Tag: TECH

Take a sneak-peek tour of Super Nintendo World, opening next month – National | Globalnews.ca
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In exactly four weeks, Super Nintendo World will open at Universal Studios Hollywood and it’s looks to be any classic gamer’s dream come true.

The park will be situated in the same area as the Jurassic Park and Transformers rides, in Universal’s lower lot. However, unlike it surrounding rides, Super Nintendo World will offer an environment that fully immerses guests inside a Nintendo game.

Guests explore during a preview of Super Nintendo World at Universal Studios in Los Angeles, California, on January 13, 2023.

Chris Delmas / Getty Images

A sneak peek of the park, captured by Getty Images, certainly looks the part of the Super Mario Bros. games. Players enter through a green warp tube and on the other side are presented the Mushroom Kingdom, complete with steep pixelated cliffs, blocky green grass and yellow question mark blocks.

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People enter Super Nintendo World for the tech rehearsals on Thursday, Jan. 12, 2023 in Los Angeles, CA.

Dania Maxwell / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

Instagram video from the Guardian‘s Oliver Wainwright shows moving toadstools and spinning coins on the cliff, as well as swaying Piranha Plants and travelling Shellcreepers.

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From there, guests enter into the main attraction, where they can tour rooms themed to Yoshi’s Story and Super Stars before heading to Bowser’s Castle.
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A first look at the first-ever theme park land themed to a video game franchise at Universal Studios Hollywood’s Super Nintendo World on Monday, Dec. 19, 2022 in Los Angeles, CA.

Dania Maxwell / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

A tour of Bowser’s trophy room is first, before guests learn the rules for the game they’ve paid to play — Mario Kart: Bowser’s Challenge.

A large Bowser is seen inside a recreation of his castle at the first-ever theme park land themed to a video game franchise at Universal Studios Hollywood’s Super Nintendo World on Monday, Dec. 19, 2022 in Los Angeles, CA.

Dania Maxwell / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

According to press materials, the ride/game is the first major implementation of augmented reality technology in a U.S. theme part attraction. Guests will wear visors that allow them to interact with the ride’s virtual items.

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Guests will be seated four to a vehicle. Universal notes riders will be playing alongside Mario and his pals, and will be taken through underwater courses as well as those among the clouds. Although not yet revealed by Universal, the Los Angeles Times says an encounter with the game’s infamous “Rainbow Road” also takes place.

Guests ride Super Mario Kart during a preview of Super Nintendo World at Universal Studios in Los Angeles, California, on January 13, 2023.

Chris Delmas / Getty Images

The guests will compete against Team Bowser for the Golden Cup.

And while the ride is technically the biggest draw in the Mushroom Kingdom, Universal promises interactive games and activities where guests can collect digital coins and complete challenges to obtain keys from Koopa Troopas and Goombas.

People eat at the Toadstool Cafe at Super Nintendo World on Thursday, Jan. 12, 2023 in Los Angeles, CA.

Dania Maxwell / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

Hungry adventurers can also find an array of themed dishes like Super Mushroom Soup, Piranha Plant Caprese and Princess Peach Cupcakes at Toadstool Cafe.

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You can experience it all yourself when it opens on Friday, Feb. 17.

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Video Games in the classroom and other school technology
&copy 2023 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

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Michelle Butterfield

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January 20, 2023
Tech industry job cuts come rapidly and in big numbers | Long Island Business News

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In just the past month there have been nearly 50,000 job cuts across the technology sector. Large and small tech companies went on a hiring spree in over the past several years due to a demand for their products, software and services surged with millions of people working remotely. However, even with all of the layoffs announced in recent weeks, most tech companies are still vastly larger than they were three years ago. Here’s a look at some of the companies that have announced layoffs so far.

August 2022

Snap: The parent company of social media platform Snapchat said that it was letting go of 20% of its staff. Snap’s staff has grown to more than 5,600 employees in recent years and the company said at the time that even after laying off more than 1,000 people, its staff would be larger than it was a year earlier.

Robinhood: The company, whose app helped bring a new generation of investors to the market, announced that it would reduce headcount by about 23%, or approximately 780 people. An earlier round of layoffs last year cut 9% of its workforce.

November 2022

Twitter: About half of the social media platform’s staff of 7,500 was let go after it was acquired by the billionaire CEO of Tesla, Elon Musk.

Lyft: The ride-hailing service said it was cutting 13% of its workforce, almost 700 employees.

Meta: The parent company of Facebook laid off 11,000 people, about 13% of its workforce.

January 2023

Amazon: The e-commerce company said it must cut about 18,000 positions. That’s just a fraction of its 1.5 million-strong global workforce.

Salesforce: The company lays off 10% of its workforce, about 8,000 employees.

Coinbase: The cryptocurrency trading platform cuts approximately 20% of its workforce, or about 950 jobs, in a second round of layoffs in less than a year.

Microsoft: The software company said it will cut about 10,000 jobs, almost 5% of its workforce.

Google: The search engine giant becomes the most recent in the industry to say it must adjust, saying 12,000 workers, or about 6% of its workforce, would be let go.

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The Associated Press

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January 20, 2023
ReadTheory, the Biggest Up-and-Coming EdTech Company, Steps Out of the Shadows

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ReadTheory delivers on its promise to help teachers improve reading comprehension for every student.

Press Release
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Jan 19, 2023 10:06 EST

CHAPEL HILL, N.C., January 19, 2023 (Newswire.com)
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With over 18 million students across 175 countries, ReadTheory’s online learning platform is improving reading comprehension for students around the globe. Designed by an English Teacher in North Carolina, ReadTheory came from humble beginnings. The company has organically grown by word-of-mouth without any advertising, and has been quietly taking market-share from some of edtech’s biggest giants.

“ReadTheory’s superpower is that it recognizes there is no one-size-fits-all classroom. The platform’s A.I identifies each student’s strengths and weaknesses and serves adaptive reading practice at the ‘just right’ level. It’s personalized, and that’s why it has such a significant impact,” says Josh Capon, Co-Managing Partner of ReadTheory.

Schools and districts are able to purchase ReadTheory’s expanded offering, just in time as test-prep season begins across the United States.

“We all know that the Nation’s latest Report Card showed that reading scores have plummeted to levels not seen in 20 years and students are struggling to get back on track – but we’re ready to change the narrative. We’re helping teachers make up for lost time,” says Ron Kirschenbaum, Co-Managing Partner of ReadTheory.

The program is aligned to ELA standards and supports teachers with real-time reporting that helps them know what to teach next. The school and district program will centralize efforts across the school community, seamlessly integrate with Learning Management Systems, and offer deeper student performance data. School and District administrators can learn more about ReadTheory and request an introduction here.

As Mrs. Kara Guiff, an Indiana educator put it, “ReadTheory finds the appropriate leveled texts and comprehension questions and students learn by tracking their data and setting goals. It’s the best comprehension intervention program I’ve used in over 30 years of teaching. I’ve been known to say I won’t even teach ELA without it.”

While ReadTheory has a free subscription available to teachers, its premium subscription has grown over 300% in the last year. Of teachers surveyed, 80% say ReadTheory positively impacts standardized test scores, and school and district leaders are starting to take notice. On top of increasing achievement, 89% of teachers say ReadTheory also keeps students engaged and interested when on the platform.

“ReadTheory was born in a classroom, so our approach has always been working hand-in-hand, shoulder-to-shoulder with educators – and we’ll continue to evolve to support the ever-changing needs of this next generation,” shared Courtney Cioci, Head of Marketing at ReadTheory.

About ReadTheory:

ReadTheory’s reading comprehension platform is used by 18 million students across the globe and is tailored for each. For more information on ReadTheory visit www.readtheory.org.

Source: ReadTheory

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January 19, 2023
6 Tips for Tech Companies During an Economic Downturn

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Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

The technology industry has been hit hard by the economic downturn in 2021-22, with over 150,000 workers losing their jobs since June 2022. This presents a formidable challenge for companies in the technology sector. With proper guidance and focus, tech companies may avoid making costly mistakes that could harm their business in the long term. The projection is that the economic downturn will likely continue into 2023, and technology companies must be prepared.

Nevertheless, technology companies can still make it through this challenging period with the right strategies and focus. According to Daugherty, Bolumole & Grawe (2019), one area that can offer a formidable edge in this regard is mastering sales and marketing. This article will examine sales and marketing tips that tech companies should consider in 2023.

Related: 6 Recession-Proof Business Marketing Strategies

1. Keep pricing and quotas reasonable

Many companies try to raise their prices or sales quotas when they hit challenging times, but this is usually unwise. Companies need to recognize that customers feel the pinch just as much as they do, so they will expect lower prices and more reasonable quotas. Selling at a discount may be the only way to get customers to bite, so pricing should be adjusted accordingly. While low prices may hurt profits in the short term, it could be the difference between staying afloat and shutting down. Therefore, pricing must be reasonable to keep up with the game in 2023 (Holmlund et al., 2020).

2. Put existing customers first

When trying to bring in business during tough times, it is crucial to prioritize existing customers. These people already trust you and have done business with you. Make sure to nurture your relationships with them by offering discounts or even free upgrades or services. Additionally, focus on any unresolved issues they may have, and do your best to fix them. Smeeding, Romich & Strain (2021) propose that taking care of the existing customers could be one way to come out of the recession, as it will not only help keep existing customers happy but will also allow you to upsell or cross-sell solutions that meet their needs and ultimately help to strengthen your bond and ensure they keep coming back.

3. Focus on solutions-oriented sales

In a downturn, it is essential to focus on solutions that can help companies. Instead of just making a sales pitch and leaving it at that, listen to your customer’s challenges and pain points. This will allow you to offer solutions that are tailored specifically for them. It also allows for more strategic selling and an opportunity to ask questions to uncover clients’ challenges and pain points and craft solutions that will help them. This requires a more strategic approach to sales, so ensure you are well-prepared with the necessary data and insights.

Related: How to Prepare Your Business For Economic Downturn

4. Increase touchpoints for deeper relationships

Sales processes now require more touchpoints to build trust and foster relationships. This means that companies must be proactive in reaching out and providing customers with the necessary information to make a decision. It also helps to follow up after each touchpoint so that customers know you are there for them and ready to help whenever needed. This means doing everything possible to offer world-class customer service, where a substantial difference is made.

5. Leverage digital channels

Digital platforms can help you reach a wider audience quickly, but it also pays to invest in more targeted campaigns. Social media, email and other online marketing tactics can all be used to connect with potential customers and build relationships with them. “The digital era has changed the way B2B businesses interact with customers, and leveraging digital channels is now essential for sales success,” says Sara Franklin, CMO at Salesforce. This lays bare the importance of leveraging digital channels to build relationships with customers, inform the product in the market and how it helps positively impact clients out there.

6. Evaluate your processes

When times are tough, you need to be able to measure and optimize the effectiveness of your sales process. Investing in a CRM system is a great way to do this, as it gives you visibility into the performance of each stage of the sales cycle. With a clear understanding of where leads are dropping off or not responding, you can make adjustments to improve the process. This will allow you to identify any inefficiencies and opportunities for improvement and ensure that your sales team is performing at its highest level. It will also give you a clearer picture of the ROI of your sales activities so that you can make more informed decisions about future investments.

Related: 5 Entrepreneurs Share How They’re Hedging for an Economic Downturn

Navigating the challenging times of a recession is not easy, but it can be done with the right strategies and tactics. Usually, sales teams endure most of the impact, and it is essential to be prepared and have plans in place so that you can weather the storm. First, there is a need to focus on providing solutions that meet customer needs. It is crucial to prioritize existing customers by nurturing the relationship, offering discounts or free services when possible and leveraging digital channels to reach a wider audience. By focusing on customer experience and understanding their challenges, sales teams can stay on top of the game and ensure their companies remain successful.

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Steve Taplin

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January 18, 2023
Blockchain Technology: Overhyped or Underused?

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Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

With the recent collapse of FTX, investors now worry about the future of cryptocurrency. While some blame the technology, we should remember that people are corruptible, not blockchain. The ledger-based technology making cryptocurrency possible is as much a breakthrough today as it was yesterday. Unfortunately, crashes like FTX play into fears that blockchain is more hype than breakthrough. Will blockchain once and for all prove not very useful in the enterprise?

When blockchain technology spawned a new way of thinking about money and creating wealth, many in the enterprise IT space began thinking about using blockchain technology to streamline business processes. For example, the global supply chain is still not working as well as it could. More than a decade later, enterprise adoption of blockchain technology is crawling at best and stalled across the board in many of the world’s largest companies.

Blockchain is an emerging technology, meaning its full potential and practical uses are still evolving. This creates hype as visionaries dream about using the technology to its full potential, usually long before everyone else sees its usefulness. This is the downside of emergent technology, as hype often masks reality.

Related: The Blockchain Is Everywhere: Here’s How to Understand It

Remember the cloud?

When cloud computing first came out, it was an emerging technology. Software developers scrambled to develop SaaS applications where people bought a software service instead of installing the software on each workstation. Two decades later, the endpoint for the evolution of cloud computing revealed itself to no fanfare. Cloud computing is behind the scenes and responsible for billions of data exchanges daily.

Everyone takes the cloud for granted today. But go back 20 years, and the same hype drove similar conversations about cloud computing. Indeed, go back half a century, and you will find hype about using computers in the enterprise. There was even excitement about driving cars instead of horses. The point is that the hype is part of the adoption process that all emergent technology must go through to become behind-the-scenes technology.

Facts behind the hype

Blockchain technology and the movement of digital information across disparate locations are not exaggerated. Human civilization needs blockchain because it protects the process of moving digital data from one place to another in a physical realm people cannot see. Once a Bitcoin gets transferred, the record of that transfer does not change.

What can change is the cybersecurity surrounding the transfer. Because software is a product of human creation, bugs will pop up from using the technology. Our society deals with this regularly. Consequently, there will be bugs; that is a fact.

Another crucial point is that blockchain technology must use other technology with no attached hype — for example, securing cloud computing SaaS applications using Wi-Fi. If every other part of the information exchange is secure, working out the bugs is a process of elimination.

Related: How Blockchain and Cryptocurrency Can Revolutionize Businesses

Trailblazer vs. trail follower

Although some technologists perceive blockchain as overhyped, what does that mean, and what should the enterprise do about it? Hype in the tech sphere is a cultural phenomenon driven by followers waiting for someone else to lead. Everyone knows blockchain is the future, but only some want to be trailblazers. Unfortunately, it does not help when a trailblazer fails. Enterprise leaders get worried and pull back.

Provocatively, it collapses like FTX, which works to legitimize hype for emergent technology. Spectacular collapses tend to spur serious progress into making the technology live up to its hype. For the enterprise, the hype centers on supply chains as the world seeks a better way to manage global shipping.

Making blockchain work for the enterprise

Walmart and other large retail businesses need blockchain technology or something like it, which is driving much of the hype. The global supply chain is not functioning as it could, so the enterprise needs blockchain much like the healthcare industry needs caregivers because of a worker shortage. In this light, overhype is a motivator for taking action or getting in line and waiting for the trailblazer.

The enterprise’s decision-makers need motivational buy-in from software engineers with a trailblazer mindset. Moreover, the software applications must be heavily backed by robust security specifically designed to manage the movement of digital information from one point to another.

Related: How Blockchain Can Make A Positive Impact On Global Issues

Incremental change

Enterprise adoption of blockchain is slow but not unexpected. Our modern society wants everything right now. If the digital revolution taught us anything, change is incremental. The best way to get comfortable using blockchain comes from using it in small test programs. Once these smaller programs work as a system, scale the operations together, then work the bugs out from there.

Patience and hype need to get along better. However, trailblazers in the tech sphere must be patient or risk being victims of hype. Focus on small steps representing steps forward — for example, using an extensive global supply chain with only a tiny part controlled by blockchain. Once the blockchain-supported supply chain section runs without bugs, please step back and understand how it fits into the bigger supply chain. The process and setup systems needed for incremental change do not pay attention to hype.

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Steve Taplin

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January 17, 2023
Scott’s Cheap Flights Announces Rebrand to Going

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Press Release
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Jan 11, 2023

PORTLAND, Ore., January 11, 2023 (Newswire.com)
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Scott’s Cheap Flights, a travel service that has saved its 2+ million members more than $500 million on flights, has officially rebranded to Going.

“We knew it was time for a brand change that recognized both where we are today and could also grow with us into the future,” said co-founder and CEO Brian Kidwell. “The name Going has this sense of motion and excitement to it that fits perfectly for a travel company like ours.”

Going began as a modest hobby after founder Scott Keyes uncovered a $130 roundtrip ticket from NYC to Milan in 2013. But what started as a simple cheap flight email list for friends has now grown to a wraparound travel service, including a cheap flight search engine, multiple newsletters, and a soon-to-launch mobile app. With the company growing beyond just Scott and beyond just cheap flights, the timing was right for a rebrand.

“I work with 65 amazing people and none of them are named Scott,” said Keyes. “Each week, we help thousands of people get unexpectedly cheap flights, and every time they write back to say ‘thank you, Scott,’ I feel supremely guilty! This company has dozens of people who deserve credit, not one person. While the name Scott’s Cheap Flights worked great when it was just me, I’m even happier to be at a company we’re all building together on our mission to help people travel the world, and that’s Going.”

Collaborating with the award-winning agency Design Studio and reviewing more than 3,000 names, Going emerged as the ideal name that satisfied the following criteria:

Speaks to travel: The new name had to speak to what the company does, but not in a tired or overly expected way. Names that included the words “travel” or “flight” were set aside in favor of one that conveyed the travel experience more broadly.

Timeless and borderless: The new name had to avoid short-term trends and industry niches, provide room to expand and experiment, and engage a global audience.

Memorable: It was crucial to take this opportunity to streamline and shorten our brand name to something that was easier to recall whether heard on local news or viewed on a billboard. No more “Scott’s Cheap Travels” or “Steve’s Cheap Flights.”

Underscores the company mission: Above all else, it had to align with the mission to help people travel and experience the world. The name Going achieves that.

“While this is a big visual change, one thing that hasn’t changed is the soul of this company,” said Kidwell. “We’ll continue putting travelers first, continue sending out incredible cheap flights, and we’re excited to build even more ways to help people travel beyond what we can deliver in an email.”

The rebranding effort will also include the long-requested introduction of a mobile app in the first half of 2023, including an interactive map of cheap flights available in real time. The app will be made available for both iOS and Android. In the coming months, Going will also expand their newsletter coverage and introduce Going for Teams, a bulk membership option for companies to strengthen their employee perks.

About Going

Since 2015, Going has helped our 2+ million members travel and experience the world. The company combines sophisticated software and human Flight Experts to discover flight deals and mistake fares up to 90% off. Unlike fully automated fare alerts services, our deal alerts pass a rigorous quality evaluation to ensure they’re worth members’ hard-earned money and limited travel time.

Going members save an average of $200 on domestic economy flights, $550 on international economy flights, and $2,000 on international business and first-class flights. Every month we receive thousands of testimonials from members who’ve scored a great deal thanks to our alerts.

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Source: Going

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January 11, 2023
Elon Musk says he can’t get a fair trial in San Francisco, requests Tesla shareholder fraud trial be moved to Texas

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Elon Musk wants his upcoming fraud trial with Tesla Inc. shareholders moved out of San Francisco, saying jurors in the region will probably be biased against him because of recent layoffs at Twitter Inc. and “local negativity.”

The billionaire who runs both Tesla and Twitter proposed the trial be held in western Texas, where Tesla moved its headquarters to Austin from northern California about a year ago, according to a filing by his attorneys late Friday.

A substantial portion of the San Francisco-area jury pool “is likely to hold a personal and material bias against Mr. Musk as a result of recent layoffs at one of his companies as individual prospective jurors — or their friends and relatives — may have been personally impacted,” the lawyers wrote. “The existing baseline bias has been compounded, expanded, and reinforced by the negative and inflammatory local publicity surrounding the events.”

Investors suing Tesla and Musk, its chief executive officer, argue that his August 2018 tweets about taking the electric-car maker private with “funding secured” were “indisputably false” and cost them billions of dollars by spurring wild swings in Tesla’s stock price. Musk has maintained that Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund had agreed to support his attempt to take Tesla private. The trial is set to begin January 17.

“To be clear, this motion is not being brought simply because Mr. Musk has been the subject of negative news coverage. Mr. Musk has been a public figure for more than a decade and recognizes that being the subject of negative and even unfair media attention comes with the territory,” according to the filing. “The local media and political establishment have attempted to depict Mr. Musk as personally responsible for causing material economic harm to the significant number of potential jurors impacted by the layoffs and to the City of San Francisco as a whole.”

Musk has sparred with Twitter’s hometown of San Francisco after turning some space at the company’s Market Street headquarters into makeshift bedrooms, a possible violation of city building codes. Musk has also slammed Mayor London Breed over the city’s fentanyl crisis.

He bought Twitter for $44 billion in late October and installed himself as chief executive officer. After Tesla’s corporate headquarters moved to Austin in December 2021 the company still has a formidable presence in California. In a blog post this week, the company said it has 47,000 employees in the state.

Musk’s attorneys think western Texas would offer a fairer venue than northern California.

“Mr. Musk is far likelier to receive a fair trial in the Western District of Texas,” they wrote. “Mr. Musk has not been the subject of overwhelming, pervasive, and inflammatory press coverage by the local media in the Western District of Texas, like he has in this district. Texas news outlets publish far fewer stories about Mr. Musk.”

Our new weekly Impact Report newsletter examines how ESG news and trends are shaping the roles and responsibilities of today’s executives. Subscribe here.

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Dana Hull, Bloomberg

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January 7, 2023
Twitter employees are bringing their own toilet paper to work as Elon Musk keeps ‘cutting costs like crazy’

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Twitter CEO Elon Musk recently said he’s been “cutting costs like crazy” since taking over the company. Employees are smelling the results.

Speaking in a Twitter Spaces conversation on Dec. 20, Musk said, “This company is like, basically, you are in a plane that is headed toward the ground at high speed with the engines on fire and the controls don’t work.”

Among his drastic cost-cutting measures, Musk canceled janitorial services this month at the company’s San Francisco headquarters, according to the New York Times. Combined with workers being packed onto two floors after four were closed, one result has been the smell of leftover takeout food and body odor lingering in the air.

What’s more, the bathrooms have become dirtier, and some employees have resorted to bringing their own rolls of toilet paper to work.

Earlier this month, janitors said they had been locked out of Twitter’s headquarters with no warning, after they had sought better wages and the company reportedly cut a cleaning contract.

Janitors are picketing outside Twitter Headquarters in San Francisco. A representative with the local SEIU Union says they were told Friday that Twitter is ending the contact with the group that contracts to clean Twitter offices. pic.twitter.com/4iCT92IQH4

— Sergio Quintana (@svqjournalist) December 5, 2022

One janitor, speaking to the BBC, said he had worked at Twitter for 10 years and had been told by Musk’s team that eventually his job would no longer exist because robots would replace human cleaners.

“You know it smell crazy in there,” one source told New York Times journalist Mike Isaac, referring to Twitter headquarters.

Fortune reached out to Twitter for comment but did not receive an immediate reply.

Musk’s Twitter mistakes

Musk admitted to making some mistakes in cost-cutting while speaking in the Twitter Spaces conversation. For example, he said, “We may have gone too far in cost-cutting with respect to the lunch. We may have overcorrected in that regard.”

And he confessed to other errors in his chaotic overhaul of Twitter. For instance, the company suspended the account of respected venture capitalist Paul Graham, who has been supportive of Musk’s efforts at Twitter, because Graham wrote about a link on his website to his account on Mastodon, a platform widely viewed as a Twitter alternative. The suspension followed the company introducing a short-lived policy saying links to competing social networks would not be allowed.

“Yeah, that was a mistake,” Musk admitted.

Whether he comes to deem the deteriorating hygiene at Twitter headquarters another mistake remains to be seen.

Meanwhile it isn’t just the main office in San Francisco. According to the Times, janitorial services have also been cut at the company’s Seattle office, where employees are also bringing their own rolls of toilet paper.

In November, Musk gave Twitter employees an ultimatum: Commit to a hardcore work culture or take severance and leave the company. Those who headed for the exit might now be glad they did so.

Our new weekly Impact Report newsletter examines how ESG news and trends are shaping the roles and responsibilities of today’s executives. Subscribe here.

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Steve Mollman

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December 30, 2022
TikTok confirms that journalists’ data was accessed by employees of its parent company

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TikTok user data from the two journalists, who worked for the Financial Times and BuzzFeed, was accessed while ByteDance employees were investigating potential employee leaks to the press, according to the company. The employees involved, two based in the United States and two in China, were fired following an investigation conducted on behalf of the company by an outside law firm, the CEOs of TikTok and ByteDance revealed to employees in two separate emails Thursday.

The personal data accessed from the journalists’ accounts included IP addresses, according to the spokesperson. IP addresses can provide information about a user’s location.

“The individuals involved misused their authority to obtain access to TikTok user data,” TikTok CEO Shou Chew said in his email to employees, according to an excerpt of the email reviewed by CNN. “This is unacceptable.”

The disclosure could further inflame the scrutiny TikTok is facing in the United States over national security concerns given its ties to China. US lawmakers have raised concerns about the security of user data and the ability for the company’s Chinese employees to access information about US TikTok users.

The criticism ramped up earlier this year after a BuzzFeed News report said some US user data has been repeatedly accessed from China, and cited one employee who allegedly said that “everything is seen in China.” TikTok, for its part, has confirmed US user data can be accessed by some employees in China, but the company says that a US-based security team decides who can access US user data from China.

In October, Forbes reported that ByteDance planned to use TikTok data to surveil certain US citizens. In a Thursday report, Forbes named three journalists who had been tracked by the company. (TikTok declined to comment on whether a third journalist had indeed been affected.) The New York Times also reported that several of the journalists’ contacts on TikTok had also gotten wrapped up in the tracking, which the company declined to confirm.

“The misconduct of these individuals, who are no longer employed at ByteDance, was an egregious misuse of their authority to obtain access to user data,” Oberwetter said in a statement Thursday. “This misbehavior is unacceptable, and not in line with our efforts across TikTok to earn the trust of our users.”

In response to the incident, TikTok said it has restructured its internal audit and risk teams, and removed access to US user data for those teams, according to the spokesperson. “We take data security incredibly seriously, and we will continue to enhance our access protocols, which have already been significantly improved and hardened since this incident took place,” Oberwetter said.

The Financial Times said that “spying on reporters, interfering with their work or intimidating their sources is completely unacceptable. We’ll be investigating this story more fully before deciding our formal response,” according to a statement included in a report from the newspaper.

A spokesperson for BuzzFeed said in a statement to CNN that it is “deeply disturbed” by the disclosure, calling it a “blatant disregard for the privacy and rights of journalists as well as TikTok users.”

“It’s even more troubling that this comes in the wake of a series of reports by BuzzFeed News that exposed major issues within its parent company, from employees accessing American users’ data from China to ByteDance’s attempts to push pro-China messaging to Americans,” the BuzzFeed spokesperson said.

More than a dozen states, including Maryland, South Dakota and Texas, have announced bans in recent weeks of TikTok for state employees on government-issued devices, and a small but growing number of universities are also blocking access to TikTok on school-owned devices or WiFi networks. The Senate earlier this week passed a bill to ban TikTok from all US government devices. And a trio of lawmakers has introduced legislation aimed at banning the short-form video app from operating in the United States.

TikTok is currently engaged in longstanding negotiations with the US government on a potential deal to address national security concerns and let the app continue serving US customers. It has also said it has taken steps to isolate US user data from other parts of its business, including through a partnership with US-based Oracle.

“No matter what the cause or the outcome was, this misguided investigation seriously violated the company’s Code of Conduct and is condemned by the company,” ByteDance CEO Rubo Liang said in the Thursday email to employees. “We simply cannot take integrity risks that damage the trust of our users, employees, and stakeholders.”

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December 22, 2022
5 Metaverse Trends That Will Shape the Next Decade

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Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

In times of economic uncertainty, you can find unique entrepreneurial ideas emerging in the metaverse, often driving industry innovation and opening up new opportunities for businesses and individuals alike. As the metaverse continues to expand, here are five trends that will shape the next 10 years:

1. Virtual content creation

3D modeling has been used for many decades in almost all industries, such as gaming, engineering and architecture. All products, buildings, characters and environments have been created using 3D modeling tools on a computer. This industry is only projected to increase in value, reaching $6.33 billion in 2028. This number doesn’t include the metaverse space, which is predicted to reach $783.3 billion by 2024.

As consumers migrate to the 3D space, the need for virtual goods has only increased. For example, the most popular Roblox metaverse has over 40 million games where its users exclusively create all items, characters, and environments. Those who are top creators can make a ton of money. Just look at Samuel Jordan, who reportedly makes up to $80,000 each month from selling his digital goods in Roblox.

Related: Brace For Impact: It’s Time To Usher In The Metaverse

2. Metaversal education

Covid-19 has shifted most of the world to remote working and distance learning. Some of the fastest to adapt to this change included schoolchildren. The idea of learning digitally has really caught the younger generation to the point where one of the most popular metaverses, Minecraft, has an educational platform for distance learning.

However, this is just the beginning of the global trend for online education. The online education market size is expected to reach $198.9 billion by 2030, according to Straits Research. Entrepreneurs should expect new virtual studying platforms to appear, as well as courses covering topics such as meta-marketing, avatar design and virtual law. This will open up a lot of career options for the younger generations that use the metaverse.

3. Virtual social and music events

Did you know that 4 million people attended Rod Stewart’s free concert on Copacabana Beach in Rio in 1994? It remained the most attended live show until Travis Scott performed in the Fortnight Metaverse in 2020, as more than 12 million players logged in for his virtual concert.

Once other artists caught wind of this, they started planning their own virtual concerts. Artists such as Post Malone, Ariana Grande and Justin Bieber provided virtual concerts using the metaverse as their platform. This trend creates many opportunities for musicians and other event planners on platforms who want to capitalize on the popularity of virtual events.

However, it’s important to start exploring these opportunities now, as global entertainment company, Live Nation, has already partnered with Snap this year to improve the virtual concert and social experience using AR technology.

Related: 5 Technologies That Will Shape the Metaverse’s Future

4. Avatar-based dating

While millennials were getting married virtually during the Covid-19 lockdown, Gen Z has been using “stay at home” as an opportunity to date in the metaverse. Games today can provide more than entertainment; they can even introduce you to potential partners.

Avatar-based dating is becoming more and more popular, with many new companies emerging that specialize in this service, such as Nevermet. This fast-growing avatar-based service allows users to match with other VR fans and then meet up anywhere in the metaverse. As this trend continues to grow, there will be more and more opportunities for entrepreneurs to enter this space.

5. Metfluencing

When it comes to influencers, the metaverse has become a prime platform for marketing and advertising products and services. This is mostly due to its interactive platform, which allows users to engage with each other in real-time.

This trend is known as “metfluencing,” which refers to when an influencer leverages their popularity in the metaverse to influence other users. For example, Albert Spencer Aretz, also known as Flamingo, is an American Roblox Gamer whose “let’s play” videos are gaining millions of views. His estimated net worth is over $20 million, as reported by various sources. Due to his popularity, brands are now paying him to promote their products on his channel. If you’ve ever considered becoming an influencer, the metaverse is definitely a great place to start.

Related: Your Brand Can Become Part of the Metaverse. Here’s How.

The metaverse is an ever-evolving ecosystem that’s becoming increasingly popular and accessible. As more people turn to this virtual reality, entrepreneurs should look for ways to take advantage of the opportunities available in the metaverse. From establishing an online education platform to promoting products via metfluencing, there are plenty of avenues to explore. With the right strategy, you can use the metaverse to create your own successful business.

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Ashot Gabrelyanov

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December 21, 2022
The Beginner’s Guide to Understanding Data Science and Machine Learning
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Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
We are on the brink of a massive technological revolution as we slowly move from the water and steam-powered first industrial revolution to the artificial intelligence-powered fourth industrial revolution. The theories backing data science and machine learning have existed for hundreds of years. There used to be times when proto-computers would take almost forever to compute a billion calculations. No one dared think of artificial intelligence or related technology. All thanks to machine learning and data science, we can now calculate data at a capacity of 5 billion calculations per second.

Data science and machine learning are amongst the most popular disciplines that evaluate and analyze big data for beneficial purposes. Whenever big data or data, in general, is mentioned, our minds go straight to data science and machine learning. While both disciplines are noticeably different, they have a unique and symbiotic relationship. This article will explain in detail the concepts of data science and machine learning, their special relationship and practical examples.

Related: How Data Science Can Help You Grow Your Business Faster

The science of data

As mentioned above, our world is about to be overrun by data. Data is fast becoming overwhelming and tedious to manage. Tons and tons of data are being generated every second. The advent of the internet further pushed this development to the edge. Everywhere you go, your data is being collected knowingly and unknowingly — from gestures as simple as opening a door through fingerprint sensor automation to shopping for groceries from a grocery store.

Data science is the study of data and the processes involved in extracting and analyzing data for problem-solving and predicting future trends. Data science is a broad discipline that is interconnected with other fields, such as machine learning, data analytics, data mining, visualizations, pattern recognition and neurocomputing, to mention a few.

Data scientists investigate, analyze, infer and present data that solve technology-related business problems. The science of data draws inferences, interpretations and conclusions from data that can be used for informed decision-making. This science is built on fundamental disciplines like statistics, mathematics and probability. In all its entirety, data science works to understand data and interpret it.

Machine learning

Machine learning studies data over time to create predictive models that can discern trends and solve problems without human intervention. Machine learning is a subset of data science. Through algorithms and development tools, machine learning engineers build expert systems that can be taught to work independently without human intervention. This is achieved through a series of algorithmic approaches divided into four categories: supervised, unsupervised, semi-supervised and reinforcement learning.

Machine learning engineers study big data to simulate machines to behave and think like humans. Machine learning utilizes fundamental disciplines like strong programming knowledge skills in languages, like python and R, as well as mathematics and data processing. Machine learning is extensive on data; machines rely on this input to gain knowledge and understanding and also to act independently of human information after complete simulation. Through machine learning, artificially intelligent systems continue to grow in numbers as more intelligent agents are being developed.

Related: 3 Ways Machine Learning Can Help Entrepreneurs

The relationship between data science and machine learning

The relationship between data science and machine learning is symbiotic. They work hand in hand. Data is the big link bridge between the two fields, as both disciplines use data for advanced problem-solving and prediction.

Machine learning is a development tool for data science. Data scientists research, evaluate and interpret big data, while machine learning engineers, on the other hand, build predictive and simulative models that use decrypted data to further solve problems — for example, the betting companies.

These companies use data science to study and interpret tons of data from decades of football games. They observe each club’s strengths, the footballers’ skills and consistency. This data was then used to build algorithmic solutions and models that predict the outcome of these games even before they are played. The odds and probability of occurrence are calculated even down to which player scores in these games and the number of shots that could be fired. You can also predict which player will be featured full-time and who will be played as substitutes. Another excellent example of the symbiotic relationship between data science and machine learning is natural language processing. Data from different backgrounds and cultures were collected and studied by data scientists. The data machine learning engineers utilized this data in the development of intelligent agents such as Alexa and Siri.

You can not think of data without data science and machine learning coming to mind. They carry out specific activities but are strongly interwoven with each other. One is only complete with the other. Yes, you can perform some data analytics activities in data science, but you can only fully utilize that data with machine learning.

On the other hand, machine learning is supposedly based on building models with this data rather than interpreting it, which can only happen with big data. Both disciplines work with data and work to solve problems with data. Data scientists create and clean these data, analyze them and use them for problem-solving, according to the subject matter. In contrast, machine learning experts study these data over time and build an algorithmic predictive model that uses these data to mimic human thinking, solve advanced problems and predict future trends.

If I may add a subtext, a data scientist would be the senior colleague of a machine learning engineer. This is because data science is more encompassing and interwoven with different aspects of technology. A machine learning engineer would report to a data scientist because they have the interpreted model of what the machine learning engineer wants to build. The data scientist has a futuristic view of what the predictive model should do, so naturally, the machine learning engineer should report for a clearer picture and alignment of the model with the entire business objective of building the model.

Having seen the unique and symbiotic relationship between data science and machine learning, let’s look at some use-case scenarios of these power disciplines.

Related: Big Data Combined With Machine Learning Helps Businesses Make Much Smarter Decisions

Use cases for data science

Data science can be used in business for different beneficial purposes. Some of them are highlighted below:
1. Simple data analytics with Excel (e.g., creating clusters, data collection and organization into structured and unstructured data).
2. Root cause analysis. Several organizations adopt data science for root cause analysis and resolution. This is done by investigating all collected data on the subject matter and tracing down the root of the problem through different data analysis models/algorithms like classification, binary trees and clustering.
3. Prediction of future trends by researching and interpreting big data
4. Design and delivery of user/customer-focused business solutions
5. User-centered product development and management
6. Expert decision-making and inferences
7. Building and development of strategic business models
Use cases for machine learning

Machine learning is the propelling force behind artificial intelligence. Highlighted below are some of the use case scenarios for machine learning:
1. Design and construction of robotics
2. Design and implementation of natural language processing
3. Design and building of expert knowledge databases and inference engines
4. Structure of predictive models for problem-solving
5. Simulation and construction of artificially intelligent agents (e.g., facial recognition machines and lie detectors).
Data scientists and machine learning experts are using the plethora of data produced daily to move our world rapidly into the machine age. Here is an era where machines might be as intelligent as human beings or even more intelligent than human beings — a time when devices have evolved beyond every scientific principle. While some believe that time is much closer than farther, it is almost here. In all, data science and machine learning are the two front wheels that are moving us toward singularity in technology.
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Taiwo Sotikare

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December 21, 2022
How Proptech Is Disrupting the Real Estate Industry

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Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Over the last two decades, the real estate industry has experienced significant changes. These changes are due to the influx of new technologies and advancements that benefit many stakeholders, including agents, brokers, developers, property managers, investors, homeowners and entrepreneurs. The name that we give collectively to the synergy between technology and real estate is proptech.

Below are the four most significant ways in which this innovative technology has disrupted the real estate industry.

Related: Property Tech Is Creating An Incredible Real Estate Opportunity for Entrepreneurs

Enhancing transparency

The lack of transparency and sometimes accountability has been a long-standing problem in the real estate market, with no easy solution. At the same time, solving this challenge is of utmost importance as real estate concerns everyone. All of us need places to live in, work at and so on.

However, the root of this problem lies in the very nature of real estate. As such a large market (currently valued at $3.69 trillion), real estate has sizable capital requirements that few can traditionally afford. In addition, although it may not look this way from the outside, the real estate space is rather limited and only accessible to a relatively small number of professionals. For the average person, real estate processes and deals have always been notoriously convoluted and obscure.

Thanks to the changes it’s been bringing to the residential and commercial real estate market, proptech has made major advancements in this regard. The accelerated access to data, widespread use of technology tools and enhanced feasibility of fractional property ownership have largely contributed to growing transparency and accountability in the industry. Real estate trends, analyses, deals and operations are now much more transparent than just a few short years ago.

Related: New Real Estate Technology: Disruptive Ideas Transforming the Industry

Providing real estate access to just about anyone

Proptech’s contribution resulted in another major disruption in real estate. By enabling data, analysis and investment access to the average person, proptech has opened the door for just about anyone to enter and participate in the industry.

With the help of tech-based tools, even those with limited knowledge and experience can take part in real estate transactions. For example, the advancement of CRM, analysis, virtual reality and deal-closing online platforms has lowered the barriers to entry for real estate agents and brokers. As a result, the number of licensed realtors in the U.S. alone increased from 1 million in 2011 to 1.56 million in 2021. This is a growth of more than 50% over the course of only ten years.

Similarly, while investing in real estate has always been a tempting idea for millions of Americans, many were left out of this profitable strategy due to a lack of sufficient financial resources, market knowledge, data access or even time. In the last decade, we have seen a surge in the number of technology tools that address each of these challenges and more. Therefore, we can expect the number of small-scale, beginner real estate investors to grow exponentially in the coming years.

Related: This Tech is Disrupting Real Estate. Don’t Miss Out

Breaking the monopoly of big players

On the flip side, another way that this innovative technology is changing the face of real estate is by putting an end to the monopoly of big players. Traditionally, real estate has been dominated by a few large corporations and moguls that control each aspect of the industry such as development, brokerage, investing, market analysis or property management. The reason is simple — very large barriers to entry that only some could cross.

As smaller players are now able to participate across the different segments of real estate, this is inevitably challenging the dominance of the traditional major stakeholders. While they might understandably feel threatened by this flipping reality, it will be beneficial for everyone if the industry becomes more accessible, transparent and democratic. The entry of new players will inevitably lead to accelerated growth within the industry, thus opening more opportunities for everyone involved.

Boosting productivity and profitability

Last but not least, proptech has forever transformed the way of doing business in real estate by raising productivity and profitability. This is arguably the most significant advantage that disruptive technology has brought to real estate professionals.

Investors, for instance, formerly needed months of research, data collection and analysis in order to find a single profitable deal. Now with the help of certain real estate tech tools based on big data and AI, they can locate good deals within a few minutes — whether they are interested in residential or commercial properties, the ownership of entire buildings or parts of properties.

Similarly, being a landlord and short-term rental property host used to resemble a full-time job between writing contracts, dealing with tenants, setting up rental rates, collecting rent, managing finances and all of the other tasks. Now, there are dozens of platforms that help automate and streamline the rental property management process.

The day-to-day work of agents, brokers, property managers, lenders and others has also been expedited and facilitated in a similar manner. The end result is that real estate professionals — as well as amateurs — can complete their duties much faster and more efficiently, all while making more profitable decisions about how to operate their businesses.

Final words

As a firm believer in the importance of technology across the board (but especially in real estate), I am confident that we are far from reaching the full potential of disruption in this industry. I expect these four proptech trends to continue developing in the coming years. , And, new disruptions will continue to emerge as so many entrepreneurs are eager to carry on with the democratization of real estate.

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Zain Jaffer

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December 21, 2022
Twitter suspends account of Paul Graham, a respected venture capitalist supportive of Elon Musk, after he tweets about Mastodon link

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Paul Graham, a widely respected venture capitalist who’s been supportive Elon Musk’s efforts at Twitter, had his Twitter account suspended on Sunday.

The suspension followed a tweet in which Graham wrote: “This is the last straw. I give up. You can find a link to my new Mastodon profile on my site.”

In that tweet, he linked to a new Twitter policy that forbids users from linking out to competing social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon, Truth Social, Tribel, Post, and Nostr.

That policy also forbids using various ways to get around the rule, such as writing “instagram dot com/username” to avoid creating an actual link.

It appears Graham’s account was suspended because he wrote, “You can find a link to my new Mastodon profile on my site.” That could be deemed by Twitter as an example of a workaround.

Fortune reached out to Twitter but didn’t receive an immediate reply; however, after we reached out to the company, Graham’s account was unsuspended.

Technology author Gergely Orosz noted the suspension on his own Twitter account, writing, “Paul Graham – founder of Y Combinator, and someone who was supportive of Elon Musk since the Twitter takeover – announced he’s taking a break from Twitter, and suggested people can find his Mastodon account on his website. He was banned a few hours later. I cannot believe it…”

Howard Lerman, a co-founder of several tech startups, also expressed surprise, tweeting: “Paul Graham (formerly @paulg) defines literally every attribute one could hope for on a social network: Profound, civil, thoughtful, honest, direct, polite, active, responsive to all, inclusive. I’m sure I missed a lot of things he is. And I’m really going to him him on here.”

Over on Mastodon, widely considered an alternative to Twitter for users tired of Musk’s chaos, Graham himself remained characteristically diplomatic, writing: “I haven’t ‘left Twitter.’ I just don’t want to keep using it while it’s banning links to other sites. Plus given the way things are going, it seemed like a good time to learn more about Mastodon.”

He added, “FWIW I still hope Elon succeeds with Twitter. Why wish failure on anyone? But for me, not letting people post links to their other accounts was just too much.”

Others commented on the suspension as well. Alexis Ohanian, founder and general partner of VC firm 776, noted Graham’s stature as Silicon Valley “royalty.” He tweeted Sunday: “Wild. @PaulG got suspended (for *sending folks to his website for a link to his mastadon). This is gonna get really, really interesting. PG is SV royalty.”

Our new weekly Impact Report newsletter examines how ESG news and trends are shaping the roles and responsibilities of today’s executives. Subscribe here.

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Steve Mollman

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December 18, 2022
4 Exciting Mobile App Trends to Watch in 2023

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Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Some fifteen years in the making, the mobile app economy has become an essential contributor to global GDP and a true force to be reckoned with for both technologists and advertisers alike. More than $320,000 flowed through app stores every minute of 2021, an increase of nearly 20% from the year earlier. In addition, consumers are downloading more than 435,000 apps per minute — a truly astonishing figure — according to Data.ai, and things don’t seem to be slowing down.

Given all the buzz, what should you be watching if you’re set on capturing the hearts and minds of consumers, who are already spending a third of their waking hours consuming app content in an increasingly mobile-first world? Here is my list of top emerging mobile app trends as I take stock of 2022 and look ahead to the new year:

1. Augmented Reality looks set to continue its meteoric rise

Maybe it’s because the reality of the state of the world is so grim, or because seeing a dystopian world we live in through colored lenses has always held a certain appeal, but for whatever reason, augmented reality (AR) is becoming more and more popular. An increasing number of apps are launching new AR-based features. Even IKEA has started leveraging AR technology to allow shoppers to virtually “try on” furniture, using 3D models of their homes within the IKEA Place app, before making a purchase.

Back in September, an iOS 16 release saw the cutout feature being added to iPhone photos, where people can take the subject of a photo out of an image and place that subject — be it a person or a particularly scenic tree or whatever else — in different backgrounds.

Video background editing and even face-swapping tech are also growing in dominance, with these technologies becoming more advanced and easier to use as we’re quickly moving away from the days of blurry backgrounds and superimposed people in TikToks. Popular meme communities are taking full advantage of AR-enabled face-swapping tools to facilitate quick, easy and fun meme editing. Various video editing apps have also hit the market, allowing people to use AR to place animated 3D models on their surroundings — something businesses can use to create fun and appealing videos of their products.

Thanks to the winning combination of accessibility for fast-improving AR technology and users’ creative potential, we will likely see almost studio-quality content coming from lesser-known sources shortly. The democratization of content creation is well underway, and new developments on the AR front are likely to further this trend.

Related: 6 Emerging Niche Applications to Boost Productivity and Efficiency

2. Consumers are finding new ways to monetize their app-based activities

The idea of making extra cash is not new, but the cost-of-living crisis keenly felt across geographic and generational divides, and the rise of social networking is providing additional incentives for gamers, content creators and app users of all stripes to find new ways to monetize their activities.

Meta’s Instagram rolled out its ‘subscription’ features in August 2022 for creators to monetize exclusive content, and we’re likely to see more mobile apps attempt this to help users make money as compensation for their creative efforts. In the memes niche, Yepp launched earlier this year and began offering to share its advertising revenues with its users for consuming and creating memes content within the app. Given the current economic situation, I would not be surprised if this revenue-share model gains popularity in the coming months.

We will also likely see more ecommerce or peer-to-peer sales being rolled into social media apps as digital marketing evolves – so people may buy more clothing, artwork and other goods and services outside of established ecommerce platforms like Facebook Marketplace, Etsy or Depop, which were specifically set up with buying and selling (and not content creation) in mind.

3. Users are becoming an integral part of the mobile development process

With beta testing, app developers and companies are becoming increasingly focused on growing communities as there is a growing realization that a more diverse range of voices is essential for feedback and product tweaking.

User-driven innovation has long been the holy grail for tech companies trying to guess the next big thing on the horizon. Increasingly, management and marketing gurus have been trying to map out what firms can purposefully do to generate consumer innovation efforts.

I am betting that we will start to see more users and customers being brought in at the early stages of the app development process, resulting in products that are increasingly made by the people and for the people.

Related: 4 Creative Side Hustles That Fight Inflation and Earn Extra Cash

4. Mobile wallets and rewards are set to get bigger and better, both for customers and for the planet

The 2021 Mobile Wallet report claims that usage will increase by 74% from 2021 to 2025, reaching 4.8 billion mobile wallets by the end of 2025 — as comfort, security and responsiveness grow in importance for users while faith in traditional banks and financial systems erodes amid worrying and uncertainty-inducing financial headlines.

We are already seeing consumers growing more careful with their finances, so 2023 might bring a renewed surge in wallets and apps that offer greater benefits and rewards to win over customers (just not crypto exchanges!).

In this environment of budget consciousness, we are also likely to see more social and ESG-focused apps. These apps will likely inspire consumers to save or spend less while also benefiting their communities by promoting the greater social and environmental good. This trend of socially conscious, waste-reducing, economically and environmentally sound initiatives within app models will likely continue its upward trajectory in 2023 and beyond.

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Max Kraynov

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December 15, 2022
Medical staff in China’s hospitals say COVID-19 ripping through their ranks

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HONG KONG, Dec 14 (Reuters) – A growing number of China’s doctors and nurses are catching COVID-19 and some have been asked to keep working, as people showing mostly moderate symptoms throng hospitals and clinics, according to medical staff and dozens of posts on social media.

China’s health authority did not immediately respond to a request for comment on infections among medical staff.

Health experts say China’s sudden loosening of strict COVID rules is likely to trigger a surge in severe cases in coming months, and hospitals in big cities are already showing signs of strain.

Reuters was unable to immediately get verification from hospitals on waiting times and bed utilisation rates, but photographs circulated on social media showed patients in Beijing and neighbouring Baoding waiting for hours to get treated.

Health officials have been recommending that people with mild COVID symptoms quarantine at home and have also said most of the cases reported in the country are mild or asymptomatic.

“Our hospital is overwhelmed with patients. There are 700, 800 people with fever coming every day,” said a doctor surnamed Li at a tertiary hospital in Sichuan province.

“We are running out of medicine stocks for fever and cold, now waiting for delivery from our suppliers. A few nurses at the fever clinic were tested positive, there aren’t any special protective measures for hospital staff and I believe many of us will soon get infected,” Li added.

A nurse at another hospital in Chengdu said: “I was swamped with nearly 200 patients with COVID symptoms last night.”

Ben Cowling, an epidemiologist at Hong Kong University, said insufficient medical resources to cope with an overload of COVID cases contributed to a surge in deaths in Hong Kong when infections peaked there earlier this year, and he warned that the same was going to happen in China.

“One of the reasons we had such a high mortality rate (in Hong Kong) is because we simply didn’t have enough hospital resources to cope in the surge. And unfortunately, that is what is going to happen in about one to two months time in the mainland,” Cowling said.

He said a surge in severe cases coupled with a surge of mild cases among the elderly who needed monitoring overwhelmed Hong Kong’s hospitals, and recommended separate isolation facilities for the elderly with mild cases to free up hospital beds.

State media Xinhua reported on Tuesday in capital Beijing 50 patients are currently in a serious or critical condition in hospital with COVID.

‘WHAT A MESS’

The sudden loosening of restrictions has sparked long queues outside fever clinics since last week in a worrying sign that a wave of infections is building, even though official tallies of new cases have trended lower recently as authorities eased back on testing.

Some hospitals in Beijing have up to 80% of their staff infected, but many of them are still required to work due to staff shortages, a doctor in a large public hospital in Beijing told Reuters, adding he has spoken to his peers at other big hospitals in the capital.

All operations and surgeries have been cancelled at his hospital unless the patient is “dying tomorrow”, he said, declining to be named due to the sensitivity of the subject.

A post on the Weibo social media platform recounted a recent experience at the emergency ward at Beijing Hospital.

“Those who have not been to the emergency department of Beijing Hospital don’t know what a mess it has become,” wrote a Weibo user called Moshang. The post went on to say that people in serious need of surgery were being made to wait.

Beijing Hospital did not immediately respond to a Reuters’ request for comment.

Wan Ling, a head nurse at a hospital in Huashan in China’s Anhui province, wrote on Weibo that many of her infected colleagues were relatively serious and had high fever.

Several doctors from Wuhan province’s top public hospital Tongji have also tested positive for COVID-19, but since Sunday have not been allowed to take leave, a pharmaceutical sales representative with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters, declining to be named, as the information is not public.

“They have to stay at work while they are sick,” said the person who regularly visits the hospital and spoke to its doctors recently.

Tongji hospital did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

Reporting by the Beijing newsroom, David Stanway and the Shanghai newsroom, Julie Zhu and Selena Li in Hong Kong; Writing by Farah Master; Editing by Miyoung Kim & Simon Cameron-Moore

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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December 14, 2022
Analysis: China’s massive older chip tech buildup raises U.S. concern

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OAKLAND, Calif./SHANGHAI/WASHINGTON Dec 13 (Reuters) – China’s largest chip maker SMIC (0981.HK) is ramping up production of a decade-old chip technology, key to many industries’ supply chains, setting off alarm bells in the United States and prompting some lawmakers to try to stop them.

The United States and allied nations could further step up restrictions if China announces a trillion yuan ($144 billion) support package for its chip industry, as Reuters exclusively reported on Tuesday, said TechInsights’ chip economist Dan Hutcheson.

Starting with the Trump administration, the United States has been tightening the noose around China’s high-tech ambitions. It cut off the world’s largest telecommunications firm Huawei Technologies from the U.S. market and technologies, as well as cut off air supply to China’s advanced chip making through a series of rules this year.

But why worry about older chip technology?

China, which in 2020 had 9% of the global chip market, has a track record of dominating key technologies by flooding the market with cheaper products and wiping out global competition, say China watchers.

They did it with solar panels and 5G telecom equipment, and could do it with older technology chips, said Matt Pottinger, former Deputy National Security Advisor of the United States during the Trump administration who has been studying chip policy at the Hoover Institution.

“It would give Beijing coercive leverage over every country and industry – military or civilian – that depend on 28 nanometer chips, and that’s a big, big chunk of the chip universe,” he said.

“28 nanometer” refers to a chip technology commercially used since 2011. It is still widely used in automotive, weapons and the explosive category of internet of things gadgets, said Hutcheson.

Hutcheson, who has been monitoring chip production capacity for four decades, said the concern is that Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (0981.HK) and other chipmakers in China could use government subsidies to sell chips at a low price. And a possible new round of financial support from Beijing would increase chip production even further.

“The Chinese could just flood the market with these technologies,” he said. “Normal companies can’t compete, because they can’t make money at those levels.”

U.S. LAWMAKERS PUSHING AGAINST SMIC

Those concerns have pushed some lawmakers to use legislation for setting the defense budget hold back SMIC.

While the measure is weaker than what was initially proposed, this week U.S. Senators are expected to pass the annual National Defense Authorization Act 2023 that includes a section barring the U.S. government from using chips from SMIC and two other Chinese memory chip makers. It is not clear what impact the restriction, which kicks in five years after it becomes law, will have on SMIC.

Founded in 2000 with backing from Beijing, SMIC has long struggled to break into the ranks of the world’s leading chip manufacturers.

But it is a giant in older technology, including chips that regulate power flows in electronics. And its revenue was close to $2 billion in the third quarter this year, roughly double the same period last year on the back of the global chip shortage.

SMIC FILLING SUPPLY GAP

With U.S. export controls making it impossible to produce advanced chips, SMIC is doubling down on mature technology chips and has announced four new facilities, or fabs, since 2020. When those come online, it would more than triple the company’s output, estimates Samuel Wang, Gartner chip analyst. He said there is a huge ramp up in new chip fabs across China.

“All this will start to have an impact from early 2024 and will be full blown by 2027,” said Wang, adding the chip supply increase will put downward pressure on chip prices.

The importance of older chip technology hit the industry in the face in 2021 as a shortage of those chips prevented manufacturing of millions of cars and consumer electronics.

Mark Li, Bernstein Research’s chip analyst in Asia, said the company is becoming a formidable competitor to Taiwan’s UMC Microelectronics Corp (6615.T) and U.S.-headquartered GlobalFoundries Inc (GFS.O).

“SMIC has been much more willing to add capacity than other fabs at the low-end, and especially in this shortage we’ve seen in the past two years,” he says. “It’s not an issue now…but who knows, maybe in a few years there will be another shortage and capacity will be a big problem.”

($1 = 6.9430 Chinese yuan renminbi)

Reporting By Jane Lanhee Lee in Oakland, Calif and Josh Horwitz in Shanghai, and Alexandra Alper in Washington D.C.; Editing by Josie Kao

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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December 14, 2022
Exclusive: U.S. to remove some Chinese entities from red flag list soon, U.S. official says

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WASHINGTON, Dec 14 (Reuters) – The Biden administration plans to remove some Chinese entities from a red flag trade list, a U.S. official told Reuters on Wednesday amid closer cooperation with Beijing.

The plan to remove them soon from the so-called “unverified” list is thanks to greater willingness from the Chinese government to permit U.S. site visits, the person said.

The Commerce Department declined to comment.

Reuters could not determine the number or names of entities designated for removal.

The decision signals a degree of renewed cooperation between Washington and Beijing, the world’s largest economies which are locked in a heated trade and technology war.

The decision, which mean U.S. exporters will no longer have to conduct additional due diligence before sending goods to the Chinese entities, may not herald a broader thaw.

Asked about the decision at a Chinese foreign ministry briefing on Thursday, spokesman Wang Wenbin said they urged the United States to stop taking unfair and discriminatory practices against certain Chinese companies.

“China will continue to uphold the legitimate and justified interests of Chinese companies,” he said.

The Biden administration is also expected to add Chinese memory chipmaker YMTC to a tougher export control list as soon as this week, according to another person familiar with the matter.

YMTC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Companies are added to the unverified list because the United States cannot complete on-site visits to determine whether they can be trusted to receive sensitive U.S. technology exports. Such U.S. inspections in China require the approval of China’s commerce ministry.

Under new rules announced in October, if a government prevents U.S. officials from conducting site checks at companies on the unverified list, Washington may after 60 days add them to the entity list, which means much tougher penalties.

“The goal of (that rule) was to drive better behavior from countries that were not allowing end-use checks,” U.S. export control chief Alan Estevez said at an event earlier this month. “We are seeing better behavior,” he said, specifically singling out Beijing.

In October, YMTC was added to the unverified list along with dozens of other Chinese entities, fueling widespread speculation that the company would be added to the entity list. Suppliers are barred from shipping U.S. technology to entity-listed companies unless the suppliers can attain a difficult-to-obtain license.

A person familiar with the matter said YMTC was among some companies that received site visits in late November, suggesting that the chipmaker’s expected addition to the entity list may be related to other matters.

YMTC was already under investigation by the Commerce Department over allegations it violated U.S. export rules by supplying chips to entity-listed Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei without a license.

U.S. lawmakers from both political parties have called on the Biden administration to add YMTC to the list. Its planned addition was first reported by the Financial Times.

Reporting by Alexandra Alper and Karen Freifeld; Additional reporting by Eduardo Baptista in Beijing; Editing by Chris Sanders, Howard Goller and Raissa Kasolowsky

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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December 14, 2022
Devices to Help With Ankylosing Spondylitis

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Devices to Help With Ankylosing Spondylitis

091e9c5e820faac4091e9c5e820faac4FED-Footermodule_FED-Footer_091e9c5e820faac4.xmlwbmd_pb_templatemodule0144002/02/2021 01:57:340HTML

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December 14, 2022
Is AI A Risk To Creativity? The Answer Is Not So Simple

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As AI continues to advance, some may be wondering whether or not AI is a risk or a resource. But the answer isn’t so simple.

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Devan Leos

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December 12, 2022
Elon Musk’s history with OpenAI—the maker of AI chatbot ChatGPT—as told by ChatGPT itself

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ChatGPT has been making waves this week following its test release by OpenAI, the company behind it. The artificial intelligence chatbot has evoked amazed, amused, and concerned reactions to it and generally created major buzz on social media. Many have speculated ChatGPT will disrupt Google’s search business. It can also debug code, write in a famous author’s voice, and help students cheat, among many other things.

The buzz will likely ramp up even more when OpenAI releases a superior next version of the AI chatbot, reportedly sometime next year.

Speaking of buzz, few people have been generating more of it lately than Elon Musk, who leads Tesla, SpaceX, and now Twitter, among other companies. As it turns out, Musk has ties to OpenAI, including as an original backer, and has been involved in both supporting artificial intelligence and warning about its dangers.

This month Musk called ChatGPT “scary good” and warned, “We are not far from dangerously strong AI.”

ChatGPT is scary good. We are not far from dangerously strong AI.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 3, 2022

Musk resigned from OpenAI’s board of directors in 2018, citing possible conflicts of interest due to Tesla’s own AI work. In 2019, OpenAI changed from a nonprofit to a “capped profit” corporation, a hybrid of a for-profit and nonprofit. In 2019 it received a $1 billion investment from Microsoft. By 2020, Musk tweeted, “I have no control & only very limited insight into OpenAI,” adding his confidence in its safety was “not high.”

This month he tweeted: “I just learned that OpenAI had access to Twitter database for training. I put that on pause for now. Need to understand more about governance structure & revenue plans going forward. OpenAI was started as open-source & non-profit. Neither are still true.”

But we’ll let ChatGPT itself talk more about Musk’s history with OpenAI. The rest of this article was written by the AI chatbot, generated in seconds as answers to our questions:

Elon Musk has had a long relationship with OpenAI, dating back to the organization’s founding in 2015. He was one of the original backers of the organization, providing both financial and strategic support. Over the years, he has remained an advocate for the organization and its mission to promote and develop friendly AI.

Based on his public statements and actions, it appears that he has some concerns about the potential dangers of advanced AI and its potential impact on society. He has often spoken about the need for AI to be developed and used in a responsible and ethical manner, and has even founded organizations such as OpenAI to help advance this goal.

Elon Musk has publicly expressed concerns about the potential dangers of advanced AI. In particular, he has warned about the risk of AI being used for malicious purposes, such as to develop weapons or to interfere with elections. He has also expressed concern about the potential for AI to surpass human intelligence and become a threat to humanity.

Tesla uses AI in several of its products and services. For example, the company’s Autopilot feature uses AI to help vehicles navigate roads and highways with limited or no input from the driver. The company’s cars also use AI for tasks such as lane detection, adaptive cruise control, and automatic emergency braking. Additionally, Tesla is using AI in its manufacturing processes to help improve efficiency and productivity.

It is possible that Elon Musk has hired employees from OpenAI, but I do not have access to that information as I am a large language model trained by OpenAI and do not have the ability to browse the internet. OpenAI is an independent organization, and while Elon Musk has been involved with the organization in the past, he is not directly involved in its day-to-day operations or decision-making.

Our new weekly Impact Report newsletter examines how ESG news and trends are shaping the roles and responsibilities of today’s executives. Subscribe here.

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Steve Mollman

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December 11, 2022