Month: March 2021

Enlarge / Vials of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine are seen during the opening of a vaccination centre in Cyprus, on March 22, 2021. (credit: Getty | Etienne Torbey)

Exceeding expectations, AstraZeneca’s two-dose COVID-19 vaccine appeared highly effective against symptomatic and severe disease in a new late-stage trial conducted partly in the US. The company said it is now seeking emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration. However, the vaccine may still be dogged by doubts.

The Phase III trial conducted in the US, Peru, and Chile found that the vaccine was 79 percent effective at preventing symptomatic disease, the company reported early Monday. Previous trial results suggest efficacy could be as low as 62 percent.

In the new 32,449-person trial, two-thirds of participants were dosed with the vaccine while the remaining third were given a placebo. There were five cases of severe disease in the trial, all in the placebo group. None of the vaccinated participants required hospitalization.

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  Valtteri Bottas (L) and Lewis Hamilton (R) shake hands after a race. Bottas gets far more screen time than his teammate, who only broke a number of long-standing F1 records in 2020. It's an odd omission by Netflix. [credit: Netflix ]

Drive to Survive, the fly-on-the-wall documentary about Formula 1 racing, started streaming its third season on Netflix last Friday. Once again, the camera crews were in the right place to capture some spectacular footage, and it's a beautiful thing to watch, particularly in 4K. Fans of the previous two seasons will be treated to more effing and blinding, particularly from Gunther Steiner, team principal for Haas F1. But the devoted F1 follower may well feel short-changed from the 10-episode run that leaves out some of the 2020 season's biggest storylines.

When F1 changed hands in 2017, one major job for the new owners at Liberty Media was to start growing the sport. In years past, F1 repeatedly claimed it was the most-watched sport on the planet after the Olympic Games. But the sport's audience has shrunk precipitously over the past couple of decades, mostly because of pay-per-view TV deals in its key markets like the UK and Germany that took the races off free-to-air channels.

Among the moves that Liberty made was inviting a Netflix documentary crew into the paddock throughout 2018, giving their cameras unprecedented access on race weekends. Most of the teams and drivers were similarly accommodating, although not all—neither Mercedes nor Ferrari agreed to participate, and both teams and their four drivers were virtually absent from season 1. That first season definitely got F1 in front of a lot of new eyeballs, and the absence of megastars like Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel allowed some of the drivers to shine.

Enlarge / The federal courthouse in Marshall, Texas. (credit: Photo by Mario Villafuerte/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

A jury in the plaintiff-friendly Eastern District of Texas has ordered Apple to pay $308.5 million to a small, privately held company for infringing a patent related to digital rights management. 

An expert for Personalized Media Communications, the plaintiff, estimated that Apple owed $240 million. But after a five-day trial, the jury increased the amount by ordering Apple to pay a running royalty, which bases the award on sales or use of a product. 

The jury found that Apple infringed on one of Personalized Media's patents when it developed the FairPlay DRM system. That DRM would form the foundation of the iTunes Music Store, which was introduced in April 2003. Initially, the DRM-locked audio files were limited to Mac and iPod users who purchased music through the iTunes Music Store, though usage expanded when Apple rolled the system out to Windows users later that year and again when the company introduced its Apple Music streaming service in 2015.