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Many know that who ultimately lands in the US White House can impact how US Tech Companies respond as well as their investors. This article discusses some of the potential impacts resulting in a GOP President for Apple and Google https://lnkd.in/bxWft89


Equity markets tend to overreact to the potential for major political policy changes, but a new report by UBS analyst Steven Milunovich indicates that some of the biggest U.S. companies could be facing a real possibility of major tax bills if a Republican is elected president in 2016.

According to Shane Lieberman, Federal Affairs Manager in the U.S. Office of Public Policy for UBS Americas, companies with large hordes of cash overseas, such as Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) and Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ: GOOGL) (NASDAQ: GOOG) may have a lot more riding on the election than investors realize.

Related Link: New Apple Supplier Data Are Highly Correlated With Revenue.

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At Singularity University, space is one of our Global Grand Challenges (GGCs). The GGCs are defined as billion-person problems. They include, for example, water, food, and energy and serve as targets for the innovation and technologies that can make the world a better place.

You might be thinking: We have enough challenges here on Earth—why include space?

We depend on space for telecommunications, conduct key scientific research there, and hope to someday find answers to existential questions like, “Are we alone in the universe?”. More practically, raw materials are abundant beyond Earth, and human exploration and colonization of the Solar System may be a little like buying a species-wide insurance policy against disaster.

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Tough to be a doctor these days — Could be bad news for Providers with limited or no Cyber Risk Coverage.


Providers are focusing on cybersecurity with increased urgency. Cyberattacks on health-care organizations reached an all-time high in 2015 and aren’t expected to slow down in 2016, Harry Greenspun, director for Deloitte’s Center for Health Solutions, told Bloomberg BNA. One element of a comprehensive strategy to address data security is customized cyber risk insurance. Recent case law supports standing for class action litigants alleging future injuries, which may not be covered by some policy forms. We urge providers to review their cyber risk coverage with the increasing risks and this new case law in mind.

Specifically, it is critical that cyber risk insurance is designed to both: adequately mitigate future harm to those whose private information is compromised as a result of a data breach; and satisfy the full array of damages sought by such third parties, including damages for future injuries resulting from the anticipated improper use of data. These considerations are increasingly important because the policies available in today’s market are not standardized. While many absorb some of the costs associated with notification and fraud monitoring, existing forms may not protect against damages sought for susceptibility to identity theft.

The Remijas decision

Last fall, the Seventh Circuit reviewed the “substantial risk” standard for Article III class action standing in Remijas v. Neiman Marcus Group and held that even a 2.5 percentage of compromised credit card holders is enough to show a substantial risk to an entire universe of credit card holders with breached data. 794 F.3d 688, 693 (7th Cir. 2015).

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“Mining in space will take a leap from the realms of science fiction towards commercial reality on Wednesday when Luxembourg launches an official initiative to promote the mining of asteroids for minerals.”

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The game of Go has long been viewed as the most challenging of classic games for artificial intelligence due to its enormous search space and the difficulty of evaluating board positions and moves.

Google DeepMind introduced a new approach to computer Go with their program, AlphaGo, that uses value networks to evaluate board positions and policy networks to select moves. These deep neural networks are trained by a novel combination of supervised learning from human expert games, and reinforcement learning from games of self-play. Without any lookahead search, the neural networks play Go at the level of state-of-the-art Monte-Carlo tree search programs that simulate thousands of random games of self-play. DeepMind also introduce a new search algorithm that combines Monte-Carlo simulation with value and policy networks. Using this search algorithm, our program AlphaGo achieved a 99.8% winning rate against other Go programs, and defeated the European Go champion by 5 games to 0. This is the first time that a computer program has defeated a human professional player in the full-sized game of Go, a feat previously thought to be at least a decade away.

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“I was fortunate enough to meet Prime Minister Justin Trudeau recently. Seeing a young, exciting Prime Minister and his colleagues in action was a breath of fresh air. At Davos, where too many people focus on the negatives, he was optimistic on topics ranging from drug policy to climate change to diversity.”

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MPs in the British Parliament are being asked to consider the question of introducing a universal basic income paid unconditionally to all citizens.

An Early Day Motion on the policy, tabled by Green Party MP Caroline Lucas, calls on the Government to commission research into the idea’s effects and examine its feasibility to replace the UK’s existing social security system.

The motion, which raises the profile of the idea but is very unlikely to be adopted into law, says the policy “has the potential to offer genuine social security to all while boosting entrepreneurialism”.

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Friends,

When Singularity Hypotheses was published, the technological singularity was (barely) a fringe academic topic. Three years later, and the singularity is in the headlines of every magazine and tabloid.

Yet the subject became even more controversial, with some very polarizing views confusing the public.

We’ve decided to help policy makers understand the technological singularity and publish this report. It is intended to clarify the debate, refute common misconceptions, and highlight the open questions.

Please comment below with your views!

Thanks, Amnon.
Sapience Project for Study of Disruptive and Intelligent Computing.

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