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Archive for the ‘government’ category: Page 100

Aug 4, 2020

The Panopticon Is Already Here

Posted by in categories: government, robotics/AI, surveillance

Despite China’s considerable strides, industry analysts expect America to retain its current AI lead for another decade at least. But this is cold comfort: China is already developing powerful new surveillance tools, and exporting them to dozens of the world’s actual and would-be autocracies. Over the next few years, those technologies will be refined and integrated into all-encompassing surveillance systems that dictators can plug and play.


Xi Jinping is using artificial intelligence to enhance his government’s totalitarian control—and he’s exporting this technology to regimes around the globe.

Jul 31, 2020

U.S. agrees to pay Sanofi and GSK $2.1 billion for 100 million doses of coronavirus vaccine

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, government

The agreement with Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKelin is the government’s second in less than two weeks for 100 million doses of vaccine.

Jul 31, 2020

Microsoft in talks to buy TikTok

Posted by in category: government

Bytedance, the Chinese owner of TikTok, is facing mounting pressure from the US government to sell the video sharing app or risk being blacklisted in the country.


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Continue reading “Microsoft in talks to buy TikTok” »

Jul 30, 2020

Exclusive: Chinese-backed hackers targeted COVID-19 vaccine firm Moderna

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, cybercrime/malcode, government

More from 2020 “The Movie”

Chinese government-linked hackers targeted biotech company Moderna Inc, a leading U.S.-based coronavirus vaccine research developer, earlier this year in a bid to steal valuable data, according to a U.S. security official tracking Chinese hacking activity.


WASHINGTON (Reuters) — Chinese government-linked hackers targeted biotech company Moderna Inc, a leading U.S.-based coronavirus vaccine research developer, earlier this year in a bid to steal valuable data, according to a U.S. security official tracking Chinese hacking activity.

Jul 30, 2020

That time a Boy Scout built a nuclear reactor out of common household items

Posted by in categories: government, nuclear energy, transportation

O,.o!


Imagine looking out your window to see an eerie green glow resonating from your neighbor’s shed. Or seeing government trucks being loaded with barrels marked radioactive by men dressed in hazmat suits outside your home.

The residents of Golf Manor, Michigan, don’t have to imagine it, because in 1995, a young teenage boy built a nuclear breeder reactor in his mother’s potting shed, an idea he came up with while working on his Atomic Energy merit badge in attempt to earn Eagle Scout status.

Continue reading “That time a Boy Scout built a nuclear reactor out of common household items” »

Jul 30, 2020

Some scientists are taking a DIY coronavirus vaccine, and nobody knows if it’s legal or if it works

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, ethics, government, law

Nearly 200 covid-19 vaccines are in development and some three dozen are at various stages of human testing. But in what appears to be the first “citizen science” vaccine initiative, Estep and at least 20 other researchers, technologists, or science enthusiasts, many connected to Harvard University and MIT, have volunteered as lab rats for a do-it-yourself inoculation against the coronavirus. They say it’s their only chance to become immune without waiting a year or more for a vaccine to be formally approved.


Preston Estep was alone in a borrowed laboratory, somewhere in Boston. No big company, no board meetings, no billion-dollar payout from Operation Warp Speed, the US government’s covid-19 vaccine funding program. No animal data. No ethics approval.

What he did have: ingredients for a vaccine. And one willing volunteer.

Continue reading “Some scientists are taking a DIY coronavirus vaccine, and nobody knows if it’s legal or if it works” »

Jul 28, 2020

The Government Is Building an Unhackable Quantum Internet

Posted by in categories: computing, engineering, government, internet, quantum physics

The U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) has announced a plan to make a quantum internet it says is virtually unhackable. This is definitely a long-term plan that will require new kinds of engineering and technology, not something that will be implemented next year. Let’s take a look at the concept, the plan the DoE has laid out, and how long it all might take.

Within the framework of quantum mechanics, the network proposed here is pretty intuitive. (That’s a big caveat, though!) The report begins with a surprising notion: Although headlines and research have focused on the power of quantum computing, we’re far away from any practical and recognizable computer powered by quantum phenomena. The idea of a quantum network, the DoE says, is far closer to our reach.

🤯 You like quantum. We like quantum. Let’s nerd out together.

Jul 27, 2020

Irregular disorder and the NASA budget

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, government, law

It’s been a long time since there’s been anything like “regular order” in the congressional appropriations process: individual bills passed by the House and Senate, their differences resolved in conference to produce a final version that’s signed into law before the beginning of the fiscal year October 1. Instead, there are usually stopgap funding bills, called continuing resolutions, that extend for weeks or months before a massive omnibus bill, combining up to a dozen different bills, is eventually passed.

Fiscal year 2021 is not going to be the year regular order returns to the appropriations process. The pandemic took hold in the early phases of the appropriations process, just as Congress was starting its usual series of hearings on various parts of the administration’s budget proposal released in early February. Congress instead devoted its attention to series of relief packages during the limited time it was in session this spring.

With no hearings about NASA’s budget proposal by either House or Senate appropriators, the first sign of their views about the agency’s budget had to wait until a few weeks ago. On July 7, the House Appropriations Committee released its draft of the commerce, justice, and science (CJS) spending bill that includes NASA. That bill provides $22.6 billion for NASA, the same amount the agency received in 2020. The White House, by comparison, asked for $25.2 billion for NASA.

Jul 26, 2020

The Coronavirus Eviction Crisis

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, business, government

With the coronavirus raging across the world and the United States, I would to talk about one particular issue that is currently and will wreck havoc on the US: evictions due to the coronavirus and coronavirus-related unemployment.

Update: Turns out the federal government did have an eviction moratorium in the past. However, it ended a few days ago. Luckily, however, many in the government are thinking about extending the moratorium.

Continue reading “The Coronavirus Eviction Crisis” »

Jul 26, 2020

Moderna gets further $472 million U.S. award for coronavirus vaccine development

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, government

(Reuters) — Moderna Inc said on Sunday it has received an additional $472 million from the U.S. government’s Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) to support development of its novel coronavirus vaccine.

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