Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, has announced the future direction of the social media giant. He is seeking to create what he calls the Metaverse. This is an interconnected set of experiences, which would span every area of society from social, work, and entertainment.
Discussing the metaverse, Zuckerberg told the Verge:
This is a big topic. The metaverse is a vision that spans many companies — the whole industry. You can think about it as the successor to the mobile internet. And it’s certainly not something that any one company is going to build, but I think a big part of our next chapter is going to hopefully be contributing to building that, in partnership with a lot of other companies and creators and developers. But you can think about the metaverse as an embodied internet, where instead of just viewing content — you are in it. And you feel present with other people as if you were in other places, having different experiences that you couldn’t necessarily do on a 2D app or webpage, like dancing, for example, or different types of fitness.
I think a lot of people, when they think about the metaverse, they think about just virtual reality — which I think is going to be an important part of that. And that’s clearly a part that we’re very invested in, because it’s the technology that delivers the clearest form of presence. But the metaverse isn’t just virtual reality. It’s going to be accessible across all of our different computing platforms; VR and AR, but also PC, and also mobile devices and game consoles. Speaking of which, a lot of people also think about the metaverse as primarily something that’s about gaming. And I think entertainment is clearly going to be a big part of it, but I don’t think that this is just gaming. I think that this is a persistent, synchronous environment where we can be together, which I think is probably going to resemble some kind of a hybrid between the social platforms that we see today, but an environment where you’re embodied in it.
Zuckerberg later added:
And I guess one broader point that I’d make here is, one lesson that I’ve taken from running Facebook over the last five years is that I used to think about our job as building products that people love to use. But you know, now I think we just need to have a more holistic view of this. It’s not enough to just build something that people like to use. It has to create opportunity and broadly be a positive thing for society in terms of economic opportunity, in terms of being something that, socially, everyone can participate in, that it can be inclusive. So we’re really designing the work that we’re doing in the space with those principles from the ground up. This isn’t just a product that we’re building. It needs to be an ecosystem. So the creators who we work with, the developers, they all need to be able to not only sustain themselves, but hire a lot of folks.
A group of 189 Republicans have written to the President to demand answers about the administrations “censorship program”. The initiative is a collaboration between the White House and big tech to “undermine free speech [the companies and the White House] don’t agree with.”
Jen Psaki has been criticised after urging big tech to ban users who have been banned from other social media platforms for spreading “misinformation” about coronavirus.
She advised they “create robust enforcement strategies that bridge their properties and provide transparency about rules. You shouldn’t be banned from one platform and not others if you are for providing misinformation out there.”
Critics have already been concerned by the Biden administration’s collaborations with big tech.
The Taliban claim to have taken 85% of Afghan territory. The Government refute these claims, saying the territory taken is of little strategic importance.
It is believed the Taliban now control valuable mineral trade routes along the border with Iran. If this is the case, the Taliban will see their revenues increased.
As the US withdraw troops from the country, President Biden has said that he unwilling to allow another generation of young Americans to die in Afghanistan. However, he admitted that, “the likelihood there is going to be one unified government in Afghanistan controlling the whole country is highly unlikely”.
The pro-democracy newspaper, “The Apple”, is the print its final newspaper this week. The closure comes after Hong Kong police raided their premises last week. Police arrested five editor and executives, and froze assets $2.3 million.
“It’s a sad and alarming development. It’s not entirely unexpected, given the Beijing authorities and Hong Kong government have been grinding toward this goal,” Former Deputy National Security Advisor Stephen Yates said Wednesday on FOX Business’ “Mornings with Maria.”
A hacker attempted to taint the San Francisco water supply. A leaked report found the Cyberattack was designed to delete certain treatment programs, which could result in tainted water. The attack, which has only just come to light, occurred at the beginning of the year.
The hacker was able to obtain a former employee’s log in details in order to access the system. The breach was discovered the next day.
Previously, another cyberattack in February saw a hacker attempt to contaminate water supplies with sodium hydroxide.
It has been highlighted that not all districts have update computer systems.
In an attempt to crack down on tax havens. The G7 leaders agreed on setting international minimum levels for corporation tax.
“Together we can use a global minimum tax to make sure the global economy thrives based on a more level playing field in the taxation of multinational corporations, and spurs innovation, growth, and prosperity,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said.
In the U.S. Biden is pushing to raise corporation tax from 21% to 28%.
In a speech at the G7 summit, Prime Minister Boris Johnson urged world leader s to “Build Back Better”, as the world rebuilds after the pandemic. He also called for a “more gender-neutral, feminine way”. The PM also said this was a time to come together to deal with issues surrounding climate change.
[W]hat the people of our countries now want us to focus on [is] beating the pandemic together, and discussing how we’ll never have a repeat of what we’ve seen, but also that we’re building back better together, and building back greener, and building back fairer, and building back more equal, and… in a more gender-neutral, and perhaps a more feminine way,” said Johnson.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday signed a law to officially end the country’s Open Skies Treaty with the U.S. less than two weeks before his meeting with President Biden in Geneva.
VP Kalama Harris will visit Guatemala and Mexico on her first foreign trip as Vice President. Harris has been tasked by President Biden to tackle the spike in immigration on the U.S. Mexico border.
As part of the trip, she is hoping to deal with issues around smuggling and human trafficking.
Chinese is building two nuclear reactors which are attracting some attention. The mysterious reactors are of a type called China Fast Reactor 600 (CFR-600). These reactors are known as breeder reactors, as they create more fuel than the use.
In the nuclear fission process of these reactors, plutonium and depleted Uranium is produced. It is thought that China is using these reactors to accelerated their nuclear weapons program. It is projected that by 2030 China could have as many nuclear warheads as the U.S., in their arsenal.