Sex difference in immune response to coronavirus decoded

Sudharma Times

{24 august 2020 ~ 30 august 2020}

 

Health News

                                                      ~by NIKHIL 

1.Sex difference in immune response to coronavirus decoded

26,Aug,2020

Women with COVID-19 mount a more robust and sustained immune response via the body’s T cells than men, according to a study that may help guide a sex-based approach to the treatment and care for those infected with the novel coronavirus.

The research, published in the journal Nature, assessed 98 patients -- aged 18 years or over -- admitted to the Yale New Haven Hospital in the US with mild to moderate disease, who had confirmed positive tests for novel coronavirus infection.

While previous research had shown that the severity of COVID-19 tends to be higher for men than for women, the underlying reasons for this discrepancy has remained unclear, according to the scientists, including those from Yale University in the US. In the current study, they found that female patients mounted a more robust and sustained immune response via the body’s T cells than men. The researchers noted that T cells played an essential part in the immune system with their roles including the killing of infected cells. According to the scientists, including Akiko Iwasaki from the Yale University School of Medicine, poor T cell responses correlated with a worse disease outcome in male patients.

“We found that a poor T cell response negatively correlated with patients’ age, and was associated with worse disease outcome in male patients, but not in female patients,” the researchers wrote in the study.

Compared with healthy control individuals, they said patients with COVID-19 were found to have elevated levels of innate immune cytokines and chemokines, which are signalling molecules involved in the recruitment of immune cells to sites of inflammation.

However, the study noted that the levels of some of these molecules were higher in male patients than in female patients. In female patients, the scientists said, higher levels of the cytokine molecules were associated with a worse disease response. Based on the results, they said male patients may benefit from therapies that elevate T cell responses whereas female patients may benefit from therapies that dampen early innate immune responses. However, the scientists caution that they were unable to rule out other underlying factors that may modify the risk of poor outcome in male and female patients with COVID-19.

2. Africa now free of wild poliovirus, but polio threat remains

25,Aug,2020

Health authorities on Tuesday declared the African continent free of the wild poliovirus after decades of effort, though cases of vaccine-derived polio are still sparking outbreaks of the paralyzing disease in more than a dozen countries.

The declaration leaves Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan as the only countries thought to still have the wild poliovirus, with vaccination efforts against the highly infectious, water-borne disease complicated by insecurity and attacks on health workers.

The announcement by the African Regional Certification Commission for Polio Eradication comes after no cases were reported for four years. Polio once paralyzed some 75,000 children a year across Africa.

Health authorities see the declaration as a rare glint of good news in Africa amid the coronavirus pandemic, an Ebola outbreak in western Congo and the persistent deadly challenges of malaria, HIV and tuberculosis.

“This is an incredible and emotional day,” WHO Africa director Matshidiso Moeti said, but she urged vigilance as the coronavirus threatens vaccination and surveillance efforts.

The World Health Organization says this is just the second time a virus has been eradicated in Africa, after the elimination of smallpox four decades ago.

But sometimes patchy surveillance across the vast continent of 1.3 billion people raises the possibility that scattered cases of the wild poliovirus still remain, undetected.

The final push to combat the wild poliovirus focused largely on northern Nigeria, where the Boko Haram Islamic extremist group has carried out a deadly insurgency for more than a decade. Health workers at times carried out vaccinations on the margins of the insecurity, putting their lives at risk.

Africa’s last reported case of the wild poliovirus was in Nigeria in 2016. The country a year earlier had been removed from the global list of polio-endemic nations, a step toward being declared polio-free, but new cases were then reported in children in the north — a stark example of the difficulties in combating the disease.

This new declaration doesn’t mean Africa is polio-free. Cases remain of the so-called vaccine-derived polio virus, which is a rare mutated form of the weakened but live virus contained in the oral polio vaccine.

That mutated virus can spark crippling polio outbreaks, and 16 African countries are currently experiencing one: Angola, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Ivory Coast, Congo, Ethiopia, Guinea, Ghana, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Togo and Zambia.

Health authorities have warned that the coronavirus pandemic has disrupted vaccination work in many countries across Africa, leaving more children vulnerable to infection.

In April, WHO and its partners reluctantly recommended a temporary halt to mass polio immunization campaigns, recognizing the move could lead to a resurgence of the disease. In May, they reported that 46 campaigns to vaccinate children against polio had been suspended in 38 countries, mostly in Africa, as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

Eradicating polio requires more than 90% of children being immunized, typically in mass campaigns involving millions of health workers that would break social distancing guidelines needed to stop the spread of Covid-19.

Health officials had initially aimed to wipe out polio by 2000, a deadline repeatedly pushed back and missed. Even now in northeastern Nigeria, thousands of children remain out of reach of health workers carrying out vaccinations.

3.Vitamin D supplements are vital for baby’s gut microbiome: Study

23,Aug,2020

A team of researchers has now shed light on the influence of vitamin D supplementation on a baby’s developing gut microbiome.

The study, published in the journal Gut Microbes, found that vitamin D supplementation is associated with compositional changes in a baby’s microbiome--notably a lower abundance of the bacteria Megamonas--at three months of age.

“Vitamin D plays an important role in early life, supporting bone metabolism and the healthy development of a baby’s immune system,” said senior author Anita Kozyrskyj, a professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Alberta and a CHILD Cohort Study investigator. “Most infants in North America receive vitamin D, either as a supplement to breastfeeding or as an ingredient in commercial infant formulas, so we wanted to understand the association between vitamin D and the presence or abundance of key bacteria within a baby’s intestinal tract.”

The researchers examined faecal samples taken during home visits from 1,157 infants who are part of the CHILD Cohort Study--a national study that is following nearly 3,500 Canadian children from before birth to adolescence with the primary goal of discovering the root causes of allergies, asthma, obesity, and other chronic diseases.

They found that direct vitamin D supplementation of infants with vitamin D drops was associated with a lower abundance of Megamonas, regardless of how a baby was fed (breastfed or formula-fed). “While little is known about Megamonas in infancy, our previous research suggests there may be a link between this bacterium and asthma or respiratory viral infections, so vitamin D may offer additional benefits for childhood health that should be studied further,” added Kozyrskyj, also a member of the Women and Children’s Health Research Institute.

The researchers also assessed the association between infant and maternal vitamin D supplementation and the presence of Clostridium difficile (C. difficile) in a baby’s gut. “Some infants carry the diarrhoea-causing bacterium C. difficile in their guts without any symptoms.

However, when the levels of gut bacteria become imbalanced, this particular bacterium can multiply, causing illness and increasing the susceptibility to chronic disease later in childhood,” commented first author Kelsea Drall, an MSc graduate from the U of A and an AllerGen trainee.

The study found that nearly 30 per cent of the infants carried C. difficile, but there was a lower incidence of the bacterium among exclusively breastfed infants. However, neither infant supplementation with vitamin D drops nor maternal vitamin D supplementation during pregnancy or after delivery was associated with C. difficile colonization. “Interestingly, maternal consumption of vitamin D-fortified milk was the only factor that reduced the likelihood of C. difficile colonization in infants,” added Drall.

According to Kozyrskyj, an infant’s gut microbiota undergoes a rapid change in early life. Therefore, it is critical to understand the factors associated with microbial communities populating the infant gut during this key developmental period.

“Low vitamin D levels have been associated with a respiratory syncytial virus (RSV)--a common lung infection among infants--and more recently, susceptibility to COVID-19 disease,” she pointed out. “In the CHILD Cohort Study, we have a unique opportunity to follow our study children as they get older to understand how microbial changes observed as a result of dietary interventions may be associated with later health outcomes such as asthma and viral infections.”

4. New treatment possibilities for young women diagnosed with rare form of ovarian cancer

27,Aug,2020

A recent finding by researchers at the BC Cancer Research Institute and the University of British Columbia (UBC) may offer a new treatment possibility for people diagnosed with a rare and aggressive form of ovarian cancer.

Small cell carcinoma of the ovary, hypercalcemic type (SCCOHT), is a particularly devastating cancer that has no effective treatments and is usually diagnosed in women in their 20s. The study, published in Clinical Cancer Research, describes a metabolic vulnerability present in cells that may represent a therapeutic target if proven in clinical trials.

“Finding this vulnerability and identifying a way to exploit it could have a huge impact for anyone diagnosed with this rare disease,” said the study’s first author Jennifer Ji, an MD/PhD candidate at UBC’s faculty of medicine and trainee at the BC Cancer Research Institute.

The discovery is welcome news to Justin Mattioli, whose 34-year-old wife Eileen, passed away from SCCOHT in the spring of 2019. Prior to her passing, Eileen made the decision to donate her tissue samples to help advance cancer research in the hopes of finding new treatments for others facing the disease.

“We would hate to see someone else go through what Eileen did,” said Justin. “And there is a good possibility that this may help advance further research into other types of cancers as well.”

Eileen’s samples are being used as a new cell model, enabling researchers to test the effects of new treatments and to better understand the biology of the disease.

The team found that SCCOHT cancer cells have very low levels of an enzyme necessary for the production of arginine, an amino acid needed to help our cells build protein.

Non-cancerous cells have this enzyme and can produce their own arginine, but tumours without it cannot produce this amino acid themselves, meaning that they need to be in an arginine-rich environment to survive.

Using a small molecule agent, the team has found a way to eliminate arginine in the tumour environment, essentially starving the cancer to death while having minimal effect on normal cells.

“This agent basically absorbs all of the arginine within the tumour environment so cells can’t produce it themselves, thus starving the tumour,” said research team lead Dr. David Huntsman, a pathologist and ovarian cancer researcher at BC Cancer and professor in the departments of pathology and laboratory medicine and obstetrics and gynecology at UBC. “As such vulnerability has been also discovered in several other cancer types, we are now looking to partner with other research organizations who are evaluating these treatment options in patients whose cancer lacks the expression of this particular enzyme.”

So far, researchers have validated this treatment in pre-clinical studies. They are now exploring combination therapy, with the use of Eileen’s samples, in an effort to boost the response and avoid potential resistance. In addition, they want to test their findings in clinical trials.

“This research is another step to better understanding a very aggressive form of ovarian cancer and providing better treatment outcomes for women diagnosed with this disease,” said Huntsman.

5. All child Covid-19 fatalities in the UK had ‘profound’ underlying conditions

28,Aug,2020

All the children who have died from Covid-19 in the U.K. had “profound” underlying medical conditions, according to a study suggesting that healthy school-age patients are at very limited risk of severe disease outcomes.

The report adds to previous indications that youthful patients suffer less from the disease than older people, but showed that Black or obese children are at a marginally higher risk. Of the 651 cases reviewed, 42% involved underlying health conditions, but only 18% overall required intensive care. There were six deaths, all involving serious pre-existing conditions.

“It is vanishingly rare to have severe disease in children,” said Calum Semple, professor of child health and outbreak medicine at the University of Liverpool. Even for Black or obese children, the risk remains “tiny,” he said.

“If you are a Black parent in Glasgow or London, your kids should still go back to school,” he added.

According to the study, published in the journal BMJ, 52 of the children suffered a “multisystem inflammatory syndrome” that has been linked to coronavirus patients. “Kids who get this sort of thing often end up with problems in their hearts,” Semple added.

6. Covid-19: Female health workers on India’s frontline push for fair pay

28,Aug,2020

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Rushing from one home to another in a village in western India, health worker Ashwini Mhaske cannot afford to take a breather.

Working to keep Covid-19 at bay while caring for mothers and babies, Mhaske races between households to meet job targets and earn bonuses for a average monthly wage of 4,000 rupees ($54) that India’s army of rural health workers say is derisory.

Accredited Social Health Activists - or ASHA workers - are the government’s recognised health workers who are usually the first point of contact in rural India, where there is often limited or no direct access to healthcare facilities.

Many of India’s one million all-women ASHA workers - who have conducted door-to-door checks to trace coronavirus patients in addition to their usual duties - went on strike this month to demand job recognition, better pay and proper protective gear.

“Now we work all hours, with no days off,” said 33-year-old Mhaske, who used to do farm work shifts to supplement her ASHA income before the coronavirus pandemic struck India in March.

India’s coronavirus cases crossed the 3.2 million mark this week - it is behind the United States and Brazil - after a surge in rural areas where two-thirds of its 1.3 billion people live.

With infections spreading further to small towns and remote regions, experts say the epidemic in India is likely to be months away from its peak, putting more strain on an already overburdened healthcare system and struggling ASHA workers.

“All we (ASHA workers) are saying is that the government should think about us,” Mhaske told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone from Osmanabad in Maharashtra state.

Enlisted as part of a 2005 national programme to boost healthcare services across rural India - from maternal care to vaccination drives - ASHA workers are treated like volunteers and not covered by state governments’ minimum wage legislation.

Business News

                                          ~by JATIN

1.New Chinese rules on export ban could hinder TikTok sale: Chinese news channel CGTN

-30 August 2020

Chinese Internet firm Byte Dance may have to suspend negotiations over the pending sale of its popular video-sharing app TikTok, a trade expert told Chinese news channel CGTN, after China released a revised catalogue of technologies that are subject to export bans or restrictions.

The revised catalogue, released on Thursday jointly by China's Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) and the Ministry of Science and Technology, added a total of 23 items subject to export restrictions while deleting four items prohibited from export, including microbial fertilizing and caffeine production technologies, CGTN reported.

CGTN, formerly known as CCTV-9 and CCTV News, is an international English-language news channel based in Beijing owned by China Central Television, a state-controlled broadcaster.

Cui Fan, a professor of international trade at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing, told CGTN that China has been revising laws in recent years to standardize technological imports and exports, such as forbidding forced technological transfer from foreign companies.

Cui said some Chinese companies, such as Byte Dance, could be affected by the new rule because its video-sharing app TikTok is in the middle of selling its U.S. assets that involve new technology included in China's new restriction list.

"The newly-added article 21 over 'personalized information push service technology based on data analysis' and article 18 about 'artificial intelligence interactive interface technology' may have something to do with Byte Dance," Cui noted to CGTN.

Byte Dance boasts a number of cutting-edge technologies in artificial intelligence and other spheres, and some technologies may have a close bearing on the adjusted catalogue, CGTN said.

The U.S. retail giant Walmart said Thursday that it’s teaming up with Microsoft in a bid for TikTok. In India, TikTok is in talks with Reliance Jio for a sale.

TikTok was among 59 apps banned by India in June over concerns of national security.

 

2.Zuckerberg says Facebook's failure to remove militia page 'an operational mistake'

-29 August 2020

Facebook Inc Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg took responsibility and faulted his company for not removing the page and event for a militia group before two people were killed at a protest in Kenosha, saying it was "largely an operational mistake".

The page and event listing violated Facebook's policies and should have been removed after numerous complaints were received about the group's violent nature, Zuckerberg said in a video to employees that he posted publicly on his Facebook profile.

The social media company removed the page for 'Kenosha Guard', and an event listing for 'Armed Citizens to Protect Our Lives and Property' a day after the shooting on Tuesday.

Two people were killed during protests in Kenosha that broke out in response to the police shooting of a Black man earlier this week.

"The contractors and reviewers who the initial complaints were funneled to basically didn't pick this up," Zuckerberg said. "And on second review, doing it more sensitively, the team that's responsible for dangerous organizations recognized that this violated the policies and we took it down."

Zuckerberg said there was no evidence the person charged with the shooting followed the Kenosha Guard page, but added that the company will continue to evolve its policies for identifying potentially dangerous organizations.

 

3.Intel's woes delays US' plan to make a supercomputer for exascale computing

-28 August 2020

When its selected Intel to help build a $500 million supercomputer last year, the Energy Department bet that computer chips made in the United States could help counter a technology challenge from China.

Officials at the department’s Argonne National Laboratory predicted that the machine, called Aurora and scheduled to be installed at facilities near Chicago in 2021, would be the first U.S. system to reach a technical pinnacle known as exascale computing. Intel pledged to supply three kinds of chips for the system from its factories in Oregon, Arizona and New Mexico.

But a technology delay by the Silicon Valley giant has thrown a wrench into that plan, the latest sign of headwinds facing government and industry efforts to reverse America’s dependence on foreign-made semiconductors. It was also an indication of the challenges ahead for U.S. hopes to regain a lead in critical semiconductor manufacturing technology.

Intel, which supplies electronic brains for most personal computers and web services, has long driven miniaturization advances that make electronic devices smaller, faster and cheaper. But Robert Swan, its chief executive, warned last month that the next production advance would be 12 months late and suggested that some chips for Aurora might be made outside Intel factories.

Intel’s problems make it close to impossible that Aurora will be installed on schedule, researchers and analysts said. And shifting a key component to foreign factories would undermine company and government hopes of an all-American design.

“That is part of the story they were trying to sell,” said Jack Dongarra, a computer scientist at the University of Tennessee who tracks supercomputer installations around the world. “Now they stumbled.”

Argonne and Energy Department officials remain committed to the project and “are in discussions with Intel to update the delivery plan for Aurora,” the Argonne lab said in a statement. The partners are “actively working to mitigate any potential impacts to the schedule,” Intel said in a separate statement.

The company was already struggling to rebound from a several-year delay in perfecting a new manufacturing process that was finally delivered last year. That lag allowed technology leadership to pass to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. and Samsung Electronics, which build chips designed by other companies.

Intel, the last big U.S. company that both designs and makes microprocessors, signaled in July that it might for the first time use foundries owned by other companies to make some cutting-edge chips.

“What’s different is, we’re going to be pretty pragmatic about if and when we should be making stuff inside” and turn to external factories when it makes the most sense, Swan told analysts.

Intel’s disclosures caused its stock market value to drop by close to $50 billion. They were also bad news for Argonne.

Government labs and other organizations have long used supercomputers for tasks like breaking foreign communications codes, modeling weather changes and designing drugs. Aurora was viewed as the lead U.S. entry in the race to build exascale systems, capable of a quintillion calculation a second — roughly a 50-fold increase over existing supercomputers.

4.Facebook says Apple's mobile software will cut advertisement revenue

-27 August 2020

Facebook on Wednesday said a mobile software update about to be released by Apple will slash revenue for developers relying on its in-app ad network.

Changes coming to iOS software powering iPhones and iPads includes requiring apps to ask permission of users to collect and share device-identifying data.

"With iOS 14, iPadOS 14, and tvOS 14, you will need to receive the user's permission through the AppTrackingTransparency framework to track them or access their device's advertising identifier," Apple said in an online post aimed at developers.

"Tracking refers to the act of linking user or device data collected from your app with user or device data collected from other companies' apps, websites, or offline properties for targeted advertising or advertising measurement purposes."

Such data is relied on for targeting ads in ways that make them more relevant and likely to make money, according to Facebook.

Apple is expected to release the new iOS mobile operating system later this year.

But tests found that revenue from the Audience Network platform that lets Facebook's system work behind the scenes to target ads in apps fell by more than half when personalization was thwarted, an online post explained.

"In reality, the impact to Audience Network on iOS 14 may be much more, so we are working on short-and long-term strategies to support publishers through these changes," Facebook said in the post.

"We understand that iOS 14 will hurt many of our developers and publishers at an already difficult time for businesses," Facebook said.

"This is not a change we want to make, but unfortunately Apple's updates to iOS14 have forced this decision."

The internet firm's system will still be able to target ads in apps made for Android-powered smartphones or tablets, Facebook said.

Apple, which does not rely on digital ad revenue, has been working to limit tracking of online activity and has stressed user privacy as a priority.

5.American Airlines to cut 19,000 jobs in October without aid, workforce shrinking 30%

-26 August 2020

American Airlines said on Tuesday its workforce will shrink by 40,000, including 19,000 involuntary cuts, in October as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to weigh on air travel, unless the government extends aid for airline employee payrolls.

Airlines received $25 billion in U.S. government stimulus funds in March meant to cover payrolls and protect jobs through September. As the money runs out without a travel recovery in sight, airlines and unions have lobbied Washington for another $25 billion, but talks have stalled as Congress has struggled to reach agreement on a broader coronavirus assistance package.

Shares in American, which had 140,000 employees before the pandemic, fell 2.7%.

In a memo to employees, Chief Executive Doug Parker and President Robert Isom said the first relief bill had assumed the virus would be under control and demand recovered by Sept. 30.

"That is obviously not the case," they said.

Texas-based American's announcement comes in the midst of the four-day Republican National Convention, where President Donald Trump is trying to regain momentum against the backdrop of a pandemic that has killed over 175,000 Americans and produced a recession that has resulted in the loss of millions of jobs.

Airlines have argued that the industry is essential to a quick economic recovery.

American's planned job cuts comprise 17,500 furloughs of union workers -including 1,600 pilots and 8,100 flight attendants - and 1,500 management positions.

They are below the 25,000 warning on possible job cuts American sent last month thanks to early retirements and leaves.

Based on current demand levels, American said it now plans to fly less than 50% of its normal schedule in the fourth quarter, with international flying reduced to only a quarter of 2019 levels.

American said last week it was suspending flights to 15 small U.S. cities in October without more federal aid.

United Airlines has warned that 36,000 jobs are on the line but has not announced final cuts.

Among other large U.S. airlines, Delta Air Lines on Monday announced furloughs of nearly 2,000 pilots but has said the numbers could be reduced if they agree to a cut in minimum pay.

Southwest Airlines has said it hopes to avoid involuntary cuts this year thanks to strong demand for voluntary severance packages.

Budget carrier Spirit Airlines' pilot’s union said on Tuesday that nearly half of around 2,500 pilots had agreed to work fewer hours every month to prevent 600 furloughs in October.

 

6.Pakistan registers surplus of $424 million in July: Central bank

-25 August 2020

Cash-strapped Pakistan has shown a surplus of $424 million in July after posting a deficit of $100 million in June, the country's central bank has said.

The State Bank of Pakistan said "this is the fourth monthly surplus since last October."

The SBP said that the strong turnaround in the remittances and exports is achieved "with support from several policy and administrative initiatives taken by the bank and the federal government, the Express Tribune reported.

"Pakistan's current account balance swung into a surplus of $424 mn in July 2020 after posting a deficit of $100 mn in June," it said.

The export of goods increased to $1.89 billion in July compared to $1.58 billion in June. It was, however, 14 per cent lower than $2.22 billion export in July 2019, according to the central bank.

The remittances hit a record high of $2.77 billion in the single month of July compared to $2.47 billion in June and $2.03 billion in July 2019.

The import of goods enhanced by 2 per cent to $3.63 billion in the month compared to $3.56 billion in the previous month. It was, however, 13 per cent lower than $4.18 billion import of July 2019.

Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan on Monday said that the change from deficit into surplus was due to recovery in exports and increase in the remittances.

Next Capital Managing Director Muzammil Aslam said the balance of the current account in surplus is in line with the market expectations.

"The growth in workers' remittances was, however, surprising (in the month of July 2020)," Aslam said.

He said the balance in surplus would at least help the economy to absorb shocks if it encounters any unexpected higher import payments in the remaining months of the fiscal year.

The government has targeted to record the current account balance in deficit in the range of 1-1.25 per cent ($3-3.5 billion) in the year 2020-21 compared to 1.1 per cent (around $3 billion) in the previous fiscal year 2019-2020.

"The surplus in July has made it easier to achieve the set target of the current account deficit," he said.

7.Apple CEO Tim Cook is fulfilling another Steve Jobs vision

-24 August 2020

Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, who died in 2011, was a tough act to follow. But Tim Cook seems to be doing so well at it that his eventual successor may also have big shoes to fill.

Initially seen as a mere caretaker for the iconic franchise that Jobs built before his 2011 death, Cook has forged his own distinctive legacy. He will mark his ninth anniversary as Apple's CEO Monday -- the same day the company will split its stock for the second time during his reign.

Grooming Cook as heir apparent was 'one of Steve Jobs' greatest accomplishments that is vastly underappreciated,'' said long-time Apple analyst Gene Munster, who is now managing partner of Loup Ventures.

The upcoming four-for-one stock split, a move that has no effect on share price but often spurs investor enthusiasm, is one measure of Apple's success under Cook. The company was worth just under $400 billion when Cook the helm; it's worth five times more than that today, and has just become the first U.S. company to boast a market value of $2 trillion. Its share performance has easily eclipsed the benchmark S&P 500, which has roughly tripled in value during the past nine years.

But it hasn't always been easy. Among the challenges Cook has faced: a slowdown in iPhone sales as smartphones matured, a showdown with the FBI over user privacy, a U.S. trade war with China that threatened to force up iPhone prices and now a pandemic that has closed many of Apple's retail stores and sunk the economy into a deep recession.

Cook, 59, has also struck out in into novel territory. Apple now pays a quarterly dividend, a step Jobs resisted partly because he associated shareholder payments with stodgy companies that were past their prime. Cook also used his powerful perch to become an outspoken advocate for civil rights and renewable energy, and on a personal level came out as the first openly gay CEO of a Fortune 500 company in 2014.

Apple declined to make Cook available for an interview. But it did point to 2009 comments Cook made to financial analysts when he was running the company while Jobs battled pancreatic cancer.

Asked what the company might look like under his management, Cook said that Apple needs ``to own and control the primary technologies behind the products we make. `` It has doubled down on that commitment, becoming a major chip producer in order to supply both iPhones and Macs. He added that Apple would resist exploring most projects ``so that we can really focus on the few that are truly important and meaningful to us. ``

That laser focus has served Apple well. At the same time, though, under Cook's stewardship, Apple has largely failed to come up with breakthrough successors to the iPhone. Its smartwatch and wireless ear buds have emerged as market leaders, but not game changers.

Cook and other executives have dropped hints that Apple wants make a big splash in the field of augmented reality, which uses phone screens or high-tech eyewear to paint digital images into the real world. Apple has yet to deliver, although neither have other companies that have hyped the technology.

Apple also remains a laggard in artificial intelligence, particularly in the increasingly important market for voice-activated digital assistants. Although Apple's Siri is widely used on Apple devices, Amazon's Alexa and Google’s digital assistant have made major inroads in helping people manage their lives, particularly in homes and offices.

Apple also has stumbled a few times under Cook's leadership.

In 2017, it alienated customers by deliberately but quietly slowing the performance of older iPhones via a software update, ostensibly to spare the life of aging batteries. Many consumers, though, viewed it as a ploy to boost sales of newer and more expensive iPhones. Amid the furor, Apple offered to replace aging batteries at a steep discount; later it paid $500 million to settle a class-action lawsuit over the matter.

Apple has also faced government investigations into its aggressive efforts to minimize its corporate taxes and complaints that it has abused control of its app store to charge excessive fees and stifle competition to its own digital services. On the tax front, a court ruled in July that Apple did nothing wrong.

Cook has turned the app store into the cornerstone of a services division that he set out to expand four years ago. At the time, it was growing clear that sales of the iPhone -- Apple's biggest money maker -- were destined to slow down as innovations grew sparse and consumers kept their old devices for longer.

To help offset that trend, Cook began to emphasize recurring revenue from app commission, warranty programs and streaming subscriptions to music, video, games and news sold for the more 1.5 billion devices already running on the company's software.

Technology News

                                       ~by GAURAV

1.Apple’s stranglehold on App store blocks innovation Zuckerberg

-29 August 2020

Facebook CEO mark Zuckerberg has slammed apple for its app store policy saying it blocks innovation and allows the tech giant to charge monopoly rents.

Buzzfeed first reported that Zuckerberg told 50,000 employees in a webcast that apple has a unique stranglehold as a gatekeeper on what gatekeeper on what gets on phones.

The Facebook CEO added that App store “block innovation block competition and allows apple to charge monopoly rents.”

Now more than ever we should have the option to help people understand where money they intend for small businesses actual goes a Facebook spokesperson told Fox business on Friday.

Unfortunately, Apple rejected our transparency notice around their 30%tax but we are still working to make that information available inside the app experience.

Facebook gaming app was rejected by Apple For several month before the social network tweaked it for release on iOS devices.

2.N. Korea broadcasts encrypted spy message on YouTube

-28 August 2020

North Korea on Saturday broadcast a series of mysterious number presumed to be an encrypted message to its spies in the south for the first time on YouTube a media report said.

A video clip posted on the state-run radio Pyongyang’s YouTube account, in which a female announcer read what she described as an information technology review assignment of the remote education university for No 719 expedition agents said the Seoul based Yonhap news agency.

She repeated phrases such as no 23 on page 564 no -19 on page 479 for about one minute in the posting.

The number were not broadcast on the radio. north Korea has broadcast such seemingly random number via radio since the cold war era as recently as march 7 and 13.

But this is the first time that Pyongyang has used the global video-sharing platform to send the apparently coded messages.

3.Kids, parents spammed with porn during zoom meet in us

-27 August 2020

In yet another zoom bombing episode a kindergarten orientation in the US turned into a virtual nightmare for parents and kids when the meeting on the popular video meet platform was hacked into and threatening messages.

According to the TV news channel WBRE Ariella colon and her daughter logged into their virtual kindergarten orientation in the school in the state of Pennsylvania when unknown hacker entered the zoom meeting

While we were waiting for everything to start all of sudden,” colon was quoted as saying in the report on Friday.

She and her daughter heard a male voice using racial slurs and foul language.

Then they started messaging us in the chat saying that he we going to rape our children,” a shaken colon said.

Hazleton area school district superintendent Brian up linger was on the zoom feed when the incident occurred. He said it went on for about four minutes.

4.Drone delivery at home to get a boost in post Covid era

-26 August 2020

The Covid -19 pandemic has given a tremendous boost to online delivery speed of the drones will increase and the deliver speed of the drones will increase as technology will see a commercial rollout on a larger scale in the not-too distant future Indian -origin researchers have stressed.

The study found that both the number of last – mile warehouses and the delivery networks will become more decentralized with drones operating at increasingly faster speeds.

It would be reasonable to assume that drone technology is maturing quickly the covid-19 pandemic will perhaps hasten this process said Dr Milind Dawned professor of operation management at the university of Texas at Dallas Naveen Jindal school of management.

Hand -free delivery to one’ doorstep will be an advantage drones can offer in the post Covid era.

5.Apple launches one -year residency programme for AI/ ML experts

-25 August 2020

Apple has introduced a residency programme in Artificial intelligence and machine learning to find niche experts in the new-age technologies.

The AL/ML residency programme invites experts in various files to apply their experts to build revolutionary machine learning and AI empowered products and experiences.

Apple on-device machine learning enables intelligent experiences across our integrated hardware software and services,” the company said in the job description.

As these intelligent experiences solve our user’s problem across disciplines the need for domain experts to understand machine these experts in the ML space.

The year -long programme will welcome resident with STEM graduate degrees or equivalent industry experience software development backgrounds and niche expertise – like design, linguistics, neuroscience, or psychology.