Tuesday: Microsoft with software language, emissions standard, and e-car battery agreement

Microsoft clearly wants to continue its shopping spree and is reaching out to its Nuance Language Program collaborative partner. Volkswagen’s supply of electric vehicle batteries in the US appears secure after two South Korean companies settled their disputes.

However, internal combustion engines will not be banned so quickly in the European Union. It should continue to be approved in Emission Standard 7. The European Space Agency’s Gaia Telescope has discovered something new that transcends the heavens: more Einstein junction than expected. The most important day in brief.

American software company Microsoft Intends to expand its range of speech processing services with the acquisition of Nuance. The nuances are among other things to dictate and Speech recognition program Known as the Dragon brand. The company is also a leader in artificial intelligence and language processing.

Microsoft recently boosted its gaming division with the $ 1 billion acquisition of Zenimax Media, the parent company of game publisher Bethesda. Additionally, US media reported in March of talks about acquiring the US company Discord for more than $ 10 billion, an online service for voice, video and text chat that was initially targeted at computer players. Microsoft and Nuance have been in business since 2019 In the field of medical speech recognition together.

take a deep breath Volkswagen In the United States: Due to a legal dispute between South Korea’s LG and SK, the supply of batteries for the production of electric vehicles is endangered. As a result, the implementation of supply contracts between Volkswagen and Ford with SKI was in jeopardy.

The background to this was the dispute between parent company LG Energy Solution, LG Chem, and SK Innovation (SKI). In April 2019, LG filed a lawsuit against its US competitor for illegal poaching of employees and theft of trade secrets. The two companies also filed patent lawsuits against each other. But they have now reached an agreement.

The market for electric cars in the European Union may not grow at the expected pace. At the very least, the German car industry no longer has to be very afraid of the European Union banning combustion cars. After a meeting of the working group responsible for the Euro 7 emissions standard, it became clear that “the European Union Commission accepts the limits of what is technically possible,” said Hildegard Muller, Chair Automobile Industry Association (VDA).

VDA is part of the AGVES Advisory Group European Union Commission Those involved who are now providing their recommendations for Euro 7 Foot. It turns out that the previous plans of the European Union Commission cannot be implemented. The auto industry federation protested this in November 2020.

Thanks to the ESA Space Telescope Gaia Astronomers have discovered 12 new Einstein crosses. This increases the total number of confirmed examples of this visual evidence of relativity by a quarter. Phenomena are unique opportunities to study dark matter and the expansion of the universe.

Einstein crosses They are a special gravitational lens in which the light from other active galaxy nuclei (quasars) is bended by massive objects in the foreground in such a way that many images link from our perspective. From its distribution in the night sky and the difference from the expected distribution, one can learn something about the mysterious dark matter, for example. The Gaia Space Telescope was launched in 2013, and since then it has been photographing the starry sky with a gigapixel camera.

In the USA and Brazil especially, government agencies access iCloud user data from Apple, but European Union countries are also affected. In the first half of 2020, Apple provided “content data” to authorities for nearly 3,400 requests for Apple ID accounts, according to the company’s latest transparency report. Under “Content Data” you can iCloud– Contents like photos, iPhone backups, emails, contacts, and calendars are covered. IPhone backups contain a lot of data including text messages.

It remains unclear which partially sensitive data was released in detail and for what reason. In its new transparency report, Apple has confirmed for the first time that iCloud content can also be passed in in the event of emergency inquiries from authorities – for example to search for missing persons. From the German authorities an Apple He received a large number of hardware inquiries in connection with investigations into stolen devices.

Telecom company Vodafone has transformed parts of Germany’s 5G mobile network into “5G standalone” with its backbone network that does not require an LTE anchor. The network operator is switching all its antennas that transmit on 5G frequencies in the 3.5 GHz band, that is, about 1000 antennas in 170 cities and communities. The first data center for the 5G core network is located in Frankfurt.

Vodafone makes an upfront payment because only a small number of users will be able to take advantage of it in the beginning. So far, only a handful of smartphones such as Oppo Find X3 Pro support the new standard. However, it is also expected that there will be models from Samsung, Huawei and other manufacturers that can use “5G standalone”. Vodafone customers The 5G Core option can be reserved for free starting next week.

Financial Supervision Baffin It investigates two instances of whether employees have engaged in unauthorized speculative transactions. The deals came during an investigation into the circulation of employees in shares of American companies Gamestop And the AMC Entertainment I noticed.

This stems from the federal government’s response to a request from the left-wing Bundestag finance expert, Fabio de Massey. The fluctuating prices of US video game store Gamestop kept stock markets in check for weeks, as did speculation over the papers of the AMC movie franchise. The value of shares increased significantly in some cases.

Also important:

Another chapter in the controversy over the return of GNU expert Richard Stallman to the FSF board. He tries to explain his controversial statement from last year in a very personal statement.

(fees)