   
CEO Picks - The best that international journalism has to offer!
 S5Editor's Note: Admittedly, most aerial drones are small enough that hitting them with manually aimed guns is difficult, as you can see in the combat footage from Ukraine here. S13
S42Georgia's government plays into Putin's hands as it moves to suppress art and culture   With media coverage still dominated by the Ukraine war, you might assume that Vladimir Putin’s machinations in eastern Europe are focused solely on Ukraine. And you might be right. After all, why would Russia’s president need to get involved in states where homegrown politicians seem more than prepared to do his work for him?This is the situation currently unfolding in Georgia. The country’s ruling political coalition, Kartuli Otsneba (Georgian Dream), is pursuing a policy of religious nationalism and social conservatism that brings Georgia in step with the social policies of Putin and the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow.
Continued here
|
S39
S14Editor's Note: This April eclipse is of particular note, however, because of the vast amount of populated land the eclipse will pass over, allowing many millions of people to watch. S48A solar eclipse and a black hole can both bend light  During night-like conditions created during the totality of a solar eclipse, like that of April 8, planets and stars are visible. Venus and Jupiter, bracketing the sun, will be very noticeable, while Mercury will be rather faint. Read more: Total solar eclipses, while stunning, can damage your eyes if viewed without the right protection
Continued here
|
S6Editor's Note: Highly pathogenic bird flu has caused outbreaks on poultry farms many times in the past that have killed thousands to millions of farm birds. What makes this particular form of avian influenza virus so unusual is that it easily spreads and causes severe disease among wild birds and an increasing number of mammals. That's rare. S7How did the cost of food delivery get so high?  No one is happy about the delivery apps. Not the customers, who feel gouged by an avalanche of fees. Not restaurants, who feel gut-punched by the commission apps take from them. Certainly not delivery workers, who have long been rewarded with a pittance for doing a job that, in a city like New York, has a higher injury rate than that of construction workers.Amid this dogpile of disgruntlement, the merry-go-round of debating the value of food delivery keeps spinning. After all, some people, especially those with disabilities, rely on such services — but then, it is difficult work, and everyone ought to tip well. Another faction argues that this isn’t fair, because it’s already so unaffordable. The delivery apps themselves recede somewhat into the background, as if their existence is a given. They’re merely fulfilling a demand in the market, naturally taking a cut for themselves — two plus two equals four. Our desire to consume is seen as the problem, the having-cake-and-eating-it-too mentality of expecting affordable convenience.
Continued here
|
Editor's Note: The math doesn't add up. On the one hand, delivery apps play up the fact that they're just intermediaries helping facilitate the sale or delivery of a product - they're not employers, who would be on the hook for far greater payroll taxes and other employment costs than what apps currently pay. On the other hand, they command a steep price from restaurants and customers for matchmaking, of which the workers only see a narrow slice.
S9S10
S15S3212 Years Later, an Underrated Sci-Fi Star Just Made the Wildest Space Thriller of 2024  12 years after Prometheus, the underrated sci-fi star is back with a new show on Apple TV+ that you probably missed.In 2012, the landscape of sci-fi TV and movies was very different than it is now. Just one month after The Avengers hit theaters, Ridley Scott took a big chance with his alien prequel Prometheus, easily the wildest and most divisive movie of the entire saga. But that film put one fantastic actor into the sci-fi spotlight forever: Noomi Rapace. Twelve years later, Rapace has made an impressive sci-fi comeback in a series that is not only better than Prometheus but is an underrated gem in its own right.
Continued here
|
S49S16 Reinventing the Organization for GenAI and LLMs  The spring 2024 issue’s special report looks at how to take advantage of market opportunities in the digital space, and provides advice on building culture and friendships at work; maximizing the benefits of LLMs, corporate venture capital initiatives, and innovation contests; and scaling automation and digital health platform.The spring 2024 issue’s special report looks at how to take advantage of market opportunities in the digital space, and provides advice on building culture and friendships at work; maximizing the benefits of LLMs, corporate venture capital initiatives, and innovation contests; and scaling automation and digital health platform.Consider this an early eulogy for the traditional organizational structure, which began in 1855 with the first modern organizational chart and thrived, more or less successfully, until the 2020s, when it succumbed to a new technology, the large language model (LLM).
Continued here
|
S43Truth Social: why Donald Trump's social media 'meme stock' surged and fell by over US$1 billion within a week  Donald Trump’s social media platform, Truth Social, went public on Tuesday March 26. Shares in parent company Trump Media & Technology Group surged 15% after its first day of trading on the Nasdaq stock exchange, adding US$1.1 billion (£876 million) to the company’s value. Trump wrote “I LOVE TRUTH SOCIAL” on the platform, echoing the sentiment of “I just like the stock” from the GameStop share rally that occurred in January 2021. For those who do not remember the GameStop case, shares in the Texan computer games retail chain experienced an unprecedented surge in prices following the activity of retail investors on the social media platform, Reddit.
Continued here
|
S44Noma is a truly devastating tropical disease - more people need to know about it  Noma is a rapidly progressing and often deadly gangrenous infection of the face. Horrifically, it mainly affects very young children living in extreme poverty. Despite this, few know of noma’s existence. Mone is a noma survivor from Laos, and her experience of noma is typical of so many who have suffered from this disease. When Mone was 16, she met my colleague Dr Leila Srour, a paediatrician who happened to be working in her remote village in Laos, who was able to document Mone’s story.
Continued here
|
S47S8S11Speech fasting: would staying silent until midday make us happier and healthier?  Yeah, I’m struggling here. Fine, there may be other reasons why you should spend some of the day in silence. A piece in Psychology Today last year suggested that not only does silence help us become better listeners, but it can also help us empathise with those who cannot speak, such as babies.And I assume that people will like you more if you aren’t constantly yammering away at them. Well, maybe not. That used to be the case, with the book How to Make Friends and Influence People advocating forging relationships by asking lots of questions of other people instead of just talking about yourself.
Continued here
|
S2Editor's Note: They are a top predator of honeybees, decimating hives and damaging biodiversity, with just one hornet able to kill and eat up to 50 bees a day. S12José Andrés: the chef behind Gaza food aid charity who âmoves towards disasterâ to help the hungry  His outburst was telling, not least because it contrasted sharply with his tone in the early stages of Israel's military offensive last October, following a Hamas attack that killed 1,200 mostly civilian Israelis. At that time he called on Pedro Sánchez, Spain's prime minister, to sack the country's social rights minister, Ione Belarra, after the Podemos leader and her far-left colleagues accused Israel of committing war crimes and genocide in Gaza.It has since been re-enacted and refined in locations as diverse as Nicaragua, Puerto Rico, Uganda, Cambodia and on Poland's border with Ukraine, in response to Russia's 2022 invasion. In each case, the stated approach has been to deliver emergency food aid to cater for local diets.
Continued here
|
S19This Specific Gene Could Be the Reason You're Left-Handed  Scientists identified a rare genetic variant coding for a protein that may be partially responsible for left-handedness. Lefties, take note: We know a little more about the genetic basis for your dominant hand. Researchers have identified a rare genetic variant coding for a protein that may be partially responsible for this trait.
Continued here
|
S26This Electric Motorcycle Promises a Range That Blows Most EVs out of the Water  Most EVs aim to give drivers at least a 300-mile range, but this absolute unit of an electric motorcycle will keep going long after that. Felo may not be a household name when it comes to motorcycles, but this overseas EV maker wants to change that with its Tooz motorcycle that it showed off at the Bangkok International Motor Show.Hulking appearance aside, Felo says the all-electric Tooz can get up to 450 miles on a single charge. If that’s true, that would make it one of the longest-range electric motorcycles we’ve seen. With that much range, it rivals most long-range EVs and even beats out Tesla’s Model S dual-motor all-wheel drive trim, which has a 402-mile range.
Continued here
|
S21'FFXIV' x 'FFXVI' Crossover: How to Start The Event and Get the Torgal Mount  After being teased nearly a year ago at Fan Fest, the Final Fantasy XVI crossover event finally brings Clive Rosfield to Final Fantasy XIV. The much-anticipated three-quest series doesn’t require any knowledge of the latest entry, but knowing at least Clive’s journey will certainly help. Of course, you’ll likely want to complete the questline no matter what, as it rewards an adorable Torgal mount that even comes with its own dedicated “pet” command. Here’s everything you need to know about the FFXIV x FFXVI crossover event, including how to start and how to complete each quest. Before starting The Path Infernal, you’ll need to make sure you have at least one job at level 50. The event will run for just over a month, from Tuesday, April 2, 2024 at 1:00 a.m. to Wednesday, May 8, 2024 at 7:59 a.m. (Pacific Time).
Continued here
|
S33The Most Exciting Platformer of 2024 Borrows a Trick From 'Baldur's Gate 3'  In a cozy, Zelda-like land, you and up to two buddies can team up and zoom across levels, wielding katanas and fish knives. Instead of playing as humans or elves, you get your choice of a four weird animals: axolotl, basilisk, pangolin, or... bat. Then you spawn on a colorful map and spam powerful attacks across legions of sentinel minions spawned from a vortex.Windblown is an upcoming indie roguelite from employee-owned Motion Twin, the creators of Dead Cells, who plan to use the same winning formula that gave their popular indie action-platformer so much staying power: community-sourced feedback of an early access game. It’s the same strategy that helped make Baldur’s Gate 3 a success, although when I bring up last year’s most popular role-playing game, Motion Twin developers say they’ve been doing this years earlier than most.
Continued here
|
S34Passed over as the first Black astronaut, Ed Dwight carved out an impressive second act | Aeon Videos  In the early 1960s, Edward Dwight Jr was recruited into the US Aerospace Research Pilot School, training to become an astronaut and, perhaps, the first Black person in space. But just as quickly as the opportunity had been thrust upon him, it disappeared when NASA named its chosen men – all of them white. The Lost Astronaut features Dwight recalling how his life has been shaped by a love of flight, the racial dynamics of the United States and his persistence in the face of adversity, which culminated in a celebrated career as a sculptor later in life. The film is part of the Canadian filmmaker Ben Proudfoot’s short documentary series Almost Famous, which features stories of notable people who never quite became household names.‘If you’re creative, why can’t you create a solution?’ One artist’s imaginative activism
Continued here
|
S3047 Years Later, Star Wars Just Subtly Redefined its Most Underrated Villain  Job titles in Star Wars are tricky and fluid. Obi-Wan Kenobi is both Master Kenobi and General Kenobi. Emperor Palpatine starts off as Senator Palpatine before becoming Chancellor Palpatine, and he’s also a Dark Lord of the Sith. And although we all forget this one, Grand Moff Tarkin was occasionally referred to as Governor Tarkin.Before being the guy who runs the Death Star with an iron fist in A New Hope, Tarkin apparently had another crucial job. In The Bad Batch Season 3, we realize that Tarkin’s most important task was keeping the Empire on a tight budget. But the most interesting detail is that the man who kept overspending was also the man running the show: Palpatine.
Continued here
|
S31S28'Dragon's Dogma 2' Is Secretly the Best 'Lord of the Rings' Game Ever Made  I never expected an innocuous side quest in Dragon’s Dogma 2 to take my breath away, but stumbling upon the hidden glade of the Elves suddenly thrust me back to when I was 10 years old, watching in awe as the Fellowship of the Ring arrived in Rivendell. After playing 100 hours of Dragon’s Dogma 2, I had a revelation: this is the high-fantasy Lord of the Rings adventure I’ve always wanted. Despite a handful of great games from Tolkien’s universe, Dragon’s Dogma 2 made me realize almost all of those lack a crucial element — a deeper, permeable spirit of adventure. When you look at the breadth of Lord of the Rings games, they all typically focus on some specific elements. Games like Return of the King on PS2 or The Battle for Middle Earth recreate the massive battles of the franchise, integrating them with unique gameplay elements. The Lego games hone in on the beloved characters and sense of humor. Then there’s the Shadow of Mordor games, which hinge on emergent features like the Nemesis system.
Continued here
|
S45S3Editor's Note: "We have to move away from the idea of classic development stages, that you go from the farm to the factory and then from the factory to offices," said Richard Baldwin, an economist at the IMD in Lausanne. "That whole development model is wrong." S17 Want a More Ethical Team? Build Expertise, Not Just Guidelines  The spring 2024 issue’s special report looks at how to take advantage of market opportunities in the digital space, and provides advice on building culture and friendships at work; maximizing the benefits of LLMs, corporate venture capital initiatives, and innovation contests; and scaling automation and digital health platform.The spring 2024 issue’s special report looks at how to take advantage of market opportunities in the digital space, and provides advice on building culture and friendships at work; maximizing the benefits of LLMs, corporate venture capital initiatives, and innovation contests; and scaling automation and digital health platform.Ethics is often associated with the abstract realm of philosophers. But there’s nothing abstract about the risks for business leaders: Ethical missteps can expose their companies to a host of reputational, regulatory, and legal risks. In response, companies develop ethical guidelines or codes for decision makers and set up boards to govern guideline usage. For example, companies under growing pressure to fight bias are developing protocols to enable customer service representatives to treat all complaining customers fairly. Another example is companies that are revamping guidelines to ensure fairness and the implementation of diversity, equity, and inclusion commitments at all stages of the recruitment process (such as screening or selecting), often aided by algorithms.
Continued here
|
S18The MCU Is About to Introduce One of the X-Men's Wildest Supervillains  The MCU has been flirting with the X-Men for a long time, but things are finally starting to get serious. Multiversal cameos are becoming more and more common, and with the upcoming Deadpool & Wolverine, we officially have an MCU movie with a member of the X-Men in the title. But on Disney+, a new X-Men golden age is being born with X-Men ‘97, a nostalgic cartoon attempting to replicate the success of the original ‘90s series and update the story for a new millennium. With the next episode, a crucial part of this story will be added — a multi-episode arc, which was all over the original show.
Continued here
|
S46S23Tesla's New Model 3 Ludicrous Got a Ridiculously Sleek Makeover  It may not be as head-turning as the Cybertruck, but the performance of the version of Tesla’s Model 3 is looking sleek.Images of Tesla’s performance-oriented Model 3 are making the rounds after Tesla held a private event in Malibu, California. While we first saw the upcoming EV still under wraps, eventually we got a full view of what’s expected to be the upgraded Model 3. We’re unsure if Tesla will bring back the Ludicrous branding or stick with the Plaid label for its upcoming EV, but it’s fitting either way.
Continued here
|
S24The MCU's Best Superhero Team Isn't as Retired as You Might Think  The Guardians of the Galaxy were a product of their time, a symbol of the wild ambition the MCU had in the buildup to Endgame. But after the release of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, that time is officially over. Since director James Gunn has stopped hopping between franchises and has taken over the masterminding of the DC Universe, the characters have reached a conclusion in their timelines. But the MCU still left the door open for the characteres, promising at the end of the movie: “Star-Lord will return.” But could the Guardians return as well? A quote from one of the series’ stars suggests that the supergroup could continue to evolve with the times.
Continued here
|
S27'Wordle' Has Thousands of Words Left, But Feels Like It's Already Over  Think back to early 2022, and you may remember one game dominating discussions more than any other for months. While From Software’s behemoth Elden Ring had its time to shine, nothing could compare to the cultural force that was Wordle. But while the days of its omnipresence are long gone, Wordle is still quietly carrying on as one of many games available through The New York Times. Wordle editor Tracy Bennett recently spoke about the possibility of the game reaching the end of its word list, and while it may be a long way off, the change that could bring has me thinking about Wordle’s legacy and the transformations it’s already gone through.Bennett’s comments came in a recent TikTok Q&A hosted by the New York Times’ games account. When asked whether Wordle was running out of five-letter words to use as solutions, Bennett responded that the database has somewhere in the neighborhood of 2,300 words left, as spotted by Eurogamer. So while the word bank is nowhere near being exhausted entirely, since part of the Wordle editor’s job is to prune words that are too obscure or profane, the end could be more nigh than it appears.
Continued here
|
S38How the demise of gay nightlife has prompted a new underground queer scene - new book  Around the world and across the UK, gay nightlife is dying. Evidence of this demise and the ongoing threat of bar and club closures can be seen everywhere. In late 2023 the renowned London club G-A-Y closed its doors, as did many other bars and clubs, victims of an array of economic difficulties.These include customers no longer having spare income for clubbing, or spending less on nightlife due to the cost of living crisis – not to mention the general economic and social turmoil left in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Continued here
|
S1Editor's Note: Intrigued, Dr. Neukermans, who is now 83, lured some of his old colleagues out of retirement and began research in a borrowed lab in 2009, with 00,000 from Mr. Gates. They called themselves the Old Salts. S35S4Editor's Note: Now, a new study published this week in the journal Nature argues that climate change will likely delay the need to delete a leap second sometime in 2028 or 2029. S2030 Years Later, Marvel Just Retconned an Infamous 'X-Men' Episode  The origins of the Goblin Queen could be hiding in plain sight, but not without fudging canon.And just like that, X-Men ’97 has challenged everything we knew about the classic super-team. The introduction of Madelyne Pryor — a clone of Jean Grey who calls herself the Goblin Queen — in Episode 2, “Fire Made Flesh,” raised all manner of tricky questions. How long has this version of Jean Grey been a team member? When did Mister Sinister clone the original Jean, and when did he switch them out? The answers might lie in an episode of the original X-Men series, but there’s a chance ’97 fudged canon to introduce this storyline.
Continued here
|
S22The Year's Most Divisive RPG May Be A Victim of Its Own Success  More than a decade after its predecessor, Dragon’s Dogma 2 was released in March to immediate commercial success. In just its first week, it sold 2.5 million copies, according to Capcom. The original Dragon’s Dogma sold under a million copies in that time, and since its launch, it’s sold just 7.5 million (including sales of the enhanced Dark Arisen version of the game and a Nintendo Switch port). Clearly that’s good for Capcom, and anyone who wants to see the series continue, but given the reaction to the game’s release, Dragon’s Dogma 2 may be a victim of its own success.The launch of Dragon’s Dogma 2 was a flashpoint kicking off waves of equally passionate condemnations and defenses as the idiosyncratic game reached an audience largely unprepared for what they were getting into. Other than obvious flaws like bugs, nearly every aspect of the game’s design has been held up as both an abject failure and a brave, challenging choice on the part of the developers by people on either side of the debate.
Continued here
|
S258 Years Later, Ben Affleck's Most Divisive Action Thriller Is Netflix's Biggest Hit  No one could have expected The Accountant to be such an object of fascination. Its use of spectrum disorder as a superpower has made it a controversial fave, but Ben Affleck’s sleeper hit is still fast on its way to siring a franchise. The 2016 film has had a sequel greenlit, and director Gavin O’Connor already has plans for a third film to follow. He described the trilogy as “Rain Man on steroids” in a conversation with CinemaBlend, which doesn’t inspire confidence in its approach to its lead character’s autism. As gauche as it seems, The Accountant’s popularity is impossible to ignore. It was a box office hit when it premiered eight years ago, pulling in $155 million against a $44 million budget, and helping kickstart an impromptu Ben Affleck Renaissance. Success seems to follow everywhere it goes, so it’s no surprise that less than a week after landing on Netflix, The Accountant is already the streamer’s #1 film.
Continued here
|
S29Astronomers Noticed Something Bizarre About Elderly Galaxies  The universe contains about 100 billion galaxies, and no two are exactly alike. In some, stars whirl around the center in neat, circular orbits, making the whole galaxy seem to spin in unison like a pinwheel. In others, the stars move in their own disorderly routes, sometimes in long, stretched ellipses and sometimes on wildly tilted orbits around the galaxy’s center of gravity.A recent study suggests an explanation: Older stars have more time to be fesity. University of Sydney astronomer Scott Croom and his colleagues published their findings in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
Continued here
|
S36Kenya's mission to Haiti: how the 1,000-strong force is preparing for planned intervention  Kenya has temporarily halted controversial plans to send a specially trained contingent of 1,000 police officers to Haiti, where armed gang violence recently took a turn for the worse. After a visit to Nairobi in early March where he signed terms for Kenya’s deployment, Haitian prime minister Ariel Henry was forced to resign as gangs took control of the country’s capital, Port-au-Prince. In the absence of a government in Haiti, plans to deploy Kenyan troops are on hold.Oscar Gakuo Mwangi, who studies radicalisation and counter-terrorism in Kenya, takes a look at Kenya’s preparedness to take on Haiti’s urban gangs.
Continued here
|
S37S40Food fraud is a growing economic and health issue - but AI and blockchain technology can help combat it  A multi-billion pound criminal enterprise lurks amid our supermarket shelves. Food crime not only harms our wallets but threatens public health. It includes activities such as mislabelling a product, replacing a food or ingredient with another substance that is inferior, and even poisoning.This is a global concern because of how food crime is evolving. The complexity of food supply chains, the globalisation of food markets, and a lack of transparency heightens the vulnerability of the food sector. So, rethinking how we combat food crime by using technology is imperative.
Continued here
|
S41Schools are using research to try to improve children's learning -  The EEF funds randomised controlled trials – large-scale studies in which students are randomly assigned to an educational initiative or not and then comparisons are then made to see which students perform better. For instance, several of these studies have been carried out in which some children received one-on-one reading sessions with a trained classroom assistant, and their reading progress was compared to children who had not. The cost of one of these trials was around £500,000 over the course of a year.Trials such as this in education were lobbied for by Ben Goldacre, a doctor and data scientist who wrote a report in 2013 on behalf of the Department for Education. Goldacre suggested that education should follow the lead of medicine in the use of evidence.
Continued here
|
S50There are new flu vaccines on offer for 2024. Should I get one? What do I need to know?  Influenza is a common respiratory infection. Although most cases are relatively mild, flu can cause more severe illness in young children and older people.Influenza virtually disappeared from Australia during the first years of the COVID-19 pandemic when public health restrictions reduced contact between people. Since 2022, it has returned to a seasonal pattern, although the flu season has started and peaked a few months earlier than before 2020.
Continued here
|
 |
TradeBriefs Publications are read by over 10,00,000 Industry Executives About Us | Advertise Privacy Policy Unsubscribe (one-click) You are receiving this mail because of your subscription with TradeBriefs.
Our mailing address is GF 25/39, West Patel Nagar, New Delhi 110008, India |
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/73248695/GettyImages_905052590.0.jpg)
