⏱Texas x Korean Engineering
Internet balloons, and a union in the Amazon
Good morning everyone, and welcome to the weekend! We hope it’s a relaxing and energizing one!
Oh, and by the way — all of the section titles are links! We recently had some confusion with some of our readers and wanted to make sure everyone knew!
0:05- Everything is bigger in Texas
Samsung is reportedly looking at building a 3nm processor plant in Texas in an investment that would total more than $10Bn. In December, they purchased a 4.8M sq ft plot of land outside of Austin, and reports from inside the company suggest that construction could begin as soon as 2023. The reasoning for this appears to be twofold — they both want to compete with rival TSMC who is building a plant in Arizona this year, and also be closer to Intel, who they will be producing more chips for in the upcoming years.
0:30- Preaching anything but unity
While unity might be the current mantra of choice for President Biden, it certainly isn’t for Bezos. Yesterday Amazon filed a motion with the US National Labor Relations Board to halt the first union vote at a US facility since 2014. As of now, there is supposed to be a mail in vote ending on March 30th for the Bessemer, Alabama warehouse, but Amazon is requesting an in-person vote instead, despite the pandemic. They allege that there were errors in the process, and were not given an opportunity to improve the ballot.
0:55- Internet by Balloons?
While that may be a cool concept, Google is unfortunately shutting down their Loon division which did just that. Loon was originally started in 2011 as a way to get internet to remote areas, but was unable to produce enough revenue to make the venture worth it anymore (it never made a profit, and lost $3.3Bn through the first nine months of 2020.) While it lasted, the balloons launched were roughly the size of tennis courts, and would stay at altitudes of 60k to 75k feet.
1:17- An important vote on Monday
Late last night, both sides of the aisle in Congress agreed to wait until February 8th for the impeachment trial of former President Trump. Starting Monday, the Senate will begin debating the rules of the trial, including whether or not witnesses will appear, and how long it’ll last. This agreement came after several verbal jabs were thrown by both sides.
1:28- You have to see it to believe it
This past week a geologist found a volcanic rock that when split open looks exactly like the Cookie Monster from Sesame Street. Seriously.
Have a great rest of your day, and we’ll see you tomorrow bright and early!
-The 90 Second News Team
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