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happigreens · 1 month

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Sustainable Furniture: Sabai

Sabai about:

[...] In 2019, [Phantila] Phataraprasit co-founded Sabai—a Thai word that roughly translates to comfortable or relaxed—with business partner and college friend Caitlin Ellen.

[...] “The core of why we wanted to start Sabai is to make sustainable furniture that was accessible to people in our demographic, knowing that we are part of an age group that cares the most about this and wants to purchase according to those values, but are limited by things like budget, lifestyle and convenience,” she says.

Sabai CEO interview:

[Phataraprasit]: [...] We started an Instagram account that served as a great tool to leverage our community to understand what they cared about. When we started the design process, we would always go back to the Instagram community and poll them on, "What do you use your couch for?" "Do you like wide arms?" "Do you like thin arms?" It seems so simple in terms of, obviously, a couch is for sitting, but the insights that we received from that were helpful in informing the design process."

[...] It was definitely difficult for two relatively young women who had never started this type of company before and in a relatively traditional space to find any factory that was willing to work with us and basically take a bet on us. [...] When we finally did find a manufacturer who wanted to work with us, that was amazing, [...], but for us, we [...] had to find the sustainable alternatives to every component of the product so that was definitely a whole process in and of itself.

Sabai Materials blog post:

[...] OEKO-TEX certified hemp fabric is used in our Evergreen slipcovers [...] We wanted to ensure we were using [natural fibers] that uses less water than the cotton and linen options we’ve seen offered.

In place of traditionally used polyester upholstery fiber, we are using a natural fiber material made from a mix of coconut fibers and natural rubber wherever possible. The wooden legs are finished in a water based finish and the frame construction uses a non-toxic, solvent free glue.

[Sabai furniture] are designed to be assembled and disassembled easily with standard hardware and tools. Second, both seating collections are made to be repaired, individual parts can be purchased to replace in case of damage and cushion covers and slipcovers can be replaced to ensure the longevity of the product.

B Corp status of Sabai:

Sabai third-party product review:

#found this while considering shopping for a new couch #i think i might just invest in getting mine reupholstered/framed fixed to extend its longivity but #found this company in my search (for future reference) for sustainable furniture thats not necessarily second hand #my greens #sabai #sabai furniture #aapi #sustainable economy #sustainable furniture #furniture #interior design #non toxic #sustainable industry #women owned business #home health #green link

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if-you-fan-a-fire · 1 year

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"TECHNOCRATS DECIDE TO USE SOFT PEDAL," Toronto Star. December 23, 1932. Page 1. --- Holds No Golden Promise of Economic Paradise," Says Engineer ---- New York, Dec. 23. - Technocrats to-day began to soft-pedal. Technocracy, they contended, is not claiming to be a system of government, a sort of communism run by engineers, as one description made it. Technocracy does not advocate a Soviet of engineers.

Technocracy, declared Dal Hitchcock, one of the engineers, is not a panacea for social disturbances. It is only an investigation of the way modern, speeded-up machinery is rapidly displacing human labor, and, from this analysis when it is completed scientists may "perhaps" work out a new system of industry and government.

Hitchcock appeared before a large group of newspapermen with a long typewritten statement to this effect from Howard Scott, head of the investigating engineers, who is ill.

"Technocracy holds no golden promise of an economic paradise," Hitchcock told the assembled, press men.

"Technocracy points out," he said, that this continent has no fear of gloom or chaos, but that we must face the inconvenience of change - that this continent stands on the threshold of a new era of well-being. The high road to this new era can be one of orderly progression under technological control."

#new york #technocracy #rule of experts #engineering company #engineers #government by engineers #technocratic government #planned economy #man machine #unemployment #capitalism in crisis #the great depression

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tntra · 1 year

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What is the New Economy and its Impact on Manufacturing Technology?

New Economy manufacturing is driven by technology and information. Learn how new economy manufacturing technology impacts productivity, quality, user-centricity and more.

Read more: https://topdigital.agency/what-is-the-new-economy-and-its-impact-on-manufacturing-technology/

#manufacturing technology #new technology manufacturing #new economy companies #new economy industries #new economy examples #benefits of new economy #new technology manufacturing industry #new economy manufacturing

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jcmarchi · 3 months

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Russia's Aviation Is Plagued With Accidents - Sanctions Do Work - Technology Org

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/russias-aviation-is-plagued-with-accidents-sanctions-do-work-technology-org/

Russia's Aviation Is Plagued With Accidents - Sanctions Do Work - Technology Org

Russia may say that the sanctions imposed by the Western world and many other countries are not affecting its economy, but there are signs that Russia is suffering. For example, there seems to be a noticeable increase in accidents in passenger aviation, seemingly caused by maintenance issues and other technical problems. Russian aviation is compressed under an impressive weight of sanctions.

Russian commercial aviation is built on the Western-made planes. Image credit: AndreyFilippov.com via Wikimedia (CC BY 2.0)

Western countries do not allow their companies to export aeroplane parts and aircraft maintenance services to Russia. This, of course, is a response to the invasion of Ukraine launched by Russia on February 24, 2022.

Russia has accumulated some parts in its warehouses, some spare parts they can get by dismantling old planes, some they import through secret channels or acquire by servicing their planes in other countries that ignore the sanctions. But the fact is that Russian aviation is clearly suffering from increasingly poorly maintained planes.

The Wall Street Journal reports that economic sanctions are strangling Russia so badly that they are causing a large increase in accidents in the aviation sector. These are not necessarily fatal accidents, of course, but planes just keep breaking down. And some of those accidents are quite bad.

For example, On 12 September 2023, the Airbus A320-214 or Ural Airlines had to perform an emergency landing in a field, because it experienced a hydraulic failure and couldn’t even close the landing gear door. It tried to reach another airport, but ran out of fuel, due to the increased air resistance flying with the open landing gear door.

The airline denied that this accident was somehow related to sanctions or uncertified parts, but this is still one of the versions about what happened there. And it was far from the only aviation accident in Russia in 2023.

Airbus A320-214 of Ural Airlines resting in a field. It’s still there since 12th of September 2023. Image credit: Пресс-служба авиакомпании «Уральские Авиалинии» via Wikimedia (CC BY 2.0)

In 2022, 36 accidents occurred in Russian aviation. In 2023, this number reached 74. In these statistics, by the way, only those accidents that affect aircraft capable of carrying at least 19 passengers are included. The smallest aeroplanes are not counted, even though they should also suffer from shortages. This deterioration in aviation safety is attributed to poorer aircraft maintenance and bad-quality parts, so the situation is likely to worsen over time.

More than two-thirds of Russia’s passenger aircraft fleet consists of Boeing and Airbus planes. They are quite popular in the entire world and Russia could try getting their parts through unofficial channels.

However, the required amount of parts is quite large and ensuring the quality of service is now a difficult task for Russia. Putin’s plan is to increase production of domestic airliners, but those also heavily rely on Western tech and the increase in production is not going to be sudden. It will be interesting to see what Russia’s aviation safety stats will look like at the end of 2024.

Written by Povilas M.

Sources: The Wall Street Journal, Wikipedia

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head-post · 3 months

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Hungarian companies lead in the region – Szijjártó

Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó stated in Budapest on Monday that several domestic companies had become regional leaders in various key sectors due to the national interest-based economic development strategy of the past 14 years.

The minister announced that construction company Bayer Construct Zrt. would build a factory worth 15 billion Hungarian forints (38 million euros) in Sóskút, where a bathroom assembly plant would operate. The project would be supported by the state with 6.6 billion Hungarian forints (16.7 million euros), helping to create 100 new jobs.

Szijjártó claimed that the recently announced investment would contribute to further reinforcing of the construction industry, one of the main pillars of the Hungarian economy. The construction sector employed nearly 400,000 people, with output totalling €18.7 billion last year.

Read more HERE

#world news #world politics #news #europe #european news #european union #eu politics #eu news #hungary #hungary news #peter szijjarto #economy #economics #finance #companies

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mostlysignssomeportents · 13 days

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Red Lobster was killed by private equity, not Endless Shrimp

For the rest of May, my bestselling solarpunk utopian novel THE LOST CAUSE (2023) is available as a $2.99, DRM-free ebook!

A decade ago, a hedge fund had an improbable viral comedy hit: a 294-page slide deck explaining why Olive Garden was going out of business, blaming the failure on too many breadsticks and insufficiently salted pasta-water:

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/940944/000092189514002031/ex991dfan14a06297125_091114.pdf

Everyone loved this story. As David Dayen wrote for Salon, it let readers "mock that silly chain restaurant they remember from their childhoods in the suburbs" and laugh at "the silly hedge fund that took the time to write the world’s worst review":

https://www.salon.com/2014/09/17/the_real_olive_garden_scandal_why_greedy_hedge_funders_suddenly_care_so_much_about_breadsticks/

But – as Dayen wrote at the time, the hedge fund that produced that slide deck, Starboard Value, was not motivated by dissatisfaction with bread-sticks. They were "activist investors" (finspeak for "rapacious assholes") with a giant stake in Darden Restaurants, Olive Garden's parent company. They wanted Darden to liquidate all of Olive Garden's real-estate holdings and declare a one-off dividend that would net investors a billion dollars, while literally yanking the floor out from beneath Olive Garden, converting it from owner to tenant, subject to rent-shocks and other nasty surprises.

They wanted to asset-strip the company, in other words ("asset strip" is what they call it in hedge-fund land; the mafia calls it a "bust-out," famous to anyone who watched the twenty-third episode of The Sopranos):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bust_Out

Starboard didn't have enough money to force the sale, but they had recently engineered the CEO's ouster. The giant slide-deck making fun of Olive Garden's food was just a PR campaign to help it sell the bust-out by creating a narrative that they were being activists* to save this badly managed disaster of a restaurant chain.

*assholes

Starboard was bent on eviscerating Darden like a couple of entrail-maddened dogs in an elk carcass:

https://web.archive.org/web/20051220005944/http://alumni.media.mit.edu/~solan/dogsinelk/

They had forced Darden to sell off another of its holdings, Red Lobster, to a hedge-fund called Golden Gate Capital. Golden Gate flogged all of Red Lobster's real estate holdings for $2.1 billion the same day, then pissed it all away on dividends to its shareholders, including Starboard. The new landlords, a Real Estate Investment Trust, proceeded to charge so much for rent on those buildings Red Lobster just flogged that the company's net earnings immediately dropped by half.

Dayen ends his piece with these prophetic words:

Olive Garden and Red Lobster may not be destinations for hipster Internet journalists, and they have seen revenue declines amid stagnant middle-class wages and increased competition. But they are still profitable businesses. Thousands of Americans work there. Why should they be bled dry by predatory investors in the name of “shareholder value”? What of the value of worker productivity instead of the financial engineers?

Flash forward a decade. Today, Dayen is editor-in-chief of The American Prospect, one of the best sources of news about private equity looting in the world. Writing for the Prospect, Luke Goldstein picks up Dayen's story, ten years on:

https://prospect.org/economy/2024-05-22-raiding-red-lobster/

It's not pretty. Ten years of being bled out on rents and flipped from one hedge fund to another has killed Red Lobster. It just shuttered 50 restaurants and declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Ten years hasn't changed much; the same kind of snark that was deployed at the news of Olive Garden's imminent demise is now being hurled at Red Lobster.

Instead of dunking on free bread-sticks, Red Lobster's grave-dancers are jeering at "Endless Shrimp," a promotional deal that works exactly how it sounds like it would work. Endless Shrimp cost the chain $11m.

Which raises a question: why did Red Lobster make this money-losing offer? Are they just good-hearted slobs? Can't they do math?

Or, you know, was it another hedge-fund, bust-out scam?

Here's a hint. The supplier who provided Red Lobster with all that shrimp is Thai Union. Thai Union also owns Red Lobster. They bought the chain from Golden Gate Capital, last seen in 2014, holding a flash-sale on all of Red Lobster's buildings, pocketing billions, and cutting Red Lobster's earnings in half.

Red Lobster rose to success – 700 restaurants nationwide at its peak – by combining no-frills dining with powerful buying power, which it used to force discounts from seafood suppliers. In response, the seafood industry consolidated through a wave of mergers, turning into a cozy cartel that could resist the buyer power of Red Lobster and other major customers.

This was facilitated by conservation efforts that limited the total volume of biomass that fishers were allowed to extract, and allocated quotas to existing companies and individual fishermen. The costs of complying with this "catch management" system were high, punishingly so for small independents, bearably so for large conglomerates.

Competition from overseas fisheries drove consolidation further, as countries in the global south were blocked from implementing their own conservation efforts. US fisheries merged further, seeking economies of scale that would let them compete, largely by shafting fishermen and other suppliers. Today's Alaskan crab fishery is dominated by a four-company cartel; in the Pacific Northwest, most fish goes through a single intermediary, Pacific Seafood.

These dominant actors entered into illegal collusive arrangements with one another to rig their markets and further immiserate their suppliers, who filed antitrust suits accusing the companies of operating a monopsony (a market with a powerful buyer, akin to a monopoly, which is a market with a powerful seller):

https://www.classaction.org/news/pacific-seafood-under-fire-for-allegedly-fixing-prices-paid-to-dungeness-crabbers-in-pacific-northwest

Golden Gate bought Red Lobster in the midst of these fish wars, promising to right its ship. As Goldstein points out, that's the same promise they made when they bought Payless shoes, just before they destroyed the company and flogged it off to Alden Capital, the hedge fund that bought and destroyed dozens of America's most beloved newspapers:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/10/16/sociopathic-monsters/#all-the-news-thats-fit-to-print

Under Golden Gate's management, Red Lobster saw its staffing levels slashed, so diners endured longer wait times to be seated and served. Then, in 2020, they sold the company to Thai Union, the company's largest supplier (a transaction Goldstein likens to a Walmart buyout of Procter and Gamble).

Thai Union continued to bleed Red Lobster, imposing more cuts and loading it up with more debts financed by yet another private equity giant, Fortress Investment Group. That brings us to today, with Thai Union having moved a gigantic amount of its own product through a failing, debt-loaded subsidiary, even as it lobbies for deregulation of American fisheries, which would let it and its lobbying partners drain American waters of the last of its depleted fish stocks.

Dayen's 2020 must-read book Monopolized describes the way that monopolies proliferate, using the US health care industry as a case-study:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/29/fractal-bullshit/#dayenu

After deregulation allowed the pharma sector to consolidate, it acquired pricing power of hospitals, who found themselves gouged to the edge of bankruptcy on drug prices. Hospitals then merged into regional monopolies, which allowed them to resist pharma pricing power – and gouge health insurance companies, who saw the price of routine care explode. So the insurance companies gobbled each other up, too, leaving most of us with two or fewer choices for health insurance – even as insurance prices skyrocketed, and our benefits shrank.

Today, Americans pay more for worse healthcare, which is delivered by health workers who get paid less and work under worse conditions. That's because, lacking a regulator to consolidate patients' interests, and strong unions to consolidate workers' interests, patients and workers are easy pickings for those consolidated links in the health supply-chain.

That's a pretty good model for understanding what's happened to Red Lobster: monopoly power and monopsony power begat more monopolies and monoposonies in the supply chain. Everything that hasn't consolidated is defenseless: diners, restaurant workers, fishermen, and the environment. We're all fucked.

Decent, no-frills family restaurant are good. Great, even. I'm not the world's greatest fan of chain restaurants, but I'm also comfortably middle-class and not struggling to afford to give my family a nice night out at a place with good food, friendly staff and reasonable prices. These places are easy pickings for looters because the people who patronize them have little power in our society – and because those of us with more power are easily tricked into sneering at these places' failures as a kind of comeuppance that's all that's due to tacky joints that serve the working class.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/23/spineless/#invertebrates

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merchantservices444 · 5 months

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Empowering Business Development: The Role of Digital Payments

#Empowering Business Development: The Role of Digital Payments #digital payments #pax: empowering digital payments #digital payments empowering rural economy #small business #sustainable development #digital banking #development #digital #future of payments #payments news #digital banking solutions #development challenges #payments #united states international assistance development #sustainable development goals #international development #payments news under the lens #fintech software development companies

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reasonsforhope · 6 months

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It’s an open secret in fashion. Unsold inventory goes to the incinerator; excess handbags are slashed so they can’t be resold; perfectly usable products are sent to the landfill to avoid discounts and flash sales. The European Union wants to put an end to these unsustainable practices. On Monday, [December 4, 2023], it banned the destruction of unsold textiles and footwear.

“It is time to end the model of ‘take, make, dispose’ that is so harmful to our planet, our health and our economy,” MEP Alessandra Moretti said in a statement. “Banning the destruction of unsold textiles and footwear will contribute to a shift in the way fast fashion manufacturers produce their goods.”

This comes as part of a broader push to tighten sustainable fashion legislation, with new policies around ecodesign, greenwashing and textile waste phasing in over the next few years. The ban on destroying unsold goods will be among the longer lead times: large businesses have two years to comply, and SMEs have been granted up to six years. It’s not yet clear on whether the ban applies to companies headquartered in the EU, or any that operate there, as well as how this ban might impact regions outside of Europe.

For many, this is a welcome decision that indirectly tackles the controversial topics of overproduction and degrowth. Policymakers may not be directly telling brands to produce less, or placing limits on how many units they can make each year, but they are penalising those overproducing, which is a step in the right direction, says Eco-Age sustainability consultant Philippa Grogan. “This has been a dirty secret of the fashion industry for so long. The ban won’t end overproduction on its own, but hopefully it will compel brands to be better organised, more responsible and less greedy.”

Clarifications to come

There are some kinks to iron out, says Scott Lipinski, CEO of Fashion Council Germany and the European Fashion Alliance (EFA). The EFA is calling on the EU to clarify what it means by both “unsold goods” and “destruction”. Unsold goods, to the EFA, mean they are fit for consumption or sale (excluding counterfeits, samples or prototypes)...

The question of what happens to these unsold goods if they are not destroyed is yet to be answered. “Will they be shipped around the world? Will they be reused as deadstock or shredded and downcycled? Will outlet stores have an abundance of stock to sell?” asks Grogan.

Large companies will also have to disclose how many unsold consumer products they discard each year and why, a rule the EU is hoping will curb overproduction and destruction...

Could this shift supply chains?

For Dio Kurazawa, founder of sustainable fashion consultancy The Bear Scouts, this is an opportunity for brands to increase supply chain agility and wean themselves off the wholesale model so many rely on. “This is the time to get behind innovations like pre-order and on-demand manufacturing,” he says. “It’s a chance for brands to play with AI to understand the future of forecasting. Technology can help brands be more intentional with what they make, so they have less unsold goods in the first place.”

Grogan is equally optimistic about what this could mean for sustainable fashion in general. “It’s great to see that this is more ambitious than the EU’s original proposal and that it specifically calls out textiles. It demonstrates a willingness from policymakers to create a more robust system,” she says. “Banning the destruction of unsold goods might make brands rethink their production models and possibly better forecast their collections.”

One of the outstanding questions is over enforcement. Time and again, brands have used the lack of supply chain transparency in fashion as an excuse for bad behaviour. Part of the challenge with the EU’s new ban will be proving that brands are destroying unsold goods, not to mention how they’re doing it and to what extent, says Kurazawa. “Someone obviously knows what is happening and where, but will the EU?”"

-via British Vogue, December 7, 2023

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hemp-co · 2 years

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Is Hemp Wood the Future of Building?

Is Hemp Wood the Future of building?

Hemp has been legalized in the US, although with serious restrictions. This has resulted in increased production of the plant at an exponential rate. Hemp is a highly versatile plant that is being used for the production of sustainable by-products like plastic polymers, fabric, biofuel and now even wood.

Hemp fabrics have been used for clothing for millennia and it is one of the oldest fabrics used by humans. The plant can also be used in the production of a type of building material called hempcrete. Hemp wood is one of the latest products that this plant is being used to produce.

What is Hemp Wood

Simply? An innovative answer to the question of finding the material for building more sustainably. It’s late addition to the list of building materials is because of the decade’s hemp has spent as an illegal drug. This illegality due to its relationship with marijuana got in the way of its potential being identified.

Hemp wood has undergone numerous studies and tests thanks to the effort of Greg Wilson and the Fibonacci Company. This investment into hemp has generated a perfected hardwood derived from our favourite plant and poised to replace plywood.

Hemp is very versatile and can be cultivated in different climates. It is the optimal material for people to use as a substitute to tree-based timber since it is cheap, easy to grow and produces large yields.

What is it made from

Hemp wood was derived from hemp by using the algorithm of an oak tree. The hemp wood team reverse-engineered hemp’s growth cycle to imitate the stability and sturdiness of this popular material. They applied the knowledge from bamboo flooring to invent a wood that is similar – but stronger.

Hemp wood, just like its parent plant, contains a THC content of 0.3 per cent or less. The creation process involves the compression of hemp pulp fibres. This process is known as biomimicry. This is followed up by strengthening using a soy-based glue.

Hemp wood is 20% stronger and 100 times faster growing than oak. Hemp is very similar to strand-woven bamboo aside from it being a lot less coarse. However, bamboo is more likely to chip due to its roughness. It is also not as woody has hemp, giving hemp the advantage.

Current manufacturers of hemp wood

Fibonacci LLC launched its $5.8 million Hemp wood manufacturing facility in Murray, Kentucky. This facility measures about 15,000-square-foot. According to Greg Wilson, their founder and CEO, it is to be their first step in the plan to manufacture up to a million board feet of four-quarter lumber yearly,

Wilson and his team have patented the method with which they employed. Hemp wood can be purchased at www.hempwood.com. Fibonacci LLC has plans to build eight more facilities across the US and predict the next one will be up and running by 2021.

The cost of hemp wood is greater than regular wood right now. However, it soon will reach economies of scale and compete with wood. The company expects that by 2021, their prices will give Oak a run for its money. With the many obstacles and challenges that face the introduction of new material, this is a favourable outlook.

Hemp wood uses

Fibonacci intends to manufacture wood tabletops and flooring for purchase. Currently, they are not making structural or exterior products but they insist that it is strong enough. At the moment, they are focusing on interior face grade. Hemp wood flooring is supposed to be available within the year. So, what could it be used for as we move into the golden age of hemp?

Framework for houses

When it comes to building sustainable houses, a great concern is the selection of a material which is durable and healthy. It also helps that this material is sustainable, eco-friendly and locally sourced. Hemp wood will be first available in boards and blocks. and in the near future, could be used for constructing frameworks for homes.

Use in woodwork

As mentioned above, interior uses for hemp wood are already in the initial stages. Hemp wood can be used in the creation of sturdy, beautiful furniture, doors, beams etc. It is a non-toxic wood due to its organic roots and soy-derived glue. It is a healthier choice for interior building.

Hemp Wood is an innovative product which can open the path to homes which are safer for us and the environment. It is created through a genius process using the pulp fibres of the plant. Durable, strong and eco-friendly – doesn’t this sound like an excellent option to you?

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hungee-boy · 9 months

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i feel like

when people say like you become more conservative as you get older is true for some folks yeah but i think for the majority its realizing your redneck neighbor with a trump flag isnt as big a leech on society as the landlord with a beto sign is

#of course im not gonna sit here and be like well fox news isnt as bad no it still rots peoples fucking brains #and conservatism is a disease #but i have more in common with a blue collar republican than i do a middle class cali democrat #just in life experience and general views on the economy #cus you ask these people they fucking hate companies and corporations and love unions and universal healthcare #cus it benefits them #it doesnt benefit people with money so thats why the rich folks go against it

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biglisbonnews · 9 months

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Continental’s Portuguese tyre plant gets ISCC PLUS sustainability certification Continental's tyre plant in Lousado, Portugal has received the International Sustainability and Carbon Certification (ISCC) PLUS. The international certification confirms the manufacturer’s compliance with special sustainability standards at its Lousado plant; specifically the transparency and traceability of renewable and recycled raw materials along the entire supply chain. The manufacturer said that the certification represents an important milestone on its journey towards 100 per cent sustainable materials in its tyre products, a target Conti has set for 2050. Conti already produces what it says is the most sustainable tyre on the market at Lousado. The UltraContact NXT contains up to 65 per cent renewable, recycled and mass balance certified materials. Up to 28 per cent of these are accounted for by ISCC PLUS-certified materials, such as synthetic rubber made from biobutadiene or industrial carbon black, parts of which are produced from circular oil. The post Continental’s Portuguese tyre plant gets ISCC PLUS sustainability certification appeared first on Tyrepress. https://www.tyrepress.com/2023/08/continentals-portuguese-tyre-plant-gets-iscc-plus-sustainability-certification/

#Company News #International News #circular economy #Continental #Continental UltraContact #featured #ISCC Plus #Jorge Almeida #Manufacturing #Portugal #sustainability #Andrew #Tyrepress

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tntra · 1 year

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#new economy solutions #new economy #new economy companies #New Economy Industries

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jcmarchi · 4 months

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North Korea Actively Engaged in AI Developments, Cybersecurity Experts Concerned - Technology Org

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/north-korea-actively-engaged-in-ai-developments-cybersecurity-experts-concerned-technology-org/

North Korea Actively Engaged in AI Developments, Cybersecurity Experts Concerned - Technology Org

The development of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning technologies in North Korea is raising concerns, the authors of a recent report say.

Demilitarized zone between North and South Korea. Image credit: Roman Harak via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0

North Korea is reportedly applying these technologies in various areas, including responding to COVID-19, ensuring the safety of nuclear reactors, conducting wargaming simulations, and implementing government-related surveillance.

Despite international sanctions related to its nuclear weapons program also impacting North Korea’s access to AI hardware, the study suggests that the country is actively pursuing the latest artificial intelligence technology. The lack of transparency raises concerns about the ethical use of AI and the potential militarization of AI technologies for offensive purposes.

The development of artificial intelligence (AI) in North Korea introduces several challenges. For example, the country’s interest in developing a wargaming simulation program utilizing machine learning could reflect its intent to enhance understanding of operational environments vis-à-vis potential adversaries.

Report was prepared by Hyuk Kim from James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS). It highlights North Korea’s strategic investment in AI/ML development to strengthen its digital economy. The findings are based on open-source information, including state media and journals, and were published by the 38 North project on Tuesday.

The publication indicates that North Korea’s AI researchers have engaged in collaboration with foreign scholars, including those from China.

Seoul’s intelligence agency has reportedly detected indications that North Korean hackers may be using generative AI to identify targets and acquire the necessary technologies for hacking. However, there is no evidence of such AI being utilized in actual cyberattacks at this point.

North Korea established the Artificial Intelligence Research Institute in 2013, and several companies within the country have been promoting commercial products incorporating AI in recent years.

The report mentions that despite the country’s restrictions on communications technology and strict monitoring, during the COVID-19 pandemic, North Korea utilized AI to develop a model for assessing proper mask usage and prioritizing clinical symptom indicators of infection. Additionally, North Korean scientists have published research exploring the application of AI for ensuring the safety of nuclear reactors.

Written by Alius Noreika

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