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Eco/Invest/Demography

New mobility revolution:Japanese tech company test ‘Flying Cars’

The company, SkyDrive, said in a news release on Friday that it had completed a flight test using “the world’s first manned testing machine,” its SD-03 model, an electrical vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) vehicle. The flight time was four minutes, the company said.

The aircraft has one seat and operates with eight motors and two propellers on each corner. It lifted about 3 meters (or about 10 feet) into the air and was operated by a pilot, the company said.

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Female fund managers beat men at stock picks: Goldman Sachs Group

Women are still a small minority in the industry. Only 3% of the mutual funds tracked by Goldman have an all-female fund manager team, collectively managing just 2% of total assets. In contrast, 77% are managed by an all-male team, with these funds accounting for 57% of assets.
Female-managed funds are benefiting from a preference for technology stocks, an industry that has dominated gains. Male managers lean toward financial shares, the second-worst performer in the S&P 500. Also helping widen the gap is Tesla Inc., which is more widely owned by female managers.

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Mutated coronavirus strain found in Indonesia as cases jump: Report

Syahrizal Syarif, an epidemiologist with the University of Indonesia, warned Indonesians must remain vigilant, as his modelling suggests the country may see its caseload rise to 500,000 by the end of the year.

“The situation is serious …. Local transmission currently is out of control,” Syarif said, adding that the number of infections found daily could have been much higher if laboratories were able to process more specimens in a day.

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Uber Vows Better Disclosure of Safety Data on Self-Driving Cars

The National Transportation Safety Board voted in 2019 that the probable cause of the crash was “the failure of the vehicle operator to monitor the environment and the operation of the automated driving system because she was visually distracted throughout her trip by her personal cellphone.”

The board also cited three shortcomings by Uber: the company’s inadequate safety risk assessment procedures; ineffective oversight of vehicle operators; and lack of adequate mechanisms to address complacency by operators as the cars drove themselves.Voluntary Approach

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Climate change bigger economic risk than Pandemic, ECB’s Schnabel says

With climate change posing an even bigger risk, the ECB must keep this issue high on its agenda as it reviews its policy framework, Schnabel told Reuters in an interview.

“Climate change is probably the biggest challenge we are facing, much bigger than the pandemic,” Schnabel said.

“Even though this health shock was entirely unrelated to monetary policy, it nevertheless has huge implications for monetary policy,” she said. “The same is true for climate change and this is why central banks cannot ignore it.”

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