UPDATED with more quotes: The promises and threats that new technologies pose for workers in the entertainment industry were explored today at the third annual Labor Innovation & Technology Summit, hosted by SAG-AFTRA and the AFL-CIO.

You can follow the daylong event above.

Within the entertainment industry, the technology-versus-humanity tension is right in your face, SAG-AFTRA president Gabrielle Carteris said in her opening remarks. I dont know where I would be without Netflix, Hulu and other streaming services. Yet, the sudden and extreme pivot to streaming during the pandemic poses an existential threat to a performers ability to make a living.

The large media corporations, she said, are exploiting technology to either change, or blatantly ignore, the fundamental pillars that have been built over decades of collective bargaining to ensure that workers shared in the financial bounty that they create.

Related StorySAG-AFTRA & AFL-CIO To Host Third Annual Labor Innovation & Technology Summit

The role of unions, Carteris said, is not to fight technology but to be part of the conversation at the onset so that we can help lead and shape the future of our work. As technology evolves, we have to make sure that humans are treated fairly, and that they can make a decent living and can do their jobs with both dignity and respect.

SAG-AFTRA national executive director David White said that changes in the way entertainment content is being distributed on streaming platforms such as Netflix, Disney Plus, Amazon Prime, Peacock, Apple Plus, Paramount TV and all the others, threatens to undermine the wage structures and residuals formulas that thousands of actors and performers have depended on for decades.

Making a case for what could be a very tough round of bargaining when the unions current film and TV contract expires in 2023, he said that the ever-increasing changes in new delivery systems threaten to hollow out the unions middle-class unless the union does something about it. The contract the union reached last year with managements AMPTP included significant gains in residuals for original shows made for high-budget streaming platforms, but White indicated that more sweeping contractual change will be needed to protect working actors and their residuals.

Said White today:

On the consumer entertainment side, the storytelling were we get our stories has changed. For our industry and our workers, it has meant a swiftly changing work environment. The pace and demands of work have increased; budgets for productions have gotten smaller. People are asked to go in to work earlier and stay longer. Our stunt performers are asked to do bigger, faster, stronger stunts in more compressed time periods. It means that people are doing more when they work. And it also means that compensation is changing, and in many ways, without the countervailing forces of the union, people are being paid less.

We experience in this industry what people experience elsewhere, which is that the bargaining leverage that people have for their wages is getting less and less. And this begins to hollow out the middle class. And this is happening with our members as well, and will continue to happen if we are not careful.

We have a unique payment structure in this industry something called residuals, which are payments people receive whenever their work is exploited. In the past, there was a window-structure, which meant that a movie would come out (in theaters) and then move to DVD and then to pay-television, like HBO, or basic able or primetime TV. Every time that happened, people received a little bit of payment, and that is how people have made a living.

But now, when you watch Netflix, all of the shows sit up on their platform, and that is where they sit. Increasingly, windows are going away. That means the original bargain that people had for compensation is potentially going away, and it will make it harder for people to make a living. That becomes our role, and we have put in place structures to ensure that while that product sits up there on a platform, people continue to be paid. But without countervailing structures, people would not.

Jeffrey Cole, director of the Center for the Digital Future at USCs Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, told White that he is more concerned about the return of behind-the-scenes jobs during the pandemic and after its over.

I am more concerned, actually, about the immediate effects of people behind the camera being hollowed out, he said. We learned, for example, within the first days of the pandemic, the late-night shows Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel they went into their homes; it looked like public access television the first two weeks, and then they found their groove. They got their orchestras together, their writers, and all of a sudden, they were able to produce really quality-looking shows with crews of 20 people.

I worry about whether those other 180 [crew members] who put it together before the pandemic will ever have long-term jobs, and I think that is where the hollowing out could be, he added.

Cole also told White: You still need your members. Nothing replaces that. The question is what they are going to be paid. Well see; there may be some adjustments I hope not. But I dont think its going to be a calamity for SAG-AFTRA members. It could be a calamity for below-the-line people.

Carteris and White also discussed the serious threats to actors and all public figures posed by deepfake technologies, face-swapping computer systems that have been used to digitally superimpose the faces of its members onto the bodies of porn stars.

If youre tempted to write this off as a problem with limited reach, Carteris said, consider the potential implications of a technology that can take, store and manipulate an actors data, or a politicians, for that matter. For actors, that means putting their image, movements and personality into scenes they had nothing to do with, and then making that data a reusable commodity even without an actors consent.

But, deepfakes are not only a challenge to performers, they are a real threat to our democracy. As we look at the current political terrain, its not hard to see how the manipulation of information and the falsification of truth can ignite hate and division, endanger lives, and tear apart communities and even split families. Lawmakers across the country are slowly coming to see the seriousness of this issue, and to be fair, some have been quicker to take action than others. So the work were doing as a union is vitally, vitally important.

During a Q&A with Carteris, Tristan Harris, the free-thinking co-founder and president of the Center for Humane Technology who was featuredprominently in the Netflix documentary The Social Dilemma observed that platforms like Facebook and Google thrive on business models whose algorithms are designed to fracture any sense of a shared reality by reinforcing viewers preconceived notions and prejudices. While extolling the virtues of justice equity and climate change equity, he said that reality equity is just as important.

Were all seeing different realities, he said. Facebooks business model is selling your attention to advertisers. And whats the best way to get your attention? Is it by giving everyone a shared reality, or by giving you your own Truman Show, where every time you flick your finger, it gives you affirmation, not information?

Three billion people use Facebook, he added, but instead of seeing a shared understanding of reality, we are each put in a narrower, crazier view of reality. You have people actually being shown conspiracy theories that would be perfect for their minds.

Discussing the future of work, Liz Shuler, secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO, told Carteris that we are in the midst of a fourth Industrial Revolution and that each revolution is shaped by at least three things: technological breakthroughs, innovation in how technology is used, and most importantly, workers.

She added:And the labor movement, as we know it today the power of collective bargaining was borne as an innovation response to industrial change. And we have been innovative ever since. So from steam mills and coal mines, to automobile factories, modern cockpits and offices, the labor movement has always been the vehicle for turning technological advances into better living standards and better wages.

But now, this fourth Industrial Revolution is speeding toward us and breakthroughs are happening faster and faster than ever, changing life and work in every sector. Shuler said. And all of this has been accelerated by the Covid-19 pandemic. And its raising big questions about the future of work. And the labor movement really is the only force, or institution at scale in the country, with enough power to put workers at the center of these issues.

We need to keep organizing, she added, and we need to learn how to organize with and around tech, knowing that partnerships that center working peoples experiences in the innovation process lead to better outcomes: equity, safety and higher-wage jobs.

Other union speakers today include Amanda Ballantyne, director of the AFL-CIO Technology Institute, and Rebecca Damon, SAG-AFTRA executive vice president and president of the unions New York Local and chair of the National Innovation & New Technology Committee.

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SAG-AFTRA Leaders Explore Promises & Threats Of New Technologies And Their Impact On Residuals Labor Innovation & Technology Summit -...

Anderson Coach & Travel, located in Mercer County, has added technology to its fleet of tour buses that is said to nearly eliminate airborne viruses, including COVID-19."It's kind of like having a seatbelt and an airbag in your car," said Joe Urso, CEO of ActivePure Technologies, the technology installed on the nearly 200 buses used in and around Pittsburgh. The system is installed in a small section of the overhead compartment on the buses and operated by the driver. "Once I have the coach running, I come back and turn it on and up to full speed and the unit will run the whole time," said Dan Chornenky, who has been a bus driver for Anderson Coach & Travel for nine years.The addition of ActivePure does not change the mitigation efforts onboard Anderson Coach & Travel buses. Chornenky said he still wipes the surfaces by hand. He is still separated from passengers by plexiglass the front seats remain open to allow for distance from the driver and everyone on board is required to wear masks. Urso said the technology is designed to help and is proven to make a difference. "It originated in the NASA space program and we've developed it to a much more advanced stage where it basically eliminates airborne pathogens in real-time by using our special proprietary formula and it actually creates these from oxygen and humidity in the air," Urso said. "The technology, more importantly, is proven. It's proven by FDA testing, military labs and it has most recently been demonstrated to reduce 99.9% of airborne COVID in less than three minutes, with the very system that's being used on busses right there in Pittsburgh."

Anderson Coach & Travel, located in Mercer County, has added technology to its fleet of tour buses that is said to nearly eliminate airborne viruses, including COVID-19.

"It's kind of like having a seatbelt and an airbag in your car," said Joe Urso, CEO of ActivePure Technologies, the technology installed on the nearly 200 buses used in and around Pittsburgh.

The system is installed in a small section of the overhead compartment on the buses and operated by the driver.

"Once I have the coach running, I come back and turn it on and up to full speed and the unit will run the whole time," said Dan Chornenky, who has been a bus driver for Anderson Coach & Travel for nine years.

The addition of ActivePure does not change the mitigation efforts onboard Anderson Coach & Travel buses.

Chornenky said he still wipes the surfaces by hand. He is still separated from passengers by plexiglass the front seats remain open to allow for distance from the driver and everyone on board is required to wear masks.

Urso said the technology is designed to help and is proven to make a difference.

"It originated in the NASA space program and we've developed it to a much more advanced stage where it basically eliminates airborne pathogens in real-time by using our special proprietary formula and it actually creates these from oxygen and humidity in the air," Urso said. "The technology, more importantly, is proven. It's proven by FDA testing, military labs and it has most recently been demonstrated to reduce 99.9% of airborne COVID in less than three minutes, with the very system that's being used on busses right there in Pittsburgh."

See the rest here:

Local buses equipped with technology said to remove 99.9% of COVID-19 from air - WTAE Pittsburgh

What happened

I think you've got to hand it to Osprey Technology Acquisition Corp. (NYSE:SFTW) -- yesterday was a great day to announce a space-related merger deal.

As you've probably heard, on Thursday afternoon, NASA announced the successful landing on Mars of its Perseverance rover and Ingenuity drone helicopter. And that was the same day that Osprey announced its plans to acquire "real-time geospatial intelligence, imagery, and data analytics company" BlackSky Holdings, reverse-merging it with the SPAC to take it public.

Shares of Osprey -- the shell company that will bring BlackSky public -- popped 27.5% on the news Thursday, and they were up another 10.4% as of noon EST Friday.

Image source: Getty Images.

So what do we know about this soon-to-be-public BlackSky? According to Osprey, it "is a first mover in real-time Earth observation leveraging the innovative performance and economics of small satellite constellations," and intends to eventually grow its orbital assets to "30 high resolution multi-spectral satellites capable of monitoring locations on Earth every 30 minutes, day or night."

Osprey hasn't revealed a lot about the company's financials, other than to say that it has a "pipeline of opportunities" that nearly tripled over the last 12 months to $1.7 billion.

I first heard of the company about four years ago, at which time it was a division of privately held Spaceflight Industries (that's the one that sold its satellite-rideshare business, Spaceflight Inc., to Mitsui early last year). According to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence, BlackSky remains a subsidiary of Spaceflight Industries, but there was no mention of the parent company in Osprey's press release.

Presumably, it has been, or will soon be, spun off from Spaceflight Industries.

Whoever owns BlackSky now, Osprey will own it soon -- and retail investors will be able to, too. Osprey predicts that when the deal happens in or around July, BlackSky will become a public company with a pro forma equity value of $1.5 billion. Add back $450 million in cash, and the targeted market capitalization of the stock looks like $1.95 billion.

When you consider that Osprey currently has a market cap of barely $605 million, this appears to suggest the stock will triple in value in five months. No wonder investors are excited.

View original post here:

Why Osprey Technology Acquisition Stock Popped Again Today - Motley Fool

Architecture in Extended Reality (XR) - Hoacheng Dai, Yiliang Wang & Yue Di. Image courtesy of UCLA AUD

Architecture is currently at the cusp of a paradigm shift, where the environments we occupy are becoming increasingly virtual and mobile. Considered as an ecosystem of technologies rather than a tectonic assemblage of materials, architecture is shifting toward a non-static and non-physical form of experience. This opens up the potential for it to be considered as a transdisciplinary medium that merges the worlds of fabrication, gaming, and media design.

The IDEAS Technology Studio,one of four studios offered as part of UCLA Architecture and Urban DesignsMaster of Science in Architecture and Urban Design (M.S.AUD) program,investigates the design of new media in digital and physical forms and its potential to radically transform the human experience.Recognized as a leading research institution UCLA Architecture and Urban Design is also a part of the UCLA School of Arts and Architecture. This unique blend and integration of departments allow both students and faculty "to connect with other forms of creative cultural production."

In preparation for their upcoming virtual symposium, Virtual Presence: Occupying New Realities, I spoke with IDEAS Technology Studio instructors Gven zel and Benjamin Ennemoser. Together we discuss the program, its goals, and the upcoming virtual event. zel explains, "the goal of the symposium is to explore the notion of being present in virtual frameworks, one that re-imagines a cybernetic form of space that is fluidly responsive to crises- one that interprets architecture as transient media rather than a vessel that negotiates between the violence of nature and the body."

Briefly describe your background in architecture and its relationship to emerging technologies and design speculation.

Gven zel (GO): My work focuses on how technology and media shape contemporary social relationships and environments. I studied sculpture, architecture, and philosophy at Bennington College and later received my Masters of Architecture degree from Yale. Multidisciplinarity and the urgency to address emerging social and aesthetic concerns of contemporary society have always been the ambition behind my work. I previously worked in the offices of Frank Gehry, Juergen Mayer, Rafael Vinoly, and others. During that early time in my career, which I consider as a continuity of my education as an architect, the primary role of technology was to facilitate and streamline the design and construction of complexity in architectural form. Currently, the role of technology in architecture relates more to the experience and operation of environments rather than the construction of them. Therefore rather than envisioning architecture built with technology, I consider the new generation of environments we occupy as technology themselves. In this regard, I consider myself as a cyber-physical architect and a critical technologist since I am primarily concerned with how we interact with architecture as a technological interface that has intelligence, agency, and the ability to transform, change and respond. That possibility for change forces us to address the larger contested role of technology in contemporary society relating to social media, privacy, and Big Data. Due to sensor technologies, GPS tracking, and location-specific digital content, the concerns of the virtual environments we occupy and socialize in are directly linked to the physical architectures we inhabit. These questions largely form the basis of the creative speculation in my work as well as the research we do at UCLA Architecture and Urban Design.

Benjamin Ennemoser (BE): I am an architect by training with a focus on computational design methods and new media. Over the last decade, I have investigated emerging technologies in order to analyze, generate and fabricate architecture at the intersection of digital and physical spaces. As a researcher, faculty, and practitioner I relate to technology primarily as a tool. But nevertheless, I am interested in how this tool can be augmented to a design process in order to challenge the way we perceive and generate the built environment in the age of Big Data. To be more specific, my work speculates on how technology garners agency in a design process and humans critically collaborate or share authorship with technology such as AI. In that sense, I am interested in how to tackle a distinct design problem through the lens of emerging technology. Simultaneously, I investigate the socio-economic, cultural, ethical, and formal consequences which are implied by integrating emerging design technologies.

After learning more about their backgrounds I was curious to hear their thoughts on the studio's location and how the city of Los Angeles plays a role in their overall approach and methodologies when teaching architecture, technology, and emerging applications.

Ennemoser shares, "Los Angeles has, like many other cities, a vast repository of stunning and influential architecture. But what makes this city so special is, on the one hand, its unique urban fabric and on the other hand, its diverse and multidisciplinary demographic. In particular, the proximity to the entertainment industry is exciting for creative technologists who are seeking novel solutions that are driven by technological innovation." While Los Angeles is recognized as the "heart" of film and entertainment it's easy to forget its adjacent cities and how those places influence creativity and ingenuity within architectural spaces.

zel adds, "Los Angeles has become the creative tech capital of the U.S. in the last decade. Its proximity to Silicon Valley and large urban environments in Asia, as well as the entertainment and tech industries really make it the perfect setting for the kind of transdisciplinary research we do at the IDEAS campus. Often it feels like we explore exactly the same questions as an industry, where we experiment with technologies such as XR and machine learning simultaneously. There is a healthy exchange between our research and industry experts from companies such as Google, Microsoft, Unity, and others. It makes it very easy that they are all here or a short flight away."

Last year Archinect was able to dive into two other post master's programs held within the IDEAS Campus, the Entertainment Studio and the Urban Strategy Studio. When I asked zel and Ennemoser about what makes UCLA's Master of Science in Architecture and Design programs so unique they spoke of the space itself but also what excites them about the program.

"The M.S.AUD program special is that it combines the American and European models of post-graduate architectural education in an entrepreneurial way. It allows the students to take a deep dive into a topic of their interest for the entire year-long duration of their study and really immerse themselves into the questions and experimentations they are asked to engage," shared zel. "In addition, the IDEAS campus has some of the most cutting edge equipment an architecture student can have access to. Besides the typical digital fabrication facilities, we have two robotics labs that we utilize in a very unique way. Theyre not hidden in the basement but out in the middle of our main space."

"It is a multidisciplinary incubator where research and practice meet, intersect and collide," adds Ennemoser. Since the IDEAS campus houses all four post-graduate studios it provides a truly unique environment for multidisciplinary approaches to the field and its adjacent disciplines. "The most exciting part in this setup is the exchange between faculty and students from the different studios. All four studios focus on distinct topics but share the same notion of multidisciplinarity within the field of architecture."

When it comes to resources and tools, the IDEAS campus is versatile space. zel shared that testing and prototyping ideas can be done at full scale. Students and faculty are able to "create mockups outdoors and bring in experts from tangential fields to have discussions and feedback. In some ways, it would be almost impossible to have a program like IDEAS anywhere outside of LA due to these factors."

While it is not uncommon for faculty members to also run their own practices outside of their institution, being able to navigate within these two realms offers beneficial insight to their students. I asked them both about their experiences as practicing architects and how this shapes their curriculum.

GO:My research at UCLA Architecture and Urban Design is fully aligned with the projects I pursue at my design practice,zel Office. A significant number of the projects at the office, which usually happens in the scale of installations, focus on artificial intelligence, interactive sensor systems, robotics, computational design, and virtual reality to create reactive experiences and environments that are synchronized and responsive to human presence and senses. For example, my installation Cypher, an interactive soft robotic sculpture that teleports the user to its interior through Virtual Reality, was a direct result of the aligned research in academia and practice. Google was the main sponsor of the project, and later on, we engaged their experts in machine learning in our design reviews and student research. Deep City, a robotic machine-learning installation we debuted at the Istanbul Art Fair, became the testing ground for the machine learning and robotic motion algorithms we provided to the students later. We usually perfect a particular technical workflow in a professional setting, and freely provide the students the same system to further the research at the IDEAS campus in a streamlined way.Image courtesy of UCLA AUD

BE: Both practice and academia are two interdependent factors in my work. While academia is the driver for novelty, experimentation, and fresh ideas - practice determines the constraints, needs, and opportunities to deploy research to a much bigger scale and wider audience. In this regard, practice helps me to determine how our graduates can not just be competitive in the job market but become leaders in the field.

Intrigued by what tools the IDEAS campus uses I asked both zel and Ennemoser to expand on the types of technologies and techniques used in the program. Having been to the IDEAS campus a total of three times I was familiar with what was there but wanted to understand how these tools impact student learning.

BE: In the studio, we use a multitude of tools and techniques such as AI, VR/AR, robotics, game engines, physical computing, and procedural modeling. Usually, these tools synergize in an ecosystem of technologies. Meaning in one way or another all of them are carefully composited into custom solutions and workflows that inform the technology studios' agenda. In terms of pedagogy, this process allows us to speculate on design problems with novel and original solutions.

GO: We were one of the first schools to start using gaming engines as a design tool in 2014. Whats unique about gaming engines is that it allows you to design behaviors rather than just form. Procedural and parametric design tools are mere entryways in the IDEAS Technology Studio to introduce the students to the intersection of creative coding and design. Once we cross that threshold, we primarily focus on architecture as a cyber-physical system, which covers simulations of interactive buildings, design of natively digital environments, and representations of speculative urban future narratives. Through this approach, the students are able to create photorealistic videos, VR builds, and robotic transformation schemes all through the singular tool of gaming engines. This generalist workflow provides novel design propositions in multiple scales and outputs without burdening the students with too many technical problems.

In preparation for their upcoming virtual symposium, I knew the event's programming for showcasing student work in addition to its line up of guest panelists would be different. To gain more insight zel shared what to expect.

"The topic of the symposium directly relates to our studios research this year. As many of our students are not even in LA and we are mostly in contact through VR, we posed to them the problem of creating a virtual cocoon - a mixed reality overlay that digitally enhances the functionalities of their domestic environment. This research topic is the origin for the theme of the symposium. This has been the primary concern of not only designers and architects working with media lately but also large entertainment companies and corporations: How can we enhance the home? There is a dark side to this question, however. As the anthropogenic transformation of the natural world continues to become more contentious to human health and comfort, we are seeing ourselves progressively more reliant on the virtualization of real-world contexts for work, socialization, economy, and entertainment. As a material-centric discipline, the native stasis of architecture has traditionally been in the domain of the physical world; one that takes pride in its role as the orchestrator of permanence, continuity, and stability."

"Our current reality however requires us to question such a fundamental basis of architecture and re-focus our attention to its essence; the construction of artificial environments for human occupation: digital, physical, or both. Envisioning environments enhanced by and built with media, the symposium aims to investigate scenarios where occupants of such architectures travel seamlessly between the digital and physical worlds. How can we re-imagine the home as a spatial interface that accommodates enhanced modes of human interaction and engagement? The goal of the symposium is to explore the notion of being present in virtual frameworks, one that re-imagines a cybernetic form of space that is fluidly responsive to crises- one that interprets architecture as transient media rather than a vessel that negotiates between the violence of nature and the body."

zel and the studio have invited an exciting lineup of guest speakers who will be sharing and presenting their expertise within the fields of film, VR, media art, art, and technology. "We really have a fantastic multidisciplinary lineup of speakers ranging from artists to industry experts.

"Shari Frilot, the Chief Curator of Sundance Film Festival- New Frontiers, recently organized the first virtual version of Sundance with not only online screenings of accomplished films but also virtual environments that allow the creators and the film industry experts to socialize through avatars- it was really mind-blowing to see and experience. Tony Parasi, the Vice President of XR ads at Unity must have had his hands full in the last year since there has been so much interest in how Unity allows for creators to produce games, VR titles, and other digital content we all consumed exorbitantly. Aaron Koblin, a prolific media artist and co-founder of Within XR, has recently launched many VR titles including the virtual exercise platform Supernatural which has been one of the best things for me during the lockdown! And lastly, Lauren Lee McCarthy, who has over the years created some of the most poignant artworks relating to virtual presence, identity and privacy will talk about her mixed media projects spanning from full-scale installations to web interventions. All of our speakers are directly involved with finding meaning in occupying virtual worlds and what it means for contemporary society and architecture. I couldnt be more excited about their participation in our symposium."

Virtual Presence: Occupying New Realities Symposium will be this Saturday, February 20, 2021 from 5PM - 7PM PST. The event is free and open to the public but registration is required. To RSVP and reserve your spot click here.

Continued here:

Discussing Technology and 'Architecture as Transient Media' With Gven zel and Benjamin Ennemoser of UCLA's IDEAS Technology Studio - Archinect

Artist Jordan Fowler describes his exhibition of sculptures as artifacts of a different time.

Tangible: Where Art and Technology Converge opened Feb. 1 in The United Company Contemporary Regional Gallery at William King Museum of Art in Abingdon. Its an immersive experience that begs the question, how is technology shaping our own perceptions of reality?

Fowler combines traditional welding techniques with contemporary computer science to create interactive sculptures out of cement, found objects, packaging Styrofoam, and metal. The sculptures are created to look as though they were found in the ruins of a dystopian society, straight from the pages of a science fiction novel.

I choose to use ruins as a medium to spur contemplation; to think about the present and future from a different perspective. Its a way of abstracting materials and forms to find truths otherwise buried In a way, contemporary science fiction does this it tells stories that are removed from our context, allowing us to better understand predicaments we face in the present, Fowler said.

Interactive moving images, such as running water or shifting shadows, are then projected onto the sculptures. These lifelike, projected images are coded by Fowler himself, using a sequence of original computer algorithms. The combination of art and technology creates an immersive show that offers a one-of-a-kind experience for viewers.

The exhibition, which will remain on display through May 9, is organized by the William King Museum of Art and sponsored by Rea Charitable Trust.

COVID-19 safety measures have been put in place to protect community members who visit the exhibit. Free hand sanitizer and masks for guests are available at all entry points. Masks are required inside the building. Social distancing markers are in place to remind and encourage visitors to follow the six-feet-apart rule.

Programming accompanying this exhibition includes todays Tours at Two-Talk and Demo. The demo will be held from 1 to 2 p.m. with the tour and talk from 2 to 3 p.m.

William King Museum is open seven days a week with operating hours Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday from 1 to 5 p.m. Every First Thursday, the museum is open until 8 p.m. Admission is free.

William King Museum of Art is located at 415 Academy Drive, off West Main Street or Russell Road, in Abingdon. To learn more, about the museum and its programs, visit williamkingmuseum.org or call (276) 628-5005. You can also register for classes and events on the museum website.

Read more from the original source:

Art, technology converge in latest William King exhibit - Kingsport Times News

Enlarge / The iPhone 12 and 12 Pro, side by side.

Samuel Axon

Apple has posted multiple job listings indicating that it is hiring engineers to work on 6G technology internally so it does not have to rely on partners like Qualcomm as the next generation of wireless technology hits several years down the line.

The job listings, which were first spotted and reported by Bloomberg, include titles like "Wireless Research Systems Engineer - 5G/6G" and "RAN1/RAN4 Standards Engineer."

The roles are in the company's Cupertino headquarters, as well as in San Diego, where Apple opened offices specifically to focus on wireless and silicon technologies, with an apparent aim to snipe talent from Qualcomm's San Diego HQ.

Apple introduced its first 5G iPhones in the iPhone 12 lineup late last year, and those phones use Qualcomm modems. But recent reports have already revealed that Apple plans to design its own modems so it can drop the Qualcomm components from future phones, just as it is developing its own silicon for Macs now to ultimately replace Intel chips in most of the product lineup.

Total end-to-end integration of all parts of the hardware, software, and services in devices has long been both a key marketing point and an internal guiding principle for product development at Apple. The company says it believes this approach enables better products and experiences for users, but it also allows Apple to forge ahead with less and less dependence on other actors to achieve success.

Apple recently joined the industry group "Next G Alliance" with other companies like LG and Google to work together to define the specifications for 6G, which is nascent and not expected to reach consumers for many years yet. There are no details yet about either the timeline, specifications, or features of 6G. 5G is only just rolling out in the past couple of years, and the vast majority of the globe does not yet have access to 5G or the full capabilities thereof.

So when Apple joins groups like the Next G Alliance or hires for positions like these, it's not generally going to tell us much about near-future product plans. That said, reports of the company's progress on its own modems suggest that Apple is likely to reach that capability before 6G rolls out, so the first Apple-made modems will probably be 5G, not 6G.

In our reviews of the iPhone 12 lineup last year, we found that 5G had a significant negative impact on the phones' battery life. Future modem refinements may reduce that impact.

Read more here:

Apple is already working on developing 6G wireless technology - Ars Technica

The Concordium Foundation (Concordium) and the Geely Holding Group (Geely) have signed a Joint Venture agreement. The joint venture will use Concordiums Blockchain Technology to become a leading Blockchain Technology- and Service Provider in China.

The Joint Venture will allow Geely and Concordium to offer businesses and customers access to new blockchain platform-based business models and user DApps for all industries, including the automotive segment. The JV marks a new era of collaboration, using Concordiums strong cryptographic, safe, non-permission based Blockchain with ID at the protocol level and Geelys technological leadership and implementation power in the Chinese market.

According to the agreement, Geely will own 80 percent of the JV and 20 percent will be owned by Concordium. The joint venture will be operationally co-managed by both parties.

The transformation of industry and the advancement of society have always been driven by new technology development. Similarly, the growth of Geely has always been through making the latest technologies available to people. The JV is one of the next steps to cement this technology leadership.

Blockchain technology provides a technical foundation for win-win collaboration and building mutual trust and safe, secure, quick transactions and interesting platform opportunities.

Concordium and its Concordium Blockchain Research Center Aarhus contributes to the technology with its leading global research of Cryptographic primitives for Blockchain, and in the field of Zero-knowledge proofs, peer-to-peer, other spearheading blockchain research, and world-class computer science.

Being the first step in the strategic alliance between Concordium and Geely, the new company is expected to be operational in 2021, subject to regulatory approvals.

The JV will provide a blockchain and assist customers in building business use-cases and solutions in various industries by focusing on relevant cutting-edge techs, i.e., Digital Identity, Regulatory Technologies, Privacy Enhancement Technologies.

The joint venture will cooperate with Genius & Guru, a company wholly owned by Geely. Together the two partners will build business use-cases and solutions in various industries.

Aiming at serving future finance and promoting new technologies in finance, Genius & Guru tries to build an open financial ecosystem with fintech at its core. Headquartered in Beijing, Genius & Guru has invested in financial institutions and fintech companies across several major cities in China, such as Beijing and Shanghai, and Copenhagen, Denmark.

Daniel Donghui Li, CEO of Zhejiang Geely Holding Group said: This cooperation between Concordium and Geely is of great significance to both parties. We are actively pursuing transformational technologies by building alliances, and synergizing global resources to create greater value for our end users. Being able to leverage Concordiums world-class blockchain technology will set industry standards with its underlying infrastructure for blockchain applications. By joining forces in China we will apply and develop this technology further and explore pathways to build a leading blockchain industry ecology to reduce the cost of trust and provide companies with access to a platform with the tools they need to develop blockchain-based applications together and grow in the Internet of Value.

Concordium is excited about this Joint Venture which will enable us to empower Chinese clients with one of the leading blockchain technologies of the world, and also gain synergies from one of the leading companies in China within fast-moving technologies, for the future development of Concordium, said Lars Seier Christensen, the Chairman of the Concordium Foundation.

He adds: For businesses, Blockchain is still a novel technology, ready to be used for business applications. We are excited about enabling this possibility: Join, lean in, learn, and be part of our community. Were welcoming new participants who want to learn, build, validate and use our Blockchain. And its not only for the CTOs to understand; its for the strategic business developers, for the CFO, and not least for the CEO.

SOURCE: Geely

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Geely and Concordium announce joint venture to provide blockchain technology- and service in China backed by Concordium's blockchain technology -...

This pattern has long been observed in studies of environmental and climate justice, as the titles in this month's bookshelf show. Vulnerable communities of color face more and more serious exposure to environmental hazards and have more limited access to economic, social, and political remedies.

In addition to the overviews and historical and regional case studies illustrating and documenting this pattern, this bookshelf feature includes non-governmental organization reports detailing the poor performance of EPA's Superfund program; updating the results of efforts by environmental NGOs and foundations to diversify their organizations; and describing best practices for "covering climate equitably."

As with previous YCC bookshelves, the abbreviated descriptions of the books and reports listed below are drawn from copy provided by their publishers or issuing organizations. When two dates of publication are listed, the second refers to the release of the paperback edition.

Environmental Justice in a Moment of Danger, by Julie Sze (University of California Press 2020, 160 pages, $18.95 paperback)

We are living in a precarious environmental and political moment. In the US and around the world, environmental injustices have manifested across racial and class divides in devastatingly disproportionate ways. What can we learn from environmental justice struggles? Environmental Justice in a Moment of Danger examines mobilizations and movements, from protests at Standing Rock to activism in Puerto Rico in the wake of Hurricane Maria. Environmental justice movements fight, survive, love, and create in the face of violence that challenges the conditions of life itself. Exploring dispossession, deregulation, privatization, and inequality, this book is the essential primer on environmental justice, packed with cautiously hopeful stories for the future.

A Terrible Thing to Waste: Environmental Racism and Its Assault on the American Mind, by Harriet A. Washington (Little, Brown & Co. 2019/2020, 368 pages, $17.99 paperback)

From injuries caused by lead poisoning to the devastating effects of atmospheric pollution, infectious disease, and industrial waste, Americans of color are harmed by environmental hazards in staggeringly disproportionate numbers. This systemic onslaught causes irreparable physical harm to millions of people. But these deadly environments create another insidious and often overlooked consequence: robbing communities of color of intellectual power. Science writer Harriet A. Washington investigates heavy metals, neurotoxins, bad nutrition, and even pathogens as agents influencing intelligence to explain why communities of color are disproportionately affected. A Terrible Thing to Waste is sure to outrage, transform, and inspire debate.

Katrina: A History, 1915-2015, by Andy Horowitz (Harvard University Press 2020, 296 pages, $35.00)

Hurricane Katrina made landfall in New Orleans on August 29, 2005, but the decisions that caused the disaster extend across the twentieth century. After the city weathered a major hurricane in 1915, its Board believed that developers could safely build housing in lowlands. When the flawed levee system surrounding the city and its suburbs failed, these were the neighborhoods that were devastated. Andy Horowitz investigates the response to the flood, and he explores how the profits and liabilities created by Louisiana's oil industry have been distributed unequally. Laying bare the relationship between structural inequality and physical infrastructure Katrina offers a chilling glimpse of the future disasters we are already creating.

Climate Change from the Streets: How Conflict and Collaboration Strengthen the Environmental Justice Movement, by Michael Mendez (Yale University Press 2020, 304 pages, $30.00)

Environmental planner Michael Mndez tells a timely story of people, place, and power in the context of climate change and inequality. He explores the perspectives and influence low income people of color bring to their advocacy work on climate change. In California, activist groups have galvanized behind issues such as air pollution, poverty alleviation, and green jobs to advance equitable climate solutions at the local, state, and global levels. Arguing that environmental protection and improving public health are inextricably linked, Mendez contends that we must incorporate local knowledge, culture, and history into policymaking to fully address the global complexities of climate change and the real threats facing our local communities.

Unsustainable Inequalities: Social Justice and the Environment, by Lucas Channel (Harvard University Press 2020, 184 pages, $29.95)

Can we fight poverty and inequality while protecting the environment? The challenges are obvious. To rise out of poverty is to consume more resources, almost by definition. And many measures to combat pollution lead to job losses and higher prices that mainly hurt the poor. In Unsustainable Inequalities, economist Lucas Chancel confronts these difficulties head-on. She begins by reviewing the problems. Human actions have put the natural world under unprecedented pressure. The poor are least to blame yet suffer the most. But policy pioneers worldwide are charting a way forward. The rare work that combines the skills of an economist with the rigor of a philosopher, Unsustainable Inequalities shows that there is still hope.

Revolutionary Power: An Activist's Guide to the Energy Transition, by Shalanda H. Baker (Island Press 2021, 224 pages, $32.00 paperback)

In September 2017, Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico, completely upending the energy grid of the brown and black US citizens who call the island home. Revolutionary Power arms those made most vulnerable by our current energy system with the tools they need to remake the system in the service of their humanity. In it, Shalanda Baker tells the stories of those who have been left behind, drawing from her experience as an energy-justice advocate, a lawyer, and a queer woman of color to inspire activists working to build our new energy system. This unique moment in history provides an unprecedented opening for a deeper transformation of the energy system, and, thus, an opportunity to transform society. Revolutionary Power shows us how.

The Contamination of the Earth: A History of Pollutions in the Industrial Age, by Francois Jarrige and Thomas Le Roux (The MIT Press 2020, 480 pages, $39.95)

The Contamination of the Earth offers a social and political history of industrial pollution, mapping its trajectories over three centuries, from the toxic wastes of early tanneries to the fossil fuel energy regime of the twentieth century. The authors describe how, from 1750 onward, polluted water and air came to be seen as inevitable side effects of industrialization. By the 19th century, pollutants became constituent elements of modernity. The 20th century saw new and massive scales of pollution, in part due to a lifestyle defined by consumption. In the 1970s, pollution became a political issue, but efforts to regulate it often fell short. Viewing the history of pollution though a political lens, the authors offer lessons for the future of the industrial world.

Waste: One Woman's Fight Against America's Dirty Secret, by Catherine Coleman Flowers (New Press 2020, 224 pages, $25.99)

MacArthur "genius" Catherine Coleman Flowers grew up in Lowndes County, Alabama, a place often called "Bloody Lowndes" because of its violent, racist history. Once the epicenter of the voting rights struggle, today it's Ground Zero for a movement that is Flowers's life's work. It's a fight to ensure human dignity through a right most Americans take for granted: basic sanitation. Too many people, especially the rural poor, lack an affordable means of disposing cleanly of the waste from their toilets. Flowers calls this America's dirty secret. In Waste, Flowers tells the story of the systemic prejudices that foster these Third World conditions. She shows how sanitation is too big a problem to ignore as climate change brings sewage to more backyards.

Superfund Underfunded: How Taxpayers Have Been Left with a Toxic Financial Burden, by Jillian Gordner (US PIRG/Environment America 2021, 174 pages, free download available here)

In 1980, Congress passed the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act, informally called Superfund, to hold polluters responsible for cleaning up contaminated waste sites or clean up the sites themselves if no responsible party could afford the cleanup. Originally funded by a tax on petro-chemical industries that expired in 1995, money for the Superfund program now comes primarily through general revenues. But as appropriations decreased over the past two decades, cleanup has slowed. From 1999 to 2020, annual appropriations decreased by more than a billion dollars. In FY 2020, EPA started or completed the fewest cleanup actions in the history of the Superfund programputting more people at risk.

Struggles for Climate Justice: Uneven Geographies and the Politics of Connection, by Brandon Derman (Palgrave Macmillan 2020, 261 pages, $74.99 soft cover)

How should we understand campaigns for climate justice? What do these initiatives share, and what differentiates them? What, in fact, does "climate justice" mean in these contexts? And what do the framing and progression of such efforts in different settings suggest about the broader conditions that produce and sustain climate injustice, how those conditions could be unmade, and what might take their place? In Struggles for Climate Justice, environmental studies professor Brandon Derman approaches these questions from an interdisciplinary perspective accessible to graduate and advanced undergraduate students as well as scholars of geography, social movements, environmental politics, policy, and socio-legal studies.

The 2020 NGO and Foundation Transparency Report, by Staff of Green 2.0 (Diverse Green 2021, 101 pages, free download here)

For the fourth year in a row, Green 2.0 an independent advocacy campaign to increase racial and ethnic diversity within the mainstream environmental movement presents diversity data from the movement's most influential non-profit organizations ("NGOs") and foundations. The 2020 Green 2.0 Transparency Report Card reflects data collected from the 40 largest NGOs and 40 largest foundations on the number of women and people of color on their full-time staffs, senior staffs, and boards. This year's results are colored by two major national news events the COVID-19 pandemic and the nationwide protests over racial justice that likely influenced the participation we received. Green 2.0 hopes to add more groups to this list in future years.

Covering Climate Equitably: A Guide for Journalists, by Erica Priggen Wright, Vanice Dunn, Katie Parrish, and Benjamin Gass (The Solutions Project with Conspire for Good and Provoc 2020, 36 pages, free download available here)

Years of environmental justice research reveals that people of color and low-income communities are disproportionately affected by pollution and climate change. But when The Solutions Project and Conspire for Good reviewed over 2,300 renewable energy articles in 2019, they found that only 2% of the articles referenced communities of color, down from 7% in 2018, and only 6% of the articles talked about issues of equity or justice. Covering Climate Equitably: A Guide for Journalists includes tips on looking at potential stories through an equity lens and handling some common challenges. It also includes a glossary of terms, guidance on language choices, lists of sources and contacts, and case studies that show how to produce outstanding stories.

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NASA Technology Could Help Save the World's Largest Shark - EcoWatch

Jim Al-Khalili - theoretical physicist, author, broadcaster and judge on this years Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering - discusses why innovation in technology is more important today than ever.

As the only physicist on the panel of judges on this years Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering, Jim Al-Khalili says that initially a feeling of impostor syndrome fleetingly entered his mind, but I think as a scientist Im there to offer a different perspective. After all, he ventures, if science is about increasing our knowledge of the world, then engineering is about how we then use that knowledge, turning it into technologies that help us.

Al-Khalili is echoing the words of Her Majesty the Queen, who at the presentation of the inaugural award in her name in 2013 said: At its heart, engineering is about using science to find creative, practical solutions. He also makes the point that since there is no Nobel Prize in engineering, the QEPrize is an important and welcome addition for the profession.

He says: As a physicist, I enjoy coming at this from a different angle. From a direction of having developed that knowledge, Im often surprised by how it has been put to use in ways that most people simply arent aware of. Today, more than ever, we should be grateful for the clever ideas that have gone into making our lives easier and safer.

Perhaps best known to the public as the presenter of the BBC Radio 4 programme The Life Scientific, the 58-year-old British theoretical physicist was born in Baghdad to an English mother and Iraqi father. He grew up in both Iraq and later the UK, where he settled at the age of 16, completed his school education and progressed to the University of Surrey, where I still am now. I was a student here in the 1980s, did my PhD in nuclear physics and have been an academic all my career. This last point needs expanding in that, while he takes great pride in his 29-year unbroken record of teaching undergraduates without taking a sabbatical (and currently supervises five PhD students), he has over the past quarter of a century, gradually become more involved in science communication public engagement. I now spend half of my time as an academic and the other half in public science: broadcasting, television, radio, writing, public lectures and so on.

He is slightly bashful over the grandeur of his job title at the University of Surrey Distinguished Professor of Physics which is a pat on the back and sounds nice, but I also hold a chair in the public engagement in science, which the university created for me back in 2005, not because it came with any additional responsibility; rather as an acknowledgement that Al-Khalili spends so much of his time communicating science to a non-specialist public.

With so much of the UKs education programme affected by restrictions during the coronavirus pandemic, Al-Khalili thinks he might be the wrong person to talk to on the subject, because when it comes to his departments ability to continue teaching, Ive been more fortunate than most. This he accepts is a result of the subjects he teaches. One of his undergraduate courses is on Einsteins Theory of Relativity. Its a mathematical course, he explains, which means it is more suited to online teaching than, say, engineering or medical courses, where a lot of what you are doing involves practical work in laboratories with equipment, designing experiments.

He goes on to say that despite persevering via video platforms, a lot of the students I teach have been dramatically affected by the shift to remote learning. For much of the past academic year, Al-Khalili has taught his students from a computer terminal in his study in Portsmouth the university is an hour away on the train and I dont go up to campus unless I need to... only a handful of times since the first lockdown last spring, in fact. It has affected the way I deliver. These days lectures and tutorials are via Zoom, but because of my subject matter, its not been that critical. Its not influenced the way that I get my subject matter across as much as it has my colleagues. Ive been lucky, but I do have undergraduate students who I mentor and provide pastoral care for who have struggled and felt isolated.

Al-Khalili is impressed by how much resourcefulness has been shown in harnessing communications technology, particularly in the STEM learning environment. Thank goodness for all the innovations and technologies we have in place. If this had happened when I was a student in the 1980s, we wouldnt have at our fingertips the internet and broadband access that has enabled the high-quality video conferencing and distance learning today.

In fact, previous awards of the Queen Elizabeth Prize were for exactly this sort of development. What we are rewarding, he says, referring to his experience as a judge on the 2021 awards, is innovation that has made life less difficult.

Al-Khalili makes the observation that for this years cycle of the QEPrize hes the only non-engineer on the panel. Im surrounded by engineers, he says, drawing my attention to his own engineering heritage: My father was an electrical engineer. My brother studied chemical engineering. My son studied electronic engineering. So, Im surrounded by them. He then goes on to tell what appears to be a sentimentally tangential anecdote about his sons decision to study engineering at university. I thought he would follow in my footsteps by going into physics, but he said: No, Dad. You can do the deep thinking. I want to do something useful. That was his distinction between theoretical physics and engineering.

Yet, says Al-Khalili, this distinction pulls into focus what the QEPrize is all about. If you look at the Nobel Prizes in physics and chemistry, he explains, they are about specific breakthroughs, discoveries that can potentially lead on to something great. Similarly, with the QEPrize, if you look at the nominations, the world would be a different place without all this. Were looking at innovations in technology that have changed the lives of billions of people. Thats whats so hard about being a judge: how the heck do you decide? Well, that ones changed the life of two billion people, but this ones affected three billion. The point being that the innovations under review, have really changed the world. And the prize acknowledges that. As my son says: people whove done something useful.

Al-Khalili thinks one of the positive outcomes of the gear shift in the way weve lived our lives in the past year is that by and large the public is becoming more aware of the debt we owe to these technologies. Prize nominations can seem quite obscure to the non-technical person, especially when were dealing with a piece of technology that underpins another technology. Yet when you unpack all this, you start to realise just how pervasive GPS for instance some of these technologies really are. This way of looking at innovation is particularly relevant today, he says, not just because were all on Zoom and Teams. Im talking about whats going on in biomedical engineering that goes into creating vaccines. There are engineers working on fluid dynamics which is boring to the average person but what they are doing is understanding how the virus is transmitted by the air inside buildings. Because we are living in a time when we owe our lives to innovations in technology, people are more prepared to acknowledge the work that goes into these developments.

When it comes to his media career, Al-Khalili is keen to make the distinction between radio journalist and broadcaster. One of the reasons that he thinks The Life Scientific works so well is that hes not an investigator with an agenda to challenge or expose his guests. I make the point to my producers that Im a fellow scientist first and foremost. Isee journalists as commenting on other peoples work, but in fact Im one of those other people, allowing him to discuss a shared passion in kinship rather than confrontation. Al-Khalili says that elsewhere in the medias, he has found himself frustrated by stories that appear to be contaminated by bias, or present opinion asfact.

At the time of speaking, hes putting the final flourishes on a new book provisionally entitled Towards Rational Life in which he examines, how we can benefit from some of the ideas from the scientific method: the existence of uncertainty, being prepared to admit your mistakes, reproducibility of results, valuing evidence over opinion. These are the concepts, he explains, that weas scientists and engineers apply in our daily work.

Tackling problems such as fake news and misinformation at a time when the public relies so heavily on the quality of news distributed by the media, is one of those areas where society could benefit from the scientific method. But its not just about each person having to combat their own cognitive dissonance and bias: I think science and technology is going to have to be brought into play to tackle things like fake news, developing monitoring systems, safeguarding against cyber crime, developing AI to sift through the deluge of data, to help us to decide what is fake and what is true: what is misinformation and what is reliable evidence. There needs to be a joint effort, he says, of society adopting the critical thinking and rational approach that a scientist uses, along with the technical innovations that engineers develop.

You cant talk with Al-Khalili for long without the emphasis swinging back to physics, without realising that its not just his job, but his passion. Having put in the hard yards over three decades he feels he has reached a stage in his career where hes no longer under pressure to churn out the publications publish or perish and can now explore what I find fascinating and interesting. This has led him along the path of becoming more involved in the foundational questions in physics, such as the meaning of quantum mechanics or the nature of the direction of time. Its all quite deep and abstract, he says, conceding that none of this will exactly help us get past coronavirus or develop new technologies.

However, it is indicative of where physics may be heading in the 21st century. The real questions arent necessarily about what is the next particle to be found after the Higgs boson, or whether string theory is correct or if parallel universes exist. What will become important, says Al-Khalili, is how physics feeds into and gets folded up with other disciplines. I remind him of the old clich that trots out the idea of biology being to the 21st century what physics was to the 20th. Its not an idea that impresses him and he is glad that we are moving past it: When we talk about biology in the 21st century were are talking about areas like bioengineering and genetics that will transform our lives. But those subjects dont just rely on biology. Its going to be the century of interdisciplinary science and engineering not the century of just one subject. Interdisciplinarity is what we are seeing happening.

To press home his point, he ventures that possibly one of the reasons he was invited on to the QEPrize board of judges, is because you dont just want engineers judging engineering. I put it to him that hes there to provide the checks and balances that will stop the engineers promoting the practical over the abstract. But he doesnt much like that idea either, preferring to think of his role as bringing a further perspective on an already integrated set of disciplines. Sure, physics and engineering are different. We may use the same mathematics, computer programs, techniques and methodologies, but they are different. Were seeing them mixing up with medicine, biology, genetics and AI.

So where will physics go in the future? Its going to become embedded within new areas. In 50 years time, we wont be teaching kids physics, chemistry and biology. We will be teaching them biomedical engineering. Well be teaching them science ethics in genetics, or environment and climate studies. These are all areas that include physics. Yet those boundaries, those silos will fade away and disappear. In fact, physics, says one of the UKs most prominent public faces of the discipline, will almost become lost in all these interdisciplinary ways of working. And thats exciting.

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'We owe our lives to innovations in technology': Jim Al-Khalili - E&T Magazine

SO PAULO, Feb. 19, 2021 /PRNewswire/ --In 2020, for the fourth consecutive year, ingredients from the multinational Duas Rodas feature among the most innovative in Brazil, according to Food Ingredients Innovation Awards. The award aims to promote innovation and recognise the creation of products from the sector that offer benefits to consumers.

Associated with growing health and indulgence movements, Off-SAT is an exclusive technology that enables a reduction of up to 90% in saturated fat in laminated, extruded or moulded biscuits.

Without altering the flavour, aroma or crispiness of the standard biscuit, the technology offers a vital alternative to the industry regarding nutritional food labelling, which highlights the large amount of fat and other ingredients in the final product.

Made with naturally-sourced ingredients, the solution acts in combination with the use of vegetable oils that have a more healthy appeal, and can produce formulations with fewer calories but with proteins and fibre. It has no polyols, allergens, colourings or GMOs.

Steven Rumsey, Director of Innovation and Technology at Duas Rodas, stresses that this excellent result acknowledges the work of the team of specialists focused on aspects of functionality and superior flavour in line with the global market needs.

The exclusive saturated fat replacement technology is the result of two years' work undertaken by the specialists, which conducted in-depth studies on new raw material technologies as well as tests, assessments, comparisons and stability observations and performance in use.

OFF-SAT is the result of the synergy between ingredients and technologies, and retains the same sensory attributes, structure and shelf life as the standard formulations that use saturated fat.

"For us, innovation is the main driver of business competitiveness and sustainability, an assertive strategy that we are reinforcing by bringing this exclusive technology to the market," said Rosemeri Francener, International Business Director.

With more than 10,000 customers in over 30 countries, Duas Rodas offers 3,000 items, including aromas, natural extracts, condiments, additives, ice-cream products, chocolate and confectionery. Established in Brazil by German immigrants 95 years ago, the company has seven factories in Latin America. It has products with international certifications such as Kosher, Halal, Organic Products and Fair for Life, in addition to FSSC 22000 and SMETA.

More information:

Suzana Klein, Duas Rodas Communications Department. E-mail: suzana.klein@duasrodas.com l Telephone +55 (47) 3372-9016

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OFF-SAT, a saturated fat reduction technology from Duas Rodas, featured among the most innovative food ingredients of 2020 - WFMZ Allentown

United Nations Secretary-General, Antnio Guterres, and World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, have announced that a Global Diabetes Compact will be launched on 14 April 2021 to mark the 100-year anniversary of the discovery of insulin for the treatment of diabetes. The centenary offers a window of opportunity for the global diabetes community to come together to reflect on addressing barriers to accessing insulin and associated health technology products. It is an opportune time to forge a common vision among all stakeholders to develop a multisectoral plan of action to address these barriers and ensure that no person living with diabetes goes untreated.

The WHO Department of Noncommunicable Diseases (NCD), in collaboration with the Division of Medicines and Health Products, is convening a series of biannual dialogues with the private sector to define meaningful and effective contributions to the implementation of national responses for the prevention, management and control of NCDs and the attainment of related Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) targets. The dialogues will focus on mobilizing commitments and contributions by the private sector toward national NCD responses to achieve SDG targets 3.4, 3.8 and 3b by improving access to and affordability of safe, effective and quality-assured medicines and health technology products.

Improving access to medicines and health technology products for the diagnosis, management and treatment of diabetes is multi-faceted and part of a broader challenge of ensuring access to health care. It requires a robust health system which includes good leadership and governance, adequate financing, access to information and evidence, quality service delivery, a strong health workforce, and equitable access to essential medicines and health technology products of assured quality, safety, efficacy and cost-effectiveness. Effective interventions will require enhanced collaboration and commitment for greater impact at country-level. The first dialogue in the series, which is being held on 23-24 February 2021, will focus on improving access to human insulin and associated health technology products for diabetes as part of the Global Diabetes Compact. Subsequent dialogues will focus on other NCDs, such as cardiovascular disease, cancer, lung diseases, oral health, rehabilitation, sensory impairments and disability.

This first dialogue aims to encourage inputs, commitments, and contributions from the pharmaceutical and health technology product industries to support WHOs activities to improve access to medicines and health technology products for diabetes, including for the 14 April 2021 launch of the Global Diabetes Compact.

A summary report of this meeting will be available on this website after the meeting.

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Dialogue with the private sector on medicines and technologies for diabetes care, February 2021 - World Health Organization

The global Protein Expression and Purification Technology Market report includes an overview, which interprets value chain structure, industrial environment, regional analysis, applications, types market size, and forecast. The report is integrated with imperative insights on the market which will support the clients to make precise business decisions. The report incorporates data regarding the supply and demand situation, the competitive scenario, and the challenges for market growth, market opportunities, and the threats encountered by key players during the forecast period of 2021-2025. This is the latest report, covering the current COVID-19 impact on the market. The pandemic of Coronavirus (COVID-19) has affected every aspect of life globally.

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Protein Expression and Purification Technology Market Trend Shows A Rapid Growth By 2025 | Marketinsightsreports KSU | The Sentinel Newspaper - KSU |...

The highs and lows of this years Australian Open have been delighting fans around the world, especially during global lockdowns. But not everyone is able to enjoy the thrill of live sports in the same way. For the tennis fans among the 600,000 blind and visually impaired people in Australiaand millions more around the worldexperiencing sports broadcasts can be underwhelming. Kala Petronijevic, a young girl who has low vision, says her dad has to commentate every move to her. Maurice Gleeson, a blind tennis fan and the CEO of Blind Sports and Recreation Victoria, says: Tennis, sadly, hasnt been anywhere near as accessible as I would like.

But, this weekend, the blind and low vision community (BLV) will have a brand-new way to experience the upcoming mens and womens finals.

[Image: courtesy AKQA]For many months, digital agency AKQA and researchers from Monash University in Melbourne, have been finding a way to make watching tennis more accessible. With investment from Tennis Australia, the countrys tennis governing body, theyve developed Action Audio, which takes visual, spatial data from the tennis court and converts it into audio.

Its a confluence of two existing technologies, says Tim Devine, AKQAs executive creative director. The spatial data is captured by Hawk-Eye, a computer vision system already used in various sports, which is made up of a series of high-speed cameras that track the trajectory of a ball in real time. Its often referred to as electronic line calling (or goal-line technology in soccer). In fact, for the first time the Australian Open has this year done away with human line judges in favor of these robo-referees.

The new system converts that spatial data into 3D audio, or binaural sound. Thats the best way to digitally hear audio as we do in real life, where we instinctively know where, exactly, a sound is coming from. Its a much more complex version of the older concept of surround sound. The technology has lately been developing fast due to its usefulness for virtual reality.

See what its like during a tennis match:

In tennis, that means people can hear different audio sounds according to exactly what the ball is doing, instead of just hearing an indistinguishable mono sound whenever the ball hits the ground. The team wanted to re-create the sensation of hearing a ball flying into the corner of the court at 180 kilometers (more than 110 miles) per hour, for example. Its incredible, and I think you miss out on that if you just hear a hit, Devine says.

Now try it without any visuals:

With Action Audio, different elements of the game have different sound cues. (They used some of the concepts from blind tennis, Devine says, where the ball often contains beads to make it rattle or jingle.) You hear a blip each time the ball hits the ground, in your left or right ear, depending on where the ball is. The closer the ball is to the perimeter of the court, the more blips you hear. As the ball moves around in the air, you hear a jingling bell sound. You hear a high pitch for forehands and a low pitch for backhands.

I can actually hear everythingand I can see the ball, for some reason, says Petronijevic, after experiencing the new system. I wouldnt watch it any other way, says Adam Fayad, who also has low vision. You can just enjoy the game so much better.

[Photo: courtesy AKQA]Action Audio was already available for the wheelchair singles final, and will be available for both the mens and womens singles finals this weekend. People can tune in digitally on the Tennis Australia website; Australian residents can also hear it on Vision Australia Radio, a collection of stations that offer programming for the visually impaired. All thats needed is a regular set of headphones (it will work without them, but the experience is less immersive).

For the developers, tennis seemed like a good place to start for sonifying sport, since it involves only two players, with few other distractions. Itll be more complex for sports with more elements, like soccer or cricket, since the technology is fundamentally about deconstructing the experience to all the individual actions that contribute to a live sport experience and finding a way to represent them sonically.

The key may be in a new app that the team has developed. Using similar audio recognition techniques as Shazam, the app works to detect any live sports broadcast and overlay the 3D audio technology onto that game. It would essentially create a secondary audio stream for the broadcast. This isnt a difficult thing for broadcasters to pick up, Devine says, adding that its most important to keep working with the BLV community to hear what they need to create the most meaningful experiences. Now, its time to continue to listen again, he says, and get people to help shape the next sport, the next iteration.

See the original post here:

New technology allows blind people to experience live tennis - Fast Company

This unusual options alert can help traders discover the next big trading opportunities. Traders will search for circumstances when the market estimation of an option diverges heavily from its normal worth. Unusual trading activity could push option prices to exaggerated or underestimated levels.

Here's the list of some unusual options activity happening in today's session:

These bullet-by-bullet explanations have been constructed using the accompanying table.

Regarding AAPL (NASDAQ:AAPL), we observe a call option trade with bearish sentiment. It expires in 7 day(s) on February 26, 2021. Parties traded 200 contract(s) at a $130.00 strike. The total cost received by the writing party (or parties) was $35.4K, with a price of $177.0 per contract. There were 16421 open contracts at this strike prior to today, and today 28663 contract(s) were bought and sold.

For SABR (NASDAQ:SABR), we notice a call option sweep that happens to be bearish, expiring in 28 day(s) on March 19, 2021. This event was a transfer of 375 contract(s) at a $14.00 strike. This particular call needed to be split into 26 different trades to become filled. The total cost received by the writing party (or parties) was $50.6K, with a price of $135.0 per contract. There were 2524 open contracts at this strike prior to today, and today 20333 contract(s) were bought and sold.

For ERIC (NASDAQ:ERIC), we notice a put option trade that happens to be bearish, expiring in 28 day(s) on March 19, 2021. This event was a transfer of 11000 contract(s) at a $12.00 strike. The total cost received by the writing party (or parties) was $165.0K, with a price of $15.0 per contract. There were 9687 open contracts at this strike prior to today, and today 11381 contract(s) were bought and sold.

For MRVL (NASDAQ:MRVL), we notice a call option sweep that happens to be bearish, expiring in 28 day(s) on March 19, 2021. This event was a transfer of 300 contract(s) at a $60.00 strike. This particular call needed to be split into 8 different trades to become filled. The total cost received by the writing party (or parties) was $34.5K, with a price of $115.0 per contract. There were 44097 open contracts at this strike prior to today, and today 5974 contract(s) were bought and sold.

For FUBO (NYSE:FUBO), we notice a call option sweep that happens to be bearish, is expiring today. Parties traded 500 contract(s) at a $44.00 strike. This particular call needed to be split into 3 different trades to become filled. The total cost received by the writing party (or parties) was $28.0K, with a price of $56.0 per contract. There were 2314 open contracts at this strike prior to today, and today 5542 contract(s) were bought and sold.

Regarding MU (NASDAQ:MU), we observe a call option sweep with bullish sentiment. It expires in 28 day(s) on March 19, 2021. Parties traded 526 contract(s) at a $87.50 strike. This particular call needed to be split into 10 different trades to become filled. The total cost received by the writing party (or parties) was $302.4K, with a price of $575.0 per contract. There were 6550 open contracts at this strike prior to today, and today 4961 contract(s) were bought and sold.

Regarding INSG (NASDAQ:INSG), we observe a call option sweep with bullish sentiment. It expires in 28 day(s) on March 19, 2021. Parties traded 200 contract(s) at a $20.00 strike. This particular call needed to be split into 6 different trades to become filled. The total cost received by the writing party (or parties) was $26.0K, with a price of $130.0 per contract. There were 7888 open contracts at this strike prior to today, and today 4860 contract(s) were bought and sold.

For INTC (NASDAQ:INTC), we notice a call option sweep that happens to be bearish, expiring in 28 day(s) on March 19, 2021. This event was a transfer of 200 contract(s) at a $62.50 strike. This particular call needed to be split into 18 different trades to become filled. The total cost received by the writing party (or parties) was $48.0K, with a price of $240.0 per contract. There were 23300 open contracts at this strike prior to today, and today 2025 contract(s) were bought and sold.

Regarding EBON (NASDAQ:EBON), we observe a call option sweep with bullish sentiment. It expires in 28 day(s) on March 19, 2021. Parties traded 200 contract(s) at a $20.00 strike. This particular call needed to be split into 11 different trades to become filled. The total cost received by the writing party (or parties) was $41.0K, with a price of $205.0 per contract. There were 2375 open contracts at this strike prior to today, and today 1868 contract(s) were bought and sold.

For SQ (NYSE:SQ), we notice a put option sweep that happens to be bearish, expiring in 7 day(s) on February 26, 2021. This event was a transfer of 239 contract(s) at a $250.00 strike. This particular put needed to be split into 27 different trades to become filled. The total cost received by the writing party (or parties) was $74.0K, with a price of $310.0 per contract. There were 1170 open contracts at this strike prior to today, and today 1235 contract(s) were bought and sold.

Options Alert Terminology- Call Contracts: The right to buy shares as indicated in the contract.- Put Contracts: The right to sell shares as indicated in the contract.- Expiration Date: When the contract expires. One must act on the contract by this date if one wants to use it.- Premium/Option Price: The price of the contract.

For more information, visit our Guide to Understanding Options Alerts or read more news on unusual options activity.

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10 Information Technology Stocks With Unusual Options Alerts In Today's Session - Benzinga

SAN ANTONIO, Feb. 18, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Please note this release is the corrected version to replace a release issued under the same headline earlier today by Rackspace Technology, Inc. (Nasdaq: RXT). The corrected release follows:

Fourth Quarter Revenue of $716 million, up 14% Year-over-Year; 2020 Revenue of $2,707 million, up 11% Year-over-Year

Fourth Quarter Bookings of $293 million, an increase of 27% Year-over-Year; 2020 Bookings of $1,126 million, an increase of 61% Year-over-Year

Fourth Quarter Net loss of $(64) million, or $(0.32) per diluted share; 2020 Net loss of $(246) million, or $(1.37) per diluted share

Fourth Quarter Adjusted EBITDA was $199 million and 2020 Adjusted EBITDA was $763 million; Adjusted EBITDA margin was 28% for both Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2020

Fourth Quarter Non-GAAP Earnings Per Share of $0.26, up 24% Year-over-Year; 2020 Non-GAAP Earnings Per Share of $0.83, up 118%

Rackspace Technology, Inc. (Nasdaq: RXT), a leading end-to-end multicloud technology solutions company, today announced results for its fourth quarter and year ended December 31, 2020.

Kevin Jones, Chief Executive Officer, commented, The fourth quarter capped off a fantastic year for Rackspace Technology. Our success in energizing sales bookings in 2020 continues to drive-double digit revenue growth. In addition we are seeing very strong earnings leverage as earnings growth outpaced revenue growth for both the fourth quarter and the full year.

Mr. Jones continued, We believe Rackspace Technology is extremely well positioned to capitalize on the tectonic shift to the cloud. We have the people, partners, expertise and automation to help customers of all sizes optimize their multicloud journey, all wrapped in the fanatical customer experience for which we are known. In 2020 we made great progress towards becoming the leading pure play multicloud services and solutions company and set the stage for years of incremental revenue growth, earnings growth, and enhancement of shareholder value.

Story continues

Fourth Quarter 2020 Results

Revenue was $716 million in the fourth quarter of 2020, an increase of 14% as compared to revenue of $627 million in the fourth quarter of 2019. Revenue for the fourth quarter of 2020 was positively impacted by the acquisition of Onica Holdings LLC (Onica) in November 2019 as well as new customer acquisitions and growing customer spend in our Multicloud Services and Apps & Cross Platform segments. On a constant currency basis, after giving effect to the acquisition of Onica as if it had occurred on January 1, 2019, revenue increased 11% in the fourth quarter of 2020 as compared to the fourth quarter of 2019.

Revenue from our Core Segments (Core Revenue), comprised of Multicloud Services and Apps & Cross Platform, increased 18% in the fourth quarter of 2020 as compared to the fourth quarter of 2019. On a constant currency basis, after giving effect to the acquisition of Onica as if it had occurred on January 1, 2019, Core Revenue increased 14% in the fourth quarter of 2020 as compared to the fourth quarter of 2019.

Bookings were $293 million in the fourth quarter of 2020, an increase of 27% as compared to Bookings of $231 million in the fourth quarter of 2019. After giving effect to the acquisition of Onica as if it had occurred on January 1, 2019, Bookings increased 27% in the fourth quarter of 2020 as compared to the fourth quarter of 2019.

Net loss was $(64) million in the fourth quarter of 2020, compared to net loss of $(47) million in the fourth quarter of 2019.

Adjusted EBITDA was $199 million in the fourth quarter of 2020, an increase of 6% as compared to Adjusted EBITDA of $188 million in the fourth quarter of 2019.

Net loss per diluted share was $(0.32) in the fourth quarter of 2020, compared to net loss per diluted share of $(0.28) in the fourth quarter of 2019.

Non-GAAP Earnings Per Share was $0.26 in the fourth quarter of 2020, an increase of 24% as compared to Non-GAAP Earnings Per Share of $0.21 in the fourth quarter of 2019.

Capital expenditures were $51 million in the fourth quarter of 2020, compared to $58 million in the fourth quarter of 2019.

Full Year 2020 Results

Revenue was $2,707 million in 2020, an increase of 11% as compared to revenue of $2,438 million in 2019. Revenue for full year 2020 was positively impacted by the acquisition of Onica in November 2019 as well as new customer acquisitions and growing customer spend in our Multicloud Services and Apps & Cross Platform segments. On a constant currency basis, after giving effect to the acquisition of Onica as if it had occurred on January 1, 2019, revenue increased 6% in 2020 compared to 2019.

Core Revenue increased 15% in 2020 as compared to 2019. On a constant currency basis, after giving effect to the acquisition of Onica as if it had occurred on January 1, 2019, Core Revenue increased 9% in 2020 as compared to 2019.

Bookings were $1,126 million in 2020, an increase of 61% as compared to Bookings of $701 million in 2019. After giving effect to the acquisition of Onica as if it had occurred on January 1, 2019, Bookings increased 40% in 2020 as compared to 2019.

Net loss was $(246) million in 2020, compared to net loss of $(102) million in 2019.

Adjusted EBITDA was $763 million in 2020, an increase of 3% as compared to Adjusted EBITDA of $743 million in 2019.

Net loss per diluted share was $(1.37) in 2020, compared to net loss per diluted share of $(0.62) in 2019.

Non-GAAP Earnings Per Share was $0.83 in 2020, an increase of 118% as compared to Non-GAAP Earnings Per Share of $0.38 in 2019.

Capital expenditures were $225 million in 2020, compared to $210 million in 2019.

As of December 31, 2020, we had cash and cash equivalents of $105 million with no balance outstanding on our Revolving Credit Facility.

2021 Financial Outlook

Rackspace Technology is establishing guidance for full year 2021, as follows:

FY 2021 Guidance

2020 Actual

Implied 2021 Growth at Midpoint

Revenue

$2.9-$3.1 billion

$2.7 billion

11 %

Core Revenue

$2.7-$2.9 billion

$2.5 billion

13 %

Non-GAAP Operating Profit

$500-$530 million

$473 million

9 %

Non-GAAP Earnings Per Share

$0.95-$1.05

$0.83

20 %

Rackspace Technology is also providing additional outlook items for full year 2021 as follows:

Non-GAAP Other Income (Expense)1

($226)-($233) million

Non-GAAP Tax Expense Rate

26 %

Non-GAAP Weighted Average Shares

210-214 million

1 Non-GAAP Other Income (Expense) is only expected to include interest expense.

Definitions of non-GAAP financial measures and the reconciliations to the most directly comparable measures in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles in the United States (GAAP) are provided in subsequent sections of this press release narrative and supplemental schedules. Rackspace Technology has not reconciled Non-GAAP Operating Profit, Non-GAAP Earnings Per Share, Non-GAAP Other Income (Expense) or Non-GAAP Tax Expense Rate guidance to the most directly comparable GAAP measure because it does not provide guidance on GAAP net income (loss) or the reconciling items between these Non-GAAP measures and GAAP net income (loss) as a result of the uncertainty regarding, and the potential variability of, certain of these items, such as share-based compensation expense. Accordingly, a reconciliation of the non-GAAP financial measure guidance to the corresponding GAAP measure is not available without unreasonable effort. With respect to Non-GAAP Operating Profit, Non-GAAP Earnings Per Share, Non-GAAP Other Income (Expense) and Non-GAAP Tax Expense Rate guidance, adjustments in future periods are generally expected to be similar to the kinds of charges and costs excluded from these Non-GAAP measures in prior periods, but the impact of such adjustments could be significant.

Conference Call and Webcast

Rackspace Technology will hold a conference call today, February 18, 2021, at 4:00pm CT / 5:00pm ET to discuss its fourth quarter and full year 2020 results. Interested parties may access the conference call live over the phone by dialing 1-877-407-4018 (domestic) or 1-201-689-8471 (international) and requesting the Rackspace Technology Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2020 Earnings Conference Call. A live webcast of the call will be available on Rackspace Technologys website at https://ir.rackspace.com/news-and-events/events-and-presentations. An audio replay of the conference call will be available approximately three hours after the conference call until 11:59 pm ET on March 4, 2021, and can be accessed by dialing 1-844-512-2921 (domestic) or 1-412-317-6671 (international) and providing the passcode 13714667.

About Rackspace Technology

Rackspace Technology is a leading end-to-end multicloud technology services company. We design, build and operate our customers cloud environments across all major technology platforms, irrespective of technology stack or deployment model. We partner with our customers at every stage of their cloud journey, enabling them to modernize applications, build new products and adopt innovative technologies.

Forward-looking Statements

Rackspace Technology has made statements in this press release and other reports, filings, and other public written and verbal announcements that are forward-looking and therefore subject to risks and uncertainties. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, included in this document are, or could be, forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and are made in reliance on the safe harbor protections provided thereunder. These forward-looking statements relate to anticipated financial performance, managements plans and objectives for future operations, business prospects, outcome of regulatory proceedings, market conditions, our ability to successfully respond to the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, and other matters. Any forward-looking statement made in this presentation speaks only as of the date on which it is made. We undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future developments or otherwise. Forward-looking statements can be identified by various words such as expects, intends, will, anticipates, believes, confident, continue, propose, seeks, could, may, should, estimates, forecasts, might, goals, objectives, targets, planned, projects, and similar expressions. These forward-looking statements are based on managements current beliefs and assumptions and on information currently available to management. Rackspace Technology cautions that these statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, many of which are outside of our control, and could cause future events or results to be materially different from those stated or implied in this document, including among others, risk factors that are described in Rackspace Technology, Inc.s Registration Statement on Form S-1 (File No. 333-239794), Annual Reports on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, Current Reports on Form 8-K, and other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the sections entitled Risk Factors and Managements Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations contained therein.

Non-GAAP Financial Measures

This press release includes several non-GAAP financial measures such as constant currency revenue, Non-GAAP Gross Profit, Non-GAAP Net Income (Loss), Non-GAAP Operating Profit, Adjusted EBITDA and Non-GAAP Earnings Per Share (EPS). These non-GAAP financial measures exclude the impact of certain costs, losses and gains that are required to be included in our profit and loss measures under GAAP. Although we believe these measures are useful to investors and analysts for the same reasons they are useful to management, as described in the accompanying pages, these measures are not a substitute for, or superior to, GAAP financial measures or disclosures. Other companies may calculate similarly-titled non-GAAP measures differently, limiting their usefulness as comparative measures. We have reconciled each of these non-GAAP measures to the applicable most comparable GAAP measure in the accompanying pages.

IR ContactJoe CrivelliRackspace Technology Investor Relationsir@rackspace.com

PR ContactNatalie SilvaRackspace Technology Corporate Communicationspublicrelations@rackspace.com

RACKSPACE TECHNOLOGY, INC.CONSOLIDATED RESULTS OF OPERATIONS(Unaudited)

Three Months Ended December 31,

Year-Over-Year Comparison

2019

2020

(In millions, except % and per share data)

Amount

% Revenue

Amount

% Revenue

Amount

% Change

Revenue

$

627.1

100.0

%

$

716.2

100.0

%

$

89.1

14.2

%

Cost of revenue

(372.7

)

(59.4

)

%

Read the original:

CORRECTING and REPLACING - Rackspace Technology Reports Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2020 Results - Yahoo Finance

Oceanwings concept (courtesy of AYRO)

By The Maritime Executive 02-19-2021 06:51:58

Wind power is emerging as a contender among the race to develop new sustainable solutions that address the concerns for the environment and reducing emissions from the shipping industry. This week alone, three wind-powered programs advanced while the International Windship Association (IWSA) announced a new initiative to accelerate the adoption of hybrid alternative propulsion methods. The association looks to programs that blend wind, alternative fuels, and energy efficiency measures to achieve measurable decarbonization of the global shipping industry.

According to the IWSA, there are currently 11 large ocean going vessels with wind assist systems installed and more than 20 rigs installed along with two more installations pending this quarter. Further, there are more than 20 smaller cargo ships using wind technology as well as sail-powered cruise ships. By 2023, they expect that over 40 large wind propulsion equipped vessels will be in operation.

The EU has forecast that up to 10,700 wind propulsion installations could be in place by 2030, and the UK Clean Maritime Plan forecasts that wind propulsion technologies will become a 2billion ($2.8 billion) a year segment, with approximately 30,000 installations (equivalent to 40-45 percent market penetration) by the 2050s, says Gavin Allwright, IWSA Secretary General.

Among the new technologies being advanced is the Oceanwings 3.6.3 wind assisted propulsion system from the French company AYRO. They were recently awarded an Approval in Principle (AiP) from DNV GL. After a review of the main plans and documents of the Oceanwings 3.6.3 system against the relevant rules for the classification of ships, DNV GL issued the AiP statement confirming that no significant obstacles exist to prevent the concept from being realized.

According to AYRO, the system will enable ship owners and operators to leverage wind energy to improve the energy balance of individual vessels and fleets, thereby significantly reducing carbon emissions. The wind propulsion system is a 363 square meter 2-elements wingsail several of which can be installed onboard vessels to effectively add wind power to the propulsion. Following 10 years of research, the first prototype in 2017, and the industrial demonstrator Energy Observer in 2019, AYRO is now manufacturing four Oceanwings to be fitted on Canope, a RoRo vessel under constructionat Neptune Marine Shipyard. She will be commissioned towards the end of 2022 by French shipowner Jifmar Guyane and operated by Alizee, a joint-venture company between Jifmar and Zephyr & Bore, to transport part of the Ariane 6 rocket program being developed for the European Space Agency.

Oceanwings are suitable for most types of cargo vessels, says Ludovic Grard, CEO of AYRO. We continue to receive a lot of inquiries and numerous requests for feasibility studies from shipowners and charterers worldwide, for both retrofits and new building projects. Our mission and vision is to support them in designing their vessels as well as fitting and maintaining the Oceanwings in order to help them meet the challenges of competitiveness and GHG emission reductions. ''

The famed French shipyard Chantiers de lAtlantique this week also announced that it was making progress with its solid sail concept. To further validate the design concepts and move it toward commercialization, the shipyard said it will install test versions of the mast, rigging, and sail at its yard in St. Nazaire.

RoRo ship owner and operator Wallenius Wilhelmsen also unveiled the beginnings of its designs to commercialize the concept of the worlds largest sailing ship that would transport cars, vehicles, and machinery across the Atlantic.

The IWSA is calling this the Decade of Wind Propulsion, launching its new campaign to focus on the delivery, optimization, and facilitation of wind propulsion. The organization will release a comprehensive market report and other information campaigns to support the development of the technology.

Visit link:

Efforts to Accelerate the Development of Wind Propulsion Technologies - The Maritime Executive

NEW YORK, Feb. 19, 2021 /PRNewswire/ --The COVID-19 Technology Task Force (CTTF) today announced the launch of a public education campaign to drive adoption of ExposureNotification (EN) technology available on smartphones to help support public health authorities in their efforts to limit the spread of infections.

This year began with a dramatic increase in cases, placing additional pressure on state leaders and public health authorities around the country using traditional methods ofcontact tracing to help control the spread. Consumer technology like EN can support and augment these efforts. More than 20 states around the country are currently using EN to send alerts to userswho have been exposed to COVID-19, while helping to protect their privacy, in order to dramatically reduce the time between a person's COVID exposure, a test andisolation or treatment.

The multi-platform campaign, with the theme of "Connect and Protect," includes television, radio, digital and out-of-home advertising, along with socialmedia outreach involving celebrities and other trusted national and local influencers. A key focus of the campaign is communities of color, which have been disproportionallyimpacted by the virus.

CTTF, a voluntary organization whose Advisory Board includes more than 70 of the most respected leaders in technology, public health, media and government, is mountingthis public education campaign under the fiscal sponsorship of Engine Foundation, a 501 (c) (3) non-profit organization, and with charter funding provided by The RockefellerFoundation and individual Task Force members including Ron Conway, John Borthwick and Fred Wilson.Additionally, corporations helping to contribute to the campaignthrough financial and/or in-kind contributions include Apple, Google, iHeartMedia, Spotify, United Airlines, ViacomCBS and WPP.

"With vaccinations only just starting and infections and deaths still tragically high, it's absolutely critical for private enterprise to do all it can to support the fight againstCOVID," said CTTF Co-Chair John Borthwick. "Our campaign is working in tandem with the efforts of the states and the new administration by urging all Americans especially in places hit the hardest to enable their phones to register exposure with nearby people in a privacy preserving approach and notify them should someone later report a positive test, taking the necessary steps toprotect one another."

"Phone-based Exposure Notifications can be a powerful public health tool to help control the spread of COVID-19 and save thousands of lives," said Dr. Rajiv J. Shah, President, The Rockefeller Foundation. "Even as we race forward with vaccines, we urgently need to ramp up testing and tracing to combat the virus. We can all do our part to protectour friends, loved ones and communities by enabling our phones to receive Exposure Notifications."

A Critical Tool in the Fight Against COVID

While the COVID-19 infection rate has declined from its January peak, the virus continues to cause some 2,000 U.S. deaths a day and has caused nearly 500,000 U.S.deaths since the pandemic began. If broadly adopted, the Exposure Notifications System of digital, privacy-preserving contact tracing can greatly enhance the effectivenessof "test and trace" programs mounted by public health agencies at the state and local level and potentially save thousands of lives over the next several months as part of acomprehensive effort to end the pandemic, including the roll-out of effective vaccines.

To date, Exposure Notifications have been launched in 24 states, territories and the District of Columbia, with additional states actively pursuing solutions, representing approximately two-thirds of the U.S.population. While some states, most notablyCalifornia, Colorado, Maryland andConnecticut, have begun to drive significant adoption, adoption has been inconsistentacross others, highlighting a critical need for additional education and communication about the benefits of EN.It's importantto ensure the most high-risk populations adopt thistechnology, such as Black and Latinx communities, which have been hardest hit by the virus. The CTTF PSA campaign is designed to meet this need.

A study released last week by the U.K. Department of Health Care demonstrated the value of EN, finding that approximately 600,000 cases of COVID-19 acrossEngland and Wales have been prevented by the app since September.Research conducted by scientists at The Alan Turing Institute and Oxford University shows forevery 1% increase in app users, the number of coronavirus cases in the population can be reduced by 2.3%.

The "Connect and Protect" campaign is being overseen by CTTF Co-chair Kameka Dempsey. The concept and creative templates for multiple platforms were developed by SOZE Communications. Video spots were created by BigVision, Empty Wallet. Radio ads were produced by Gimlet Media. The campaign website,www.connectandprotect.info, was produced by Countable.

About The COVID-19 Technology Task Force

The COVID-19 Technology Task Force (CTTF) is a broad technology industry coalition designed to support the public sector with the engineering talent and resources tobeat COVID-19 and advocate for forward-thinking policies that accelerate society's recovery. The Task Force serves simultaneously as the contact point among techcompanies producing solutions to respond and recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and between the tech industry and the public sector to identify and fulfill public needs.

SOURCE COVID-19 Technology Task Force

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COVID-19 Technology Task Force Launches "Connect and Protect" PSA Campaign to Help States and Public Health Authorities Promote Adoption of...

MASON, Ohio--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Clarigent Health, a mental health technology company, today announced their receipt of a competitive Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to advance development of their machine learning algorithms. Clarigent Healths proprietary algorithms analyze speech to help identify patients at risk of suicide and other mental health concerns. The Clarigent Health platform delivers this objective metric to mental health professionals alongside patient-reported assessments and clinical impressions to help inform clinical decisions.

Clarigent Health is committed to building machine learning algorithms that treat diverse groups fairly without over- or under- reporting levels of risk. The grant will support Clarigent Healths ongoing analysis of the data used to design the algorithms to ensure fair and accurate assessments. Researchers will investigate how patient and setting characteristics, such as demographics, influence the algorithms accuracy. This will enable a thorough understanding of model training data to identify and correct any potential biases.

The grant will also support investigation of the effects of COVID-19 on the algorithms. Data collected in different environments, including telehealth environments, may impact the model results. It is also possible that relevant thought markers for suicide have shifted across the population because everyone has experienced such dramatic life changes.

Our organization is constantly working to improve our algorithms and ensure fairness and accuracy, said Clarigent founder and CEO, Don Wright.

Our goal is to improve prediction accuracy and understand how these characteristics directly or indirectly bias our models. This is an important and often overlooked component of machine learning and Im excited to work on it, added Joshua Cohen, PhD, Clarigent Healths Data Science Director and the grants Principal Investigator.

The research team has already begun the analysis and will continue collaborating to consider clinical implications. In addition to Dr. Joshua Cohen, PhD and Dr. David Black, PhD at Clarigent Health, the research team and collaborators include Dr. Jennifer Wright-Berryman, MSW, PhD, Associate Professor and clinician researcher at the University of Cincinnati, clinical psychologist Dr. Bailey Bryant MA, PsyD, Dr. Cheryl McCullumsmith, MD, PhD, Chair of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Toledo, and Dr. John Greden, MD, Executive Director of the University of Michigan Comprehensive Depression Center and Professor of Psychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences. Together, they will provide clinical perspective and interpretation of research findings to inform implementation in Clarigent Healths products.

About Clarigent Health:

Clarigent Health was founded in 2017 and backed by an experienced team of investors led by CincyTech. Clarigent Health is committed to improving mental health care and saving lives. Using patented AI algorithms to detect vocal biomarkers, Clarigent Health designs products that are both easy to understand and easy to use. Its HIPAA-compliant solutions are built to empower mental health professionals and to support better treatment for better outcomes. Clarigent Health is advancing scientific understanding and product capabilities through clinical trials and research, including an ongoing study open to the public. For information on this study please visit our website. We are grateful to our many partners, scientific advisors, and clinician-scientists working with us on these efforts.

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Clarigent Health Awarded NIH Grant to Advance Technology That Can Evaluate and Remove Potential Biases in Mental Health Algorithms - Business Wire

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From site launches to software integration to performance enhancements, managing an ecommerce technology stack is complicated. Many companies could use help.

As the marketplace for ecommerce [software] starts to broaden and becomes more complex, adding platforms and apps [can be] really hard, especially for small and medium-sized companies, said Mark Wexler, a founder and partner at Whirlwind Ecommerce.

Wexlers point is that having a consultant and advocate experienced with multiple platforms and services can be a huge help.

This advocate should be experienced in the types of software your company requires. This person should not represent a provider nor benefit from it.

What follows are five reasons to hire an ecommerce technology advocate.

1. Save money. Launching or re-platforming an ecommerce website can be expensive and time-consuming.

You dont want to get to the eleventh hour and realize you made a wrong choice, Wexler said during a live event for CommerceCo by Practical Ecommerce on February 4, 2021.

Mark Wexler, at right, discussed with the author the importance of having a technology advocate. The live-streamed interview occurred on February 4.

Few things will be more expensive for your business than starting to develop a website or digital experience only to find out that it wont work or perform as promised.

A good technology advocate could help avoid this sort of mistake and, potentially, save your business money.

2. Gain a competitive advantage. One of the first steps a commerce technology advocate would take is to identify your companys goals and requirements for a given technology or software.

This process might include prioritizing requirements and identifying how your business could gain a competitive advantage.

For example, to develop what Wexler called a unique selling proposition around fast delivery, a technology advocate might identify solutions, off the shelf or custom, to streamline the order fulfillment process.

3. Save time. Familiarity breeds speed. Presumably your company could research all of the available options for, say, CRMs, CMSs, order management systems, accounting suites, or ecommerce platforms. But the process would take time.

A technology advocate specializing in ecommerce platforms, for example, would be familiar with multiple candidates. He should know when to choose Shopify Plus or a headless BigCommerce implementation.

This familiarity could help your project move more quickly without sacrificing rigor.

4. Straight answers. Often a businesss internal technology specialists are familiar with only a small portion of the software and technology options.

The leaders at these businesses find themselves having to rely on information from biased parties. They are going out and talking to vendors, talking to service providers, and researching on the internet. You find a lot of biased parties out there providing information toward their loyalties, which are with their company, said Wexler.

An account executive, however fair and well-meaning, likely thinks her companys offering is the best in many situations.

A technology advocate would be interested in your companys requirements, goals, and success not any particular software.

5. Implementation help. Benefitting from a technology advocates expertise does not have to end when a solution is identified. These professionals often have project management and programming experience.

An advocate could recommend integration strategies, suggest database architecture, and even write code to connect legacy software to a new website. Thus the same insights applied to finding the best technology might help with getting it up and running.

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The Benefits of an Ecommerce Technology Advocate - Practical Ecommerce