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☆ Exclusive: Apple supplier BOE plans new factories in Vietnam
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-11 | by ( Francesco Guarascio | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

HANOI, Jan 11 (Reuters) - Chinese display maker BOE Technology Group Co Ltd (000725.SZ), a supplier of both Apple Inc (AAPL.O) and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd (005930.KS), plans to invest a substantial sum to build two factories in Vietnam, two people familiar with the matter said. BOE plans to make the more sophisticated organic light-emitting diodes (OLED) screens at the site rather than liquid-crystal displays (LCDs), the person said. Apple, which included BOE in its 2021 list of manufacturing partners, uses OLED screens for its latest iPhone smartphones. The U.S. tech giant, however, plans to start making mobile screens in-house by next year, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday. BOE's Vietnam plan is not specifically aimed at supplying Apple, the person said.

☆ Massive waves, power outages plague California coastal community amid storms
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-06 | by ( Kate Fishman | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

[1/6] A member of a Pacific Gas & Electric crew works to repair a power line, following storms in Mendocino, California, U.S. January 5, 2023. At the southern end of Mendocino county, the small towns of Point Arena and Gualala have been largely without power for around 24 hours. About 2,500 households and businesses were without power in the county, which is home to about 91,000 people. California's storied coast road, Highway 1, is closed in four places in Mendocino County because of fallen trees, the California Department of Transportation said. The high tide brought swells that washed debris across the beach and its parking lot, the high waves crashing into the mouth of the Noyo River.

☆ Fortnite maker Epic Games to pay $520 million in fines in FTC settlement
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-19 | by ( Rohan Goswami | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

Epic Games, the developer and publisher of the video game Fornite, will pay $520 million in fines to settle with the FTC over violations of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). Epic will pay two fines, including a $245 million fine against Fortnite's in-game store and refund systems, and another $275 million fine to address child privacy concerns. Despite the deliberate decision to market to children, the FTC said Epic failed to "cure," or address, COPPA violations. "All the while, kids have been bullied, threatened, and harassed, including sexually, through Fortnite," the FTC complaint read. Only in 2019, "long after Epic obtained empirical evidence pointing to large numbers of Fortnite players" under the age of 13, did Epic introduce an age verification system.

☆ North Korea confirms 'important' test to develop spy satellite, KCNA says
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-18 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

SEOUL, Dec 19 (Reuters) - North Korea's state media KCNA said on Monday the country conducted an "important, final phase" test on Sunday for the development of a spy satellite, which it seeks to complete by April 2023. KCNA said the test, conducted at its Sohae satellite launching station in the northwestern town of Tongchang-ri, was aimed at reviewing the country's capability of satellite imaging, data transmission and ground control systems. A vehicle carrying a mock satellite was fired at the "lofted angle" of 500 km (311 miles), it added. North Korea has conducted an unprecedented number of missile tests this year, including an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) aimed at reaching the U.S. mainland, in defiance of international sanctions. Reporting by Hyonhee Shin; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Paul SimaoOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Electric school buses are giving kids a cleaner, but costlier, ride to class
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-10 | by ( John Rosevear | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +6 min

Right now, only a tiny fraction of the roughly 480,000 school buses in America are battery-powered. Greener pasturesEnvironmental activists have been working for years to try to replace diesel and gasoline school buses with new electric models. Gander leads the World Resources Institute's Electric School Bus Initiative, a project funded in part by the Bezos Earth Fund established by Amazon's founder, Jeff Bezos. The initiative works with school officials, utility companies and ESB manufacturers to try to accelerate the adoption of zero-emission school buses. A Thomas Built electric school bus in Beverly, Massachusetts.

☆ China Eastern takes delivery of the world’s first made-in-China C919 jet
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-09 | by ( ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

The world’s first C919, a Chinese-made narrowbody jet, was delivered to launch customer China Eastern Airlines (CEA) in Shanghai on Friday and took off for a 15-minute flight to mark the historic moment. The plane, delivered to China Eastern, has 164 seats and was painted with “the world’s first C919” on its side in Chinese and English. China Eastern said Friday it plans to receive the remaining four of its first batch of C919 orders over the next two years, according to Shanghai’s The Paper, a state-owned newspaper. China’s narrowbody jet ambitions intensified over the last few years amid conflicts with the United States from trade to technology that made China increasingly concerned about being overly dependent on Airbus and Boeing. China is trying to raise the proportion of domestic parts in the C919 and an alternative engine called the CJ-1000A is under development.

☆ China Eastern takes delivery of the world's first made-in-China C919 jet
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-09 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

[1/2] A model of a C919 airliner by Commercial Aircraft Corp of China (COMAC) is displayed at China Beijing International High-tech Expo in Beijing, China June 8, 2017. REUTERS/Jason LeeBEIJING/SYDNEY, Dec 9 (Reuters) - The world's first C919, a Chinese-made narrowbody jet, was delivered to launch customer China Eastern Airlines (600115.SS) in Shanghai on Friday and took off for a 15-minute flight to mark the historic moment. The plane delivered to China Eastern has 164 seats and was painted with "the world's first C919" on its side in Chinese and English. China Eastern said on Friday it plans to receive the remaining four of its first batch of C919 orders over the next two years, according to Shanghai's The Paper. China is trying to raise the proportion of domestic parts in the C919 and an alternative engine called the CJ-1000A is under development.

☆ Why aluminum plants in the U.S. are far more polluting than some of their counterparts abroad
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-06 | by ( Phil Mckenna | Inside Climate News | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +15 min

A plant worker uses a crane to lift a cask of molten aluminum a Century Aluminum Company plant in Hawesville, Ky. in 2017. Of the five remaining facilities, only the Century Aluminum Sebree plant in Robards, which employs 625 workers, and a smaller Alcoa plant in Massena, New York, run at full capacity. Phillip McKenna/NBC NewsSteinsen, of Century Aluminum, said the company has no plans to shut down its Sebree facility in Robards. In 2015, when the U.S. aluminum production was in steep decline, the EPA ended its industry partnership. In 2019, 7,510 metric tons of PFCs were emitted from global aluminum production, according to a study published last year in the Journal of Geophysical Research — Atmospheres.

☆ U.S. Watchdog Sanctions KPMG Firms, Audit Professionals
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-06 | by ( Jennifer Williams-Alvarez | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +7 min

PREVIEWThe U.K. firm was additionally sanctioned for allegedly failing to reasonably supervise an unregistered audit firm, Romanian audit firm KPMG Audit SRL, in four consecutive audits of Endava PLC, a British technology services company. KPMG U.K. was found to have also made several inaccurate PCAOB filings about the involvement of unregistered firms in certain audit work. The PCAOB imposed a $600,000 penalty for the alleged failings around unregistered audit firms, which KPMG U.K. didn’t admit or deny. KPMG U.K. has reviewed the way it works with other firms, enhancing controls and providing additional training, Cath Burnet, U.K. head of audit at KPMG, said. The U.K.’s audit and accounting regulator in a July letter to seven audit firms, including KPMG, said that it is “deeply concerned” about audit professionals cheating on external professional exams and internal assessments.

☆ Crypto Exchange Kraken Settles Alleged Sanctions Violations
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-28 | by ( Mengqi Sun | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +2 min

Cryptocurrency exchange Kraken has agreed to pay more than $362,000 to settle allegations it violated U.S. sanctions against Iran, the U.S. Treasury Department said Monday. Newsletter Sign-up WSJ | Risk and Compliance Journal Our Morning Risk Report features insights and news on governance, risk and compliance. PREVIEWKraken will invest $100,000 in its sanctions compliance controls as part of the settlement agreement, which includes training and technical measures. Kraken failed, however, to set up IP address blocking on transaction activity across its platform, according to the Treasury Department. Cryptocurrency exchange Bittrex Inc. in October agreed to pay $29 million to the department to settle allegations that it violated sanctions and anti-money-laundering laws.

The vintage aircraft in Saturday's deadly collision at a Dallas air show, as expected, lacked flight data recorders, making social media crucial to the investigation, a federal official indicated Sunday. "Neither aircraft was equipped with a flight data recorder or a cockpit data recorder," National Transportation Safety Board member Michael Graham said during a news conference Sunday. Photos and videos of the Wings Over Dallas Airshow collision, which killed all six on board the aircraft, could be “very critical, since we don't have any flight data recorders," he said. LM Otero / APStill, even under the NTSB's wish list for improved crash data, such vintage aircraft were not singled out. A cockpit voice recorder "records the flight crew’s voices, as well as other sounds inside the cockpit," the NTSB website says.

☆ Iran appears to be using Chinese knock-offs of Western parts to build suicide drones for Russia's war in Ukraine, researchers find
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-01 | by ( Jake Epstein | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Iran appears to be using Chinese knock-offs of Western hardware in its suicide drones. According to a new report from the Institute for Science and International Security, these weapons appear to be built using Chinese parts that are based on Western designs. Iran has also designed its own parts that are based on these knock-off Chinese parts. And this Chinese engine is based on a British design. It's also unknown when specific Chinese parts arrived in Iran.

☆ The US and Canada are updating a Cold War-era system to keep an eye on Russian and Chinese missiles. Experts say they need to add a lot more territory too.
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-26 | by ( Michael Peck | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

The US and Canada are modernizing NORAD to watch for Russian, Chinese, and North Korean missiles. At the same time, some experts argue that the command should expand beyond North America to include Denmark and its North American territory, Greenland. North American Aerospace Defense Command, as it's now known, is also responsible for detecting and tracking North Korean missile launches. But the North Pole is still a dagger pointed at North America. The defense of North America is still on NORAD's radar.

☆ Partner at Accounting Firm Fined for Allegedly Misleading Investigators
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-18 | by ( Mark Maurer | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +4 min

A partner at accounting firm Spielman Koenigsberg & Parker LLP was fined $150,000 for allegedly misleading investigators, the largest monetary penalty imposed on an individual in a case settled by the U.S. auditing watchdog. The regulator also permanently barred Mr. Taylor from associating with a PCAOB-registered accounting firm. Mr. Taylor became a partner at the firm in 1999, according to the firm’s website. Neither Mr. Taylor nor the firm immediately responded to a request for comment. “The quality control systems at audit firms are fundamental to audit quality and regulatory compliance,” Mark Adler, the acting director of the PCAOB’s division of enforcement and investigations, said in a statement.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia's threat of nuclear weapons use "could be a reality," in an interview with CBS' "Face the Nation" Sunday. Zelenskyy said Russia is targeting nuclear power plants in Ukraine, so there could be some truth to Putin's claims. I don't think he's bluffing," Zelenskyy said. U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan made clear that the United States is taking Putin's nuclear threat seriously. Zelenskyy said Russia is using the war as an excuse to claim that it is being attacked by the West.

read moreAbout 10 officials from the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) and the Ministry of Finance (MOF) have arrived in Hong Kong and joined the audit inspection, which started on Monday, three of the people said. However, in a speech on Thursday, PCAOB chair Erica Williams said agency officials had arrived in Hong Kong to begin the inspections. As with all inspections, they will look at factors, including the audits of the selected companies and the overall quality control systems of the audit companies. State-owned China Southern Airlines and data centre company GDS Holdings are among the U.S.-listed Chinese companies for audit inspection in the Asian financial hub, two separate sources said. The onsite inspections by the PCAOB are being conducted in the Hong Kong offices of the selected Chinese companies' audit firms, said two of the sources.

read moreAbout 10 officials from the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) and the Ministry of Finance (MOF) have arrived in Hong Kong and joined the audit inspection, which started on Monday, three of the people said. State-owned China Southern Airlines and data centre company GDS Holdings are among the U.S.-listed Chinese companies for audit inspection in the Asian financial hub, two separate sources said. Reuters reported last month that U.S. regulators had picked a number of U.S.-listed Chinese companies including e-commerce majors Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (9988.HK) and JD.com Inc (9618.HK) for audit inspection. It was not clear whether the Chinese officials would be present for every step of the inspection process with PCAOB representatives. The onsite inspections by the PCAOB are being conducted in the Hong Kong offices of the selected Chinese companies' audit firms, said two of the sources.

The complaints, obtained by CNBC, were filed by nonprofit law firm Whistleblower Aid, which is representing Twitter's former head of security, Peiter "Mudge" Zatko. Whistleblower Aid, which also represented Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen, verified the authenticity of the documents with CNBC. A Twitter whistleblower is alleging "extreme, egregious deficiencies by Twitter" related to privacy, security and content moderation, according to complaints filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice. If government regulators were to find Twitter misled consumers about its security protocols, that may be considered a violation of its 2011 agreement with the FTC. At the time, Twitter was barred for 20 years from misleading consumers about how it protects their security and private information.

☆ X-59: NASA’s ‘quiet’ supersonic plane revealed
▼ + stars: | 2022-07-25 | by ( Jacopo Prisco | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +8 min

CNN —If you’ve heard a sonic boom recently, you probably remember it. Now, NASA is working to change those regulations by transforming the boom into a “thump,” paving the way for a new generation of quieter supersonic aircraft. It’s set to take off for the first time later this year, ahead of its first quiet supersonic flight. “It will be significantly quieter than Concorde or any other supersonic aircraft that exist today,” Craig Nickol, senior adviser at NASA Headquarters, told CNN in 2022. However, it’s doubtful that any of them will be able to take advantage of the findings of the Quesst program, which will likely inform the next generation of supersonic aircraft.

Persons: you’ve, Lockheed Martin, It’s, ”, Pam Melroy, ” Craig Nickol, “, ” Nickol, Lockheed Martin Skunk, Christine Groening, there’s Organizations: CNN, Concorde, NASA, Mach, Lockheed, Lockheed Martin Skunk Works, “, Armstrong Flight Research, Federal Aviation Administration, FAA, Oklahoma City, US Federal Aviation Administration Locations: Palmdale , California, coalescing, Edwards , California, Oklahoma, New York, Los Angeles

Apple filed two patents in Singapore early in 2020, relating to drones and their control systems. Their filing out of the US and delayed publication suggests Apple may be trying to keep them quiet. The giant had previously filed two other patent applications, indicating some effort had been made to keep the project quiet. It can delay the date that a patent application is made public, and it can submit the application in another country. Both of these patents were originally filed in Singapore, according to Patently Apple.

☆ One UN Joint Action Cross-river support to Human
▼ + stars: | 2021-01-02 | by ( Alte Articole | ) www.civic.md time to read: +3 min

The ability of vulnerable groups from the region to effectively exercise their rights is impaired by the human rights knowledge, capacity and authority gaps they face. The embryonic civil society environment with weak capacities to influence the policy-making and to reach out to the most vulnerable ones and low human rights awareness of the CSOs, professionals and the population at large are hindering the realization of human rights in the region. The Programme will work on reducing inequalities for women, men and children in the Transnistrian region, by ensuring that vulnerable human rights holders are empowered to exercise their rights and duty bearers respect, protect and fulfil human rights to a larger extent. It also aims to contribute to the implementation of the National Human Rights Action Plan 2018-2022. The Communication Officer will, under the guidance of the Programme Manager, assume full responsibility for the effective implementation of the communication and visibility activities within One UN Joint Action "Cross-river support to Human Rights", including coordination of short-term project communication experts.

Organizations: Human Rights, UNDP, UN, Communication Locations: Transnistrian

☆ US nuclear forces are controlled by this shockingly obsolete tech
▼ + stars: | 2016-05-26 | by ( Dave Mosher | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

A new government report paints a disquieting picture of the computer systems used to run the United States. But perhaps the most alarming information touches on the Department of Defense (DoD), which controls the nation's stockpile of 7,100 nuclear and thermonuclear warheads. The GAO found that the Strategic Automated Command and Control System (SACCS) — a computer system that "coordinates the operational functions of the United States' nuclear forces, such as intercontinental ballistic missiles, nuclear bombers, and tanker support aircrafts" — still runs on 8-inch floppy disks. Per the GAO report:[T]he system's primary function is to send and receive emergency action messages to nuclear forces. But US command and control systems aren't the only pieces of nuclear strike infrastructure that are dated: The nuclear weapons themselves are not getting any younger.

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