Elizabeth Holmes is found guilty of defrauding investors, Apple hits a milestone, and the time to retire internal combustion engines may be upon us.
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That’s all the tech news that’s trending right now, welcome to Hashtag Trending. It’s Wednesday, January 5, and I’m your host, Tom Li.
Elizabeth Holmes, Former CEO and founder of Theranos, has been found guilty on charges of wire fraud. According to an article from Engadget, she faces up to 20 years in jail for defrauding investors in her blood-testing company. Of the 11 total charges, Holmes was found guilty on four. The charges include conspiracy to defraud investors and three counts of wire fraud against individual investors. She was found not guilty on four other charges, which include one count of conspiracy to defraud patients, two counts of fraud against investors, and one count of wire fraud stemming from ads the company ran in Arizona.
Apple is starting off the new year strong by becoming the first company with a $3 trillion market cap. On Monday, the Silicon Valley company’s shares hit an intraday record high of $182.88, putting Apple’s market value just above $3 trillion. The stock ended the session up 2.5 per cent at $182.01, with Apple’s market capitalization at $2.99 trillion. This milestone, according to an article from Reuters, is lifted by investors’ confidence that the company will continue launching best-selling products as it ventures into new markets like automated cars and virtual reality.
And finally, an article by Ars Technica is reporting the possible impending extinction of the internal combustion engine. On December 23, Hyundai Motor Group shuttered its internal combustion engine research and development division. Rather than developing new gasoline- or diesel-powered engines, Hyundai’s researchers and engineers will work on electric powertrains. Ars Technica said Hyundai is already competitive in the electric vehicle field and is looking to focus on it in 2022.
Fruits and vegetables going bad in a short period of time is a common issue many of us have. To combat this issue, researchers have created smart food packaging that can slowly release microbial, killing vegetable-rotting bacteria and keeping them fresh for longer. The technology has been developed by researchers from Harvard and the Nanyang Technological University. The material is made through a process dubbed electrospinning. This is where charged threads of polymer solution are drawn out into fibres. The important material in this is a protein dubbed zein that is a waste by-product released from corn starch or oils, during the production of ethanol. The packaging material was tested on a batch of strawberries which lasted for seven days compared to four days when stored in a regular container.
That’s all the tech news that’s trending right now. Hashtag Trending is a part of the ITWC Podcast network. Add us to your Alexa Flash briefings or your Google Home daily briefing. Make sure to sign up for our Daily IT Wire newsletter to get all the news that matters directly in your inbox every day. Also, if you have a suggestion or a tip, drop us a line in the comments or via email. Thank you for listening, I’m Tom Li.