VACCINE DIPLOMACY
It was naive to think that the whole world would come together to ensure a transparent & equitable distribution process
Recognizing the fact, that no one is safe till everybody is vaccinated globally is the first step towards achieving any kind of normalcy. However, stating the intent is one thing, and taking bold political actions to accomplish equitable vaccination to fight combat COVID-19 is another. So far, we have seen that the eruption of “vaccine nationalism”, that has led to just a handful of countries hogging the majority of the vaccines — just 10 countries account for 75% of all Covid-19 vaccination so far. More than 130 countries have not administered a single dose.
WEEKLY BUSINESS ROUNDUP
The state of Financial markets & Economies, Weekly Charts, Business Trends & Statistics
Rising bond yields have pushed the market lower off-late. Despite a Friday rebound, The major U.S averages finished last week with sharp losses following an earlier selloff sparked by surging yields. The yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury backed off of recent highs of 1.6% to close the week at 1.39%. All three major indexes closed lower for the week, with the Nasdaq posting its worst week since October.
It was a wild week for the U.S equity markets. Fears of higher rates and inflation weighed on all three major averages, as the Dow Jones dropped 1.8%, the S&P 500…
CRYPTO INVESTING
Despite cryptos moving deeper into correction territory, there are continued signs of a maturing industry
Another eventful week comes to an end for the digital assets, well not literally, since cryptos work 24/7 unlike the rest of the financial markets. But let’s just assume that for comparison purposes. We will get to price action later but first some big news from the Cryptoverse. After many rumors, one of the biggest crypto exchanges Coinbase has applied for a direct listing on the U.S stock exchange. This is meaningful development, crypto businesses are entering the legacy financial markets.
The second piece of welcome news is Bitfinex and Tether’s settlement with the New York Attorney General. According to…
QUANTUM COMPUTING
Physicists from leading universities have now shown what the speed limit is for complex quantum operations
We have seen a significant number of breakthroughs in the Quantum Computing field in the recent past. The most noticeable has been the records in quantum teleportation that scientists have achieved — the most recent one was between two computer chips. The one to report about today is the discovery of a crucial quantum speed limit. Knowing how fast can a quantum process execute could help us in designing a quantum computer or a quantum network of the future.
Physicists at the University of Bonn along with researchers from MIT, the universities of Hamburg, Cologne & Padua, and the Jülich…
CBDCs
As digital currencies start to gain immense popularity among the masses, Central banks are scrambling for alternatives
“They came, they saw, they conquered.” That phrase is probably going to be used for cryptos in the not-so-distant future. Led by the premier digital coin Bitcoin, the cryptocurrencies have been on a rip in the past 12 months. I have written on previous occasions on how Central banks around the world have been considering issuing their CBDCs — Central Bank Digital Currencies.
Apart from smaller countries like Columbia and the Bahamas floating their digital currencies — Petro & Sand dollar respectively, the most serious attempt to launch a CBDC by a major central bank has come from China. In…
CYBER ATTACKS
A group of Russian military hackers known as the ‘Sandworm group’ has infiltrated Centreon IT monitoring software
Russian hackers have been infamously involved with many high-profile cyberattacks over the years. And perhaps the biggest one of them all was the one discovered late last year, when a U.S cybersecurity company, FireEye, which makes hacking tools discovered that its own systems were compromised. This hack which went unnoticed for the most part of 2020 was perpetrated by a Russian group called Cozy Bear, also known as APT29.
Add to this the current cyberattack, which is believed to be the doing of Russian military hackers, as reported by ANSSI — Agence Nationale de la Sécurité des Systèmes d’Information, France’s…
AI & SUPERCOMPUTER
The tool harnesses the power of the world’s fastest supercomputer & an AI to predict scenarios in real-time on a PC
It was last summer that I wrote about the Japanese computing giant ‘Fugaku’ surpassing the American reigning champion Summit to become the fastest supercomputer in the World. Since then, Fugaku has solidified its position at the top spot — according to the 56th edition of the TOP500 list published in Nov. 2020, its capacity has increased from 7,299,072 cores to 7,630,848 cores, posting a new world record 442 petaflops result on HPL. The most powerful supercomputer by RIKEN Center for Computational Science & Fujitsu has now been engaged in developing a real-world prediction tool.
BIG TECH BULLIES
Facebook & Google were recently in a spat with the Australian government which didn’t end well for the other latter
Is there any region of the world where the big techs are not in troubled waters — either for antitrust regulation, breach of privacy laws, or taxation on their services? The noise has now spread beyond the United States and Europe where such measures are already being considered. The latest in this unfolding drama took place in the Land down under of Australia.
The market dominance of these big techs has grown in their influence over the years, literally exploding during the pandemic as they became sort of essential services to the locked-down billions. …
HEALTH TECH INNOVATION
The thin sheet of a stretchy polymer can monitor chemical, physical and electrophysiological signals in the body
When it comes to a breakthrough in Healthtech, wearable sensors are the next big thing. And I have talked about some of the recent innovations in the field. A similar device was developed by researchers at Penn State University that could be safely printed onto the skin. Before that, I wrote about a separate team of researchers that made a breakthrough in the field with the development of multifunctional sensors and circuits on the skin by utilizing a new form of electronics dubbed as “drawn-on-skin electronics” (DoS).
Taking these innovations one step further, scientists at the University of California San…
CRYPTO CRIME
Although Darknet markets revenue dominated, Ransomware & DeFi hacks were the bigger story that emerged last year
2020 was a record-breaking year for cryptocurrencies, led by Bitcoin. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic wreaking havoc on the lives of people, the digital assets skyrocketed with the institutional investment pouring into the premier digital asset. At the same time though, the decentralized and somewhat anonymous nature of cryptos entices them to be used by criminals. The good news last year was that cryptocurrency-related crime fell significantly in 2020.
However, the ransomware dimension saw a huge percentage increase with the emerging Decentralized Finance sector becoming the favorite for crypto criminals as well. The latest The 2021 Crypto Crime Report by Chainalysis…
Faisal Khan
A devout futurist keeping a keen eye on the latest in Emerging Tech, Global Economy, Space, Science, Cryptocurrencies & more
