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The mission is carrying scientific instruments to observe the sun’s outermost layers in a four-month journey.
India launches space mission to the sun a week after moon landing
Experts say India can keep costs low by copying and adapting existing technology, and thanks to an abundance of highly skilled engineers who earn a fraction of their foreign counterparts’ wages.
The United States House Financial Services Subcommittee on Digital Assets, Financial Technology and Inclusion will be holding a hearing discussing central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) for the first time in months.
In a Sept. 7 announcement, Republican lawmakers on the committee said they planned to hold a hearing discussing the implications of releasing a CBDC as well as “private sector alternatives.” The "Digital Dollar Dilemma” discussion will be held on Sept. 14, roughly two weeks before U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler will reportedly testify before the full committee.
Some U.S. lawmakers have proposed different legislative approaches to tackling issues related to a CBDC rollout in the country, including limiting the Federal Reserve’s authority over issuing a digital dollar.
The U.S. watchdog for derivatives markets should create a limited pilot program for regulating cryptocurrencies, said Caroline Pham, one of the members of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).
“I’m recommending a time-limited CFTC pilot program to support the development of compliant digital asset markets and tokenization,” said Caroline Pham, who holds one of the Republican seats on the five-person commission, in remarks prepared for a Cato Institute event on Thursday.
“Staying ahead of the curve requires being ready to look to the future and preparing to embrace change,” Pham said.
The G20 Leaders’ Summit in New Delhi later this week will discuss the building blocks for cryptocurrency regulations, while a paper authored by the Financial Stability Board (FSB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) will offer nations a road map for regulating crypto assets, a person with direct knowledge of the matter said.
IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel said that with a boost in federal funding and the help of artificial intelligence tools, the agency has new means of targeting wealthy people who have “cut corners” on their taxes.
Werfel said a massive hiring effort and AI research tools developed by IRS employees and contractors are playing a big role in identifying tax dodgers.
The newly announced tax collection effort will begin as soon as October.
“We have more hiring to do,” Werfel said. “It’s going to be a very busy fall for us.”
Brokers — referred to as “digital asset middlemen” in the regulatory proposal — will be required to provide information on gains and losses incurred during the sale of crypto assets.
Two United States federal agencies — the Department of the Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) — have released a set of cryptocurrency regulations proposal detailing brokers’ reporting requirements.
The Office of Advocacy of the U.S. Small Business Administration revealed that the proposal around crypto regulations for brokers was released on Aug. 29
On Sunday, crypto analyst, JackTheRippler shared a screenshot of a patent filed by the Bank of America focusing on Ripple’s Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT). The ambassador announced, “XRP is the key in this document!”
The talks about Ripple’s distributed ledger technology started when the major banking institution, HSBC, managing assets worth $3 trillion, shared its admiration for Ripple and its cross-border payments technology.
Well-known crypto Lawyer John E. Deaton spoke to Nick Burrafato from Linqto about ways he sees banks being able to use XRP via ODL. In July, Judge Torres granted a partial victory to Ripple and a partial victory to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The SEC had sued Ripple over its sales of XRP but the Judge deemed only sales to institutional investors as securities.
ODL, which stands for ‘On Demand Liquidity’, is Ripple’s flagship cross-border payments system. It uses XRP to facilitate transactions between sending and receiving entities without Ripple being directly involved. This differs from Ripple’s Liquidity Hub, where Ripple facilitates transactions. This is why XRP has not been used in the Liquidity Hub, with Ripple receiving criticism for it.
In a strategic move, SBI Remit, the international money transfer branch of SBI Group, and blockchain pioneer Ripple have unveiled their groundbreaking collaboration, forming a joint venture known as SBI Ripple Asia. The main thrust of this venture is to introduce Ripple's XRP-enabled remittance solution to bank accounts in the Philippines, Vietnam and Indonesia, with implementation commencing this month.
Building on this success, the expansion will now encompass bank accounts in three Southeast Asian nations. The Philippines, Vietnam and Indonesia were selected due to their high proportion of remittances to bank accounts, making them ripe for the adoption of this groundbreaking service.
Ripple had officially announced it was joining Isaacman in the XRP and crypto donations project for the Maui Emergency Response Fund. Accordingly, XRP has been added as one of the crypto donations options to
charities on The Giving Block, a crypto donation solution provider.
Although the collaboration is no concrete signal of the SpaceX partner’s close links with Ripple, it remains to be seen if there is more to be uncovered.
Bybit has announced that it will introduce XRP trading against the Euro on its spot trading platform. This comes after Ripple’s recent legal win against the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which has renewed interest in the digital coin.
In a Sept. 4 announcement, Bybit confirmed the diversification of its trading pairs to include XRP/EUR. This addition gives users the advantage of trading XRP seamlessly for Euro, thereby expanding the investment options available on the platform.
Recent innovations have increased the transformative potential of technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) and distributed ledger technology (DLT) when applied to financial markets, Moody's said. While AI could potentially reduce operating expenses for financial institutions by automating manual tasks, DLT could "gradually lower financing expenses, especially for smaller issuers," according to the report.
JPMorgan Chase is reportedly considering using blockchain technology to create a digital deposit token for faster cross-border payments and settlements, Bloomberg has reported, citing an anonymous source familiar with the matter.
Per the Thursday (Sept. 7) report, the U.S. bank has already developed the necessary infrastructure for the innovative payment system, which is now pending approval from U.S. regulators to proceed.
As the first major U.S. bank to introduce its own digital token for real-world use, J.P. Morgan has been at the forefront of Wall Street’s efforts to leverage blockchain technology to streamline banking processes. It said in February 2019 that the blockchain-based cryptocurrency is designed to enable “the instantaneous transfer of payments between institutional accounts.”
Today the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) announced it will use the Hyperledger Fabric blockchain for its first wholesale central bank digital currency (wholesale CBDC) trials, Project Agila. The central bank said it made the selection for the Philippines CBDC with input from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the BIS Innovation Hub and other financial institutions.
Most wholesale CBDCs use DLT because banks already have central bank accounts. Blockchain or DLT provides additional programmability functionality. And it enables the CBDC to be used as an on-chain settlement asset for other blockchain assets, such as tokenized securities.
The Financial Times published an intriguing report over the weekend that says the London Stock Exchange Group is poised to stand up a new trading market that will let users swap tokenized version of stock. The head of the exchange’s capital markets group, Murray Roos, says this came about after the group studied the possibility of a blockchain-based trading venue for a year and concluded the technology had reached an “inflection point.”
Thailand's new government is using blockchain and crypto wallets to distribute a cash handout of $280 to citizens.
The funds will be given through a digital wallet and can be used for six months at local shops near the recipient.
The digital currency handout policy will add at least $56B to the economy and contribute to GDP growth in 2024.
For the first time, a nation is allowing travelers to cross its border with a digital passport on their smartphone instead of a physical passport. While the trial is happening in Finland, the European Union wants at least 80% of citizens in the 27-country bloc to be using a digital ID by 2030.
The pilot program, which started at the end of August, is available only to Finnish citizens. It is running at Helsinki Airport as a partnership between Finnair, airport operator Finavia and the Finnish police. Through the end of February 2024, Finnair passengers flying to and from three United Kingdom airports can pass through border control using new voluntary “Digital Travel Credential” (DTC).
An article in the Korea JoongAng Daily favorably covers the advent of optional face biometrics stations utilizing Alchera algorithms at Incheon International Airport.
In Manchester, England, people are learning of new requirements to submit face biometrics to board flights to elsewhere in the UK, Republic of Ireland, Channel Islands and the Isle of Man.
Manchester Airport posted a brief summary of the requirement on X/Twitter. Travelers on international flights transferring planes in the UK also will have to surrender a facial image.
And in the United States, pressure from border officials reportedly is resulting in some airline employees telling citizens exiting the U.S. that they must submit to a face match prior to boarding a flight leaving the country.
California has launched a digital driver's license and ID program, allowing residents to hold a virtual copy of their driving credentials on their smartphones.
The CA DMV Wallet app now supports digital IDs on both Android and iOS, but users will still need to keep a physical ID or license on them.
The practical usage of digital IDs will be limited at first, but they are expected to be most helpful for TSA PreCheck at supported airports.
Ethiopia has taken steps towards adopting digital IDs after it picked Madras Security Printers Private Limited as its partner for printing the documents. The company presented a bid worth $300,000 and is set to produce 1 million digital IDs, also known as Fayda. The firm is set to produce pre-customised cards as part of the contract. These digital identity documents will include biometric information, which will authenticate Ethiopians to access various public services and verify their identity when opening new bank accounts.
Pressure is mounting on Rishi Sunak over his Energy Bill that could lead to legal ramifications for homeowners across the country.
A group of MPs from his own party are set to rebel, including Jacob Rees-Mogg, as they cite draconian measures which could impact many, possibly even leading to jail terms.
Another disavowing Tory MP is Craig Mackinlay, who dubbed the bill “horrendous” in a scathing rant on GB News.
He added the bill could result in homeowners facing jail time for breaking new rules which all come as a part of the drive for net zero.
People using log burners to heat their homes in Bristol could soon face fines of up to £300 in a bid to reduce air pollution. Burning wood releases fine particulate matter which can cause serious health problems such as asthma, heart disease, strokes and lung cancer.
Councils in England have been given new legal powers to issue fines between £175 and £300 to households who emit more than three grams of smoke per hour from chimneys. Bristol City Council is now preparing to start issuing these fines.
The Biden administration declared a power emergency in Texas amid soaring electricity demand sparked by a brutal heat wave.
The order issued by the Energy Department on Thursday allows the state’s grid operator to waive some air- pollution limits so generators can produce more power. It is in effect until 9 pm local time Friday.
The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which oversees the grid serving 90% of Lone Star State customers, requested the emergency order “to preserve the reliability of the bulk electric power system.”
Nebraska has been awarded nearly $11 million of federal funding in efforts to modernize the nation’s electric grid and fight the climate crisis.
The U.S. Department of Energy announced Tuesday that Nebraska will be sent $10.8 million through the Grid Resilience State and Tribal Formula Grants program. Nebraska is among the seventh cohort of recipients, which includes eight other states and five tribes for a combined grant total of $125 million.
The Nebraska Department of Environment and Energy will distribute the funds in a competitive grant process through a soon-to-be-created Grid Resiliency Grant Program. The state is expected to receive $27 million total over five years.
The electric grid is a complex system of generation, transmission, distribution, and demand. Aging infrastructure and recent technological developments are forcing changes in electricity production, delivery, and use. The transition to a digital economy requires affordable, sustainable, and reliable electricity and presents challenges and opportunities to the grid. Emerging physical and cybersecurity threats, along with increased demand for faster outage response times, require, at minimum, real-time incident tracking and response capabilities. Increased grid penetration of renewable energy coupled with the adoption of advanced metering, energy storage, microgrids, electric vehicles, and other technologies to modernize our electric system will provide economic benefits, increase security, and ensure more reliable, resilient, and clean electricity. These innovations will require substantial planning and investment in grid technologies.
The Energy Department said Thursday it’s establishing a $20 million fund to help companies and researchers find low-cost, sustainable ways to extract underground hydrogen and to stimulate that natural process that creates the energy-rich element. Ambitious startups including Koloma, backed by Bill Gates’s Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Australia’s HyTerra and Natural Hydrogen Energy are already drilling test wells in Midwestern states including Kansas and Nebraska that could be the first commercial sources of the fuel.
Bangledesh's worst dengue outbreak a 'canary in a coal mine
After Ann Johnson suffered a stroke 18 years ago, she became paralyzed and lost the ability to speak. Now, with the help of a brain implant and artificial intelligence, she is able to communicate verbally again through a digital avatar.
In a study published last week in the journal Nature, researchers implanted an array of electrodes on the surface of Ann’s brain to transmit her brain activity to computers. There, A.I. algorithms translate the signals to words. After a brief delay, the on-screen avatar speaks Ann’s words out loud and captures her sentiment with facial expressions.
“It is now possible to imagine a future where we can restore fluid conversation to someone with paralysis, enabling them to freely say whatever they want to say with an accuracy high enough to be understood reliably,” Frank Willett, a co-author of the second paper and research scientist at Stanford University, said at a press briefing, per Wired.
The non-player characters (NPCs) you encounter in video games might be skilled at fighting or giving you valuable items, but nobody has ever accused them of being clever conversationalists. Some simply grunt or utter two-word replies. Even the more elaborate NPCs often only possess a few preprogrammed lines of dialog, each recorded by a human voice actor, leaving the computer characters liable to repeat themselves if you talk to them for more than a minute.
AI is upgrading NPCs’ conversational skills. Since the release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, developers have been modifying existing games to include NPCs that fuse GPT with text-to-speech technology to generate original, audible speech. Some of these so-called mods even take players on brand-new storylines, including one in the Grand Theft Auto V universe where you play as a police officer in the Los Santos Police Department (LSPD).
To give NPCs conversational abilities, Replica’s Smart NPCs system fuses ChatGPT with text-to-speech technology. The software, which runs on Unreal Engine 5, also automatically syncs the NPC characters’ lip and body movements with their speech. On the manual side, developers can customize each character to have a unique voice, backstory, and set of emotional dispositions and motivations — a process that determines not only what the characters say to you but also to each other.