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Finland election: Leftist party tipped to win vote Voting has concluded in Finland's parliamentary election with advance results on Sunday showing the Social Democrats slightly ahead. With just over 35% of ballots counted, the party is leading with 18.9% of the vote, ministry of justice data shows. Should they win, the country will have its first left-wing leader in 20 years. The centre-right National Coalition is second, while ex-PM Juha Sipila's Centre Party is third. The right-wing anti-immigration Finns Party is fourth. These early figures are largely based on votes cast in advance. The final results will be announced in the coming days. Finnish state broadcaster YLE tweeted the advance tallies, showing how close the top four parties sit with their share of the vote. How did we get here? Last month, Mr Sipila's government resigned over its failure to achieve a key policy goal on social welfare and healthcare reform. His Centre Party had been in a centre-right coalition government since the last parliamentary elections in 2015. Concerned about Finland's expensive welfare system in the face of an ageing po[CENSORED]tion, Mr Sipila made tackling the nation's debt one of his government's main aims, introducing planning reforms he hoped would save up to €3bn (£2.6bn; $3.4bn) over a decade. But while the introduction of austerity measures - such as benefits cuts and pension freezes - resulted in Finland reducing its government debt for the first time in a decade last year, the reforms proved politically controversial. Meanwhile, the Social Democratic Party, a centre-left party with strong links to Finland's trade unions, saw its po[CENSORED]rity grow. Why is Finland's welfare system an issue? Like many developed nations, Finland has an ageing po[CENSORED]tion that is putting financial pressure on its social welfare systems. As an increasing number of people live longer in retirement, the cost of providing pension and healthcare benefits can rise. Those increased costs are paid for by taxes collected from of the working-age po[CENSORED]tion - who make up a smaller percentage of the po[CENSORED]tion than in decades past. In 2018, those aged 65 or over made up 21.4% of Finland's po[CENSORED]tion, the joint fourth highest in Europe alongside Germany - with only Portugal, Greece, and Italy having a higher proportion, according to Eurostat. Finland's welfare system is also generous in its provisions, making it relatively expensive. Attempts at reform have plagued Finnish governments for years. In February this year, caring for the nation's elderly returned to the top of the political agenda amid reports that alleged neglect in care homes may have resulted in injury or death, according to YLE. What are the other key issues? Immigration has become an important topic following reports of alleged sexual assaults by foreign men. As a result, support has risen for the Finns Party, which has promised to cut immigration and enforce stricter asylum rules. Other parties have also pledged to crack down on migrants who commit crime. Another key issue is climate change. Following the release of an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, almost all parties have vowed to keep global warming to 1.5 degrees, the New York Times reports. Today's result could also be felt outside Finland's borders, as the country is set to take presidency of the European Union in July. Should the Finns Party win a significant number of seats, it could affect EU policy making. The Finns Party has already announced an alliance with Germany's far-right AfD, Italy's League party and the Danish People's Party for the forthcoming European elections. They plan to form a parliamentary group, the European Alliance for People and Nations, to challenge the power of centrist parties.

Google Docs will let you edit Office files Working with Microsoft Office files in Google Docs is about to get a whole lot easier as Google has announced that it will soon add native support for Word, Excel and PowerPoint to its online word processor. Up until now, you could view files from Microsoft in Google Docs but had to convert them to Google's format before you would be able to edit, comment or collaborate on them inside its web app. The new feature is rolling out to G Suite users in the next couple of weeks though the company has revealed that regular users will also be receiving the feature as well. In terms of supported file types, Google Docs will support .doc,.docx, and .dot files in Word, .xls, .xlsx, .xlsm and .xlt files in Excel and .ppt, .pptx, .pps and .pot files in PowerPoint. Editing Microsoft Office files in Google Docs is a pain. You can view them there, but you’ve previously had to convert them to Google’s format before you could edit, comment, and collaborate inside Docs. That’s about to change: Google just announced that it’s adding native support for Microsoft’s Word, Excel, and PowerPoint formats — like .docx, .xls, and .ppt — which will let you do real-time collaboration in Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides. This morning, Google announced support would be coming to the commercial versions of those apps right now, namely G Suite, but the company now tells The Verge they’re coming to regular users too, as soon as this month. G Suite customers should see support start to roll out in April or May, depending on which release schedule your company prefers. Here’s the full list of supported filetypes, according to Google: Word files: .doc, .docx, .dot Excel files: .xls, .xlsx, .xlsm (macro enabled Excel files), .xlt Powerpoint files: .ppt, .pptx, .pps, .pot

Intel Hints Towards An Xe ‘Coherent Multi-GPU’ Future With CXL Interconnect I couldn’t help but notice that in the CXL presentation Intel gave today lies a hint about the future of its Xe GPU ambitions. While it was not explicitly stated anywhere – it seems to have a pretty obvious implication to me; time to coin a term: Coherent Multi-GPU. CXL is Intel’s new interconnect layer that is designed to solve a lot of issues with the PCIe protocol and one of the major reasons why Multi-GPU never took off properly is due to the lack of – you guessed it – coherency. I think it is very likely that we will be seeing Xe GPUs running in “CXL Mode” in the future. Intel CXL in a nutshell: Heterogenous compute protocol for scaling processors over PCIe Gen 5 and beyond Intel discussed its brand new processor-to-processor interconnect, called the Compute Express Link (CXL), in detail at the ‘Interconnect Day 2019’ event yesterday. Whereas we have talked in depth about data centre interconnects before, this particular one works to connect devices across the physical PCIe port. The reason why I mention physical and not just PCIe is because while Intel CXL is designed to work over the physical PCIe port to ensure universal compatibility – it will not utilize the PCIe protocol but instead act as an alternative protocol to the same; one that is far more future proof and scalable than its archaic (soon-to-be) predecessor. Rolling out significant capability upgrades over existing ports is very impressive in today’s ecosystem and what Intel is claiming isn’t just a small capability improvement – its a massive one. The first generation CXL is designed to work over PCIe Gen 5 (so it is still a few years away) and is expected to accelerate the time to PCIe 6. We have had PCIe 3 for almost 8 years now and Intel is getting ready to shorten the industry upgrade cycle for this standard. The switch between PCIe and CXL protocols will be completely seamless. How Intel CXL solves traditional PCIe Multi-GPU problems The presentation Intel gave today on CXL was focused on the data centre aspect of it all, but we see a far more interesting angle for our reader base – one that the company did not explicitly state but is fairly obvious once you think about it. While CXL is pitched as the ultimate scaling fabric to gluetogether CPUs and accelerators there is no reason it cannot be used to achieve a finally-decentimplementation of multi-GPU. This is what I will be focusing on in my coverage of CXL. Let’s call it: coherent multi-GPU. One of the primary issues with PCIe scaling right now is that any device connected through it has an isolated memory pool, high latency in terms of processor-to-processor communication and a lack of coherency throughout the system. This is why companies like NVIDIA and AMD have historically had to innovate on the software side with all sort of multi-GPU techniques like split frame rendering or sequential rendering. The multiple GPUs did not act like a coherent whole – they acted independently and it showed. CXL aims to fix all that. With Intel CXL, a coherent memory pool can be created and the latency reduced by an order of magnitude. The whole system will act as a cohesive whole and will scale significantly better. This means that if you have a system running an Intel Xe dGPU, you can throw in another one in a spare PCIe slot and it should scale seamlessly. There are three protocols that CXL introduces: The future: Intel Xe GPUs in CXL Mode? Intel has been pretty tightlipped about details of its Xe GPU ambitions. All we know is that it will be scalable. It is a fairly good bet that multi-GPU is going to be involved in some way. Either through CXL or through an MCM implementation or even both! It is also anyone’s guess whether CXL mode for GPUs will make its way to the mainstream consumer segment for enthusiasts like us – but it is very much clear that it solves a lot of problems that originally made multi-GPU setups unfeasible. It has been a long time since innovation has happened in the software stack and protocols that control the flow of data from the GPU to the CPU and it would be great to see this trickle down to the mainstream consumer level. If Intel starts out with a singular Xe GPU, CXL mode can give it the edge to compete with higher-end variants from AMD and NVIDIA – and change the name of the game completely in the process. If CXL can seamlessly scale GPUs, then the economics of the market would also change completely. People would be able to buy a cheaper GPU first and then simply add another one if they want more power. It would add much more flexibility in buying decisions and even alleviate buyers remorse to some extent for the gaming class. If CXL mode trickles down to the consumer level anytime soon, then we might even see motherboard designs change drastically as multiple sockets and multiple GPUs become a feasible option. Needless to say, it looks like things are going to get pretty exciting in a few years.

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Controversial Trump pick gets World Bank top job Donald Trump's pick for World Bank president, David Malpass, has officially been approved for the role. Mr Malpass, a Trump loyalist, was a senior economic adviser to the US president during his 2016 election campaign. His appointment has stirred debate, as some worry that Mr Malpass, a critic of the bank, will seek to reduce its role. In February White House officials said Mr Malpass, a long-time Republican, would be a "pro-growth reformer". Mr Malpass said he was "honoured" by the appointment. "Our twin goals of eliminating extreme poverty and achieving shared prosperity are more relevant than ever," he said. The former Bear Sterns economist has criticised the World Bank in the past, along with other multilateral institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), for being "intrusive" and "entrenched". 'Not willing to fight' To become World Bank president Mr Malpass won unanimous approval from the institution's executive board, which has 25 members. The US holds a 16% share of board voting power and has traditionally chosen the World Bank's leader. China is the World Bank's third-largest shareholder after Japan, with about a 4.5% share of voting power. Professor Christopher Kilby, an expert on the economics of foreign aid at Villanova University near Philadelphia, said it is likely that China and other shareholders did not push back on Mr. Malpass' appointment as they "recognize that they are unlikely to succeed in derailing the US nominee." "Since they have seen President Trump punish those who stand up to him, they are not willing to fight the US," Prof Kilby said. In the past China has also not sought more power within the World Bank as some of its aims, including promoting the rights of indigenous peoples, do not align with Chinese domestic and foreign policy, Prof Kilby said. Controversial US picks Traditionally, the US picks the World Bank president, Europeans choose the IMF managing director, and the Japanese do the same for the Asian Development Bank. Prof Kilby said a more controversial US pick for the World Bank president role was neoconservative Paul Wolfowitz, and yet he still landed the role. Mr Wolfowitz, who had the job between 1 June 2005 and 30 June 2007, was seen as a driving force behind pursuing the US-led conflict in Iraq. "For this and other reasons, Mr Wolfowitz was unacceptable to the Europeans and there was push back, including other nominees, for a while," Prof Kilby said. "But as the election date drew near, the fear that this would threaten the European traditional right to pick the head of the IMF led the European countries to back down and accept the US pick," he added.

Accepted.

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Saudi Arabia accused of gaining access to Amazon chief's phone Why you can trust Sky News Saudi Arabia has accessed the phone of Amazon boss Jeff Bezos and obtained private data from it, his security officer has said. Gavin De Becker launched an investigation after the National Enquirer published intimate texts that Mr Bezos had sent to his mistress, television anchor Lauren Sanchez. Shortly before their publication, Mr Bezos had become the subject of tabloid stories after the announcement of his divorce to wife MacKenzie on Twitter. Last month, Mr Bezos accused the newspaper's owner of trying to blackmail him with the threat of publishing "intimate photos" he allegedly sent to Ms Sanchez unless he did not publicly state that the tabloid's coverage of him was not politically motivated. After the investigation, Mr De Becker concluded "with high confidence that the Saudis had access to Bezos' phone and gained private information." In an article for The Daily Beast website, Mr De Becker said the parent company of the National Enquirer, American Media Inc, had privately demanded that he deny finding any evidence of "electronic eavesdropping or hacking in their newsgathering process." He added: "As of today, it is unclear to what degree, if any, AMI was aware of the details." Mr Khashoggi, who was sharply critical of Saudi's crown prince Mohammad bin Salman, was killed in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October. "Some Americans will be surprised to learn that the Saudi government has been very intent on harming Jeff Bezos since last October, when the Post began its relentless coverage of Khashoggi's murder," Mr De Becker wrote. A spokesman for the Saudi embassy in Washington did not immediately return a request for comment. In February, the kingdom's minister of state for foreign affairs said Saudi Arabia had "absolutely nothing to do" with the National Enquirer's reporting on Jeff Bezos. AMI also did not immediately respond to a request for comment but has previously said that it acted lawfully in the reporting on the affair. Mr De Becker said he has turned over the findings of his investigation to US federal officials.

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The UK government has spent $15.9m (£12m) on a luxury New York apartment for a British diplomat to live in while he negotiates trade deals with the US. It will house the UK trade commissioner for North America and consul general in New York, Antony Phillipson. Boasting panoramic views, the seven-bedroom flat occupies the entire 38th-floor of 50 United Nations Plaza, said the Guardian, which first reported it. The Foreign Office said it had "secured the best possible deal". The apartment "will help promote the UK in the commercial capital of our largest export market for years to come", it said. What trade deals has the UK done so far? A floor plan of the 5,893 sq ft apartment shows a library, six bathrooms and a powder room. Two of the five bedrooms in the apartment are currently designated "staff bedrooms" on the floor plan, but the UK Foreign Office said only the consul general and his immediate family will live there. Designed by British architect Norman Foster, the 44-storey building is close to the UN headquarters in Manhattan and is described as the "ultimate global address". 'Generous space' On the website of architects Foster and Partners, the high-rise is described as a "luxury residential tower occupying a prestigious location". Every apartment features floor to ceiling bay windows and "generous space for entertaining", the firm says. "Adding a touch of elegance to every detail, the powder room walls are fitted with glazed silk panels in a choice of either bold primary or natural colours," it adds. A spa in the basement has a large exercise pool for residents, according to the website. The penthouse was bought by "Her Britannic Majesty's Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs" on 15 March, according to New York City records. 'Austerity isn't for everybody' In a statement, the Foreign Office, said that the residence "will also be used to support his work to help British businesses as Her Majesty's trade commissioner for North America." It said it was in the process of selling the consul general's current residence. "At least someone is going to do OK out of Brexit," Labour MP Gareth Thomas tweeted, in response to the purchase. Stewart Maxwell, a special adviser to Scotland's first minister Nicola Sturgeon on business and the economy, tweeted: "UK Tory government make clear that austerity isn't for everybody". Deal to preserve UK-US trade post-Brexit Reality Check: What does a 'WTO Brexit' mean? Chloe Westley, from the TaxPayers' Alliance, which lobbies for lower taxes and greater government efficiency, said: "What's often forgotten is that these luxuries come at the expense of hard pressed families, who want the money that they give to the government to go primarily towards public services." She added that taxpayers would hope diplomats "earn their keep by creating opportunities for British businesses and consumers". In 2015, the New Zealand government was criticised over reports it spent $8m (£6.05m) on a "lavish" 18th-floor apartment in the 50 United Nations Plaza for the country's UN ambassador Gerard van Bohemen to live in. Meanwhile, Qatar reportedly spent $45m (£34m) on four apartments in the high-rise in the same year. The building was also home to Nikki Haley while she served as the US ambassador to the UN.

Oculus VR unveiled its next-generation Rift headset today, a higher-resolution pair of virtual reality goggles that remove the need for external cameras by incorporating built-in tracking. The name of the device, as rumored by numerous reports over the last 12 months, is the Oculus Rift S. In a surprise twist, it’s been developed in partnership with Lenovo. Oculus says it struck a deal with the Chinese electronics giant to help it speed up manufacturing and to improve upon the design of the original Rift. The result is a new VR device that is more comfortable, sports 2560 x 1440 resolution (or 1280 x 1440 per eye), and features the same inside-out tracking system that will ship on Oculus’ upcoming standalone Quest headset, which the company calls Oculus Insight. That way, you won’t need cumbersome cameras to enable full-body movement. In another twist, both the Quest and Rift S device will cost exactly the same at launch: $399, with the same pair of slightly modified Touch motion controllers included and the same integrated audio system (plus a headphone jack for external audio). That decision makes it clear that Oculus wants its VR platform to offer a choice not between two vastly different pieces of hardware, but by the more simple determination of whether you have the hardware to power PC-grade VR. BOTH THE OCULUS RIFT S AND QUEST WILL COST $399 AND SHIP THIS SPRING “It’s really an option of whether you have a PC or not, and do you want to buy a PC or not,” says Jason Rubin, Facebook and Oculus’ vice president of VR partnerships, when speaking to a group of reporters during the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. “Quest users will be a little more casual — more like a console player.” According to Rubin and Nate Mitchell, Oculus’ head of VR product, every existing and future game on the Rift platform will be playable on the Rift S. The company is also enabling cross-buy and cross-play features. That way, you can buy a Quest and, at a later date, upgrade to a Rift S and still have your entire library intact. Additionally, Rubin says, multiplayer games that support both platforms will let players play one another, regardless of whether you’re playing on a Quest or Rift device. One new feature coming to the Quest and Rift S platforms that looks particularly helpful is Passthrough Plus, which is a way to view the real world around you as you set up your space using Oculus’ Guardian tool (the blue mesh barrier that prevents you from walking into your desk or tripping over a chair). Because both headsets have inside-out tracking, you’ll be able to toggle between the Oculus Home launcher and live video feed of your real-life surroundings. Sectioning off an area of your bedroom or living room for VR is now as easy as tracing the space with a Touch controller while you’re wearing the headset, instead of doing so on your computer during the more complicated camera setup process required with the original Rift. (Microsoft first added passthrough video capabilities to Windows Mixed Reality last year.) We don’t have release dates for the Rift S or the Quest just yet. But Mitchell says both are shipping this spring, and it’s likely they’ll both arrive on the market at roughly the same time, although he was careful to stress that they may not launch on the exact same date. As for the design, the Rift S features both Oculus and Lenovo branding as well as a new halo-style strap you’re likely familiar with if you’ve ever seen or worn a PlayStation VR headset. The halo strap makes for a more comfortable fit, and it allows you to dial the device forward and backward using a knob at the rear of the band. The top strap is there to make it snug on your head, while a slider underneath the right side of the headset is used to bring the physical lenses closer or farther from your eyes. Adjusting pupillary distance can now be done through a software setting, Oculus says. Beyond the higher-resolution display and halo strap, the Rift S also features an additional fifth sensor not found on the Oculus Quest. Mitchell says this is to “increase tracking volume to maximize compatibility with the existing Rift content library.” But the primary difference between the original Rift and the Rift S will be the built-in tracking and the resolution bump; the standard Rift has 1080 x 1200 resolution per eye, while the Rift S has 1280 x 1440 per eye. (The Quest, on the other hand, features 1600 x 1440 per eye with an OLED panel.) In fact, the Rift S is using the same fast-switch LCD display as the standalone Oculus Go, but of course, channeling higher-fidelity visuals thanks to the tethered high-end gaming PC it requires to run. Although Oculus appears to be keeping the launch window for Rift S and Quest under wraps until close to release, we may not have to wait too long. Facebook’s F8 developer conference is set to kick off April 30th, and there’s speculation that the devices could launch, or at the very least receive imminent release dates, during the F8 keynote address.

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AMD’s 3000 Series 12nm Mobility Processors Including Flagship Ryzen 7 3750H Landing In April, Will Be Coupled With NVIDIA’s Turing GPUs This is pretty impressive news because it means that AMD is beating Intel to market in the mobility space by at least a month (last I heard, the sales embargo is scheduled to lift sometime in May and probably later rather than sooner). AMD is giving non-MSI manufacturers the ability to pair NVIDIA’s Turing GPUs with its Ryzen 12nm processors and since the overall cost of the package is lower (Ryzen CPUs are cheaper than their Intel counterparts), this means manufacturers can reduce the overall MSRP of their gaming laptops – something I have already talked about before. My source tells me that all of the major OEMs like Acer, ASUS, and HP expect SKUs to be available by early April, in major brands like: Acer Nitro, ASUS TUF and HP Pavilion and/or OMEN. AMD’s mobility parts will represent the company’s ongoing foray into capturing as much of the mobility market as possible (a market in which AMD was completely uncompetitive as of a couple years ago) and the Ryzen 3000 mobility series might allow it to do just that. As far as I know, Intel’s processor parts will still beat AMD’s as far as actual compute performance goes, but this is a fact that might not matter at all in gaming laptops. The reason for that is that in gaming laptops, the CPU is very rarely the point at which you can throw dollars to radically increase gaming performance – its the GPU. The fact that AMD processors lose out to Intel in compute will make very little difference if manufacturers can use the flexibility accorded to them by Ryzen’s cheaper cost and fit in a much beefier GPU – which is exactly what the plan to do as I am told. We are looking at both the GTX 1660 Ti and RTX 2060 on offer with the flagship Ryzen 3750H from major OEMs and the cost of a 1660 Ti/Ryzen combo (albeit probably with a lower tier processor than the 3750H) will be as low as $1099! This is a brand new pricing tier considering the state of the market right now and things are about to heat up as far as the Intel vs AMD. war goes. This is all for now. It turns out that AMD’s Ryzen 3000 mobility series (this is 12nm and not to be confused with the 7nm parts) will actually be landing much sooner than expected. I have been told that we can expect it to be stocked as early as early April (I am actually hearing 1st April) – almost a full month before the Core i7-9750H (and family) will launch.

Domestic abuse victims school priority call Children whose families have had to move because of domestic violence should have priority for school places, says a charity report. The report says 500,000 children in the UK have been exposed to such abuse. But there are warnings that escaping violence can mean families struggling to get children into another school. The report, from two charities, Hestia and Pro Bono Economics, also estimates that domestic violence costs public services up to £1.4bn per year. The report wants the Domestic Abuse Bill, published by the government earlier this year, to be amended to make it easier for victims of domestic violence to get into another school if they have to move address. The bill is intended to give more support to the victims of domestic violence. 'Deep trauma' But the charities want more attention paid to the consequences for children who will have seen acts of violence and might have to take shelter elsewhere. They want priority for school places for these children, as is given to children in care or adopted from care and some children with special needs. Law to target non-physical domestic abuse The hairdressers spotting signs of abuse If families are in refuges, the charities want local authorities to provide a change of school within 20 days. At present, Lyndsey Dearlove, of Hestia, said, children might be waiting from four to six months for a place and many families might have to be move several times before getting a more permanent new home. "For too long children have been overlooked in the response to domestic abuse, seen merely as 'witnesses' rather than children who have experienced deep trauma and crisis. This must change," said Ms Dearlove. Moral imperative And it says the annual cost to taxpayers could be up to £1.4bn: £790m in extra costs for education services £460m in foster and residential care £110m in crime £70m in health care Former cabinet secretary Lord O'Donnell, who chairs Pro Bono Economics, said: "Children exposed to domestic abuse suffer in the short, medium and long-term. "As a society, we have a moral imperative to ensure protection from the immediate risk of such trauma but also to provide support whenever unfortunately such exposure should occur. "While these numbers are striking, and this report timely, there is always a need for more robust evidence with which we can enhance our understanding of such issues, from causes through to effects and solutions." A spokesman for the Department for Education said the school admissions code required councils to have "fair access" rules, in which the most vulnerable children should be offered a place "without unnecessary delay". There is also a review of support for "children in need" and the department said it was considering changes for those families seeking places during the school year, including those in refuges, so that they could get a "new school place as quickly as possible".