May 28, 2021
When it comes to the suspension of patents for Covid-19 vaccines, it’s big pharma against the world or most of it, anyway.
Earlier this month, the US government expressed its support of a waiver to the international agreements governing intellectual property rights. The waiver, proposed in November 2020 by India and South Africa, would allow poor countries to produce Covid-19 vaccines without paying pharmaceutical companies for patent rights, at least until the pandemic is over. This would help increase the global supply of vaccines at a lower price, and make progress toward the goal of vaccinating the global population by the end of the year.
May 27, 2021
In the niche world of customers for high-end semiconductors, a bitter feud is pitting bitcoin miners against hardcore gamers. At issue is the latest line of NVIDIA graphics cards powerful, cutting-edge chips with the computational might to display the most advanced video game graphics on the market.
Gamers want the chips so they can experience ultra-realistic lighting effects in their favorite games. But they can’t get their hands on NVIDIA cards, because miners are buying them up and adapting them to crunch cryptographic codes and harvest digital currency. The fierce competition to buy chips combined with a global semiconductor shortage has driven resale prices up as much as 300%, and led hundreds of thousands of desperate consumers to sign up for daily raffles for the right to buy chips at a significant mark-up.
In the clearest example yet of Hollywood's legacy institutions being swallowed up by Big Tech, MGM's historic film franchises like James Bond and Rocky will now live on virtual Amazon shelves.
Covid-19 vaccines have finally given the US an opportunity to claim a global healthcare success.
Today, the country announced that it has fully vaccinated half its population, the first large country to do so. Only Israel, whose population is just over 9 million, Seychelles (population: 100,000), and San Marino (33,000) can boast a higher percentage.
The EU is far behind
When it comes to global health, it is rare for the US to be a leader. From life expectancy, to maternal mortality, to incidence of chronic disease, the US trails the rest of the rich world, but when it comes to the Covid-19 vaccine it is leading and by a wide margin.