The Big Stories of March 2017

Another month gone by and the Trump Administration is still struggling, cyber attacks continue and Brexit becomes official.

Headlines

This month saw the Trump Administration face more failures. We saw Trump Care failing to be passed by Congress along with the second Muslim Ban being blocked. Not only that but there were investigations into wire tapping claims and Russian ties to the Trump Administration and Climate Change suffered a major set back when Trump undid much of the work put in place by Obama. In the UK we saw a terrorist attack at Westminster while natural disaster claimed lives with landslides in Peru.

Business

On the business front the infamous Brexit decision was given the green light to begin proceedings while Europe's VW continued to face the repercussions of it's emissions scandal with more fines ordered.

Entertainment

Bill Cosby continued his fight against sexual abuse allegations and the Oscars apologized for the Best Picture snafu. Another celebrity hacked nude photo and sex tape scandal broke and Late Show hosts battled for ratings with Trump in their sights.

Technology

March was all about cyber security with Yahoo's security woes seeing 32 million accounts accessed while Apple also came under fire with claims by hackers saying they had accessed iCloud accounts. But of all the big security news it was WikiLeaks releasing details about the CIA's hacking efforts that got everyone's attention. Google didn't fair any better with advertisers pulling out of YouTube due to questionable content but on the bright side SpaceX made history for launching their reusable rocket.

Style

Paris Fashion Week closed off the fashion calendar with big names like Louis Vuitton, Alexander McQueen, Chanel and more while the CFDA nominees were announced for the 2017 awards.

The People Controlling the World's Money

This week we see nations and businesses busying themselves as the world around them changed.

Nations at Odds

We begin this week in Greece with the continuing drama over debt with the IMF raising a red flag initially but later saying they expect Greece to make the $1.7 billion payment by 30 June as Athens continues to negotiate with creditors. Greece, however, wasn't the only country arguing over public funds this week as anti austerity marches took place in London with celebrities joining the masses. Russia didn't have a great week either with Europe extending economic sanctions by 6 months due to the crises in the Ukraine.

Outside of financial crises we saw Australia reveal this week that it would join the China lead infrastructure bank as a founding member while in the States SCOTUS upheld Obamacare after another legal battle over the wording in the law. But while disputes and economic quandaries were fought it was revealed that the NSA had been targeting the business world with security companies in particular in order to create malware that could bypass their defenses.

The Business World

The business world would be rocked further with WikiLeaks releasing more Sony emails and documents showing a deal made with Apple and settlements made. Controversy didn't end there with businessman Donald Trump entering the race to be US President and making surprising progress even after controversial statements about immigrants resulting in Univision dropping Trumps Miss USA pageant. But while some controversies boiled over others were dealt with head on as many large retailers stopped selling confederate flag related items after the tragic events in Charleston last week.

Finally we end the week with the digital world of business, in particular the new streaming music industry where new comer Tidal lost it's interim CEO just months after losing a previous CEO but it's wasn't all bad news when Apple was confronted by pop princess Taylor Swift in an open letter condemning their plans to not pay artists resulting in a turn around where Apple agreed to pay artists during the 3 month trial period.

Technologies Tantalizing Tomorrow

We delve this week into the world of Technology with security threats from hackers looming large and space calling out to the brave.

Fighting on the Digital Front

We begin the week with security after numerous stories of hackers surfaced this week ranging in severity of threat. If you thought being untethered and high in the sky would keep you safe a new report claims that hackers could hack into the aircraft's system via the planes own Wi-Fi, and you thought all you had to worry about was a guy stuck in the cargo hold of the plane. While the odds of a plane being hacked are low the number is increasing as a new report claims a 23% spike in cyber crimes with another study showing data breaches have stolen nearly 29 million US health records in 4 years.

One of the most famous hack of recent memory is that of Sony Entertainment who's documents can now be found in a searchable trove on Wikileaks and more worryingly is the fact that the software used to attack Sony Entertainment can be bought on the dark web for just $30,000 in bitcoin. Speaking of business, Google faces a new antitrust lawsuit in Europe after claims that Google prioritized it's own services over that of others. In the US the new net neutrality freedom is already coming under attack by broadband companies who are taking the fight to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

Future and Fun

Focusing instead on bettering mankind's future we saw the first ever donut launched into space giving us even more reason to reach space. However, attempts to get into space took another knock when SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket just failed to land on the drone barge during a test flight earlier in the week. For those already in the heavens we saw footage of a space walk carried out earlier in the year on ISS while even further out in space the Curiosity rover found evidence of small amounts of water on Mars. On the topic of robots, a few of them are being used closer to home mapping radiation at the Fukushima power plant too dangerous for humans to map.

Finally we end this week where artificial intelligence is no match, natural stupidity. The week saw two puzzles fool the internet with Cheryl's Birthday math problem and a picture of a cat either walking up or down a flight of stairs, basically the blue and gold dress all over again.

Technology makes the world go round

It's been an interesting week in the tech world with big money taking center stage.

Money

Facebook acquired WhatsApp for $19 billion with $3billion in Facebook stock. WhatsApp is set to reach 1 billion users faster than Facebook.

King revealed it has made over $1.5 billion from the addictive Candy Crush Saga.

Bitcoin had another bumpy week with the value of Bitcoin plummeting to under $100 on the Mt. Gox exchange.

Staying with Bitcoin, rhe first Bitcoin ATM's in the USA will appear in Seattle and Austin

Security

The Kickstarter website was hacked exposing user data. An email was sent to users urging them change their details.

The NSA saga continued with new allegations that it spied on WikiLeaks and it's visitors.

 Gadgets

Google set out rules for it's Glasses wearers to crack down on the creepy factor. The rules are a list of "Do's and Dont's" such as Do: ask permission before recording someone and Don't: be creepy and rude.

Tesla CEO, Elon Musk, confirmed he had been in talks with Apple but it was not for an acquisition but instead about battery technology and Tesla's new "Gigafactory".

Samsung is suing vacuum cleaner maker Dyson after it claimed Dyson infringed on one of it's patents. Well that sucks.