By Elizabeth Howcroft

LONDON (Reuters) – What do you do with a $69 million artwork that doesn’t physically exist?

That’s the question faced by the Singapore-based investor calling himself Metakovan, who made headlines last month when he bought the digital artwork “Everydays: The First 5000 Days” by the American artist Beeple at Christie’s.

The work is a non-fungible token (NFT) – a new type of virtual asset that has its ownership status and authenticity verified by blockchain. NFTs have exploded in popularity in 2021, with prices skyrocketing.

Metakovan, real name Vignesh Sundaresan, plans to put the artwork on display in four virtual world environments. He is working with architects to design gallery complexes that the public can enter via web browsers or virtual reality technology.

But art is just one part of a new economy of blockchain-based virtual worlds where land, buildings, avatars and even names can be bought and sold as NFTs, often fetching hundreds of thousands of dollars. In these environments, referred to as the metaverse, people can wander around with friends, visit virtual buildings and attend virtual events.

Metakovan’s plans are an ambitious undertaking, but he says he is the world’s biggest NFT investor. His collection of NFTs and other crypto assets, the Metapurse fund, is valued at $189 million, according to NonFungible.com, a site that aggregates sales history data from NFT marketplaces.

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A 2021 remake of Get Shorty might not have much use for John Travolta’s Miami mobster character. The debt collector role could go to a bot.

You can test this hypothesis in a most unlikely place to roll out a new technology: the Indian countryside. The setting is perhaps not as odd as it seems, with about 5% to 10% of the country’s farmers not repaying their tractor loans on time. The explanations for tardiness range from failed crops to medical emergencies and strategic defaults in anticipation of state-mandated debt waivers, a regular feature of the political economy.

But delinquency often stems from more mundane reasons: Borrowers forget their due dates, or fail to withdraw cash to pay the nonbank financiers who provide the bulk of loans for farm equipment purchases.

Like in most emerging markets, these last-mile hurdles pose a frustratingly complex challenge to India’s creditors. They also increase the overall risk premium for rural advances.

Of late, three things have changed. First, the world’s cheapest data prices have made smartphones ubiquitous. Second, a strong push for financial inclusion has seen more than 400 million no-frills savings accounts opened in the last seven years. Finally, banks are now on a nationwide mobile payment network that is fast, convenient and supports apps like Google Pay and Walmart Inc.’s PhonePe. Google has even recommended the architecture to the U. S. Federal Reserve.

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HSBC Holdings Plc has scrapped the executive floor of its Canary Wharf headquarters in London and turned the private offices of its top staff into client meeting rooms and collaborative spaces.

Chief Executive Officer Noel Quinn and other senior managers have been kicked out of their offices on the 42nd-floor and will hot desk on an open-plan floor two storeys below, Quinn told the Financial Times in an interview. The offices were empty half of the time because senior staff were traveling around the world, which was a “waste of real estate,” he said.

Quinn told the newspaper that he won’t be in the office five days a week, saying “it’s unnecessary” and “the new reality of life.” A representative for HSBC confirmed the FT report to Bloomberg News.

The London-based bank, which expects to eventually shrink its property footprint by 40%, doesn’t plan to renew many of its city-center leases due in the next three to five years, Quinn said. The lender is also shifting to a policy of about two employees per desk, excluding branches, he said.

Last year’s abrupt shift to remote working has sparked a debate across industries about future demand for office space, prompting a number of global banks and other large firms to rethink how employees operate. Standard Chartered Plc this month formalized hybrid working for staff across its global operations after 84% of employees asked to keep the flexible arrangements pioneered during the coronavirus pandemic.

Still, not all banks are embracing a permanent shift to working from home. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Chief Executive Officer David Solomon said in February that remote work was “an aberration that we are going to correct as quickly as possible.”

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US space agency NASA is set to launch SpaceX Crew Dragon second flight to the International Space Station on April 22, it said.

The Crew-2 with four astronauts on board, will lift-off at 6:11 a.m. EDT on April 22, from Launch Complex 39A at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The Crew-2 flight will carry NASA astronauts Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur — whoa-will serve as the mission’s spacecraft commander and pilot, respectively — along with JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronauta-Akihikoa-Hoshidea-and ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Thomasa-Pesquet, whoa-will serve as mission specialists to the space station, the space agency said in a statement.

The mission is the second of the six certified, crew missions NASA, and SpaceX will fly as a part of the agency’s Commercial Crew Programme. Crew-1 successfully docked into the ISS in November, last year.

The Crew-2 astronauts will remain aboard the space station for approximately six months as expedition crew members, along with three crewmates who will launch via a Russian Soyuz spacecraft.

The increase of the full space station crew complement to seven members — over the previous six – will allow NASA to effectively double the amount of science that can be conducted in space, NASA said.

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Smartphone maker OPPO on Friday said that it is all set to launch A74 5G in India on April 20.

According to the company, the upcoming smartphone is going to be company’s first 5G-ready phone under Rs 20,000.

The brand has been consistently working to bring in customer-centric meaningful innovations and advanced technologies across its portfolio, the company said in a statement.

This is OPPO’s first phone with 5G compatibility in the pocket friendly segment, it added.

The upcoming smartphone will a 90Hz refresh rate.

According to GizmoChina, the smartphone might feature a 6.5-inch IPS LCD screen that delivers an FHD+ resolution.

It is likely to be powered by Snapdragon 480 chipset and paired with 6GB RAM and 128GB internal storage.

OPPO A series phones have time and again proved expertise in delivering futuristic state-of-the art technology innovations, user-friendly design aesthetics, trendy and fashionable form factor and all this at a competitive price point, the company said.

The Chinese smartphone maker recently launched a new smartphone under its F series, F19, for the India market.

Priced at Rs 18,990 for the sole 6GB+128GB storage variant, OPPO F19 comes in two colour variants — prism black and midnight blue.

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Apple is all set for its first event of the year on April 20 and media reports suggest that new iPads with 5G support and Apple TV upgrades along with a deep dive into iOS 14.5 are on the anvil.

Called ‘Spring Loaded,’ the Apple event will showcase some exciting new products and features.

According to The Verge, new iPad Pros will reportedly get a 5G support, speed boost with a new chip similar to Apple’s M1, a Thunderbolt port for faster transfers and compatibility with more devices, and support for 5G.

“The larger 12.9-inch Pro may also be the first Apple device to feature a Mini LED display,” the report said on Thursday.

The iPad mini is also likely to receive some fresh upgrades, like a larger display and updated internals.

The long-awaited ‘AirTags’ could also be revealed at the event.

“Apple may have a new podcast strategy, the Apple Pencil could get a redesign and MacBook Pro might finally get its ports back,” according to the report.

The Apple TV, last updated in 2017, is likely to get support for 120Hz displays and a new processor.

Apple announced the iPad Pro in March last year and the latest models for 2021 are expected to arrive soon.

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Google CEO Sundar Pichai has announced that a ‘Timelapse’ feature has been introduced in Google Earth, the biggest update since 2017, which will make anyone watch time unfold and witness nearly four decades of planetary change.

For this Google has compiled 24 million satellite photos from the past 37 years into an interactive, explorable 4D experience.

Our planet has seen rapid environmental change in the past half-century — more than any other point in human history. The new Timelapse feature in Google Earth compiles 24 million satellite photos from the past 37 years into an interactive 4D experience, Pichai said on Thursday.

For the first time, we’ll put a vivid depiction of our rapidly changing planet into the hands of everyone, everywhere, Rebecca Moore director of Google Earth, Earth Engine, and outreach told reporters during a news conference.

Now in the biggest update to Google Earth, since 2017, people will be able to see our planet in an entirely new dimension, she said.

Timelapse in Google Earth is really a big leap forward. Because now our one static snapshot of the planet has become dynamic providing ongoing visual evidence of Earth’s changes from the climate and human behaviour occurring across space and time over four decades, Moore said.

Timelapse, she said, was made possible because of the US government and European Union commitments to open and accessible data. These images were provided by NASA, US Geological Survey, European Commission, and the European Space Agency, she said.

Responding to a question, Moore said that Google is open to exploring similar collaboration with ISRO.

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The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has launched a mega operation to copy and remove malicious web shells from hundreds of vulnerable computers in the US that were running on-premises versions of Microsoft Exchange Server software used to provide enterprise-level email service.

A court in Houston has authorised an FBI operation to “copy and remove” backdoors from hundreds of Microsoft Exchange email servers that have been compromised by nation-state hackers, including from China.

“Today’s court-authorised removal of the malicious web shells demonstrates the Department’s commitment to disrupt hacking activity using all of our legal tools, not just prosecutions,” Assistant Attorney General John C. Demers for the Justice Department’s National Security Division said in a statement on Tuesday.

Earlier reports have claimed that five different hacking groups (including China-backed hacking group called ‘Hafnium’) are exploiting vulnerabilities in the business email servers of Microsoft.

Through January and February this year, certain hacking groups exploited zero-day vulnerabilities in Microsoft Exchange Server software to access email accounts and place web shells for continued access.

Web shells are pieces of code or scripts that enable remote administration.

Other hacking groups followed suit starting in early March after the vulnerability and patch were publicised.

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Sony is reportedly rolling out the first major software update for PlayStation 5 console, which comes with several new features, including the much-requested USB storage support.

According to GSMArena, the players will be able to transfer their games from the PS5 to a connected USB storage device with this feature.

You won’t be able to play the game from the drive but rather just use it for archival.

“If you need the game in the future, it’s much faster to just transfer it from the drive than download it all over again,” the report said on Tuesday.

This feature has been available on the PS4 consoles for a while now and they could even run the game directly off the external drive. Even the PS5 allowed transferring and playing PS4 titles from external drives.

It was only the native PS5 titles that could not be transferred before this update.

The company also announced changes for the PlayStation App for iOS and Android, which will be rolled out in the coming weeks.

These include the ability to join a multiplayer session on PS5 from the app, manage your PS5 console storage, compare trophy collections with friends, and sort and filter products shown in the PlayStation Store.

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Apple Original Films has ordered a documentary on jazz legend Louis Armstrong from Brian Grazer and Ron Howard’s Imagine Documentaries.

Titled “Black & Blues: The Colorful Ballad of Louis Armstrong”, the feature will be directed by Sacha Jenkins.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the documentary will examine Armstrong’s life and legacy as a founding father of jazz, the first pop star and a cultural ambassador of the United States.

It will also try to remove misconceptions that the trumpet player didn’t contribute enough to the Civil Rights Movement.

For the research, the Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation granted the makers an access to a wide array of the musician’s never-before-seen archival materials including hundreds of hours of audio recordings, film footage, photographs and personal diaries.

Jenkins, Julie Anderson, Sara Bernstein and Justin Wilkes will serve as producers on the documentary.

The project is part of Apple’s first-look agreement with Imagine Documentaries.

Apple and Imagine Documentaries previously collaborated on Bryce Dallas Howard’s documentary Dads and Morgan Neville’s docuseries Peanuts in Space: Secrets of Apollo 10″.

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