Lifeboat Foundation

*The past two years has seen a rapid shift of work to remote and hybrid offices. The statistics show that hackers welcomed that shift and took advantage of the vulnerabilities and gaps in security by businesses.

* Cyber perils are the biggest concern for companies globally in 2022, according to the Allianz Risk Barometer. The threat of ransomware attacks, data breaches or major IT outages worries companies even more than business and supply chain disruption, natural disasters or the COVID-19 pandemic, all of which have heavily affected firms in the past year.

Cyber incidents tops the Allianz Risk Barometer for only the second time in the survey’s history (44% of responses), Business interruption drops to a close second (42%) and Natural catastrophes ranks third (25%), up from sixth in 2021. Climate change climbs to its highest-ever ranking of sixth (17%, up from ninth), while Pandemic outbreak drops to fourth (22%).y affected firms in the past year. past two years has seen a rapid shift of work to remote and hybrid offices. The statistics show that hackers welcomed that shift and took advantage of the vulnerabilities and gaps in security by businesses.

Over 70,000 jobs will be created through the rising battery manufacturing in Europe within the next years, new studies predict.

The energy supply in Germany and Europe has never been more in flux. As the success of renewable energies continues to mount, another technology is coming into focus. Energy storage technologies and battery storage systems in particular are becoming increasingly important with the advancement of the energy transition. This development also has significant implications for Germany as an economic center, since battery production is expected to create thousands of jobs here in the future.

Europe has not traditionally played a very significant role as a site for battery cell production, but technical advances, favorable political conditions and an especially promising sales market are making the continent increasingly attractive for battery production. A look at the key role that battery cell production plays in upstream value chains – throughout the renewable energy supply sector and especially in the manufacture of electric vehicles – makes its significance clear. Battery cells represent approximately 40 percent of the value added in the production of an electric vehicle. So it is no wonder that production capacities for lithium-ion batteries are growing faster in Europe than in any other region of the world. Current forecasts predict that the continent’s share in this global manufacturing business will increase from around 6 percent now to 16 to 25 percent by 2030.

Continue reading “Battery manufacturing is coming to Europe” »

Intel has selected Ohio for a new chip manufacturing complex that would cost at least $20 billion, ramping up an effort to increase U.S. production of computer chips as users grapple with a lingering shortage of the vital components.

Intel said Friday that the new site near Columbus would initially have two chip factories and would directly employ 3,000 people, while creating additional jobs in construction and at nearby businesses.

Patrick Gelsinger, who became Intel’s chief executive last year, has rapidly increased the company’s investments in manufacturing to help reduce U.S. reliance on foreign chip makers while lobbying Congress to pass incentives aimed at increasing domestic chip production. He has said that Intel might invest as much as $100 billion over a decade in its next U.S. manufacturing campus, linking the scope and speed of that expansion to expected federal grants if Congress approves a spending package known as the CHIPS Act.

Doctors must be careful when they consider treating their patients with the newest antibiotics, because every time these drugs are used, bacteria have a chance to build resistance. As a result, new antibiotics are generally used sparingly–leaving antibiotic companies with little chance of selling enough doses to recoup their investment.

If scientists don’t discover new antibiotics soon, the world will eventually return to the pre-antibiotic era when simple cuts could kill.

Hoffmann La Roche.

Ms. Fanny Sie is the One Roche Head of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Health, at F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd. (https://www.roche.com/), a multinational healthcare company that operates in both the Pharmaceuticals and Diagnostics segments, and in 2021 was the world’s largest pharma company by revenue.

Continue reading “Innovating Meaningful & Impactful Health System Transformation — Fanny Sie — One Roche Head of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Health, F” »

It was cute at first. When Xbox head Phil Spencer took the stage at E3 2018 and announced the acquisition of five notable studios – Undead Labs, Playground Games, Ninja Theory, Compulsion Games and The Initiative – the air inside the Microsoft Theater turned electric. It felt like the company was righting a wrong in its business plan and finally building an internal roster of exciting games that it could offer exclusively on Xbox platforms. You know, a few friends to keep Master Chief company.

Today’s announcement that Microsoft is buying Activision Blizzard, the largest third-party publisher in the video game industry, doesn’t feel as harmless. Four years on and numerous acquisitions later, the Activision Blizzard deal feels like an extreme escalation of Microsoft’s plans, and it could mark a turning point in the video game industry as a whole, with negative consequences for both players and developers.

So far, public reaction to the acquisition has been mixed, which makes sense for a few reasons: first, Activision Blizzard’s sheer size is daunting, and this purchase represents more money and industry power than Microsoft’s previous gaming acquisitions combined. Second, Activision Blizzard is currently the subject of multiple investigations into allegations of sexual harassment and gender discrimination at the studio, where CEO Bobby Kotick has been in charge and largely unchecked for the past 30 years. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Kotick is poised to leave the company in a golden parachute once the Microsoft deal goes through.

CATL warns investors its expansion plans may not keep up with demand and that advanced solid-state batteries won’t be commercially available until 2035 — at the earliest.

The rules that govern stock markets in China are different than they are in other countries. Recently, CATL, the largest battery manufacturer in China, revealed plans to invest enormous amounts of money to increase its production capacity. But first it had to convince the Shenzhen Stock Exchange that its plans were realistic and in line with sound business practices. In response to several questions put to it by the stock exchange, the company said solid-state battery development faces technical difficulties that will prevent mass production from occurring for a long time yet.

According to CnEVPost, CATL was asked to explain the development of technology paths for solid-state batteries, sodium ion batteries, and hydrogen fuel cells, along with the risks that each could pose to its operations and capacity expansion. Solid-state batteries and hydrogen fuel cells have certain technical features and advantages, but there are still unresolved technical problems and barriers to mass production, the company said.

Continue reading “CATL Warns On Solid-State Batteries, Sees Supply Shortfall Ahead” »

The FT reviewed hundreds of patent applications by Meta and found references to a “virtual store” where users could buy virtual products, as well as objects that correspond to real-world items that have been sponsored by third-party brands.

A patent reviewed by the FT said brands would go through a bidding process to “sponsor the appearance of an object” inside a virtual store.

Meta’s head of global affairs Nick Clegg told the FT in an interview that the business model for the metaverse would be “commerce-led”.

For enterprises that are looking to bring a zero trust approach as a way to better secure identities and permissions, leveraging advanced AI is now essential in order to achieve accuracy and scalability, ForgeRock CEO Fran Rosch told VentureBeat.

While traditionally, zero trust decision-making has relied mostly upon rules–for instance, rejecting a user request based on an impossible geographic location– ForgeRock adds in AI algorithms that enable far greater accuracy, Rosch said. This accuracy equates to dramatically enhanced security, he said–citing an example of a recent customer that increased its entitlement rejections by 300% after deploying ForgeRock.

“Because it was previously all done by these rules, and people were rubber-stamping these entitlement requests, they were letting these things go that they should never have approved,” Rosch said in a recent interview. “That was increasing the risk to the company. Because there were people who had no business accessing HR data, and no business accessing sales data, that were getting that information. So by leveraging the AI, a 300% increase in request rejections really tightened up the security of the organization.”