Hillicon Valley — Semiconductor operations halt in Japan
Today is Friday. Welcome to Hillicon Valley, detailing all you need to know about tech and cyber news from Capitol Hill to Silicon Valley.
Toyota and other companies suspended semiconductor operations in Japan after a massive earthquake hit. Meanwhile, NASA's administrator said the agency is cooperating with Russian colleagues despite rising tensions over Ukraine.
Send tips and feedback to The Hill's tech team, Rebecca Klar (rklar@thehill.com) and Chris Mills Rodrigo (cmillsrodrigo@thehill.com), and cyber reporter Ines Kagubare (ikagubare@thehill.com).
Let's get to it.
Companies suspend semiconductor operations
Toyota and other semiconductor-using companies are suspendingoperations in Japan after a massive earthquake hit the country this week.
"Due to the parts shortage resulting from suppliers affected by the earthquakes, additional adjustments will be made to production operations in some plants in Japan," Toyota announced on Friday.
The production lines will be down for three weeks.
A Tokyo-based semiconductor supplier, Renesas, is attempting to get its three plants back to volume production seen before the earthquake hit by Wednesday, CNBC reported.
The plants were close to the epicenter of the 7.3-magnitude earthquake, the company said.
UK regulator revokes RT license
Ofcom, the United Kingdom's communications regulator, has revoked the license for Russian-funded media outlet RT and parent company ANO TV Novosti on Friday for their biased coverage.
The agency said the outlet's parent company was not "fit and proper to hold a U.K. broadcast license," The Associated Press reported.
"We also note new laws in Russia which effectively criminalise any independent journalism that departs from the Russian state's own news narrative, in particular in relation to the invasion of Ukraine," Ofcom said. "We consider that given these constraints it appears impossible for RT to comply with the due impartiality rules of our Broadcasting Code in the circumstances.''
NASA COOPERATING WITH RUSSIAN COLLEAGUES
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said Friday the agency is cooperatingwith Russian colleagues despite tensions that have built up amid Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.
The assurance comes as some countries have canceled missions in space with Russia and the head of Russia's space agency threatened to stop giving the U.S. rocket engines for flights.
"That's just Dmitry Rogozin. He spouts off every now and then. But at the end of the day, he's worked with us," Nelson said in an interview with The Associated Press, referring to the head of Russia's space agency.
"The other people that work in the Russian civilian space program, they're professional. They don't miss a beat with us, American astronauts and American mission control."
BITS & PIECES
An op-ed to chew on: We must not 'tolerate' the deaths of the nation's most vulnerable
Lighter click: Good joke!
Notable links from around the web:
Facebook is locking out people who didn't activate Facebook Protect (The Verge / Barbara Krasnoff)
Computer programmers are taking aim at Russia's propaganda wall (The Washington Post / Drew Harwell)
Gig Workers Say High Gas Prices May Be a Breaking Point (The New York Times / Kellen Browning)
One more thing: Not headed to space
Aerospace company Blue Origin this week announced comedian Pete Davidson will not be on the next rocket heading into space.
"Pete Davidson is no longer able to join the NS-20 crew on this mission. We will announce the sixth crew member in the coming days," Blue Origin tweeted.
The company said the date for the flight is also pushed back from March 23 to March 29.
That's it for today, thanks for reading. Check out The Hill's technology and cybersecurity pages for the latest news and coverage. We'll see you Monday.
