The trade-off between using a free service and giving up our personal data becomes much less palatable when we think about the wider ramifications of the collection and use of our personal data

The post Beyond the tick box: What to consider before agreeing to a privacy policy appeared first on WeLiveSecurity

In the latest sign NFTs remain as hot as ever, Google searches for the term continue to outpace 'crypto' and 'Ethereum.'

O-rings and grommets aren’t the same. While they feature a similar shape, they are nuances in their design that affect their utility. For most applications, o-rings and grommets aren’t interchangeable. You may be able to use an o-ring for one … Read More

The phenomena of NFTs has created a stir in the patent and trademark world, and now Mexican legislation is having to play catch-up with EPO policy. Consequently, it is vital to have some local knowledge when it comes to protecting NFT patents in Mexico.

If you're a dedicated stoner, or a part-time dabbler, chances are, you've meditated with weed without even realizing it. Maybe you got way too high, so you spent 10 minutes…

The post Cannabis and meditation: How to pair strains and meditation styles appeared first on Weedmaps News.

By Ximena Aleman, Co-CEO at Prometeo. The booming fintech industry across the globe raised $13.4 billion in the first quarter of 2021, as Covid-19 propelled fintech adoption. And as the sector thrives, swathes of women are coming forward as leaders, but they are still hugely underrepresented. However, in Latin America, where I co-founded an open banking platform, there are five times […]

The post The three challenges of being a female leader in fintech and how to overcome them appeared first on Fintech News.

Long-distance investing may sound like an impossible feat to achieve for many investors. What if something goes wrong in the house? What if something needs fixing? What if there are […]

Chances are that psilocybin or magic mushrooms will be more widely legalized within several years. The progress they have made since 2020 has been extraordinary.  The path from illegality to legality looks remarkably like the journey that cannabis has been on for the last several years. As public sentiment has changed—driven in large part by anecdotal […]

As the NFT and Metaverse gaming space continues to make leaps and bounds in 2022, we are slowly witnessing the evolution of the gaming space – not only in terms of story, character and gameplay but also the underlying economies which form the financial foundations of a given project. One example of this is Wizardia. Wizardia is an upcoming play-to-earn fantasy Metaverse game where players take on the role of unique wizards represented by NFTs and battle each other in a bid to earn valuable resources and level up their NFT avatars. Wizardia is built atop the Solana (SOL) blockchain, a low-fee Proof-of-Stake (PoS) network that rose to become one of the most popular destinations for developers to set up dApps in 2021. Conceptual Art – The Battle Arena While Wizardia gives players the chance to increase the value of their NFTs through standard gameplay, another aspect of the game’s NFT-based economy has drawn attention in recent weeks for the way it generates royalties over time. Earn Royalties for the Game’s Duration Comprising a two-NFT economy, Wizardia’s in-game Wizard NFTs are accompanied by Arena Genesis NFTs – tokens that give holders exclusive rights to earn royalties from all future battles and transactions conducted in the game’s Battle Arena. In essence, this means early investors can purchase Arena Genesis NFTs and sit back and collect ever-increasing royalties as more and more players enter the game world and engage in Arena battles. Notably, holders of Arena Genesis NFTs don’t even need to participate in gameplay, instead, the NFTs are staked in the platform and owners will reap rewards in the form of tokens.                Arena Genesis NFT (1st round) That investment is one that promises to pay off for the duration of the game’s existence. Much like profits generated from the successful activities of a given company, Arena Genesis NFT holders will accrue royalties from in-game transactions as time goes on. A quick glance at Wizardia’s revenue projection calculator reveals the potential royalties for investors who get in during the first round of the Arena Genesis NFT private sale – a figure no less than 100% ROI (return on investment) per month, assuming a player base of 30,000. Please note that this is just a projection that depends on many variables, such as the number of daily game users, number of daily fights, or the Wizardia token price – and no royalties are 100% guaranteed. Revenue Projection Calculator Not Just the Early Bird Who Gets the Worm Conceptual Art – The Battle Arena Potential royalties to be gained from Arena Genesis NFTs fluctuate according to the increasing price of the tokens as Wizardia progresses through each subsequent round of its public sale – of which there are seven. The difference between the cost of the NFTs between round one and round seven of the private sale are quite stark – ranging from $125 per token to $445. However, while the incentive to take part in the earliest rounds of the sale is clearly apparent, the way Wizardia’s royalty generation is constructed also gives late-stage investors a good chance of reaping serious rewards. This is because the value generated from the Arena Genesis NFTs naturally increases as more and more players enter the game world. Additionally, a portion of the royalties generated from all subsequent sales rounds will make its way to the early-stage investors, meaning they will start generating royalties before a battle is even conducted in the game. This novel approach to NFT revenue builds on the royalty structure of popular NFT platforms like OpenSea, where royalties are earned each time an NFT is sold on. With Wizardia’s Genesis NFTs, the tokens needn’t be sold in order to generate continual royalties, but instead act as early-bird royalties in the ongoing progress of the project. What’s more, the prospect of actually selling an NFT on OpenSea – where the market is already approaching saturation point – is never wholly assured. The first phase of Wizardia’s Arena Genesis NFT public sale will be conducted in early February, with later phases of the sale set to be held throughout the early part of 2022. The game’s battle arena game mode is slated for release by the end of Q2 of this year, meaning Genesis NFT holders will be able to start earning passive income from in-game battles very soon. Wizardia is giving away $10,000 worth of prizes to its community. Up for grabs to community members who participate in the airdrop is $10,000 USDT split by 90 randomly selected lucky winners, all distributed on Binance Smart Chain. The airdrop ends on February 7th. Register now to enter the free giveaway.

Medtronic  announced that its Intellis™ neurostimulator and the Vanta™ neurostimulator have both received approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of chronic pain associated with diabetic peripheral neuropathy (DPN), in a January 24, 2022 press release. The approval grants patients suffering from DPN access to both products within Medtronic’s spinal cord stimulation (SCS) portfolio.  The Intellis^TM neurostimulator is rechargeable whereas the Vanta^TM neurostimulator is recharge-free .

DPN, also referred to also as painful diabetic neuropathy (PDN), is a neurological disorder that impacts about 30% of individuals with diabetes, according to the press release. DPN occurs when high blood sugar levels damage nerves causing numbness, burning, or stabbing pain. Charlie Covert, a Medtronic vice president and general manager, views the new approvals as another example of Medtronic’s expertise:

DPN is a significant challenge for patients with diabetes, leading to disability and a diminished quality of life . . . This new indication enables us to apply Medtronic’s more than 40 years of proven SCS experience, as well as the company’s deep diabetes expertise, to deliver better care to even greater numbers of diabetes patients

According to the press release, Medtronic estimates that the US market revenue for SCS treatment of chronic pain associated with DPN is approximately $70 million and expects market revenue to grow to $300 million by fiscal year 2026.

With the new approval, Medtronic’s Intellis^TM and Vanta^TM neurostimulator products now join Nevro’s HFX^TM for PDN as the only SCS devices with FDA approval for treatment of DPN/PDN. Nevro’s Chairman, CEO, and President, D. Keith Grossman, responded to the FDA’s approval of the Intellis^TM and Vanta^TM neurostimulators in a press release, stating:

PDN represents a very large potential market, and having another competitor validate this large opportunity speaks to its attractiveness.

Nevro announced the FDA’s approval of its HFX^TM on July 19, 2021.

The post Medtronic’s Intellis and Vanta Neurostimulators Receive FDA Approval for DPN appeared first on Knobbe Medical.

Home is no longer just the place we relax or sleep. The concept of homes as we know them has shifted—and consumers have adapted to it.

The post How to Sell Home Decor Online: The Ultimate Guide appeared first on A Better Lemonade Stand.

The capacity for analog chips is expected to grow, but it is unlikely to be sufficient to meet the increased demand for chips in cars; therefore, the supply may tighten again around the end of 2023.

The automotive semiconductor supply tightness will likely ease in 2022 and in the first half of 2023. However, there is a risk of pressure points building up again at the end of 2023 or early 2024. According to IHS Markit's analysis, new concerns are emerging over the supply of analog chips. After microcontrollers (MCU) in 2021, analog chips are likely to become the main constraint for vehicle production for the next three years.

The two major chip categories that have been most affected by shortages are MCUs and analog chips. Earlier in 2021, MCUs received all the attention. The proprietary nature of MCUs made it virtually impossible to have dual sources of MCUs for an electronic control unit (ECU) because of software and pinout differences at a minimum. MCUs are manufactured on process nodes typically above 40 nanometers (nm), with some of them now starting to be processed at 28 nm. As memory and system-on-chips (SoCs) have captured more of the semiconductor market share, investment has been concentrated more on the advanced nodes to support growth in those areas and less has been focused on mature process nodes.

There is an ongoing trend toward centralization of the electrical/electronic (E/E) architecture, and it would result in a smaller number of MCUs per vehicle. However, migrating to new architectures and smaller process nodes is not beneficial for all types of chips. For example, demand for analog chips will continue to increase independently of new E/E architectures since they are an essential part of many vehicle systems. Hundreds of analog chips are required per car. All the following require analog chips: power management of every ECU and SoC, signal conditioning for sensors, bus transceivers for every ECU, drivers for each electric motor (up to 100 in luxury cars), LED lamps, displays, radar transceivers, high-end audio systems, and radio frequency (RF) front ends.

Now that the supply of MCUs is in a better shape, analog chip supply is emerging as an issue. Analog chips typically use mature chip processes, e.g., 90 nm to 300 nm. There are technical and commercial reasons why these will continue to be produced at mature progress nodes and not at leading-edge process nodes. Unfortunately, the demand for analog chips is also increasing for mobile phones—for the RF front-end, the sensor processing, the high-end audio, and the contactless payment, to name a few. Considering the growth in vehicle segments and propulsion mix, the average number of analog chips per car is expected to increase by 26% in 2023 compared with 2021. This growth can be mainly attributed to the ongoing electrification trend.

There is a front-end capacity deficit for mature process nodes as most of the investment goes toward more advanced nodes. According to our analysis, out of the total capital expenditure announced in 2021 and 2022, 86% is directed at advanced technologies requiring just a few chips in the car, while only 12% is for the mature process, which is used to produce more than 90% of the chips in the car. With the increase in demand for analog chips, irrespective of the change in E/E architectures, this imbalance in announced capital expenditure could cause future bottlenecks for analog chips and other legacy nodes.

Short-term outlook for light vehicle production

The expected shortage in analog chip supply will have a negative impact on light vehicle production. However, in an optimistic scenario, a decline in demand for analog chips by other industries could result in an improved foundry capacity allocation for the automotive industry. Under this scenario, it is also assumed that the output of analog fabs will continue to increase at a similar pace in the first quarter of 2022 through the third quarter of 2022 before slowing down. In such a scenario, analog chip production capacity added per quarter will peak by the fourth quarter of 2023.

Steady demand for analog chips from other industries could stabilize the capacity allocation for the automotive industry. This is considered a conservative scenario. This scenario also anticipates the output of analog fabs to increase at a normal pace from early 2022. The amount of analog production capacity added per quarter will flatten by second-quarter 2023. In the median scenario, the estimated year-on-year increase in analog chip production will be 18% in 2022 and 13% in 2023.

To analyze the impact on car production, this capacity is converted into the maximum number of cars that could be built in 2022 and 2023. This shows a potential ceiling for car production of around 24 million units per quarter from the third quarter of 2022 onward and a decline in car production from the end of 2023 to early 2024. Predominantly, this can be attributed to the expected growth in the number of chips per vehicle in the next few years. In comparison with 2021, the average number of analog chips per car is going to be much higher in 2023. The available extra capacity is insufficient to meet the fast increase of analog chips in cars, driven by ongoing trends such as electrification and a higher number of infotainment and advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) features.

The semiconductor chip capacity will grow, but hardly fast enough to meet the increased demand for analog chips in cars. After MCUs in 2021, analog chips are likely to become the main constraint for vehicle production in the next three years. The number of analog chips per car increases faster than MCUs irrespective of propulsion type, sales segment, and E/E architecture. These analog chips are also in high demand in many other industries such as the smartphone and consumer electronics industries.

Current capital expenditure and capacity trajectory show that situations might improve for the automotive industry in 2022 and early 2023. A supply tightness may be formed toward the end of 2023 or early 2024. This is dependent upon several parameters, such as capacity growth for mature nodes, the analog fab capacity allocation for the automotive industry, and demand for analog chips by other industries. In the coming years, considering the efforts by various players in the automotive ecosystem, there could be more investments for the expansion of analog capacity to lift the potential ceiling for car production. Automakers are working on establishing better visibility to the semiconductor supply chain by forming more direct relationships with foundries. This could result in improved capacity allocation for the automotive industry and improved vehicle production capacity in 2023 and beyond.

Authors:
Jeremie Bouchaud - Director, Autonomy, E/E & Semiconductor, IHS Markit
Hrishikesh S - Research Analyst, Automotive, IHS Markit

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