Monthly Archives: May 2021

Jews in U.S. are far less religious than Christians and Americans overall, at least by traditional measures – Pew Research Center

Posted: May 18, 2021 at 4:22 am

From Passover Seders to Jewish foods and life-cycle milestones such as bar and bat mitzvahs, some aspects of Jewish religious life and culture are widespread among American Jews. But other religious expressions such as regular attendance at synagogue services and belief in God as described in the Bible are much less common, according to a new Pew Research Center survey.

In fact, based on these more traditional measures of religious observance, Jews in the United States are far less religious than U.S. Christians and Americans overall.

Pew Research Center conducted this study to explore the breadth and diversity of Jewish Americans religious experiences. This survey represents the Centers most comprehensive, in-depth study of the subject, drawing on 4,718 U.S. adults who identify as Jewish, including 3,836 Jews by religion and 882 Jews of no religion. The survey was administered online and by mail by Westat, from Nov. 19, 2019, to June 3, 2020. Respondents were drawn from a national, stratified random sampling of residential mailing addresses, which included addresses from all 50 states and the District of Columbia. No lists of common Jewish names, membership rolls of Jewish organizations or other indicators of Jewishness were used to draw the sample.

The sample is nationally representative and was weighted to align with demographic benchmarks for the U.S. adult population from the Census Bureau as well as a set of modeled estimates for the religious and demographic composition of eligible adults within the larger U.S. adult population. Here are the questions used for the report, along with responses, and its methodology.

For example, 12% of U.S. Jewish adults say they attend religious services weekly or more often, compared with 27% of the general public and 38% of U.S. Christians. And 21% of Jewish adults say religion is very important in their lives, compared with 41% of U.S. adults overall and 57% of Christians.

There are even bigger gaps when it comes to belief in God. About a quarter of Jews (26%) say they believe in God as described in the Bible, compared with more than half of U.S. adults overall (56%) and eight-in-ten Christians. Jews are more likely than U.S. adults overall (50% vs. 33%) to say they believe in some other spiritual force or higher power, but not in God as described in the Bible. Jewish adults also are twice as likely as the general public to say they do not believe in any kind of higher power or spiritual force in the universe (22% vs. 10%).

Orthodox Jews who make up 9% of all U.S. Jews are a notable exception. They are among the most highly religious groups in U.S. society by these measures. For example, 86% of Orthodox Jews say religion is very important in their lives, as do 78% of Black Protestants and 76% of White evangelical Protestants, two of the most highly religious Christian subgroups. Orthodox Jews (93%) also are about as likely as White evangelicals (94%) and Black Protestants (88%) to say they believe in God as described in the Bible.

Conservative and Reform Jews, who together make up 54% of U.S. Jews, are much less religious than Orthodox Jews by these measures. A third of Conservative Jews and 14% of Reform Jews say religion is very important in their lives. Moreover, 37% of Conservative Jews and 18% of Reform Jews believe in God as described in the Bible.

In analyzing the survey results, Pew Research Center also distinguished between two sets of respondents: those who say their religion is Jewish (referred to as Jews by religion) and those who describe themselves religiously as atheist, agnostic or nothing in particular, but who have a Jewish parent or were raised Jewish and still identify as Jewish in ways other than religion, such as culturally, ethnically or because of their family background (referred to as Jews of no religion). By these definitions, 73% of U.S. Jews are Jews by religion, while 27% are Jews of no religion.

Not surprisingly, Jews of no religion are much less religious than Jews by religion, at least by some standard measures. Fewer than 1% of Jews of no religion say they attend religious services at least weekly, compared with 16% of Jews by religion. And while 6% of Jews of no religion say religion is very important to them, the share is much higher (33%) among Jews by religion.

The fact that U.S. Jews as a whole are less likely than Americans overall to say religion is very important to them does not necessarily mean their Jewish identity is not meaningful to them. In fact, twice as many Jews say being Jewish is very important to them as say their religion is very important to them (42% vs. 21%). More than half of Jews by religion (55%) say being Jewish is very important to them, compared with just 7% of Jews of no religion.

Both Jews by religion and Jews of no religion are more likely to engage with Judaism in other ways. Roughly six-in-ten Jewish Americans overall say they held or attended a Passover Seder in the year prior to the survey, including 74% of Jews by religion and 30% of Jews of no religion. Similar shares in both groups say they observed a life milestone such as a bar or bat mitzvah during that period. And about eight-in-ten Jews by religion (78%) say they often or sometimes cook or eat traditional Jewish foods, while roughly half of Jews of no religion (54%) say this.

Eating traditional Jewish foods is not to be mistaken with keeping kosher: Just 17% of U.S. Jews say they keep kosher in their homes, including 22% of Jews by religion and 3% of Jews of no religion. The vast majority of Orthodox Jews (95%) keep kosher at home, compared with 24% of Conservative Jews and 5% of Reform Jews.

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Everything Wrong With Exodus 4 in the Bible | Hemant Mehta | Friendly Atheist | Patheos – Friendly Atheist – Patheos

Posted: at 4:22 am

Everything Wrong With Exodus 4 in the Bible | Hemant Mehta | Friendly Atheist | PatheosEverything Wrong With Exodus 4 in the BibleMay 16, 2021Hemant Mehta

The video below, from my YouTube channel (please subscribe!), discusses all the problems with Exodus 4.

Gods about to try a whole bunch of OTHER magic tricks to convince Moses to go along with the plan.

If you like what youre seeing, please consider supporting my work on Patreon.

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Blizzard drops WoW Classic character cloning price by more than half – PC Invasion

Posted: at 4:19 am

An upcoming patch forWorld of WarcraftClassic, Blizzards old-schoolWoW experience, is going to let players choose between staying in the Classic Era, or moving to Burning Crusade Classic. Players who want to move characters to Burning Crusade can do so free of charge, but this is WoW, so some are going to want to play both. To accommodate this, Blizzard announced that it would allow users to clone their characters. That way, theyd have instances of a character on both versions. But, there was an issue with the WoW Classic cloning price.

The kicker was that it was set to cost $35 USD, which is a price thats somewhere between are you serious? and how could it possibly cost that much? This, of course, led to a lot of outspoken ire, as charging such a high price for simply cloning a character when most players already pay a monthly fee seemed a bit egregious. Instead of letting it lie and soaking up the anger, Blizzard has instead decided to significantly reduce the price. When Burning Crusade Classic goes live, it will only cost $15 USD, a price reduction of more than 50%. This new price will be reflected inWorld of Warcraft Classic once the cloning option shows up next week. $15 is still nothing to sneeze at, but Im glad that Blizzard was at least willing to do something to ameliorate the situation.

World of Warcraft Classic has been running since August of 2019, and it has kept the game in its 1.13 patch state since its inception. Beforehand, players experienced this older version of the game on private servers, until Blizzard stepped in to shut them down to offer their own service. Burning Crusade Classic, which launches June 1, is the same concept, albeit functioning as a time capsule version of the initial launch of Burning Crusade. The two Classic versions will operate alongside one another, meaning that there will possibly be further expansions included in the future.

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Russias Considering Cloning An Army Of 3,000 Year Old Super Soldiers – We Got This Covered

Posted: at 4:19 am

With global warming, economic uncertainty and the COVID-19 pandemic, the world feels like its in a precarious place as we head into the 2020s. But Russia may have a plan to stay on top by cloning an army of 3,000 year old super soldiers. The idea originates with Russia Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, who proposed it at a meeting of the Russian Geographical Society last month.

Shoigu learned of the discovery of the frozen corpses of Scythian warriors in Siberia, which might be the perfect material for his legion of genetic monstrosities. The Scythians existed between the 9th and 2nd centuries BC and were famed for their combat skills and considered masters of horseback combat, crack archers and pioneers in using guerrilla tactics to undermine their enemies. Herodotus referred to them as being fed from horse blood, contributing to their terrifying reputation.

Shoigu raised the possibility of using their DNA, saying:

We would like very much to find the organic matter and I believe you understand what would follow that. It would be possible to make something of it, if not Dolly the Sheep. In general, it will be very interesting.

Now, there are a couple of flaws in this Metal Gear Solidass plan. First up is that we havent officially cloned any humans at all yet, let alone from DNA locked in permafrost for thousands of years. Secondly, you cant just toss a bunch of DNA into a cloning machine and have a trained warrior pop out the other end if you wanted a Scythian soldier youd have to raise them in a Scythian society. And even if you could do any of that, is an expert mounted rider with a bow really such a hot commodity in 21st century warfare?

Shoigus scheme does have one big upside to it, though itd be really cool. So, based on that alone, I say they pour as many resources as they need into this ancient super soldier program. Of course, this would leave the US with an ancient super soldier gap, so lets bring back some Greek Spartans and let them go all 300 against the Russian Scythians. Ill make the popcorn.

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Planet Earth Report Fossilized Cities of the Future to Russia Cloning an Army of 3,000-Year-Old Scythian War – The Daily Galaxy –Great Discoveries…

Posted: at 4:18 am

Posted on May 12, 2021 in Science

Another wild week of news on Planet Earth, ranging from Russia cloning an ancient warrior army to the scary prospect of fossilized cities to the amazing story of the Apollo 14 Rock.

Elon Musk Is Maybe, Actually, Strangely, Going To Do This Mars Thing, reports Marina Koren for The Atlantic Take this path all the way to Boca Chica, past the solar-panel farms and storage sheds, past the little street that used to be called Joanna Street until Musk renamed it Rocket Road, and you end up on the beach, with sky and sea stretching out before you. Its a beautiful view on any day, and maybe, one day, itll be someones last look at Earth.

Is war in space inevitable?- Space.com asked experts about the ongoing militarization of space. What conditions could lead to clashes in space? Is such a situation a given, or can conflicts be short-circuited ahead of time? Could nations slip into off-planet muscle-flexing, quarreling and actual warfighting in space that might spark confrontation here on terra firma?

Bye-Bye, Bennu: NASA Heads Back to Earth With Asteroid Stash in Tow, reports The New York Times. The OSIRIS-REX mission will spend two years cruising home with space rock samples that could unlock secrets of the early solar system.

Alien plants: The search for photosynthesis on other worlds, reports New Scientist. Looking for signs of life in exoplanet atmospheres is fraught with uncertainty. But now that we can detect polarised light reflected directly off other worlds, we could spot unmistakable evidence of photosynthesis.

The Farthest Spacecraft from Earth Picks Up an Unexpected New Signal, reports Becky Ferreira for Motherboard Science. Voyager 1 has likely made the first continuous measurement of the density of matter in interstellar space.

How Cities Will Fossilize, reports David Farrier for The BBC If cities have a geological character, it begs the question of what they will leave behind in the stratigraphy of the 21st Century. Fossils are a kind of planetary memory of the shapes the world once wore. Just as the landscapes of the deep past are not forgotten, how will the rock record of the deep future remember Shanghai, New York and other great cities?

DNAs Histone Spools Hint at How Complex Cells Evolvedreports Quanta. New work shows that histones, long treated as boring spools for DNA, sit at the center of the origin story of eukaryotes and continue to play important roles in evolution and disease.

Russia Is Going to Try to Clone an Army of 3,000-Year-Old Scythian Warriors, reports Popular Mechanics When you hold a job like Defense Minister of Russia, you presumably have to be bold and think outside the box to protect your country from enemy advances. And with his latest strategic ideacloning an entire army of ancient warriorsSergei Shoigu is certainly taking a big swing. Shoigu, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, suggested using the DNA of 3,000-year-old Scythian warriors to potentially bring them back to life.

The Apollo Rock Half-a-Billion Years Before the Appearance of Life an Asteroid Blasted a Piece of Earth to the Moon, reports The Daily Galaxy. The absence of a lunar atmosphere, writes Loeb in The Moon as a Fishing Net for Extraterrestrial Life, guarantees that these messengers would reach the lunar surface without burning up. In addition, the geological inactivity of the moon implies that the record deposited on its surface will be preserved and not mixed with the deep lunar interior. Serving as a natural mailbox, the lunar surface collected all impacting objects during the past few billions of years. Most of this mail comes from within the solar system.

CIAs hunt for Osama bin Laden fueled vaccine hesitancy in Pakistan, reports New Scientist.

Invisible Monsters Supermassive Black Holes Roam the Milky Way, reports The Daily Galaxy. It is extremely unlikely that any wandering supermassive black hole will come close enough to our Sun to have any impact on our solar system, said lead author Michael Tremmel, a postdoctoral fellow at the Yale Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics. We estimate that a close approach of one of these wanderers that is able to affect our solar system should occur every 100 billion years or so, or nearly 10 times the age of the universe.

Giant sea lizard fossil shows diversity of life before asteroid hit, reports the University of Bath. he high diversity of the fauna shows how mosasaurs, giant marine lizards related to snakes and Komodo dragons, thrived in the final million years of the Cretaceous period before they, and most of all species on Earth, were wiped out by the impact of a giant asteroid 66 million years ago.

How planets form controls elements essential for life Rice University scientists attribute Earths nitrogen to rapid growth of moon- to Mars-sized bodies.

Marco Rubio is Taking UFOs Seriously and He Thinks You Should Too Dozens of men and women we have entrusted with the defense of our country are telling us about encounters with unidentified aircraft with capabilities we do not fully understand, Rubio said in exclusive comments ahead of a 60 Minutes interview that will air this weekend. We cannot allow the stigma of UFOs to keep us from seriously investigating these encounters.

Humans Have Been Sharing Food With Animals for Centuries. Why Is That? Researchers want to learn more about the connections between humans and the feeding of birds, beasts and other fauna.

Paralyzed man uses mindwriting brain computer to compose sentences, reports The Guardian. Man, known as T5, was able to write 18 words a minute with more than 94% accuracy on individual letters.

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Planet Earth Report Fossilized Cities of the Future to Russia Cloning an Army of 3,000-Year-Old Scythian War - The Daily Galaxy --Great Discoveries...

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High-Tech Giants Collaborate To Launch Broadband Ecosystem For Utilities, Based On Anterix-Held Spectrum – Forbes

Posted: at 4:17 am

A stellar opportunity for electric utility private broadband networks.

There is a new constellation in the utility sky. It is a grouping in a loose association, called by its founding members an active ecosystem, of 37 high-tech companies committed to guiding the electric utilities in the digital age.

It has been organized by Anterix ATEX(NASDAQ), a Woodland Park, N.J.-based company which is helping utilities and other industrial enterprises build safe communications with private broadband networks at the 900 megahertz spectrum.

Anterix, the largest licensed holder of 900 MHz spectrum, has already signed up the Midwest utility Ameren and San Diego Gas & Electric. The Federal CommunicationsCommission has approved 11 experimental licenses at the 900 MHz spectrum.

The new group of top-drawer technology companies will be, I believe, transformative. With so much high-tech muscle, from ABB to Motorola, it is autility communications brain trust.

This group sets in front of the utilities a smorgasbord of technological expertise that can guide them through the data-driven future and assist them in building outprivate broadbandnetworks with LTE (4G).

Think of it as an app community for utilities, says Clinton Vince, chair of the U.S. Energy Practice at Dentons, the worlds largest law firm. This is abig deal.

Rob Schwartz, president and CEO of Anterix, said, I am ecstatic. Our Anterix Active Ecosystem Program will provide members with the collaborative environment needed to further developbroadband solutions entirely under the utilities control.

In my many years of writing about the electric utility industry, I have never encountered anything as ambitious as this group. Its 37 members, plus Anterix, represent a new vision of the utility future and how to get there.

The group has been formed at a time when utilities are facing change, or a reset, across the range of their activities. They are leaving their comfort zone of central generation for a world of new generation, new power flows, new storage, and with it structural and political challenges.

So far, the winds of change have been felt as a gentle breeze. But they are picking up now and threaten to be at gale force before long, demanding better communications to manage the new order of things.

Joe Weiss, an astute observer of the electric utility industry and a veteran of the Electric Power Research Institute, says the future utility will be dominated by data and the communications tools that manage it.

Data, sometimes described as the new oil, needs cybersecure pathways, which is what private networks offer. Speeds are so fast on them that a severed electric line may be known in the utility operations center before the line hits the ground vital in battling the threat of wildfires.

Michael Atkinson, senior vice president, North America, Grid Automation for Hitachi ABB Power Grids, said, As the utilitiesand industry focus on digitalization, renewables integration, and our carbon-neutral future, intelligent systems and solutions place new demands on communication networks.

EPRI President Arshad Mansoor told me recently that communications and data management will go a long way in the future in getting more out of existing infrastructure, as well as serving new generation and distribution. This will extend to such embedded parts of the utility as long-running hydro projects and nuclear power plants. The technologies clustered around data will wring more out of everything, he told me.

Chris Guttman-McCabe, Anterix chief regulatory and communications officer, and himself a lawyer, told me that the collaboration between the technology giants doesnt present a challenge from antitrust statutes as the ecosystem members will remain fiercely competitive despite their affinity.

The following companies are in the Anterix ecosystem: 4RF, Accelleran, Atomation, Atos, BEC Technologies, Bittium, Burns & McDonnell, Cisco, CMG Consulting, Council Rock, Druid Software, Encore Networks, Ericsson, Expeto, GE, Hitachi ABB Power Grids, Index AR Solutions, Itron ITRI , Kognitiv Spark, LineVision, Motorola Solutions MSI , Multi-Tech Systems, Nighthawk, Nokia, Onclave Networks, Qnet, Qubitekk, Redline Communications, Sentient Energy, Sequans, Sierra Wireless, Sonim Technologies SONM , Tecore Networks, Telit, Tilson, u-blox, and West Monroe Partners.

Between them, they will light up the digital utility sky.

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Tech Giants Are Moving Into Healthcare – Medscape

Posted: at 4:17 am

Advances in medicine and communications are happening so fast that soon a daughter will receive an alert when her mother's activities show hints of future Alzheimer's disease. A smartphone will be able to synthesize a person's data on blood pressure, sleep patterns, and oxygen levels and send information to a designated physician when a pattern of concern emerges.

With NextG technology, patients will own that information, can choose who to share it with, and systems will be resilient to interruptions, outside threats, and system failures.

To get there, the US National Science Foundation is partnering with two federal departments and nine private connectivity giants US Department of Defense, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, Apple, Ericsson, Google, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Nokia, Qualcomm Technologies, and VMWare to award $40million in grants to the researchers with the most promising ideas for transforming the way information is communicated.

The program is called RINGS or Resilient& Intelligent NextG Systems. Medicine is one of the sectors along with education, transportation, public safety and defense, and others that will benefit from the winning ideas. RINGS is setting up to fund 40 ideas at $1million each over 3 years. Full proposals are due by July29.

The National Science Foundation is seeking to dramatically reduce the time it takes for progress to happen. Typically, researchers apply for federal grants and some get funding and publish; industry eventually takes notice and buys up the successful technology.

Thyagarajan Nandagopal

It used to take 20 years for research to go from concept to practice," Thyagarajan Nandagopal, PhD, acting deputy director of the National Science Foundation Division of Computer and Network Systems, tells Medscape Medical News.

The hope is that with partners invested up front, buyers will already be in place, eager to get results and ready to launch the winning technology.

"The researchers don't have to go sell these ideas to the companies," Nandagopal explains.

NextG will come after 5G, but experts have purposely avoided calling it 6G because it might end up being completely different from the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth platforms we see today, not just an updated version, he says.

"The space is changing," he points out, "and we anticipate more interest in things to come that may not be the traditional networks that we know of today."

Critical in the next iteration is that devices monitor patients 24/7 and patients can control their data and choose who to share it with. Physicians or loved ones designated to receive certain data can set up filters so that they only receive information when blood pressure levels in the patient being monitored pass a specified mark, for instance.

Phones will act as agents and fuse the data received from insulin pumps, heart monitors, and smartwatches instead of tracking those functions individually. But to preserve privacy, that fusion will happen on the patient's smartphone the base station and the information will not travel "to the Amazons, the Apples, and the Googles," Nandagopal says.

This is your data. You own it and your device takes care of this.

"This is your data. You own it and your device takes care of this," he explains. "That level of smartness doesn't exist today; that's something that we hope we can enable with this kind of research."

NextG resilient connectivity is vital as people will increasingly be wearing embedded monitors or activation devices.

The way it looks now, "unless all of the data is owned by one entity, you don't have a good picture of what is going on," he says.

Voice assistants evolved versions of Alexa and Siri will be incorporated into medical information. Relatives could receive information that an elderly person has increasingly been using functions on their devices to help them locate their keys, for instance, or are asking the same questions repeatedly of the voice assistant.

Personal devices will be able to compare the information to patterns from people asking similar questions and be able to identify the beginnings of cognitive decline.

Early research shows that the type of search you do on Google can predict signs of dementia 3 to 4 years in advance, Nandagopal says.

"We're going to see an increasing integration of technology into our bodies, not to mention using these technologies in our homes. We will have devices that monitor our sleeping to look for apnea, monitor the elderly for risk of falls."

NextG technology must also have a safety and reliability level not yet seen, he says, and be resilient to hackers.

With new technology providing 24-hour monitoring, older adults will more easily be able to live in the environment they choose, and relatives who live elsewhere will be assured that their health and safety are being monitored.

But that peace of mind evaporates if a system goes down for even 5minutes, Nandagopal says.

Marcia Frellick is a freelance journalist based in Chicago. She has previously written for the Chicago Tribune, Science News, and Nurse.com, and was an editor at the Chicago Sun-Times, the Cincinnati Enquirer, and the St.Cloud (Minnesota) Times. Follow her on Twitter at @mfrellick .

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Tech Giants Failed to Protect Consumer Data The Blockchain Can Help – BeInCrypto

Posted: at 4:17 am

Misused access to user information and persistent breaches have shown how big tech companies fail to safeguard consumer data. Multi-party computation (MPC) technology and blockchain can help.

Existing infrastructures do not go far enough to ensure data sovereignty is protected. This has had serious implications on the economy, politics, and human rights issues in recent years.

To some extent, big tech lacks the capabilities to effectively protect consumer data due to its technological limitations.

More than that, though, it is also important to note that the fundamental business structures underlying big tech practices limit the extent to which consumer data can be protected.

The implementation of MPC technology in combination with blockchain can help to alleviate these concerns. This technology allows large pools of data to stay encrypted while permitting information to be extracted from those data pools.

As we advance, industry leaders must implement this technology to provide the utmost protection for consumer data.

In 2016 Facebook was implicated in a scandal with British research firm Cambridge Analytica. It was found that the firm was given access to the private information of up to 87 million users. A figure that equates to over a quarter of the United States population.

This huge misstep was a tipping point for awareness across the globe. Average consumers became cognizant of the significant failures by tech companies to protect their private information.

Meanwhile, governments had to contemplate the serious implications of such breaches. Especially on national security, the economy, and the sovereignty of millions of peoples private information.

This breach now seems like a drop in the ocean compared to the companys recent failures. In April this year, hackers posted the phone numbers, emails, and personal information of over 500 million global Facebook users. This left people open to massive security breaches and targeted scams.

A significant attack on Facebooks infrastructure in 2018 further demonstrates this lack of ability to safeguard consumer data. As a further 50 million users data came under attack.

The irony was not lost on those who noted that the hackers were able to gain access through software introduced as part of Facebooks attempts to integrate a tool designed to improve user privacy.

Here, the company clearly demonstrated how the technology it uses failed to protect against data and confidentiality breaches. However, its not only Facebook.

Google, Whatsapp, Instagram, and several other giants face significant charges of failure to abide by European GDPR. Meanwhile, leaders of these companies have come before the US congress accused of failure to safeguard consumer data several times in recent years.

New laws in Europe and the United States will allow people to opt out of data sharing. So far, Google has committed to blocking third-party cookies. Meanwhile, other tech companies are promoting privacy options that will make targeted adverts less easy to employ.

While regulation aims to effectively police these big tech firms, companies need to engage in a process of self-evaluation. They must put in place safeguards to protect consumers. So far, however, they have failed to do so in any meaningful way.

The issue also lies in the fact that these companies have access to an unchecked myriad of unspecified information upon which they have a monopoly.

Regulators have accused Google of facilitating internal data free for all by adopting certain practices. These include taking consent for certain personal data uses and applying them to services that are completely unseen to the user.

Elsewhere, online marketplaces such as Amazon and Apple have the ability to control which products and advertising users see. This means they have a huge influence over consumer buying patterns within their own markets.

Whats more, companies that host new apps on their platforms have access to the data and technology behind these developments. This allows them to learn and grow from the innovation of smaller companies.

This shows how these companies are not only failing to safeguard consumer data but also has a vested interest in controlling it.

To implement infrastructures that will safeguard consumer data, industry leaders must urgently seek alternatives to existing technologies.

So far, companies have explored the use of decentralized social media platforms to place more control of consumer data back into the hands of users.

Decentralized social networks operate on independently run servers rather than on a centralized business-owned server. Using these functions, an individual can set up their own social network and restrict the use of unencrypted private data, rather than a big tech company controlling the users data.

The implementation of MPC technology in combination with blockchain offers a further layer of protection for consumers.

MPC ensures data confidentiality through a network of computation nodes that computes directly on encrypted data with zero knowledge about the data. It allows for large decentralized pools of data to stay encrypted. Meanwhile, information is extracted from those decentralized data pools using encrypted computations.

Within the context of a social media platform, using MPC allows for a decentralized network wherein users can hold an encrypted profile without allowing for the exchange and ownership of their personal data.

Hereby, MPC addresses both the common security breaches in big tech and bringing the control of data back into the hands of the users using advanced encryption.

It is clear that the current model of big tech cannot and does not ensure data privacy. Current infrastructures do not have the capacity or desire to create ecosystems in which individuals can manage their own access and data-sharing parameters.

The implementation of MPC technology in combination with blockchain can help to alleviate these concerns by ensuring confidentiality and placing data sovereignty back into the hands of users.

DisclaimerAll the information contained on our website is published in good faith and for general information purposes only. Any action the reader takes upon the information found on our website is strictly at their own risk.

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2021 COMPUTEX Forum Brings Tech Giants Together to Unlock the Secret of Future Technologies – Business Wire

Posted: at 4:17 am

TAIPEI, Taiwan--(BUSINESS WIRE)--As one of the most important tech summits globally, COMPUTEX Forum and its discussion topics have always garnered great attention. To facilitate the discussion on future technology trends, the COMPUTEX Forum on June 2 and 3 will evolve around the theme of The New Era of Intelligence. TAITRA announced the lineup of speakers to discuss key applications of 5G, AI, IoT, and electric vehicles, deep diving into business strategies in the post-pandemic era.

The Four Topics to Focus on IT Applications and Development

In the morning of Wednesday, June 2, COMPUTEX Forum will address the topic of AIoT Evolution. Leading semiconductor giants such as Intel, Micron, NVIDIA and Supermicro, will explore how they accelerate business opportunities in the 5G era.

In the afternoon, NXP Semiconductors will kick off the AI Empowerment session by sharing its vision and lead the Secure Edge and AI Empowerment discussions in fields. As AI rises in various applications, Arm, Delta Electronics, Micron and Check Point Software will elaborate their latest solution in different scopes.

Thursday, June 3 morning session, will be on "Critical Technology," with speakers from global companies, including Quanta Cloud Technology, Siemens, and WIN Semiconductors, as well as the mobile operator, Far EasTone Telecom. This session will talk about the development of potential 5G applications in the manufacturing, healthcare, and automotive industries that will redefine the 5G landscape in the future.

On June 3, the topic of the last session in the afternoon will be Tomorrow Tech. IBM, NVIDIA, and Qualcomm will take part in an in-depth discussion on the emerging applications of quantum computers, AI fueling future work and collaboration, and self-driving cars.

COMPUTEX Forum Will Be Livestreamed on the #COMPUTEXVirtual Platform

Every year, COMPUTEX presents invaluable information on the industrys supply chain and trends around the world. This year, the global audience will have a front row seat to discover and see the latest technology. All COMPUTEX Forum sessions will be livestreamed on the official #COMPUTEXVirtual platform on June 2 and June 3.

COMPUTEX Forum is co-organized by the Bureau of Foreign Trade of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA). COMPUTEX Forum is now open for registration:https://virtual.computextaipei.com.tw/events

For more updates:COMPUTEX website: https://www.computextaipei.com.tw/ InnoVEX website : https://www.innovex.com.tw/

About COMPUTEX TAIPEI (also called COMPUTEX):

Established in 1981, COMPUTEX is one of the leading global ICT, IoT, and startup tradeshows with a complete supply chain and IoT ecosystems. Co-organized by the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) and Taipei Computer Association (TCA), COMPUTEX, based upon Taiwans complete ICT clusters, covers the whole spectrum of the ICT industry, from established brands to startups and from ICT supply chain to IoT ecosystems. With strong R&D and manufacturing capabilities and IPR protection, Taiwan is a strategic destination for foreign companies and investors looking for partners in global technology ecosystems. Follow COMPUTEX on its website at http://www.computextaipei.com.tw and Twitter @computex_taipei using the hashtag #COMPUTEX.

About COMPUTEX 2021 Hybrid:

As a pioneer in technology, COMPUTEX has been on the forefront in embracing digital transformation. COMPUTEX will launch the Online-Merge-Offline (OMO) exhibition platform "COMPUTEX 2021 Hybrid" in 2021. As the event organizer, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) aims to deliver an exceptional exhibition experience by combining #COMPUTEXVirtual with the onsite exhibition. In collaborating with the Taiwanese unicorn startup, Appier, TAITRA is introducing AI computing capabilities to the exhibition to shape COMPUTEX as a global model.

About TAITRA:

Founded in 1970, TAITRA is Taiwan's foremost nonprofit trade promoting organization. Sponsored by the government and industry organizations, TAITRA assists enterprises to expand their global reach. Headquartered in Taipei, TAITRA has a team of 1,300 specialists and operates 5 local offices in Taoyuan, Hsinchu, Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung, as well as 63 branches worldwide. Together with Taipei World Trade Center (TWTC) and Taiwan Trade Center (TTC), TAITRA has formed a global network dedicated to promoting world trade.

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New Tech Lobby Curries Favor With Rare Embrace of Higher Taxes – Bloomberg Tax

Posted: at 4:17 am

A group of tech giants, echoing Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and the CEO of Lyft, is pushing for something companies almost never ask for: higher taxes.

The Chamber of Progressa group of Silicon Valley companies that launched in March to counter some of the anti-tech undercurrents on Capitol Hill by courting Democratsis advocating for a higher corporate tax rate, which President Joe Biden recently proposed hiking to 28% from 21%.

This isnt what corporate trade groups are expected to do. But the Chamber, whose corporate partners are Amazon, Google, Uber, Lyft, Facebook, Twitter, and a handful of startups, describes itself as not just another business group.

It is generally an easy stance for them to take, corporate tax professionals say, noting that these companies often dont pay anything remotely close to the statutory rate now. That is thanks to the substantial losses that most tech startups incur in their early years, the ease with which the sector can shift intangible property like patents abroad, and ample credits for research and development, among other benefits that whittle down the companies effective rates.

While these companies may publicly back a corporate rate hike, they will likely combat other White House corporate tax proposals on the back end, tax professionals say. Those proposals include a tax on the income reported on financial statements, a minimum tax on global income, and changes to the 2017 tax laws international regime that eliminate the carrots and sharpen the sticks.

Companies might, at the end of the day, have figured this is the path of least resistance: Well accept the tax rate increase, which will make us look good for public consumption, but then were going to fight like hell to narrow or reduce the tax base, Robert Willens, a New York-based tax consultant, said.

The effective tax rate is the actual rate at which a company is taxed after a series of adjustments to its balance sheet, like dollar-for-dollar reductions in taxes from credits for research and taxes paid to overseas jurisdictions, or deductions of income so that its no longer taxable. The effective rate can differ from the statutory corporate rate of 21%, which the 2017 law lowered from 35%.

I believe that if you ask the average Silicon Valley leader if theyre willing for their company to pay slightly more in taxes in order to support investments in clean energy, broadband, job training, and manufacturing, most of them would say thats a fair dealand good for the country, said Adam Kovacevich, the founder and CEO of the group, whos worked for Google, Lime, and former Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.).

Kovacevichs comments, first published in a Medium post in April, come as large corporations are picking their corporate tax battles among an array of punitive proposals from Democrats.

Of the groups members, spokespeople for Instacart, Lime, and Twitter declined to comment. Lyft, Uber, Amazon, Automattic, DoorDash, and GrubHub, also members, didnt respond to multiple requests for comment.

Spokespeople for Facebook and Getaround expressed in separate statements that the companies are affiliated with external groups like the Chamber, but they dont necessarily endorse their positions on public policy issues.

Jos Castaeda, a spokesperson for Google, said in an emailed statement that the White House tax proposals merit further discussion and that the search giant wants a continued focus on U.S. competitiveness globally and favors U.S. leadership for a new international tax agreement that supports much-needed investments for Americas economic future. He declined to comment further.

Bank of America analysts estimated that the full Biden tax plan would cause the after-tax earnings of a handful of internet companies including Amazon, Facebook, Google, and Twitter to fall by around 7% on average. Major factors for those four included the elimination of a write-off for foreign-derived intangible income and the tax on financial statement income, the analysts wrote in a late April report.

When companies have large amounts of unused tax benefits they carry forward year to yearknown as deferred tax assets and often composed of losses and creditsan increase in the corporate tax rate makes those assets more valuable. A $100 million loss deduction is worth $21 million in reduced taxes under the current corporate rate, for instance, and $28 million in fewer taxes under the rate proposed by the White House.

In its most recent annual filing, Uber reported federal losses it shifts from year to year of $13.6 billion, while Lyft reported $6.2 billion. Zillow, another member of the Chamber, reported $1.7 billion as of the end of 2020. Twitter reported $2.19 billion in federal losses. Googles parent company, Alphabet, disclosed $3.1 billion.

Even when startups become profitable, they tend to have huge historical losses they shift forward year after year to offset their taxes. Some companiesincluding Alphabet, Zillow, Lyft, Uber, and Twitterestablish whats called a valuation allowance, which is essentially accounting jargon for storage of tax benefits a company doesnt think it will be profitable enough to ever use.

When companies make changes to their valuation allowancesadding to or releasing some of the tax benefits they have put away because they dont think they will make enough profits to use themthis can lead to huge fluctuations in their effective tax rates, as has been the case for Twitter.

The statutory rate does not really matter for unprofitable companies, said Patrick Badolato, a senior lecturer in the accounting department of the University of Texas at Austin McCombs School of Business.

Companies with large deferred tax assets, Badolato said, dont have to pay taxes until theyve made enough profits to offset their historical losses, and it could be quite a few years and even different legislative bodies before many of these companies are paying any meaningful amount of taxes.

Companies like Facebook and Google have flexibility as to where to locate their intellectual property and their use of tax credits, which can push down their effective tax rates, Badolato noted. Amazon, flush with credits for research and development and deductions for stock-based compensation, has low profit margins and reinvests what it makes in R&D and expansions each year, driving its tax rate to depths that have made the e-commerce giant a target of progressive ire.

A higher corporate rate could even help Amazon by hitting its brick-and-mortar retail competitors, which tend to pay closer to the statutory corporate tax rate, said Andrew Silverman, a Bloomberg Intelligence tax policy analyst.

A higher corporate tax rate makes it a lot harder for a medium-sized retailer to stay in business, he said.

Facebook, Uber, and Google have reported lobbying on international tax issues since the crafting of the 2017 tax code overhaul, disclosure forms show, indicating that they have an interest in swaying Democrats who plan on tightening that international regime as part of an infrastructure plan.

It would be surprising if Amazon, Uber, and Facebook, and to a lesser extent Twitter and Lyft, didnt approach the House committee responsible for tax policy in the next few months to talk about how the White House proposals affect them, said a House staffer, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

Companies dont like to come off as unreasonable by rejecting proposals outright, the staffer continuedthey want to offer some kind of solution, depending on their financial profiles.

When tax legislation is afoot, companies are always around the corner and want to be heard, said Todd Simmens, a former legislative counsel to the Joint Committee on Taxation who is now a national managing partner for accounting firm BDO.

I can imagine that these firms are going through some sort of calculus, said John Gallemore, an associate professor of accounting at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business who focuses on corporate taxation.

Gallemore added that he sees the group of companies as pandering to politicians.

If they just come out and say theyre behind a higher rate, theyre able to maybe negotiate or lobby behind the scenes, or push back on some of these changes theyre maybe less enthused or excited about, he said.

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New Tech Lobby Curries Favor With Rare Embrace of Higher Taxes - Bloomberg Tax

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