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LATE TO THE PARTY.
Probably scared witless by the prospect of losing more ground to Singapore as Asia’s top Financial hub, Hong Kong is moving to relax it’s Covid-19 requirements for foreigners entering the city. According to the Associated Press,
Hong Kong’s leader announced the city would no longer require incoming travelers to quarantine in designated hotels as it seeks to remain competitive and open up globally after nearly two years. Incoming travelers will also no longer need a negative PCR test within 48 hours before boarding a plane to Hong Kong, the city’s chief executive John Lee said Friday at a news conference. Instead, they will need to present a negative COVID-19 result from a rapid antigen test conducted within 24 hours before the flight. The measures will come into effect Monday.
Better late than never I suppose. https://bit.ly/3BHVduP
MONEY IS NOT MAGIC.
The opioid crisis in America is the problem that just refuses to go away. With that in mind, the White House has pledged to fight the scourge with more money. According to Reuters,
U.S. President Joe Biden will announce on Friday nearly $1.5 billion to fund access to medications for opioid overdoses, sanctions against traffickers, and increased funding for law enforcement, the White House said. The Biden administration is keen to show it is taking action on a worsening nationwide opioid crisis, which according to U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data fueled more than 107,000 drug overdose deaths in 2021, a nearly 15% increase from the previous year.
You have to think that simply throwing more money at it won’t solve the problem. There’s got to be something deeper. https://reut.rs/3f7kYx3
CLIMATE CHANGE GALVANIZES YOUTH.
If anyone has a vested interest in seeing the world survive and make it to the next few generations in decent shape, it’s today’s youth. Just in case the old folks haven’t figured that out, they took to the streets during the UN meeting to voice their discontent. According to the Associated Press,
Youth activists staged a coordinated “global climate strike” on Friday to highlight their fears about the effects of global warming and demand more aid for poor countries hit by wild weather. Protesters took to the streets in Jakarta, Tokyo and Berlin carrying banners and posters with slogans such as “We are worried about the climate crisis” and “It’s not too late.” P demonstrations were organized by the Fridays for Future youth movement that took its cue from activist Greta Thunberg, who began protesting alone outside the Swedish parliament in 2018.
Who can blame them? https://bit.ly/3LE14Gr
AFRICAN WILDLIFE IN ASIA?
There’s something slightly strange going on in South Asia. African lions and cheetahs are being imported to India. They are being used to populate national parks. Needless to say, many a conservationist is not on board with the idea. According to The Wire India,
Meme creators would have been more charitable, even congratulatory, if Prime Minister Narendra Modi had released a pride of Asiatic lions, instead of exotic African cheetahs, into Kuno national park on his birthday. The event would have been surprisingly delayed but the outcome would have been apt for the park, which has been waiting as the lions’ designated second home for more than two decades. In April 2013, even the Supreme Court had directed Gujarat to release some of these lions, from the state’s famous Gir area, within six months – but to no avail. Instead, now comes the cheetah, and that too from Namibia. All of this is hugely problematic – and probably in the teeth of Indian wildlife law.
Someone please explain how all of that makes sense… https://bit.ly/3UAPxvm
NOT READY FOR SHOWTIME, BUT SOON…
So far, it’s been obvious that virtual reality and augmented reality hasn’t quite lived up to the hype. That said, it’s mostly down to the supporting Technologies not quite being ready. That might soon change. According to an article in Science, researchers are now focusing on making VR and AR work.
After decades of relative dormancy, augmented and virtual reality (AR and VR) are among the fastest developing consumer product technologies today. The growing market demand for these headset devices is being driven by a wide range of applications, from social networking to education, medicine, and, of course, gaming. However, a larger-scale adoption of the technology by the general public will require the headsets to be smaller, lighter, and cheaper and to have more data-processing power. The competing demand for their displays to be smaller and to have higher resolution is particularly challenging because of the inherent trade-off between the two. Recent advances on the display technology for VR may help to achieve that goal.
I don’t think anyone doubt that it’s only a matter of time. https://bit.ly/3Sr9dQt
Thanks for reading. Let’s be careful out there.
