December 2, 2020

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

Technology

Biological Puzzles: DeepMind, an artificial intelligence research wing of the Google empire, revealed that it had won a competition to solve a 50-year puzzle in biology. The previously unsolved mystery involved predicting how a protein folds into a unique 3D shape. If we are able to better predict the shape of the proteins (and the amino acids that they are made up of), we may be able to advance the understanding of human diseases and the drugs needed to treat them. DeepMind was able to create a program that that could figure out about two-thirds of the proteins with comparable accuracy to a lab researcher – but in days, not years.

Ugly Sweaters: Microsoft is getting into the holiday spirit a bit early by offering an MS Paint-themed “ugly” sweater for sale on its online store, with a portion of the proceeds from each sale donated to Girls Who Code. Microsoft says it plans to donate a minimum $50,000 to the nonprofit from this promotion.

Meeting Productivity: Don’t give Microsoft too much credit: they have just patented a new technology called the “Productivity Score” that can measure quality scores for meetings using data such as body language, facial expressions, room temperature, time of day and number of people in the meeting. The system uses cameras, sensors and software tools to determine, for example, “how much a participant contributes to a meeting vs performing other tasks (e.g., texting, checking email, browsing the Internet).” The system hopes to flag “non-optimal meetings” before they occur. But in reality, is any meeting ever optimal?

Oversight: Facebook’s oversight board has started reviewing cases, which include include nudity, Nazism, covid-19 misinformation and ethnic conflicts. The board said Facebook users had submitted 20,000 suggested incidents for review since October 2020. The arbitration body is inviting the public to comment on the cases - which have all been anonymized - over the next seven days. The board has not given a date to share its conclusions, but Facebook has previously said it expects cases to be resolved within 90 days, including any action it is told to take.

In terms of government oversight, President Trump has threatened to veto the National Defense Authorization Act unless Congress repeals Section 230 (the law that gives technology companies legal protection from liability as platforms rather than publishers). The cynic in us also remembers that Trump wants to veto the NDAA because the new bill is changing names of military bases named after Confederates. So who better to gripe about online: Big Tech or Slave holding traitors?

International

Australia vs China: China-Australia relations have deteriorated in recent months, and reached a new low this week when Beijing posted a doctored image on Twitter of an Australian soldier holding a knife to an Afghan child’s throat. China also released a 14-point list that details all of their grievances with Australia: including the decision to ban Huawei from its 5G network, calling for an investigation into China’s handling of the pandemic and antagonistic reporting by the Australian press. Australia’s economy depends on China more than any other country in the world: China buys $120 billion of Australia's annual exports (30%), and the relationship accounts for around 1 in 13 Australian jobs. A debate is currently raging in Australia about the need to diversify trade partners so as to protect the country from economic blackmail from China that could deepen Australia's pandemic-induced recession.

Another Election: Israel’s governing coalition appears to be falling apart, which may lead to the fourth election in just two years. Defense Minister Benny Gantz announced that his Blue and White party would vote in favor of dissolving parliament on Wednesday because Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was refusing to pass a budget and reneging on their power-sharing deal. Gantz is scheduled to rotate in as prime minister in November 2021, and is asking Netanyahu to agree to pass the 2020 and 2021 budget by the end of December. Polls also show Netanyahu's right-wing bloc far ahead in a potential election match-up.

Canadian Child Care: Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland announced the first steps in a multi-year plan to build a Canada-wide child care system to reduce costs for families and encourage more women with kids to join the workforce. To pay for this program, the government will levy sales tax on digital companies. (Quebec already has a childcare system in place that provides the services for less than $10 a day.) The federal government is committing $20 million now to begin the work of crafting its new "child care vision." The government will consult with digital companies on how best to structure this new tax, but the government said Monday it plans to start collecting the funds in July 2021. The government says it expects to get $1.2 billion more in revenue over the next five years from the measure.

The Assassination: Last week, one of Iran’s top nuclear scientists was assassinated in Tehran. Regardless of the motive or the perpetrators (rumored to be Israel), the assassination itself seems right out of a movie. Apparently, Fakrizadeh was traveling inside of a bullet proof car, but he heard the sound of gunshots, and got out to investigate? When he was promptly killed by a remote controlled machine gun. (Another version of the killing states that an explosion went off first forcing the scientist outside of the car.) Personally, if we had (or needed) a bullet proof car, we’d probably never get out of it, and just speed through the city like Batman.

Hungary’s own Lady G: József Szájer, a veteran Hungarian MP close to prime minister Viktor Orban and seen as hostile to gay rights, resigned after attending an all-male sex party in Brussels in violation of local lockdown rules. Szájer attended the 25-man orgy (along with other diplomats) and fled via a gutter with narcotics in his backpack. Last week, along with Poland, the Hungarian government voiced strong opposition to a gender equality plan for the EU which aimed to bolster the rights of the LGBTQ community.

Brexit: The EU and the UK apparently have a month left to iron out the finer details of the UK leaving the EU, but neither seem to be in a rush, and Prime Minister Johnson seems to have no interest in admitting his weak hand. The outstanding issues remain: EU fishing rights in UK waters, mutually agreed competition rules and how to manage future disputes. British businesses, broadly speaking, are not backing Johnson, and not just because of the prospect of trade foregone. As William Bain of the British Retail Consortium notes, Brexit entails “the biggest imposition of red tape that businesses have had to deal with in 50 years”.

The UK lost an ally with the election of Biden: Tony Blinken, Biden’s choice for Secretary of State, told France: “We have a great interest in an EU which acts with strength and conviction… For us this partnership is essential.” Blinken has also described Brexit as “the dog that caught the car and the car goes into reverse and runs over the dog”.

Business

Topshop goes Bust: The Arcadia group, the British retailer and owner of Topshop, became the UK’s biggest bankruptcy of the pandemic so far, with the potential loss of 13,000 jobs. Arcadia, which has 444 stores in Britain, 22 overseas and about 13,000 employees, said it would keep operating during administration. Earlier this month, during a lockdown period when nonessential stores were forced to close in England, foot traffic on British commercial areas was down 60% compared with last year. Since February, online retail sales have grown 45% in Britain, while clothing sales — online and in-person — have declined 14%t, the Office for National Statistics said earlier this month. Arcadia reportedly sought a $40M loan, and was offered a $50M lifeline from a rival retailer (Fraser Group), but instead has gone into administration.

Beauty Pops Up: Sephora has partnered with Kohl’s to open 850 mini shops inside the retailer by 2023. (Target recently announced a similar partnership with Ulta.) The Sephora shops in Kohl’s will be about 2,500 square feet, offering most of the same services found at other Sephora stores, including help with makeup application, and replacing Kohl’s current beauty assortment. With the dying of America’s malls (and its department stores), beauty is moving downstream to more mass-market retailers. This isn’t Sephora’s first rodeo: the beauty retailer partnered with JC Penney before it filed for Chapter 11.

Culture

Creepy Masks: Japanese company Kamenya Omoto is paying Tokyo residents $380 to have their faces copied onto realistic 3D-printed masks, and then sells the 3D-printed version of your face for $750. The mask project is called That Face. The owners seem to want to create a world where everyone has the same face. We are already confused enough as it is with our COVID masks.

Faux Fish: Food scientists and marketers are creating healthy, plant-based, imitation tuna, crab, and shrimp that look and taste like the real thing. Switching to faux seafood will help curb our reliance on an international fishing industry that has become an environmental and human-rights disaster. (To understand more about the havoc that is caused by the commercial fishing industry, read The Outlaw Ocean.)

If you are more adventurous, the first lab-grown meat product has been given the green light to be sold for human consumption. Regulators in Singapore granted Just, a San Francisco–based startup, the right to sell cultured chicken—in the form of chicken nuggets—to the public. An as-yet-unnamed restaurant in Singapore will soon be the first to have Just’s cultured chicken nuggets on the menu.

Japan’s Shooting Star: A fireball, believed to be a shooting star or boldie, lit up the skies of Japan this weekend. This fireball also came with a rumbling noise, and “the last burst of light was as bright as the full moon.” Combine this with the moving monolith, and 2020 feels like it might end with space invaders.

Japan’s word of the year: Japan’s Jiyukokuminsha publishing house has chosen “sanmitsu” as its word of the year. It’s derived from three words referred to in English as the three Cs because they stand for “closed spaces”, “crowds” and “close contact situations”, all to be avoided in this time of pandemic. 

— Lauren Eve Cantor

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