COLES Supermarkets and IKEA are about to change the way some Australians shop with a new offering on Airtasker. Both retail giants are expanding their partnership with the online jobs marketplace, so that customers can take advantage of using the third-party service across Australia. Coles and IKEA were both running a state-based trial in NSW, where shoppers could use Airtasker to find someone to do their groceries or hire a person to come and help build their IKEA furniture for them at home. The two separate trials began in NSW last year, and have been deemed a success. Airtasker confirmed the move to roll out both programs nationally in a blog post to subscribers via email last night. In their statement, they said: “We’re incredibly pleased to say that both partnerships were a standout success, so we’ll be rolling out Australia-wide!” Under the Coles Airtasker program, users can get their shopping “delivered on the very same day — even in a few hours if you’d like”. The Airtasker site also promises that shoppers can “get the chance to change any items on your list while the Airtasker Worker is at the store”. Users can simply post a task up on Airtasker asking for someone to head to Coles, shop for and deliver their groceries. Users must have a budget for how much they’re also willing to pay for the delivery. “Airtaskers can then make you offers to pick up and deliver the items on your shopping list. Once the shopping’s been done, you’ll get a notification so you can approve the cost of the shopping,” the site states. “If there’s an item on the list that isn’t at the store, the Airtasker will get in touch with you so you can figure out what you’d like to replace it with.” Under the NSW trial, Coles taskers had to have earned a Coles Badge in order to shop and deliver groceries. To get the Coles Badge, you must have completed two or more tasks through Airtasker, have a minimum star rating of 4.5 stars and have a minimum completion Rate of 80 per cent. Airtasker has stated that having a Coles Badge rating will no longer be necessary under the new national rollout of the program, but taskers could still apply for one online and have it on their profile. In the case of getting IKEA furniture assembled, users just need to post a task — telling potential Airtaskers what, where and when they want their items assembled, then suggest a fair budget for the task. “Taskers with Ikea Badges carry out assembly tasks posted through our Airtasker IKEA portal,” the website states. “These badges are exclusive to those with both extensive furniture assembly experience and a Police Check Badge.” Airtasker lists a range of suggested assembly prices on its site for users which include: Beds from $50 Chairs from $25 Tables from $45 Wardrobes from $89 Sofas from $65 Storage units from $40 IKEA Customer Experience Manager Cass Hall, said the company is always looking at new solutions to help customers enjoy a seamless shopping experience. “In working with Airtasker we’re giving customers more choice when it comes to how they assemble their furniture. Many of our customers will continue to do-it themselves, but we are seeing an increase in take-up of services that make the shopping experience quicker and easier. Verified IKEA Airtaskers will give customers confidence when using this service,” Mr Hall said. IKEA still continues to offer an in-store assembly service, but it operates on a fixed-price based on the value of products to be assembled.

SHE’S the driving force who has stood by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg throughout the Cambridge Analytica data breach scandal. But as the Facebook founder fronted two marathon hearings before Congress — where he was forced to deflect bitter accusations about his company’s power — Priscilla Chan was nowhere to be seen. The 33-year-old paediatrician, who shares two young daughters with the Facebook CEO, did not attend the hearings in Washington, D.C. In a case of mistaken identity, the Getty photo agency released images from the testimony wrongly identifying Zuckerberg’s longtime executive assistant Andrea Besmehn as his wife. Throughout their marriage — the pair met in 2003 while studying at Harvard University — Chan and Zuckerberg have always maintained a united front. They have jointly pledged about $4.6 billion to charities, including a donation of $75 million to San Francisco General Hospital, where Chan worked. After the birth of their first daughter Max in 2015, they pledged to donate 99 per cent of their Facebook shares, valued at $45 billion, to the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, a philanthropic organisation that focuses on health and education. The family live in a lavish mansion, which has undergone extensive remodelling since they bought it for $7 million, near Facebook’s headquarters in Palo Alto, California. Chan has maintained a strong social media presence as Zuckerberg faced the fallout of the data breach, but has distanced herself from the scandal. On March 31, in the build-up to his two-day grilling before senators, Zuckerberg posted a happy family snap of the couple having lunch at home with their eldest daughter over the Easter weekend. On March 4, just weeks before Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Christopher Wylie revealed how data was taken from Facebook users and shared it with Cambridge Analytica, the loving pair posted another happy snap. This time they were baking cookies for the Jewish holiday of Purim. Chan’s life story and family background encapsulates the American Dream. The philanthropist’s parents were Chinese refugees who fled Vietnam in boats, she grew up speaking both Cantonese and English. On April 4, days before Zuckerberg was due to face Congress, Chan detailed her back story as she announced her foundation’s launch of the Communities Thrive challenge on Facebook. “My life is an incredible anomaly,” Chan wrote. “I’m the daughter of Chinese-Vietnamese refugees who came to this country with nothing. “To be able to go to Harvard and pursue a career in medicine and public service required a lot of love and compassion, as well as luck. “We have to build a future where people don’t have to depend on luck to succeed.” Born and raised in Massachusetts, Priscilla graduated as class valedictorian in 2003, She was the highest ranking student among her peers, who voted her “class genius” by her fellow students. Chan then went on to study at Harvard University where she met and began dating Mark Zuckerberg. For her surprise wedding in 2012, Chan famously bought her Claire Pettibone birdal gown off the rack for $4700, despite the couple’s immense wealth. The couple told friends and family they were hosting a party at home to celebrate Chan’s graduation but shocked everyone by instead getting hitched.

THE family owners of Perth’s Forrest Place coffee kiosk have launched a David v Goliath legal battle against a $100 million CBD facelift, alleging they have been the subject of “corporate bullying” by developers ISPT. Bocelli’s Espresso has been operating in the city since 1989, serving award-winning coffee and gelato to hundreds of thousands of customers. But the business, and its owners Frank and Leo Agnello, are now engaged in a high-stakes Supreme Court showdown with the owners of Forrest Chase, who are revamping the retail centre in the heart of the city after years of planning. Before a Supreme Court judge, barrister Martin Bennett described how the kiosk’s famous flat whites had become “flat greys” because of construction dust, and cappuccino’s now had concrete rather than chocolate dusting. That was because jack-hammering had been taking place just metres from the kiosk counter — while potential crane footings have been taped out in between tables at the cafe’s alfresco area. The Agnellos said the business was at risk of being wiped out, as turnover had “fallen off a cliff” since construction work began in earnest this year. Some of the 32 casual staff had already left after their hours were cut. And so they lodged a writ, asking for an urgent injunction allowing them some control over the times that construction work can be done. “Our customers, while they are very loyal, also don’t want to have jack-hammering metres from where they are sitting,” Leo Agnello said. “It has been chaos.” Also embroiled in the legal crossfire is the City of Perth, who granted the work permits allowing the works to go on during business hours, but have so far failed to reveal to Bocelli’s when those hours are. Before Justice Kenneth Martin, all three sides went head-to-head, with Mr Bennett requesting a trial be brought on within weeks, arguing that every day of work was another day of damage to the Bocelli’s business. Justice Martin said while he was not unsympathetic to a small business, living with development progress was sometimes an “inevitable part of public life”. But ISPT barrister Marcus Solomon said that to formulate a defence to the claims in a fortnight was impossible Its chief executive Daryl Browning said ISPT was “undertaking our redevelopment project and works in accordance with permits and approvals granted by the City of Perth”. “We are complying with all the provisions of that. We will defend our rights to redevelop the property and refurbish the property. That project has been well-publicised, launched and obviously permitted by the City of Perth.”

HIGH rents have been blamed for the growing number of empty shops on Perth’s most exclusive retail street. At least eight ground-floor shopfronts are empty or boarded up in King Street — between Hay and Murray streets — which also boasts retail outlets for Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Tiffany and Co, and Chanel. First-floor and basement spaces are also empty, some for more than five years. A popular basement bookshop has closed and home video and audio specialists Bang & Olufsen have moved to Subiaco. Perth MP John Carey said the high number of vacancies in King Street was of great concern, especially when the street’s exclusive shops were promoted as tourist attractions. “Empty, vacant shops are not a good look,” he said. “Whatever the reason, something needs to be done. I would hope the landlords involved would look for short-term pop-up leases to improve the vibe of the street.” Property manager Darryll Ashworth said King Street was too important to Perth to have empty shops. “Without doubt there has been a correction in rents in the Perth CBD and I would say specifically on King Street,” Mr Ashworth, chief executive of Metier property consultants, said. “With the significant vacancies, it’s fair to say that property owners have not responded to the changing market. King Street has beautiful heritage buildings, however, the cost to refurbish and fit out these shops to suit current needs is extremely expensive. “Retailers will need financial support from the landlords. “There is no reason why there should be any vacancies on King Street and this needs to be addressed with the property owners.” Cafe Etro closed five weeks ago but the premises will reopen later this year as Cafe Alicio. Its manager Peter Haddad, who also runs Lebanese cafe and restaurant Chee Tayeb in Murray Street, said he was not surprised so many shops and businesses had left King Street. “The rent is appreciably higher here — about 50 per cent more than just around the corner,” Mr Haddad said. “We hope to bring a bit of vibrancy back to the street with our new cafe.” One of the biggest landowners on the street is Bontempo Nominees, the family company of former lord mayoral candidate Anne Bontempo. King Street Precinct spokeswoman Tessa Bontempo said the heritage character of the precinct provided a beautiful backdrop that attracted locals and tourists.

We don't trust nutrition studies funded by soda companies. Why would we trust alcohol studies funded by the booze industry? If you’ve ever seen headlines about how red wine is good for your heart, or how moderate alcohol use is linked to longer life, you’ve seen the alcohol industry’s influence on health science at work. Health claims about alcohol are back in the news, but this time, the headlines are about the scientists who make those claims — not the actual data. Recently published investigations by The New York Times, Wired and Stat paint a disturbing picture about the way alcohol companies are trying to influence scientific understanding, and thus public perception, of alcohol as a health tonic. These stories reveal that officials at the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) aggressively courted alcohol executives to fund a $100 million clinical trial on “moderate drinking” with the expectation that this study would probably conclude that it is safe and lowers the risk of disease. Alcohol executives were allowed to help pick the scientists and preview the trial’s design, reports the Times, while Wired reported on how dependent the NIAAA is on industry funding to complete the expensive, long-term study. Finally, Stat has a story about how scientists who published unflattering research about the alcohol industry were verbally abused by NIAAA officials and cut off from funding. Even though prestigious alcohol scientists may insist on their independence, studies show that research funded by the food industry is four to eight times more likely to conclude something that financially benefits the sponsor. Industry-funded research also tends to suppress negative data. When pharmaceutical companies fund studies, the findings are less likely to be published than research funded by other sources. It adds up to a concerted effort by alcohol companies to make sure customers keep buying and drinking their products ― or even to increase people’s alcohol intake ― by tying alcohol to better health outcomes. And if industry-funded trials can’t convince Americans that their products are good for them, these sponsorships can churn out junk science that muddies the scholarship on alcohol, food or drugs, leaving consumers confused and awash in contradictory news headlines. “The obvious conflict of interest is that the funder of this research stands to benefit when the research comes out with findings that encourage more people to use its products,” said David Jernigan, a professor at the Department of Health Law, Policy and Management at the Boston University School of Public Health. “It’s kind of the whole reason we have an independent science sector ― to wall it off from conflicts of interest like this.” It’s kind of the whole reason we have an independent science sector ― to wall it off from conflicts of interest like this. David Jernigan, Boston University School of Public Health. If you’ve ever seen headlines about how red wine is good for your heart, or how moderate alcohol use is linked to longer life, you’ve seen the alcohol industry’s influence on health science at work. And Americans seem to be swallowing that message. A 2015 Gallup poll found that 1 in 5 Americans believe “moderate” drinking is good for health, and that this was especially true among those who drink alcohol. This belief is a boon for the alcohol industry for at least two reasons: It links alcohol consumption to a healthy lifestyle that can improve heart health, and it relies on the concept of “moderation,” a squishy term that in practice ends up meaning whatever drinkers want it to mean. Research on the concept of “moderation” reveals that the more a person likes a food or drink, the bigger their definition of what a “moderate” serving is. And food and beverage companies may be using that to their advantage, said Michelle vanDellen, an expert in self-control and eating behaviors at the University of Georgia. “I suspect that companies understand that moderation messages, or moderation endorsement, will provide the appearance of looking like they care about health, but they also know that it’s unlikely to affect their bottom line,” she said. “I don’t know if food and beverage companies have done research on moderation, but I have, and I know that moderation messages are poorly defined, they increase the scope of what is considered healthy and they lead to increased intended consumption.” When it comes to alcohol, at least, there is a seemingly objective unit of measurement for moderation: up to one drink a day for women, and up to two drinks a day for men, as defined by the U.S. Dietary Guidelines for Americans. These amounts form the basis of claims that alcohol may have a positive effect on health. But careful analyses have debunked the association between moderate alcohol consumption and health by taking the “abstainer bias” into account. People who currently abstain from alcohol include those who have never consumed it and former drinkers. But many former drinkers have quit alcohol for health reasons, so the “abstainer” group is already biased toward worse health overall than a group of people who are still moderate drinkers and haven’t had to quit because of their health. A 2016 analysis of 87 former studies that linked moderate alcohol consumption to longer life found that once former drinkers were cut out of the picture, the apparent link between moderate alcohol consumption and long life disappeared. Tim Stockwell's research shows that when you exclude people who used to drink but now abstain, the purported benefits of alcohol vanish. This illustrates what's known as "abstainer bias." Similar analyses have been performed for breast cancer, revealing that even low levels of alcohol are linked to a higher risk of the disease. An analysis that removes former drinkers from the results in heart disease research, however, had more positive findings about alcohol: Even after accounting for the abstainer bias, never-drinkers had a higher risk for a handful of heart conditions than moderate drinkers. This association could explain why the U.S. Dietary Guidelines (the federal government’s advice on eating and drinking) used to explicitly link moderate alcohol consumption to lower risk for coronary heart disease and cardiovascular disease. But in the latest guidelines, which are official recommendations meant to span 2015 to 2020, this language was removed. This may be because health hazards associated with alcohol consumption ― like violence, car collisions, substance abuse, liver disease and cancer ― more than cancel out whatever marginally positive effects alcohol could have on heart disease risk. “To put it another way, there are much safer ways to protect your health than starting to drink,” Jernigan said. Almost 90,000 people die from alcohol-related causes every year in the U.S., making it the third most preventable cause of death after tobacco and the combination of lack of exercise and poor diet. More than 15 million adults and 600,000 teens have alcohol use disorder in the U.S., and more than 10 percent of children in the U.S. live with a parent who struggles with alcohol problems. Alcohol use also increases one’s risk of breast, colon, liver, esophageal, head and neck cancer. These ties to other diseases and health risks are why some scientists are calling for moderate alcohol guidelines to be even lower than what they are now. A recent analysis of about 600,000 current drinkers from 19 wealthy countries found that the risk of death from any cause begins to increase after a person drinks more than 100 grams of alcohol per week ― the amount in about seven servings of alcohol. But that’s half the “moderate” alcohol serving for men in the U.S. “The health effects of drinking are so clear,” said Jernigan. “There just aren’t a lot of products that are legally available that kill over 100,000 Americans every year and are still on the market.”

MORE Aussies are sending money overseas than ever before, especially in the wake of natural disasters, but a lack of awareness has seen money that could do some good end up lost to transfer fees and associated costs. Research from transfer company OrbitRemit revealed a spike in international transfers by Australians following disasters Transfers to India rose 20 per cent in following 2017 flooding in Mumbai; while Tropical Cyclone Tembin in the Philippines sparked a flow of cash accounting for 15 per cent of all money sent from Australia in the year. A two-thirds increase in money was sent to Indonesia’s Java in December after a 6.5 magnitude earthquake. OrbitRemit CEO Robbie Sampson said the ability to send money quickly has helped those in need. “You wouldn’t have dreamt a few years ago … Australians (could) send money as far as the Philippines or Indonesia in just a few hours,” Mr Sampson said. “Thanks to evolving technology … we are seeing a real increase in money sent.” A separate Finder.com.au study found 12 per cent of Australians provide financial assistance for relatives overseas and 32 per cent have sent money abroad at least once; 49 per cent of those as a gift and 37 per cent to support relatives. World Bank statistics show Australian migrants send close to $6.5 billion overseas each year, yet less than half know where to get the best exchange rate out of banks, Paypal or specialist transfer providers. Finder.com.au spokeswoman Bessie Hassan said Australians who regularly send money overseas are unaware of potential savings. “Too much money sent by Australians is not reaching the people it’s intended for because it’s diminished by fees,” she said, adding hundreds could be saved by knowing where to look when comparing options. “Banks are notorious for charging costly foreign transfer fees as well as offering poor exchange rates so check out some of the other options including online money transfer services.” Mr Sampson said it was important to remain savvy, even in the rush to send money in an emergency situation. “Being aware of hidden costs and the fees from the service provider, and the receiving account, is paramount,” he said. “Also, be aware of the exchange rate you’re getting when making the transfer. Most online money transfer services will have a currency exchange rate calculator available on their websites … a great way to compare services and ensure more money reaches the end destination.” TransferWise’s online calculator shows the difference in price to send money can be significant and major banks are rarely cheapest. Sending $2000 to India for example results in the recipient getting 99,207.30 Indian Rupees with TransferWise, just ahead of 98,903.80 INR with Western Union. It is a sharp drop in value to Commonwealth Bank (95,074.31 INR) and ANZ (94,579.45 INR). This can make a big difference in a third world or developing country. TransferWise spokeswoman Anhar Khanbhai said more than 1 million Australians believe banks provide money transfers overseas for free. “Not only do banks and currency brokers charge a fee for international money transfer, they also charge a margin and a mark-up on the exchange rate,” Ms Khanbhai said. “It’s unclear to the consumer just how much of a margin the bank is applying and how it was calculated. “For example, on a $10,000 transfer to USD, customers can lose $380 in hidden fees and mark-up charged by the banks compared to (other services).”

US PRESIDENT Donald Trump’s fired FBI deputy director misled investigators and his own boss about his role in a news media disclosure about Hillary Clinton just days before the 2016 presidential election. A new Justice Department watchdog report has revealed that Andrew McCabe authorised the release of information to “advance his personal interests”. Trump, already furious over a forthcoming book from fired FBI Director James Comey, lashed out after the report’s release by alleging McCabe had “LIED! LIED! LIED!” The inspector general report concludes that McCabe allowed FBI officials to disclose non-public information to a Wall Street Journal reporter for a story about an investigation into the Clinton Foundation, violating agency rules, and then misled FBI officials when questioned about it. It also reveals starkly contradictory accounts from McCabe and Comey about how the conversations with the reporter had come to take place. McCabe, who was fired last month just two days before his scheduled retirement, denied the report’s allegations in a detailed rebuttal statement. He said that when he believed his answers to the inspector general were misunderstood, he went back and tried to correct them. McCabe’s statement noted that as deputy director he had full authority to authorise sharing information with the media and said he permitted subordinates to do so in this case to correct a false narrative that he had tried to stymie an FBI probe into the Clinton Foundation. The conversation “was done to protect the institutional reputation of the FBI as a non-political and professional investigative agency, and therefore was squarely within the public interest exception to the FBI’s prohibition on sharing sensitive material,” the statement said. McCabe has also said his dismissal was part of the Trump administration’s “ongoing war” on the FBI and special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, adding that he was singled out because of the “role I played, the actions I took, and the events I witnessed in the aftermath” of Comey’s firing. The inspector general report does not square with the Republican narrative of the FBI as a politically biased institution, since the Oct. 30, 2016, story contained derogatory information about Clinton and underscored FBI interest in investigating her foundation. But its conclusion may also be hard for Democrats to embrace, given its harshly critical suggestion that McCabe had put his personal reputation above the interests of the FBI. Regardless, the report immediately provided fodder for Trump’s public attacks on McCabe, a longtime target of the president’s ire, especially because of revelations that his wife, during a failed state Senate run, had accepted campaign contributions in 2015 from the political action committee of then-Virginia Governer Terry McAuliffe, a close Clinton ally. The president has made a concerted, Twitter-driven effort to impugn McCabe as a partisan hack, accusing him of covering up unspecified “lies and corruption” at the FBI and calling his firing a “great day for Democracy.” On Friday, Trump said the inspector general’s report was a “total disaster” for McCabe and asserted “McCabe is controlled by Comey.” “No collusion, all made up by this den of thieves and lowlifes!” Trump tweeted. A lawyer for McCabe, Michael Bromwich, said on Twitter that he was considering filing a defamation lawsuit against Trump and his “colleagues.” He responded to Trump’s tweet by sarcastically thanking him for “providing even more material” for such a lawsuit. The inspector general report was sent to congressional committees and obtained by The Associated Press. The findings, which had trickled out in news reports over the last month, led FBI disciplinary officials to recommend that the Justice Department fire McCabe. Attorney-General Jeff Sessions dismissed him March 16 for what he described as a lack of candour. McCabe, appointed deputy director in 2016, had been a close Comey ally and passionately defended him in a congressional hearing two days after his firing. He could be an important witness for Mueller, who is investigating Trump for possible obstruction of justice, including his motivation for firing Comey in May 2017. The Associated Press has also confirmed that McCabe kept personal memos detailing interactions with the president and they have been provided to the special counsel’s office. Yet the report makes clear that the McCabe and Comey were at odds over how the conversations with the reporter unfolded, and exactly how it had been approved. McCabe told the inspector general that he had told Comey the day after the story was published that he had authorised officials to share details of a conversation he had with a top Justice Department official about the Clinton Foundation investigation. The conversation involved a heated encounter in which McCabe confronted the official over the suggestion that the FBI should not be taking overt investigative actions against the Clinton Foundation during the course of the election by asking, “Are you telling me that I need to shut down a validly predicated investigation?” The official replied, “Of course not,” according to the Wall Street Journal story. According to the report, McCabe said Comey told him that he thought it was a “good” idea to rebut a narrative that the FBI was succumbing to political pressure and not aggressively pursuing the Clinton Foundation. But Comey told investigators that McCabe did not tell him that he had approved sharing details of the call and, in fact, had left him with the opposite impression. “I don’t remember exactly how, but I remember some form or fashion and it could have been like ‘Can you believe this crap? How does this stuff get out’ kind of thing?” McCabe is quoted as saying in the report. “But I took from whatever communication we had that he wasn’t involved in it.”

A quantum internet could revolutionise communication, computing and basic science, and it may be only 10 years away. But what is it? For a few minutes each night in certain parts of China, the brightest light in the sky is the lurid glow of the Micius satellite, shooting a green laser down to Earth as it swings through space 500 kilometres above. When conditions are right, you might also see a red beam lancing back through the darkness from one of the ground stations that send signals in reply. Micius is not your average telecommunications satellite. On 29 September 2017, it made history by accomplishing an astonishing feat, harnessing the mysterious qualities of quantum entanglement – what Einstein called ‘spooky action at a distance’ – to ‘teleport’ information into space and back again. In doing so, it enabled the first intercontinental phone call – a video call, in fact, between Beijing and Vienna – that was completely unhackable. The weird science of quantum physics that powers Micius is at the heart of a technology arms race. On one side are quantum computers, still in their infancy but with enormous potential once they grow in power. Among their most prized, and feared, applications is the capacity to cut through the complex mathematical locks that now secure computer encryption systems – the ones that mean you can confidently conduct financial transactions over the internet. On the other side is the only sure defence – encryption techniques that also rely on the laws of quantum physics. Until recently scientists had managed to make quantum encryption work only across distances of a hundred kilometres or so. The Chinese scientists behind Micius have now reached around the world. It brings the ultimate prize tantalisingly closer. “I envision a space-ground integrated quantum internet,” says Pan Jianwei, whose team became frontrunners in the quantum communications race after Micius switched on. That quantum internet will be both unquestionably secure and disconcertingly strange, opening new windows for science and computing. Pan is used to thinking small. The Chinese physicist made his name with groundbreaking explorations of quantum entanglement, that curious kind of telepathy between subatomic particles that Einstein famously derided. At the same time Pan thinks very big. He has led China’s massive quantum technology program for more than a decade. After Micius launched from Jiuquan spaceport on the remote plains of Inner Mongolia in August 2016, it began to perform a series of experiments that steadily escalated in complexity. At their core was a crystal-based gadget that produces pairs of entangled photons and sends them via tightly focused laser beams to receiving stations on the ground. Pan’s team first established long-range entangled connections between ground stations inside China. Then they succeeded in transmitting the quantum state of a particle – so-called quantum teleportation, which will be a vital technique for quantum computers to communicate. An extraordinary year was capped with the unhackable international videoconference, in which dignitaries from the Chinese and Austrian academies of science exchanged congratulations. Pan has no shortage of resources at his disposal. Quantum technology is a key research priority for the Chinese government, as for many others. The best estimate of the scale of global efforts comes from consulting firm McKinsey & Company. It reported in 2015 that about 7,000 researchers worldwide were working in the field, with about US$1.5 billion a year being spent. Those numbers are undoubtedly bigger now, and will only grow as governments and corporations chase the advantages of quantum technology. High on their list of motivations: protecting secrets. “Security is the big selling point,” says Jacq Romero, a photonics expert at the University of Queensland. A quantum network could also be used to realise more exotic proposals, such as super-telescopes that combine light from multiple telescopes to massively enhance astronomical observations. The work Pan and other scientists are doing now is part of what some call “the second quantum revolution”. The first quantum revolution began in the early decades of the 20th century with the discovery of the bizarre laws of the subatomic realm – in which an object can be both a wave and a particle – by pioneering scientists like Heisenberg, Schrödinger and Einstein. Applied to technology, these ideas ushered in the era of modern electronics with devices such as the transistor, the laser and the solar cell. In the second quantum revolution, scientists are applying the quantum rules to the basic ideas of information technology. Classical computing relies on binary information, represented by bits that are either 1s or 0s. Quantum information uses quantum bits, or qubits, which can be in both the 1 and 0 states at the same time. This can be done using the magnetic spin of electrons, for example, which can be ‘up’ , ‘down’ or some combination of up and down. This combination quantum state, known as a ‘superposition’, is the first of several concepts that form the foundation of the second quantum revolution. A qubit only ‘chooses’ one state or the other – at random, though the probability depends on how much up and down are in the superposition – when it is measured. Until then qubits inside a quantum computer can effectively perform multiple calculations simultaneously. The second important concept is entanglement, where the behaviour of distant particles can be inextricably connected – or ‘entangled’. When one entangled particle is measured – and hence ‘chooses’ a state – its partner is immediately bound by that choice, no matter how far away it is. Entanglement is the key to quantum communication. The third concept is the ‘no-cloning theorem’, which says the information in a quantum particle can never be fully copied without changing the state of the particle. A hacker can make a copy of your email now without you ever knowing; a hack of a quantum system, however, is bound by the laws of physics to leave traces. Together, these phenomena pave the way for quantum computers able to crunch through big data problems that involve finding optimum solutions from vast numbers of options. That includes efficiently reverse-engineering the encryption keys that protect your internet banking sessions. At the same time, they make possible hack-proof quantum communication, in which eavesdropping can always be detected. IF A PARTICLE WITH A PARTICULAR SET OF PROPERTIES DISAPPEARS AT ONE LOCATION AND ONE WITH EXACTLY THE SAME PROPERTIES APPEARS ELSEWHERE, HOW CAN ANYONE SAY THEY ARE NOT THE SAME PARTICLE? The seeds of a quantum internet were first sown in the 1970s by a physicist named Stephen Wiesner. As a graduate student at Columbia University in New York, Weisner realised how the strange laws of quantum mechanics could be used for new kinds of communication. Wiesner’s ideas were developed into a detailed protocol for secure communication in 1984 by Charles Bennett and Gilles Brassard. Many cryptographic schemes involve a piece of information – known as a key – that is shared by the sender and the recipient of a message, but by no one else. The Bennett and Brassard scheme sought to solve the problem of sharing the key itself in a secure way. Their idea involved a sender (conventionally known as Alice in cryptography) sending a long string of 1s and 0s to a recipient (call him Bob) that is encoded in photons in such a way that if an eavesdropper (Eve, naturally) conducted any measurements on it, Alice and Bob would know (because measuring a quantum particle changes its properties). They would then throw out any affected 1s and 0s, and be left with an ideal cryptographic key – a long random number they both know but no one else does. Quantum cryptography suddenly became more relevant in 1994, when mathematician Peter Shor showed that quantum computers might one day be able to use quantum indeterminacy to break through existing cryptographic schemes with alarming ease. Cracking such schemes – like the ones that keep your internet banking sessions safe from prying eyes – involves finding the factors of extremely large numbers. Shor showed that a quantum computer would be able to do it much more quickly than a classical one. Meanwhile, further developments in the theory of quantum communication – the practice was still some years off – made use of the even stranger phenomenon of entanglement, which can bind together the fates of objects separated by any distance. This quantum connection turns out to be very handy for Alice and Bob in their quest to have a quiet chat without Eve interrupting. A pair of entangled particles is in a sense a single entity, no matter how far apart they are. This insight was extended to its logical yet absurd conclusion by theorist David Bohm, who noted that, as a consequence of quantum mechanics, “the entire universe must, on a very accurate level, be regarded as a single indivisible unit”. In 1991, Oxford physicist Artur Ekert figured out exactly how entanglement could improve on the Bennett-Brassard scheme. Suppose Alice generates a stream of entangled photons and keeps one of each pair for herself, sending the other to Bob. She measures the polarisation of her own photons, and writes down a 1 every time it is horizontal and a 0 every time it is vertical. Eventually she will have a string of numbers. Thanks to entanglement, if Bob has done the same measurements he will have the identical string. If Eve has intercepted any photons, if will make detectable changes to the correlations between Alice and Bob’s measurements. Another use for entanglement was discovered in 1993, when Bennett and Brassard, along with others, figured out that it could be used to transport the quantum state of a particle – a qubit, essentially – from one place to another. If Alice has a photon in some unknown superposition – the particular combination of 1 and 0 states – this ‘quantum teleportation’ technique lets her send information to Bob so he can create an identical photon. To collect this information, Alice must destroy the quantum state of her photon. Bob then uses that information to create a photon with the same attributes as Alice’s, including any entanglements. Physicists call this teleportation because the properties of a subatomic particle, such as its position, momentum, polarisation and spin, are all there is to know about it. If a particle with a particular set of properties disappears at one location and one with exactly the same properties appears elsewhere, how can anyone say they are not the same particle? This kind of weirdness highlights the deep connections between cryptography, information theory and fundamental physics that the quantum internet will exploit. Anton Zeilinger, an Austrian physicist who was Pan Jianwei’s mentor and is now his collaborator, put it bluntly in a 2005 essay in Nature: “the distinction between reality and our knowledge of reality, between reality and information, cannot be made.” While the theory behind the quantum internet is mind-bending, building it is largely an engineering exercise. Even John Stewart Bell, the Belfast-born physicist who dreamed up the entanglement experiments that killed the idea of any kind of common-sense reality beneath quantum mechanics, described himself as a “quantum engineer”, and said he only had time to contemplate principles on Sundays. So it is for today’s practical quantum scientists. Devices must be calibrated, experiments must be refined, noise must be reduced. Questions of why give way to figuring out how. It is the ability to solve those discrete engineering problems that impresses Vikram Sharma, head of Quintessence Labs, a company based in Canberra, Australia, that builds quantum security systems. Quintessence Labs is putting quantum technology to use in a network security system built around a device that uses quantum unpredictability to spit out a billion random numbers a second. One of the company’s key achievements is to shrink the device. “We used to do it on an optics table with lasers and electronics and all kinds of equipment,” Sharma explains. “It was probably a metre by a couple of metres. Now we have reduced it to about the size of a cell phone.” He says it with an engineer’s pride. “It just slots in to a standard server.” Next on the agenda is to “fully mature” a secure system that uses the properties of a whole laser beam to transport encryption keys, rather than single photons, making it a little less fragile. Sharma says he hopes to have a version on the market in early 2019. Even when carefully engineered to maturity, however, Quintessence Labs’ system will be limited by an obstacle that is very difficult to work around, one that hinders all the competitors in the race to take quantum communications to the world. The major obstacle that must be overcome to create a global quantum network is in the ‘global’ part: long distances are a real problem. As entangled photons are beamed through air or an optic fibre, they are slowly picked off by encounters with other particles. After at most a couple of hundred kilometres, 99.99 percent will be gone and the signal will be too weak to use for communication. One way around this is Pan Jianwei’s scheme: make connections via a satellite that orbits the world and fires photons down from space via laser beam. Another approach is to use repeaters to retransmit faded signals. A ‘half-quantum’ system establishes quantum connections along a chain of ‘trusted nodes’ that decode and re-encode the signal. The longest such link in operation is a 2,000 km long pipeline running from Beijing to Shanghai via Jinan and Hefei, also built by Pan’s team. These trusted nodes are useful for key distribution – a potential hacker could only read the key by accessing a node itself. However, the nodes do not extend the reach of entanglement. That will require the creation of a so-called ‘quantum repeater’: a device that can receive a quantum signal and transmit it again without destroying the quantum state, like a relay station that passes a package from a tired courier to a fresh one without opening it. Some of the most promising research is being done at the Australian National University, where Matthew Sellars and Rose Ahlefeldt have found a way to use crystals doped with erbium atoms to store and release photons with a wavelength (about 1550 nanometres) that works neatly with existing fibre-optic cables. When a photon is absorbed, its quantum state is mapped on to changes in the spin of the nucleus of the erbium atom. “If you put the information on a nuclear spin, it can hold for much longer,” Ahlefeldt says. This is because the nucleus of the atom is insulated from the outside world. The atom can then be stimulated to release a new photon identical to the one that went in. “You can store the polarisation, the arrival time, the pulse shape, the direction,” Sellars says. “The photon that went in is the photon that comes out.” Crucially, this includes any entanglement of the original photon. A chain of repeaters connected with optic fibre could extend entanglement indefinitely. HOW LONG BEFORE A MATURE GLOBAL QUANTUM NETWORK IS POSSIBLE? PAN BELIEVES THAT PROGRESS WILL BE RAPID. “MAYBE IT WILL TAKE 10 YEARS,” HE GUESSES. Sellars and Ahlefeldt are hoping to demonstrate the basic functions of a repeater in the next year or two. After that, says Sellars, “It becomes a case of engineering and how much money you throw at it.” One uncertainty is how much demand there will be: “No one’s had a quantum internet before.” Similar technology will be needed to plug quantum computers in to the quantum internet. “If we set up this global-scale quantum network, we want to be able to connect things to it,” Ahlefeldt says. Getting qubits out of a quantum computer – where they might be stored as electron spins or the magnetic flux of a superconducting loop – is a feat in itself. “There are three problems to solve,” according to Sven Rogge, who works on quantum computers at the University of New South Wales. “First you have to be able to control one qubit and read it out. Then you have to couple two of them that are close together, for two-qubit operations inside the computer. Then you have to do that two-qubit operation over a much larger distance. That’s the holy grail, the really hard part.” How long before a mature global quantum network is possible? Though many of the underlying technologies are still in prototype form, Pan believes that progress will be rapid. “Maybe it will take 10 years,” he guesses. A team based at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, however, hopes to have a small network connecting four Dutch cities – over distances in the tens of kilometres that will not require quantum repeaters – operating by 2020. After that? Even visionaries like Pan can only speculate about the the eventual uses of the quantum internet. Right now secure communication is the killer app – the thing that makes governments and banks pour cash into research. Another likely use is connecting to quantum computers, which are expected to be expensive and cumbersome machines for some time to come. Much as people once dialled in to massive mainframes to get their computing done, a quantum link would allow remote access to quantum computers with the added twist of ‘blind computing’, in which the quantum computer can never know what calculations it has performed or what sensitive data it has handled. Quantum communication will also allow distant clocks to be synchronised within 10–20 seconds, about a thousand times as precise as the best current atomic clocks. This precision will allow orbiting satellites to improve GPS systems, map Earth’s gravitational field in unprecedented detail and even catch the tiny ripples of passing gravitational waves. Better optical telescopes are another potential fringe benefit. Radio telescopes such as the nascent Square Kilometre Array combine signals from distant dishes to effectively form a single, huge telescope. A quantum internet could make this possible for visible-light telescopes, too, by teleporting photons from distant telescopes. Pan sees his work as part of a continuum in the human imperative to communicate and exchange information. It was, he says, the defining character of early Homo sapiens. “They created basic symbols and languages so that they could interact effectively and form a co-operative group. Information exchange is a key factor in human evolution”. The next stage in that evolution will occur through the patient labour of small, incremental steps: improving the Micius technology to make the satellite work in daylight, replicating it in other satellites, learning how to make multiple satellites function together. He may have opened the door to a global quantum internet, but Pan still thinks in the measured terms of an engineer. “We will study how to build a more efficient network.”

YOUR next hospital visit could cost you thousands before you even get there, but most Aussies have no idea what ambulance rides actually cost. Queenslanders and Tasmanians get free ambulance rides, but everyone else will need insurance cover- or deep pockets- in case of emergency. A survey of 1500 Australians, commissioned by comparethemarket.com.au, revealed 25 per cent of respondents worryingly believed ambulance rides were free for “all emergencies, across all states”. A further 24 per cent estimated the costs to be less than a third of what they actually are, which meant that all up, 49 per cent of Aussies were in the dark. The results surprised Comparethemarket.com.au spokeswoman Abigail Koch. “People are often unaware because they use them so rarely,” she said. “But it’s worth being aware.” Victorian ambulance rides attract a standard cost of $1204, yet 37 per cent of Victorians believed trips free or under $300 and 55 per cent under $500. Western Australians face a flat fee of $949, while other states charge initial call-out fees and then distance-based extra charges. In South Australia, it’s $955, plus $5.50/km, while the ACT call-out is $936, then $12/km for travel outside of the ACT. NSW ambulances cost $372, plus $3.35/km, capped at $6095. This may not affect those close to hospitals, but $6000 for those in remote areas could break the bank. In NSW, 46 per cent thought ambulance rides were free or under $300. “An ambulance is the busiest and most expensive taxi ride we’ll ever take,” Ms Koch said. “It is vital Australians are covered for ambulance costs to avoid being stung with exorbitant medical bills.”

COMMONWEALTH Bank has agreed to pay $3 million after the corporate watchdog found two of the lender’s financial planning arms charged customers millions of dollars for advice they did not receive. The Australian Securities and Investments Commission says Commonwealth Financial Planning and BW Financial Advice could not prove they had advised about 31,500 customers between 2007 and 2015. ASIC says CBA, which has also entered into an enforceable undertaking, has almost finished paying $88.6 million in compensation to customers. In February, the bank — considered to be Australia’s largest and most profitable — posted a net profit of $4.91 billion for the six months of the financial year. This new fine comes after it was revealed last year that the bank had breached mandatory reporting requirements on more than 53,000 potentially suspicious transactions. Matt Comyn replaced the bank’s longstanding CEO, Ian Narev, earlier this month.

Some of you may have noticed the maintenance mode earlier today. We have made some hardware and software upgrades. Everything seems stable for now but as with any new thing, we may encounter some issues. We are monitoring everything to ensure that all things run smooth. Have a great day! FileList Staff

The Iron Spider suit is confirmed for the upcoming Spider-Man PS4 via leaked gameplay footage. Confirmed for Avengers: Infinity War, the live-action version of the costume was first teased by the end of Spider-Man: Homecoming with a promise that Tom Holland’s Peter Parker will eventually don the famous suit. Now, fans will not just see the Queens-native hero rocking the sleek armor on the big screen, but also play with it thanks to the Insomniac Games title. Set in an open-world modern-day New York City, Spider-Man PS4 will allow players to utilize the wall-crawling hero’s arsenal of skills as he goes through different missions to save the day. Featuring environmental combat, quick time events, and stealth, the title will also include the appearance of Mary Jane Watson (who is a playable character), Miles Morales, Aunt May, Norman Osborn, and Black Cat. Coming from Twitter account Marvelous Realm is a leaked gameplay footage from the forthcoming Spider-Man video game. Unfortunately, the tweet has since then been deleted but not before many have taken notice of Peter sporting the Iron Spider suit in the game. Apparently, the nifty option is a pre-order bonus for the title. Initially, when the pre-order perks were announced earlier this month, only the Spider Punk garb was showcased and with two costumes already revealed, only the third pre-order special ensemble is kept under wraps. It’s currently unknown if the Iron Spider suit, as well as other pre-order bonus costumes, will eventually become available at some point in the game via add-ons, although other reports suggest that players will eventually be able to unlock the perks as everything is in the main gameplay. But if anything, it’s a great way to entice people to reserve their Spider-Man PS4 copies long before the game officially becomes available in less than five months this September. The aforementioned reveal is not entirely a surprise, but a welcome confirmation nonetheless. It would’ve been odd to release a Spider-Man video game in the same year as Infinity War hits theaters and not use the Iron-Spider suit in it, especially considering that it’ll presumably be Peter Parker’s main ensemble in the upcoming Marvel flick. The marketing materials for the movie also have the web-swinging hero sporting his latest suit, despite him also sporting his Homecoming garb early on in the film. With the plethora of costumes available for fans to choose from when Spider-Man PS4 becomes available, the Iron Spider fight suit will undoubtedly become the main choice of many, especially after people have seen Peter rocking in the fight against Mad Titan Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War. It’s a great cross-marketing between the ensemble flick and the much-anticipated video game.

Sony’s God of War is living the high life right now as Xbox bosses congratulate the title on its overwhelmingly positive review scores. As the long-awaited sequel to 2010’s God of War III, this year’s God of War is taking the franchise in a whole new direction and marooning exiled Spartan Kratos in a strange new land. Over the first seven God of War games, “The Ghost of Sparta” has locked horns with the Greek gods, but now, God of War sees a move to Norse mythology. Already being heralded as one of the console’s best entries, it seems that even the competition can’t help but praise Sony. Posting on Twitter, head of Xbox brand Phil Spencer gave God of War and PlayStation Worldwide Studios leader Shuhei Yoshida a pat on the back for reinventing the series in such a big way. God of War is already grabbing headlines ahead of its April 20 release, however, to have the support of two industry experts like Spencer and Hryb is a coup for the game. Admittedly, Spencer congratulates Sony whenever the company does particularly well in the market, but it is still refreshing to see that his passion is for video games and not simply for making money. It may be all smiles and congratulations from Xbox, but there are already big concerns about what Microsoft is doing to catch up with its main competitor. Nintendo’s family-orientated gaming places it in a different league, while the likes of Zelda: Breath of the Wild has put it in good stead. Over at the house that the Xbox built, there is little on the horizon that sets it apart from the rest. Given that The Last of Us Part 2 and Insomniac’s Spider-Man are both coming solely to the PS4 later this year, the likes of Spencer and Hryb should probably prepare similar congratulatory tweets to send in Sony’s direction. Giving a breath of fresh air to God of War after the mixed reviews of the last game, it looks like Kratos’ grim future is a lot brighter in the video game industry. Sony has already confirmed that at least one more game will stick around in Midgard, while other possible mythologies to explore include Egyptian and Mayan civilizations. Either way, God of War looks like it is going from strength to strength before it has even hit shelves.

Sony’s God of War is living the high life right now as Xbox bosses congratulate the title on its overwhelmingly positive review scores. As the long-awaited sequel to 2010’s God of War III, this year’s God of War is taking the franchise in a whole new direction and marooning exiled Spartan Kratos in a strange new land. Over the first seven God of War games, “The Ghost of Sparta” has locked horns with the Greek gods, but now, God of War sees a move to Norse mythology. Already being heralded as one of the console’s best entries, it seems that even the competition can’t help but praise Sony. Posting on Twitter, head of Xbox brand Phil Spencer gave God of War and PlayStation Worldwide Studios leader Shuhei Yoshida a pat on the back for reinventing the series in such a big way: Spencer was then joined by director of programming Larry Hryb, who couldn’t help but echo the same sentiment: Phil Spencer @XboxP3 19h Congrats @sonySantaMonica @yosp on the review scores and the upcoming launch of God of War. Looks like a special launch for the franchise, great job. 102 people are talking about this God of War is already grabbing headlines ahead of its April 20 release, however, to have the support of two industry experts like Spencer and Hryb is a coup for the game. Admittedly, Spencer congratulates Sony whenever the company does particularly well in the market, but it is still refreshing to see that his passion is for video games and not simply for making money. It may be all smiles and congratulations from Xbox, but there are already big concerns about what Microsoft is doing to catch up with its main competitor. Nintendo’s family-orientated gaming places it in a different league, while the likes of Zelda: Breath of the Wild has put it in good stead. Over at the house that the Xbox built, there is little on the horizon that sets it apart from the rest. Given that The Last of Us Part 2 and Insomniac’s Spider-Man are both coming solely to the PS4 later this year, the likes of Spencer and Hryb should probably prepare similar congratulatory tweets to send in Sony’s direction. Giving a breath of fresh air to God of War after the mixed reviews of the last game, it looks like Kratos’ grim future is a lot brighter in the video game industry. Sony has already confirmed that at least one more game will stick around in Midgard, while other possible mythologies to explore include Egyptian and Mayan civilizations. Either way, God of War looks like it is going from strength to strength before it has even hit shelves – watch this space. KEY RELEASE DATES God of War (2018 Video Game) release date: Apr 20, 2018

New game development job listings for Sony suggest that the company has plans to begin working on a new unannounced game. The listings are for a lead gameplay animator, as well as a senior gameplay engineer to work for Sony in San Diego with its Visual Arts Service Group (VASG). Considering that this is the same group that worked on exclusives such as Death Stranding, Uncharted 4 and God of War, this is definitely a sign that the company has another AAA title, probably a PlayStation exclusive, in development. Sony has not announced a new exclusive title recently, but as the development team comes together, gamers might expect such an announcement soon: E3 isn’t that far away. The job listings appear on Greenhouse (found here and here) and state that the project is “being developed in collaboration with a major Sony development studio.” Taking that into account, a resetERA user uncovered a LinkedIn profile from a Sony developer working as a Character Technical Director in San Diego for Naughty Dog on an “Unannounced Project.” Naughty Dog is currently putting the finishing touches on The Last of Us 2, so there is a very good possibility that Sony has plans to team up with the developer for a new title. Both Greenhouse listings ask the following question: “Are you an experienced game developer with a penchant for high quality, 3rd person, Action/Adventure games?” That almost sounds like Uncharted, doesn’t it? The franchise is one of the most profitable for Sony, and although Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End wrapped up main protagonist Nathan Drake’s story, who’s to say that there isn’t another new character waiting in the pipeline to take up his medallion and continue forward? In the standalone game, Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, the main characters were the Chloe and Nadine. And there are plenty of other fascinating characters in the Uncharted games that could also step into the spotlight. Naughty Dog has also promised fans hat it is not yet done with the franchise. Even if the new unannounced title is not related to Uncharted, gamers will gladly welcome a new game from Naughty Dog. The developer consistently puts out good titles that generally sell well, pleasing players, critics and Sony alike. But the idea of a new Uncharted would certainly please fans of the franchise, who, like Naughty Dog, aren’t completely done with that series just yet.

KABUL (Reuters) - An exhibition that reproduces the precious treasures of Mughal art in their original setting in Kabul’s Babur Garden opened this weekend, bringing a rare moment of cultural relief to a city pounded by war for decades. Woman takes photo at art exhibition at Babur Garden in Kabul, Afghanistan March 31, 2018. Picture taken March 31, 2018. REUTERS/Mohammad Ismail “King Babur’s Kabul: Cradle of the Mughal Empire” displays a selection of high quality reproductions of some of the masterpieces of the Timurid and Mughal periods from the mid-16th century, one of Central Asia’s richest cultural eras. It follows a similar exhibition in December held in the historic citadel of the western Afghan city of Herat, at one time the seat of the powerful Timurid dynasty and one of the great centres of the Persian world. At the Kabul exhibition’s launch on Saturday, Michael Barry, a world authority on Afghan art and culture who curated the exhibition reminisced about a visit he made to the city at the height of the brutal 1990s civil war. A woman looks at art exhibition at Babur Garden in Kabul, Afghanistan March 31, 2018. Picture taken March 31, 2018. REUTERS/Mohammad Ismail “Here in the Bagh-e Babur, what we saw in 1994 was wreckage, broken trees, shells fired. The beautiful 17th century marble mosque here was full of bullet holes. All we saw was despair and ugliness.” The Bagh-e Babur or Babur’s Garden, one of the oldest surviving Mughal gardens, was named after the first emperor of the Mughal dynasty, which came to rule over much of India in the following three centuries. Babur loved Kabul and was buried in the garden which he ordered to be created after he conquered the city in 1504. It was largely destroyed in the 1990s but was restored with the help of the Agha Khan Foundation in 2008. The garden remains a popular picnic spot with Kabul families but the artistic riches of the Mughal court have disappeared from the city, with not a single original painting from the period known to be left in Afghanistan. Barry said he had formed the determination to bring not just humanitarian aid to Afghanistan but to help restore some of the cultural heritage lost to the country through years of war. “In this garden, we will bring back the magnificent paintings which so influenced world civilization, back to the Afghans, right here in this historical environment,” he said. Slideshow (2 Images) Over the centuries, all of the originals have been dispersed outside Afghanistan and while their removal undoubtedly saved many precious art works from destruction, their loss has deprived Afghans of a central pillar of their cultural heritage. Using state-of-the-art printing techniques, dozens of miniatures have been reproduced on metal and put on display, showing a fabled world of poets, rulers, hunters and scenes of court life and making clear the considerable interplay that existed between European and Mughal art. “Many of these disappeared from Afghanistan over 500 years ago, and even then only Shahs (kings) and Wazirs (ministers) and maybe senior scholars had an opportunity to see them,” said Thomas Barfield, President of the American Institute of Afghan Studies, which oversaw the organisation of the exhibition. “People may remember poetry but they cannot see the art.”

(Reuters) - A New York judge on Thursday awarded title of two Nazi-looted drawings by noted Austrian painter Egon Schiele to a Holocaust victim’s heirs in what art experts viewed as a key test case of a U.S. law designed to ease the recovery of such stolen works. Under the ruling, both works - “Woman in a Black Pinafore” and “Woman Hiding her Face” - are to be turned over to descendants of Franz Friedrich “Fritz” Grunbaum, an Austrian-Jewish entertainer and impresario who perished in the Dachau concentration camp in 1941. Grunbaum, a vocal critic of the Nazis, once owned some 450 artworks, including more than 80 by Schiele, an Expressionist protege of Gustav Klimt and a major figurative painter of the early 20th century in his own right. Grunbaum’s art collection was seized by the Nazi regime after he was arrested in 1938 and sent to Dachau, according to a synopsis of the case contained in Thursday’s summary judgment. The two Schiele works in question turned up decades later, in a booth operated by a London-based dealer, Richard Nagy, at a 2015 art and design show in New York City, and the heirs filed suit seeking to recover the drawings. Nagy’s lawyers asserted he had acquired legitimate title to the two drawings, stemming from a 1956 sale of some 50 Schiele works by Grunbaum’s sister-in-law to a gallery in Switzerland, and that the heirs’ rights to bring their claim had long since expired. In his 17-page decision, however, Justice Charles Ramos of the state Supreme Court in Manhattan sided against Nagy, citing the Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery (HEAR) Act. That law, enacted by Congress in 2016, extended the federal statute of limitations for seeking restitution of Nazi-confiscated art to six years from the time of “actual discovery” of its identity and whereabouts. Nagy’s lawyers argued the HEAR Act did not apply, a position the judge called “absurd,” saying the statute was “intended to apply to cases precisely like this one.” The judge said there was no dispute the artworks at stake formerly belonged to Grunbaum and were forcibly taken by the Nazis during World War Two, a fact that put the onus on Nagy to establish a superior claim. Ramos said no such evidence was presented. The judge also held that New York law “protects the rightful owner’s property where that property had been stolen, even if the property is in the possession of a good faith purchaser.” Raymond Dowd, lawyer for the Grunbaum heirs - named in the case as Timothy Reif, David Frankel and Milos Vavra - hailed the decision as a landmark in bringing justice to Holocaust victims. The ruling, he said, “brought us a step closer to recovering all of the culture that was stolen during the largest mass theft in history, which until now, has been overshadowed by history’s largest mass murder.”

The book will follow the rockstar's turbulent life Red Hot Chili Peppers‘ Flea is set to release a memoir later this year. Buy Red Hot Chili Peppers merch here In 2014, a press release stated that the bassist was working on a book that would see him “share stories from his intense and dynamic life”. It promised to document his suburban upbringing in New York to “his young, rebellious life on the streets of LA”. There was also said to be an insight into “his sometimes complex friendship and collaboration with Kiedis; his myriad experiences with hard drugs; and, of course, the tumultuous creative journey of the legendary Red Hot Chili Peppers through its various incarnations over the last 30 years.” image: https://ksassets.timeincuk.net/wp/uploads/sites/55/2016/07/2016_RHCP_Opener2016_1_AH_040716_0-1-300x199.jpg Now, a title and official release date have been confirmed by the book’s publishers. ‘Acid For the Children’ is scheduled for release on September 25. The official online description of the memoir reads: “Iconic bassist and co-founder of the immortal Red Hot Chili Peppers finally tells his fascinating life story, complete with all the dizzying highs and the gutter lows you’d expect from an LA street rat turned world-famous rock star.”

From supermarket to festival stage ‘Yodelling Kid’ Mason Ramsey made a surprise appearance at Coachella Festival yesterday (April 13). Check out clips below. More: Coachella Festival 2018 stage times and live stream Ramsey, from Golconda, Illinois, became a viral sensation last week after a video emerged of the youngster singing in his local Walmart store. The clip gained enormous popularity, spawning countless memes and fan spoofs. Yesterday, reports claimed that Ramsey would join Whethan at onstage Coachella. The newcomer producer had hinted at the appearance after fans noticed a similarity between the two. After Ramsey accepted the invite to be Whethan’s guest, the Walmart yodeler took to the stage in front of a huge crowd of screaming fans. supposed to be playing his school talent show but took him to coachella instead pic.twitter.com/NU99eBfXbp — Whethan (@whethanmusic) April 13, 2018 after the yodel kid followed me i dmed him to try and get him to come out as whethans guest at coachella. and it happened. ur welcome everyone. i love u mason and i love the internet pic.twitter.com/VSjLjS9mU4 — eric turtle (@dubstep4dads) April 13, 2018 From Walmart to Coachella, I see you yodel boy. pic.twitter.com/ezxaiyJyoY — Gianna Chen (@xoxo_gianna1114) April 13, 2018 “From Walmart to Coachella, I see you yodel boy,” one fan tweeted from the crowd. Another said: “the yodel kid performed at coachella, my life is complete”. Some weren’t so impressed, however. “Walmart Yodel kid is 100% dead serious playing Coachella and I’m retiring from music,” a user posted. Dawg that ain’t a come up, he didn’t grind whatsoever. Not a single mixtape has been released, shameful — Mike From The Local Scene (@lowkeyscorcese) April 14, 2018 One fan even spotted Ramsey on the plane: my friends on a plane to Coachella with the yodel kid pic.twitter.com/7a5Ahf5cdk — goth pretzel (@presleynardella) April 13, 2018 In other news, Kendrick Lamar also gave a surprise performance at the festival. The ‘DAMN’ star joined Vince Staples during his main stage performance. Coachella’s opening day also saw performances from The Weeknd, St Vincent, SZA and Perfume Genius. The festival continues today with the likes of Haim, Nile Rodgers, First Aid Kit and headliner Beyonce.

The '80s rockers had 6 shows scheduled for this summer Huey Lewis and the News have cancelled their 2018 tour after the singer revealed that he’s lost most of his hearing. The ‘Power Of Love’ singer took to Twitter last night (April 13) to inform fans of his condition. See the full statement below. “Two and a half months ago, just before a show in Dallas, I lost most of my hearing,” he said. “I can’t hear music well enough to sing. The lower frequencies distort violently making it impossible to find pitch.” “Therefore the only prudent thing to do is cancel all future shows,” he added. “Needless to say, I feel horrible about this and wish to sincerely apologize to all the fans… I’m going to concentrate on getting better, and hope that one day soon I’ll be able to perform again.” Huey Lewis and The News cancel all 2018 performances. See attached note from Huey. pic.twitter.com/FbWqDlGwnR — Huey Lewis (@Huey_Lewis_News) April 13, 2018 The ’80s rockers had a six gig tour scheduled across the summer. Ryan Adams also suffers from Meniere’s disease, which led him to take a long break from music earlier in his career. In 2016, AC/DC frontman Brian Johnson was forced to retire from performing after suffering from hearing loss.

"It's happening" - Queen Bey is said to be going all out to treat fans to an unforgettable show Beyonce could be joined by some very special guests during her Coachella headline performance tonight – with reports suggesting that Destiny’s Child will reunite. More: Coachella Festival 2018 stage times and live stream The ‘Crazy In Love’ star has apparently been rehearsing 11 hours a day in the lead up to her bill-topping show. She is said to be determined to make up for last year’s cancelled headline slot. Now, Page Six has reported that Queen Bey has gone one step further to ensure an unforgettable spectacle. Beyonce”Beyonce and Destiny’s Child are reuniting,” a source said. “It was teased, rumoured, squashed, so nothing much else was said . . . But it’s happening.” They added: “The girls really wanted it and felt they owed it to the fans.” There were rumours of the reunion in December last year, though Kelly Rowland quickly shut them down. “I have no idea about any of that,” she said. The girl band last sang together at the Stellar Awards in 2015. In 2013, Rowland and Michelle Williams joined Beyonce at her Super Bowl halftime show. As Coachella enters its second day, we’ve already seen a surprise performance from Kendrick Lamar and the Walmart ‘Yodelling Kid’. The Weeknd, St Vincent, SZA and Perfume Genius also took to the stage. Leading up to Beyonce’s headline show, day 2 will offer up the likes of Haim, Nile Rodgers and First Aid Kit.

Thank You

Hello I want to apply

Noctua has started teasing for the upcoming launch of their latest-generation fan design, based in more than four years of development on new materials that shed some of PBT's known weaknesses. The new fan line was first announced at Computex 2017, and at that time, the development resources poured into the project were well over more than four years and 200 test designs (we already wrote an exhaustive piece on these new fans, if you want to know more or need a refresher). Noctua says these new fans will be twice as good as their existing ones; the company showed at Computex 2017 how a single A-series fan achieved identical temperatures to a setup which used two NF-F12 fans on the same processor, workload, and heatsink. And you thought the NF-F12 were good already, right? There's no actual release date for now, but there's a teaser image of the packaging doing the rounds already - and if that's that far along finished, then we're certainly not that far away from release. Here's hoping pricing will be competitive - but perhaps it needn't be, considering the expected performance - and the fact that Sterrox, the compound used in their manufacturing, is four times more expensive than common PBT.

NVIDIA is ending GPU driver support for 32-bit operating systems. The list of affected operating systems includes Microsoft Windows 7, Windows 8/8.1, Windows 10, Linux, and FreeBSD. Owners on 32-bit operating systems will still have access to critical security updates until January 2019, but they will no longer receive Game Ready Driver upgrades that include performance enhancements, new features, and bug fixes. The same goes for the GeForce Experience software. Nevertheless, current features and services in the software, like the optimal game settings, are not affected whatsoever. They will continue to work on 32-bit operating systems. By today's standards, most computer users are already using a 64-bit operating system. So, NVIDIA's latest change should only affect the minority of the population.