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☆ How a Swedish fighter jet managed to catch the un-catchable SR-71 spy plane
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-27 | by ( Peter Suciu | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Only one aircraft even has the distinction of achieving radar lock on the legendary spy plane. It wasn't a Soviet interceptor such as the MiG-25 however, but rather the Swedish-made Saab J37 Viggen fighter that successfully achieved a missile lock and visual contact with the speedy spy plane. The Saab J37 and the Baltic ExpressA Swedish Air Force Saab Viggen arrives at RAF Fairford in July 1993. Andrew Surma/NurPhoto via Getty ImagesThe United States Air Force pilots likely believed the same about the Saab J37 Viggen too. Swedish pilot Per-Olof Eldh scrambled in his Saab J37 Viggen fighter and started the head-on attack protocol.

How is it legal to track someone's private jet? It's a question that has emerged in light of Twitter's decision to ban accounts that tracked private planes, including one — @ElonJet — that reported the flight activity of its own CEO, Elon Musk. ADS-B technology is now mandated by the Federal Aviation Administration on all aircraft to avoid such events. But ADS-B technology also allows airplanes to be easily tracked by anyone with a compatible receiver. The website is where Sweeney appears to have sourced some of the information used to set up the @ElonJet tracking account.

In this guide, we'll give you a crash course on how to quickly earn credit card rewards and book free travel. If everyone in the world expertly utilized credit card rewards to travel for free, there wouldn't be such amazing travel opportunities out there. Identify your travel goalsBefore you begin collecting credit card rewards, you should first identify your travel goals. Recommended credit card strategies for beginnersThe best practice for anyone new to credit card rewards is to invest in flexible points. You'll need: An annual fee-incurring Hilton credit card One of the greatest deals in credit card rewards is the free night certificate that comes with select American Express Hilton credit cards.

☆ Satellites can fly higher in private
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-16 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

NEW YORK, Dec 16 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Volatile revenue makes for a volatile share price. That’s one explanation for private equity firms Advent International and British Columbia Investment Management’s purchase of satellite firm Maxar Technologies (MAXR.N) for $6.4 billion, including debt. The chunky 129% premium suggests they think the company can fly higher off public markets. A decline in demand for construction of big projects, and the failure of a satellite Maxar built, hit the firm hard, as insurance only partly covered losses and customers shied away. Maxar plans to launch imaging satellites faster in private than it had when it was public.

☆ Struggling sneaker brand Vans is trying to lure millennials away from Nike and other brands with nostalgia, high heat collabs, and better arch support
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-13 | by ( Danni Santana | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

But Harrer, who joined Vans from Dollar Shave Club in April 2021, noted that Vans wasn't reminding people about those classic shoes. Vans stopped marketing its classic sneakers for some time before resuming earlier this year with the "Classic Since Forever" campaign. "Our top-tier limited-distribution footwear, which you may know as Vans Vault, has previously met the needs of influential footwear-trend accounts in the past," he said. With Vans Vault, the company takes classic shoes and collaborates with popular designers and boutiques on new colorways. Vans Vault releases compete with Nike, Adidas, Converse, and others for the general sneaker lover.

☆ One group of stocks is refusing to buckle even with a recession looming
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-07 | by ( Michael Santoli | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

This is the daily notebook of Mike Santoli, CNBC's senior markets commentator, with ideas about trends, stocks and market statistics. Bank of America here plots what has historically happened in the year before and after the Fed's final rate hike. The best return came after the 1980 halt, and the worst in 1969 right ahead of a recession with still-high inflation (5-6% CPI). A longer-term look at the equal-weighted consumer discretionary vs. energy stocks shows some convergence here as the consumer has refused to buckle, car production is in catch-up mode and even homebuilder stocks are 25% off their lows, with energy in consolidation mode. Energy stocks faltering but still holding longer-term uptrends for now.

☆ Fact Check-Lengthier Artemis I trajectory toward Moon compared to Apollo 11 is not proof that space travel is a hoax
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-06 | by ( Reuters Fact Check | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

The Artemis I mission took a different, less direct route toward the Moon compared to the 1969 Apollo 11 mission. The Artemis I lengthier trajectory is not proof of inferior technology, nor is it proof that space travel is a hoax, despite claims made online. Social media users shared a meme claiming to show the number of days it took for the Apollo 11 spacecraft to reach the Moon compared to the November 2022 Artemis I mission. A graphic released by NASA showing the Apollo 11 flight trajectory can be viewed (here), with the Artemis I trajectory viewable (here). “The Apollo 11 mission had a very direct path to a low lunar orbit to deliver the crew to the lunar surface.

☆ FTSE 100 at three-month highs on hopes of China easing COVID curbs
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-29 | by ( Shashwat Chauhan | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

The blue-chip FTSE 100 (.FTSE) was up 0.6%, hitting its highest since Aug. 26, while the domestically-focused FTSE 250 midcap index (.FTMC) was flat. World markets were rattled on Monday as protests against strict COVID-19 restrictions flared up in major Chinese cities over the weekend. Base metal miners (.FTNMX551020) climbed 2.8%, touching three-month highs, as prices rebounded on support for the property sector in top metals consumer China. Heavyweight energy stocks (.FTNMX601010) rose 1.4% as oil prices climbed on hopes of China easing its COVID controls. Reporting by Shashwat Chauhan in Bengaluru; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty and Savio D'SouzaOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ This startup wants to use light-based chips to make driverless cars safe. Check out the pitch deck Scantinel Photonics used to raise its $10 million Series A.
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-24 | by ( Riddhi Kanetkar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Scantinel Photonics has raised $10 million in Series A funding from PhotonDelta. The German startup uses photonics chips to make autonomous driving more precise and safe. The startup says the game-changer is its use of photonics chips. These photonics chips are used to make LiDAR solutions and devices — which are integrated into AVs, and key in helping vehicles to sense objects and estimate distances on the road. Scantinel says it is pioneering a "new wave of LiDAR technology" that's more immune to interference and precise in its imaging, said managing director Dr. Michael Richter.

☆ The cooldown in home prices was a 'once-in-40-years' move, worse than the 2008 crisis that foiled algorithms, said the CEO of America's largest home-flipper
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-19 | by ( Jordan Pandy | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Opendoor CEO Eric Wu says the company's algorithm didn't predict housing market shifting so quickly. The quick market shifts rivaled those of the housing crisis of 2008, he said. Opendoor's forecast did factor in higher interest rates, according to Wu, but not for home price appreciation to shift alongside it. "We were pricing in the interest rate movements" but didn't also account for the dramatic shift in home prices, he said. According to Wu, Opendoor tested previous market conditions, but the speed of the most-recent shift was far greater than previous shifts — including the 2008 financial crisis.

☆ The death of Twitter won't be the dramatic explosion you might expect
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-18 | by ( Matt Weinberger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

So I'm confident saying Twitter won't wink out of existence, here one day and gone the next. That said, I'm also confident that Twitter won't be the same after Musk's gambit. Here's how I think will happen:Power users start to abandon ship. The combination of app unreliability and the increasingly-notable absence of power users and influencers will lead to average Twitter users spending less time on the site. If and when users stop refreshing Twitter because it's no longer reliable, they'll start spending more time on other platforms.

☆ Jim Cramer: Why the two-day rally to end last week is significant — and what to expect next
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-13 | by ( Jim Cramer | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +8 min

You would just stay mum, enabling investors to expect another raise of 75 basis points, especially if retail sales this week come in above expectations. The best that can be said, though, is that the two days up to end last week seem significant — especially in light of the collapse of FTX. As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust's portfolio. If Jim has talked about a stock on CNBC TV, he waits 72 hours after issuing the trade alert before executing the trade.

The S&P is 10.6% above its Oct. 12 closing low for 2022, though still down 17% for the year. "If you're sitting in cash and the market rallies, you might think you were greedy waiting for a bigger discount." Institutional investors' exposure to stocks was low going into Thursday's inflation report. Last month's fund manager survey from BofA Global Research showed investors' cash levels at their highest since April 2001. Lewis said he had not seen so-called real money – a term for mutual funds, pension funds and other non-leveraged market investors – participating in Thursday's rally, though he saw no evidence of selling from that cohort, either.

☆ Why it's taken nearly 100 years to have jet packs
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-10 | by ( Daniel Gessner | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

So why has it taken so long to develop jet packs that can reach 1,200 feet and fly up to 10 minutes? Why has it taken almost a century for us to see real jet packs? Narrator: The arrival of small but powerful jet engines designed for model aircraft brought back an interest in the possibilities of jet packs. Less than 10 years later, companies like Gravity Industries have demonstrated what modern microturbine-powered jet packs are capable of. But it's not far-fetched to think that jet packs like Gravity's could be used for more than just recreation.

☆ U.S. job growth seen smallest in nearly two years in October, unemployment rate up
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-04 | by ( Lucia Mutikani | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

"The labor market is basically OK, but it does seem to be slowing," said Guy Berger, principal economist at LinkedInin San Francisco. "The Fed is going to try to thread the needle where they slow down the labor market enough to put downward pressure on wages and inflation, without causing a recession." Still, the labor market remains tight, with 1.9 job openings per unemployed person at the end of September. Stripping out any distortions from the weather and calendar quirk, wage growth is cooling. "We believe we've seen wage growth peak," said Michelle Green, principal economist at Prevedere in Columbus, Ohio.

☆ What it feels like to visit a fusion company lab on a day when wildfire smoke cloaks the horizon
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-04 | by ( Catherine Clifford | In Catclifford | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +13 min

The Helion Energy building under construction to house their next generation fusion machine. For the employees of Helion Energy, building a fusion device is their job. Helion Energy's building under construction to house the seventh generation fusion machine on a day when wildfire smoke was not restricting visibility. On the one hand, I had a newfound sense of hope about the possibility of fusion energy. This is the Polaris Injector Test, where Helion Energy is building a component piece of the seventh generation fusion machine.

☆ Ammunition tech firm TV Ammo to go public in $1.2 billion blank-check deal
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-01 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

Nov 1 (Reuters) - Ammunition technology company TV Ammo Inc will merge with blank-check firm Breeze Holdings Acquisition Corp (BREZ.O) in a deal that values the combined entity at $1.21 billion, the companies said on Tuesday. The transaction is expected to generate cash proceeds of about $76.8 million, assuming there are no redemptions from the trust account of the blank-check or special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC). The De-SPAC Index (.DESPACTR) that tracks a basket of companies that have listed through SPAC mergers is down roughly 65% so far this year. A SPAC is a listed shell company that merges with a private company, taking it public in the process. After the deal closes, expected towards the first quarter of 2023, Breeze Holdings will be renamed "True Velocity Inc".

☆ A key threshold awaits the S&P 500, which could test the staying power of this October rally
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-31 | by ( Michael Santoli | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

This is the daily notebook of Mike Santoli, CNBC's senior markets commentator, with ideas about trends, stocks and market statistics. The tape's refusal to buckle on bad news (the consumer price index report, megacap tech earnings blowups, etc.) Yet again, the market is trying to make its peace with a new higher threshold of rates that few foresaw coming even six months ago. Profit forecasts continue to drop though still at a measured pace for the fourth quarter, with 2023 an unknown. Weekend column gets into the ins and outs of seasonal factors, which fail just often enough for people to doubt them.

☆ Researchers who reverse-engineered Starlink to work as a backup for GPS found a security flaw in the system — using a video of tennis star Rafael Nadal — that could be exploited in Ukraine
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-22 | by ( Katherine Tangalakis-Lippert | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

SpaceX's Starlink signals have been long seen as a possible alternative to GPS. Researchers have succeeded in reverse-engineering the signals, MIT Technology Review reported. "The Starlink system signal is a closely guarded secret," Humphreys told MIT Technology Review. "Humphreys has done a big service to the navigation community identifying these sequences," Mark Psiaki, an aerospace professor at Virginia Tech and GPS expert told MIT Technology Review. "As time goes on and their dependence on Starlink deepens, Ukraine and its allies in the West are coming to appreciate that they have little control over Starlink and know little about it," Humphreys told MIT Technology Review.

☆ Explainer: Iran and Russia's growing drone alliance amid Western outcry
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-19 | by ( Michael Georgy | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +6 min

A Russian drone is seen during a Russian drone strike, which local authorities consider to be Iranian made unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) Shahed-136, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine October 17, 2022. Saudi Arabia and the United States have said they believe Iran was behind a drone and missile attack on prized Saudi oil facilities in 2019, which Tehran denies. The United States fears long-range ballistic technology used to put satellites into orbit could also be used to launch nuclear warheads. WHY HAS IRAN BUILT UP ITS OWN MISSILE AND DRONE CAPABILITY? Western powers are expected to impose more sanctions on Iran.

Ukraine says they are Iranian-made Shahed-136 attack drones - loitering munitions that cruise towards their target before plummeting at velocity and detonating on impact. Kremlin on Tuesday denied its forces had used Iranian drones to attack Ukraine. The newspaper said the Iranian trainers are operating from a Russian military base in Crimea where many of the drones have been based since being delivered from Iran. It said the trainers are from the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, a part of Iran's military which Washington deems a terrorist organization. Two senior Iranian officials and two Iranian diplomats told Reuters that Iran has promised to provide Russia with surface to surface missiles, in addition to more drones.

NEW YORK, Oct 18 (Reuters) - Ukraine has invited United Nations experts to inspect what it says are Iranian-origin drones used by Russia to attack Ukrainian targets in violation of a Security Council Resolution, according to a letter seen by Reuters on Tuesday. Russia launched dozens of "kamikaze" drones, or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) on Ukraine on Monday, hitting energy infrastructure and killing five people in the capital Kyiv. Ukraine says they are Iranian-made Shahed-136 attack drones - loitering munitions that cruise towards their target before plummeting at velocity and detonating on impact. Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com RegisterTehran denies supplying the drones to Moscow and the Kremlin has not commented. In the letter, Ukraine said "both Mohajer and Shahed UAVs meet the parameters" stipulated under 2231 "because they are capable of a range of equal to or greater than 300 kilometers."

☆ Explainer: 'Kamikaze drones': what are the weapons Russia is using in Ukraine?
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-18 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

KYIV, Oct 18 (Reuters) - Russia launched dozens of "kamikaze" drones on Ukraine on Monday, hitting energy infrastructure and killing five people in the capital of Kyiv. Ukraine says they are Iranian-made Shahed-136 attack drones - loitering munitions that cruise towards their target before plummeting at velocity and detonating on impact. On the radar, it is one mark, and in that mark there are actually five (drones)," Ihnat said. Ukraine shot down 51 Shahed-136 drones on Oct. 17-18, Ihnat said on Tuesday. A day earlier he put the tally of downed drones at 100 since Russia began using them.

☆ Inside how ESG fintech OpenInvest is helping JPMorgan roll out a variety of tools focused on sustainable investing
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-17 | by ( Asia Martin | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

JPMorgan acquired OpenInvest in 2021 to meet client demand for sustainable investing. OpenInvest, a sustainable-investing robo-advisor, has spent the past 13 months integrating into JPMorgan following the bank's acquisition of the startup in August 2021. Josh Levin, OpenInvest cofounder and chief strategy officer, told Insider clients are able to view things like how much carbon or tobacco the client has avoided funding. OpenInvest is helping JPMorgan work with other fintechsMurray and Levin told Insider that JPMorgan's acquisition represents more than an opportunity to upgrade the bank's sustainable investing offering. And so, we're gonna be looking to work more readily with fintechs in the future," Murray told Insider.

☆ Central banks get sucked into financial black hole
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-14 | by ( Edward Chancellor | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +7 min

Central bankers around the world want to bring inflation down by returning interest rates to “normal” levels. As a result, the average UK mortgage has grown to 3.4 times average income, up from 1.5 times in the early 1980s, according to housing analyst Neal Hudson. But it’s left many homeowners extremely vulnerable to higher interest rates. As a result, the government’s fiscal position is more exposed to interest rate fluctuations. As a financial black hole opens up, central banks will be forced to stop tightening.

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