The Potential of Integrating Intelligence and Intuition

EXPERT PERSPECTIVE — When I was just starting out at CIA, there was an analyst in my group who worked in a particularly methodical way. As she read all the various intelligence reports, she would type on a sheet of paper (and it was a typewriter then) the excerpts that she considered meaningful. She would then cut the paper into strips, so that each strip contained just one excerpt, and filed them in notebooks. When it came time to write an article about a particular issue, she would pull out the relevant strips of paper, organize them into paragraphs, write connecting and transition language and an occasional topic sentence, and, voila! She had an analytic product.

I am not making this up. On occasion, I would walk by this analyst’s cubicle just when she had laid the strips of paper in the optimum order, and I would be sorely tempted to blow on her desk to scatter the strips hither and yon. I never did that, but I did – even as a junior analyst – ask my bosses whether they approved of this approach to analysis. I certainly didn’t. Even early in my career, I appreciated that reality was not a cut-and-paste operation. I remember them shrugging their shoulders and remarking that they couldn’t argue with the productivity. Our analyst was the most prolific member of the team, churning out analytic content at twice the rate of any of the others. But her intelligence reports, accurate in the details, were uninspiring in their insight.

This memory came to mind when I read about the Director of National Intelligence’s ongoing review of how the IC assesses the fighting power of foreign militaries, particularly their “will to fight.” The effective stubbornness of Ukraine’s military surprised US policymakers who had been told by the IC that Russian forces would make short work of its defenses. What were those assessments based on? My hunch is they were based on the available reporting, which probably could account for concrete, objective things such as the quantity and quality of military equipment, and even anticipated tactics. But there were clearly some aspects of the situation that traditional intelligence reports could not account for no matter how meticulously they were assembled.

What is lacking in established intelligence tradecraft and how can we fill in the gaps? This is the question I’ve been examining throughout my 40+ years as an analyst.

The methods of the Intelligence Community—and indeed of most knowledge organizations—skew in favor of rational cognitive practices.  But there are any number of major human and societal issues that escape—to one degree or another—rational cognitive examinations.

Emotions—how each individual reacts to a particular event—are an obvious example. But beyond individual emotions, we can also speak of national moods. As was recently argued by Stephen Coleman in the International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society, “citizens’ attunement to political mood comprises an element of political orientation that exceeds cognitive explanation.”

What we are witnessing in Ukraine, is the power of a resolute national mood and will to survive. Moods tend to be about everything and nothing, Coleman argues, and can coalesce quickly. At some point, will we witness the development of a new mood among Russians? Will the Intelligence Community see it coming?

The answer: Not if it only pursues rational, cognitive approaches toward making sense of the world.

Making sense of the world requires more than the collation of intelligence reports—regardless of how detailed they are. It’s time for the IC to expand its thinking repertoire by seriously exploring nonlinear and more impressionistic mental practices.

Daniel Kahneman’s publication in 2011 of his landmark book, Thinking Fast and Slow focused new attention on the problems of cognitive biases and the advantages of good thinking. (Kahneman has since admitted that some of the book’s conclusions were based on experiments that are now known to suffer from the replication problems afflicting social science research.) Even if you haven’t read the book, you’re probably familiar with the concept of System 1/System 2 thinking that Kahneman popularized. System 1 thinking could almost be described as non-thinking. It’s automatic and fast and directs much of what we do as humans. System 2 thinking is logical, well-ordered, and slow. It is what we call rational thinking, and we like to tell ourselves that it’s protected from emotional contamination.

The reaction to the book from many organizations, including the Intelligence Community, was to conclude that knowledge workers need to do more System 2 thinking and less System 1 non-thinking. Quick, intuitive reactions to an issue or event (System 1) are riddled with irrational cognitive biases; we’re better off improving our rational, logical thinking practices. This will result in better analysis and support to policymakers…or will it?

My sense is that this overcorrection toward System 2 thinking—and the labeling of more intuitive, less-structured practices as not helpful, error-prone, and perhaps even nonprofessional, has – in my view – been a mistake. Our intuitive System 1 minds are in many ways more powerful than our System 2 processing.

System 1 can connect dots and identify patterns that will escape even the most careful reading of the usual sources. Reading reports and categorizing their contents—the default tradecraft of the intelligence community—may be fine when we’re tracking widgets, but these methods can’t keep up with the complexity of modern times. We already know that artificial intelligence and deep machine learning hold considerable promise in making sense of wildly separate and yet subtly interconnected events—they are essentially an imitation of our System 1 processes. But each of us also comes with an amazing piece of standard equipment—the human brain—that can detect patterns and relationships without our conscious involvement. Yes, we can use artificial intelligence to process reams of data—but it’s becoming clear to me that we won’t know what to do with that data unless the Intelligence Community prioritizes the improvement of our intuition.

The idea that intuition is the much lesser partner of analytic thinking is based on misunderstandings of human thinking processes. When a thought or gut feeling enters our mind unbidden, it is likely the product of behind-the-scenes brain work. Many neurologists now think the brain can best be described as a predicting machine that constantly compares its current perceptions against all its memories. The brain can detect emerging patterns or changes that deserve attention, long before the analytic brain comprehends evidence of a new trend.

As a recent study on creative thinking found, the best results should occur when System 1 and System 2 collaborate on decision making and insight-production. After all, behavioral evidence tells us that the number of confounding factors we confront exceeds all of our System 2 sensemaking abilities; there are more than enough mysteries to go around.

Despite the disregard many have for intuition, some knowledge workers explicitly acknowledge the role of intuition in their work. Historian of Science Jimena Canales has written that, “stories of scientific discovery often turn on moments of imagination, dreams, and the unreal.” Among the scientists who have pointed to dreams as sources for their discoveries are Dimitri Mendeleev, Alfred Russell Wallace, and James Watson. Workers in fields such as marketing and design for whom creativity is essential often employ practices—such as meditation—to better access their intuition. Intuition is particularly essential for dealing with more difficult, wicked problems that cannot be solved through linear thinking.

What can the Intelligence Community do to improve its use of intuitive talents?


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First, stop discouraging the application of intuition. I remember a time when intelligence agencies insisted that every analytic judgment be backed by a specific intelligence report. Of course, it’s good practice to base our judgments on sound intelligence but it’s folly to insist upon this as an absolute rule. We are not absolutely certain that intelligence reports and other information we receive accurately represents 100% of reality; in fact, we are certain this is not the case, and we can’t correctly estimate what percentage of reality we fail to capture.

To drive home this point, I would often ask groups of analysts to tell me—if the entire room represented all that could be known about Al Qaeda—what part of the room represented what the Intelligence Community actually knew? On more than one occasion, an analyst held up a coffee cup.

We can’t very well tell policymakers that a group of analysts has a hunch that X or Y could happen, at least not without preparatory groundwork. But we can encourage analysts to engage in quiet individual or group reflections on a regular basis to allow new or different ideas to penetrate their consciousness. As Asta Raami, a researcher on “intentional intuition” notes, any behavior that encourages quieting of thoughts can be helpful in gaining new insights.

Over the years, the IC has experimented with non-traditional analytic methods that had the potential to incorporate intuition. One technique was asking analysts who were covering political instability, to use numerical scoring to keep track of how things were progressing…or not. An individual’s score could reflect not just what she knew analytically but what her intuition might be telling her.

The activity became tedious over time and deteriorated into a box-checking exercise. Prediction markets and crowd-sourcing techniques are other methods that can harness the power of intuition. IARPA (the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity) has sponsored prediction markets but to my knowledge, their results haven’t often been conveyed to policymakers. Even when the IC experiments with non-traditional analytic methods, it has been reluctant (embarrassed?) to use them to support policymakers directly.

One approach that hasn’t been tried, is to explicitly incorporate our intuitive faculties into analytic tradecraft. The Intelligence Community could emulate the best practices developed by other organizations to deepen and harvest System 1 thinking. Analysts would be coached about the limitations of intelligence reporting—how it is inherently incomplete and particularly bad on complex issues and questions of human will and determination.

They would also learn how to apply our thinking abilities—System 1 and System 2—for the situations they are best suited. And in much the same way that brainstorming has been incorporated into analytic work, meditative practices would become a standard analytic technique. Intuition coaches would emerge as a new role in analytic units—individuals adept at helping analysts discern among their moments of intuition and hunches, identifying those worthy of further examination.

The explicit incorporation of intuition into analytic tradecraft is not about intuition replacing analytic reasoning; it is instead about combining both to achieve better results overall. Individuals with deep domain expertise—such as Nobel Prize winners—often have the most compelling intuitive insights. They receive rather than produce these insights because their minds are trained to recognize the value of “out of the blue” ideas.

While intuition can deliver potential leads that traditional analytic tradecraft can pursue or collect against, the IC will need to fight its inclination to standardize intuitive practices. Intuition is a personal experience; some practices that work for one individual will be pointless for others. I often find new ideas entering my mind during a long walk or just after I wake up. Intuition coaches can help analysts identify what works best for them.


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Intuition training leads to precognition.

All of us have the experience of thoughts entering our minds unbidden. But we rarely ask ourselves where those thoughts came from. In recent years, researchers—influenced in part by discoveries in quantum physics about the uncertain nature of time—have explored whether there is in fact, a way for the human brain to receive signals from the future. Lately, I have wondered whether information about the future can leak into the present, and whether humans can detect it.

For more than two decades prior to 1995, the IC studied the idea that precognition is possible. Specifically, both DIA and CIA pursued programs in remote viewing where individuals were asked to put their minds in a state in which they felt they could describe distant physical locations, facilities, and even people—not only as they existed at that moment, but how they would look at some future point.

When CIA inherited the program in the early 1990s, the agency asked the American Institute for Research (AIR) to evaluate its efficacy, and AIR asked psychologist Ray Hyman and statistician Jessica Utts to comb through several years of data. Both reviewers assessed that the remote program’s precognition results were statistically significant. Nevertheless, the CIA decided to kill the program because, according to the official report, it was not clear how to incorporate remote viewing results into standard intelligence reporting.

In the almost thirty years since, the study of precognition has advanced independent of the IC’s level of interest. Precognition has emerged as a statistically significant experimental effect, both when it’s assessed with skilled practitioners and among the general population. Scientists now are working to identify what factors influence precognitive performance; it appears that meditation experience, belief in the phenomenon itself, and positive feelings may all have an impact.

The financial and investment industries, always looking for an edge, have also experimented with precognition, including methods for identifying and training skilled “precogs.”

As you can guess by now, I think that precognition is among the forms of intuition that the IC needs to consider. But unlike the efforts from the past century, the work, as much as possible, should be pursued openly and in collaboration with scientific researchers.

A new emphasis on System 1 thinking will inevitably present us with moments of possible precognition. We no doubt will discover skilled precogs among our analysts, who have probably been using these skills all along, perhaps not knowingly. But we will need to use our System 2 analytic minds to distinguish noise from true signals and to develop protocols to explore these signals with rigor.

Many will scoff at these ideas and indeed, the concept of precognition remains controversial within the scientific community. There is a strong bias in the intelligence and scientific communities that all reality is materially-based and that speculation about non-material, non-rational phenomena is delusional and, even worse, a type of con-job. But I’ve yet to see any scientific proof that all reality is materially-based—only assertions, conjecture, and wishful thinking. And the more I’ve read about quantum physics, the nature of time, consciousness, and the mysteries of the mind, the more I’ve come to appreciate the awesome potential of human cognition.

Our people have always been our greatest resource; the time has come to make use of all our minds have to offer.

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The latest on Manchester United’s pursuit of Ajax winger Antony

The latest on Manchester United’s pursuit of Ajax winger Antony

A fresh update on Manchester United’s reported pursuit of Ajax winger Antony has been provided on Friday.

After Erik ten Hag took over at United from Ajax, a number of the Dutch powerhouses’ top players have, of course, been linked with Manchester United.

The main name was Jurrien Timber. However, those rumours have since died down somewhat and Antony has instead become the primary name mentioned in the media. On paper, though, it seems like it could prove to be a solid bit of business from Manchester United.

Jesse Lingard is set to leave the club for free at the end of this month, and Anthony Martial’s future looks to be elsewhere.

This would leave just Marcus Rashford and Jadon Sancho as natural wide players for the 2022/23 campaign.

So, signing Antony, whose electrifying pace and quick feet would cause Premier League defences all sorts of issues, seems like a smart move.

The Brazilian is still only young at 22 but is already performing at the highest level – assisting four and scoring two in six Champions League this past season.

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But how close is the South American to joining Manchester United?

Well, according to Goal, Manchester United are making progress in their bid to sign Antony from Ajax.

It is added that Antony’s representatives are already in Europe to accelerate and possibly conclude talks, with the player’s future set to be decided in the next few days.

The presence of Ten Hag at Manchester United is expected to play a key role in helping the Red Devils secure Antony.

Manchester United will reportedly pay around €60 million for the player.

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This article was edited by
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Sun Has More Oxygen and Metals, States New Study Its Chemical Composition

The Sun is riddled with mystery. People on Earth are about 150 million kilometres away from the Sun and only have a limited view of the star. Add to that the fact that the Sun’s surface is scorching hot, and it’s constantly ejecting particles at a speed of around 1 million miles per hour. So, it’s no surprise that researchers and astronomers are still discovering new things about the Sun. Now, astronomers have solved a decade-long conflict between the Sun’s internal structure as determined by solar oscillations (helioseismology) and the structure derived from the fundamental theory of stellar evolution, which is based on measurements of the present-day Sun’s chemical composition.

The Sun, for example, has significantly more oxygen, silicon, and neon than previously assumed. In addition, the technologies used to offer much more precise predictions of stellar chemical compositions in general.

What do you do when a tried-and-true approach for estimating the Sun’s chemical composition clashes with a novel, exact method for mapping the Sun’s inner structure? Until recent computations reconciled the seeming discrepancy, astronomers studying the Sun faced this situation.

The method used spectral analysis, which decomposes light into waves of various lengths. Dark lines can be seen in stellar spectra, suggesting the existence of specific chemical components. These lines were linked to the star’s temperature and chemical composition as early as 1920. According to experts, the Sun and other comparable stars are primarily made up of hydrogen and helium. Solar atmospheric observations reported in 2009 were used to calibrate this standard model.

The convection zone inside the Sun, where matter actively mixes and transfers energy from the inner to the outer layers, is significantly greater than the standard model predicts, according to the helioseismic model. Other calculations, such as the total quantity of helium in the Sun, were also off.

By reviewing the models on which spectral estimations of the Sun’s chemical composition are based, Ekaterina Magg, Maria Bergemann, and colleagues have managed to address that problem. They compiled a list of all the chemical elements that correlate to modern stellar development theories.

Magg said that they discovered that the Sun contained 26 percent more elements heavier than helium than earlier research had concluded. The value for the oxygen abundance was also nearly 15 percent greater than previous studies, added Magg.

The unexplained disparity between the results of those models and helioseismic data disappears when those new values are utilised as the input for current models of solar structure and evolution. The in-depth investigation of how spectral lines are formed resolves the solar abundance dilemma.

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Poco Smartphone Spotted on Mi Code, Said to Be Rebranded Redmi Note 10S: Report

Poco is reportedly launching a new smartphone this year and it is said to be a rebranded version of the Redmi Note 10S. The Chinese brand is also expected to launch a Pro variant of the smartphone as well. The details of the rumoured smartphone were reportedly spotted in Mi Code. The handset was also spotted on the EEC certification list and the IMEI database. The vanilla and the Pro variants are said to be codenamed ‘rosemaryp’ and ‘rosemaryp_pro’, respectively. The rumoured handset is said to feature specifications similar to the Redmi Note 10S.

According to a report from Xiaomiui, Poco is expected to launch a new phone that will be a rebranded version of the Redmi Note 10S. The report said that the company will launch the rumoured smartphone in two variants, vanilla and Pro. The vanilla variant of the smartphone has been codenamed ‘rosemaryp’ and the Pro variant has been codenamed ‘rosemaryp_pro’.

The report added that the two rebranded variants were spotted on the Mi Code recently, and a month back on the EEC certification site and IMEI database. It was said that the rumoured smartphones will be released with the model number 2207117BPG and K7BP. Since, the smartphone is a rebranded version of the Redmi Note 10S, it can be assumed that the specifications of the rumoured handset will be similar to that of the Redmi smartphone.

Redmi Note 10S specifications

Xiaomi had launched the Redmi Note 10S in India in May last year. The smartphone is powered by the octa-core MedtaTek Helio G95 SoC coupled with the Mali-G76 MC4 GPU and a 5,000mAh battery with 33W fast charging support. It launched with Android 11 with MIUI 12.5 on top. The smartphone features a 6.43-inch full-HD+ AMOLED touchscreen that is designed to deliver 1,100 nits of peak brightness. The display of the handset also came with Corning Gorilla Glass 3 protection.

The smartphone was initially launched with only 6GB RAM storage options. Later, Xiaomi launched the 8GB RAM variant as well. Currently, the smartphone is sold in India in three RAM + storage options, 6GB + 64GB, 6GB + 128GB, and 8GB + 128GB.


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New Study Reveals How Marine Viruses May Aid in Mitigation of Climate Change

Several of the 5,500 marine RNA virus species recently identified by scientists may help push carbon absorbed from the atmosphere to permanent storage on the ocean floor, according to a study. The findings also suggest that a small percentage of the newly discovered species had borrowed genes from the animals they infected, which could aid researchers in determining their supposed hosts and functions in marine processes. The research is leading to a greater understanding of the outsized impact these tiny particles play in the ocean ecosystem, in addition to charting a wealth of core ecological data.

These RNA viruses were discovered in plankton samples gathered by the Tara Oceans Consortium, a global study of the impact of climate change on the ocean conducted onboard the schooner Tara. The effort aims to learn more about the organisms that live in the ocean and do the majority of the work of absorbing half of the human-generated carbon in the atmosphere and producing half of the oxygen we breathe in order to predict how the ocean will respond to climate change.

Though these marine viral species aren’t harmful to humans, they act like any other virus, infecting another organism and exploiting its cellular machinery to replicate itself. Though the consequence may always be negative for the host, a virus’s actions may have environmental benefits, such as assisting in the dissipation of a hazardous algal bloom.

The findings of the study have been published in the journal Science.

Additional research discovered 1,243 RNA virus species linked to carbon export. In order to promote carbon export to the ocean’s depths, 11 species were involved. Two viruses associated to algae as hosts were chosen as the most promising targets for further research.

Ahmed Zayed, a research scientist in microbiology at The Ohio State University and co-first author of the study, said, “The findings are important for model development and predicting what is happening with carbon in the correct direction and at the correct magnitude.”

Another professor, Matthew Sullivan said that as people emitted more carbon into the atmosphere, the researchers relied on the ocean’s vast buffering capability to keep climate change at bay.

Sullivan added that they were looking for viruses that could tune to a more digestible carbon, allowing the system to develop, produce larger cells, and eventually sink. And if it sinks, humans will be spared the harshest effects of climate change for another few hundred or thousand years.

To identify possible hosts, the researchers employed a combination of methods, first inferring the host from the viruses’ classification in the context of marine plankton, and then generating predictions based on how the virus and host amounts co-vary since their abundances are dependent on one another. The third technique involved looking for signs of RNA virus incorporation in cellular genomes.

While most dsDNA viruses infect bacteria and archaea, which are widespread in the ocean, this recent study discovered that RNA viruses mostly infect fungi and microbial eukaryotes, as well as invertebrates to a lesser level. Only a small percentage of marine RNA viruses are capable of infecting bacteria.


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WhatsApp Group Chat Can Now Reportedly Have Upto 512 Members

WhatsApp has reportedly started rolling out a new feature that lets users add up to 512 members to a group chat. The feature was announced by Meta last month. The messaging platform is also bringing a host of new features including increasing the size limit of sharing files to up to 2GB and emoji reactions to messages. WhatsApp is also reportedly testing a new undo option for deleted messages. The social media platform was also found to be adding an option to edit messages after they are sent earlier this month.

Meta-owned social messaging platform WhatsApp has reportedly started rolling out a feature to let the users add up to 512 members to a group chat. A recent report by WABInfo indicated that the feature will be rolled out for all users of the latest stable update of WhatsApp. The feature has rolled out widely but some users might have to wait for 24 hours more before they’ll be able to see the feature on their WhatsApp. The feature was announced by Meta early in May.

WhatsApp is also increasing the size limit of sharing files to up to 2GB from the existing 100MB allocation. The Meta-owned app has also introduced emoji reactions recently to help people quickly express their feelings and emotions about particular messages they receive from individuals and in group chats, without requiring them to send responses in text.

WhatsApp is also reportedly testing a new undo option for deleted messages. This new feature is supposed to be useful when users accidentally select the ‘Delete for Me’ options, instead of ‘Delete for Everyone’. The feature is reportedly still under development and not yet available to beta testers on Android.

WhatsApp was also found to be adding an option to edit messages after they are sent. The feature would help users rectify mistakes such as typing errors in their messages, without completely deleting them from the chat and writing a fresh text message.


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Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4, Galaxy Z Flip 4 Tipped to Support Swipe for Split-Screen Feature



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UN rights office — Global Issues

The three men – Britons Aiden Aslin and Shaun Pinner, and Moroccan Saaudun Brahim – were captured while fighting for Ukraine, reportedly defending the southern port city of Mariupol.

Bitter fighting between Ukrainian and Russian forces since the Russian invasion on 24 February flattened the city, where UN rights chief Michelle Bachelet has previously condemned attacks against civilians and civilian infrastructure, that have likely caused thousands of deaths.

OHCHR is concerned about the so-called Supreme Court of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic sentencing three servicemen to death,” said Ms. Shamdasani. “According to the chief command of Ukraine, all the men were part of the Ukrainian armed forces and if that is the case, they should not be considered as mercenaries.”

Longstanding concerns

The UN rights office spokesperson also highlighted longstanding concerns about fair trial violations in Ukraine’s breakaway eastern regions bordering Russia. “Since 2015, we have observed that the so-called judiciary within these self-contained republics has not complied with essential fair trial guarantees, such as public hearings, independence, impartiality of the courts and the right not to be compelled to testify.”

Speaking in Geneva, Ms. Shamdasani added that “such trials against prisoners of war amount to a war crime. In the case of the use of the death penalty, fair trial guarantees are of course all the more important.”

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Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4, Galaxy Z Flip 4 Tipped to Support Swipe for Split-Screen Feature

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4 and Galaxy Z Flip 4 have been on the rumour mill for quite some time now. The South Korean brand is expected to unveil the latest foldable phones in August this year. Ahead of the launch, a new leak suggests that Samsung will add a swipe for split-screen feature on the Galaxy Z Fold 4 and Galaxy Z Flip 4 for multitasking. This functionality is likely to allow users to enter the split-screen mode by just swiping on the screen. Other major players in the foldable phone market, Oppo and Vivo, also introduced similar features on their devices earlier.

Known tipster Ice universe (@UniverseIce) on Twitter claims that Galaxy Z Fold 4 and Galaxy Z Flip 4 will have swipe for split-screen function. The source doesn’t detail how the new feature will work. It could open apps in split-screen mode with a simple swipe. In the Galaxy Z Fold 3 and Galaxy Z Flip 3 models, the split-screen mode can be accessed through the Multi window tray or the Recents apps menu. The addition of a new feature in upcoming models will let users quickly switch between apps.

Oppo and Vivo smartphones offer a similar quick feature to access apps on split-screen. On Oppo Find N foldable device, the split-screen mode can be used by swiping down on the unfolded screen with two fingers, while on Vivo smartphones this can be done by vertically swiping up with three fingers.

Past leaks have suggested colour options and storage details of the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4 and Galaxy Z Flip 4. The former is said to come in Beige, Green, and Phantom Black colour options, while the latter is expected to come in Blue, Bora Purple, Graphite, and Pink Gold shades. A recent report claimed that the Galaxy Z Fold 4 and Galaxy Z Flip 4 could offer up to 1TB of onboard storage. The company reportedly started firmware development for the Galaxy Z Fold 4 and the Galaxy Z Flip 4.


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Prime Minister Narendra Modi Inaugurates IN-SPACe Headquarter in Ahmedabad 



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Some crypto firms cut jobs while others aim for sustainable growth

To put things into perspective, since November 2021, the total market capitalization of the digital asset industry has plummeted from it’s all-time high of $3 trillion to its current levels of approx. $1.27 trillion, thus showcasing a loss ratio of over 55%.

While this massive monetary downturn can be attributed to a range of factors, including the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war, rising inflation figures and worsening macroeconomic conditions have had a major impact on the crypto job landscape.

For example, earlier this month, Gemini, a cryptocurrency exchange helmed by the Winklevoss twins, announced that the bear market had forced them to lay off nearly 10% of its employees. The brothers noted that as part of their first major headcount cut, Gemini had to shift its focus on products that are “critical” to the firm’s long-term vision and goals. In fact, the brothers conceded that the existing turbulence was likely to persist for a few months at the very least, adding:

There is no denying the fact that the crypto industry has grown from strength to strength over the last couple of years. However, the last six odd months have been anything but pleasant for the market. 

“This is where we are now, in the contraction phase that is settling into a period of stasis — what our industry refers to as ‘crypto winter.’ […] This has all been further compounded by the current macroeconomic and geopolitical turmoil. We are not alone.”

How bad is the situation really?

In addition to Gemini, a number of other big-name firms have had to make serious cutbacks in recent months. For example, the second-largest cryptocurrency exchange in Latin America, Bitso, announced late last month that it was letting go of 80 of its employees due to worsening global economic conditions. At the time of the announcement, Bitso had over 700 full-time workers. 

The firm’s staff overhaul is not only a means of tightening its purse strings but also as a way of restructuring Bitso’s day-to-day activities. That said, a representative for the exchange recently revealed that they still have few vacancies across niche strategic domains such as accounting, tax, fraud detection and others.

Buenbit, one of Argentina’s leading cryptocurrency investment platforms, had to take more drastic measures to put a stop to its financial bleeding. During the last week of May, the company laid off approximately 45% of its workforce, shrinking its active employee pool from about 180 to just 100 workers.

Recent: MimbleWimble adds new features for Litecoin, but some exchanges balk

2TM, the parent company behind Mercado Bitcoin, also revealed that it was going to be laying off 12% of its 750-strong team as a result of “changes in the global financial landscape.” At press time, Mercado Bitcoin is by far the biggest crypto exchange in Latin America in terms of the total trading volume. As part of a statement regarding the move, a spokesperson for 2TM noted:

“The scenario requires adjustments that go beyond the reduction of operating expenses, making it necessary also to lay off part of our employees.”

Coinbase announced recently that it would slow down its rate of hiring and reassess its financial strategies so as to ensure the company’s continued success. The firm even rescinded a lot of job offers that it had already issued, putting the visas of many international candidates in jeopardy. Not addressing the visa issue directly, Coinbase’s chief people officer L.J. Brock wrote in a blog recently:

“As these discussions have evolved, it’s become evident that we need to take more stringent measures to slow our headcount growth. Adapting quickly and acting now will help us to successfully navigate this macro environment and emerge even stronger, enabling further healthy growth and innovation.”

Crypto-friendly trading platform Robinhood fired 9% of its workforce in April, a decision that came at a time when the company’s stock offering had touched an all-time low. Lastly, one of the Middle East’s most prominent crypto trading ecosystems, Rain Financial, laid off over 12 employees earlier this month, citing the global financial downturn as a reason for the same. 

A repeat of 2018

The aforementioned job turmoil seems to have an eerie feel to it, one that mirrors the events of 2018 when the market was faced with widespread layoffs across the board. At the time, crypto mining giant Bitmain got rid of a massive chunk of its employee base, with reports then suggesting that the company let go 1,700 of its 3,200 employees — including its entire Bitcoin Cash (BCH) development team, several engineers, media managers and more.

Migrant Mother, photograph by Dorothea Lange, 1936. The photograph was emblematic of employment struggles during the Great Depression. 

Prominent cryptocurrency exchange Huobi also carried out massive layoffs in 2018, with the company letting go of its “underachieving employees” while stressing that the remedial measures were necessary for “its core business” to sustain itself. At the time, the company reportedly had a workforce of over a thousand employees.

Lastly, blockchain software technology firm ConsenSys was also forced to make significant cuts in 2018, with the company’s CEO Joseph Lubin penning a letter to his employees revealing that he would have to let go of some 600 employees in an effort to help the business stay afloat.

Not all is lost

Amid these unfavorable market conditions, there are still firms that have decided not to lay off their employees. For example, crypto exchange platform FTX announced that not only will it be retaining its existing employees but will also be hiring new personnel as the crypto winter marches on.

As part of a recent Twitter exchange, CEO Sam Bankman-Fried explained that his firm will continue to expand its operations because its growth blueprint has been well structured, unlike some other firms that experienced unfounded, unsustainable “hyper-growth” during last year’s bull run.

Criticizing “hyper-growth companies,” Bankman-Fried said that hiring more staff quickly doesn’t necessarily lead to a substantial increase in productivity since rapid expansion, more often than not, makes it more difficult for everyone to stay on the same page. “Sometimes, the more you hire, the less you get done,” he said.

Even though FTX had slowed down its hiring earlier on in the year, the move, he noted, was not due to a lack of funds but rather a means of ensuring that new team members had enough time to adjust to their new roles and professional surroundings.

Some crypto recruiters noted that while the digital asset industry has indeed witnessed layoffs, its rate of hiring has remained spectacularly high, especially when compared to the traditional tech space. To this point, a number of Silicon Valley giants including Twitter, Uber and Amazon have announced major job cuts recently.

Netflix also terminated the roles of 150 employees after posting historically poor growth figures, while Facebook’s parent company Meta noted that it was instating a hiring freeze for any mid-to-senior-level positions after failing to meet revenue targets.

Recent: Self-regulatory orgs for crypto keep ecosystem afloat pending clear regulations

Neil Dundon, founder of employment agency Crypto Recruit, said that things have not slowed down when it comes to hiring within the digital asset industry. “We have a team based globally across the U.S., Asia/Pacific and European regions and demand is equally as high across the region,” he pointed out in a recent interview with Cointelegraph.

Similarly, Kevin Gibson, founder of Proof of Search, told Cointelegraph that the lay-offs taking place across the tech sector have had little to no impact on his crypto industry clients so far, adding:

“I’ve only heard of two companies letting people go. This may change in the next month, but any slack will immediately be taken up by well-funded quality projects. As a candidate, you won’t notice any difference. if you do lose your job, you will also have multiple offers pretty quickly.”

Therefore, as the ongoing downturn continues to affect the global economy in a big way, it will be interesting to see how companies operating within this space are able to stave off bearish pressure and survive the ongoing financial onslaught.



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Prime Minister Narendra Modi Inaugurates IN-SPACe Headquarter in Ahmedabad 

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday inaugurated the headquarters of the Indian Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe), set up to promote private investment and innovation in the space sector. The government has initiated reforms in the space sector and opened it up for private sector, Modi said, speaking at the inaugural event in Ahmedabad.

“I am hopeful that like in the IT sector, our industry will also take the lead in the global space sector,” he said.

“I want to assure the private sector that reforms in the space sector will continue unabated,” he added.

“Space technology is going to bring in a big revolution in the world in the 21st century,” Modi further said.

Recently, the Indian Space Research Organisation announced that the India’s communication satellite GSAT-24 will be launched by Arianespace from Kourou in French Guiana on June 22.

“NewSpace India Limited (NSIL), a Government of India company under Department of Space (DoS), is undertaking GSAT-24 satellite mission as its 1st Demand Driven mission post space reforms”, the Bengaluru-headquartered space agency said.

GSAT-24 is a 24-Ku band communication satellite weighing 4,180kg with pan-India coverage for meeting DTH application needs. NSIL has leased the entire satellite capacity to Tata Play, an ISRO statement said.

GSAT-24 satellite, after completing assembly, integration and environmental test, was cleared by PSR (Pre-Shipment Review) committee on May 2.

The satellite and its allied equipment were shipped to Kourou, French Guiana on May 18 using C-17 Globemaster aircraft.

As part of launch campaign activities, the satellite is presently undergoing health/ performance checks at clean room facilities in French Guiana, it was stated.

The France-based satellite launch service Arianespace announced in April that India’s newest space PSU NSIL’s first demand-driven communication satellite for Tata Sky will be launched on June 22. It said the satellites will be launched for two long-standing Arianespace customers – MEASAT, the leading Malaysian satellite operator, and NewSpace India Limited (NSIL), a Government of India company under Department of Space (DOS).


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