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Tech Tent: The new 'space race' for computer chips

Silicon chips are at the heart of many of the biggest technology stories of our time.
Without them, car plants around the world have come to a halt. The technology to make them is now seen by the United States as a key weapon in its trade war with China. And access to the latest and most-powerful versions will determine who wins the artificial intelligence race. In this week's Tech Tent podcast, we look at the semiconductor industry and try to answer five important questions about chips.From Ford and General Motors in the US, to Honda in the UK, and electric car-maker Nio in China: major automotive companies have had to cut back production due to a shortage of chips. Why? Well it seems the pandemic is to blame, continually making every prediction about chip demand look out-of-date.

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US suspends tariffs on single malt Scotch whisky

The US has agreed to suspend tariffs on UK goods including single malt whiskies that were imposed in retaliation over subsidies to the aircraft maker Airbus.
Tariffs will also be lifted on UK cheese, cashmere and machinery. The duties will be suspended for four months while the two sides seek a long-term settlement. On 1 January, the UK dropped its own tariffs on some US goods, put in place over a related dispute about US subsidies to Boeing. It is the latest twist in a decades-old trade row that has seen the EU and the US target billions of dollars worth of each other's exports with taxes. The UK is part of the dispute as a former EU member. Airbus makes wings and other parts in the UK, but assembles its commercial aircraft in the EU.

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SpaceX Starlink factory in Texas will speed up production of Dishy McFlatface

Austin factory to create systems that improve SpaceX's high-volume manufacturing.
SpaceX says it is building a factory in Austin, Texas, to design systems that will help make satellite dishes, Wi-Fi routers, and other equipment for its Starlink satellite broadband network. The news comes from a job posting for an automation and controls engineer position flagged in a story Tuesday by local news channel KXAN. "To keep up with global demand, SpaceX is breaking ground on a new, state of the art manufacturing facility in Austin, TX," the job posting said. "The Automation & Controls Engineer will play a key role as we strive to manufacture millions of consumer facing devices that we ship directly to customers (Starlink dishes, Wi-Fi routers, mounting hardware, etc)."

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Bill Gates: Bitcoin not for me, says ex-Microsoft chief

Microsoft founder Bill Gates has not invested in Bitcoin, he said in a live chat on the social network Clubhouse.
Mr Gates told host Andrew Sorkin that he preferred to invest in companies "that make products", citing malaria and measles vaccines as examples. The billionaire said he did not choose his investments on the basis of whether they would be worth more to others. In an earlier interview he had discussed Tesla founder Elon Musk's enthusiasm for the virtual currency. "My general thought would be that if you have less money than Elon, you should probably watch out," he told Bloomberg. "Elon has tonnes of money and he's very sophisticated, so I don't worry that his Bitcoin will sort of randomly go up or down."

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Jamal Khashoggi: Biden raises human rights in call with Saudi king

US President Joe Biden has talked by phone with King Salman of Saudi Arabia as he seeks to put relations with America's old ally on a new footing.
He "affirmed the importance" the US "places on universal human rights and the rule of law", the White House says. Mr Biden made the call after reading a forthcoming US report into the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The report, due to be released shortly, is expected to implicate the king's son, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Mr Biden's predecessor, Donald Trump, pursued closer ties with Saudi Arabia.

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Johnson and Johnson vaccine: FDA finds the single-shot jab safe

A review by US regulators of the single-shot Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine has found it is safe and effective.
It paves the way for it to become the third Covid-19 vaccine to be authorised in the US, possibly within days. The vaccine would be a cost-effective alternative to the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, and can be stored in a refrigerator instead of a freezer. Results from trials were released by Johnson & Johnson last month. The Belgian company Janssen, which is owned by the pharmaceutical giant, said its data showed the product was highly effective against severe disease. It comes as Ghana became the first country to receive coronavirus vaccines through the Covax vaccine-sharing initiative.

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Spot: Boston Dynamics condemns robot paintball rampage plan

A US art installation that will let people control a paintballing robot in a mock art gallery has been condemned by the firm that made the robo-dog.
Boston Dynamics criticised the project, calling it a "provocative use" of its quadruped robot, Spot. It warned that if the "spectacle" goes ahead, Spot's warranty might be voided, meaning it could not be updated. The group behind it, MSCHF, argues that Spot or robots like it will probably be used for military applications. The group is known for creating viral stunts, stories and products. The project, entitled Spot's Rampage, is due to start at 13:00 EST (18:00 GMT) on Wednesday, and will let people "remotely control a Spot robot" via a website.

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Musk: Starlink will hit 300Mbps and expand to “most of Earth” this year

SpaceX CEO teases higher speeds, lower latency, and near-global coverage.
Starlink broadband speeds will double to 300Mbps "later this year," SpaceX CEO Elon Musk wrote on Twitter yesterday. SpaceX has been telling users to expect speeds of 50Mbps to 150Mbps since the beta began a few months ago. Musk also wrote that "latency will drop to ~20ms later this year." This is no surprise, as SpaceX promised latency of 20ms to 40ms during the beta and had said months ago that "we expect to achieve 16ms to 19ms by summer 2021." It sounds like the speed and latency improvements will roll out around the same time as when Starlink switches from beta to more widespread availability. Two weeks ago, Starlink opened preorders for service expected to be available in the second half of 2021, albeit with limited availability in each region.

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Security officials testify Capitol rioters 'came prepared for war'

US Capitol security officials who were ousted in the wake of the 6 January attack on Congress have blamed intelligence failures for the breach.
Testifying to a Senate committee, the officials said that the rioters "came prepared for war" with weapons, radios and climbing gear. Ex-Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund said he had prepared for a protest, not "a military-style coordinated assault". Four people died after pro-Trump protesters stormed the US Capitol. Three of the four officials testifying on Tuesday to the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee resigned in the immediate wake of the attack, in which one Capitol Police officer was killed.

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Margaret Mitchell: Google fires AI ethics founder

Google has fired the founder and co-head of its artificial intelligence ethics unit, claiming she violated the company's code of conduct.
In a statement, Google said an investigation found Margaret Mitchell had moved files outside the company. The ethics unit has been under scrutiny since December, following the departure of another senior figure, Timnit Gebru. Both women had campaigned for more diversity at Google and raised concerns about censorship within the company. Ms Mitchell announced the news in a tweet, which read "I'm fired". For the past five weeks she had been locked out of Google's systems, including her emails and calendars.

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Texas weather: President Biden declares major disaster

President Joe Biden has declared a major disaster in Texas, clearing the way for more federal funds to be spent on relief efforts in the US state.
Power is returning across Texas and temperatures are set to rise but some 13 million people are still facing difficulties accessing clean water. Mr Biden has said he will visit Texas as long as his presence is not a burden on relief efforts. Nearly 60 deaths have been attributed to cold weather across the US. In a statement released by the White House, President Biden said he had "ordered federal assistance to supplement state and local recovery efforts in the areas affected by severe winter storms". "Assistance can include grants for temporary housing and home repairs, low-cost loans to cover uninsured property losses, and other programmes to help individuals and business owners recover from the effects of the disaster," the statement said. Mr Biden has been in touch with the mayors of some of Texas' biggest cities, such as Houston, Austin and Dallas, to ensure they have access to government resources, an administration official said.

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Nvidia limits crypto-mining on new graphics card

Graphics card-maker Nvidia says it will deliberately reduce the efficiency of its latest card by 50% when it is used to mine the crypto-currency Ethereum.
Crypto-currency enthusiasts have contributed to a shortage of graphics cards by snapping up supplies to use for non-gaming purposes. Nvidia said it had intervened to make sure its products "end up in the hands of gamers". But it will also sell a bespoke crypto-currency mining processor. Graphics cards (GPUs) are a crucial component of a gaming PC. A modern card can produce the high-resolution and high frame-rate graphics that gamers expect. But several factors, including manufacturing delays during the coronavirus pandemic, have contributed to a shortage.

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Nasa's Perseverance rover lands on Mars

There's a new robot on the surface of Mars.
The American space agency has successfully landed its Perseverance rover in a deep crater near the planet's equator called Jezero. Engineers at Nasa's mission control in California erupted with joy when confirmation of touchdown came through. The six-wheeled vehicle will now spend at least the next two years drilling into the local rocks, looking for evidence of past life. Jezero is thought to have held a giant lake billions of years ago. And where there's been water, there's the possibility there might also have been life.

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Reddit removed 6% of all posts made last year

Reddit removed 6% of all content posted in 2020, according to the site's annual transparency report.
Of the 3.4 billion posts made by its users in 2020, 233 million were removed - almost all for spam. More than 99% of removals were classed as spam, with the remainder made up of a mix of offensive content - including harassment, violent speech and sexualisation of minors. The number of removed posts rose almost 30% year on year. More than 131 million posts were removed by the platform's automated moderator, while the rest were taken down personally by administrators. The automated moderator bot is used to approve posts made in Reddit's myriad small communities - called subreddits - and it has the power to remove any images or text submissions that contain banned words or phrases.

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Covid-19: World's first human trials given green light in UK

Healthy, young volunteers will be infected with coronavirus to test vaccines and treatments in the world's first Covid-19 "human challenge" study, which will take place in the UK.
The study, which has received ethics approval, will start in the next few weeks and recruit 90 people aged 18-30. They will be exposed to the virus in a safe and controlled environment while medics monitor their health. The UK has given doses of a Covid vaccine to more than 15 million people. Human challenge studies have played a vital role in pushing the development of treatments for a number of diseases, including malaria, typhoid, cholera and flu. The trials will help scientists work out the smallest amount of coronavirus needed to cause infection, and how the body's immune system reacts to it. This will give doctors a better understanding of Covid-19, the disease caused by the virus, which will feed into the development of vaccines and treatments.

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Bill Gates: Solving Covid easy compared with climate

Fifty-one billion and zero - the two numbers Bill Gates says you need to know about climate.
Solving climate change would be "the most amazing thing humanity has ever done", says the billionaire founder of Microsoft. By comparison, ending the pandemic is "very, very easy", he claims. Mr Gates's new book, How to Avoid a Climate Disaster, is a guide to tackling global warming. Don't underestimate the scale of the challenge, he told me when we spoke last week. "We've never made a transition like we're talking about doing in the next 30 years. There is no precedent for this." Fifty-one billion is how many tonnes of greenhouse gases the world typically adds to the atmosphere each year.

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Full-face hot-wax TikTok videos prompt warnings

Viral videos of people having full-face "hot wax" treatments on TikTok have led to warnings from skin experts.
They show softened resin covering subjects' face, mouth and neck - and partially penetrating their ears and nose - before being removed. A barber posting some of the most watched examples says it is beneficial. But the British Association of Dermatologists (BAD) said: "Attempting to wax inside your nose or ears is not recommended." A UK-based skin specialist has also raised safety concerns about the risk of obstructed breathing. And one expert has suggested TikTok should add a warning.

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US snow: Winter storm tightens grip in southern states

Authorities across the US are on alert as a winter storm brings freezing winds, ice and snow to many areas that rarely see such frigid conditions.
President Joe Biden has approved a state of emergency in Texas where a surge in demand for electricity has led to widespread power cuts. The National Weather Service (NWS) said more than 150 million Americans were now under winter storm warnings. Kentucky, Mississippi, Alabama, Oregon and Oklahoma are among states affected. The freezing storm even reached northern parts of Mexico where more than four million homes and businesses lost power early on Monday.

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US President Joe Biden 'pauses' TikTok and WeChat bans

US President Joe Biden has paused legal action against TikTok and WeChat, which could have seen the apps banned in the United States.
While president, Donald Trump had sought to ban both apps, claiming they were a national security threat. Both companies had taken legal action against the proposed bans. The new administration has now asked for an "abeyance" - or suspension - of proceedings while it revisits whether the apps really pose a threat. The delay means both apps can continue to operate in the US while new staff at government agencies "become familiar with the issues in this case", the legal documents state. Mr Trump had claimed that the spread in the US of mobile apps developed and owned by Chinese firms threatened "the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States".

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Russia warns EU it could cut ties over sanctions

Russia is ready to sever ties with the EU if the bloc imposes new, economically painful sanctions, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says.
The EU has raised the prospect of further sanctions amid a row over the treatment of the jailed Russian opposition leader, Alexei Navalny. When an interviewer asked if Russia was heading for a "break" with the EU, Mr Lavrov said "we're ready for that". "If you want peace, prepare for war," he said. He said a break in ties could be triggered by EU sanctions that "create risks for our economy, including in the most sensitive areas". "We don't want to isolate ourselves from world affairs, but we have to be prepared for that." He was speaking on the Russian YouTube channel Solovyov Live.