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Health

Elon Musk’s Neuralink exhibits video of monkey utilizing thoughts to play Pong

Elon Musk’s Neuralink shows video of monkey using mind to play Pong

Jeff Miller / University of Wisconsin-Madison

Neuralink, the brain-machine interface company founded by Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, has released a YouTube video of a macaque monkey named Pager playing the Pong video game with his mind.

The 3-minute 27-second video that Musk shared on Twitter late Thursday appears to show the monkey controlling a computer with its brain activity.

“A monkey is literally playing a video game telepathically using a brain chip,” Musk wrote on Twitter.

In the video, a narrator tries to explain how pager pong can be played with his mind.

The nine-year-old monkey, who had two Neuralink devices attached to each side of his brain about six weeks ago, learned how to use a joystick to move a cursor over targets on a screen to get a banana smoothie delivered through a straw says the narrator.

He goes on to explain that the company’s “Link” devices recorded pager neuron activity as he interacted with the computer. It was possible because of the more than 2,000 tiny wires implanted in the regions of his motor cortex that coordinate hand and arm movements, the narrator said.

This data was then fed into a “decoder algorithm” to predict pager’s intended hand movements in real time.

After the decoder was calibrated, Neuralink said the monkey could use it to move the cursor where it wanted it instead of relying on the joystick.

In fact, the YouTube video shows pager controlling a paddle in the arcade game Pong while the joystick is unplugged.

Pigs to monkeys

In August, Neuralink ran a live demo of its technology on three pigs. An audience was shown real-time neural signals from one of the pigs Musk named Gertrude.

Ultimately, Neuralink, headquartered in San Francisco, wants to increase the speed at which information can flow from the human brain to a machine.

While the technology is still in its infancy, Neuralink hopes their devices will soon enable paralyzed people to operate machines with their minds.

On Thursday, Musk said the first Neuralink product would enable a paralyzed person to use a smartphone with their mind faster than someone using their thumbs.

The AI ​​is only getting smarter, and Neuralink’s technology could one day allow people to “ride along,” Musk said in a January interview at the clubhouse.

To illustrate the pace of advancement in AI, the innovator – who believes machine intelligence will ultimately outperform human intelligence – pointed to breakthroughs in research laboratories like OpenAI, which he co-founded, and DeepMind, a London AI laboratory, which was acquired by Google in 2014. DeepMind “basically has no more games to win,” said Musk, who was an early investor in the company.

According to Musk, people are already “cyborgs” because they have a tertiary “digital layer” thanks to phones, computers and applications.

“With a direct neural interface, we can improve the bandwidth between your cortex and your digital tertiary layer by many orders of magnitude,” he said. “I would probably say at least 1,000 or maybe 10,000 or more.”

The digital plane he is referring to can be anything from a person’s iPhone to their Twitter account.

Long-term, Musk claims that Neuralink could enable humans to send concepts to one another using telepathy and after death to exist in a “saved state” that could then be put into a robot or another human. He admitted that he was into science fiction.

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World News

Chinese language T.V. Exhibits Censor Western Clothes Manufacturers

Chinese T.V. Shows Censor Western Clothing Brands

HONG KONG – Viewers of some of China’s most popular online variety shows were recently greeted by an odd sight: a blur of pixels obscuring the marks on sneakers and t-shirts worn by attendees.

As far as the audience could tell, the clothing showed no signs of profanity or indecency. Instead, the problem was with the overseas brands that made them.

Since late March, streaming platforms in China have been carefully censoring the logos and symbols of brands like Adidas that adorn items worn by participants performing dance, singing, and stand-up comedy routines. The phenomenon followed a feud between the government and well-known international companies that said they would avoid using cotton from western China’s Xinjiang region, where authorities are accused of having launched a widespread campaign of repression against ethnic minorities, including Uyghurs.

While the anger in China against Western brands has been palpable and lingering on social media, the sight of cast members transforming into fast-moving patches of censored shoes and clothing has a rare, if unintentional, view for Chinese viewers in a heated global argument Comic relief brought. It has also exposed the unexpected political trip wires that non-political entertainment platforms face as the government continues to armed Chinese consumers in their political clashes with the West.

Most of the brands were undetectable, but some could be identified. Chinese brands didn’t seem blurry. It is not clear whether Chinese government officials specifically ordered the shows to disguise the brands. However, experts said the video streaming sites appeared to feel pressured or obliged to publicly distance themselves from Western brands amid the feud.

Ying Zhu, a media professor at the City University of New York and Hong Kong Baptist University, suggested that the censorship was a response to both state and grassroots patriotism, especially as the opinions of nationalist viewers became more prominent and louder.

“The pressure is both top-down and bottom-up,” said Professor Zhu. “It is not necessary for the state to issue a guideline that companies can base themselves on. The nationalist mood is high and powerful and drowns out all other voices. “

The censorship campaign can be traced back to an argument that broke out last month when Swedish clothing giant H&M was suddenly scrubbed by Chinese online shopping sites. The move came after the Communist Youth League and state news media resurfaced a statement H&M made months ago expressing concerns about forced labor in Xinjiang.

Other Western clothing brands had also said they would avoid using Xinjiang cotton, and one by one, many Chinese celebrities parted ways with them. Since then, the loyalty test seems to have expanded to include streaming shows.

Fang Kecheng, an assistant professor of journalism at the Hong Kong University of China who studies media and politics, believed the platforms were most likely censoring the brands to prevent viewers from backlashing.

“If someone is not happy with these brands on the shows, they could launch a social media campaign targeting the producers, which could attract government attention and ultimately lead to punishment,” he said via E on Thursday -Mail.

As the blurring spread to clothing brands, shows started to hiccup. The video platform iQiyi announced that it would be delaying the release of an episode of “Youth With You 3”, a reality show for aspiring pop idols. The reason was not disclosed, but internet users suspected it had something to do with Adidas, which had supplied t-shirts and sneakers that participants could wear as a kind of team uniform.

Some internet users made mocking predictions about what the upcoming episode would look like and took photoshopping images to turn the contestants vertically so that their Adidas t-shirts read “Sabiba” instead.

When the episode was streamed two days later, pixelated rectangles obscured the t-shirts and sports jackets of dozens of dancers and the distinctive triple stripes on their Adidas sneakers. Internet users happily observed that none of the shirts had been spared, except for the one candidate who had worn his shirt backwards. Many expressed their condolences to the video editors for their lost sleep and the blurring of the T-shirts.

Other shows have performed similar blurring in post-production. Participants in another reality show for entertainers, “Sisters Who Make Waves”, practiced cartwheels in sneakers that flashed into imperceptible blurring. So many shoes were erased in the stand-up comedy series “Roast” that when a group gathered on a dais, the space between the floor and its long seams seemed to merge into a mist.

A representative for Tencent Video, which hosts Roast, declined to comment on why some brands have been censored. The streaming platforms iQiyi and Mango TV, which host “Youth With You 3” and “Sisters Who Make Waves” respectively, did not respond to requests for comments. Adidas did not respond to questions asked by email.

The blurring or cropping on the screen is hardly new in China. Male pop stars’ ear lobes have been airbrushed to hide earrings that are considered too feminine. A contemporary drama with cleavage typical of the Tang Dynasty was pulled from the air in 2015 and replaced with a version that cut out much of the costumes and awkwardly enlarged the speaking heads of the actors. Football players were instructed to cover arm tattoos with long sleeves.

The on-screen censorship shows the difficult line that online video platforms, regulated by the National Radio and Television Administration, must follow.

“The fuzziness is likely the platforms’ self-censorship to be sure,” said Haifeng Huang, associate professor of political science at the University of California at Merced and scholar of authoritarianism and public opinion in China.

“But it still implies the power of the state and the nationalist part of society, which is probably the message that the audience receives: These big platforms have to censor themselves, even without being explicitly stated.”

The blurry episodes also reveal how the platforms seem willing to sacrifice the quality of the viewing experience to avoid political clashes, even if they get the buttocks of audience jokes.

“In a social setting where censorship is commonplace, people become desensitized and even treat them as a different form of entertainment,” said Professor Huang.

Albee Zhang and Joy Dong contributed to the research.

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Health

As Nation Speeds to Vaccinate All, Maryland’s Path Reveals Challenges Forward

As Nation Speeds to Vaccinate All, Maryland’s Path Shows Challenges Ahead

UPPER MARLBORO, Md. – The road to rapidly vaccinating the country’s 250 million adults is being paved with pharmacy chains, hospitals and huge stadiums where uniformed troops vaccinate thousands of people every day.

It will also rely on the recreation center at Glenarden’s First Baptist Church here, along with tiny storefront service organizations and vaccine-filled vans searching the neighborhood for unprotected ones.

Maryland offers a microcosm of the problems states will face if they rush to open enough vaccination sites to meet President Biden’s goal of qualifying every adult for Covid-19 admissions by May 1. It has tackled almost all of the geographic, demographic, and human behavior problems associated with coming up with a public health task of this magnitude: poor neighborhoods where many lack access to regular care; affluent Washington suburbs whose residents have proven adept at sucking up records for other zip codes; isolated rural areas; and a registration system that has angered citizens so that the vaccine hunt has become for many part-time workers.

“We’re going to push, but we also have to push,” said Dennis Schrader, the incumbent health minister in Maryland, describing the state’s plan to not only increase capacity at mega-locations and pharmacies, but also to “attract people” with smaller, more targeted ones Efforts.

Virtually every state in the nation is currently in a dangerous race between vaccinating its residents and succumbing to a severe wave of cases, caused in part by the emergence of new variants of the coronavirus. As states rush to expand shooting eligibility, many are also relaxing the rules on eating, gathering, and masking.

Extensive group efforts across competing interests will be required to bring states closer to herd immunity. Efforts to track who is being vaccinated and where are becoming even more important so that health officials can quickly identify who is being left behind and change their strategies and resources accordingly.

Many states have already opened vaccination to all adults, including more than a dozen this week alone. To move the process forward, Mr Biden announced on Thursday a new advertising campaign aimed at communities where vaccine reluctance remains high.

“It will really be the start of a much stronger surveillance and analysis that is needed to ensure this has been both a quick and fair launch of the largest vaccination campaign in human history,” said Alison M. Buttenheim, Associate Professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing.

Here in Maryland, the pent-up demand for the vaccine is huge: only people age 65 and over, some types of essential workers, and some other narrow categories were eligible through March, so two-thirds of the population were still unprotected.

On Tuesday, Republican Governor Larry Hogan opened the vaccination to anyone 16 years and older who had certain medical conditions. Everyone aged 16 and over is eligible until April 27, regardless of medical status.

But while Mr Hogan has been heavily criticized by local leaders for the state being in the middle of the road, some people fear it is accelerating too quickly. Mr Hogan has already been criticized for not doing enough to reach the Black and Latino residents, who make up more than 40 percent of the state’s population, but only 28 percent of those who received at least one shot.

Hogan’s government plans to open four more mass vaccination sites by the end of April, bringing the number to 12. 320 pharmacies administer shots. Next week, an area operated by the federal government will open at a subway station. Mr. Hogan’s goal is to have 100,000 shots a day by May, up from an average of 57,000 a day.

The state has begun calling in primary care physicians with the goal of having 400 practices administering shots by May. It also works with local health departments and community partners, especially churches, to open pop-up vaccination sites that target populations who may be geographically or socially isolated, or who distrust the government and large institutions.

Updated

April 1, 2021, 4:46 p.m. ET

Pastor John Jenkins of the First Baptist Church in Glenarden understood the role his church could play as he drove down a main street in Prince George’s County – a mostly black area with high Covid infection rates but low vaccination rates – after winding a row of cars, leading to a mass vaccination site at Six Flags amusement park.

“The people in these cars didn’t look like the people in the county,” said Pastor Jenkins. “The people in this church couldn’t get appointments.”

With the help of his church’s long-time partner, the University of Maryland Capital Region Health, he and his army of church volunteers quickly created pop-up vaccination sites. State officials who provided contract workers visited his sprawling indoor recreation center and quickly agreed to significantly expand his initial dreams of several hundred shots a week.

The site, which functions like a medical center, planned to vaccinate a few hundred people a day, but was quickly getting closer with residents like Denise Evans who said she was “more comfortable” in her church than the stadium across the street approaching 1,000. The church will soon be ramping up to take daily recordings. “I am grateful that the governor has reallocated resources here,” said Pastor Jenkins.

Targeting smaller populations can also require special efforts. A group of Latino residents in Baltimore, given 25 seats in a state convention center, were often unable to reach the premises, and those who got there could not find anyone who spoke Spanish. The Esperanza Center in Baltimore, a unit of Baltimore Catholic Charities, was approached by the National Guard in February to work with Johns Hopkins to establish a clinic for that group at the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

“What was really important to us was that they didn’t wear uniform,” said Katherine Phillips, the center’s medical director. (Many of those who attend church are undocumented immigrants.)

The website uses a hotline to help residents make appointments and has recordings at their church on Friday evenings when more residents who otherwise couldn’t get off work can get there.

Another focus of criticism in Maryland, as in many other states, was the vaccine appointment scheduling system. Instead of having a single online portal where people can view available appointments across the state, each provider has its own online appointment system. This means that users often have to search multiple websites to find a slot. The state recently created a single online platform that residents can use to pre-register for an appointment at one of its mass vaccination sites. However, Mr Schrader, the incumbent health minister, said the hospital systems and pharmacy chains that operate most of the sites “want to use their own system.”

Dr. Josh Sharfstein, vice dean at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore and former Maryland Secretary of Health, said he expected this approach to prove more problematic as more people seek appointments.

“This chaotic system of people having to go to 15 websites is really discriminating against people who don’t have a computer or who can’t spend all day on it,” said Dr. Sharpstein.

Mr Biden recently said his administration would help make it easier to find vaccine appointments, including by creating a federal government-sponsored website that will show people near the places where gunshots are being made and a toll-free line that people can call for help. He promised to find a vaccine by May 1st. He also promised to set up “technology teams” in states that need help improving their vaccine terminals.

To date, Maryland has sent about 30 percent of its weekly vaccine allocation to its high-volume locations, 30 percent to local health departments shared with community groups and other small providers, and the rest to hospital systems, pharmacies, and independent medical practices.

Going forward, Mr Schrader said the state will rely heavily on local health departments and community health centers to provide basic services to low-income and uninsured people in 126 locations across the country and receive their own allocation directly from the federal government. Among other things, they can compare their patient lists with the state vaccine register to find out who still needs a shot.

In Baltimore, where 21 percent of the population lives below the poverty line, local hospitals, pharmacies and a nursing school have teamed up with the city health department to send teams to public housing for the elderly at least six times a week and vaccinate more than 2,300 people there so far . The city will soon expand the program to other high-risk populations, said Dr. Letitia Dzirasa, the city’s health commissioner.

“It’s a little nerve-wracking to think that in a month’s time it will be completely open,” said Dr. Dzirasa.

Even so, she and other local officials across the state said they did not expect there to be shortages of vaccines or places where people could be shot. In Washington County, where large rural areas border Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia, Maulik S. Joshi, president and chief executive officer of Meritus Health, the local hospital system, said that between the county health department, the local aging committee, and his own co-worker, almost 3,000 employees, he was not concerned about the number of vaccine-compatible balloons.

“We put in people you wouldn’t believe,” said Dr. Joshi as he was preparing to open a mass vaccination site in an outlet center on a freeway in Hagerstown that was once a merino wool sweater and orange Julius outpost, now part of the medical center. “People from the areas of finance and outpatient rehabilitation care run our vaccination centers. We are hiring. We are ready to go. For us it is not a cost or a people problem, just a vaccine problem. “

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Health

Research exhibits promising immune response towards variants

Study shows promising immune response against variants

Scientists at the Mirimus Laboratory prepare to test COVID-19 samples from recovered patients on April 8, 2020 in Brooklyn, New York.

Mischa Friedman | Getty Images

One type of T cell responsible for destroying cells infected with viruses was able to detect three variants of Covid-19 in a small US study, a promising sign that vaccines should continue to protect against new, emerging strains researchers at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases said Tuesday.

Researchers led by NIAID researcher Andrew Redd investigated whether T cells were found in blood samples from patients recovering from the original strain of virus that recognized B.1.1.7, the variant B.1.351 originally detected in the UK was originally found in South Africa and P.1, first seen in Brazil. The NIAID is part of the National Institutes of Health, which published the study.

Each of the three variants the scientists examined contained mutations in what is known as the spike protein, which the virus uses to enter human cells. Mutations in this spike protein region could make it less noticeable to T cells and neutralizing antibodies, another important part of the immune response, after infection or vaccination, the researchers said.

In the study, which used blood samples from 30 recovered Covid-19 patients, T-cell responses “remained largely intact and were able to detect virtually all mutations in the variants studied,” they said, adding that even larger studies are required.

“The researchers note that their results suggest that the T-cell response in convalescents, and most likely in vaccines, is largely unaffected by the mutations found in these three variants and should provide protection against emerging variants,” the US wrote Authority a press release.

The results of the study could give hope to public health officials as they attempt to vaccinate the US and other parts of the world. New variants have been a problem for health officials as studies have shown that variants can reduce the effectiveness of current vaccines. The Chief Medical Officer of the White House, Dr. Anthony Fauci, urged Americans to get vaccinated as soon as possible before potentially more dangerous variants emerge.

On Monday, the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the reporter. She said she was concerned the nation was facing “impending doom” as variants spread and daily Covid-19 cases rise again, threatening to send more people to the hospital.

Scientists say strong responses from both antibodies and T cells are likely required for an effective immune response against the virus. Further studies to examine immune responses are still needed, the researchers stressed, including whether a booster shot would be effective against emerging variants.

“New variants continue to be identified around the world and it will be important to continuously monitor them for possible accumulation of T cell escape mutations,” the researchers wrote.

The researchers also noted that the study had limitations, including the relatively small size of the population studied and that all participants were from North America.

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Entertainment

The Workplace Actress Kat Ahn Calls Out the Present’s Racist Jokes

THE OFFICE, Nancy Walls, Steve Carell,

Hollywood’s portrayal of Asian women in the media is historically disturbing. Harmful stereotypes, hypersexualization and fetishization have played a role in onscreen projects for decades, including at NBCs The office. Actress Kat Ahn recently opened up to that Washington Post about how her guest appearance on the “Benihana Christmas” episode of the comedy show led to her being the butt of racist jokes.

In the 2006 episode, Michael Scott (played by Steve Carrell) calls Benihana “Asian Hooters” and marks the arm of an Asian waitress with Sharpie so he can tell her apart from another. Michael’s behavior throughout the show’s tenure is knowingly problematic and is said to be a parody of ignorant bosses at workplaces across the country. For Ahn, however, this story remains hurtful even 15 years later. Ahn said she was “only there to make the joke” and felt powerless. “You should shut up and be grateful,” she said. “Actors have no power until they become a star.”

Ahn previously explained this experience in a TikTok video. “The plot with me and the other Asian American actress is that we were the ‘uglier’ version of the actresses in Benihana,” she said. “Also that all Asians look the same; we are a big monolith; and we’re just a big, walking stereotype with no personality or individuality, which is problematic.” Ahn’s personal life has also been influenced by the show’s racism. Later, a worker in her office tried to tag her arm just like below. He would wipe her discomfort with a sadly typical response and say it was just a joke.

Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey, Pam and Angela of the series, agreed that this episode was problematic during their time Office ladies Podcast admitting the Sharpie scene makes them “wince”. Kinsey said, “I just don’t think this story was written today.” Fisher agreed, “I don’t think so either.”

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Business

CDC examine reveals single dose of Pfizer or Moderna Covid vaccines was 80% efficient

CDC changes Covid vaccine guidance to OK mixing Pfizer and Moderna shots

According to a new study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of vaccinated health care workers, a single dose of the Covid-19 vaccine from Pfizer or Moderna was 80% effective in preventing coronavirus infections.

The effectiveness of the partial immunization was noted two weeks after the first dose, according to the CDC, which studied nearly 4,000 health care workers, first responders and frontline workers between December 14 and March 13, according to other key study staff, which began on Monday had no prior laboratory documentation of the Covid-19 infection.

Two doses are better than one, federal health officials said, adding that the vaccines’ effectiveness rose to 90% two weeks after the second dose.

“These results show that approved mRNA-COVID-19 vaccines in adults of working age effectively prevent SARS-CoV-2 infection under real conditions, regardless of symptom status,” wrote the US agency in the study. “The COVID-19 vaccination is recommended to all entitled persons.”

The new CDC results should back up arguments by some health experts and health officials that the US should give Americans only one dose of vaccines as a priority before moving on to a second dose, accelerating the pace of vaccination across the country.

The CDC results were released just minutes before the press conference by the agency’s director, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the hospital also released as vaccinations nationwide expedite.

Unlike the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which requires one dose, the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines require two vaccinations three to four weeks apart. The Chief Medical Officer of the White House, Dr. Anthony Fauci, has said repeatedly over the past few months that the US should stick to the two-dose regime.

Dr. Paul Offit, a voting member of the FDA’s Advisory Committee on Vaccines and Related Biological Products who reviewed both Pfizer’s and Moderna’s vaccines for emergency approval, said the CDC study was overall “good news” .

However, he said he feared people would now think a dose of the vaccines was “good enough” and would not return for a second shot. He said studies have shown that immunity actually appears to be “more permanent” after the second dose, meaning protection may last longer.

“The reason these are two-dose vaccines is because the second dose provides a titer of neutralizing antibodies, virus-specific neutralizing antibodies, that is nearly ten times greater than the first dose,” he told CNBC. Neutralizing antibodies play an important role in the defense of cells against the virus.

Second, and more importantly, scientists have also discovered what are known as T cells, another important part of the immune response that usually lasts longer Immunity, he said.

There are also still questions about the highly contagious variants and whether the vaccines protect mild to moderate forms of the disease, he said.

Of the 3,950 participants in the study, 2,479, or 62.8%, received both recommended doses, and 477, or 12.1%, received only one dose, according to the CDC. The infection rate among the vaccinated participants was 0.04 compared to 1.38 among the non-vaccinated participants.

The study was conducted in eight locations in the United States: Phoenix, Tucson, and other areas in Arizona; Miami, Florida; Duluth, Minnesota; Portland, Oregon; Temple, Texas; and Salt Lake City, Utah. The majority of the participants were female, white, and had no chronic illnesses, according to the CDC.

The study had limitations, the CDC said, adding that delays in deliveries could reduce virus detection sensitivity of Covid-19 tests.

Preliminary real-world vaccine efficacy results for both vaccines complement and expand on estimates of vaccine efficacy from other recent studies, the CDC said. A large study published in the New England Journal of Medicine in February found that Pfizer’s vaccine was 94% effective against symptomatic Covid.

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Business

Satellite tv for pc photos of ship Ever Given in Suez Canal exhibits work underway

Satellite images of ship Ever Given in Suez Canal shows work underway

Satellite imagery offers a unique perspective of the stalled ship Ever Given as the crews work to free the mega container ship that has been blocking the Suez Canal for four days.

Maxar Technologies’ WorldView-2 satellite captured high-resolution images on Friday morning and viewed the dredging work to free the ship up close. Ever Given, which is operated by the Taiwanese shipping company Evergreen Marine, has been stuck since Tuesday when the ship ran aground in strong winds and poor visibility of a sand storm.

Shipping companies warn that it may take weeks for the Ever Given to be released. The enormous carrier is over 1,300 feet long and approximately 193 feet wide. It weighs more than 200,000 tons. One end of the ship is wedged into one side of the canal and the other extends almost to the other bank.

The ship blocks the Suez Canal completely, through which, according to the Suez Canal Authority, an average of 52 ships per day pass.

The channel handles around 12% of the world’s ocean trade, with each day of the blockade disrupting more than $ 9 billion in goods – meaning every hour of delay an estimated $ 400 million in trade, according to data company Lloyd’s List. Dollar complies.

Images captured by the European Space Agency’s Copernicus Sentinel-1 satellite showed that shipping traffic in the Gulf of Suez was declining. According to estimates by the research company StoneX, more than 150 ships are currently waiting for the Ever Given to be released.

The images captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-1 satellite on March 21st and 25th offer a direct comparison of shipping traffic in the Gulf of Suez.

European space agency

The ships continue to wait as the diversion around the southern tip of Africa significantly extends a journey. For example, sailing from the Suez Canal to Amsterdam takes about 13 days when traveling at 12 knots compared to 41 days when traveling around the African Cape of Good Hope.

The satellite images from Planet Labs gave another view of the transportation building in the Gulf.

Planet Labs satellite image showing that shipping has stopped because the container ship Ever Given ran aground in the canal (top left).

Source: Planet Labs

A synthetic aperture radar image captured by a Capella satellite on the evening of March 25 shows the Ever Given ship surrounded by auxiliary boats in the Suez Canal.

Capella Space

An image from an Airbus Pleiades satellite gives a different angle of the ship as the “off nadir” view provides a more three-dimensional perspective of the Ever Given situation.

A satellite image shows the stranded container ship Ever Given after it ran aground in the Suez Canal in Egypt on March 25, 2021.

CNES Airbus DS | Reuters

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Business

Boat reveals are again and drawing large crowds amid strong demand

Boat shows are back and drawing big crowds amid robust demand

Queen of the Show from the Orlando Boat Show.

Source: Marine Industry Association of Central Florida (MIACF)

Boat shows are back!

For both new and avid boaters, boat shows are one of the most important ways customers connect with the boat market. Last year, many events were canceled by the pandemic and organizers turned to online platforms instead. However, personal events are experiencing a revival, giving visitors the opportunity to discover a variety of boat types, sizes, brands, and additional equipment.

As the boat shows return, organizers find they are attracting more than expected crowds. The trend could reflect the strong demand for boats that the industry has seen over the past year. In 2020, boat, ship product and service sales hit a 13-year high of $ 47 billion as people flocked to the water to safely enjoy the outdoors.

The Orlando Boat Show held a personal indoor event earlier this month after a year-long hiatus due to Covid concerns. The event, attended by 21 dealers and more than 70 manufacturers, drew the largest crowd in a decade. According to a press release, attendance increased 66% compared to the event in 2019.

David Ray, executive director of the Central Florida Marine Industry Association, which hosted the event, said the group was stunned by its success as it expected a 20% to 25% decline in 2019.

“This was the best show we’ve ever had,” said Glenn Adams, the yacht and ship broker for Boat Max USA, who attended the event. “We were expecting fewer visitors than our first show in a showroom in over a year, but this was not the case.”

The event had over 500 boats to choose from, and sales at the event exceeded dealer expectations, Ray said. He wouldn’t reveal any specific sales data.

15 shows are scheduled to take place this year, only two of which are virtual, including the Seattle Boat Show, according to DiscoverBoating.com.

The Seattle Boat Show took place in January with 218 business partners. The four day online event consisted of live and recorded seminars on boating and fishing. Usually their personal shows showed over 1,000 boats while their virtual event could only show around 600.

More than 5,200 households have paid to take part in the online show. By comparison, the 2020 in-person event drew more than 45,000 people.

George Harris, president and CEO of the Northwest Marine Trade Association, the organizer of the event, said virtual events will never replace the experience of a personal boat show.

“A boat is an emotional purchase for people. They want to see it, they want to touch it, they want to smell it,” Harris said in an interview. He said he hoped they could hold a face-to-face event next year.

The National Marine Manufacturer’s Association, the largest boat show manufacturer in the country, has canceled its winter and spring shows this year due to the pandemic. However, most of their shows took place last year before Covid hit in March, association spokeswoman Sarah Salvatori told CNBC in an email.

The boat show season usually takes place in the fall and winter to prepare boaters for the high season in the warmer months of spring and summer.

In a research report, Jefferies analyst Randal Konik said recent channel checks showed that consumer appetite for boats remains high. Traders are pledging to buy inventory and internet traffic trends are still growing faster than they were before the pandemic.

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World News

Can France’s Far Proper Win Over the ‘Beavers’? One Mayor Reveals How

Can France’s Far Right Win Over the ‘Beavers’? One Mayor Shows How

Mas Llaro had always voted for mainstream law.

But disaffected and tired of the status quo, the Talaus, like many others, voted for the far-right party for the first time last year, attracted by Mr Aliot’s emphasis on cleanliness and crime, and said their apartment had been broken into twice.

Despite being pleased with the mayor’s performance, Mr Talau said he will still join the far-right dam in next year’s presidential contest and hold his nose to vote for Mr Macron. But Ms. Talau was now considering casting a ballot for Ms. Le Pen.

“She put water in her wine,” said Ms. Talau, adding that Mr. Macron was not “hard enough”.

Mr Aliot’s opponent in 2014 and 2020, a center-right politician named Jean-Marc Pujol, had pushed his way to the right in an unsuccessful move to fend off the far right. He increased the number of police officers and, according to the government, gave Perpignan the highest number per capita in any major city in France.

Even so, many of his key far-right supporters appeared to have more faith in crime and were still defected, while many left-wing beavers complained that they had been ignored and refused to participate in dam construction again, said Agnès Langevine, who represented them Greens and the Socialists in the 2020 mayoral elections.

“And they told us, ‘In 2022, when it’s between Macron and Le Pen, I won’t do it again,'” she added.

Mr Lebourg, the political scientist, said Mr Aliot had also won over higher-income conservative voters by adopting a general economic message – the same strategy that Mrs Le Pen followed.

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Entertainment

Earlier than Lockdown, This Tremendous Fan Went to 105 Reveals in One Season

Before Lockdown, This Super Fan Went to 105 Shows in One Season

Before the pandemic, he loved to play host. Every winter since 1978 he had convened a series of Wednesday evening salons inviting curators, collectors, artists and art lovers to his apartment. “It’s amazing what the conversations are around midnight,” he said.

His last evening was March 9, 2020 when he went to Petterino’s Monday Night Live, a cabaret showcase, with friends. “It was full throttle,” he said, “as if everyone knew the ban was coming.”

A few days later he got dressed and got on the bus to see the symphony perform “Rhapsody in Blue” and “Boléro”. He arrived, found out the performance had been canceled, and went back home. That was March 12th.

Minieka never had much use for television. For years he had a hand-me-down black and white watching the Oscars and elections, but when the tubes started leaking he threw it out. At the beginning of the pandemic, a friend offered him her old TV – she was upgrading – and he decided it was time to plug in cables and find out about streaming.

He plays “Downton Abbey”, “The Crown” and “Brideshead Revisited”. Occasionally he watches a movie. But he has no patience for digital theater. “I just don’t enjoy it,” he says. “I was in the real thing.”

Now he’s had both doses of vaccine and plans to celebrate by seeing a Monet exhibit at the Art Institute. But will he be performing live again? He is not sure.

“I kind of got used to sitting at home and not paying for tickets or spending a few nickels to have things streamed,” he said. “It used to be that you had an 8 o’clock curtain and if I wasn’t there they would close the doors. Now I can start whenever I want and I don’t have to wear a matching tuxedo. “