Lifeboat Foundation

PlayStation users will now see an extra 9 percent tax applied to some purchases on the platform.

Sony has agreed to comply with Chicago’s amusement tax, leaving PlayStation users to face an extra 9 percent tax on streaming and rental services, effective Nov. 14. This latest expansion of the city’s amusement tax will apply to purchases such as rentals, but not full sales of games.

The city’s amusement tax used to mostly apply to purchases of concert and sporting event tickets. However, the Chicago Department of Finance ruled in 2015 that the tax covered streaming services such as Netflix, Hulu and Spotify. This expansion of the amusement tax is commonly dubbed the “Netflix tax” or the “cloud tax.” In addition to being regressive, it is also likely illegal.

Continue reading “Chicago slaps PlayStation users with expansion of 9 percent amusement tax” »

More than an ordinary aerial drone but not quite a satellite, a huge solar-powered airplane with three tails and wings wider than a jumbo jet’s will soon be taking to the skies.

Odysseus, developed by Boeing subsidiary Aurora Flight Sciences of Manassas, Virginia, is one of the largest unpiloted aircraft ever built — and one of the lightest. It has a 243-foot wingspan but weighs less than a small car, the company says. Its six electrically powered propellers will be driven by energy from hundreds of solar panels that cover the aircraft’s exterior or from banks of rechargeable batteries on board, depending on the available sunlight.

With a top speed of 100 miles an hour, Odysseus won’t be very fast. But it’s designed to soar to altitudes above 60,000 feet and stay aloft for months at a time.

Continue reading “Huge, high-flying ‘pseudo-satellite’ will soon take to the skies” »

https://upjourney.com/exciting-healthcare-startups-to-watch-…6Ah4-sGT_c

Store some stem cells for a rainy day.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s administration now is pivoting toward promoting EVs in public transportation and fleet operations – primarily, two- and three-wheelers, taxis and buses. The Ministry of Finance is finalizing a plan to spend about 40 billion rupees ($600 million) in the next five years to improve the nation’s charging infrastructure and subsidize e-buses.

An electric-vehicle revolution is gaining ground in India, and it has nothing to do with cars.

The South Asian nation is home to about 1.5 million battery-powered, three-wheeled rickshaws – a fleet bigger than the total number of electric passenger cars sold in China since 2011. But while the world’s largest auto market dangled significant subsidies to encourage purchases of battery-powered cars, India’s e-movement hardly got a hand from the state.

Continue reading “India’s Rickshaw Revolution Leaves China in the Dust” »

Congratulations to the Forest Organics team and their awesome new site — https://www.myforestorganics.com/

A single PET scan is over 3k.

A new study delivers the dark financial reality of cancer.

Continue reading “42 Percent of New Cancer Patients Lose Their Life Savings” »

Can stablecoins live up to their name?

Crop Trust guards about one million varieties of seeds in a mountain in Svalbard, Norway. The doomsday vault is the back-up for 1,700 seed banks worldwide, in the event of some future apocalypse.

The term “conservation” may bring wildlife or land preservation to mind. But what about the food we eat?

According to Crop Trust, an international organization working to safeguard agriculture, we only use about 1 percent of available crops to fuel our diets. That could put the future of our food system at risk.

Continue reading “Food you’ve never heard of could end hunger” »