Consumer Technology World Brief
The arrival of Intel Haswell process microarchitecture brings a whole new wave of electronic devices into the market. It is an upgrade from the previous Ivy Bridge version which promises better performance and longer battery life. With the recent market focus on ultrabooks and tablet computing the Haswell chips could not have come at a better time. The introduction of the Haswell chip definitely is changing the landscape for mobile computing making tablets a more practical and mainstream device than they previously were. For desktop users however the move from Ivy Bridge to Haswell is less clear. A performance gain of up to ten percent is expected, but in most cases, it might be lower. Power usage is lower, of course, but that’s really not enough to drive the cost of a motherboard and processor swap. The gain for mobile users look to be more substantial than desktop users, which is certainly key to Intel’s future, since laptop and ultraportable PC sales is the one bright spot in the PC growth arena.
World’s first approved bionic eye to be launched in U.S. after more than 20 years in the making and receiving FDA approval in February, the Argus II bionic eye is finally here. Developer Second Sight says it has selected clinical centers in 12 U.S. markets where it will begin rolling out the groundbreaking technology later this year. The Argus II works via an array of electrodes implanted onto the retina, which transform images that are transmitted wirelessly from an eyeglass-mounted video camera into electrical impulses that stimulate the retina to produce images. The breakthrough treatment is “remarkable,” said Suber S. Huang, director of the University Hospital Eye Institute’s Center for Retina and Macular Disease, one of the first centers where the implant will be offered. The Argus II Retinal Prosthesis System, doesn’t actually restore vision to these patients, but can allow them to detect light and dark, and thus identify the movement or location of objects. Argus II boasts 20-plus years of research, three clinical trials, and more than USD 200 million in private and public investment behind it. Still, the system has been categorized by the FDA as a humanitarian use device, meaning there is a “reasonable assurance” that the device is safe and its “probable benefit outweighs the risk of illness or injury.”
North America Review
The recent tragedy of the death of firefighters trapped in wildfire brings the spotlight on firefighting services in the U.S. The erosion of U.S. firefighting resources has been gradual, building through years of tighter budgets just as wildfires have grown more intense. Since 2000, U.S. wildfires have burned an average of 7 million acres (2.8 million hectares) a year, up from an average of 3.3 million acres (1.3 million hectares) in the 1990s, according to data from the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC). In recent years, money to fight those fires has been tight. The Washington budget cuts often called “sequestration” chopped 5 percent from the U.S. Forest Service’s Fire and Aviation Management Budget in fiscal 2013, reducing the number of firefighters to 10,000 from 10,500, NIFC spokeswoman Jennifer Jones said. Fifty fire engines were removed from service. There’s very little research and development in firefighting. It’s a very conservative area, and historically it’s been vastly underfunded.
Businesses won’t be penalized next year if they fail to provide workers health insurance after the Obama administration decided to delay a key requirement under its signature 2010 health-care law. The government will postpone enforcement of the so-called employer mandate until 2015, the administration said today. Under the provision, companies with 50 or more workers face a fine of as much as USD 3,000 per employee if they don’t offer affordable insurance. The move may lead some employers to delay providing coverage to workers. The law’s individual mandate remains in effect, a provision that requires most Americans to carry health insurance.
Asia Review
China’s chief banking regulator said on Saturday that liquidity in China’s banking system is sufficient and pledged to control risks from local government debt, real estate and shadow banking. Despite a cash squeeze that sent money-market interest rates soaring over the last two weeks, banks have more than enough reserves to meet settlement needs according to the chairman of the Chinese Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC). The total excess reserves in China’s banking system was more than double the amount necessary for normal payment and settlement needs. Recently, some international organizations and industry insiders have expressed worry about a slowdown in China’s economic growth, local government debt, the real estate market, and related areas according to the chairman of CBRC.
Friction between China and the Philippines over disputed territories has surged since last year due to several naval stand-offs as China asserts its vast claims over the oil and gas rich sea. China agreed to hold formal talks with Southeast Asian nations on a plan to ease maritime tensions on Sunday as the Philippines accused it of causing “increasing militarization” of the South China Sea, one of Asia’s naval flashpoints. Critics say China is intent on cementing its claims over the sea through its superior and growing naval might, and has little interest in rushing to agree a code of conduct with ASEAN nations, four of which have competing claims.
Europe Review
Global equity markets slid on Wednesday on worries over signs of slowing growth in China and deepening political turmoil in Portugal, where talks over the government’s future weighed on the euro and threatened to reignite the euro zone crisis. Portugal had been held up as an example of a bailout country doing all the right things to get its economy back in shape. That reputation is now harder to sustain and even before this latest crisis, the International Monetary Fund reported last month that Lisbon’s debt position was “very fragile”. All this is coming against a backdrop of rising euro zone borrowing costs once again after the U.S. Federal Reserve’s announcement of an exit strategy from its money-printing program put world markets back into a spin.
The European Union agreed on Thursday to force investors and wealthy savers to share the costs of future bank failures, moving closer to drawing a line under years of taxpayer-funded bailouts that have prompted public outrage. Finance ministers from the bloc’s 27 countries emerged with a blueprint to close or salvage banks in trouble. The plan stipulates that shareholders, bondholders and depositors with more than 100,000 euros (USD 132,000) should share the burden of saving a bank. The rules break a taboo in Europe that savers should never lose their deposits, although countries will have some flexibility to decide when and how to impose losses on a failing bank’s creditors. The European Union spent the equivalent of a third of its economic output on saving its banks between 2008 and 2011, using taxpayer cash but struggling to contain the crisis and – in the case of Ireland – almost bankrupting the country.