August 9, 2020

empowering you with insights and information from the edge of today’s headlines

Technology

The President’s Executive Order banning TikTok as of September 15 included language that made it quite confusing. The order also attempted to ban WeChat, a super app that at its basic level is a more sophisticated version of WhatsApp. While referring to WeChat, the order mentions its parent company, Tencent. Unfortunately, due to multiple misplaced commas, it is unclear whether Tencent is banned from doing business in the US.

Those misplaced commas have caused quite a dilemma. Tencent owns stakes in multiple US gaming and music companies. So if you buy VBucks from Fornite (which is owned by Epic Games and which is partially owned by Tencent) are you unintentionally funding Chinese enterprise and violating the law?

The EO also resulted in a potential lawsuit from TikTok’s US operations, which may sue the President arguing that the national security concerns are unfounded. Thrown into the mix is the speculation that Twitter is looking to combine with TikTok (although Twitter is valued at $29B and TikTok around $50B), so the merger might take some outside muscle. Twitter also famously destroyed the last short-form video app it acquired (Vine), so we’re hoping this isn’t another attempt to grab users and remove functionality.

Zoom Fatigue: Tired of interacting with the upper half of your colleagues and friends on Zoom? Why not have them beam into your living room via hologram? PORTL is a new device (which costs $60,000) that allows users to interact in real-time with a life-sized hologram. You can speak to your family overseas or even historical figures that come to life through artificial intelligence.

Avatar Fashion: Since most of us haven’t had an excuse to leave the house let alone to go shopping, Ralph Lauren has decided to create a fashion line for Snap’s Bitmojis. The digital fashion line includes 12 pieces ranging from rugby shirts to blazers. Once you deck out your avatar in the latest polo-branded shirt, you can also head to the Ralph Lauren shop and buy one for yourself. Twinning with your avatar taken to a new level.

Excel Formatting: Microsoft Excel is a powerful spreadsheet tool, but it also has quite a few of its own quirks. Remember Y2K and the drama around reformatting dates? Well now Microsoft’s ability to recognize numbers as dates is giving geneticists trouble. Over the past year, 27 human genes have had to be renamed because Excel reads the names as dates. While this may seem trivial, the Excel errors have caused significant errors in statistical studies, so the official body for standardizing the names for genes wrote new rules with Excel formatting in mind.

Twitter Labels: While Twitter has been slow to act when removing misinformation from its platform, it has decided to take one small step toward transparency. Twitter is now adding labels to the users of government and state-affiliated media accounts. One wrinkle: official and not personal accounts contain the label, so POTUS (31M followers) is labeled but not Trump’s personal account (85M followers).

Sports and Covid

Major league sports have been dealing with the coronavirus in a variety of ways. We’ve heard about the successes around the bubble encapsulating the NBA/WNBA (still no positive tests as of last week); the NHL has two bubbles in Canada also with zero positives; vs the not-so-stellar account of the MLB traveling schedule. But one overlooked sport is getting rave reviews from epidemiologists on their handling of the pandemic: Women’s Roller Derby.

The International Flat Track Derby Association (the sports’ governing body) consulted with public health professionals and created a unique plan to deal with the pandemic. The plan includes incremental steps both forward and backward for allowing return-to-play. Roller Derby is a contact intense sport, but the league has found a way to safely monitor its players and the communities in which they play.

Unlike many US states, the FTDA thought about different levels of safety, and when a league might need to take a step back. This isn’t about full lockdown vs full re-open, there are shades of gray — the FTDA created a ladder with seven steps toward “normalcy” that incorporate both player and community safety. (Currently, no league is higher than level 4.) Listen to this Reset podcast for further insights into the ladders and the bubbles, and how putting public health over profit can actually work.

Breathe in, breathe out: Bill Gates, who has been working on global public health issues through his foundation, has an optimistic assessment of when we might see the light at the end of the corona tunnel. Due to all of the innovation in vaccines and therapeutics, Gates is hoping for an end (or a beginning of one) to the virus by the end of 2021.

Climate Change

Last week, Australia saw its first green bond: a financial investment linked to a climate transition index. The index references the forward looking performance of companies benefiting from the low-carbon economy. This new sustainable investment was issued by BNP Paribas and was similar to other green bonds issued in Europe. BNP also pledged to use the proceeds of its bond issuance to invest in certified green projects.

Green investments are gaining traction as many investors have demanded, as shareholders, that corporations reduce their environmental impact. The Climate Action 100+ group is an association of 450 institutional investors with over $40TN in assets under management. Thus, when this group asks for action, many corporate boardrooms are forced to pivot. Several technology companies and greenhouse-gas producers have pledged to become carbon neutral by 2050, which may be the result of investor activism. While the changes to corporate governance may be voluntary, “greenwashing” and not legally binding, the fact that companies are considering the planet as a stakeholder is a move in the right direction.

Plastic Highway: A new highway in California is paved with plastic bottles (150,000 bottles per mile). The new material resists potholes and is expected to last three times longer than standard asphalt. The new process also allows for less waste when repaving a road, causing less truck traffic and reducing emissions. California has plans to recycle and repave several other highways, so don’t be surprised if your commute or next bike path is paved in green.

Legal Personhood: Several indigenous tribes (including in New Zealand and California) have granted legal personhood to rivers; Bangladesh has granted all of its rivers this right. The rivers are treated as living entities in a court of law, and can fight for their rights not to be polluted or threatened by human development. Corporations are persons under US law, allowing them the right to religious freedom and the ability to donate to political parties, among many other rights. Why not extend this semantic trick one step further and grant the environment (which is actually living, for now) the same right to life.

Can’t Make this Up

• Jo Jorgensen, the 2020 Libertarian Party presidential nominee, has been bitten by a possibly rabid bat and is undergoing treatment with a rabies vaccine.

• The US Postal Service has informed States the mail-in ballots will have to use full first class stamps (55c) vs the bulk mail rate (20c). States are already struggling to stay solvent following the loss of tax revenue and increased pandemic expenses. We are not sure of the legality or the logistics, but can we please get Amazon or UPS to step up and collect mail-in ballots?

• The “most sophisticated tunnel in US history” was discovered between Mexico and Arizona. The tunnel included ventilation, water and electrical lines and a rail system. The tunnel was discovered due to a sink hole near the border wall, and appears to be incomplete and therefore never used. But it ends at a closed Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet in Arizona…

• Want to feel old? Take a listen to two young YouTubers listening to Phil Collins and Dolly Parton for the first time.

— Lauren Eve Cantor

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