030, with the goal of creating 100,000 new jobs annually. The firm runs data centres in Hydrabad and Mumbai, and is planning to expand throughout the region to cater for the needs of a growing consumer base. Cloud services are increasingly in demand in India, with a growing number of firms looking to move data off their own computers and onto cloud servers to scale up their operations.
While artificial intelligence (AI) raises some concerns over its impact on society, economists writing in the Financial Times argue that policymakers should be focusing on the distribution of the productivity gains AI could potentially bring. This issue concerns intellectual property rights, an issue which is predicated on who controls access to the technology. At one end of the spectrum there is a completely proprietary world, in which the most useful AI is the intellectual property of a monopolistic or oligopolistic company. At the other extreme, there is an open-source world where productivity gains would be earned by those who deploy the technology. Governments could legislate to increase transparency and access to such technologies.
Italian investment bank Mediobanca is set to acquire London-based M&A advisory firm Arma Partners, enhancing its expertise in European software buyouts and expanding its international reach. The deal is expected to add 30% to Mediobanca's corporate investment banking fee pool and boost earnings per share, the bank said, although it didn't disclose the cost of the transaction. The deal comes as CEO Alberto Nagel prepares to unveil a new three-year strategy on 24 May.
Hong Kong is trialling its central bank digital currency (CBDC), e-HKD, with 16 banks and payment firms selecting small groups of clients to test six possible uses, including online payments, dining out and making money transfers. The three note-issuing banks, HSBC, Standard Chartered and Bank of China (Hong Kong), will take part in the trial. The controlled experimental environment will enable testing of the infrastructure's security and other operational issues. The HKMA plans to announce the launch date of the fully rolled-out e-HKD following results of the trial in November.
Germany's auto industry association, the VDA, has called for the post-Brexit rules agreed in which 45% of an electric vehicle's value must come from the EU or UK from 2024 to be postponed. A battery pack can account for up to half the cost of a new EV and Europe currently does not have a big enough battery industry to satisfy these requirements. The VDA said tariffs would be "a significant competitive disadvantage for the European car industry in relation to its Asian competitors in the so important UK market", and also warned of the danger to the development of e-mobility.
South Korean authorities are taking measures to stem "tech leakage" to rival China, with Seoul creating a database of chip engineers working for South Korean companies to monitor their travel in and out of the country. Seoul has set up several investigatory bodies to combat leaks spontaneously hiring foreign staff, often through patents. Illegal hiring practices, patent infringements and the theft of intellectual property is being tackled with tougher punishments and easier ways to report suspected violations. The same edition of Nikkei Asia details increased South Korean-Chinese competition for technology experts and top-level executives. According to South Korea’s National Intelligence Service, the number of confirmed National Core Technology leaks has risen steadily over the past five years. In terms of technology investment, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company recently pledged $100bn to expand over the next three years as part of a strategy to diversify its manufacturing base away from Taiwan.
Japan and the UK have signed an agreement to collaborate in areas including semiconductors, defence, cybersecurity and clean energy. The two countries’ agreement includes the establishment of a semiconductors partnership aimed at strengthening the supply chain for the components that are essential for defence, cars and many modern consumer goods. Japanese companies have agreed to invest £17.7bn ($22bn) in clean energy projects in the UK, including funding for offshore wind, low carbon hydrogen and other projects. The UK is trying to forge closer trade relationships with Japan and other Asian countries as part of an effort to replace trade with the EU.
ASEAN Leaders Tackle Human Trafficking at Latest Summit
Diplomat
23-05-18 13:40
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) leaders have released the ASEAN Leaders’ Declaration on Combating Trafficking in Persons Caused by the Abuse of Technology to address the global threat of human trafficking facilitated by technology. The declaration aims to protect vulnerable individuals, prosecute perpetrators and dismantle human trafficking networks with the help of advanced technology and a coordinated approach. ASEAN leaders have committed to enhancing regional cooperation and information sharing among member states, strengthening national legislation, aligning it with international standards, and ensuring its effective enforcement through the training of law enforcement agencies, effective victim-centered approaches, and engaging with the private sector, academia, and civil society organizations. ASEAN leaders have agreed to establish a dedicated regional mechanism to monitor and support progress in efforts to combat human trafficking, which is facilitated by technology. This mechanism will enhance coordination and also serve as a platform for regular dialogue.
Banks should collaborate on data to improve their fight against financial crime by enabling financial institutions to share information from within and outside their networks, according to the CEO of Nasdaq, Adena Friedman. Speaking in the Financial Times, she said the increase in financial crime was partly due to regulations that limited banks’ use of data and technology. Friedman spoke of the benefits of the New York exchange's own approach to combating financial crime, in which data from over 2,400 banks was used in conjunction with advanced artificial intelligence algorithms. Regulators should also allow banks to use data sets in order to combat crime and employ cloud-based AI and machine learning to tackle the problem.
