In the first emergency episode of 2025, Kate, Leah and Melissa break down the Court’s unanimous decision to uphold the upcoming TikTok ban in the United States. They cover the implications and possible unintended consequences, and Leah bids farewell to her personal Chinese spy.
Get tickets for STRICT SCRUTINY LIVE – The Bad Decisions Tour 2025!
Ranjan Roy from Margins is back for our weekly discussion of the latest tech news. We cover 1) Supreme Court upholds TikTok ban 2) Will Apple and Google comply even if the White House doesn't enforce? 3) What does TikTok's behavior tell us about its ties to China's government? 4) How TikTok might stick around 5) Will Elon Musk buy TikTok 6) TikTok CEO Shou Chew is going to sit at the dias during Trump's inauguration 7) Chinese app Little Red Book, or RedNote takes off 8) Does China want Americans on RedNote? 9) DJI removes some restrictions for drones 10) ChatGPT can handle to-dos and set reminders now 11) Are we going to fall in love with AI assistants 12) Why MBAs can't get jobs 13) Is AI going to replace MBAs.
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Music
Sincerely Yours by LLLL
Across the Other Side by Infinite Scale
Sunset by Resavoir
Mammoth by Golden Brown
Unassigned by Vernon Spring
Swimming by Explosions in the Sky
Pure (Ride the World) by The Brendan Eder Ensemble
Le Tunnel by Sylvain Chauveau
Floating Away by Lullatone
Notes
There's a ton written about Emma Rowena Gatewood but so much of it, including this story, owes a huge debt to Ben Montgomery's book, Grandma Gatewood's Walk, which excavated the story of her life with her husband. Besides that, it is wonderfully written. Totally recommend it.
The deal having been struck, the hostage question now goes to which hostages emerge first and in what condition and what this will do to the Israeli people. As Trump prepares for his second inaugural, what is his moral framework going to be, if there will be any? And what is this nonsense Chuck Schumer is telling the New York Times about how brave he was to tell Joe Biden not to run? Give a listen.
Colin and Will cover the Tether and Swan Bitcoin lawsuit and other news on this week’s roundup.
Welcome back to The Mining Pod! For this week’s news roundup, Colin and Will dig into Tether’s lawsuit against Swan Bitcoin, the latest development in a now two-front legal dispute over the companies’ bitcoin mining joint venture. Plus, the U.S. government is issuing trade restrictions against Sophgo, a Chinese computer chip company helmed by Bitmain CEO Micree Zhan, and F2Pool might be filtering transactions from OFAC-sanctioned Bitcoin addresses again. And finally, for this week’s cry corner, a Bitcoin mining company’s guerrilla sales tactic to get Ethereum DeFi platform AAVE to invest its treasury into bitcoin mining.
Timestamps:
00:00 Start
02:30 Difficulty report
04:49 Tether sues Swan
16:14 BitFuFu Plans Oklahoma Mine
24:52 F2Pool Censoring TXs
33:37 Cry corner: AAVE to mine BTC?
Published twice weekly, "The Mining Pod" interviews the best builders and operators in the Bitcoin and Bitcoin mining landscape. Subscribe to get notifications when we publish interviews on Tuesday and a news show on Friday!
Canadian mining giant Barrick halted its operations in Mali after the government seized gold stocks worth $245 million.
What's the story behind the Nigerian words added to the Oxford English dictionary ?
And what the death of the warlord turned politician Prince Yormie Johnson means for Liberia.
Presenter: Audrey Brown
Producers: Frenny Jowi in Nairobi with Victor Sylver, Blessing Aderogba, Rob Wilson, and Nyasha Michelle in London.
Senior Producer: Paul Bakibinga
Technical Producer:Craig Kingham
Editors : Andre Lombard and Alice Muthengi
Ted Nolan’s home on the Garden River First Nation reserve in northern Ontario didn’t have electricity or running water, but it did have a hockey rink in the backyard that Nolan built to satisfy his own passion to play. That passion grew into a successful hockey playing and coaching career that included the Jack Adams Award as NHL Coach of the Year. In his book, Life in Two Worlds: A Coach's Journey from the Reserve to the NHL and Back, Nolan recounts both pride in his Indigenous identity and overt racism as he worked to excel in his sport.
This episode features a brief check-in with Ochuko Ogra, Chief Transformation and Strategy Officer at Backbone Connectivity Network (BCN), sketching Nigeria's digital infrastructure landscape.
Episode overview:
BCN has over 1,000 km of wholly-owned fibre infrastructure, primarily in the North-Central and North Eastern parts of Nigeria. Citing its stronghold in Northern Nigeria to its expanding national footprint, Ogra shares how BCN is leveraging its two decades of experience in Nigerian telecommunications to drive the country's digital transformation agenda.
Key insights:
- Nigeria currently has 8 subsea cables landing in the country
- The country's 200+ million population presents significant opportunities across retail and enterprise segments in country and to its West African neighbours
- A young, digitally-native population is driving content creation and digital service adoption
- BCN's approach emphasises customer value creation across both enterprise and end-user segments
- The company's strong presence in Northern Nigeria positions it well for national expansion
- Strategic focus encompasses education, healthcare and public sector digitalisation
- Government commitment to digital transformation includes a 92,000km fibre network initiative
- Emphasis on business collaboration over competition in emerging technology integration
Editorial Note: This podcast conversation was recorded at the fringes of NOVACOM Africa 1-to-1 Telco Summit 2024 in Franschhoek, South Africa, where African Tech Roundup's executive producer Andile Masuku attended as an independent media guest. African Tech Roundup maintains complete editorial oversight and is not affiliated with the event organisers.
Image credit: Nova Summits Limited
Awaiting a Gaza hostage release. The clock ticks down for Tiktok. Los Angeles landslide risk. CBS News Correspondent Steve Kathan has today's World News Roundup.
