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After SpaceX, NASA taps Bezos’s Blue Origin to build Moon lander
Two years after awarding Elon Musk's SpaceX a contract to ferry astronauts to the surface of the Moon, NASA on Friday announced it had chosen Blue Origin, a rival space company founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, to build a second lunar lander. Blue Origin's lander was selected for the Artemis 5 mission, currently scheduled to take place in 2029. The company will first have to demonstrate it can safely land on the Moon without a crew. Bezos, the founder and former CEO of Amazon, said on Twitter he was "honored to be on this journey with @NASA to land astronauts on the Moon -- this time to stay." The contract amounts to $3.4 billion, but John Couluris, vice president in charge of lunar transport at Blue Origin, said during a press conference that the company would itself contribute "well north" of that amount to develop the craft. The Artemis program marks NASA's return to the Moon after more than 50 years and is made up of several missions, each with increasing complexity. In 2021, the US agency chose SpaceX to build a lander for Artemis 3, the first mission in the series to have actual astronauts set foot on the lunar surface. The contract was worth $2.9 billion, although SpaceX is supplementing that amount with its own funding. Blue Origin had also competed for the first contract and filed an unsuccessful lawsuit against NASA when SpaceX was chosen as the sole lander provider. The space agency had originally intended to offer two contracts, a practice commonly used to guard against the possibility one fails, but said it had been constrained by budget concerns. NASA in 2022 also chose the SpaceX lander for its Artemis 4 mission, but at the same time requested submissions from other companies for the rest of the program. "We want more competition. We want two landers," NASA boss Bill Nelson said on Friday. "It means that you have reliability. You have backups." Blue Origin's lander, dubbed Blue Moon, is being developed with several partner companies, including Draper, Boeing, Astrobotic, Honeybee Robotics, and Lockheed Martin. The latter will be responsible for developing a crucial element. Once in lunar orbit, Blue Moon will need to be refueled before it can descend and collect the astronauts from the surface of the Moon. Therefore Lockheed Martin has to develop a kind of shuttle to refuel Blue Moon around the Moon. Blue Origin plans to use its New Glenn rocket, which has never flown before, to launch both its lander and this refueling shuttle. Artemis 4, scheduled for 2028, and Artemis 5 a year later will both land on the Moon, but will first pass through a new space station in lunar orbit, called Gateway, which has yet to be constructed. Prelude to Mars Artemis astronauts will take off aboard NASA's Orion capsule, propelled to the Moon by the agency's new SLS mega-rocket. Both these elements were tested uncrewed when Artemis 1 took place six months ago and will be tested with the crew during Artemis 2. For Artemis 3, Orion will dock directly to SpaceX's lander. Two astronauts will then descend on the Moon for about a week, while two others will remain on board Orion. Once their experiments are over, the two adventurers will go back in the lander to Orion, which will bring the four crew members back to Earth. Afterward, Orion will attach to the Gateway space station, and the astronauts will pass through it before boarding the SpaceX lander, for Artemis 4, or Blue Origin for Artemis 5. All of these missions target the south pole of the Moon, where there is water in the form of ice. SpaceX's lander will be a modified version of its Starship spacecraft, currently under development in Texas. It exploded in flight during a first major test in April. The goal of the Artemis program is to learn to live on the Moon, in order to test out all the technologies necessary for an even more perilous journey: to Mars. The post After SpaceX, NASA taps Bezos’s Blue Origin to build Moon lander appeared first on Daily Tribune......»»
OpenAIs Tie-Up Faces Antitrust Probe as Microsoft Denies Stake – The Daily Guardian
Title: Microsoft’s $13 Billion Investment in OpenAI Faces Regulatory Scrutiny Subtitle: Global regulators investigate Microsoft’s financial arrangement with OpenAI, raising concerns over competition in the.....»»
Tech titan Amazon sees profit climb as cloud promises boon
Online retail colossus Amazon on Thursday said profit surged in the recently ended quarter on growing sales and more efficient deliveries, with its cloud business promising even better days ahead. The e-commerce colossus said it made a profit of $9.9 billion on sales that tallied $143.1 billion in the recently ended quarter, with more than half its operating income made from Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud unit. Google parent Alphabet and computing colossus Microsoft this week reported rising quarterly profits, playing up demand for cloud computing enhanced with artificial intelligence. Investors, though, had hoped for better performance from Google Cloud causing the company's shares to slip. While Amazon Web Services (AWS) grew 12 percent when compared to the same quarter a year earlier, the unit's growth lagged that of rival cloud businesses operated by Microsoft and Google. "I remain very optimistic about AWS," Amazon chief executive Andy Jassy said on an earnings call. "There's a lot more there for us; then you look at the very substantial, gigantic new generative AI opportunity, which I believe will be tens of billions of dollars in revenue for AWS over the next several years." Amazon just weeks ago said it would invest up to $4 billion in AI firm Anthropic. The success of OpenAI's ChatGPT, a chatbot released last year that can generate poems, essays, and other works with just a short prompt, has led to billions being invested in the field. Anthropic agreed to use Amazon's chips to develop its next models and to use AWS for "mission-critical workloads." Amazon has already announced it aimed to soup up its Alexa voice assistant with generative AI, which the firm said would allow users to have smoother conversations. Retail rebound Amazon earnings "soared past expectations" in the quarter, according to Insider Intelligence analyst Zak Stambor. "We had a strong third quarter as our cost to serve and speed of delivery in our stores business took another step forward," Jassy said, adding its ad business grew "robustly" and AWS cloud computing business "continued to stabilize." "The retail giant's slowdown last year appears to be in the rearview mirror as it has embarked on significant cost-cutting throughout this year and sharpened its focus on key growth areas, such as its high-margin online marketplace and advertising," Stambor said. A top US antitrust regulator sued Amazon in September, accusing the online retail behemoth of running an illegal monopoly by strong-arming sellers and stifling potential rivals. "Our complaint lays out how Amazon has used a set of punitive and coercive tactics to unlawfully maintain its monopolies," said Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan. Robots and drones Amazon said Thursday it will hire 250,000 full-time, part-time, and seasonal employees in the United States to handle shopping demand in the months ahead. Amazon said last week that it will expand drone delivery of certain purchases to a third US state as well as to Britain and Italy by the end of 2024. The US firm has installed a new robotics system in one of its Texas logistics centers, featuring technology like automated vehicles, mechanical arms, and computer vision technology. Amazon already uses 750,000 robots in its warehouses to speed up deliveries. "The better they get at delivery, the more it continues to grow the e-commerce market overall and Amazon's place within that market," said Insider Intelligence analyst Andrew Lipsman. But increased productivity via robots won't fix underlying Amazon worker issues, critics say. Amazon early this year eliminated some 27,000 jobs in a move it said at the time was necessary, after years of sustained hiring. Ads shine Advertising continues to be "a major bright spot" for Amazon and it has started using generative artificial intelligence to help sellers create "eye-catching" ads in its online marketplace, analyst Stambor said. Insider Intelligence expects Amazon's US advertising business to bring in nearly $34 billion this year a major leap from before the COVID-19 pandemic. The post Tech titan Amazon sees profit climb as cloud promises boon appeared first on Daily Tribune......»»
Amazon launches test satellites in challenge to Musk’s Starlink
Amazon launched two satellites on Friday as part of its plan to deliver the internet from space and compete with Elon Musk's Starlink service. The Atlas V rocket carrying the satellites lifted off from Cape Canaveral in Florida at 2:06 pm local time (6:06 pm GMT). The launch was carried out by the United Launch Alliance (ULA) industrial group, a joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin. Once up and running, the company founded by Jeff Bezos says its Project Kuiper will provide "fast, affordable broadband to unserved and underserved communities around the world," with a constellation of more than 3,200 satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO). "We've done extensive testing here in our lab and have a high degree of confidence in our satellite design, but there's no substitute for on-orbit testing," said Rajeev Badyal, Project Kuiper's vice president of technology. The company has said it would invest $10 billion in the project and has booked 77 heavy-lift launches with commercial providers Arianespace, ULA, and Bezos-owned Blue Origin. The first operational satellites of the Kuiper project are due to be launched in early 2024, according to Amazon, which hopes for initial tests with customers at the end of next year. The test on Friday attempted to establish contact between the probes and Earth, deploy their solar panels, and confirm that all instruments are operating correctly and at the desired temperatures. The two prototypes will then be removed from orbit and disintegrated in the Earth's atmosphere at the end of the test mission. These services are designed to provide internet access to even the most remote and underserved areas around the world, including war zones or disaster-struck areas. Musk's SpaceX launched the first batch of its more than 3,700 operational Starlink satellites in 2019 and is by far the biggest player. Musk's ownership of Starlink caused uproar in Ukraine last month when it was revealed that he refused to turn on the service for a planned attack by Kyiv forces on Russia's Black Sea navy fleet last year. London-headquartered OneWeb is another early entrant in the emerging sector. Given the technology's strategic importance, governments are also keen to join the rush into the sector. China plans to launch 13,000 satellites as part of its GuoWang constellation, while Canada's Telesat will add 300 and German start-up Rivada is eyeing 600. That will be in addition to the European Union's Iris project -- 170 satellites -- and the 300-500 satellites planned to be launched by the US military's Space Development Agency. The post Amazon launches test satellites in challenge to Musk’s Starlink appeared first on Daily Tribune......»»
Microsoft profits soar, key cloud business slows
Microsoft's quarterly profits soared, the company said Tuesday, as its big push into artificial intelligence seemed to be bearing fruit but growth in its key cloud computing business slowed. An earnings statement reported that net profit for Microsoft was $20.1 billion in the April to June period, up 20 percent year-on-year and above expectations. The company posted $56.2 billion in sales for the quarter, which also beat expectations. Even though its share price slipped in after-hours trading, the 48-year-old tech titan remains the world's second most valuable company after Apple, with a market capitalization of $2.6 trillion. Microsoft shares had lifted off last week when the company said it would charge $30 extra per user to turbocharge its Microsoft 365 product -- which includes Word, Excel, and Teams -- with AI powers. This was an extra boost to a stellar year for Microsoft, whose big gamble on AI has so far been rewarded with a share price hike of about 45 percent this year. The heart of the company's activity is the Azure cloud service, which competes with Amazon's AWS and Google Cloud to offer businesses their computing needs. Demand for cloud computing slowed after a historic surge during the pandemic, and Microsoft and its rivals hope that the extra computing demands needed for AI will revive sales. The tech giant said Azure and other cloud services saw revenue growth of 26 percent year-over-year, down slightly from the previous quarter. Microsoft began 2023 with an announcement that it had entered into a close relationship with OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT. The Redmond, Washington-based company swiftly integrated ChatGPT's powers into its Bing search engine, breathing new life into a product that has been unable to compete with Google. Microsoft has also pressed on with its big move to expand beyond its popular Xbox video game console by buying Activision Blizzard for $75 billion. The deal has faced major regulatory scrutiny over competition concerns, but after an effort by US authorities to block the deal failed in court, the move looks likely to succeed. The post Microsoft profits soar, key cloud business slows appeared first on Daily Tribune......»»
Amazon invests $120 million in internet satellite facility
Amazon said Friday it will invest $120 million to build a satellite construction facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, as part of its plans to launch a space internet service to rival SpaceX's Starlink. The company founded by Jeff Bezos says its "Project Kuiper" will provide "fast, affordable broadband to unserved and underserved communities around the world," with a constellation of more than 3,200 satellites in low Earth orbit. "We have an ambitious plan to begin Project Kuiper's full-scale production launches and early customer pilots next year, and this new facility will play a critical role," said Steve Metayer, vice president of Kuiper Production Operations. The company has another production facility in Kirkland, Washington, where it will begin operations by the end of this year. The units will then be sent to Florida to carry out final preparations, and integrate them with rockets from Blue Origin -- also founded by Bezos -- and United Launch Alliance ahead of launch. Elon Musk's SpaceX launched the first batch of its more than 3,700 operational Starlink satellites in 2019 and is by far the biggest player. London-headquartered OneWeb is another early entrant in the emerging sector. But governments are also keen to join the rush. China plans to launch 13,000 satellites as part of its GuoWang constellation, while Canada's Telesat will add 300, and German start-up Rivada is eyeing 600. That will be in addition to the European Union's Iris project -- 170 satellites -- and the 300-500 satellites planned to be launched by the US military's Space Development Agency. The post Amazon invests $120 million in internet satellite facility appeared first on Daily Tribune......»»
Microsoft and Activision add time to seal gaming deal
Microsoft and video gaming giant Activision Blizzard on Wednesday agreed to give themselves more time to complete a blockbuster transaction that still needs a sign off from UK regulators who had earlier rejected the deal. The two companies had previously set 18 July as the cut off point to finalize the $75 billion deal for Microsoft to acquire Activision, which now gets pushed by three months to 18 October. In return, Microsoft agreed to pay Activision an increased break-up fee in case either side walks away from the deal that could reach as high as $4.5 billion, a filing showed. Both sides said they remained firmly committed to the deal and were emboldened by a major victory in a US court which rejected an attempt by the Federal Trade Commission to squash the sale. "The recent decision in the US and approvals in 40 countries all validate that the deal is good for competition, players, and the future of gaming," tweeted Lulu Cheng Meservey, Activision Blizzard's head of corporate affairs. Microsoft President Brad Smith said the extension gave "ample time" to close the sale and that he was "confident about our prospects for getting this deal across the finish line." The acquisition of Activision by Microsoft will create the world's third biggest video-gaming giant and has faced significant scrutiny by antitrust regulators. The companies made substantial commitments to regulators in the European Union and other antitrust authorities in order to win their approval. These answered concerns that Microsoft would bar their rivals access to some of Activision's most popular games, including Call of Duty, one of the world's most popular gaming titles. In April, the UK rejected the deal over its threat to the still developing cloud gaming sector, but agreed to take another look after the FTC's defeat in a US court. The post Microsoft and Activision add time to seal gaming deal appeared first on Daily Tribune......»»
Norway threatens $100,000 daily fine on Meta over data
Norway's data protection agency said Monday it would ban Facebook and Instagram owner Meta from using the personal information of users for targeted advertising, threatening a $100,000 daily fine if it continues. The business practices of US big tech firms are under close scrutiny across Europe over concerns about privacy, with huge fines handed out in recent years. The Norwegian watchdog, Datatilsynet, said Meta uses information such as the location of users, the content they like, and their posts for marketing purposes. "The Norwegian Data Protection Authority considers that the practice of Meta is illegal and is therefore imposing a temporary ban on behavioral advertising on Facebook and Instagram," it said in a statement. The ban will begin on 4 August and last three months to give Meta time to take corrective measures. The company will be fined one million kroner ($100,000) per day if it fails to comply. Meta spokesman Matthew Pollard was quoted as saying by Norwegian public radio channel NRK that the company will review the demands and that the announcement will not have an immediate effect on its activities. The Norwegian regulator added that its ruling was neither a ban on Facebook and Instagram operating in the country nor a blanket ban on behavioral advertising. The Austrian digital privacy campaign group noyb, which has lodged a number of complaints against Meta's activities, said it "welcomes this decision as a first important step" and hopes data regulators in other countries will follow suit. Meta suffered a major setback earlier this year when European regulators dismissed the legal basis Meta had used to justify gathering users' personal data for use in targeted advertising. Meta suffered another major setback earlier this month when the European Court of Justice (ECJ) rejected its various workarounds and empowered antitrust regulators to take data privacy issues into account. The post Norway threatens $100,000 daily fine on Meta over data appeared first on Daily Tribune......»»
Desperate search for sub near Titanic with about 40 hours of oxygen left
Rescue teams raced against time Tuesday to find a deep-diving tourist submersible that went missing near the wreck of the Titanic with five people on board and an estimated 40 hours of oxygen left. All communication was lost with the 21-foot (6.5-meter) Titan craft during a descent Sunday to the Titanic, which sits more than two miles (nearly four kilometers) below the surface of the North Atlantic. The submersible was carrying three fee-paying passengers -- British billionaire Hamish Harding, and Pakistani tycoon Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman. The US and Canadian Coast Guards have deployed ships and planes in an intensive search for the vessel, which was attempting to dive near the wreck of the Titanic some 400 miles off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada. Coast Guard Captain Jamie Frederick told reporters that the rescue efforts over an area of 7,600 square miles, larger than the US state of Connecticut, "have not yielded any results." "There's about 40 hours of breathable air left based on that initial report," he said referring to the sub's capacity to hold up to 96 hours of oxygen. A P-3 plane from Canada dropped sonar buoys in the area of the Titanic wreckage to listen for any sound from the small sub. The search, initially restricted to the ocean's surface, was expanded underwater on Tuesday. France's oceanographic institute said it was sending a deep-sea underwater robot to aid efforts. In an Instagram message posted just before the dive, Harding said a mission window had opened after days of bad weather. Among the crew he named was Paul-Henry Nargeolet, a veteran diver and expert on the Titanic wreck. Unconfirmed reports said the fifth person on board was Stockton Rush, the CEO of OceanGate Expeditions which operates the tourist dives. The Titan lost contact with the surface less than two hours into its descent, according to authorities. "We are exploring and mobilizing all options to bring the crew back safely. Our entire focus is on the crewmembers in the submersible and their families," OceanGate said in a statement. Mike Reiss, an American television writer who visited the Titanic wreck on the same sub last year, told the BBC the experience was disorientating. The pressure at that depth as measured in atmospheres is 400 times what it is at sea level. "The compass immediately stopped working and was just spinning around and so we had to flail around blindly at the bottom of the ocean, knowing the Titanic was somewhere there," Reiss said. Legendary explorers He told the BBC that everyone was aware of the dangers. "You sign a waiver before you get on and it mentions death three different times on page one" OceanGate Expeditions charges $250,000 for a seat on the Titan. Harding, a 58-year-old aviator, space tourist, and chairman of Action Aviation, is no stranger to daredevil antics and has three Guinness world records to his name. A year ago, he became a space tourist through Amazon founder Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin company. In his Instagram post, Harding said how proud he was to be part of the latest mission. "Due to the worst winter in Newfoundland in 40 years, this mission is likely to be the first and only manned mission to the Titanic in 2023," he wrote. "The team on the sub has a couple of legendary explorers, some of which have done over 30 dives to the RMS Titanic since the 1980s including PH Nargeolet," the post added. Shahzada and Suleman Dawood hail from one of Pakistan's richest families that runs an investment and holding company headquartered in Karachi. Shahzada is the vice chairman of the subsidiary company Engro, which has an array of investments in energy, agriculture, petrochemicals, and telecommunications. Clock is ticking The Titanic hit an iceberg and sank in 1912 during its maiden voyage from England to New York with 2,224 passengers and crew on board. More than 1,500 people died. It was found in 1985 and remains a lure for nautical experts and underwater tourists. Without having studied the lost craft itself, Alistair Greig, professor of marine engineering at University College London, suggested two possible scenarios based on images of the Titan published by the press. He said if it had an electrical or communications problem, it could have surfaced and remained floating, "waiting to be found" -- bearing in mind the vessel can reportedly be unlocked from the outside only. "Another scenario is the pressure hull was compromised -- a leak," he said in a statement. "Then the prognosis is not good." There are few vessels able to go to the depth to which the Titan might have traveled. "The clock is ticking... going undersea is as, if not more, challenging than going into space from an engineering perspective," said University of Adelaide associate professor Eric Fusil in a statement. The post Desperate search for sub near Titanic with about 40 hours of oxygen left appeared first on Daily Tribune......»»
UK approves Amazon buy of robotic vacuum maker iRobot
Britain's Competition and Markets Authority regulator said Friday it has approved Amazon's $1.7-billion purchase of iRobot, the US maker of robotic vacuum Roomba. The CMA "has now concluded that the deal would not lead to competition concerns in the UK", it announced in a statement. The transaction, announced in August 2022, aims to expand Amazon's artificial intelligence and smart home ambitions. The US retail titan welcomed Friday's news. "We're pleased with the UK CMA's decision and are committed to supporting regulatory bodies in their work. We look forward to similar decisions from other regulators soon," said a spokesperson. Massachusetts-based iRobot builds robots and "intelligent home" innovations, having introduced the Roomba self-operating vacuums a decade ago. Amazon's deal to buy iRobot for $61 per share along with acquiring the company's debt was subject to the approval of shareholders and regulators. iRobot has a 30-year track record in robotics and underlying software such as mapping and navigation. Amazon has meanwhile invested in smart home and automation technologies with acquisitions such as Ring doorbells, Kiva warehouse robots, and self-driving startup Zoox. Friday's decision comes after the CMA had in April decided to block Microsoft's $69-billion takeover of "Call of Duty" video games giant Activision Blizzard, arguing it would harm competition in cloud gaming. That decision will be appealed by both companies. The post UK approves Amazon buy of robotic vacuum maker iRobot appeared first on Daily Tribune......»»
UK bank says Bezos, Musk among most used images to scam
Images of Amazon boss Jeff Bezos and Tesla chief Elon Musk are among the celebrity pictures most used to defraud customers at one of Britain's biggest banks, it said Wednesday. The pair feature in the top seven of NatWest Bank's annual Celebrity Scam Super League. "Criminals are using some of the UK's most trusted and respected celebrity images to steal millions of pounds," said NatWest scam expert Stuart Skinner. He urged the public "to be extremely cautious of fake celebrity investment adverts seen online", adding that "a cross-industry effort with social media companies is required to eradicate" the problem. The list was topped by British entrepreneur and TV celebrity Peter Jones, above broadcaster and naturalist David Attenborough in second. Bezos came in fourth, with Musk in sixth. The majority of the fake ads appeared on social media platforms including Facebook and Musk's Twitter, NatWest noted. One customer lost £275,000 ($341,000) after seeing an advertisement on Twitter. "The advert featured an image of Attenborough alongside text falsely claiming he makes £125,000 per month from stocks and shares related to gold, natural gas, and oil," the bank added. Musk was used in an advert that cost a customer £42,500. The post UK bank says Bezos, Musk among most used images to scam appeared first on Daily Tribune......»»
Richest man leaves earth – for 11 minutes
Last Tuesday, Amazon founder and the world’s richest man Jeff Bezos literally took travel to out-of-this-world proportions when he blasted off into space with a rocket-powered spacecraft developed by his private aerospace company called Blue Origin......»»
Amazon magnate Bezos ready to ride his own rocket to space
The wealthiest man on the planet Jeff Bezos will ride his own rocket to outer space on Tuesday, a key moment for a fledgling industry seeking to make the final frontier accessible to elite tourists......»»
$28M-bidder ng Blue Origin rocket, ‘di natuloy sa space
US – Hindi nakaalis ang taong nagbayad ng $28 milyon para samahan si Jeff Bezos, founder at executive chairman ng Amazon, papunta sa kalawakan gamit ang pribadong rocket ng kompanya dahil umano’y ‘busy’ ito. Ang $28 milyong halaga ay ang pinakamataas na bid para sa reservation seat sa Blue Origin rocket firm na in-auction noong […] The post $28M-bidder ng Blue Origin rocket, ‘di natuloy sa space appeared first on REMATE ONLINE......»»
Amazon’s lax waste policy should go to waste | Opinion
Jeff Bezos believes that to be successful you must “create more than you consume.” Unfortunately for the environment, the Amazon CEO seems to be taking.....»»
Amazon to extend ban on police use of face recognition tech
Amazon said Tuesday it is extending its ban on the use of its facial recognition tools for law enforcement, amid persistent concerns of bias in the technology......»»
Jeff Bezos to auction off ticket for Space Tourism Flight
Blue Origin, the rocket venture founded by Jeff Bezos, will launch its first commercial space travel on July 20. The Amazon.com founder announced earlier this week that one seat on the company’s first crew space flight will be auctioned online. A Blue Origin post on Twitter stated that anyone can place their bid on […] The post Jeff Bezos to auction off ticket for Space Tourism Flight appeared first on Daily Tribune......»»
Jeff Bezos supported Joe Biden’s proposal to raise taxes on companies in the US
Jeff Bezos (EFE) Jeff Bezos, Richest man in the world And Amazon CEO, backed US President Joe Biden’s proposal to raise corporate income taxes for.....»»
USA.- Jeff Bezos (Amazon) who supports the corporate tax hike proposed by Biden
Madrid, 7 (Europa Press) Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos, the magazine ‘Forbes’ considered the world’s richest man, has shown his support for the United.....»»
Jeff Bezos steps down as CEO of Amazon
Powered by Univision.com Online sales giant Amazon announced Tuesday that its founder, Jeff Bezos, will step down as chair of the company he founded 31.....»»