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Apple is discontinuing iPod more than 20 years after the device became the face of portable music. However, the tech giant will continue selling the iPod Touch, the only version of the portable music player left, till supplies last.

Oppo launched the A77 in May 2017 with 4G connectivity, and over half a decade later, the company is set to launch its 5G version, which just got NBTC certified. The Thai certifying authority doesn't divulge the Oppo A77 5G's specs, but you can expect it to come with a modern design and improvements over the 4G model. Oppo A77 5G NBTC certified The Oppo Reno8 Pro 5G has also bagged NBTC certification, but the listing doesn't include any of its specs. However, the smartphone has also been certified by EEC, and it has been spotted on the BIS website as well, suggesting an imminent...

Covid vaccines are being produced faster than they can be administered, according to the industry, which argues that waiving intellectual property rights will not accelerate global Covid-19 vaccine access. However, campaigners for a Trips waiver, which would temporarily set aside those IP rights, say diversity of supply is necessary to address both Covid and future pandemics. Both sides will appear on Wednesday before the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Enterprise, Trade and Employment as it examines waiving intellectual property rights for Covid vaccines. Oxfam chief executive Jim Clarken, who also represents the People’s Vaccine Alliance Ireland, will tell the committee that Ireland’s continued opposition to the Trips waiver “is in contravention of Ireland’s human rights obligations and it is greatly damaging Ireland’s international reputation as a champion of low-income countries”. Save lives “It’s time Ireland supported the Trips waiver, helped save millions of lives and put an end to this pandemic,” he will say. However, representatives of the pharmaceutical industry say there is no need for such a waiver. “Production is not the problem. There are already more than enough vaccines for the world. The problem is they are not getting to the people who most need them fast enough,” Irish Pharmaceutical Healthcare Association chief executive Oliver O’Connor will say. He says 12 million doses of Covid vaccine had been produced by the end of January but only 10 billion had been administered. Mr Clarken points to comment s by the World Health Organisation (WHO) at the end of last year that aggressive efforts to provide boosters to adult populations and to children in richer countries will lead to a three billion shortfall in Covid vaccine shots in poorer parts of the world. Hesitancy However, the industry argues that those figures are out of date and that the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention itself has asked that all Covid-19 vaccine donations be paused until later this year because hesitancy and logistical hurdles across the continent are hampering administration. Both sides are quoting the WHO and its Irish director, Dr Mike Ryan, in support of their positions. NUI Maynooth law professor Aisling McMahon, who is also addressing the committee, will tell members that while a waiver “is not a panacea, it would nonetheless clear IP hurdles, acting as a key step to increase global vaccine production”. “More specifically, it would be a key step to enable low- and middle-income countries to develop sustainable long-term solutions to vaccine supply issues where the status quo model under Trips has simply failed such countries. In doing so, it would help build resilience for future pandemic preparedness,” she will say. The vaccine industry’s case is that getting vaccines or other medicines quickly and in an equitable manner to populations globally and the protection of intellectual property rights “are not mutually exclusive” but are complementary. “To thrive, innovation depends on intellectual property protection. It is the certainty that shields the risky business of investing in research and development. Most of it fails. The global patents system is the basis for innovation. The proposed Trips waiver is a serious risk to the global patents system,” Mr O’Connor says.

In spite of the recent, and apparently calamitous, fall in the number of Netflix subscribers, the global motor industry is still trying to move consumers to a pay-monthly model for major options and vehicle functions. In the US market, General Motors has admitted that it expects consumers will spend an extra $135 per month (€128) on subscriptions for extras and add-ons, and that’s above and beyond the usual monthly repayments on a car loan or a PCP deal. It’s part of a move towards subscription services that GM expects to net it between $20 billion and $25 billion annually by 2030, a time when the car maker expects to have some 30 million vehicles on the road equipped with internet connections and the right software to allow for regular subscriptions. Europe is not immune to such ideas. According to PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), the number of cars in use in Europe is expected to hit a peak of about 270 million or so by 2025, and then steadily decline thereafter. Given that decline, car makers are keen to sniff out opportunities to sell us digital services, which is why we hear so many car companies now refer to themselves as “mobility providers”. There should be no surprise in this – PwC also estimates that the market for connected car services will be worth, by 2030, a massive $81 billion. Already, across several different manufacturers, you will find “buttons” on touchscreens for certain functions – such as satellite navigation or even heated seats – that will lead you to a “contact your dealer to have this function enabled” screen. It’s not a massive leap to imagine that screen replaced by one that allows you – requires you, even – to click a button to pay the car company a recurring monthly fee to activate the function direct from your touchscreen. Hot water Consumers, it seems, simply do not like this idea. Already, BMW has found itself in hot water for trying to charge an annual fee to allow the use of Apple CarPlay on its cars’ touchscreens. Car buyers, and consumer groups, pushed back and the charge was dropped, but that seems increasingly more like reprieve than victory. Motor industry analyst firm Cox Automotive has polled US car buyers, and found that 75 per cent of them are resolutely against the recurring subscription model. “Three-quarters of consumers surveyed by Cox Automotive said they were not willing to pay an annual or monthly subscription fee for most items on their next vehicle. Rather, they expect most features and services to be included in the upfront sales price,” said the report. Wriggle room However, there was some wriggle room for car makers within the data – car buyers apparently feel that it’s okay for some systems and functions to be upsold by a subscription mode, such as in-car wifi and stolen vehicle tracking. Even so, consumers are wary. The consumer organisation also warned that car makers are increasingly opening themselves up to data privacy issues The BEUC, the European Commission’s consumer advocate organisation, has expressed general concerns about the future of subscriptions for equipment. “It seems the hardware will have to be built into the car anyway, irrespective of whether you or I opt for the features, or not,” says a BEUC spokesman. “ So what happens when the initial price drops and we would en masse decide not to subscribe? Might we be nudged or incentivised into taking the subscriptions? And, if so, how?” The consumer organisation also warned that car makers are increasingly opening themselves up to data privacy issues, thanks to the ever-increasing need for the kinds of connected software on which a subscription model depends. “Car makers do not simply act as gatekeepers for the access and use of consumers’ data” said the BEUC. “The emergence of application platforms and the growing involvement of technology giants pose serious concerns to how this data will be used. “Recently, Stellantis concluded an agreement with Amazon to equip its vehicles with software-defined platforms and use Amazon cloud services to store data. Everything that will happen inside and outside the car, including payment services, but also the connection with the consumer’s smartphone and home-connected devices, will be controlled by Amazon, in what looks like a data dystopian scenario. This is bad for consumers’ privacy, this is also bad for the competitive structure of not only in car market, but also other related markets such as transport and logistics, as Amazon could use the data harvested to reinforce its market power across numerous markets it is active on.”

The pandemic made one truth hard to ignore: the people we need the most are often the ones we value the least. While many people were furloughed or laid off during lockdowns, “essential workers” like drivers, carers and warehouse employees had to keep working because the economy couldn’t cope without them. Yet in many countries, these jobs are characterised by long or unpredictable hours, low pay and insecurity. In New Zealand, a new law currently going through parliament aims to make bad jobs better. It represents a huge shift in the trajectory of the country’s labour market – one whose success or failure will have ripple effects on policy well beyond its shores. New Zealand has long been a poster child for labour market deregulation. Sweeping reforms in 1991 dismantled the old system of national pay awards and led to a flexible economy with high employment rates by international standards. In 2020, the World Bank named New Zealand the easiest country out of 190 in which to do business. But productivity and wage growth have been weak. New Zealanders work longer hours than average in Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries but produce less per hour. New Zealand’s Labour government believes part of the problem is that employers in some sectors have ended up in a “race to the bottom”. They are competing by cutting labour costs rather than improving quality or technology. Craig Renney, director of policy at the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions, says bus drivers are a good example. “It got to the point where we couldn’t get bus drivers, we were importing them from overseas, but no one was getting a better service,” he told me. Emergency visas This dynamic isn’t unique to New Zealand: the UK’s HGV driver shortage last year, which prompted the government to announce emergency visas for migrant workers, was caused at least in part by an erosion in drivers’ pay and working hours. In March, the New Zealand government introduced the “fair pay agreements” Bill. It aims to get employers and unions to negotiate agreements which would set a minimum floor for pay and conditions across whole sectors or occupations. If a tenth of workers who would be covered or 1,000 of them (whichever is fewer) say they want a fair pay agreement, union and employer representatives will negotiate one and put it to a vote. If there is ultimate stalemate, the Employment Relations Authority will decide the terms. Unions argue the system will stop good employers from being undercut by bad ones and help workers in sectors which are hard to organise. They plan to focus first on bus drivers, security guards, childcare workers and “bottle shops”. As well as pay, they will focus on minimum standards for training, working hours and safety measures. But employers’ groups are fiercely opposed. They say fair pay agreements will reduce flexibility and drag New Zealand back to the 1970s at a time when they are already grappling with inflation. Productivity and wages Kirk Hope, chief executive of BusinessNZ, the main business lobby group, has argued fair pay agreements will “take away control from Kiwi workers and give it to faceless officials in [the capital] Wellington”. Who is right? A detailed OECD study in 2019 concluded that sectoral collective bargaining systems can lead to better employment, productivity and wages than systems where agreements are only made at the individual company level. But the devil is in the detail: inflexible sectoral agreements can harm productivity while the best ones (more common in Scandinavian countries) provide broad frameworks which also leave “considerable scope for bargaining at the firm level”. A decent level of trust between the negotiating parties also makes a difference. New Zealand’s attempt to perform a handbrake turn in its labour market will be closely watched by other countries with similar problems. If it leads to better quality jobs and more constructive labour relations, expect to see calls for the model to be replicated. The UK’s Labour Party has already promised to implement a similar policy if it is elected. If, on the other hand, the new law results in sclerosis and rows, the disappointment will be felt by beleaguered unions well beyond New Zealand. Whether or not fair pay agreements are the right answer, New Zealand is at least asking the right question: how do we make sure the changing world of work does not leave some people behind in gruelling jobs? This type of work is not going away. Indeed, some occupations, like social care, are set to be among the fastest-growing in the economy. Any attempt to shape the future of work must focus on carers just as much as coders. – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2022