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According to a report from Wisconsin's Division of Executive Budget and Finance, Foxconn has not built the enormous Gen 10.5 LCD factory in Wisconsin that it specified in its contract with the state. "It also says that the building the company claims is a smaller Gen 6 LCD factory shows no signs of manufacturing LCDs in the foreseeable future and 'may be better suited for demonstration purposes,'" reports The Verge. From the report: The report notes that Foxconn received a permit to use its so-called "Fab" for storage, which The Verge first reported this week. Furthermore, according to an industry expert consulted by the state, Foxconn has not ordered the equipment that would be needed to make LCDs. If the building were to be used as an LCD manufacturing facility, the expert notes it would be the smallest Gen 6 in the world and "would appear to be more of a showcase than a business viable for the long term." If any LCD-related manufacturing were to take place in the building, the analysis says, it would likely only be the final assembly of components produced elsewhere and imported to Wisconsin. Such a project would have a vastly smaller impact on local supply chains and employ nowhere near the 13,000 workers anticipated in Foxconn's contract with the state. Wisconsin Secretary of the Department of Administration Joel Brennan said in an interview with The Verge today that "clearly the Gen 6 that's been discussed and built in Mount Pleasant is not similar to other Gen 6 fabs around the world." Brennan said the memo was an effort to consult industry experts to better understand the scope of Foxconn's current project and its potential impact on the state. "There was justified criticism of the [former Governor Scott] Walker administration for entering into this contract, and not really getting any outside experts for an industry that was new to Wisconsin," Brennan said. "This is about making sure that we can use the best expertise that we have inside and outside state government so that we can make the best decisions possible." The report provides the fullest articulation of the state's reason for rejecting Foxconn's subsidy payments so far. Last week, the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC), which oversees the deal, denied the company its first installment of the nearly $3 billion refundable tax credits because it hasn't built the "Gen 10.5 Fab" specified in its contract. The project Foxconn has pursued instead, the new analysis says, would not have warranted the record-breaking subsidy package passed by then-Gov. Scott Walker, nor required the infrastructure state and local governments have built to support it. "Taxpayers fully performed their side of the agreement to date, while the Recipients have not," the report says. In fact, "state taxpayers have spent as much if not more than" Foxconn has on improvements to the company's supposed manufacturing campus. The Verge previously reported that state and local governments spent at least $400 million on the project, mostly on land and infrastructure the company will likely never need. Foxconn listed approximately $300 million in capital expenses at the end of 2019.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

'I didn’t realise that our success would lead to government attention'

Microsoft co-founder and long-serving ex-CEO Bill Gates has admitted naivety in his dealings with Washington around the software giant’s fabled antitrust case with the US Department of Justice (DoJ).…

Yeah I've heard you were in a car accident that wasn't your fault. Is that right? *Click*

Samsung phones will soon come with automatic spam call blocking. The feature, which is part of Samsung Smart Call, will debut on the Galaxy Note20 and will roll out to all new devices released after 2020.…

What are your thoughts on the proposed date?

He was arrested by police at Luton Airport

Also: Starlinks soar but GPS stays grounded, NASA names first Virgin Galactic flier

In Brief  There was good news for International Space Station (ISS) residents this week as the crew managed to plug a leak in the orbiting laboratory. While never an immediate threat to the crew's safety, nobody likes knowing that air is escaping overboard.…

The Chancellor will make a statement to the Commons today

Backup, servers, storage, LAN, WAN and SAN, and software galore

NHS Shared Business Services, the joint venture between the UK’s Department of Health and Social Care and French outsourcing firm Sopra Steria, has awarded a £500m framework to an army of resellers and technology firms.…

Forklift operators are using remote-control technology that allows them to work off-site, controlling their machines from afar. The BBC reports: [A]s Covid-19 spreads easily, the warehouses dotted along the world's supply chains have become potential hubs of disease transmission, says Elliot Katz, co-founder of Phantom Auto. Phantom Auto's technology is now installed in around a dozen warehouses in the US and Europe, he adds. Some of the warehouses using Phantom Auto's technology fence-off the space where the remote-controlled forklifts work, says Mr Katz and the forklifts are also fitted with microphones so the operator can be warned should something be about to go wrong. "If someone is behind that forklift and says, 'Hey, you're about to hit me,' the operator can hear it just like he's sitting on the forklift," says Mr Katz. Among the other firms working in the teleoperation space is US start-up Teleo. It specializes in retrofitting construction equipment so it can be driven remotely. It has just started a trial at a quarry for an unnamed client. In this case, Teleo has adapted a large-wheeled loading vehicle so it can be controlled from an office on site. In the future, a driver could sit in the office and remotely control a variety of vehicles nearby. That might mean fewer people would be employed on-site overall but Teleo argues it makes the role safer for the driver. But the idea of vehicles driven like this is controversial for some. There's always the possibility a terrorist, for example, might try to hack such a system and use a teleoperated car or truck to kill people. Mr Katz and Mr Shet [Teleo co-founder and chief executive] both say their firms have thought about this scenario and add that their engineers have introduced various steps to make a cyber-attack harder. For example, by encrypting communications between teleoperator and vehicle, requiring authorization of drivers and automatically shutting down vehicles should they lose access to a reliable communications signal. No-one can guarantee that such a system will never be hacked, though.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

It follows the Council's request for Essex to be placed under 'high-level' restrictions

We will be bringing you updates as the Chancellor is set to announce more business support for Tier 2

A new blood plasma donation centre is opening as part of the world's largest plasma trial for coronavirus.

A STATELY home is celebrating after being crowned the winners of a prestigious wedding competition despite the impact of coronavirus.

CONSTRUCTION work on the £2.95million pedestrianisation scheme for Braintree town centre is now underway and progressing well council bosses say.

Yes your TV has a 'lifestyle'. Yes we have all been indoors for much, much too long

You’ve got the TV. You splashed out on the sound system. But do you have the paint? That’s the question posed by Samsung, which just introduced LivingColour — a range of paint designed to cover the wall behind your pricey flat-screen idiot box.…

Online payment goliath wants to encourage global use of virtual dosh

The value of Bitcoin spiked on Wednesday after PayPal said it would soon start accepting cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, and Litecoin, through its online payment system.…

The Essex cleaning sensation says the damaging comments are 'pulling parents apart'

County chiefs have called for the 10pm curfew on pubs, bars and restaurants to be scrapped or extended to midnight.

Incredible scoop, read all about it , read all about it

Video  NASA on Wednesday released images and video footage of the moment this week when its OSIRIS-Rex spacecraft scooped some dirt from the asteroid Bennu, some 200 million miles away. The plan is to send the sample back to Earth for boffins to study.…

Finns are going Cray cray

HPE will build a Cray EX supercomputer for scientific and AI research in Europe, using AMD Epyc processors and GPUs, it announced on Wednesday.…