Quick notes: 5G royalties | Gig economy...

• $2.50 per phone: Huawei to collect 5G royalties from Apple, Samsung and other smartphone makers.



• China wins: China’s CATL, will make prismatic batteries for future Volkswagen EVs.. “The Chinese have become very strong on a technological level which means the supply side is bigger”.



• SMIC: China chipmaker gets state funds for $2.4 Billion plant. China wants to build a coterie of tech giants that can stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Intel Corp. and TSMC.



• "Hack everybody you can": Indian organisations hit by hackers exploiting Microsoft Exchange servers vulnerability



• The Gig Is Up for Uber: Uber drivers in UK to get minimum wage, holiday pay and pensions after court ruling.



• Pew Study: India added 75 million people to poverty in 2020. By contrast, China added 1 million to its poor population. . . . . . . Technology-challenged vikAss ain't helping



• Odisha Farmer Builds EV:





• Toxic cesspool: There is a deadly bacteria growing in Hyderabad’s lakes and other water bodies apart from heavy metals, sewage and other pollutants.



• Adulterated Jaggery: “We don’t even use a gram of jaggery that we produce because it has 'poison' in it. For household use, I procure chemical-free jaggery.”.. Investigation revealed widespread usage of industrial bleaching agents, additives and acids along with seashells, wood powder and other materials.



• How the State drives innovation: Many of the revolutionary technologies that make the iPhone and other products and services “smart” were funded by the U.S. govt. Take, for instance, the Internet, GPS, touchscreen display, as well as the voice-activated personal assistant, Siri. And Apple did not just benefit from govt-funded research activities. It also received its early stage finance from the U.S. govt’s Small Business Investment Company program. Venture capitalists entered only after govt funding had gotten the company to the critical proof of concept.
  
  Other Silicon Valley companies, like Google, have profited in a similarly immense fashion: Google’s algorithm was funded by the National Science Foundation. Many of the “new economy” companies that like to portray themselves as the heart of U.S. “entrepreneurship” have very successfully surfed the wave of U.S. govt-funded investments. Hence, one secret to Silicon Valley’s success has been its active and visible hand, in stark contrast to the Ayn Rand/Adam Smith folklore often bandied about.
  
  Clearly, the role of govt is not to run commercial enterprises, but to spark innovation in strategic areas. Government should never have an exclusive license or hold a large enough portion of the value of an innovation so that its commercial use would be deterred in any form or fashion. But at the same time, it is self-defeating even for private-sector innovation if private firms are the only ones to gain all the reward. Indeed, the same criticism made about banks — socialization of risk, privatization of reward — holds for the innovation economy.