Techlife News #544

The cost of everything keeps creeping up. And if you happen to have credit card debt, that’s about to get a bit more expensive too, thanks to a series of interest rate increases beginning this month. With inflation at its highest rate since the early 1980s , the Federal Reserve is adjusting interest rates to hopefully restabilize the U.S. economy. In short, the Fed changes the federal funds rate, which alters the prime rate — that’s the rate banks charge customers with high credit ratings. Credit card issuers add onto the prime rate to set their interest rates, so when the prime rate goes up, so does what you’ll pay when you’re in debt. Got all that? Great. Now forget what you just read and pay attention to this part: If you…

An inflation gauge that is closely monitored by the Federal Reserve jumped 6.4% in February compared with a year ago, with sharply higher prices for food, gasoline and other necessities squeezing Americans’ finances. The figure reported Thursday by the Commerce Department was the largest year-over-year rise since January 1982. Excluding volatile prices for food and energy, so-called core inflation increased 5.4% in February from 12 months earlier. Robust consumer demand has combined with shortages of many goods to fuel the sharpest price jumps in four decades. Measures of inflation will likely worsen in the coming months because Thursday’s report doesn’t reflect the consequences of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which occurred Feb. 24. The war has disrupted global oil markets and accelerated prices for wheat, nickel and other key commodities. Squeezed by inflation, consumers…

Eleven years ago, Facebook was caught red-handed after it hired a prominent public relations firm to try to plant stories harshly criticizing Google’s privacy practices in leading news outlets. In 2018, it hired the PR firm Definers to do opposition research on the company’s critics, including billionaire philanthropist George Soros. The company’s longtime head of communications, Elliot Schrage, took the blame for approving the hiring of Definers and similar firms and left Facebook. The Washington Post reported that Meta, Facebook’s parent company, is using similar tactics to go after another rival TikTok. Meta, the Post reported, hired a Republican consulting firm called Targeted Victory to“orchestrate a nationwide campaign”against TikTok. Targeted Victory, according to the Post, contracted with dozens of public relations firms across the U.S. to help“sway public opinion against TikTok” by planting…

Russia’s tech workers are looking for safer and more productive professional pastures. By one estimate, up to 70,000 computer specialists, spooked by a sudden frost in the business and political climate, have bolted the country since Russia invaded Ukraine five weeks ago. Many more are expected to follow. For some countries, Russia’s loss is being seen as their potential gain and an opportunity to bring fresh expertise to their own high-tech industries. Russian President Vladimir Putin has noticed the brain drain even in the throes of war. This week, he reacted to the exodus by approving legislation to eliminate income taxes between now and 2024 for individuals who work for information technology companies. Many people in the vast new pool of high-tech exiles are in no rush to return home. An elite crowd furnished…

Starting out with funny videos and chat over Mario Kart racing games, two Ukrainian brothers have added a somber tone to their YouTube channel popular with young Japanese with updates from their country that bring the harsh realities of war closer to Japan. The Russian invasion of Ukraine began just after the duo, Sava Tkachov, 26, and his younger brother Yan, 20, celebrated the second anniversary of their YouTube debut with subscribers exceeding 2 million for their Sawayan Channel and Sawayan Games that Sava hosts. The first word of war came from their father, a business consultant who had returned to Kyiv two months ago just before Russian troops rolled in and has stayed since to help defend his country. The siblings’YouTube content, which used to be full of pranks, jokes and…

The world’s fair in Dubai, a tech-saturated site teeming with talking robots and solar canopies, sought to be the future. Now, it’s history. The pandemic-delayed Expo 2020 in the United Arab Emirates closes on Thursday after eight years of anticipation, over $7 billion in investment, 240 million hours of labor and six months of festivities. The fate of the fairgrounds is clear. Some national pavilions will be demolished. A few will remain, like an enormous lacework dome and the UAE’s soaring falcon-shaped pavilion. Other buildings will be rebranded for a new business district soon to rise from the site. But the deeper legacy of the event proves more elusive. When Dubai won the bid to host Expo in 2013, it felt like a rebirth. Just four years earlier, the glitzy city-state suffered a real-estate crash…