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Europe Is Building a Huge International Facial Recognition System

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Europe Is Building a Huge International Facial Recognition System

by Matt Burgess, Wired

Europe Is Building a Huge International Facial Recognition System

 

For the past 15 years, police forces searching for criminals in Europe have been able to share fingerprints, DNA data, and details of vehicle owners with each other. If officials in France suspect someone they are looking for is in Spain, they can ask Spanish authorities to check fingerprints against their database. Now European lawmakers are set to include millions of photos of people’s faces in this system—and allow facial recognition to be used on an unprecedented scale.

The expansion of facial recognition across Europe is included in wider plans to “modernize” policing across the continent, and it comes under the Prüm II data-sharing proposals. The details were first announced in December, but criticism from European data regulators has gotten louder in recent weeks, as the full impact of the plans has been understood.

“What you are creating is the most extensive biometric surveillance infrastructure that I think we will ever have seen in the world,” says Ella Jakubowska, a policy adviser at the civil rights NGO European Digital Rights (EDRi). Documents obtained by EDRi under freedom of information laws and shared with WIRED reveal how nations pushed for facial recognition to be included in the international policing agreement.

The first iteration of Prüm was signed by seven European countries—Belgium, Germany, Spain, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Austria—back in 2005 and allowed nations to share data to tackle international crime. Since Prüm was introduced, take-up by Europe's 27 countries has been mixed.

Prüm II plans to significantly expand the amount of information that can be shared, potentially including photos and information from driving licenses. The proposals from the European Commission also said police will have greater “automated” access to information that’s shared. Lawmakers say this means police across Europe will be able to cooperate closely, and the European law enforcement agency Europol will have a “stronger role.”

The inclusion of facial images and the ability to run facial recognition algorithms against them are among the biggest planned changes in Prüm II. Facial recognition technology has faced significant pushback in recent years as police forces have increasingly adopted it, and it has misidentified people and derailed lives. Dozens of cities in the US have gone as far as banning police forces from using the technology. The EU is debating a ban on the police use of facial recognition in public places as part of its AI Act.

However, Prüm II allows the use of retrospective facial recognition. This means police forces can compare still images from CCTV cameras, photos from social media, or those on a victim’s phone against mug shots held on a police database. The technology is different from live facial recognition systems, which are often connected to cameras in public spaces; these have faced the most criticism.

 

 

The European proposals allow a nation to compare a photo against the databases of other countries and find out if there are matches—essentially creating one of the largest facial recognition systems in existence. One document obtained by EDRi says the number of potential matches could range from between 10 and 100 faces, although this figure needs to be finalized by politicians. A European Commission spokesperson says that a human will review the potential matches and decide if any of them are correct before any further action is taken. “In a significant number of cases, a facial image of a suspect is available,” France’s interior minister said in the documents. It claimed to have solved burglary and child sexual abuse cases using its facial recognition system.

The Prüm II documents, dated from April 2021, when the plans were first being discussed, show the huge number of face photos that countries hold. Hungary has 30 million photos, Italy 17 million, France 6 million, and Germany 5.5 million, the documents show. These images can include suspects, those convicted of crimes, asylum seekers, and “unidentified dead bodies,” and they come from multiple sources in each country.

Jakubowska says that while criticism of facial recognition systems has mostly focused on real-time systems, those that identify people at a later date are still problematic. “When you are applying facial recognition to footage or images retrospectively, sometimes the harms can be even greater, because of the capacity to look back at, say, a protest from three years ago, or to see who I met five years ago because I'm now a political opponent,” she says. “Only facial images of suspects or convicted criminals can be exchanged,” the European Commission spokesperson says, citing a guide on how the system will work. “There will be no matching of facial images to the general population.”

Pictures of people’s faces shouldn’t be combined in one giant central database, the official proposal says, but police forces will be linked together through a “central router.” This router won’t store any data, the European Commission spokesperson says, adding that it will “only act as a message broker” between nations. This decentralized approach makes Prüm II more straightforward: Police wanting to compare fingerprints under the current system must connect to other police forces individually. Under the new infrastructure, countries only need one connection to the central router and it will be easier to “add additional data categories to the system,” the documents obtained by EDRi say.

The European data protection supervisor (EDPS), who oversees how EU bodies use data under GDPR, has criticized the planned expansion of Prüm, which could take several years. “Automated searching of facial images is not limited only to serious crimes but could be carried out for the prevention, detection, and investigation of any criminal offenses, even a petty one,” Wojciech Wiewiórowski, the EDPS, said in early March. Wiewiórowski said more safeguards should be written into the proposals to make sure people’s privacy rights are protected. The European Commission spokesperson says the body has taken “good note” of the EDPS opinion and the thoughts will be taken into account as the European Parliament and Council discusses the legislation.

During the development of the plans, Slovenia has been one key country pushing for the expansion—including asking for people’s driving license data to be included. Domen Savič, the CEO of Slovenian digital rights group Državljan D, says there are significant concerns about the differences between police databases and who is included. “I haven't heard enough to be convinced that all of this data gathered by individual police forces is sanitized in the same way,'' Savič says.

Police databases are often poorly put together. In July 2021, police in the Netherlands deleted 218,000 photos it wrongly included in its facial recognition database. In the UK, more than a thousand young Black men were removed from a “gangs database” in February 2021. “You could have databases that have completely different backgrounds in terms of how this data was collected, where it was sourced, how it was exchanged, and who approved what,” Savič says. Slovenia has already faced similar problems. “And this could lead to misidentification.”

One of the biggest problems for Jakubowska is how Prüm II could normalize the use of facial recognition by police forces across Europe. “What really concerns us is how much this Prüm II proposal could incentivize the creation of facial image databases and the application of algorithms to these databases to perform facial recognition,” she says. The EU will pay for the cost of connecting databases to Prüm II, the proposal says, and this includes the cost of creating new national facial images databases. Sixty years after being invented, facial recognition is still just getting started.

 

New Opportunities Are Emerging For Citizens of The World.

Freedom and democracy may appear to be struggling to stay alive in America, but there may be a knock-out punch ready to be released. The evolution of the blockchain-enabled metaverse is going to enable the 'Citizens of the World' to gain their own Freedom by democratizing power and creating a new world with new rules, new players, and new opportunities. For 99.99% of us, the metaverse will improve our real-world lives through the democratization of power and opportunity.

Along with the major long-term trend of society towards decentralization and smaller-scale organizations, there are new opportunities developing to help 'Preparers' in the cryptocurrency sector. Businesses are beginning to issue their own Crypto Coins that can be traded on Cryptocoin Exchanges.

Markethive.com for example will be releasing its HiveCoin (HIV) in the coming weeks. It has tremendous upside potential that is outlined in a Video by Founder Tom Prendergast, "Entrepreneur Advantage…".

Not only that, if you go to their website and register as a FREE Member, you will be given 500 HiveCoins for "FREE" along with access to several Earning Opportunities and online tools to increase your HiveCoin balance.

Be sure to check it out today – Markethive.com

Markethive

Tim Moseley

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Here’s what latest gold price pattern tells investors about the metal’s next move

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Here's what latest gold price pattern tells investors about the metal's next move

After touching $2,000 an ounce at the beginning of the week, gold tumbled more than $70 as the U.S. dollar climbed alongside the U.S. Treasury yields.

With the latest trading pattern, analysts see some undeniably bullish signals.

"Gold has been reaching new highs and consolidating. Right now, it is liquidating because of the higher dollar. But how can you be short gold in this market? Any dips in gold and silver are buying opportunities," Walsh Trading co-director Sean Lusk told Kitco News.

At the time of writing, June Comex gold futures were trading $1,937.90, down $64 from the highs seen early Monday.

This pattern in gold has been pretty dominant over the past few months, said Gainesville Coins precious metals expert Everett Millman.

"Every time gold hits the upper resistance level, it tends to sell off. Similar dynamics happen when it falls to its support levels. Given that part, I'm turning bullish on gold, and I expect a bounce-back," Millman said.

A very encouraging sign this time around is gold being able to hold above $1,900 an ounce at the same time as the U.S. dollar and bond yields advance. "As bond yields rise, gold is supposed to be less attractive. The fact that gold is holding its ground is a good sign," Millman said.

The recent selloff in equities is also expected to boost gold as more investors diversify, noted Lusk. "People are starting to see the light in regards to what the aggressive hikes will do to the economy," he said. "And that's on top of the inflationary overtone in the market here."

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell telegraphing two or more half-point rate hikes in the next few months put additional pressure on gold at the end of the week.

But again, the encouraging news is that the Fed's hawkish rhetoric might give the central bank some room to be less aggressive when it comes to actually raising rates and reducing its balance sheet, said TD Securities head of global strategy Bart Melek.

"The latest core inflation numbers were a bit below expectations, which brings us to believe that the Fed might not be as aggressive as people anticipate. Markets are pricing in 50 bps in May. That's a given. And maybe have another 50bps rate hike after that and then see if inflation will start turning lower," Melek told Kitco News.

Even if the Fed proceeds with six more rate hikes based on the dot plot, it is still pretty low relative to where inflation is, added Melek. This is why the market is starting to wonder how serious Fed is about getting restrictive.
 

Gold's levels for next week

Next week's support is around $1,923-24 an ounce for gold, and resistance is at $1,980 an ounce, Melek pointed out.

The $1,950 an ounce level will be an important one to hold next week, said Lusk, adding that he sees $2,000 an ounce on a sustainable basis as a very likely outcome in the second half of the summer.
 

Data to watch

Next week, one of the key releases will be the U.S. first-quarter GDP data, scheduled for Thursday. Market consensus calls estimate Q1 GDP to come in at 1% after posting 6.9% growth in Q4 of 2021.

But slower growth is unlikely to discourage the Fed from raising rates by 50 basis points in May, said ING chief international economist James Knightley.

"The next Federal Reserve meeting is on 4 May and market expectations are firmly centred on a 50bp interest rate increase," Knightley said. "The coming data shouldn't impact this outlook meaningfully. 1Q GDP data is expected to show the economy expanded at a 1-1.5% annualised rate, which would mark quite a deceleration from 4Q 2021, reflecting the Omicron wave of the pandemic that impacted people movement quite considerably."

Markets will also be interested in examining the data in more detail to glance at what's been happening with the core PCE, Fed's preferred inflation measure, added Melek. "Inflation is too high, which is why the Fed will get tighter no matter what. The only way to fight inflation when it is no longer transitory is to erode economic activity (aggregate demand)," he said.

Tuesday: U.S. durable goods orders, CB consumer confidence, new home sales

Wednesday: U.S. pending home sales

Thursday: U.S. GDP Q1, jobless claims

Friday: U.S. PCE price index

By Anna Golubova

For Kitco News

Time to buy Gold and Silver on the dips

Tim Moseley

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Constantly online – escape into the digital world

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It's crazy how technology has developed over the past ten and a half years. It offers many advantages, but precisely because we are so often online, it is important to learn a mindful and conscious approach to the ubiquitous media and to remember that life writes the stories in analogue.

I hope you enjoy reading this.

Nightmare: The analogue world is extinct
Online, I have drifted away. Penless writing has steered me the wrong way. I jumped from page to page, kept getting linked and after some fling, I lost my bearings. As if someone had spun me in circles, the world spins in circles, though I remain motionless and just stare apathetically at the screen.

The internet holds me captive.

It is everyone's home, the bread for the world, the religion that everyone believes in without knowing it. Here everyone is equal, here everything is just, and yet it takes revenge, because the internet is big. Infinite and yet finite.

Where I stop, the internet only begins: it has the thoughts that I don't have myself. It shows me the places I have not yet been. It speaks the languages I don't understand. It knows my tastes and what I'm looking for before I know what I need. It suggests friends and sites that suit me. It knows everything and I know that I know nothing, only where to find it: On the internet.

But the internet is big. Infinite and finally boundless. Finally rid of all boundaries and makes little people big.

It is everyone's diary, even if everyone thinks theirs is safely – and safely unread – in the drawer of their bedside table. Yet the most secret secrets of the big secret services and the most private spheres of the small private people online are an open book that you can't open because you have nothing in your hands and nothing in your hands.

The internet is big. So big that you lose yourself in it and yet small enough to find everything else again and again. The streams of data hold me captive like an invisible spider's web. I want to get out of here! But the internet won't go out. I am lost and I have lost myself.

Can you find me?
Can you find yourself in me?

Connected, yet a stranger to myself
Even before I am awake, I am online. My WLAN has the best connection for twenty-four hours – only not to myself. I surf here and surf there, but not on my own homepage. I want to go offline, but I can't find the link. That's how linked the internet is and how big the addiction is that haunts me for many hours every day and makes me keep searching on the many pages.

Can you find me?
Do you find yourself in the addiction?

How difficult it is to bring the soul to rest when it is always kept in motion. When its material surface clings to every worldly possibility and what is underneath must always make waves and never become quiet. Never allowed to become loud. Never allowed to breathe because hardly anyone asks for it.

How difficult it is to quiet the soul when even silence has become loud. The internet is never quiet. Always only wise, because it knows everything, even the senseless.

Fictitious outside show and lack of introspection
How hard it is to quiet the soul when you are constantly following the latest news from around the world and living the lives of others. Like a little parasite that always eats but never gets full, I stick to the pages of others, while my page does not fill up because its host does not nurse it with life.

Because the lives of others are so exciting and one's own life only excites, because the lives of others last so long and one's own life only bores, I am always so happy online.

Analogue I am always lonely, but online I am never alone. Here I have thousands of friends who share things with me, communicate with me and linger with me online. Yet our faces are distorted, just like realities: As avatars, we celebrate holidays, weddings and parties, but we hide the dark sides offline – that's why no one wants to be there anymore. We only post a positive excerpt on the net now and then.

Virtual existence shows us bundled extravagances and the special lives of others. Completely uncensored and without Photoshop, I am happy when my face, which only resembles my profile picture in profile, is not reflected in the screen. Deceptive truth. No one puts the abysses of the soul on display.

Just as advertising plays with perfect-looking characters, we design a flawless catalogue of our selves on social networks. Do we have the wrong role models? Or the wrong images in front of us? Perfect aesthetics, a hunger for experience and starving until we live up to the ideal – yet deep down, nothing can fill us up. We are hungry for life and don't notice it because apathy doesn't like to talk. The inner emptiness is filled on the outside, cluttered up and enveloped by actionism.

Dopamine addict
How difficult it is to bring the soul to rest when one constantly wonders how many unread messages are waiting in the virtual mailbox. Yet it's not the who or the how many – it's much more the meaningless whether someone has written. Whether there is something there that you can open. Like a gift whose contents you don't know, and like a donor whose name you don't give, all you need is the blood. 

Online, I therefore walk the path to the letterbox incessantly, while I only dare to look in my post box at the front door once a week. A message on the outdated letter route can't be of any importance anyway – it has time. How nice for her – I don't have it. Because there's always something going on online and so I'm rid of time without being timeless. Always on the go and yet never ready to jump off, time passes and simply doesn't stop, nor does it stop with me.

Another click on Inbox – my obsessive-compulsive disorder takes on more and more weight. I have become infected online and when I compare the time it takes to send my emails with the time it takes to answer them, an epidemic has long since broken out. If there are more than sixty minutes between sending and receiving, my anxiety neurosis is activated and I worry that the person I am writing to, the patient in the next bed, has died of his neurosis. I should have received a new message long ago, which is like administering my next tablet, so that the anxiety finally gives way.

But nothing happens.

I make an emergency call via Skype and ring for my mother to no avail. To distract myself, I go shopping online and pay the bill for my order via online banking. The internet knows no Sunday, the internet is always nice.

Always hungry inside
The internet can do everything but satisfy my hunger and so I regret that fast food is only fast and not slim. I want to have it in my inbox and unpack it after downloading. An alphabet salad as a favourite dish that satisfies my inner emptiness. Not cooking, not doing the dishes, can't the internet do that? Because I can't leave here or I'll miss something.

I swallow the hunger, but it doesn't fill me up. Because there's a part of me that neither whether nor food can fill. Only I could fill it, if I knew who I was, without being logged in. If I knew who I was offline, I would still be there. But I'm not there, otherwise I'd miss something. Only once a week, when I dare to go to the mailbox, where no one meets me and nothing awaits me.

But there's always something going on online. The whole world is twittering that something is happening and trembling when something does happen. There is always unrest somewhere, because you can't report on calm. Catastrophes are always happening somewhere, because everyday life doesn't write stories.
We love the extravagant and need the rush, being normal was yesterday and so were traditions.

Crazy world
Our life has moved behind the screen. It takes place two-dimensionally, i.e. rather flat, in front of a small horizon. Depth is lost, superficiality lives. One is only on the outside, the inside is glued. Nature is the tilted window, movement the skilful finger play over the keyboard and a good conversation a virtual dialogue.

The analogue world is extinct.

My nightmare has come true and no one has noticed because everyone is behind the display and no one ever sticks their head out. Yet the internet can't dream, can't smell, can't feel, can't laugh and can't do nice things. It numbs the senses and steals our lives.

Longing for reality
When the whole world works like this
you can no longer take yourself out of it,
you can only exclude
and create boundaries
that leave room for oneself,
even if others hate you.
Be with yourself again, all alone.
Being analogue again, not always online.
What used to be quite normal
is a rarity today.
Today, rarely does anyone have time,
because everyone wants to do everything,
because everyone can do everything,
because everyone wants to be everywhere
and preferably at the same time.
Here and there, in space and above space,
and everywhere that no one has ever been.
And everyone wants to be back right away,
so as not to be left behind,
and hurry behind.
Because whoever loses the connection, loses the connection. Yet we have long been wirelessly networked and yet are entangled in something that is supposed to hold us together, but which takes away our breath and sometimes suffocates us

Tim Moseley

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New rules for internet in Europe

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New rules for internet in Europe

Countries and EU members have agreed on new rules for internet content. Negotiators from the European Parliament and EU member states have agreed on new rules under which technology giants must more closely monitor the content on their platforms and pay fees to regulators monitoring their compliance. Thus, hate speech and other illegal content on the internet should be removed more quickly in the future.

The agreement has yet to be confirmed by the European Parliament and EU states, but this is considered a formality, wrote the agency DPA.

The digital services act (DSA) is the second point of the strategy of the European Commissioner for Competition, Margrethe Vestager, which aims to limit the power of the technology giants. The agreement was concluded after more than 16 hours of negotiations.

"We have a DSA agreement: the Digital Services Act will ensure that what is illegal offline is also perceived and addressed as illegal online – not as a slogan, as a reality," Vestager wrote on Twitter.

According to the DSA, companies face fines of up to six percent of their global turnover for violating the rules. In the event of repeated infringements, they could be prohibited from doing business in the EU.

The aim of the DSA is, among other things, to ensure that illegal content such as hate speech is removed more quickly from the network, that harmful disinformation and war propaganda are shared less, and that counterfeit products are sold less on internet marketplaces.

DSA is part of a large digital package proposed by the European Commission in December 2020. The second part is the digital markets act (DMA), for which the agreement was concluded at the end of March. The DMA aims above all to limit the market power of technology giants such as Google and Facebook with stricter rules.

One of the points at issue was, for example, the legislation under which the illegality in question would be assessed.

* * * * *

Many internet users comment on this as oppression of freedom of speech. "Still no one really knows what it is hateful content and what it is misinformation, it is not specified, so it can be anything and also it will still change, swearing at Putin is now allowed, but for exactly the same swearing at Ukrainians you can also go to prison, but the hateful content is exactly the same." Or another comment " And who will ensure that those who will carry out these "regulatory" interventions are so well versed in the law (they should actually be judges by profession, right?) to be able to evaluate the contributions immediately and to judge whether or not they comply with the law??? "

Governments are clearly eager to tighten their censorship measures. But we have this free platform – Markethive.

                     Thank you for reading

                                                               Margaret

 

 

Tim Moseley

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Gold continues to decline as the Fed prepares to fight inflation

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Gold continues to decline as the Fed prepares to fight inflation

The Federal Reserve’s next FOMC meeting is just under two weeks away, and market participants are gaining insight from Chairman Powell and other Federal Reserve voting members. Recent statements by Chairman Powell have indicated a major shift in his position regarding inflation. Up until his most recent statements, he maintained that inflation levels had peaked, were transitory, and would begin to decline. However, he has been forced to reevaluate those assumptions based on the reality that the CPI is currently at 8.5% for March, and the PCE index came in at 6.4% in February. PCE numbers for March will be released on April 29.

Statements by all members of the Federal Reserve have intrinsically contained subtle changes in words used to describe their forward guidance, this was not the case this week when Chairman Powell addressed the issue of inflation head-on.

For the first time, Powell was forced to acknowledge that, “it is appropriate to be moving a little more quickly … Our goal is to use our tools to get demand and supply back in synch…and do so without a slowdown that amounts to a recession …It is going to be very challenging.”

During the March FOMC meeting, the Federal Reserve began its process of interest rate normalization or “lift-off” by raising the Fed Funds rate from virtually zero (0% to ¼%) by ¼% taking interest rates to 25 – 50 basis points.

The most recent inflationary data indicates that Americans are experiencing the highest inflationary pressure since January 1982, which makes it almost certain that the Federal Reserve adopt a much more hawkish monetary policy in the remaining FOMC meetings this year.

St. Louis Federal Reserve President James Bullard did not mince words about changes to their forward guidance. In a virtual speech on Monday Bullard alluded to raising rates by 75 basis points (3/4%) saying that when it comes to a potential 75 basis point increase “I wouldn’t rule it out”. Bullard also said that multiple rate hikes of ½ a percent are almost a certainty as the Federal Reserve begins the task of taming inflation.

Certainly, the Federal Reserve is faced with the dilemma of moving inflation to its 2% target without creating an economic contraction that would lead to a recession. Although both Chairman Powell and James Bullard maintain that a “soft landing” is possible the probability of the Fed pulling off such a feat is extremely low.

These dynamic changes in the future outlook of the Fed’s monetary policy sent ripples through many sectors of the financial markets. Dollar strength and higher yields in U.S. Treasuries both benefited from the almost certain likelihood of a series of strong rate hikes. U.S. equities and the safe-haven assets such as gold both experienced solid price declines as a direct result of upcoming rate hikes. As of 5:42 PM, EDT gold futures are currently fixed at $1932.50 based on the most active June contract after factoring in today’s decline of $15.70 or 0.81%.

Gold has declined aggressively since April 18 when gold hit a high of $2003. Gold declined 3.54% this week. However, our current studies indicate the strong potential for technical support at $1927. The gold chart above indicates that support is based upon two Fibonacci retracement sets.

The long retracement set begins at $1777 which occurred in February and concludes at $2078 which occurred during the first week of March. The second data set begins at $2078 and concludes at $1885 which occurred at the end of March concluding a short corrective period. Combined the Fibonacci retracement sets both indicate $1927 as a key level. It is a 78% Fibonacci retracement of the longer data set and a 50% retracement of the shorter data set. The fact that both studies indicate that that price point is significant strengthens the probability that gold prices will find technical support at that level.
 

By Gary Wagner

Contributing to kitco.com

Time to buy Gold and Silver on the dips

 

Tim Moseley

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Drones eVTOLs and more Can the FAA keep up?

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Drones, eVTOLs, and more… Can the FAA keep up?

by Jeff Brown, editor, The Bleeding Edge

 

How we’ll manage our busy skies…

I used to fly Cessna 172s when I was getting my private pilot’s license. That was back when I was earning my degree in aeronautical and astronautical engineering at Purdue University. It’s been a long time since I’ve flown my own plane, yet I’d love to start up again if I can ever find the time.

Our airspace is certainly getting busier. There are drones, electric vertical takeoff, and landing (eVTOL) craft planned as air taxis, “flying cars” (literally – although I don’t think they’ll be successful, eVTOLs are the way), and other innovative aircraft under development.

We’ve been analyzing these developments for some time now. They fall under a broad category that I like to think of as The Future of Transportation. Last year, we wrote about Volocopter, an air taxi startup that announced its plans to go public.

 

Volocopter Aircraft

Drones, eVTOLs, and more… Can the FAA keep up?

Source: Volocopter

 

And Volocopter is in good company. Joby Aviation is working on another aircraft intended for the air taxi space. Earlier this year, the company partnered with All Nippon Airways (ANA), the largest airline in Japan, to launch its ride-hailing service by 2025.

 

Joby Aviation Aircraft

Source: Joby Aviation

 

And Google’s drone delivery division, Wing, is now the latest company to start making deliveries in the U.S.

 

Wing’s Drone

Source: Wing

 

All these examples are merely the tip of the iceberg… Ultimately, the future of transportation will be one of the biggest stories of this decade. We’re going to see an explosion of products and services coming out. Yet one of the biggest challenges we’ll face with this increase in air traffic will be regulatory. We’re going to have to figure out how to manage traffic in a world where air taxis and other flying vehicles are everywhere.

 

 

And we’ve seen some progress

At the start of 2020, the FAA began requiring all airplanes and helicopters to broadcast their positions using Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) equipment. We can think of it as a beacon that projects the aircraft’s location.

The FAA said it anticipated this change would enable aircraft to fly more direct routes, saving time and fuel. And controllers would be able to reduce the minimum separation distance between aircraft, increasing capacity in the nation’s airways.

This change also makes it easier for a drone operator to steer clear of any nearby aircraft. We’ll need to install these ADS-B receivers onto drones so they can autonomously identify nearby aircraft.

Enabling automatic detection is what I like to think of as building the infrastructure. Artificial intelligence (AI) for an autonomous flight will enable these new aircraft to fly safely from point to point without incident.

And there are good signs of progress on the regulatory front:

  • The FAA has already been supportive of enabling autonomous drone deliveries. It will likely also accommodate regulations that will enable autonomous air taxis.

  • While early flights are already beginning, it will still be a few years before we see well-established air taxi networks with high volumes of passengers. In other words, there is time.

    All of the companies are working through the process, using the existing system for now, and planning for the future of air travel.

  • Once the general framework is in place from the FAA for use of airspace, autonomous flying technology – coupled with autonomous detection technology – will ensure safe flights and avoid crashes even with busy skies.

    And this will be accomplished without being a burden on existing air traffic control (ATC). Naturally, drone delivery routes won’t be permitted to fly through any airport or landing zones for things like eVTOLs.

This is a huge undertaking, building the future of transportation. While there is a tremendous amount of work being done, this particular theme will be exciting over the next couple of years.

 

New Opportunities Are Emerging For Citizens of The World.

Freedom and democracy may appear to be struggling to stay alive in America, but there may be a knock-out punch ready to be released. The evolution of the blockchain-enabled metaverse is going to enable the 'Citizens of the World' to gain their own Freedom by democratizing power and creating a new world with new rules, new players, and new opportunities. For 99.99% of us, the metaverse will improve our real-world lives through the democratization of power and opportunity.

Along with the major long-term trend of society towards decentralization and smaller-scale organizations, there are new opportunities developing to help 'Preparers' in the cryptocurrency sector. Businesses are beginning to issue their own Crypto Coins that can be traded on Cryptocoin Exchanges.

Markethive.com for example will be releasing its HiveCoin (HIV) in the coming weeks. It has tremendous upside potential that is outlined in a Video by Founder Tom Prendergast, "Entrepreneur Advantage…".

Not only that, if you go to their website and register as a FREE Member, you will be given 500 HiveCoins for "FREE" along with access to several Earning Opportunities and online tools to increase your HiveCoin balance.

Be sure to check it out today – Markethive.com

Markethive

Tim Moseley

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Bitcoin Recoils

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Bitcoin Recoils After Fed’s Hawkish Comments — Ether, Cardano, AVAX, Solana Brace For Weekend Dip

By Newton Gitonga – April 22, 2022

Bitcoin continued to struggle to stay afloat Friday, April 22 after suffering yet another beatdown on Thursday following hawkish comments by the Fed.

As of writing, the pioneer cryptocurrency is trading at $39,943 despite tapping $42,967 on Thursday, accounting for a 5.97% decline in the past 24 hours according to CoinMarketCap. Ethereum also took a hit, albeit losing 5.32%, and is currently trading at $2,976. Other cryptocurrencies also continued to reel under a wider market drawdown with Solana (SOL) Cardano (ADA) and Avalanche (AVAX) bearing the largest brunt among the top ten altcoins, down 8.12%, 4.87%, and 6.09% in the past 24 hours respectively.

In the past 24 hours, 70,968 traders were liquidated, the total liquidations come in at $280.12 million, according to Coinglass data.


(Click image for larger view)

The drop was also mirrored in major tech stocks, with the Nasdaq 100 (NDX) slumping 4% in the last 24 hours.

The havoc has been attributed to hawkish comments by Fed Chair Jerome Powell on Thursday stating that the plan to raise the benchmark U.S. interest rates by 50 basis points (0.5%) “will be on the table” during the next Federal Open Market Committee(FOMC) sitting.

“I would say 50 basis points will be on the table for the May meeting,” Powell said during a panel meeting presented by the International monetary fund (IMF), raising expectations for the move in May. The comments come on the heels of the Fed rolling out an aggressive policy to tame inflation which has climbed to a rate of 8.5%, the fastest in four decades. His assertions have however mostly led to BTC dumping, as investors shield from the effects of an increasingly erratic FED.

“From the investor point of view and especially from an equity point of view, the words are great but there has to be some meaning and there actually has to be some action,” Andrew Maynard, Managing Director and Head of Equities at China Rennaisanse told CNBC on Friday.

That said, traders continue to view Powell’s comments as posing risk to cryptos in the short term and now closely watching macroeconomic indicators. The crypto market seems to still be strongly correlated with the equity market with the 90-day tie-in between the top cryptocurrency and the S&P500 hitting the highest level in BTC’s history. Sadly, the S&P500 does not look so good.

From a technical perspective, traders are closely watching the $40,000 support as we move into the weekend, with $37,800 being the strongest support level in sight. On the upside, Thursday’s swing high of $42,967 continues to pose a stake especially if the weekly candle closes in the red. To kickstart a strong upward move in the short term, BTC must settle above $40,250 and the 100 moving average. If bulls are successful, the price could push to the $44,000 resistance level.

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DISCLAIMER: None Of The Information You Read On ZyCrypto Should Be Regarded As Investment Advice. Cryptocurrencies Are Highly Volatile, Conduct Your Own Research Before Making Any Investment Decisions.

The original article written by Newton Gitonga and posted on ZyCrypto.com.

Article reposted on Markethive by Jeffrey Sloe

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91-year-old Holocaust survivor dies in Mariupol

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As a child, Wanda survived the Nazi roundup by hiding in a cellar. Of all places, it was in a cellar that the Ukrainian woman died 81 years later.

A 91-year-old Holocaust survivor has died in the heavily contested south-eastern Ukrainian port city of Mariupol, according to the Jewish community.

"At the age of ten, Wanda Semyonova Obyedkova survived the Germans by hiding in a basement in Mariupol. 81 years later, she died in a basement in the same city while hiding from the Russians as a result of the terrible war," the Auschwitz Museum announced on its Twitter channel. News of the woman's death went viral on social media on Wednesday.

According to the report, Obyedkova had already died on 4 April. Her daughter Larissa reported that she and her husband had subsequently had to bury the 91-year-old in a city park while the city was being bombed. The couple was then able to flee Mariupol. Much of the news from the city is delayed because there is no internet and rescued people cannot communicate with the outside world until they are in a safe place.

Obyedkova was born in Mariupol on 8 December 1930 and was ten when the SS rounded up the local Jewish population to murder them on the outskirts of the city after the Wehrmacht invaded Mariupol. It is estimated that between 9,000 and 16,000 Jews were killed, including Objedkova's mother.

Little Wanda survived the Nazi roundup by hiding in a cellar. When she was discovered later, friends of the family were able to convince the SS that the girl was of Greek descent. The child was thus saved from execution

 

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Gold silver pressured by rising bond yields technical selling

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Gold, silver pressured by rising bond yields, technical selling

Gold and silver prices are lower in midday U.S. trading Thursday, pressured in part by rising U.S. Treasury yields and on selling from the shorter-term futures traders. The near-term chart postures for the two metals have deteriorated this week, to embolden the chart-based bears. June gold futures were last down $13.10 at $1,942.50 and May Comex silver was last down $0.721 at $24.535 an ounce.

The U.S. stock indexes are mixed at midday. The U.S. stock index bulls are having the better week, so far, as near-term price downtrends in the indexes have stalled out. However, risk appetite among traders and investors is by no means robust due to major geopolitical concerns.

The World Bank and IMF meetings continue in Washington, D.C. today. Major central bank chiefs, including Fed Chair Powell, are scheduled to speak on and IMF panel today. The central bankers are expected to sound hawkish tones on their monetary policies.

The Fed's 'Ponzi Scheme' is crushing the middle class, this may be the only way out – Natalie Brunell

Nymex crude oil futures prices are higher today and trading around $104.00 a barrel. The U.S. dollar index is firmer today. The yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury note is presently fetching 2.95%.

Technically, June gold futures bulls still have the overall near-term technical advantage but have faded this week and need to show fresh power soon. Bulls' next upside price objective is to produce a close above solid resistance at $2,000.00. Bears' next near-term downside price objective is pushing futures prices below solid technical support at $1,900.00. First resistance is seen at today’s high of $1,960.10 and then at $1,972.50. First support is seen at today’s low of $1,938.00 and then at $1,928.00. Wyckoff's Market Rating: 6.5.

May silver futures bulls have the overall near-term technical advantage but have faded this week and need to show fresh power soon. Silver bulls' next upside price objective is closing prices above solid technical resistance at $26.00 an ounce. The next downside price objective for the bears is closing prices below solid support at $24.00. First resistance is seen at $25.00 and then at today’s high of $25.31. Next support is seen at $24.20 and then at $24.00. Wyckoff's Market Rating: 6.0.

May N.Y. copper closed up 470 points at 469.95 cents today. Prices closed nearer the session high today. The copper bulls have the overall near-term technical advantage. Copper bulls' next upside price objective is pushing and closing prices above solid technical resistance at the April high of 486.00 cents. The next downside price objective for the bears is closing prices below solid technical support at 450.00 cents. First resistance is seen at today’s high of 471.80 cents and then at 475.00 cents. First support is seen at this week’s low of 461.95 cents and then at 460.00 cents. Wyckoff's Market Rating: 6.0.

By Jim Wyckoff

For Kitco News

Time to buy Gold and Silver on the dips

 

 

Tim Moseley

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Ukrainian Mariupol fallen

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Ukrainian Mariupol fallen

The Ukrainian town Mariupol at Azov sea had fallen, The city of Mariupol is under the control of the armed forces of Russia, the Donetsk People's Republic and the Luhansk People's Republic, announced Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu. The attack on the azovstal steel works, located in the city and hiding in them the remaining Ukrainian defenders of the city, Russian President Vladimir Putin canceled, wrote the agency Tass.

"Today the whole of Mariupol is under the control of the Russian army, the people's militia of the Donetsk People's Republic. The territory of the azovstal plant with the remnants of nationalists and foreign mercenaries located there is safely blocked, " minister Shoigu said.

More than two thousand militants were blocked in the azovstal steelworks. According to Shoigu, at the time of the encirclement of Mariupol, the number of foreign troops fighting on the side of Ukraine was about 8100 people.

"As for those who did not flee from the azovstal plant, they are blocked there thoroughly and around the perimeter. We need about three to four days to complete this work, " Shoigu said.

According to the minister of defense, despite the resistance of militants in Mariupol, more than 142 thousand residents of the city were evacuated, and all hostages in the port were released.

These hot news are from Czech websites.

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                                                               Margaret

Tim Moseley