Business News

Impact of bankrupt crypto exchange FTX is affecting Hollywood.

Not only have the tens of millions of dollars FTX spent on advertising gone up in smoke (don’t expect this year’s Super Bowl to have the crypto enthusiasm that swept last year’s broadcast), but a new bankruptcy filing shows that a Crowd of high profile people and companies likely to lose millions in bankruptcy proceedings.

Among those of interest to Hollywood is Endeavor, the owner of UFC and WME, who owned more than 38,000 shares in FTX through its IMG subsidiary, according to a list of FTX shareholders filed in the bankruptcy filing. The shares, which were Series B preferred stock, suggest that IMG invested in FTX during its 2021 funding round that valued the company at $18 billion.

It’s not immediately clear how much IMG invested in FTX (the company wasn’t mentioned in the Series B funding round’s press release, suggesting it was a small investor), but that investment is likely worthless now.

IMG may have been inspired by FTX’s aggressive sports sponsorship deals, which inked deals with a variety of athletes, arenas, and even leagues (Major League Baseball umpires wore FTX patches on their uniforms last season).

Without a doubt, FTX’s two most prominent celebrity endorsers were NFL star Tom Brady and his then-wife, supermodel Gisele Bundchen (the couple have since announced a split). According to the list of shareholders, Brady owned more than 1.1 million shares of FTX, while Bundchen owned nearly 700,000.

And New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, who chairs the NFL’s Broadcasting Committee (which negotiates the league’s lucrative TV rights deals), owned nearly 600,000 shares of FTX and another 45,000 shares of the company’s US subsidiary.

And then there’s Kevin O’Leary, the star of ABC’s Shark Tank, who owned more than 32,000 shares of FTX and more than 110,000 shares of FTX US. O’Leary told the US Senate Banking Committee last month that the shares he owned in FTX were worth about $1 million, but he told the committee, “I wrote them down to zero.”

Using that rating, Brady and Bundchen’s share was probably in the 8-figure range.

Perhaps more importantly, O’Leary said his total compensation from FTX was $18 million, including about $10 million in crypto he held on the platform that is now in limbo. If Brady, Bundchen and other endorsers land similar-sized deals, they could face nine-figure wipeouts.

The Kremlin called on Wednesday not to “rush” to declare victory in Soledar after Russian paramilitary group Wagner claimed it had seized control of that eastern Ukraine town after several months of intense fighting.

“You do not have to hurry. Let’s wait for official statements,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the press, while believing there was “a positive dynamic in the advances” of Russian forces and hailing the “fantastic heroism” of the soldiers.

“Military success is achieved when the goals set by the Commander-in-Chief are achieved,” he stressed. Before he adds: “Although tactical successes are of course also very important.”

“We get them at a rather dear price, that of the fantastic heroism of our soldiers. That’s why it’s one more reason to be proud of our boys, who spare neither their lives nor their health to offer us these tactical successes,” said the Kremlin spokesman.

He reiterated that Russia is “ready” to resolve this conflict through negotiations with Kyiv. “Reaching our goals through peaceful diplomatic means is the preferred option,” Peskov assured.

But while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said he opposes any negotiations with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin and as long as Russian troops are in Ukraine, “we cannot say that there are any prospects of peace talks at this time,” he noted.

Intel Xeon Workstation/HEDT Fishhawk Falls releases February 15th

At today’s launch of Intel Sapphire Rapids, the company confirmed plans for its next-generation workstation series.

Intel is rumored to be launching its Xeon W3400 and W2400 series on February 15th. This date is now officially the announcement date of Intel’s workstation platform, a direct counterpart to the AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO series that has not yet been upgraded to Zen4.

The Intel Xeon W-x400 series is said to contain SKUs with up to 56 cores, 350 W of power and a 4.8 GHz turbo clock. Intel does not forget about enthusiasts either, special models of the X series are also planned, which would allow overclocking. Intel is finally bringing out the long-awaited successor to its Core X models.

Intel gave no further details today, other than confirming two Xeon product lines: W-3400, W-2400 and the upcoming W790 platform. An overview of these and Intel’s latest C741, W680 chipsets was posted yesterday by HXL.

Sapphire Rapids & W790 Workstation Specs, Source: HXL

This slide confirms that the new generation of workstation series will support PCIe Gen5 and DDR5 memory for the first time. In addition, the W790 chipset supports both Xeon CPU series (designated 112L and 64L respectively). The main difference between them is memory support, either octa-channel or quad-channel, but both support DDR5-4800 memory by default (this has been confirmed by previously leaked slides).

AMD hasn’t even responded by teasing its next-gen Threadripper series, but at the same time, the current generation based on the Zen3 architecture already offers 64 cores, which is more than the flagship CPU Sapphire Rapids-112L (Xeon W9 -3495X). However, the AMD platform will lag behind as it lacks PCIe Gen5/DDR5 memory support.

In the night from Tuesday to Wednesday, a house was devastated by flames in Saint-Jacques in Lanaudière.

The fire broke out in the garage of a residential building on Bas-de-l’Eglise South Road, Montcalm Regional Municipality (RCM) Fire Protection Service director François Thivierge said.

The fire then spread to the rest of the home, requiring the deployment of about 30 firefighters. The firefighters of Sainte-Julienne, Rawdon and Saint-Lin-Laurentides intervened to help each other.

The event caused no injuries, but two citizens received Red Cross care.

Delphine Arnault, daughter of Bernard Arnault, has been appointed CEO of the House of Christian Dior, while Pietro Beccari, who held this position, will take the helm of the House of Louis Vuitton, the world’s leading luxury brand, the LVMH Group announced on Wednesday in a known statement.

Delphine Arnault, 47, was previously Deputy General Manager at Louis Vuitton and has been responsible for overseeing all product activity since 2013 after 12 years at Christian Dior.

“The appointment of Delphine Arnault marks the continuation of a path of excellence in fashion and leather goods. Under his leadership, the desirability of the products has increased significantly, allowing the brand to fly from record to record. His keen eye and unparalleled experience will be instrumental in advancing the development of Christian Dior,” his father is quoted as saying in the press release.

The businessman’s five children are already working in the LVMH group: alongside Delphine, Antoine, the eldest son, was appointed General Manager of the holding company Christian Dior SE last December, which controls the world number one in the luxury segment LVMH, as and Vice President of the Board of Directors of holding company. He is also Managing Director of Berluti, Chairman of Loro Piana, Image and Environment Director of LVMH Group and Director of LVMH.

For his part, Alexandre Arnault is Executive Vice President of jeweler Tiffany. Frédéric is CEO of Tag Heuer and Jean is Director of Marketing and Watch Development at Louis Vuitton.

Regarding the appointment of Pietro Beccari, Bernard Arnault on Wednesday highlighted his “extraordinary work over the last five years” at Dior. According to him, “there is no doubt that it will lead to even greater desirability and even greater success for Louis Vuitton.”

The billionaire also praised “the tremendous work” done by Michael Burke after ten years at the helm of Louis Vuitton, which has allowed the brand to “grow the lead on its competitors”.

“Beyond Louis Vuitton, he was able to successfully accompany the integration [du joaillier] Tiffany in the group,” added the billionaire quoted in the press release, specifying that Mr. Burke would “take on new roles right away.”

Bernard Arnault, 73, recently became the world’s top fortune with his family ahead of Tesla, SpaceX and Twitter boss Elon Musk, according to Forbes rankings recently.

Senator Bernie Sanders on Tuesday urged Moderna not to quadruple the price of its Covid-19 vaccine once shot distribution moves to the commercial market.

In a letter to Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel, Sanders called the price hike “outrageous.” The independent Vermont senator and future chair of the Senate Health Committee said such a sharp rise in prices would make the vaccines unavailable to millions of uninsured Americans and potentially put their lives at risk if Covid continues to spread.

Sanders, who has become an influential national figure after his two unsuccessful bids for the Democratic presidential nomination, has repeatedly denounced the drug industry for high drug prices in the powerful Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.

Sanders said an increase in vaccine prices would also negatively impact Medicaid and Medicare budgets, which will continue to cover the vaccines at no cost to the programs’ beneficiaries. Sanders wrote that private health insurance premiums would also rise as a result of a price increase for vaccines.

“Your decision will cost taxpayers billions of dollars,” Sanders wrote to Bancel.

Bancel told The Wall Street Journal on Monday that Moderna is considering a price in the range of $110 to $130 per Covid vaccine dose if the recordings are sold in the commercial market. The federal government, which has handled vaccine procurement and distribution during the emergency phase of the pandemic, currently pays about $26 per vaccine dose.

“I find your decision particularly offensive given that the vaccine was co-developed in partnership with scientists at the National Institutes of Health, a U.S. government agency funded by U.S. taxpayers,” Sanders wrote to Bancel.

Bancel told the Journal that he thought the price matched the value of the vaccine. Pfizer is also considering raising the price of its Covid vaccine to $110-$130 per dose.

dr Ashish Jha, who heads the White House Covid task force, told the US Chamber of Commerce in August that the administration plans to bring the vaccines to the commercial market sometime in 2023. This means that patients would receive the vaccine like any other medical treatment, with the cost depending on their insurance company.

During the pandemic, the federal government has required all healthcare providers participating in the vaccination campaign to make the vaccinations available to patients free of charge, regardless of their health insurance status.

Moderna’s Covid vaccine is the company’s only commercially available product. The Boston-based biotech posted a profit of $12.2 billion in 2021, the first year of the vaccine campaign, and an additional $6.9 billion through September 2022.

CNBC reported in March that Bancel sold more than $400 million worth of Moderna stock during the pandemic.

4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable Sapphire Rapids 4

Today we have the launch of the 4th Generation Intel Xeon Scalable. We’ve been testing the new chips for months, and now it’s time to dive deep into what Sapphire Rapids is and why it’s important to the industry. Without a doubt, the launch of Sapphire Rapids is a huge step forward for Intel. At the same time, the competitive landscape has changed. The answer to “How good is this new processor?” has changed significantly over the last decade from being a black-and-white answer to shades of “it depends.” Let’s get down to business with this introduction.

4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable Sapphire Rapids: The Video

If you want to learn more, here is the video for this piece.

We have a lot more detail in this article, but if you decide to podcast this later (you can even speed it up), feel free to check out an accessible overview. As always, we recommend opening this video in another window, tab, or app for a better viewing experience.

Intel Sapphire Rapids Xeon Context: Today’s Market

We wanted to take a moment and just see where we are in the market today. About two months ago we had the launch of the AMD EPYC 9004 Genoa. While we reviewed some Genoa platforms, OEMs were slower to ship us systems, mainly due to availability. There’s no doubt that the AMD EPYC 9654 is the current king of x86 performance per socket. AMD has 96 cores with decent clock speeds, while Intel tops this generation with 60 cores. This puts the heart of the server CPU market in the 16-64 core range.

Supermicro SYS 221H TNRR 2U Intel SPR CPU and memory 5

Intel has a very interesting value proposition: acceleration. As you will see in this review, Xeon is waging an asymmetric war with EPYC in this generation. Intel’s main bet is that by embedding a high degree of acceleration into its processors, relative performance per core becomes much higher than if it were aiming for higher clock speeds or x86 pipeline improvements alone.

4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable Sapphire Rapids Network and Edge Overview

To be clear, that’s a risk Intel is taking on multiple fronts this generation. First, investing transistors in on-chip acceleration, if this acceleration is not embraced, is an expensive burden for all customers. Second, on workloads that don’t use acceleration, these transistors are “dead weight.” Third, accelerators can provide new security interfaces that need careful consideration. Make no mistake, Intel is aware of these risks and feels the benefits outweigh the costs. As we will show, the relative performance per core increases when these accelerators are used. In a world of per-core licensed software, this is Intel’s secret weapon, but it’s also the biggest point of attack.

4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable Sapphire Rapids Acceleration Engines Enablement

In the introductory materials that Intel is showing and others are discussing, you’ll hear the benefits of acceleration. This is Intel’s main advantage in this generation. Looking at three of the four big new accelerators simultaneously, QAT, DLB and IAA, less than 45% of SKUs have actually activated them. DSA is the only accelerator on each SKU, but only 27% of SKUs have the full DSA configuration, and most SKUs only have a quarter of the accelerator capacity. Perhaps the strangest part of the launch is that Intel has been discussing acceleration in Sapphire Rapids for months, it’s the company’s key competitive advantage, but more than half of the SKUs either use accelerators little or don’t have them enabled.

4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable Sapphire Rapids 11

One of the most exciting parts of this introduction is really the whole platform and what a server is. With this generation we get DDR5, PCIe Gen5, CXL and 50% more cores per socket along with these accelerators. This is a massive leap in platform capability and performance beyond the CPUs themselves, so we’ll be covering that in this article as well.

Supermicro SYS 111C NR 1U Intel SPR Overview

In this article we will cover them as much as possible, but there are market segments that we cannot cover. For example, in this generation, Intel has up to 60 cores per socket, AMD “Genoa” has up to 96 cores, but if someone asks which company has more cores per system, it’s actually Intel. While our launch focuses on single and dual socket servers, Sapphire Rapids is a new 4 socket and 8 socket capable platform and we could see an 8 socket platform about a month before launch. We were also unable to test the Intel Xeon Max series with integrated HBM2e memory. Still, performance per socket, performance per core with/without acceleration, performance per node, etc. are all valid considerations for servers, but we can only cover so much in this test.

SPR Lstopo Platinum 8490H

We usually start our journey by looking at the core and platform. The product SKUs are so important to the discussion that we need to look at those first. Without this context, it is difficult to understand the scale and impact of the systems. So let’s move on to the SKUs.

Former Sri Lankan presidents, brothers Mahinda and Gotabaya Rajapaksa, have been expelled from Canada for “gross and systematic human rights abuses” in their country during the civil war, local authorities said on Wednesday.

Sri Lanka’s Foreign Ministry said it summoned Canada’s acting envoy on Wednesday to “express our deepest displeasure” the day after Ottawa’s decision.

“Today (Tuesday) Canada took decisive action to end international impunity for those violating international law,” Canadian Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly said in a statement announcing “targeted sanctions.”

If Sri Lanka’s key military commanders had already been banned from residence by Western countries, Canada is the first country to directly target the two main leaders of the powerful Rajapaksa clan.

The charismatic leader of the family clan, Mahinda Rajapaksa, served as President of Sri Lanka from 2005 to 2015. Revered by the majority of ethnic Sinhalese for his victory over the Tamil Tigers guerrillas in 2009, he ended a civil war that lasted 37 years and claimed around 100,000 lives.

However, according to UN estimates, around 40,000 civilians died in the final weeks of the civil war. Mahinda Rajapaksa has always disputed this assessment and has rejected any international investigation into the atrocities attributed to the army led by his brother Gotabaya, his chief lieutenant.

As Secretary of Defense at the time, Gotabaya controlled the armed forces and police. An army chief accused him of leading death squads at the time. Gotabaya denied this accusation, which nevertheless earned him the persistent nickname “Terminator”.

Gotabaya Rajapaksa became president in 2019 and was then accused of ruining the country. He fled the anger of his people in the Maldives on July 9 before finding sanctuary in Singapore, where he tendered his resignation.

Having returned to the island in the meantime, he lives in a government complex under the official protection of the police and army.

Two other Sri Lanka Army officers who were also in Canadian crosshairs were relegated there on Tuesday. Any trade with them is forbidden to Canadians.

This is Sergeant Sunil Ratnayake, who was sentenced to death for slaughtering eight Tamil civilians, including children, whom Gotabaya Rajapaksa pardoned shortly after he came to power.

The other is Lieutenant Commander Chandana Prasad Hettiarachchi, the principal suspect in the murder of 11 young men between 2008 and 2009 as part of the extortion of the victims’ families.