SAIC, a state-owned car company, is making inroads in Europe under the cover of MG, a classic British sports-car brand that it bought in 2007.

For years China led the world in production and purchase of EVs.

burnout is as much of a risk as slacking.

do-not-disturb protocols

Defining what kinds of work can be done asynchronously and what requires everyone to get together is a recipe for fewer, better meetings.

who they want in the office on which days of the week.

Things function best when everyone knows what is expected.

That depends on one ingredient above all: clarity.

the absence of a commute

the blend of in-person and remote work is a perk equivalent to an 8% pay increase.

It means “something essentially different from the past and the future”, yet “this important difference does not and cannot occur within physics”.

metaphysics plays a role in science

nature is described as if hesitating between a multiplicity of possibilities”

Bergson’s spiritualism seems to some not just wrong-⇔headed but dangerous.

Bergson “correctly pointed out that experiential time has more features than the time the physicists were talking about”

Bergson denied the consequence of the special theory illustrated by the “twin paradox”: if Peter remains on Earth while Paul rides a rocket into space and then returns, Peter will have aged more than Paul.

he “distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion”, Einstein famously wrote.

Relativity states that time flows at different rates—faster or slower—for observers moving with respect to each other, as most do.

Bergson thought that the universe was “a vast funicular railway, in which life is the train that goes up, and matter the train that goes down.”

People’s very identities are the “temporal synthesis that is duration”

It is duration that permits novelty,

“Pure duration is the form that the succession of our states of consciousness adopts when the self lets itself live, when it stops establishing a separation between its present and former states,” Bergson wrote.

“What is the relation between the subjective and the objective, and can we have a form of knowledge that includes both?”

more of them will come to use their phone as a kind of back office, primarily there to provide processing muscle for other gadgets.

As VR and AR glasses become lighter and cheaper, they could form the most powerful part of the wearable cluster.

a gradual movement by consumers towards a constellation of new wearable devices.

The current big idea is virtual-reality (VR) headsets, spurred on in part by pandemic lockdowns. More promising, but further off, are glasses for experiencing augmented reality (AR), in which computer graphics are overlaid on the real world. Most of America’s big tech firms—among them Apple, Google, Meta and Microsoft—as well as Asian giants like ByteDance (TikTok’s Chinese owner) and Sony, are developing or already selling VR or AR headsets. What has so far been a niche market is about to become very crowded.

Yet there is mounting evidence that the smartphone era is fading.

"Maybe the rules around a public space, like the Plaza, are different than private instances, or invite-only type spaces, where the intent on why you went there is different."

Game worlds or play spaces have one set of rules, but "once one sees virtual worlds as genuine realities, however, then the ethics of virtual worlds becomes in principle as serious as ethics in general."

because the rules of engagement are often looser.

"The most difficult things to do, programmatically, are the things that make us most human,"

It's no accident that Big Tech has left figuring out human interaction in the metaverse for last, because it's the hardest part to solve.

As Wirth explained, we assume our body language and expressions communicate in virtual spaces, and when they don't, miscommunications and alienation can happen.

a lack of proper safety settings to keep kids from mixing with random adults in virtual world apps.

Are these virtual spaces, often with cartoon avatars, an extension of real society, or are they their own unique spaces?

Wirth also reminded me that, as I spoke, my hands stayed too still. Moving my hands more, and animating, made my avatar more expressive.

And his filing suggested that he would be a passive investor, which seems at odds with his joining the board. Expect his Twitter habit to raise even more eyebrows now that he is no longer just a big user but a large shareholder, too.

Twitter has been a much bigger cultural success than a commercial one.

Twitter has been a much bigger cultural success than a commercial one.

he complained that Twitter “serves as the de facto public town square” but fails “to adhere to free-speech principles”

But the companies did announce a trio of principles they say will guide its creation: “protect children’s right to play by making safety and wellbeing a priority; safeguard children’s privacy by putting their best interests first; empower children and adults with tools that give them control over their digital experience.”

Epic has extensive experience creating virtual worlds, primarily through the enduringly popular Fortnite, while Lego has had an increasingly large focus on video games, most recently with the launch of Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga this week.

to create a virtual space aimed at kids

the task for industry leaders will be to focus strategically on R&D, factories, and sourcing, and to apply the lessons of the modeling to unlock areas of opportunity.

about 70 percent of growth is predicted to be driven by just three industries: automotive, computation and data storage, and wireless.

semiconductor manufacturing and design companies would benefit now from a deep analysis of where the market is headed and what will drive demand over the long term.

He says that because he is a billionaire, his motives tend to be viewed with suspicion and that it is hard to get his ideas judged solely on their merits.

Rather than punishing these “outliers,” a better solution would be to let the rest of society benefit directly from their success.

We live in a “super result-oriented society,” Berggruen says, but “the one area you cannot measure” is that of fundamental ideas.

“this work requires patient capital.”

the Transformations of the Human project

to poke our nose into the unknown

The aim is to revitalize the democratic process while draining some of the rancor out of politics.

the organization is “more sympathetic to the left than the right” but strives to be “post-ideological.”

He wants to recognize work that has had a broad societal impact, but very few ideas emanating from the grottos of academic philosophy achieve that kind of mainstream influence

the power of the ideas they celebrate is what gives intellectual prizes their currency.

to make a mark in the realm of ideas.

some ideas gained traction

Aristotle’s “Nicomachean Ethics,” Nietzsche’s “On the Genealogy of Morals” and Sartre’s “Existentialism Is a Humanism.”

he was introduced to Brian Copenhaver, who taught philosophy at U.C.L.A. Berggruen was looking for someone to mentor him in philosophy, and Copenhaver became his teacher and interlocutor. Copenhaver says he wasn’t paid but did ask Berggruen to donate to U.C.L.A.

a wealthy patron trying to stimulate a “philosophical and artistic renaissance or spring for our times.”

Noema (ancient Greek for “thinking”), that covers politics, technology, climate change, culture and much else.

what he half-jokingly describes as a “secular monastery,” a campus where scholars affiliated with the think tank that he founded, the Berggruen Institute, will live, work, cogitate.

an empire of the mind.

If they want to maintain a high level of support among non-Western countries for future votes concerning Ukraine and Russia in UN forums, they should look closely at how to mitigate the effects of the war on countries outside Europe as well.

Many NAM members dislike on principle the idea that the General Assembly would pass resolutions on an individual country’s human rights performance.

A significant number of EU members had wanted to abstain on the South African proposal, and had this bloc done so, the South African draft would have at least gone to a full vote – and most probably passed, although not by a great margin.

All involved admit that the General Assembly discussions were confused, with diplomats in New York and their superiors in capitals often struggling to keep up with each other as the debate evolved.

given misgivings about the West’s alleged failure to address the war’s global consequences

The French-Mexican text deliberately omitted any reference to Russia by name, but the United Kingdom and United States, which refuse to back a resolution that does not blame Russia, blocked it.

have started to worry about the global effects of the crisis.

U.N. diplomacy always involves a hefty dose of ambiguity, and abstaining meaningfully is an art that officials in New York and Geneva must master to do their jobs.

Besides Russia and China, every council member abstained on the text. As Security Council resolutions need nine votes to pass, this one died, and council members papered over their divisions.

In doing so, the Russians sent a not-very-coded reminder to other Security Council members that it retains the power to disrupt U.N. diplomacy on matters other than Ukraine.

they will be even more likely to do so if Western powers do not address the global effects of the war, such as the shocks to food and energy prices

to send both pro- and anti-Russian messages

namely Bolivia, Cuba and Nicaragua—also cast abstentions, hinting at their discomfort with Russia’s own imperialist actions in Ukraine.

The U.S. was not pleased to see its Gulf partner abstain

U.S. officials had urged China not to join Russia in vetoing the resolution and watered down the text to make it palatable to Beijing. They saw China’s abstention as a win.

acting on climate is not being restricted by a lack of scientific knowledge or technological options, but by entrenched power structures and an absence of political will.

it’s not about information deficit, it’s about power relations,

if we could only get the information to policymakers they would do the right thing,”

Less than 1% of research funding on climate from 1990 to 2018 went toward social sciences, including political science, sociology, and economics. That’s despite the fact that even physical scientists themselves agree that inaction on climate will probably not be solved by more scientific evidence.

between social justice and climate mitigation

senior staffer for Saudi Aramco – Saudia Arabia’s state-owned oil and gas company – was one of the two coordinating lead authors,

“The political process of creating the Summary for Policymakers ended up editing all of this information out.”

the technologies and policies necessary to adequately address climate change exist, and the only real obstacles are politics and fossil fuel interests.

how do you talk about mitigating climate change without confronting the fossil fuel industry?

to influence and engage the people of the world with optimistic, factual messages about a country with international audiences on a real-world stage.

The communication power of architecture is as old as civilization. It’s a universal human language, but it’s not well understood by those outside the design world.

The power of expo architecture is in its visionary, technological, and human connections.

Perhaps an answer was captured best in people’s playful interactions with the child-sized AI robots designed by a leading Chinese digital transformation pioneer. A battalion of 162 robots roamed the expo site greeting, servicing, dancing, telling jokes to the delight of children and adults.

Finland’s pavilion diplomatically encapsulated international collaboration and goodwill i

distinctive (emotional, psychological, sensory) experiences

personal connections that produce immersive environments and authentic artifacts

Morocco’s revisit with its rammed earth technologies stacked like a Bauhaus jumble,

The Saudi Pavilion broke three Guinness World Records for size and scale. Using design as a diplomatic tool, their pavilion is a paean to the country’s forward-thinking vision.

“The days of supercheap and very targeted online marketing are over,” Mr. Greenberg said. “We need to experiment with other platforms.”

people are not being trailed from app to app or site to site. But companies are still gathering information on what people are doing on their specific site or app, with users’ consent. This kind of tracking, which companies have practiced for years, is growing.

“first party” tracking.

For years, digital businesses relied on what is known as “third party” tracking. Companies such as Facebook and Google deployed technology to trail people everywhere they went online. If someone scrolled through Instagram and then browsed an online shoe store, marketers could use that information to target footwear ads to that person and reap a sale.

Another issue, he adds, concerns how realistic the synthetic datasets might be—and possibly how they might mislead a neural net into normalizing something that isn't normal.

for generative datasets,

on synthetic data are on par with those trained on real data.

If you had a mechanism to control the attributes of the text that the model is generating, she explains, you could perhaps push it away from generating certain kinds of data, such as, personal details like names, social security numbers, and phone numbers, for instance.

Synthetic data is useful to simulate conditions that may not (yet) exist. These datasets can also be edited, and potentially at scale.

Synthetic data has some advantages over traditional datasets, the researchers note. For instance, not all research teams have the resources to access high-volume, high-quality data, especially when it could involve sensitive information, such as personal data.

GANs are deep learning models that use two neural networks working against each other—a generator that creates synthetic data, and a discriminator that distinguishes between real and synthetic data—to generate synthetic images that are almost indistinguishable from real ones. GANs are popular for generating images and videos, including deepfakes.

A recent survey has revealed that 99 percent of computer vision engineers have had a machine learning project completely canceled due to insufficient training data.

From 2010 to 2012, tension in Maritime Asia was rising fast. The US excluded China from a regional grouping, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), and was seen as creating de facto geostrategic encirclement around China.

“Deepening Mutual Connectivity and Realizing Sustainable Development,” stating that “infrastructure is the basis for economic development; connectivity is critical to trade integration; and Asian leaders need to promote communication and cooperation across borders.

China’s domestic overcapacity intensified in 2010,

It seems that the BRI follows the “infrastructure diplomacy” initiated by China in the 2000s. Afterwards, the BRI has succeeded in mobilizing every economic actor in China.

the work to protect people from “hate speech and trolls” is “bigger than any board member.”

“Given that Twitter serves as the de facto public town square, failing to adhere to free speech principles fundamentally undermines democracy,” he tweeted.

Musk could make moves to restore Trump’s account and to push the company to go softer on the right.

”He has made his fortune largely on the manipulation of attention in the public interest, not making electric cars.“

should take a more liberatarian approach to policing speech on its service, and many executives within the company who have championed stronger actions to reduce misinformation and harm.

to have a significant impact on the Russian cybercrime community

leaves a tremendous vacuum in the cybercrime world,

Elliptic also said the darknet site helped launder money the Dark Side ransomware group extorted in a hack of Colonial Pipeline last year.

was the Bitcoin Bank Mixer, a service for obfuscating digital transactions

they confiscated Hydra’s server infrastructure and 543 bitcoins, worth about $25 million.

had 17 million customers and more than 19,000 seller accounts registered.

In 2020, it had annual revenue of more than $1.37 billion,

Authorities in Germany have seized servers and other infrastructure used by the sprawling, billion-dollar enterprise along with a stash of about $25 million in bitcoin.

The U.N. report notes that the path to a noncatastrophic future is technologically feasible. “Climate AI” could be a key part of that equation. It’s up to us to make the most of it.

rest on broad-based input as an empirical foundation that motivates, validates and diversifies.

The program is designed throughout to minimize barriers to participation and make sure that anyone interested in environmental data can pitch in, turning this platform into a vehicle for on-the-ground vigilance and inventiveness.

The cloud-based AI platform then integrates the data analytically to make it sharable for everyone.

the job for AI is to combine these heterogeneous data sets and make them “interoperable.”

The “planetary computer is incredibly complex,” he stated, “and we cannot build it alone” without “the work and demands of our grantees.” To make a difference to at-risk ecosystems, AI needs engaged communities as much as multinational datasets.

Toward that end, it aggregates data from NASA, NOAA and the European Space Agency, as well as data collected through the partnership between the U.K. Met Office, the Chinese Meteorological Administration and the Institute of Atmospheric Physics in the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Microsoft is building a planetary computer as the centerpiece of its AI for Earth program.

Two other initiatives, from Microsoft and NASA, make clear that to fulfill ambitious climate goals, AI needs a participatory democracy, networks of on-site innovators deeply knowledgeable about their locales and acting urgently for just that reason.

Using the same machine learning algorithm that swaps visual and audio data to produce fabricated, hyperrealistic videos called deepfakes, it generates similarly real-looking views of floods or wildfires for any street address.

this “climate AI” could be a game changer in the tech ecosystem, as in the physical ecosystems now facing their worst risks.

There’s every chance that global temperatures will soar by 3 degrees Celsius, twice as much as the agreed-upon 1.5 C limit. Unless we take drastic steps and cut down emissions by 43 percent within this decade, the full force of this existential threat will be upon us.

And third, we need Member States, the United Nations system, international financial institutions and all partners to do far more to join up our humanitarian, peace and development efforts.  The flames of conflict are fuelled by inequality, deprivation, and underfunded systems.

Peacebuilding works — it is a proven investment.  As you know, we’ve developed a series of mechanisms to expand and grow the resources required to deliver.  And we’re making progress.  For example, the Peacebuilding Fund has been steadily growing — investing $195 million last year.

New Agenda for Peace

one quarter of humanity lives in conflict-affected areas.  Two billion people.  Last year, 84 million were forcibly displaced because of conflict, violence and human rights violations.  And this year, we estimate that at least 274 million will need humanitarian assistance.  All of this is taking place at a moment of multiplying risks that are pushing peace further out of reach — inequalities, COVID-19, climate change and cyberthreats, to name just a few.

Resources are being diverted away from badly needed support to address the sharp increases in hunger and poverty resulting from COVID-19. 

we are facing the highest number of violent conflicts since 1945.

An estimated 84 million people were "forcibly displaced because of conflict, violence and human rights violations," and an estimated 274 million people will need humanitarian assistance due to conflict,

Two billion people, or a quarter of the world's population, now lives in conflict-affected areas,

peace-building is a bargain and a prerequisite for development and a better future for all."

his plan "places prevention and peace-building at the heart of our efforts."

An estimated 84 million people were "forcibly displaced because of conflict, violence and human rights violations," and an estimated 274 million people will need humanitarian assistance due to conflict,

Two billion people, or a quarter of the world's population, now lives in conflict-affected areas

Lynch’s bill also appeals to believers in modern monetary theory, or M.M.T., which contends that government spending is constrained only by the threat of inflation, because the bill would provide for the Treasury Department to issue money directly. The department would do so under an authority similar to the one that allows it to mint coins, subject to congressional approval, said Rohan Grey, an assistant professor at Willamette University College of Law in Salem, Ore.

Ecash would not be a central bank digital currency of the kind being tested around the world.

To curb crime, there would be a low limit on the value that could be stored on any one card,

There’s no cryptocurrency blockchain or distributed ledger technology involved in the proposed Ecash system

Transactions on the proposed new Treasury cards would be strictly peer to peer, like cash. Funds could also be uploaded onto phones or other hardware.

the Electronic Currency and Secure Hardware Act, or Ecash.

with issuing digital dollar technologies “that replicate the privacy-respecting features of physical cash.

“We’re trying to preserve some element of anonymity and not have full-spectrum surveillance of every aspect of people’s lives,”

any digital currency it issued “would differ materially from cash, which enables anonymous transactions.”

As cash disappears from the modern economy, privacy disappears with it.

the implementation of censorship would be much more total and much more efficient,”

Such a move suggests Russia could be moving toward a centralized, Chinese-style approach to online censorship.

TSPU (“technical solution for threat countermeasures”), was implemented.

y December 24, 2019, Russia claimed it had successfully tested uncoupling itself from the global internet, without needing to be connected to the rest of the world through Russia’s 10 known public internet exchange points—though the effectiveness and legitimacy of the tests are both disputed.

The national DNS system maintains a localized copy of the global internet within Russia,

reates a national DNS system

gives authorities powers to centralize control of the internet

packet-snooping hardware on company networks

In May 2019, Putin announced the RuNet, a sovereign internet disconnected from the rest of the world, as part of a domestic internet law that came into force in November 2019

Russia is still reliant on international companies to power large parts of its internet, though it did cope relatively well with Cogent’s departure. It simply ported traffic onto other internet backbones, which handled the disruption.

“We see a lot of foreign companies involved in running their infrastructure, from telecommunications to data delivery networks.”

Russia has made some steps toward trying to rectify that, but in recent history it has struggled to implement nationwide blocks or bars on websites deemed unsavory. That’s because of the way Russian internet infrastructure works. 

Russian ISPs reset user connections as they try to access websites, leaving them trapped in a frustrating loop of unfulfilled requests.

Russia has more than 3,000 ISPs, which implement diktats at different speeds.

both are harder for Russia than China because it’s starting from a comparatively open internet,

By 2001, the International Center for Human Rights and Democratic Development estimated, China spent $20 billion on censorious telecom equipment every year. The famed Great Firewall is just that: a firewall that inspects every bit of traffic entering Chinese cyberspace and checks it against a block list. Most internet traffic into China passes through three choke points, which block any untoward content.

it demonstrated Russia’s progress in creating a “splinternet,” a move that would effectively detach the country from the rest of the world’s internet infrastructure.

One of the cardinal principles of science is that issues are settled through reasoned discussion, by adhering to strict standards of conduct, and by documenting assertions—never by violence.

SESAME in Jordan, the first synchrotron light source

And perhaps this might also help to improve relations between Switzerland and the EU.”

While only one country can host the accelerator, the aim is to have a number of hubs in different countries covering activities such as medical data collection, medical physics, and imaging. Another hub will be a solar power station, generating enough green energy to balance the accelerator’s consumption.

Two options were on the table: a synchrotron radiation light source, or an accelerator for biomedical research and cancer treatment.

the South East European International Institute for Sustainable Technologies (SEEIIST)

“I think SESAME is the only organisation where government representatives from Israel, Iran, Palestine and Pakistan all sit together,” Schopper says, “and it works very well.”

“If you have a common project, with scientists working together, that transfers to the politicians and you can build up confidence, which is a benefit for everybody,”

It was through CERN, for example, that German and Israeli scientists first started to work together, and during the Cold War the research centre was one of the few open channels of communication between East and West.

The divide between Russian sciences and global sciences is happening.

A lot of collaborations are finished. The collaboration between Russian medics and COVID researchers is finished. Collaboration projects with foreign scientists are finished and I fear they will not come here any more.