August 8, 2023

IN THIS ISSUE

👔 Get back to the office, Zoom tells its staff

🪙 PayPal launches own stablecoin backed by US dollar

👨🏽‍🚀 NASA has to wait even longer for Starliner spacecraft

UP FIRST

Get back to the office, video conferencing firm Zoom tells its staff

The company famous for facilitating remote working wants its employees to do less of it

Zoom made its name during the pandemic as huge numbers of office workers used its videoconferencing tool to work from home.

But the company that transformed how people work is now telling its own staff to return to the office.

Zoom said it’s enforcing a “structured hybrid approach” that means employees living within 50 miles (80 kilometers) of one of its offices should be on-site at least two days a week.

“We’ll continue to leverage the entire Zoom platform to keep our employees and dispersed teams connected and working efficiently.”

Zoom is the latest tech firm to pivot away from remote working in favor of office attendance at least a few days a week. Google, Apple, and Amazon, to name but three, have enacted similar policies, despite some workers preferring their home desk to the office one.

This means Zoom has been slower than most to encourage a return to pre-pandemic work habits, "perhaps because of its reputation as a figurehead for employees working flexibly and remotely," the Guardian suggested.

FINTECH

PayPal launches own stablecoin backed by U.S. dollar

It's the first online payment giant to enter the cryptocurrency sector

PayPal is launching a stablecoin called PayPal USD (PYUSD) for payments and transfers.

Pegged to the U.S. dollar, the new stablecoin is issued by Paxos Trust Company and is backed by U.S. dollar deposits, short-term U.S Treasuries, and similar cash equivalents.

Customers who purchase PayPal USD will be able to, for example, transfer PayPal USD between PayPal and compatible external wallets; send person-to-person payments using PYUSD; and convert any of PayPal's supported cryptocurrencies to and from PayPal USD, the company said on Monday.

Stablecoin is a kind of cryptocurrency that’s designed to maintain a steady value and offer the benefits of digital currencies without the volatility often seen with coins such as Bitcoin.

It’s yet to embed itself in the mainstream consumer payments ecosystem, partly because of a number of high-profile collapses and the resulting regulatory scrutiny.

An Argus Research analyst said PayPal's brand name makes the stablecoin launch significant but added that it’s not a huge surprise as the company has been linked with crypto before.

ON THE HORIZON

NASA has to wait even longer for Boeing's Starliner spacecraft

The capsule's first astronaut flight has been pushed to next year

Boeing’s Starliner CST-100 spacecraft won’t be going on its first crewed test flight to the International Space Station (ISS) until March 2024 at the earliest.

NASA has been using SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft to fly astronauts to and from the orbital outpost since 2020 and wants to have the Starliner as a second option.

But numerous technical issues have disrupted the Starliner’s development program ever since its failed maiden flight in 2019.

“Based on the current plans, we’re anticipating that we’re going to be ready with the spacecraft in early March,” Boeing vice president and Starliner manager Mark Nappi said on Monday, though he added that this didn’t mean the spacecraft would fly then.

The first crewed flight test to and from the ISS was supposed to have taken place last month, but the discovery of two safety issues following its one and only successful flight to the ISS in a mission last year means that those problems have to be addressed first.

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