Ken Garen, CPA, Co-Founder and President, UBCC

Foxconn Is Entering The EV Battery Market, Eying Solid State Batteries BY TYLER DURDEN WEDNESDAY, MAR 31, 2021 - 08:00 PM In news that is likely going to send shockwaves through the EV industry, Foxconn looks poised to be developing its own EV-use batteries. The giant electronic OEM is going to be developing both LFP (lithium iron phosphate) and solid-state batteries for use in electric vehicles, industry sources told  Digitimes . Foxconn and Hua-chuang Automotive Information Technical Center under Yulon Motor have established Foxtron Vehicle Technologies, the report says. As most EV manufacturers, like Tesla, already know - battery packs can account for 50% of the total weight of an EV and 30% of its cost. Manufacturers are working on decreasing not only the cost of packs, but also the mass, which can lead to longer ranges per charge.  Foxconn will reportedly introduce battery samples for EVs in 2021 and bring development to commercial use in 2024, ...

Meet 'Stretch' - The Warehouse-Worker Union-Buster From Boston Dynamics   BY TYLER DURDEN MONDAY, MAR 29, 2021 - 09:20 PM   Boston Dynamics on Monday  revealed   a new warehouse robot called "Stretch," designed to move 800 boxes per hour, equivalent to a typical human employee.  The new robot could be a solution for Amazon to replace some of its human warehouse employees as unionization threats emerge at various warehouses. Two years ago, the robotics company released a variant of Stretch, which we first noted in March 2019. Back then, Boston Dynamics called the prototype robot " Handle ." Though the robot today appears to be improved with a new base for more stability.  Stretch was built for one task and one task only, replace humans in warehouses.  It uses cameras and other sensors to navigate aisles and uses a suction pad mounted on the arm to grab and transport 50 lbs boxes.  "Stretch is a versatile mobile robot for case handling, ...

Instagram Is Sharing 79% Of Your Personal Data With 3rd Parties   BY TYLER DURDEN MONDAY, MAR 29, 2021 - 04:15 AM   We’ve all experienced this:  one second you’re watching a product review on YouTube and the next you see an advert for exactly that product in your Instagram feed. While it still feels like some kind of dark magic is at work there, we’ve pretty much gotten used to this type of thing by now – even though there are instances when it still feels a bit spooky, especially when you’re certain you’ve only talked about a product or mentioned it in a personal message. The truth of the matter is,  as Statista's Felix Richter notes ,  the apps and websites we’re using collect vast amounts of data about us, and, in many cases, this data is even passed on to third parties.  This of course, shouldn’t happen without permission, which is why we usually have to agree to a long list of terms and conditions before using an app. (And honestly, when is t...

Hackers Simultaneously Attack Australian Parliament, TV Network   BY TYLER DURDEN SUNDAY, MAR 28, 2021 - 10:35 PM  Hackers were able to disrupt live broadcasts from an Australian news channel at the  same time  Parliament's House email system was taken offline for a concurrent breach, according to  Sky News . As a result of the attack, Channel Nine's Sunday morning news program - "Weekend Today" - did not air, along with the station's 5pm news show. Future programming is expected to progress on schedule. Channel Nine is investigating whether the hack was a matter of "criminal sabotage or the work of a foreign nation," according to the report. Meanwhile, the Australian government was forced to cut access to IT and emails at Parliament House via an external provider was compromised. " The issue relates to an external provider, and once the issue was detected the connection to government systems was cut immediately as a precaution ," sai...

Metadata: The Digital Fingerprint You Had No Idea Is Attached To Every Photo You Take BY TYLER DURDEN SUNDAY, MAR 28, 2021 - 04:00 PM   In a day and age where everyone is walking around carrying a portable GPS/supercomputer in their pockets, it should be of no surprise that location data can help track you at almost any given point in the day.  But while this may be semi-expected, one way in which people may not know they're offering up information is through photographs. Such was the topic of a  new BBC report , which delved into  exactly how much  information people are offering up with their photo metadata - the digital "fingerprint" that's attached to every digital photo you take.  Metadata became a national issue when comparisons of two photographs of former President Trump at Walter Reed Medical Center were scrutinized closely to try and determine whether they were staged or not, BBC notes. Metadata also led to authorities being able ...

Dartmouth-Brown Study Documents Media's Stoking "Vicious Circle Of Fear" On COVID   BY TYLER DURDEN SUNDAY, MAR 28, 2021 - 02:30 PM Authored by Brian McGlinchey via Stark Realities, If you’ve felt the media has heavily emphasized bad news throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, your judgment now has some scholarly corroboration. Dartmouth College and Brown University researchers have analyzed tens of thousands of Covid-19 articles and found major US media outlets have  overwhelmingly pushed negative narratives about the virus . "The most striking fact is that 87 percent of the U.S. stories are classified as negative, whereas 51 percent of the non-US stories are classified as negative," according to the  study  by Dartmouth economics professor Bruce Sacerdote, Dartmouth’s Ranjan Sehgal and Brown University’s Molly Cook. Thwarting Public Clarity About Covid-19   Though the study doesn’t delve deep into the societal implications, there’s little...

Why Is Everyone In Texas Not Dying? BY TYLER DURDEN SATURDAY, MAR 27, 2021 - 05:30 PM Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The American Institute for Economic Research, I'm sitting at a bar in Texas, surrounded by maskless people, looking at folks on the streets walking around like life is normal, talking with nice and friendly faces, feeling like things in the world are more-or-less normal. Cases and deaths attributed to Covid are, like everywhere else, falling dramatically. If you pay attention only to the media fear campaigns, you would find this confusing. More than two weeks ago, the governor of Texas completely reversed his devastating lockdown policies and repealed all his emergency powers, along with the egregious attacks on rights and liberties. There was something very un-Texan about those lockdowns. My hotel room is festooned with pictures of cowboys on horses waving guns in the air, along with other depictions of rugged individualism facing down the elements. It’s a caricat...

Nike, Adidas join brands feeling Chinese social media heat over Xinjiang By Ryan Woo March 25, 2021 11:02 AM BEIJING (Reuters) -Nike and Adidas came under attack on Chinese social media on Thursday over past comments the fashion brands have made about labour conditions in Xinjiang, part of a diplomatic row between China and the West.The sportswear companies were the latest caught up in a backlash prompted by a Chinese government call to stop foreign brands from tainting China’s name as internet users found statements they had made in the past on Xinjiang. Chinese state media had singled out H&M HMb.ST on Wednesday over a statement reported last year where the Swedish fashion retailer said it was deeply concerned by reports of accusations of forced labour in Xinjiang, and that it did not source products from the Chinese region. Both Nike and Adidas, which have been growing rapidly in China, have said previously that they do not source products or yarn from the Xinjiang region. Adi...

Russia Blasts Twitter For Being "Too Slow" In Deleting Content "Harmful For Children"   BY TYLER DURDEN TUESDAY, MAR 23, 2021 - 11:40 AM   The Kremlin has continued lashing out at Twitter after earlier this month threatening to ban the major US-based social media platform from the country altogether. Its communications watchdog known as  Roscomnadzor  (the Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media) has charged Twitter with deleting banned and 'illegal' content  "too slowly"  after repeated high-level requests.  "The rate at which the social network is removing banned information is unsatisfactory,"  Roscomnadzor  said in a statement Tuesday.  "Two thirds of material that is harmful for children remains available on Twitter." The new statement continued by  saying Twitter  "actually has removed only a third of prohibited content with child pornography, materials pushi...

Meet "Digit," A Humanoid Robot Testing Package Delivery From Curb To Doorstep   BY TYLER DURDEN SATURDAY, MAR 20, 2021 - 10:30 PM   The virus pandemic has accelerated the push by some companies to develop driverless automobiles for deliveries. But there's a common problem developing among many of these robot-delivery vehicles. How do packages go from the delivery vehicle to the customer's doorstep? Some have proposed  drones , while others, such as Oregon-based  Agility robotics , have proposed a bi-pedal robot deployed from the rear of a robot-delivery van that will walk the package to a customer's doorstep without the risk of face-to-face interaction. Agility intends to solve not the last-mile delivery problem but the last-foot delivery issues from robot-van to customer's doorstep.  The goal of the robot, dubbed "Digit," is to reach complicated areas where traditional robots would have issues traversing, such as stairs, tight spaces, an...

Blame Millennials For The Dramatic Surge In Cord-Cutting   BY TYLER DURDEN SATURDAY, MAR 20, 2021 - 09:30 PM Cord-cutting is not a new problem, but new data from a  Pew Research Center  survey shows  an accelerating trend among millennials abandoning cable and satellite providers.  The survey of more than 1,500 US adults from Jan. 25 to Feb. 8, 2021, found cable and satellite users among all US adults have plunged from 76% in 2015 to 56% last month. About 71% of respondents said they don't subscribe to cable or satellite because video content is abundant online. In comparison, 69% said cable or satellite costs are too high, and 45% of them don't watch enough TV to justify to costs of cable or satellite.  The acceleration of cord-cutting is rapidly transforming how content is viewed. The  coronavirus pandemic exacerbated  the trend as many gravitated towards popular streaming services like Netflix and Hulu have gained popularity....

Digital Trails: How The FBI Is Identifying, Tracking, & Rounding-Up Dissidents   BY TYLER DURDEN FRIDAY, MAR 19, 2021 - 11:00 PM Authored by John W. Whitehead & Nisha Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute, “Americans deserve the freedom to choose  a life without surveillance  and the government regulation that would make that possible. While we continue to believe the sentiment, we fear it may soon be obsolete or irrelevant. We deserve that freedom, but the window to achieve it narrows a little more each day. If we don’t act now, with great urgency, it may very well close for good.” - Charlie Warzel and Stuart A. Thompson,  New York Times Databit by databit, we are building our own electronic concentration camps. With every new smart piece of smart technology we acquire, every new app we download, every new photo or post we share online, we are making it that much easier for the government and its corporate partners to identify, track and event...