Mannerisms

We all know that the way to cope with a wind-up merchant is not to get fussed by them. There’s nothing wrong with wind-up merchants once you realise what they’re up to. They like to stir up a conversation but they’re not to be taken too seriously. What we learnt last week is that the new US vice president is ...

As part of its suggested ReArm Europe plan, the European Commission plans to free member states from the debt and deficit rules of the Stability and Growth Pact, hoping to create €650 billion in additional fiscal space over a period of four years. The planned increase in defense spending could boost Europe’s economic growth. That is if the additional spending ...

I am astonished at the extent of my own success, Ed confides to his diary. I would never have believed that a British Prime Minister could swallow the snake oil of the West Coast tech bros so comprehensively. On the other hand he may be so overwhelmed by events that he sees AI as a panacea to solve his problems. ...

The 2006 Electronica CEO Forum occurred shortly after private equity companies KKR and Blackstone had bought out NXP and and Freescale so it was natural that the panellists should address the issue: Are they short-term investors or valued partners? It had been suggested that Freescale’s purchasers saw a way to make their money back by taking Freescale fabless, but Denis ...

16,000 US federal employees have been sacked under presidential executive orders, reckons Statista, which is in addition to the  75,000 federal employees who took buyouts. Both numbers combined make up less than 4% of the 2.4 million-strong non-military and non-postal federal workforce. 6,700 employees at the US Internal Revenue Service who are on probation  are likely to be fired  under ...

Touched by the simplicity, poverty and generosity of the people who lived in these mountains where he enjoyed hiking, one of Silicon Valley’s greatest scientists funded a programme to build schools for them. The scientist, a Cambridge physics PhD, paid for the building of the first school and set up a fund which was to build 60 schools in the ...

Almost 7 million Ukrainians have decamped and  been registered in other countries, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Over three million have gone to Germany, Russia and Poland with the rest going to the Czech Republic, the UK, Spain, Romania, Italy and Slovenia An additional 3.7 million Ukrainians have been internally displaced. 59% of recorded Ukrainian ...

The inauguration of President Trump last month appears to have had a transformative effect on our government. The new US administration’s robust attitude to AI has found a responsive cord in the hearts and minds of our ministers. After three months of investigation and taking evidence from experts, the House of Lords produced a report last year recommending safeguards for ...

Thanks to TrendForce for this – the top ten tech trends for 2025: 1. Generative AI, Humanoid and Service Robots. 2. AI Notebooks 3. AI Servers  4. Advanced Processes and CoWoS 5. Enhanced Cybersecurity Defence and Threat Detection Needs 6. GenAI exploited by hackers to strengthen offensive tactics such as enumeration analysis and phishing.  7. AMOLED expansion 8. Miniaturisation and ...

The idea to use Ukraine’s minerals in a peace deal was first raised  in October as part of the country’s Victory Plan and as part of a larger reconstruction and EU plan, called the Ukraine Plan. Kiev reportedly delayed the signing of such a deal with the United States to carry it out under the Trump administration. Ukraine has an ...

The UK Atomic Energy Authority are abandoning the current programme of experiments into controlled thermo-nuclear fusion using ICSE – the Intermediate Current Stability Experiment. So, 64 years ago, started a story in Electronics Weekly’s edition of October 5, 1960 The story continued: The authority say that design studies, supported by experimental and theoretical work, have now shown that this is ...

In some countries people trust Putin and not Zelensky and, in some, vice versa. Nations where almost all respondents have no confidence in Putin are found in Europe, including Eastern Europe. The United States, Japan, South Korea, Israel and Australia are also on that list, but beyond these nations, support wanes. While Latin American countries at least mistrust Putin more ...

I am summoned to No10, Ed confides to his diary. When I get there, the PM comes and ushers me into his office without any officials present and I know that something is up. “This is strictly entre nous, Ed, but I want you to be my JD“, he says. “Eh? Prime Minister,” is all I can feebly respond, thinking ...

19 years ago, Nvidia was in one of its financial surges –  for the 2005 April quarter revenue jumped 24% y-o-y while income nearly tripled, The company posted revenues of $583.8m for the quarter, it’s fiscal Q1 2006, compared to $471.9m posted in fiscal Q1 2005. Net income was $64.4m compared to net income of $21.3m in the year ago ...

One in five Germans said they would vote for the far-right, populist party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) in a recent poll, conducted between February 11 and 13. This would put the AfD in second place, following only after the centre-right Christian Democratic Union and its Bavarian ally, the Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU), which together garnered 30%  of the vote. YouGov ...

At last weekend’s 61st Munich Security Conference the organisers  published their annual report, which provides an analysis of the global security situation. This year’s report focuses on the “multipolarisation” of the world order i.e the  widening of the divisions between countries commonly known as superpowers, which hinder common sense approaches to crises and global threats. In this scenario, do other ...

For the 50th anniversary of his company, an industrialist commissioned this fountain. It had busts of five Japanese guys a Frenchman, an Englishman, a German, an Italian and, standing above them all, a full body statue of an American. Moral: Great deeds come from a big heart

Air traffic is responsible for around 2.5 percent of global energy-related CO2 emissions, and IATA, which represents around 340 airlines  and over 80% of  air traffic, has committed to achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. According IATA, the best ways for the aviation industry to hit its goal will be not only through new propulsion technologies and improvements to air ...

Thanks to UPSC (Union Public Service Commission) for this one – the ten most technologically  advanced countries in the world: Japan South Korea United States Germany China Singapore Sweden Switzerland United Kingdom Finland

South Sudan, Somalia, Venezuela, Syria,Yemen, Libya, Eritrea and Equatorial Guinea are the most corrupt countries in the world according to the 2024 Corruption Perceptions Index of Transparency International. The countries with the lowest level of corruption are  Denmark, Finland, Singapore, New Zealand, Luxembourg, Norway and Switzerland. The Corruption Perceptions Index gauges levels of perceived public sector corruption in 180 countries ...