Category Archives: Technology

Amid a tussle between the Union government and Twitter over the new IT rules, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on IT on Friday told the US-based social media giant that the rule of the land was supreme and the company must abide by the Indian laws.

During a 90-minute deposition before the panel, chaired by Congress leader Shashi Tharoor, the Twitter India officials were asked "tough and searching questions", including why the company should not be fined as it has been found "violating" rules of the country, sources said.

Twitter India's public policy manager Shagufta Kamran and legal counsel Ayushi Kapoor deposed before the parliamentary panel.

"We will also continue working alongside the Indian Government as part of our shared commitment to serve and protect the public conversation", the spokesperson said while appreciating the opportunity to share views of Twitter before the Standing Committee on Information Technology.

BJP MPs --Nishikant Dubey, Rajyawardan Rathore, Tejasvi Surya, Sanjay Seth, Zafar Islam, Subhash Chandra-- were among those present during the meeting while from the opposition there were TMC MP Mahua Moitra and TDP MP Jaidev Galla apart from Tharoor.

During the meeting, panel members mostly from ruling BJP asked Twitter officials whether their policy is more important or rule of land, to which officials responded that they respect the Indian laws but they have to follow their policy as well for larger interest, sources said.

The panel members took strong objection to Twitter stance and categorically told them that the rule of land is supreme not the company policy, sources said.

As per sources, there was unanimity in the panel that the Twitter should abide by IT rules and appoint chief compliance officer.

"The answers (by Twitter officials) lacked clarity and were ambiguous", a source said.

It was also raised by the MPs in the meeting that instead of appointing a full-time compliance officer, Twitter has appointed an interim officer, who is a lawyer, sources said.

According to sources, Dubey also raised question over neutrality of fact-checks on Twitter and claimed that many of them are not "politically neutral".

The parliamentary panel had last week summoned Twitter over issues related to misuse of the platform and protection of citizens' rights.

According to sources, the opposition members opined that another round of meeting should be held with Twitter officials, but the panel has sought written reply from Twitter on various questions.

The panel members also held a meeting with Information and Technology Ministry officials after the deposition.

Earlier this month, the Central government issued a notice to Twitter, giving it one last chance to "immediately" comply with the new IT rules and warned that failure to adhere to the norms will lead to the platform losing exemption from liability under the IT Act.

Sources said the panel will also summon top officials of Google, Facebook, YouTube and other tech giants.

Twitter and the Centre have been at loggerheads over several issues for the last few months.

The microblogging site had also faced backlash when it briefly removed the 'blue tick' verification badge from the personal account of Vice-President M Venkaiah Naidu and of several senior RSS functionaries, including its chief Mohan Bhagwat.

Earlier, Delhi Police had sent a notice to Twitter, seeking an explanation of how it described an alleged "Congress toolkit" against the Central government as "manipulated media".

The police reportedly had also questioned Twitter India MD Manish Maheshwari on May 31 and visited the Twitter India offices in Delhi and Gurgaon on May 24 over the toolkit issue.

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Rule of land supreme, not your policy: Parliamentary panel on information technology to Twitter - Economic Times

As a managing director in charge of a major front office technology unit at a U.S. investment bank in New York, I get a lot of young people asking me the best coding languages to learn for banking jobs. The answer is, that it depends. However, there'sone language I will always advise people to learn: Python.

Python maybe slowcompared to some other coding languages, but it's the number one language used in finance now. We use it for data analytics and for data investigations and interrogation. Python is also the language of machine learning and AI, and as AI becomes more widely used in finance, so does Python.

Python's big advantage is that it's easy to learn. The syntax is human-readable and intuitive. Its power derives from the multitude of open source librariesavailablein Python for use with machine learning and many other applications.

Alongside Python you should choose at least one other language. OCaml will catch attention, but it's hard to learn - way harder than Java and harder even than C++. However, it's the kind of language that - if you can code well in it - will give you prestige among geeky computer science nerds. Other languages in this category include Lisp and Haskell.

Do you really want to learn an ultra-obscure language though? In finance, we use Java for the broad decision-making within algorithmic trading code, and C++for the higher frequency portion of it. Java derivatives like Scala are used for data ingestion and languages like R and MATLABare used in bespoke research scenarios, and are losing ground.

The languages you choose to learn should therefore depend upon the sort of banking technology job you aspire to. Always learn Python, but your second language will differ. If you want to work on trading execution algorithms, learn Java. If you want to work on derivative pricing, learn C++. If you want to work on user interfaces (UIs), you could also learn Javascript. If you want to work on tick-data level work, there's also Kdb/Q...

There are three languages I would always avoid. These are: Pascal (too old); Julia (too new); and Slang (too proprietary).

Ananda Vyas is the pseudonym of a managing director in technology at a U.S. investment bank

Have a confidential story, tip, or comment youd like to share? Contact:sbutcher@efinancialcareers.com

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Coding languages to learn and avoid for technology jobs in banks - eFinancialCareers

Energy policy is often judged by three criteria: cost, reliability and effect on carbon emissions. That makes good sense, but I would like to suggest an alternative approach: Ask which green energy policies can get the support of most special-interest groups, and the fewest forces in opposition, and rank them accordingly. That might sound cynical, but given how long and deep the policy failures have run, some cynicism is in order.

The energy sector is remarkably politicized. The current infrastructurecould probably not be built under todays regulatory regime, which may also hinder the development of tomorrows green-energy infrastructure. It is not easy to put wind turbines next to the homes of wealthy, well-organized homeowners. So maybe energy policy needs to start with the political questions first.

Nuclear fission is green, reliable and (currently) expensive. With further technological advances and some degree of regulatory forbearance, it could become much cheaper. It works just fine in France, Sweden and some parts of the U.S.

Yet voters do not like or trust nuclear power, and Japan and Germany are shutting it down. The Indian Point nuclear power plant, which helped to power New York City, was closed prematurely two months ago, and only a few policy wonks complained. Not enough people profit directly from nuclear power to keep the sector up and running. For the public utilities it has become a political and public-relations headache.

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So which green (or greener) energy sources are the most special-interest friendly?

One obvious candidate is solar power, especially when combined with more effective batteries. Many people argue that solar energy isnt powerful or reliable or storable enough, but few people hate the idea of it. Special-interest groups dont have a well-developed critique of solar. The production of more batteries for solar power might in fact involve environmental disruptions, but they are relatively invisible and are not focal. They have not stopped the political elevation of solar power.

Electric cars also appear to be relatively special-interest friendly. Tesla now has a much higher valuation than any of Americas legacy automakers, and no government policies stopped this from happening. Electric cars even received government subsidies.

Removing carbon from the air and sequestering it also seems politically acceptable. There are debates over how cheap carbon sequestration will be, but thats an argument for putting more research and development into this area. Storing carbon, either in plants or underground, does not create highly visible problems. It also might become a profitable line of business for fossil-fuel companies, which would mean one very powerful special-interest in favor of it. The politically powerful but carbon-dirty construction industry has few low-carbon options and likely would be inclined to support these approaches as well, were they to prove feasible on a larger scale.

A less obvious politically viable candidate is geothermal power. It is easy enough in Iceland, El Salvador and Kenya, where geothermal energy is readily accessible, but digging deeper for geothermal energy and sending it up to the surface would require further technological advances. On the plus side, geothermal power does not seem to irritate the Not-in-My-Backyard types, is popular where used, and could be run through a modified version of the existing energy infrastructure, thus minimizing the stranded-assets problem.

Japan seems to be approaching its energy infrastructure with politics at the forefront. It is making a big bet on hydrogen power, which is technologically iffy and expensive, currently about eight times more so than natural gas. Yet Japanese leaders are aware that Japan does not have its own solar power industry at scale, making the country dependent on China for solar panels. Hydrogen can also be used by existing (though modified) power plants, which both reduces cost and eliminates the need for new infrastructure. And if this all works, Japan could become known as the world leader in hydrogen power.

Greenpeace has criticized the Japanese approach, saying that its ammonia-reliant formula for hydrogen power is costly and will itself create greenhouse-gas emissions. That critique may well be right, but its also possible that Japan is thinking through the political questions at a deeper level.

The most relevant question about green energy isnt necessarily about technology or cost. It may be about politics: How many special-interest groups support this idea? If there isnt a decent answer, then maybe the idea doesnt stand a decent chance.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

To contact the author of this story:Tyler Cowen at tcowen2@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story:Michael Newman at mnewman43@bloomberg.net

Before it's here, it's on the Bloomberg Terminal.

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Green Energy: The Issue Is Politics, Not Technology or Cost - Bloomberg

DUBLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The "High Purity Alumina - A Global Market Overview" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

Hydrolysis is most widely used to process High Purity Alumina (HPA), the demand for which is also likely to be the fastest growing while, by segment, 4N is the most widely consumed type of HPA on a global basis and is also predominant in terms of value demand, which is also anticipated to witness the fastest CAGRs exceeding 10%.

Asia-Pacific constitutes the leading global volume market for High Purity Alumina, estimated to corner a share of 61.1% in 2020. The region's volume consumption is also anticipated to register the fastest 2020-2026 CAGR of 11.7% and reach a projected 64.4 thousand tons by 2026.

Companies Mentioned

Research Findings & Coverage

Key Topics Covered:

PART A: GLOBAL MARKET PERSPECTIVE

1. INTRODUCTION

1.1 Product Outline

1.1.1 What is High Purity Alumina?

1.1.2 Production of High Purity Alumina

1.1.2.1 Hydrolysis of Aluminum Alkoxide

1.1.2.2 Hydrochloric Acid (HCl) Leaching

1.1.2.3 Other Technologies

2. HIGH PURITY ALUMINA APPLICATIONS - A MARKET SNAPSHOT

2.1 Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs)

2.1.1 Production of Industrial Sapphires

2.1.1.1 Verneuil Method

2.1.1.2 Czochralski Method (CZ)

2.1.1.3 Kyropoulos Method

2.1.1.4 Heat Exchanger Method (HEM)

2.1.1.5 Edge-Defined Film-Fed Growth Method (EFG)

2.2 Lithium-Ion Battery Separators

2.2.1 A Brief Description of Li-Ion Batteries

2.2.2 The Rationale Behind Using HPA in Li-ion Batteries

2.3 Phosphors

2.4 Semiconductors

3. KEY MARKET TRENDS

3.1 Innovative Coating for Li-Ion Battery Anodes Drives Demand for HPA

3.2 Growth in Demand for High Purity Alumina Being Propelled by the LED Industry

3.3 LED Sapphires Witnessing Competition from Alternative Technologies

3.4 Smaller Applications, too, Driving the Market for HPA

3.5 Alternative Method for Preparing High-Purity, High-Density Alumina Green Body Provides Higher Output

4. KEY GLOBAL PLAYERS

5. KEY BUSINESS TRENDS

6. GLOBAL MARKET OVERVIEW

PART B: REGIONAL MARKET PERSPECTIVE

REGIONAL MARKET OVERVIEW

7. NORTH AMERICA

8. EUROPE

9. ASIA-PACIFIC

10. REST OF WORLD

PART C: GUIDE TO THE INDUSTRY

PART D: ANNEXURE

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/yo3dx3

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Global High Purity Alumina Market (2020 to 2026) - Featuring Airy Technology, Nippon Light Metal and Polar Sapphire Among Others -...

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A team of scientists in the US has developed a novel vaccine based on mRNA technology that protects against malaria in animal models.

The vaccine relies on a circumsporozoite protein of the Plasmodium falciparumthe parasite species which causes the vast majority of malaria deaths globallyto elicit an immune response.

However, rather than administering a version of the protein directly, this approach uses mRNAaccompanied by a lipid nanoparticle that protects from premature degradation and helps stimulate the immune systemto prompt cells to code for circumsporozoite protein themselves.

Those proteins then trigger a protective response against malaria but cannot actually cause infection.

"Recent successes with vaccines against COVID-19 highlight the advantages of mRNA-based platformsnotably highly targeted design, flexible and rapid manufacturing and ability to promote strong immune responses in a manner not yet explored," said Dr Evelina Angov, a researcher at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research Malaria Biologics Branch.

"Our goal is to translate those advances to a safe, effective vaccine against malaria," Angov added. The findings are published in the journal npj Vaccines.

A safe, effective malaria vaccine has long been an elusive target for scientists. The most advanced malaria vaccine is RTS,S. It is based on the circumsporozoite protein of P. falciparum, the most dangerous and widespread species of malaria parasite.

While RTS,S is an impactful countermeasure in the fight against malaria, field studies have revealed limited sterile efficacy and duration of protection. The limitations associated with RTS,S and other first-generation malaria vaccines have led scientists to evaluate new platforms and second-generation approaches for malaria vaccines.

"Our vaccine achieved high levels of protection against malaria infection in mice," said Katherine Mallory, a WRAIR researcher. "While more work remains before clinical testing, these results are an encouraging sign that an effective, mRNA-based malaria vaccine is achievable."

**

The above article has been published from a wire source with minimal modifications to the headline and text.

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Novel Vaccine Based on mRNA Technology Shows Protection Against Malaria in Animal Models | The Weather Channel - Articles from The Weather Channel |...

Moshiel BitonContributor

The global economys transition to widespread electrification has increased the demand for longer-lasting and faster-charging batteries across industries including transportation, consumer electronics, medical devices and residential energy storage. While the benefits of this transition are well understood, the reality is that battery innovation hasnt kept pace with societys ambitions.

With reports forecasting a 40% chance that the worlds temperature will rise over the next five years beyond the limit of 1.5 degrees Celsius laid out in the Paris climate agreement, it is clear that theres little time to waste when it comes to creating next-generation batteries, which can easily take another 10 years to fully commercialize.

To meet the increasing pressures to electrify, a completely novel approach to building batteries is the only way to scale rechargeable batteries quickly enough to curb greenhouse-gas emissions globally and avoid the worst-case scenario for the climate crisis.

Over the last few decades, battery experts, automakers, Tier 1 suppliers, investors and others looking to electrify have spent billions of dollars globally on creating next-generation batteries by focusing predominantly on battery chemistry. Yet the industry is still grappling with two major fundamental technical challenges that are stunting the proliferation of batteries:

Battery researchers have championed the solid-state battery as the holy grail of battery technology due to its ability to achieve high energy density and increased safety. However, until recently, the technology has fallen short in practice.

Solid-state batteries have significantly higher energy density and are potentially safer because they do not use flammable liquid electrolytes. However, the technology is still nascent and has a long way to go to achieve commercialization. The manufacturing process for solid-state batteries has to be improved to lower costs, especially for an automotive industry that aims to achieve aggressive cost reductions as low as $50/kWh in the coming years.

The other substantial challenge to implementing solid-state technology is the limitation of total energy density that can be stored in the cathodes per unit of volume. The obvious solution to this dilemma would be to have batteries with thicker cathodes. However, a thicker cathode would reduce the mechanical and thermal stability of the battery. That instability leads to delamination (a mode of failure where a material fractures into layers), cracks and separation all of which cause premature battery failure. In addition, thicker cathodes limit diffusion and decrease power. The result is that there is a practical limit to the thickness of cathodes, which restricts the power of anodes.

In most cases, companies that are developing silicon-based batteries are mixing up to 30% silicon with graphite to boost energy density. The batteries made by Sila Nanotechnologies are an illustrative example of using a silicon mix to increase energy density. Another approach is to use 100% pure silicon anodes, which are limited by very thin electrodes and high production costs, to generate even higher energy density, like Amprius approach.

While silicon provides considerably greater energy density, there is a significant drawback that has limited its adoption until now: The material undergoes volume expansion and shrinkage while charging and discharging, limiting battery life and performance. This leads to degradation issues that manufacturers need to solve before commercial adoption. Despite those challenges, some silicon-based batteries are already being deployed commercially, including in the automotive sector, where Tesla leads in silicon adoption for EVs.

Advances to battery architecture and cell design show significant promise for unlocking improvements with existing and emerging battery chemistries.

Probably the most notable from a mainstream perspective is Teslas biscuit tin battery cell that the company unveiled at its 2020 Battery Day. Its still using lithium-ion chemistry, but the company removed the tabs in the cell that act as the positive and negative connection points between the anode and cathode and the battery casing, and instead use a shingled design within the cell. This change in design helps reduce manufacturing costs while boosting driving range and removes many of the thermal barriers that a cell can encounter when fast-charging with DC electricity.

Transitioning away from a traditional 2D electrode structure to a 3D structure is another approach that is gaining traction in the industry. The 3D structure yields high energy and high power performance in both the anode and cathode for every battery chemistry.

Although still in the R&D and testing phases, 3D electrodes have achieved two times higher accessible capacity, 50% less charging time and 150% longer lifetime for high-performance products at market-competitive prices. Therefore, in order to advance battery capabilities to unlock the full potential of energy storage for a range of applications, it is critical to develop solutions that emphasize altering the physical structure of batteries.

Its not just performance improvements that will win the battery race, but perfecting production and cost reduction as well. To capture a considerable share of the ballooning battery market that is projected to reach $279.7 billion by 2027, countries around the world must find ways to achieve low-cost battery manufacturing at scale. Prioritizing drop-in solutions and innovative production methods that can be incorporated with existing assembly lines and materials will be key.

The Biden administrations American Jobs Plan highlights the importance of domestic battery production to the countrys goal of being a leader in electrification while meeting ambitious carbon reduction targets. Commitments like these will play a key role in establishing who can maintain a critical competitive edge in the battery space and take the largest share of the $162 billion global EV market.

Ultimately, the winning technologies in the race toward total electrification will be the ones that have the most significant impact on performance, lowered costs and compatibility with existing manufacturing infrastructure. By taking a holistic approach and focusing more on innovating cell design while also fine-tuning leading chemistries, we can achieve the next steps in battery performance and rapid commercialization that the world desperately needs.

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Widespread electrification requires us to rethink battery technology - TechCrunch

Jet packs, robot maids, and flying cars were all promises for the 21st century. We got mechanized, autonomous vacuum cleaners instead. Now a team of Penn State researchers are exploring the requirements for electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) vehicles and designing and testing potential battery power sources.

I think flying cars have the potential to eliminate a lot of time and increase productivity and open the sky corridors to transportation, said Chao-Yang Wang, holder of the William E. Diefender Chair of Mechanical Engineering and director of the Electrochemical Engine Center, Penn State. But electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicles are very challenging technology for the batteries.

The researchers defined the technical requirements for flying car batteries and report on a prototype battery on June 7, 2021, in Joule.

Batteries for flying cars need very high energy density so that you can stay in the air, said Wang. And they also need very high power during take-off and landing. It requires a lot of power to go vertically up and down.

The automotive electric vehicle revolution is paving the way for urban air mobility, but people must not be naive in thinking that electric vehicle batteries will suffice for electric flight. The fast-charging requirements, 30x increase in energy throughput, and 3x power requirements demand a new generation of battery. Credit: Eric Rountree, EC Power

Wang notes that the batteries will also need to be rapidly recharged so that there could be high revenue during rush hours. He sees these vehicles having frequent take-offs and landings and recharging quickly and often.

Commercially, I would expect these vehicles to make 15 trips, twice a day during rush hour to justify the cost of the vehicles, said Wang. The first use will probably be from a city to an airport carrying three to four people about 50 miles.

Weight is also a consideration for these batteries as the vehicle will have to lift and land the batteries. Once the eVTOL takes off, on short trips the average speed would be 100 miles per hour and long trips would average 200 miles per hour, according to Wang.

The researchers experimentally tested two energy-dense lithium-ion batteries that can recharge with enough energy for a 50-mile eVTOL trip in five to ten minutes. These batteries could sustain more than 2,000 fast-charges over their lifetime.

Wang and his team used technology they have been working on for electric vehicle batteries. The key is to heat the battery to allow rapid charging without the formation of lithium spikes that damage the battery and are dangerous. It turns out that heating the battery also allows rapid discharge of the energy held in the battery to allow for take offs and landings.

The researchers heat the batteries by incorporating a nickel foil that brings the battery rapidly to 140 degrees Fahrenheit.

Under normal circumstances, the three attributes necessary for an eVTOL battery work against each other, said Wang. High energy density reduces fast charging and fast charging usually reduces the number of possible recharge cycles. But we are able to do all three in a single battery.

One entirely unique aspect of flying cars is that the batteries must always retain some charge. Unlike cellphone batteries, for example, that work best if fully discharged and recharged, a flying car battery can never be allowed to completely discharge in the air because power is needed to stay in the air and to land. There always needs to be a margin of safety in a flying car battery.

When a battery is empty, internal resistance to charging is low, but the higher the remaining charge, the more difficult it is to push more energy into the battery. Typically, recharging slows as the battery fills. However, by heating the battery, recharging can remain in the five- to ten-minute range.

I hope that the work we have done in this paper will give people a solid idea that we dont need another 20 years to finally get these vehicles, said Wang. I believe we have demonstrated that the eVTOL is commercially viable.

Reference: Challenges and key requirements of batteries for electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft by Xiao-Guang Yang, Teng Liu, Shanhai Ge, Eric Rountree and Chao-Yang Wang, 7 June 2021, Joule.DOI: 10.1016/j.joule.2021.05.001

Also working on this project were Xiao-Guang Yang and Shanhai Ge, both assistant research professors in mechanical engineering, and Teng Liu, doctoral student in mechanical engineering, all at Penn State; and Eric Roundtree, EC Power, State College, Pennsylvania.

The U.S. Department of Energys Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, the U.S. Air Force Small Business Technology Transfer program and the William E. Diefenderfer Endowment funded this research.

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Innovative Battery Technology Puts Flying Cars on the Horizon - SciTechDaily

Intel Corp (INTC.O) is debating a possible offer to buy SiFive Inc, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters, a company closely associated with open-source technology that is challenging the rise of Intel's rival, Arm Ltd.

SiFive, a San Mateo, California-based startup, employs several of the creators of RISC-V, an open-source chip technology that is challenging Arm, the British chip technology firm being acquired by Nvidia Corp (NVDA.O) for $40 billion. read more Both Arm and SiFive sell intellectual property such as chip designs to others who ultimately produce the chips.

Intel and SiFive both declined to comment.

Bloomberg on Thursday reported Intel's interest, citing a source saying that the Santa Clara, California-based chipmaker is mulling a $2 billion offer. Intel, along with rivals such as Qualcomm Inc (QCOM.O), is already an investor in SiFive, which raised $61 million in a funding round led by Korea's SK Hynix (000660.KS).

SiFive is designing computing cores using the RISC-V architecture. While the underlying architecture for those cores is open-source, the specific core designs themselves can be sold.

Purchasing SiFive could give Intel a library of intellectual property it could use both in its own chips and that it could offer to license to future customers as it works to build a business by opening up its chip factories to outsiders. Intel has already said it plans to license out computing cores based on its own proprietary x86 architecture to customers as part of its contract manufacturing business.

But Intel would also gain a software boost. SiFive is also working on making it easier to program to different kinds of computing chips and last year hired Chris Lattner, a prominent Silicon Valley computer scientist.

Lattner spearheaded the creation of the Swift programming language for Apple Inc (AAPL.O) that has become the primary way developers write apps for iPhones. More recently, Lattner oversaw programming language teams for Alphabet Inc's (GOOGL.O) Google Brain and TensorFlow artificial intelligence teams.

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Intel debates buyout of SiFive to bolster chip technology against Arm -source - Reuters

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) Erbil, the capital of the autonomous Kurdistan Region, will begin its second annual information technology fair on Wednesday, where local and international tech brands will take part in the four-day event.

The fair, dubbed the Hawler (Erbil) Information Technology Exhibition (HITEX), is expected to be attended by nearly 100 local and international companies from 26 different countries, head organizer Farhang Bradosti told Kurdistan 24 on Friday.

Foreign companies will be arriving from the US, China, the UK, and the United Arab Emirates, he said, adding that the event also embraces nearly 40 small projects from local innovators who will showcase their wares and concepts.

Participating tech businesses and panels will cover the fields of Artificial intelligence, Robotics, Drones, VR/AR, User technology, Smart houses/IoT, Health/fitness/wearables, Computer/Mobile Hardware & Software, Digital Imaging/Video, and Gaming, according to the events website.

The event is taking place from 10:00 in the morning until 6:00 in the afternoon, every day between June 16 and 19.

Anyone is welcome to attend the free event, but all must pre-register and pick up a personalized entry badge upon arrival.

The Kurdistan Regional Government's (KRG) Department of Information Technology supports HITEX, partnered with the Rwanga Foundation, a local education-based organization.

The fair was canceled last year due to the coronavirus pandemic. This year's exhibition will be the first international event of its kind to be held in Erbil as COVID-19 restrictions are gradually lifted.

We are planning to run nearly seven more exhibitions until the end of the year, said Soran Qadir Aziz, the head of Erbil International Exhibition, to Kurdistan 24.

In addition to the tech businesses, the fair will hold a conference on the latest technological developments now emerging across the world.

Editing by John J. Catherine

Additional reporting by Dena Farighi

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Erbil to host 2nd annual international fair on information technology - Kurdistan24

The last 15 years have been tough times for many Americans, but there are now encouraging signs of a turnaround.

Productivity growth, a key driver for higher living standards, averaged only 1.3% since 2006, less than half the rate of the previous decade.But on June 3, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that US labor productivity increased by 5.4% in the first quarter of 2021.Whats better, theres reason to believe that this is not just a blip, but rather a harbinger of better times ahead: a productivity surge that will match or surpass the boom times of the 1990s.

Our optimism is grounded in our research which indicates that most OECD countries are just passing the lowest point in a productivity J-curve. Driven by advances in digital technologies, such as artificial intelligence, productivity growth is now headed up.

Technology alone is rarely enough to create significant benefits.

The productivity J-curve describes the historical pattern of initially slow productivity growth after a breakthrough technology is introduced, followed years later by a sharp takeoff.Our research and that of others has found that technology alone is rarely enough to create significant benefits. Instead, technology investments must be combined with even larger investments in new business processes, skills, and other types ofintangible capital before breakthroughs as diverse as the steam engine or computers ultimately boost productivity. For instance, after electricity was introduced to American factories, productivity was stagnant for more than two decades.It was only after managers reinvented their production lines using distributed machinery, a technique made possible by electricity, that productivity surged.

There are three reasons that this time around the productivity J-curve will be bigger and faster than in the past.

The first is technological: the past decade has delivered an astonishing cluster of technology breakthroughs. The most important ones are in AI: the development of machine learning algorithms combined with large decline in prices for data storage and improvements in computing power has allowed firms to address challenges from vision and speech to prediction and diagnosis. The fast-growing cloud computing market has made these innovations accessible to smaller firms.

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The coming productivity boom - MIT Technology Review