Coca-Cola Begins Testing a Paper Bottle

“Coca-Cola is to test a paper bottle as part of a longer-term bid to eliminate plastic from its packaging entirely,” reports the BBC: The prototype is made by a Danish company from an extra-strong paper shell that still contains a thin plastic liner. But the goal is to create a 100% recyclable, plastic-free bottle capable of preventing gas escaping from carbonated…

Bitcoin Consumes ‘More Electricity Than Argentina’

Thelasko shares a report from the BBC: Bitcoin uses more electricity annually than the whole of Argentina, analysis by Cambridge University suggests. ‘Mining’ for the cryptocurrency is power-hungry, involving heavy computer calculations to verify transactions. Cambridge researchers say it consumes around 121.36 terawatt-hours (TWh) a year — and is unlikely to fall unless the value of the currency slumps. Critics say…

China Plans Online Payment Rules That May Hit Ant, Tencent

hackingbear writes: People’s Bank of China, the country’s central bank, said on Wednesday that any non-bank payment company with half of the market in online transactions or two entities with a combined two-thirds share could be subject to antitrust probes, potentially dealing another blow to financial technology giant Ant Group Co. and its biggest rival Tencent Holdings Ltd. Ant’s Alipay accounts…

The World’s Most Loathed Industry Gave Us a Vaccine in Record Time

An anonymous reader shares a feature report: At the end of 2019, before the coronavirus pandemic started, the two best-known faces of the pharmaceutical business were the imprisoned Martin Shkreli and the lawsuit-laden opioid makers at Purdue Pharma. The rest of the industry was perhaps best known for the skyrocketing prices of its medicines. In a Gallup Poll of the public’s…

Universidad de Palermo Announces First Spanish-Language MBA on Coursera

By Betty Vandenbosch, Chief Content Officer at Coursera Read this post in Spanish As COVID-19 accelerates digital transformation, there is a growing global demand for technology-driven business professionals. In Latin America, specifically, there is a critical need for business leaders. For example, the International Labor Organization found entrepreneurial talent one of the most valuable, yet scarce, […]
The post Universidad de Palermo Announces…

Coca-Cola, Pepsi and Nestle Named Top Plastic Polluters For Third Year In a Row

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and Nestlé have been accused of “zero progress” on reducing plastic waste, after being named the world’s top plastic polluters for the third year in a row. Coca-Cola was ranked the world’s No 1 plastic polluter by Break Free From Plastic in its annual audit, after its beverage bottles were…

Why Players Blame Skill-Based Matchmaking For Losing In Call of Duty

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: Two months ago, esports pro Seth “Scump” Abner logged into the Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War multiplayer alpha and found himself struggling. Not because of any major gameplay changes developer Treyarch had made, Cold War plays like any other Call of Duty from the past decade, but rather because of the…

Introducing Four New Online Master’s Degrees from HSE University

By Betty Vandenbosch, Chief Content Officer, Coursera Degrees in business, technology, and data science will enable students around the world to prepare for in-demand jobs The “future of work” is already here. According to the World Economic Forum, the global workforce is automating faster than expected, displacing 85 million jobs in the next five years. […]
The post Introducing Four New Online…

‘The Queen’s Gambit’ Scores As Netflix Most-Watched Scripted Limited Series To Date

“The Queen’s Gambit,” a Netflix exclusive about an orphan chess prodigy, set the record as the most-watched scripted limited series to date on the streaming platform — with 62 million member accounts tuning in to the show in the first 28 days, according to the company. Variety reports: There’s a caveat, though: The way Netflix reports viewing is based on the…

Apple Silicon M1 Chip In MacBook Air Outperforms High-End 16-Inch MacBook Pro

The first benchmark of Apple’s M1 chip shows that the multi-core performance of the new MacBook Air with 8GB RAM beats out all of the 2019 16-inch MacBook Pro models, including the 10th-generation high-end 2.4GHz Intel Core i9 model. “That high-end 16-inch MacBook Pro earned a single-core score of 1096 and a multi-core score of 6870,” reports MacRumors. The MacBook Air…