3MTB Newsletter - How China built a hospital in 2 weeks, Mastercard CEO thrashes Facebook's Libra, An 1896 video gets a new life, and more
“When you don't understand how money gets made, it gets made in ways you don't like"
-- Ajay Banga, Mastercard CEO, on his decision to withdraw from Facebook’s Libra.
Some bits,
Apple Watch outsold the entire Swiss Watch industry last year. Apple sold 31 million units of its watch, while Swiss Watches sold only 21.1 million.
Google Maps completes 15 years, and it gets a new logo along with new features with new tabs like Saved, Contribute & Updates.
Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), owner of New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) has shown interest in buying eBay for $30 billion. Now, it has abandoned the plan after severe investor backlash.
The Trump administration is pushing American companies including Dell, Microsoft and other Telecom providers to create standards for 5G, in a renewed push to sideline Huawei's technology in 5G.
What is Libra?
Libra is a proposed (not live or real yet) Blockchain based global crypto currency from Facebook. Something like Bitcoin, but with supposedly more transparency. Initially Many companies such as Visa, Mastercard, PayPal, Stripe, etc initially joined the consortium, but withdrew later.
The June 2019 proposal sent the Central Banks of various countries scrambling and received lots of skepticism due to Facebook’s notorious history of bungling with data privacy.
Mastercard CEO brutally thrashes Facebook’s Libra left, right and center
Ajay Banga, Mastercard CEO, in an interview to Financial Times, reasoned why the company pulled itself from the Facebook backed Libra Consortium. Needless to say, his comments were brutal.
Ajay expressed concerns on basic financial tenets like Know Your Customer (KYC), Anti Money Laundering (AML), etc along with concerns of how Libra could make money. When he raised concerns about the currency to be compliant with local laws, Ajay said that the key partners were reluctant to put anything in writing.
How did China construct a 1000-bed hospital in 2 weeks?
To start, the blueprint was based on an hospital constructed at Beijing in 2003 to handle SARS patients. Then pre-fabricated units were built offsite while the construction of the foundation was being done in parallel. Then it is a matter of arranging the pre-fabricated units altogether, LEGO brick style.
But, one can be easily reminded of Hotel California. The units are designed in such a way that the patient cannot open the door from inside of the ward.
The first ever video (1896) gets a new life using AI
Auguste & Louis Lumière, a.k.a Lumière brothers, showcased the first ever video taken in January 1896. It was a 50-second video of The Arrival of a train at La Ciotat Station. Anyone watching old videos (like those of Charlie Chaplin) can easily relate to how comical they appear with fast movements.
Now, a nerd named Denis Shiryaev, upscaled the original video using publicly available AI tools to a new 4K, 60 fps Color format. The results are stunning. Watch the old video first before viewing the upscaled videos.
The original video
The Upscaled 4K 60fps video
The Upscaled color video
Denis used freely available tools like Gigapixel AI from Topaz Labs for upscaling to 4K, Dain for adding the missing frames, and DeOldify to add color.
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Adios,
-SK