Month: July 2018

Enlarge (credit: Jonathan / Flickr)

After a couple decades of dramatic economic growth, China (with its population of almost 1.4 billion) is now emitting more greenhouses gas that any other single nation. That means that China’s emission trends are incredibly important to watch if you care about the future of climate change. After China signed onto the Paris Agreement in 2015 and pledged to ensure its emissions would stop increasing by 2030, a surprising thing happened: it became apparent that China’s emissions had already dropped.

So what’s going on? Has China met its pledge 15 years early or is this just a bump in an otherwise rising road caused by a temporary economic downturn? Much has been made of this question, and a team of researchers led by Dabo Guan and Jing Meng added a new analysis to the discussion this week.

The team’s first step is to update annual emissions totals (through 2016). A number of different groups have produced estimates, and this updated version comes in at the low end. It also makes 2013 stand out as a slightly stronger peak, with 2014-2016 clearly lower.

Enlarge / Trump with Chinese president Xi Jinping in 2017. (credit: FRED DUFOUR/AFP/Getty Images)

The Chinese smartphone giant ZTE has completely replaced its corporate leadership, naming new people to be CEO, CTO, CFO, and several vice presidents. The new CEO of ZTE will be Xu Ziyang, a former head of ZTE's German operations who has worked at the company for two decades.

The move comes a week after ZTE named a new board of directors. The US government demanded that ZTE make these changes as a condition of lifting a crippling export ban against the company.

That export ban was the culmination of a years-long conflict between ZTE and the US government over the company's sale of US technology to Iran and North Korea in violation of US sanctions rules. The US negotiated a settlement deal with ZTE last year, but early this year the US government said that ZTE had failed to keep its promises under the deal.

Enlarge / SALISBURY, ENGLAND - JULY 05: Police officers stand at a cordon around a supported housing project in Salisbury after a major incident was declared when a man and woman were exposed to the Novichok nerve agent. (credit: Getty | Jack Taylor)

British officials are consulting with allies over a possible response to Russia after officials confirmed on Wednesday a second case of poisonings on British soil with a nerve agent in Russia’s Novichok series.

In the new case, a couple—which multiple media outlets have identified as Charlie Rowley, 45, and Dawn Sturgess, 44—became ill and lost consciousness on Saturday in Amesbury, a town in Wiltshire, England. Their location was just a few miles away from where former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his adult daughter, Yulia, were poisoned in March with a Novichok agent. On Wednesday, Scotland Yard reported that a chemical analysis identified the same Novichok agent as the cause of the new poisonings.

Britain’s home secretary Sajid Javid on Thursday called on Moscow to explain “exactly what has gone on” and said that the country will be “consulting with our international partners and allies following these latest developments.”

Greetings, Arsians! Courtesy of our friends at TechBargains, we have another round of deals to share. Today's list is led by a deal on Sennheiser's HD1 Wireless noise-cancelling headphones, which are down to an all-time low of $280 on Amazon.

These headphones used to normally retail for $500, dropped closer to $400 this year, and have fluctuated in the $300-340 range over the past few weeks. At $280, they're still expensive, but that money gets you a pair of decidedly high-end cans. The retro design is comfortable and well-padded, and while their noise cancellation isn't as strong as Bose's QuietComfort series—and can't be turned off—it's still capable enough to block out most noisy environments.

What you're mostly paying for here is audio quality: for a pair of wireless headphones, the HD1 Wireless sound smooth and balanced, with clear mids, good depth, and hearty bass that doesn't go overboard. And they get a solid 20 hours of battery life on top of that.

Enlarge (credit: Amazon)

Amazon's move into retail meatspace has largely hinged around opening (or acquiring) brick-and-mortar stores. But this holiday, the online retailer will reportedly try something different: printed catalogs.

As in, a massive, holiday-themed catalog dedicated entirely to toys—to conveniently fill the void left behind by the recently shuttered Toys 'R Us chain in the United States.

Bloomberg, citing "people who asked not to be named," reported on Wednesday that Amazon's toy-specific catalog will be mailed to "millions" of Amazon shoppers' homes and will also be given away for free at Whole Foods locations. While the report compared this catalog to similar holiday toy catalogs from Toys 'R Us, Target, and other big-box retailers, it did not confirm whether Amazon's planned book will be as big as those 100-plus-page catalogs. The report also didn't clarify if or how the book will include price information, since the site hinges so largely on dynamic pricing and Prime-exclusive deals.

Enlarge / California State Capitol building in Sacramento. (credit: Getty Images | joe chan photography)

A California net neutrality bill that could impose the toughest rules in the country is being resurrected.

The bill was approved in its strongest form by the California Senate, but it was then gutted by the State Assembly's Communications Committee, which approved the bill only after eliminating provisions opposed by AT&T and cable lobbyists. Bill author Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) has been negotiating with Communications Committee Chairman Miguel Santiago (D-Los Angeles) and other lawmakers since then, and he announced the results today.

Wiener said the agreement with Santiago and other lawmakers resulted in "legislation implementing the strongest net neutrality protections in the nation."