Innholdsfortegnelse for #474 i Techlife News

“No New ‘Movies’Till Influenza Ends” blared a New York Times headline on Oct. 10, 1918, while the deadly second wave of the Spanish Flu was unfolding. A century later, during another pandemic, movies — quotes no longer necessary — are again facing a critical juncture. But it’s not because new films haven’t been coming out. By streaming service, video-on-demand, virtual theater or actual theater, a steady diet of films have been released under COVID-19 every week. The Times has reviewed more than 460 new movies since mid-March. Yet until recently — with only a few exceptions — those haven’t been the big-budget spectacles Hollywood runs on. Eight months into the pandemic, that’s changing. Last month, the Walt Disney Co. experimented with the $200 million “Mulan” as a premium buy on…

German media giant Bertelsmann said that its Penguin Random House division is buying rival Simon & Schuster in a megadeal that would reshape the U.S. publishing industry. Penguin Random House, already the largest American publisher, will buy the New York-based Simon & Schuster, whose authors include Stephen King, Hillary Clinton and John Irving, from TV and film company ViacomCBS for $2.17 billion in cash. “Simon & Schuster strengthens Bertelsmann’s footprint globally, and (particularly) in the U.S., its second-largest market,” the Guetersloh, Germany-based company said in a statement. The purchase of Simon & Schuster would reduce the so-called Big Five of American publishing — which also includes HarperCollins, Hachette Book Group and Macmillan — to four. The companies said the deal is expected to close in 2021, subject to regulatory approval.…

The European Space Agency says it is signing a 86 million-euro ($102 million) contract with a Swiss start-up company to bring a large piece of orbital trash back to Earth. The agency said Thursday that the deal with ClearSpace SA will lead to the “first active debris removal mission” in 2025, in which a custom-made spacecraft will capture and bring down part of a rocket once used to deliver a satellite into orbit. Experts have long warned that hundreds of thousands of pieces of space debris circling the planet — including an astronaut’s lost mirror — pose a threat to functioning satellites and even the International Space Station. Several teams are working on ways to tackle the problem. The object being removed from orbit is a so-called Vespa payload adapter…

General Motors says a pending breakthrough in battery chemistry will cut the price of its electric vehicles so they equal those powered by gasoline within five years. The technology also will increase the range per charge to as much as 450 miles. The company’s product development chief promised a small electric SUV that will cost less than $30,000 and pledged to roll out 30 battery-powered models worldwide by 2025. Nearly all current electric vehicles cost more than $30,000. The announcement shows how fast electric vehicle technology is evolving and how it may become the primary fuel for transportation sooner than almost anyone believed. The GM announcement is among a series of recent tipping points from internal combustion vehicles to electric, Guidehouse Insights Principal Analyst Sam Abuelsamid said. Ford and Fiat…

China launched an ambitious mission on Tuesday to bring back rocks and debris from the moon’s surface for the first time in more than 40 years — an undertaking that could boost human understanding of the moon and of the solar system more generally. Chang’e 5 — named for the Chinese moon goddess — is the country’s boldest lunar mission yet. If successful, it would be a major advance for China’s space program, and some experts say it could pave the way for bringing samples back from Mars or even a crewed lunar mission. The four modules of the Chang’e 5 spacecraft blasted off at just after 4:30 a.m. Tuesday (2030 GMT Monday, 3:30 p.m. EST Monday) atop a massive Long March-5Y rocket from the Wenchang launch center along the…

Best Buy Co. reported fiscal third-quarter results that blew through analysts’ expectations as the nation’s largest consumer electronics retailer enjoyed surging demand for items like home theater and appliances that help people learn, cook, work and connect in their homes during the pandemic. The Richfield, Minnesota-based retailer, said that third-quarter profits rose 33% while sales were up 21%. Sales at stores opened at least a year rose 23%, while online sales in the U.S. surged 174%. Still, shares fell 5% in Tuesday morning trading as Best Buy warned that sales could slow down during the current quarter as the number of virus cases surge. “As we start the fourth quarter, the demand for the products and services we sell remains at elevated levels, but similar to last quarter, it continues…

The film “Sound of Metal” starts with the uncomfortably loud noises of guitar feedback and ends two hours later with absolute silence. The trip through those extremes is a worthy one, if sometimes exasperating. British actor and rapper Riz Ahmed absolutely shines as Ruben Stone, an American punk-metal drummer whose life is upended when he abruptly loses his hearing while on tour. “Eliminate all exposure to loud noises,” a doctor advises Ruben. That’s not so easy. He’s a punk-metal drummer, after all. Loud noises is what he does. The diagnosis threatens Stone’s livelihood but also his four-year streak at sobriety. His girlfriend and bandmate (a superb Olivia Cooke) convinces him to drive their Airstream across the country to a rehab facility that specializes in deaf addicts. There he must leave…

These weren’t the piano lessons of my youth. Quite the opposite. Gone was the septuagenarian teacher crowding me on a piano bench at my grandmother’s house, extolling the importance of Christian hymns. “Old Rugged Cross,”“Jesus Loves Me,” “How Great Thou Art.” Grandma finally accepted my resignation after a few solid years of protest. Then last spring, as the pandemic droned on, I’d lost my job, and our schools in the Boston area remained closed, I decided to start taking piano lessons again. It had been 30 years. The grand staff was a foreign language and the only key I could recognize was middle C. The first day, I propped up my phone, clicked a Zoom link for our lesson and found an energetic college student staring back at me. I’d…

Google faces fresh regulatory scrutiny in Britain over plans to revamp its ad data system, after an industry lobbying group complained to the competition watchdog that the changes would cement the U.S. tech giant’s online dominance. Marketers for an Open Web, a coalition of technology and publishing companies, said that it’s urging the U.K. competition watchdog to step in and force Google to delay the rollout of its “privacy sandbox” scheduled for early next year. The new technology would remove so-called third party cookies that allow users to be tracked across the internet by storing information on their devices, replaced by tools owned by Google. That means login, advertising and other features would be taken off the open web and placed under Google’s control, the group said. The Competition and…

Gripped by the accelerating viral outbreak, the U.S. economy is under pressure from persistent layoffs, diminished income and nervous consumers, whose spending is needed to drive a recovery from the pandemic. A flurry of data released this week suggested that the spread of the virus is intensifying the threats to an economy still struggling to recover from the deep recession that struck in early spring. The number of Americans seeking unemployment aid rose last week for a second straight week to 778,000, evidence that many employers are still slashing jobs more than eight months after the virus hit. Before the pandemic, weekly jobless claims typically amounted to only about 225,000. Layoffs are still historically high, with many businesses unable to fully reopen and some, especially restaurants and bars, facing tightened…

Hospitals will be allowed to care for Medicare patients in their own homes during the pandemic under a government program announced Wednesday to help hospitals deal with the latest surge. Some hospitals already offered patients with private insurance the choice of getting care at home instead of in the hospital. The pandemic dramatically boosted use of such programs. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said it will let hospitals quickly launch home programs, which will offer around-the-clock electronic monitoring for Medicare and Medicare Advantage patients who are sick enough to be hospitalized, but don’t need intensive care. COVID-19 patients are eligible. Six health systems already offering “hospital-at-home” care were approved to participate in the Medicare program immediately. “We’re at a new level of crisis response with COVID-19” and this…

China on Wednesday demanded India rescind a ban on more Chinese mobile phone apps amid tension between Beijing and other governments over technology and security. A foreign ministry spokesman accused India of violating global free-trade rules and discriminating against Chinese companies. India announced a ban Tuesday on 43 apps, many of them Chinese. It said they threaten India’s “sovereignty and integrity” but gave no details. That came on top of earlier bans on Chinese apps including popular video service TikTok. “The Indian side should immediately correct this discriminatory practice so as to avoid causing greater damage to the cooperation between the two sides,” said the spokesman, Zhao Lijian. Zhao called on India to “safeguard the legitimate rights and interests” of Chinese companies but gave no indication whether Beijing might retaliate.…

Critics labeled the iPhone 12 Apple’s biggest leap forward in years, with analysts suggesting that the Cupertino company will shift close to 70 million units before the end of 2020. As if the iPhone 12 range wasn’t popular enough, Apple has announced a partnership with carrier Verizon to make iPhone the most compelling business smartphone, offering 5G on the go. iPHONE 12 FOR BUSINESS Though we knew most of the iPhone 12’s design and infrastructure changes before Tim Cook announced its launch at a virtual event in September, critics and consumers alike were still overwhelmingly positive upon release. Apple says that iPhone 12 range - now available in four sizes, including a smaller mini model - ushers in a new era for smartphones, bringing 5G capabilities to the masses and…

Detroit officials’ plan to install 200 more traffic light-mounted cameras at city intersections is facing community resistance amid privacy and racial discrimination concerns. The 200 additional cameras would build off of an initial 121-camera pilot program and bring the technology to more than 300 of Detroit’s 787 traffic lights by October 2021, Dayo Akinyemi, of the city’s Department of Public Works, said during a presentation on the expansion plans. But Detroit resident Christopher Williams Shah said during that public meeting that the community wants assurances police won’t misuse the 200 extra cameras, resulting in Black men landing in jail. “I’m going to say it straight out. What I see occurring is this being used to target Black males in Detroit,” he said. “Police are visual predators in Detroit.” The debate…

When Jenna Powell gets in front of a camera, she can sell $10,000 worth of sparkly dresses and tie-dye hoodies in 40 minutes. Powell, whose three Jennaration shops in Alabama were closed at the start of the pandemic, has put all her focus on selling through live videos, broadcasting live several times a week to 400 people who watch on Facebook or her store’s app. She puts on clothes from her shop, spins for the camera and tries to get viewers to buy. “This top is a deal for $22!,” Powell says in a recent video about a leopard print sweater she’s wearing. “It’s just very, very well made, y’all!” Livestream selling, already popular in China, is taking off in the U.S., ushering in a new way for Americans to…

These days, with a pandemic raging, this is what life can look like: Staring at your face on Zoom for hours instead of occasionally glimpsing it in the mirror. Living out the days in loungewear. Wearing minimal makeup because no one sees much of you. Considering an investment in home exercise equipment because gyms are closed or restricted. The pandemic has forced people to spend more time with themselves than ever. Along the way, it has reshaped and broadened the way many think about and prioritize how they treat themselves — what has come to be called self-care. The pandemic-era incarnation of self-care isn’t about buying a signature outfit, wearing a trendy shade of lipstick or getting a perfect haircut. It has, for many, put the purpose and meaning of…

European regulators took a step closer to letting the Boeing 737 Max fly again, publishing a proposed airworthiness directive that could see the aircraft cleared within weeks after being grounded for nearly two years over deadly crashes. The publication of the directive by the European Union Aviation Safety Agency opens a 28-day public consultation period after which the agency will review the input and then approve the aircraft for flight. It said the step signals “its intention to approve the aircraft to return to Europe’s skies within a matter of weeks.” Regulators around the world grounded the Max in March 2019, after the crash of an Ethiopian Airlines jet. That happened less than five months after another Max flown by Indonesia’s Lion Air plunged into the Java Sea. A total…

The chairman and CEO of e-commerce giant Alibaba Group praised Chinese regulators in a possible attempt to repair ties after the stock market debut of its former financial services arm was suspended following criticism of them by billionaire Alibaba founder Jack Ma. Beijing’s announcement of proposed guidelines to regulate internet companies is “timely and necessary,” Daniel Zhang said in a speech at the government-organized World Internet Conference in Wuzhen, a town in Zhejiang province, just south of Shanghai. While Zhang did not specify which regulations he was referring to, China on Nov. 10 announced proposed guidelines on how anti-competition would apply to internet companies. They highlighted potential areas regulators might target, including exclusive contracts, which are common practices used by e-commerce firms and other internet companies. The move to regulate…

The Trump administration on Wednesday effectively killed a contentious proposed mine in Alaska, a gold and copper prospect once envisioned to be nearly as deep as the Grand Canyon and could produce enough waste to fill an NFL stadium nearly 3,900 times — all near the headwaters of the world’s largest sockeye salmon fishery. The Army Corps of Engineers “concluded that the proposed project is contrary to the public interest” and denied a permit to build the Pebble Mine under both the Clean Water Act and the Rivers and Harbors Act, the agency said in a statement. The rejection was a surprise. It’s at odds with President Donald Trump’s efforts to encourage energy development in Alaska, including opening up part of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling, and other…

RadioShack, a fixture at the mall for decades, has been pulled from brink of death, again. It’s the most prized name in the basket of brands that entrepreneur investors Alex Mehr and Tai Lopez have scooped up since the coronavirus pandemic bowled over the U.S. retail sector and sent a number of chains into bankruptcy protection. Those brands so far include Pier1, Dressbarn and Modell’s. Mehr and Lopez plan to make RadioShack competitive again, this time online, rather than on street corners or in malls. However, unlike RadioShack’s glory years, it’s Amazon’s world now. The big question is: How much value does the RadioShack brand have when the prized target audience of millennials or Gen Z have likely never owned a radio, let alone stepped inside a store? “It’s a…

Annette Guzman-Torres was feeling discouraged and frustrated, her anxiety fueled by the uncertainty of a bleak job market during the coronavirus pandemic. The 44-year-old married mother of two boys is close to finishing the capstone project for her doctorate from Capella University. She has a 3.77 GPA, is a member of The National Society of Leadership and Success and has big professional dreams. But Guzman-Torres was furloughed from her government job in March after the pandemic began and still hasn’t been able to return. She also found no leads for employment after her upcoming graduation. “I was like, I have no job, nowhere to go, nothing to do,” said the resident of Bloomfield, New Jersey. “My fears, I was kind of letting them get to me.” So, Guzman-Torres needed help…

The second of three estimates on U.S. growth for the July-September quarter was unchanged at a record pace of 33.1%. But a resurgence in the coronavirus is expected to slow growth sharply in the current quarter with some economists even raising the specter of a double-dip recession. While the overall increase in the country’s total output of goods and services was static, the Commerce Department reported Thursday, some components were revised. Bigger gains in business investment, housing and exports were offset by downward revisions to state and local government spending, business inventories and consumer spending. The 33.1% gain was the largest quarterly gain on records going back to 1947 and surpassed the old mark of a 16.7% surge in 1950. Still, the economy has not fully recovered from output lost…

Remember “The Croods”? It’s understandable if the answer is a “sure, kinda?”The 2013 animated film about a cave family in a fictional prehistoric era featuring the voices of Nicolas Cage, Emma Stone, Ryan Reynolds and Cloris Leachman was pretty enjoyable, made a decent amount of money and even got an Oscar nomination. Nothing earth shattering, but it wasn’t surprising that DreamWorks Animation decided to greenlight a sequel. That it took seven years to do so is, but “ The Croods: A New Age ” got caught up in a crazy cycle of corporate acquisitions, director changes and shifting priorities. It was even flat out canceled at one point. And this all happened pre-pandemic. That it still eventually got made with all of the original cast is a downright miracle. But…

A U.S.-European satellite designed to extend a decades-long measurement of global sea surface heights was launched into Earth orbit from California last Saturday. A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying the satellite blasted off from Vandenberg Air Force Base at 9:17 a.m. and arced southward over the Pacific Ocean. The Falcon’s first stage flew back to the launch site and landed for reuse. The Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich satellite was released from the second stage about an hour later. It then deployed its solar panels and made first contact with controllers. Named for a former NASA official who had a key role in developing space-based oceanography, the satellite’s main instrument is an extremely accurate radar altimeter that will bounce energy off the sea surface as it sweeps over Earth’s oceans. An identical…

A German lab is hoping to cut the time it takes to send coronavirus tests across Berlin by using drones, thereby avoiding the capital’s clogged roads. California-based company Matternet is currently testing drone deliveries between a hospital and Labor Berlin, one of the largest laboratories in Europe. The route from drone to lab is about 11 kilometers (7 miles) as the drone flies, and officials expect to cut standard delivery times from about an hour to around 10 minutes when service on the route begins in January. Eventually, the hope is that drones will provide regular deliveries to the lab from six points around Berlin, shaving vital minutes off the turnaround time for COVID tests. “The whole topic of ‘time to the result’ is really important, especially when there is…

Internet and technology companies have threatened to leave Pakistan after the government granted blanket powers to authorities to censor digital content, a move critics say was aimed at curtailing freedom of expression in the conservative Islamic nation. The warning from the Asia Internet Coalition, which represents global technology giants including Google, Facebook and Twitter, comes after the government of Prime Minister Imran Khan granted enhanced powers to government media regulators. The coalition said it was “alarmed by the scope of Pakistan’s new law targeting internet companies, as well as the government’s opaque process by which these rules were developed.” Under the new regulations, social media companies or internet service providers face a fine of up to $3.14 million for failure to curb the sharing of content deemed to be defamatory…