Meet up with China
1. Whereas a Home windows system outage disrupted computer systems internationally on Friday, China was largely unaffected. As an alternative of the CrowdStrike software program that brought about the chaos, Chinese language corporations normally use home cybersecurity software program. (CNBC)
2. Nvidia is engaged on yet one more flagship AI chip, referred to as B20. It’s designed to promote to the Chinese language market with out violating US export controls. (Reuters $)
3. In a current interview, Donald Trump accused Taiwan of taking the semiconductor trade away from the US and requested it to pay extra for American army gear. (New York Instances $)
4. Guo Wengui, a self-exiled tycoon from China who has lately turn out to be an ally to US right-wing figures, was convicted for defrauding over $1 billion from on-line followers to fund his lavish way of life. (Mom Jones)
5. China just lately withdrew from Top500, a world discussion board that ranks the world’s quickest supercomputers. The brand new secrecy will make it tougher to grasp China’s supercomputing advances from the surface. (Wall Road Journal $)
6. China is now mining and promoting so many uncommon earth parts that the worldwide costs of them have plunged 20% up to now 12 months. (Nikkei Asia $)
7. The availability chain of fentanyl precursor supplies in China consists of 1000’s of small chemical producers. And the extraordinary competitors amongst them has pushed them to proceed promoting to drug cartels in Mexico with out worrying concerning the penalties. (International Coverage)
Misplaced in translation
China is experiencing some of the excessive summers in its local weather historical past, marked by extreme drought and flooding throughout the nation. In actual fact, these climate occasions are taking place so typically this 12 months that nonprofit organizations working in catastrophe rescue and local weather change response are going through important funding shortages, in response to the Chinese language publication Phoenix New Media.
Regardless of authorities efforts to allocate catastrophe reduction funds and provides, the frequency and depth of maximum climate occasions have stretched assets skinny for organizations just like the Shuguang Rescue Alliance. By July, Shuguang had used up 80% of its funds for the whole thing of 2024. Moreover, fundraisers famous that with extra disasters taking place, the general public is experiencing fatigue when requested to donate to a different trigger. This 12 months, public and company donations have declined to 1/tenth their earlier ranges after disasters, exacerbating the funding difficulties.
Yet one more factor
Aspiring drivers in Beijing will now should cross a day-long virtual-reality driving course earlier than they’re allowed behind the wheel of an actual automotive. It virtually appears to be like like an enormous arcade with practical driving video games. To be sincere, this is likely to be one of many higher makes use of of VR?
