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The week of last Thanksgiving, Michael Larkin, a business owner in Hamilton, Ohio, picked up his phone and answered a call. It was the local police, and they wanted footage from Larkin’s front door camera. Larkin had a Ring video doorbell, one of the more than 10 million Americans with the Amazon-owned product installed at their front doors. His doorbell was among 21 Ring cameras in and around his home and business, picking up footage of Larkin, neighbors, customers and anyone else near his house. The police said they were conducting a drug-related investigation on a neighbor, and they wanted...

Australia will remove Chinese-made surveillance cameras from defence sites over national security fears. It comes after an audit found 900 pieces of surveillance equipment built by companies Hikvision and Dahua on government estates. The audit of Australian government sites found the cameras and security gear were located on more than 200 buildings, in almost every department - including the foreign affairs and attorney general's departments. At least one unit was also found in the defence department, but the total number at defence sites is unknown. Defence Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles on Thursday said the government would find...

The beginning of the end of Europe’s dependency on China for precious rare earth materials may lie buried deep under the rugged reaches of northern Sweden, well above the Arctic Circle. Sweden’s iron-ore miner LKAB said Thursday it has identified "significant deposits" in Lapland of rare earth elements that are essential for the manufacture of smartphones, electric vehicles and wind turbines. The government-owned company that mines iron ore at Kiruna, almost 1,000 kilometers north of Stockholm, said there are more than 1 million tons of rare earth oxides....

The electronic strike zone will be used in all 30 Class AAA parks in 2023, sources told ESPN, seemingly another significant step toward the implementation of the technology at the big-league level in the near future. The Automatic Balls and Strikes system, commonly referred to as ABS, will be deployed in two different ways. Half of the Class AAA games will be played with all of the calls determined by an electronic strike zone, and the other half played with an ABS challenge system similar to that used in professional tennis.

Consumers spent a record amount of money on online purchases on Black Friday, surpassing $9 billion, according to Adobe Analytics data. Adobe found that $9.12 billion was spent on Friday, marking a 2.3 percent rise year over year. Electronics sales were a large driver of the increase, with such online sales up 221 percent from the average day in October. Items such as audio equipment, toys and exercise equipment also sold well, with sales of each up more than 200 percent from an average day last month.

Vietnam's Lê Thành, the self-proclaimed 'King of VGA,' is having some fun on Facebook(opens in new tab) (via I_Leak_VN(opens in new tab)). In photos and videos shared on the social media site, it looks like the store has started to use street trader tactics to grab passersby and sell them GPUs by the kilo. Lê Thành shared pictures of dozens of used GPUs stacked up on the curbside in a clear parody of a Vietnamese street food stall. There is also a video with the vendor patiently waving away flies with a net, awaiting passersby. Then, a scooter stops, and...

Kamikaze Economics A single S300 missile costs over $1,000,000. "How much does an s300 missile cost? (One S-300 missile system is estimated to cost some $115 million, the cost of each missile is over one million US$.)" A complete S300 system would be North of $100M; A beggar nation like Malorossiya would not be able to afford huge numbers of them. Now, I haven't seen any real cost figures for the little Iranian kamikaze drones, but... The electronics and air-frame couldn't easily be more than around $1000 The warhead, another 1000 maybe (guessing) Thje only thing halfway expensive in the...

TOKYO – In the latest move against China, the US government has imposed export controls on a next-generation semiconductor material that was initially developed in Japan. On August 12, the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) of the US Department of Commerce – as part of a wholesale move toward additional tech sanctions – issued a ruling that identified gallium oxide semiconductor substrates as an “emerging and foundational” technology “essential to the national security of the United States.” Gallium oxide is a promising material for the fabrication of more efficient power devices used in electric vehicles and other – including...

The "mark of the beast" as described in the New Testament's Book of Revelation can be interpreted as a mark that will regulate trade. But even the Book of Revelation didn't include a pill you could swallow that would allow the government to see if you have complied with your orders. This is beyond sinister. A clip of Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla describing his company's new technology to a group of elites at the 2018 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, has gone viral on social media over the past few days. (Dr. Bourla's full remarks can be accessed on...

The White House held a classified briefing on Wednesday with some U.S. lawmakers on the dire risks to the American economy from semiconductor supply chain issues as it pushes Congress for $52 billion in funding to subsidize production. White House National Economic Council Director Brian Deese told reporters "the best estimates are the lack of available semiconductors probably took a full percentage point off of GDP in 2021." The briefing included Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan to "discuss the urgent need to invest in made-in-America semiconductors as well as research and...

A team of physicists at CU Boulder has solved the mystery behind a perplexing phenomenon in the nano realm: why some ultra-small heat sources cool down faster if you pack them closer together. The findings, which will publish this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), could one day help the tech industry design speedier electronic devices that overheat less. “Often heat is a challenging consideration in designing electronics. You build a device then discover that it’s heating up faster than desired,” said study co-author Joshua Knobloch, postdoctoral research associate at JILA, a joint research...

The great computer chip shortage of 2021 will likely get worse before it gets better. This conclusion was reached following brief study and anecdotal review. Moreover, while COVID lockdowns may have initially triggered the shortage, several decades of shortsighted decisions and simmering geopolitical tensions make it much more than a matter of fixing a few broken links in the supply chain. Here’s why… The world’s top two leading chip companies are Taiwan’s TSMC and South Korea’s Samsung Electronics. These two Asian firms, combined, control more than 70 percent of the semiconductor manufacturing market. The U.S., which was once a leader,...

Counterfeit products have been circulated in China’s electronics market for a long time. However, as the global chip shortage intensifies, a large amount of refurbished, substandard fake chips are flood the market, exposing major deficiencies in China’s quality control standards.China Economic Observer reported a chip agent revealed that to meet the growing demand, suppliers were no longer keeping their counterfeiting practices secret. Instead, they are openly creating separate production lines to expedite the sales of counterfeit or refurbished chips. Furthermore, businesses are no longer offering the shoddy products at half price. Many are being sold at full market value.The agent...

In continuation to my previous post, I will start discussing how I solved the wireless distribution at my church in an economical way with a DIY Wireless Microphone Antenna Distribution setup. One of my many hobbies include amateur radio, which is the personal & experimental use of specific radio frequencies established by the FCC. My callsign is KD7QCU. Basically, I am a big nerd of radio stuff. I get to talk to people all around the world with my radio and antennas outside of my house. It is quite a fun hobby and our technological age with regards to RF...

The past few weeks have seen Taiwan’s semiconductor industry hit by a variety of disasters that are creating more problems at a time when an international semiconductor shortage is creating problems around the world, including in the US, where a shortage of critical chips has hurt production of new vehicles. A worsening drought and rolling blackouts are also terrorizing the island. Now, two more Taiwan tech suppliers have been hit by new clusters of COVID-19 cases, creating another disruption to production that’s threatening to have an outsize impact on the global supply chain. According to Nikkei, King Yuan Electronics Co...

It still looks like we are nowhere near the end of the ongoing global semi chip shortage. Even worse, more manufacturers are confirming that the shortage could last “for at least another year”, catalyzed by sharp post-pandemic demand for automobiles and electronics. Flex, the world’s third-biggest electronics contract manufacturer, offered up the “gloomiest” forecast for the crisis yet to FT this week. The company has more than 100 sites in 30 countries and works with major names like Dyson and HP. Lynn Torrel, Flex’s chief procurement and supply chain officer, told FT: “With such strong demand, the expectation is mid...

Readers have been briefed on the ongoing semiconductor shortage that may last a “couple of years.” The auto industry has grabbed the spotlight as the hardest-hit industry, with some of the world’s biggest manufacturers restricting production. According to a new report, the worldwide chip shortage is impacting the agriculture industry that may last for a couple of years and has already impacted the price of potato chips. Hoosier Ag Today reports, “The biggest factor impacting the ability of US farmers to produce the food we need has nothing to do with the weather, the markets, trade, regulations, or disease. The...

Robert Glorioso, W1IS,who describes how he solved some problems in making dual-band J-poles(intended mostly for field use) function well on both 2 meters and 70 centimeters.

Arlington, Va. – Today, Americans for Prosperity (AFP) endorsed bipartisan legislation introduced by Senators Ron Wyden, Rand Paul, Patrick Leahy and Mike Lee aimed at ending the legal loopholes that allow for warrantless surveillance on Americans. The Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale Act closes major loopholes in federal privacy law and ensures the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, which regulates law enforcement access to Americans’ information, and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which regulates intelligence agencies, are the exclusive means by which the government can surveil Americans. AFP Senior Policy Analyst Jeremiah Mosteller issued the following statement: “We can keep...

UPDATE: February 23, 2021 at 9:27 p.m. PT: KRON4 has confirmed that Fry's Electronics is closing its doors permanently. The report states that the company is expected to post closure details on its site sometime on Wednesday. Fry’s Electronics has been a staple in the consumer electronics industry for a few decades now, and it would seem that it’s time has come. Some reports are starting to surface claiming that Fry’s Electronics is closing its doors for good as of February 23, 2021