Month: March 2018

An 84-year-old man in Ireland stunned doctors when scans revealed that he seemed to be missing a large chunk of his brain. Instead of brain tissue, the doctors found a 9cm (~3.5 inch) pressurized pocket of air where much of his right frontal lobe ought to be. The doctors reported the discovery recently in BMJ Case Reports.

The empty head space was particularly surprising because the man arrived in the emergency department with afflictions otherwise common for his age. He had been complaining to his regular doctor about repeated falls and feeling unsteady in recent months. When the man added left-sided arm and leg weakness to the list of complaints, his doctor advised him to go to the emergency room, fearing a possible stroke.

Enlarge / The 2024 Paris Olympic Games could be the first to feature non-violent esports as a medal event.

Those pushing for the $1.5 billion esports industry to be considered on equal footing with traditional sports got a big boost back in October when the International Olympic Committee(IOC) said that "competitive 'esports' could be considered as a sporting activity" for Olympic competition. It's becoming increasingly clear, though, that the IOC won't even consider any esports that involve violence, a decision that eliminates many of the space's most popular games.

AliSports, a division of Chinese e-commerce giant AliBaba, found this out directly when trying to negotiate a bid to sponsor an esports competition at an upcoming Olympic games. "In our communication with the Olympics committee, we’ve come to have a better understanding of their values, which is to promote peace,” AliSports CEO Zhang Dazhong told Bloomberg in a recent interview. "That’s why for the future development of eSports, we will focus more on titles that are actually related to sports, instead of games that focus on violence and slaughter."

This isn't the first sign that violent content could stand in the way of esports becoming Olympic sports. IOC President Thomas Bach told the South China Morning Post last August that "we want to promote nondiscrimination, nonviolence, and peace among people. This doesn’t match with video games, which are about violence, explosions, and killing. And there we have to draw a clear line."

Come with us and explore the I.D. Buzz concept. Video shot and edited by Jennifer Hahn. (video link)

After seriously tarnishing its reputation with the diesel scandal, Volkswagen Group has changed strategy. As we reported last September, the company is now heavily committed to electrifying all of its brands by 2030, with 30 new plug-in hybrids and 50 new battery electric vehicles due by that date. On Tuesday, it revealed a crucial part of that plan, called Roadmap E, by locking up a $25 billion supply of batteries.

This isn't one single deal. Rather, VW Group has contracted with suppliers including Samsung and LG Chem, among others. And it's not the end of the story. VW Group says this is just to line up batteries for vehicles to be built in Europe and China; a decision about a supplier for North American production "will be taken shortly," it said in a press release.