Friday of the future: about sanctions and ways to circumvent them, about the new Threads social network and about a bicycle as an interlocutor

Greetings! In this edition of "Friday of the Future" we will talk about such a difficult topic as prohibitions and restrictions.

Because there will obviously be them in a bright futuregetting bigger. Just last week, China announced that restrictions on the sale of rare earth elements are being introduced, and after all, it is the world's largest supplier of much needed for the manufacture of electronics. In the Netherlands, schoolchildren were banned from using phones, and in Kazakhstan, they were forbidden to ride scooters faster than 6 km/h. Russia is also considering new speed limits for electric scooters. But the project of the company Urtopia, on the contrary, expands the boundaries of the possibilities of electric transport, offering one as an interlocutor on a trip. The Dutch ASML is looking for ways to circumvent US sanctions on China in order to supply lithographic equipment there again. Mark Zuckerberg, without waiting for the outcome of the duel with Elon Musk in the arena of the Colosseum, launched his "Threads" (not yet banned in the territory of the Russian Federation). The Russians were promised a digital ruble by 2027 with a total happy e-currency. Google is finally (on track since 2019) able to announce that it has achieved quantum supremacy. The UN will host a conference where robots will be speakers, and Russian scientists will present an alternative to polyethylene that is not only biodegradable, but also promotes better food storage.

Table of Contents

• Chinese sanctions and the world of electronics
• ASML seeks entry to China
• Another social network Zuckerberg
• Digital ruble for everyone from 2027
• Google Quantum Supremacy
• Phone ban in Dutch schools
• Robots in the service of the UN
• Russian alternative to polyethylene
• Speed ​​limits for scooters
• E-bike as a companion and fitness trainer

Chinese sanctions and the world of electronics

Any sanctions restrictions that are introduced,in order to prevent a competitor from gaining an advantage, they inevitably end up with the fact that the sanctioned person finds either ways to bypass them, or a way to play these games together. And now the PRC authorities have found how to respond to the United States to ban the supply of chips that could be used to create artificial intelligence. Since China is not allowed to use American chips, the US will not be able to buy Chinese gallium, germanium and a long list of compounds based on them. At the moment, it is Chinese supplies that occupy the lion's share of the market, so it is possible that the continuation of the sad story of the times of covid restrictions and the collapsed microelectronics market is not far off. Of course, China is not the only supplier. For example, gallium and germanium, as well as compounds based on them, can be bought in Russia. True, the Russian Federation is also under US sanctions and also does not have the ability to purchase many types of microelectronics, so there is no certainty that domestic companies will rush to occupy the vacant share, and some (perhaps even the American) government will not forbid them to do so. So it's far from certain that TSMC's optimists are right, saying they see no threat to their business in a situation where the Chinese authorities are seeking to impose restrictions on the export of rare earth metals used in the production of semiconductors from the country. Or they already know something.

ASML seeks entry to China

Another approach to sanctions demonstratesDutch company ASML. More precisely, information has surfaced about how its leadership plans to implement its statement that they will not follow the lead of the United States and will not allow the authorities of another country to manage their business. Loud statement, agree. And it will become even louder if ASML manages to implement the scheme already worked out by Nvidia. We are talking about supplying equipment “defective” or with obviously degraded characteristics. Do US sanctions require an export license for lithographs capable of printing sub-28nm chips? Great. Let's take a lithograph and restrict it to a topology smaller than this size. In the characteristics, we will honestly write that he cannot issue forbidden parameters. And there can be no claims from the American inspection bodies here, all the formalities have been observed. Well, and, moreover, what questions can there be if the lithograph at the exit from the workshop fell, crashed and broke, and therefore moves from the category of industrial equipment to the category of “scrap of non-ferrous and ferrous metals”. Of course, the last assumption is at the level of conspiracy theories, but after all, buyers of the Nvidia H800 series graphics accelerator with an interconnect that is slow for the Chinese market purchase the model, clearly knowing how to bypass data transfer speed limits. Otherwise, these GPUs make little sense, it would be possible to purchase more budget and outdated solutions.

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Another social network Zuckerberg

Banned and extremist company Meta* StampZuckerberg did launch her Threads app. Mark may have to regret when Elon Musk uses the walrus during their battle in the octagon, but he decided. Threads use an Instagram* login, support 500-character messages, and add photos and videos up to 5 minutes long. The platform can be accessed from Threads.net, and the app can be downloaded from the App Store or Google Play. The application is similar in appearance to Twitter*, but is strongly associated with Instagram*, so initially it will offer to subscribe to the same audience, and, apparently, there will be more competition with this Meta* product, and not with Twitter*. By the way, the novelty is not released not only in Russia, but also in the European Union due to a number of laws that come into force next year. Or perhaps its name was not liked by European bureaucrats who once watched a British TV movie:

Digital ruble for everyone from 2027

But if the nuclear apocalypse due to social networks is nothappens, then in 2027 we will see another round of virtualization of the Russian economy. The Central Bank of Russia plans to make the digital ruble available for use by Russians by 2025-2027. All citizens of the Russian Federation will be able to create their own digital wallets, receive digital rubles and use them at the latest in 2027. The introduction of the digital ruble will depend on the banking system, the connection of banks to the digital ruble platform will take place in stages. In the period 2023-2024, the use of digital rubles will be of a test nature in the pilot project mode with a limited number of users and volume of transactions. The full-scale introduction of the digital ruble will take several years; the Central Bank considers it inexpedient to do it faster. True, at the moment the digital ruble does not yet have legal grounds - amendments to the legislation in order for the system to work are still at the stage of the first reading.

Google Quantum Supremacy

But Google has already reported thatachieved quantum supremacy. Her project to develop a quantum computer should be considered a success, since a task that would take 47 years for a "regular" Frontier supercomputer, Google's quantum Sycamore solves in just 6.5 seconds. Sycamore was introduced in 2019 and contained 53 qubits at that time. As a result of its modernization, it was possible to increase the number of qubits to 70. Due to this, the performance of the device was increased by 241 million times compared to the previous generation. Computer scientists claim that now its performance is at such a level that it allows you to solve problems in seconds that would require decades of calculations otherwise. Research results and performance comparisons are presented in the article on the ArXiv platform. Although it is worth noting that the gap between conventional and quantum supercomputers is shrinking. If in 2019 Google chose a model from IBM for comparison and said that Sycamore solves the same problem in 200 seconds, which would take a competitor 10 thousand years, now it is already 6.5 seconds and 47.2 years.

Phone ban in Dutch schools

Returning to prohibitions and restrictions, one cannot butmention the Dutch innovation for schoolchildren. Schoolchildren in the Netherlands will be banned from using mobile phones, tablets and smartwatches in the classroom from January 1, 2024, as they distract students and impair their academic performance. Smartphones will only be allowed to be used if they are needed for activities, such as during digital skills lessons, for medical reasons, or for people with disabilities. Dutch Education Minister Robert Dijkgraaff said: “Despite the fact that mobile phones are closely connected with our lives, they have no place in the classroom. Students should be able to concentrate and should be able to study well. Mobile phones are a nuisance, scientific studies show. We have to protect students from this."

Robots in the service of the UN

But in the UN, on the contrary, they do not yet know whether it is good orevil robots and AI, therefore, they plan to hold an AI for Good conference, where representatives of interested parties will speak: Microsoft, Amazon and robots. Yes, yes, the UN is going to hold a conference at which the issue of the security of artificial intelligence will be decided, and in addition to developers, carriers of this very artificial intelligence will also act as speakers there. This is not science fiction, this is real news today. In the news of tomorrow, it is probably worth waiting for an online AI conference, to which ChatGPT, AlphaGo and Alice will invite UN representatives as speakers, and they, in turn, will be able to tell why their 17 goals aimed at improving life world population by 2030 have not been achieved.

Russian alternative to polyethylene

If we talk about something more serious andclose, which can really be seen in everyday life, then more interesting than the UN conference with robots is the joint development of the Institute of Organoelement Compounds of the Russian Academy of Sciences. A.N. Nesmeyanov and MIPT. Russian scientists have reportedly succeeded in creating a material that could potentially replace polyethylene in food packaging. Firstly, we do not have an endless source of raw materials for processing into polyethylene. Secondly, plastic waste is one of the main sources of environmental pollution, so any biodegradable alternative always attracts attention. In this case, we are talking about the creation of hydrocolloids based on iron salts and organic acids. True, nanocontainers containing plant polymers, which, in fact, provide antibacterial properties and prevent the penetration of ultraviolet radiation, are required to be introduced into the matrix, which serves as the initial basis of the future film, so production cannot yet be called cheap. In addition, the work is not yet complete, it is necessary to select samples in such a way that their mechanical properties meet the requirements of the packaging, and biodegradation is not too fast. The material is water soluble, so the task is not an easy one. But scientists expect that in the coming years these problems will be solved. In the meantime, synthetic polyethylene dominates all alternatives in terms of price, so it will be very difficult for harmless films to squeeze it out of the market.

Image from the Izvestia website

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Speed ​​limits for scooters

The Federation Council decided to ask the Moscow authoritiesimpose even stricter speed limits for electric scooters. Artem Sheikin, Deputy Chairman of the Council for the Development of the Digital Economy at the Federation Council, proposed reducing the speed limit for electric scooters on sidewalks to 10 kilometers per hour. As Sheikin noted, the many accidents caused by collisions between pedestrians and electric scooters "indicate the need to take measures to prevent further accidents." Earlier, Sheikin said that fines for violating the rules of the road by drivers of electric scooters should be increased at least ten times, the current amount of 1.5 thousand rubles does not correspond to modern realities. According to him, it is necessary to create a unified information system in which owners of electric scooters will be registered, and kicksharing companies will send data on scooter tenants and their routes.

It is curious that at the end of last week the authoritiesKazakhstan has introduced much more stringent restrictions for electric scooters than those that Sheikin asks Sobyanin. After recognizing scooters as a vehicle, the Kazakh authorities clarified that the possibility of leaving the sidewalk for electric scooters remains. But the speed in this case should not exceed 6 km / h. Do you want the maximum 25 km/h? Drive on the right side of the road, but only if you are over 18 years old, protected by a helmet, your clothing has reflective elements, and you have any category of driving license in your pocket.

E-bike as a companion and fitness trainer

And finally, the news that unitespersonal electric transport and artificial intelligence. The Urtopia brand introduced the Fusion electric bike with an integrated ChatGPT neural network. According to the developers, now the cyclist will have the opportunity to have fun talking with the chatbot during the trip. Also, as stated, artificial intelligence will improve efficiency during long bike rides. Users will be able to request route information and have a natural conversation while maintaining a level of security and control. The manufacturer has added integration with apps such as Strava and Apple Health so that you can automatically track the effectiveness of your workout. But ordinary fitness trackers will also get more interesting opportunities due to the fusion of the bike and AI. During the course of the ride, the settings of the bike can be adjusted using artificial intelligence to improve efficiency. Such is the system that can allow the bike to become a little bit of a fitness trainer.

*Meta Platforms, which includes the social networks Facebook and Instagram, has been recognized as an extremist organization and banned in the Russian Federation.

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