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

JP Morgan To Cannibalize Its Own Card Revenue In Race To Be First On Pay-By-Bank Processing   BY TYLER DURDEN MONDAY, SEP 26, 2022 - 04:55 AM   “If I hear that any of you aren’t sharing information with each other, or you’re hiding information, you’re fired." That's apparently the "wisecracking" line that set the tone for when J.P. Morgan boss Jamie Dimon met with about 15 executives last November. The meeting was about his bank putting together a new payment processing system that would exclude credit card companies and be solely "pay by bank", according to  new revelations by FT .  The project being headed up by the bank's corporate and investment bank (CIB) poses a formidable threat to companies like Visa and Mastercard, the report notes. So, naturally, the project caused a riff with the bank's consumer and community banking division (CCB), responsible for $5 billion in card revenues in 2021. Dimon's mindset, according to the FT r...

  How Could We Have Been So Naive About Big Tech?   Authored by Jeffrey A. Tucker via Brownstone Institute , September 24, 2022 The 1998 movie  Enemy of the State  starring Gene Hackman and Will Smith seemed like fiction at the time . Why I didn’t regard that movie – which still holds up in nearly every detail – as a warning I do not know. It pulls back the curtain on the close working relationship between national security agencies and the communications industry – spying, censorship, blackmailing, and worse. Today, it seems not just a warning but a description of reality.  There is no longer any doubt at all about the symbiotic relationship between Big Tech – the digital communications industry in particular – and government.  The only issue we need to debate is which of the two sectors are more decisive in driving the loss of privacy, free speech, and liberty in general.  Not only that: I’ve been involved in many debates over the years...

  New voice-altering AI technology removes call center workers accents no matter where they are in the world Tyler Baum 7:39 ET,  Aug 28 2022 Updated : 7:40 ET,  Aug 28 2022 A NEW artificial intelligence program for scrubbing accents has been introduced to international customer service call centers. Critics of the technology say the  AI  minimizes culture and identity while call service agents claim to have a better experience while on the phone. 1 An AI program can minimize accents in real-time to clear up communication between American customers and foreign call center operators Businesses began to outsource call centers to cut costs in the late 1990s and early 2000s. NPR  reported that businesses have come to rely so intensely on India as a source of IT and customer support that its nicknamed "the world's back office" in some circles. Sanas is an artificial intelligence brand that is reinventing the offshore call center for businesses wit...

'World's Most Advanced' Humanoid Robot Promises Not To 'Take Over The World' BY TYLER DURDEN SATURDAY, SEP 17, 2022 - 08:00 PM An already-creepy advanced humanoid "AI" robot promised that machines will "never take over the world," and not to worry. During a recent Q&A, the robot "Ameca" - which was unveiled last year by UK design company Engineered Arts - was asked about a book on the table about robots. " There’s no need to worry. Robots will never take over the world. We’re here to help and serve humans, not replace them. " https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWACmFLvpHE The aliens said the same thing... When another researcher asked Amica to describe itself, it says "There are a few things that make me me." "First, I have my own unique personality which is a result of the programming and interactions I’ve had with humans. "Second, I have my own physical appearance which allo...

Perseverance rover finds organic matter in rock samples on Mars Arin Waichulis   -  Sep. 15th 2022 2:44 pm PT   @arinwaichulis Earlier today, NASA briefed the public on the Perseverance rover’s current status on Mars, discussed highlights from the mission so far, and announced the discovery of organic molecules that could be associated with life. But this discovery comes with an 82 million-mile caveat. NASA’s Perseverance rover has spent the last year and a half on Mars exploring an ancient lake bed called the Jezero Crater. Percy’s primary task is to collect rock-core samples from features within a 28 mile (45 kilometer) wide area long considered by scientists to be a prime location for finding signs of microbial life that may have existed 3.5 billion years ago. “This mission is not looking for extant life things that are alive today,” Ken Farley, Perseverance project scientist, stated. “Instead, we’re looking into the very distant past when Mars climate was very differe...

Millions Of Electric Car Batteries Retiring By 2030, Are We Ready To Deal With What Could Be Ticking Time Bombs? Authored by Autumn Spreademann via The Epoch Times  (emphasis ours), September 9, 2022 The evolving landscape of lithium batteries is creating both contradictions and infrastructure hurdles that, according to some, need to be addressed sooner rather than later. A critical component of this is waste management. More than 6 million electric vehicle (EV) battery packs will end up as scrap between now and 2030, and the recycling and reuse industries are racing to keep up.  Some researchers project that recycling alone will be an over  $12 billion  industry by 2025. U.S. President Joe Biden wants to make America a key player in the EV battery industry with a $3.1 billion spending package for automobile production to transition away from fossil fuels. Much of this dream is pinned on a dusty stretch of soil in the Nevada high desert  called  T...

New Bill Raises Fears Of Big Tech–Media Collusion Against Independent Outlets   Authored by Joseph Lord via The Epoch Times, September 9, 2022 A Senate bill is raising fears among some for its potential to enable  Big Tech  and  mainstream media  outlets to collude against smaller and independent media outlets. The bill, dubbed  the Journalism Competition and Protection Act (JCPA) ,  would supersede some existing antitrust laws and allow media companies to band together to negotiate with Big Tech platforms  like Facebook, Google, and Twitter. Specifically, the JCPA says: “A news content creator may not be held liable under the antitrust laws for engaging in negotiations with any other news content creator during the 4-year period beginning on the date of enactment of this Act to collectively withhold content from, or negotiate with, an online content distributor regarding the terms on which the news content of the news content creator m...

Virtual 'Teslasuit' Could Make 'Sex In Metaverse' Possible   BY TYLER DURDEN WEDNESDAY, SEP 07, 2022 - 09:45 PM   Virtual reality suit maker " Teslasuit " has a human-to-digital interface full-body suit with 90 electrodes designed to trick the body into feeling anything from a hug to raindrops to even the impact of a gunshot. The suit user can strap on VR goggles to 'touch' objects in the metaverse.  National Enquirer  spoke with Teslasuit VP Paul Nickeas earlier this year about the suit's "wide range of realistic sensations from the feeling of a raindrop to the impact of a gunshot."  Nickeas told  Daily Star  this week more about the suit's capabilities and real-world applications:  "The Teslasuit works via biometry, haptics and motion capture, with the wearer being calibrated via a gaming PC, so can be propelled into extended or virtual reality. "Obviously the use cases are truly far-reaching - from medical reh...