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1
Smartphone giant Honor names Huawei veteran to lead firm as CEO George Zhao Ming resigns

2025-01-17 21:19:04                scmp.com

Honor’s leadership shuffle could add some degree of uncertainty to the company’s preparations for an initial public offering.

2
JD.com launches gifting feature to compete with Alibaba, Tencent ahead of Lunar New Year

2025-01-17 18:30:07                scmp.com

The Beijing-based tech giant has jumped on the latest trend in China’s e-commerce sector: online gifting.

3
TSMC’s US plant unlikely to get latest chip technology ahead of Taiwan, CEO says

2025-01-17 17:52:49                scmp.com

Apple and Nvidia chip supplier TSMC is spending US$65 billion on three giant factories in the state of Arizona.

4
Alipay bears cost of system error that applied discounts to user transactions

2025-01-17 16:35:10                scmp.com

The system error applied a 20 per cent ‘government subsidy’ to an undisclosed number of transactions on Thursday, according to users.

5
Trump plans to make cryptocurrency a national priority with executive order, sources say

2025-01-17 13:30:07                scmp.com

The US president-elect plans to release an executive order to advocate for the crypto industry’s policy priorities, according to sources.

6
Apple solves broken news alerts by turning off the AI

2025-01-17 13:20:25                theregister.com

Summaries will return when Apple Intelligence has 'improved' Apple has released a new beta of iOS 18.3 and tacitly admitted that, yes, its AI-generated notification summaries need a bit more work.…

7
Nvidia CEO skips Trump’s inauguration for Lunar New Year Asia visit, source says

2025-01-17 12:30:07                scmp.com

Jensen Huang is expected to miss the ceremony, while Apple’s Tim Cook, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Tesla’s Elon Musk are attending.

8
WPP taps Kyndryl for digital overhaul

2025-01-17 12:13:13                mobileworldlive.com

Kyndryl highlighted the potential of digital transformation, revealing it decommissioned nearly 5,000 servers used by PR and marketing company WPP as part of a project to improve its operations by deploying technologies including cloud and AI. The post WPP taps Kyndryl for digital overhaul appeared first on Mobile World Live.

9
The Friday File: Apple defends DEI; Adani rethinks 5G plan

2025-01-17 12:03:17                mobileworldlive.com

Mobile World Live brings you our top three picks of the week as Apple resisted a current industry trend to axe diversity, equity and inclusion policies, Adani Group considered returning 5G-suitable spectrum, and the Biden administration instituted tougher curbs on the export of AI models and chips. The post The Friday File: Apple defends DEI; Adani rethinks 5G plan appeared first on Mobile World Live.

10
3 UK picks Ericsson to deal with data deluge

2025-01-17 12:00:15                mobileworldlive.com

Operator 3 UK agreed a deal with Ericsson for the vendor to deliver a next-generation cloud-native packet core network which it believes will be the largest in Europe, as it bids to respond to huge recent increases in data usage. The post 3 UK picks Ericsson to deal with data deluge appeared first on Mobile World Live.

11
Polestar Has a Bold Plan—Get Better at Selling Cars

2025-01-17 11:56:35                wired.com

The China-controled EV brand has been losing tens of thousands of dollars on every car sold. With a US ban on Chinese car sales looming, the company needs to quickly turn things around.

12
IBM swoops in to rescue UK Emergency Services Network after Motorola shown the door

2025-01-17 11:26:10                theregister.com

With a near half-billion-pound price hike bringing contract value to £1.4B IBM has secured a deal with the UK Home Office to supply user services for the troubled Emergency Service Network (ESN) upgrade, providing voice and data communications after Motorola withdrew from the project.…

13
Duolingo sees a spike in TikTok refugees learning Mandarin as they move to RedNote

2025-01-17 11:22:09                scmp.com

Language-learning apps Duolingo and Drops say they have seen an increase in US users learning Chinese.

14
Medusa ransomware group claims attack on UK's Gateshead Council

2025-01-17 10:30:08                theregister.com

Pastes allegedly stolen documents on leak site with £600K demand Another year and yet another UK local authority has been pwned by a ransomware crew. This time it's Gateshead Council in North East England at the hands of the Medusa group.…

15
AIS seeks higher takeover offer from Gulf, Intouch

2025-01-17 09:36:41                mobileworldlive.com

Thailand-based AIS advised shareholders to reject a tender from its largest shareholders to acquire it because the offer is significantly lower than its fair valuation. The post AIS seeks higher takeover offer from Gulf, Intouch appeared first on Mobile World Live.

16
Jio 5G growth drives profit

2025-01-17 09:29:52                mobileworldlive.com

Jio Platforms added 22 million 5G subscribers in its fiscal Q3 2025 (ending 31 December 2024), taking the total to 170 million, or 35 per cent of mobile users in just over two years. The post Jio 5G growth drives profit appeared first on Mobile World Live.

17
Brit government contractor CloudKubed enters administration

2025-01-17 09:28:11                theregister.com

Home Office, Department for Work and Pensions supplier in hands of FRP Advisory A self-described specialist supplier of "transformational data and AI solutions" to the UK government has called in the administrative receivers.…

18
Gartner cautions of AI threat to mobile app usage

2025-01-17 09:15:02                mobileworldlive.com

Gartner forecast mobile app usage would decline by 25 per cent by 2027 due to increased use of AI-powered assistants.   The post Gartner cautions of AI threat to mobile app usage appeared first on Mobile World Live.

19
Apple halts controversial AI news service

2025-01-17 09:07:26                mobileworldlive.com

Apple reportedly stopped notifications of summaries from news and entertainment apps offered as part of its iOS 18.3 developer beta release after some instances of mischaracterisation. The post Apple halts controversial AI news service appeared first on Mobile World Live.

20
Tech support fill-in given no budget, no help, no training, and no empathy for his plight

2025-01-17 08:32:09                theregister.com

Fixed the problem anyway – with no approval for a purchase and no permission to use a device On Call  When the weekend rolls around, nobody needs permission to do whatever they desire. Unless, of course, they're required to be available to support tech – a restriction we mark each week in On Call, the column that celebrates fine fixing feats achieved despite the footling of flummoxed fools.…

21
EU expands its X probe, asking for internal docs about X's recommendation algorithm, following complaints from German politicians about boosting the far right (Financial Times)

2025-01-17 07:45:05                t.co

Financial Times: EU expands its X probe, asking for internal docs about X's recommendation algorithm, following complaints from German politicians about boosting the far right  —  Move follows complaints from German politicians ahead of election next month  —  Brussels has ordered Elon Musk …

22
Microsoft eggheads say AI can never be made secure – after testing Redmond's own products

2025-01-17 07:42:05                theregister.com

If you want a picture of the future, imagine your infosec team stamping on software forever Microsoft brainiacs who probed the security of more than 100 of the software giant's own generative AI products came away with a sobering message: The models amplify existing security risks and create new ones.…

23
An in-depth look at the UK's AI Safety Institute, whose researchers test AI systems for risks and for capabilities that might become dangerous in the future (Billy Perrigo/Time)

2025-01-17 07:30:01                time.com

Billy Perrigo / Time: An in-depth look at the UK's AI Safety Institute, whose researchers test AI systems for risks and for capabilities that might become dangerous in the future  —  In May 2023, three of the most important CEOs in artificial intelligence walked through the iconic black front door of No. 10 Downing Street …

24
SpaceX resets ‘Days Since Starship Exploded’ counter to zero

2025-01-17 07:06:28                theregister.com

Test flight seven did better on the ground with a successful booster catch SpaceX has again lost a Starship, after the seventh test flight of the spacecraft ended with a “rapid unscheduled disassembly”, but is nonetheless celebrating the mission as it ended with the second successful catch of its Super Heavy booster.…

25
In a first, Samsung will pay 50%-100% of executive bonuses in stock starting January 2026, linking compensation to share performance amid chipmaking struggles (Yoolim Lee/Bloomberg)

2025-01-17 06:30:28                bloomberg.com

Yoolim Lee / Bloomberg: In a first, Samsung will pay 50%-100% of executive bonuses in stock starting January 2026, linking compensation to share performance amid chipmaking struggles  —  - Company is linking pay for senior executives to performance  — The overhaul comes as Samsung cedes market share to rivals

26
AWS adds 32-vCPU option and an easier on-ramp to its cloudy desktops

2025-01-17 06:27:09                theregister.com

Weirdly, this shows the weakness of hosted Windows with an admission about vidchats Amazon Web Services has flicked the switch on a pair of workstation-grade cloud desktops that, ironically, highlight a problem with the tech.…

27
Sources: Instagram and YouTube gear up to welcome TikTok users; two Meta employees say execs discussed resource allocation on January 15 to handle TikTok users (New York Times)

2025-01-17 06:00:01                nytimes.com

New York Times: Sources: Instagram and YouTube gear up to welcome TikTok users; two Meta employees say execs discussed resource allocation on January 15 to handle TikTok users  —  Meta's Instagram and Google's YouTube are getting ready behind the scenes to welcome TikTok users, should the Chinese-owned app be banned from the United States.

28
A look at Pump.Fun, a service for launching memecoins that has generated $350M+ in revenue via a 1% trading fee in the 12 months since its launch in Jan. 2024 (Joel Khalili/Wired)

2025-01-17 04:30:01                wired.com

Joel Khalili / Wired: A look at Pump.Fun, a service for launching memecoins that has generated $350M+ in revenue via a 1% trading fee in the 12 months since its launch in Jan. 2024  —  Pump.Fun raked in hundreds of millions of dollars in its first year in operation.  Despite some growing pains, its creators say this is just the beginning.

29
Just as your LLM once again goes off the rails, Cisco, Nvidia are at the door smiling

2025-01-17 02:30:10                theregister.com

Some of you have apparently already botched chatbots or allowed ‘shadow AI’ to creep in Cisco and Nvidia have both recognized that as useful as today's AI may be, the technology can be equally unsafe and/or unreliable – and have delivered tools in an attempt to help address those weaknesses.…

30
Researchers fear TikTok is softening Taiwanese youth's stance on China with pro-China content; a report says 22% of Taiwan's population uses TikTok or Douyin (Kathrin Hille/Financial Times)

2025-01-17 02:30:02                t.co

Kathrin Hille / Financial Times: Researchers fear TikTok is softening Taiwanese youth's stance on China with pro-China content; a report says 22% of Taiwan's population uses TikTok or Douyin  —  A growing number of researchers fear that the controversial app is promoting pro-China content and softening attitudes towards the People's Republic

31
RedNote Scrambles to Hire English-Speaking Content Moderators

2025-01-17 02:07:06                wired.com

Job listings posted in China this week indicate that Xiaohongshu, also known as RedNote, is struggling to handle an influx of new users joining the platform from TikTok.

32
A survey of US teens aged 13-17 found 26% used ChatGPT for schoolwork in 2024, up from 13% in 2023, while 79% had heard of it, up from 67% in 2023 (Pew Research Center)

2025-01-17 01:15:00                pewresearch.org

Pew Research Center: A survey of US teens aged 13-17 found 26% used ChatGPT for schoolwork in 2024, up from 13% in 2023, while 79% had heard of it, up from 67% in 2023  —  As debates continue over whether chatbots should have a role in the classroom, more teens are turning to ChatGPT to help with schoolwork.

33
GoDaddy slapped with wet lettuce for years of lax security and 'several major breaches'

2025-01-17 01:10:31                theregister.com

Watchdog alleged it had no SIEM or MFA, orders rapid adoption of basic infosec tools GoDaddy has failed to protect its web-hosting platform with even basic infosec tools and practices since 2018, according to the FTC, but the internet giant won’t face any immediate consequences for its many alleged acts of omission.…

34
GM parks claims that driver location data was given to insurers, pushing up premiums

2025-01-17 01:04:58                theregister.com

We'll defo ask for permission next time, automaker tells FTC General Motors on Thursday said that it has reached a settlement with the FTC "to address privacy concerns about our now-discontinued Smart Driver program."…

35
They Went After the Hawk Tuah Crypto Promoters. Now They're Suing Pump.Fun

2025-01-17 00:44:35                wired.com

The same lawyers handling a lawsuit over the infamous Hawk Tuah crypto coin are bringing a new class action against memecoin platform Pump.Fun for allegedly putting investors in high financial risk.

36
Mira Murati’s AI Startup Makes First Hires, Including Former OpenAI Executive

2025-01-17 00:01:56                wired.com

It’s a major get for Murati’s mysterious startup, which has also poached engineers and researchers from a number of other prominent AI firms.

37
In farewell speech, Biden rails against the tech industrial complex, disinfo dismantling democracy

2025-01-16 23:40:33                theregister.com

Welcome to a decade where the oligarchs are no longer silent in the shadows US President Joe Biden gave his final address to the nation on Wednesday, and said America was visibly sliding into an oligopoly aided by a flood of online disinformation.…

38
Job listings show Xiaohongshu is rushing to hire English-speaking moderators to help manage the unexpected influx of English videos and posts on the platform (Zeyi Yang/Wired)

2025-01-16 23:30:02                wired.com

Zeyi Yang / Wired: Job listings show Xiaohongshu is rushing to hire English-speaking moderators to help manage the unexpected influx of English videos and posts on the platform  —  Job listings posted in China this week indicate that Xiaohongshu, also known as RedNote, is struggling to handle an influx of new users joining the platform from TikTok.

39
Apple launches its dedicated Apple Store app in India, allowing customers to purchase products, receive personalized shopping recommendations, and more (Manish Singh/TechCrunch)

2025-01-16 23:00:53                techcrunch.com

Manish Singh / TechCrunch: Apple launches its dedicated Apple Store app in India, allowing customers to purchase products, receive personalized shopping recommendations, and more  —  Apple launched its dedicated Apple Store app in India on Friday, deepening its retail presence in the world's most populous country …

40
Robotics company Symbotic agrees to take control of Walmart's automation business for $200M in cash and up to $350M in "additional contingent consideration" (Brian Heater/TechCrunch)

2025-01-16 22:25:01                techcrunch.com

Brian Heater / TechCrunch: Robotics company Symbotic agrees to take control of Walmart's automation business for $200M in cash and up to $350M in “additional contingent consideration”  —  Walmart and Symbotic announced a deal Tuesday that would find the Massachusetts robotics firm taking control of the mega-retailer's automation business.

41
Microsoft’s latest on-prem Azure is for apps you don’t want in the cloud, but will manage from it

2025-01-16 22:10:10                theregister.com

Azure Local is about hybrid management, not hybrid resource pools, and is catching up with virtual rivals Microsoft’s latest on-prem Azure offering is more about unified management than hybrid cloud as an enabler of elasticity or flexible resource pools.…

42
Crypto wallet Phantom raised a $150M Series C co-led by Sequoia Capital and Paradigm at a $3B valuation, more than double its $1.2B valuation in January 2022 (Bloomberg)

2025-01-16 22:05:01                bloomberg.com

Bloomberg: Crypto wallet Phantom raised a $150M Series C co-led by Sequoia Capital and Paradigm at a $3B valuation, more than double its $1.2B valuation in January 2022  —  Phantom raised $150 million from big-name investors.  —  Cryptocurrency-wallet provider Phantom Technologies Inc. has raised $150 million …

43
Sources: Meta's Community Notes won't apply to paid ads, but will be enabled for organic content, which includes brands' and influencers' unpromoted posts (Patrick Coffee/Wall Street Journal)

2025-01-16 21:40:13                wsj.com

Patrick Coffee / Wall Street Journal: Sources: Meta's Community Notes won't apply to paid ads, but will be enabled for organic content, which includes brands' and influencers' unpromoted posts  —  New system could make marketers more cautious about organic posts on Facebook and Instagram  —  Facebook and Instagram owner Meta …

44
The US FTC refers a complaint against Snap to the DOJ, alleging Snapchat's My AI chatbot poses "risks and harms to young users"; SNAP closed down 5% (Jonathan Vanian/CNBC)

2025-01-16 21:20:00                cnbc.com

Jonathan Vanian / CNBC: The US FTC refers a complaint against Snap to the DOJ, alleging Snapchat's My AI chatbot poses “risks and harms to young users”; SNAP closed down 5%  —  Snap shares closed down 5% on Thursday after the Federal Trade Commission said it would refer a complaint against the company to the Department of Justice.

45
Douyin cracks down on fake foreign accounts amid wave of ‘TikTok refugees’

2025-01-16 21:00:17                scmp.com

Some mainland Chinese users have reposted videos, pretending to be foreign users to gain more followers, according to Douyin.

46
A US official says the Biden administration won't force TikTok to go dark in the country on January 19 and will leave it up to Trump to implement the law (ABC News)

2025-01-16 20:50:01                abcnews.com

ABC News: A US official says the Biden administration won't force TikTok to go dark in the country on January 19 and will leave it up to Trump to implement the law  —  The ban goes into effect on Sunday unless the Supreme Court intervenes.  —  TikTok logo on a smartphone.

47
Feds sue Southwest for chronic delays, unrealistic schedules

2025-01-16 20:00:16                theregister.com

Department of Transportation wants in on last-minute Biden administration action too The Department of Transportation has joined the flurry of last-minute actions by the Biden administration with a lawsuit accusing Southwest Airlines of operating chronically delayed flights. …

48
Sources: Mira Murati's AI startup has poached about 10 researchers and engineers, including former OpenAI Head of Special Projects Jonathan Lachman, from rivals (Zoë Schiffer/Wired)

2025-01-16 19:40:02                wired.com

Zoë Schiffer / Wired: Sources: Mira Murati's AI startup has poached about 10 researchers and engineers, including former OpenAI Head of Special Projects Jonathan Lachman, from rivals  —  It's a major get for Murati's mysterious startup, which has also poached engineers and researchers from a number of other prominent AI firms.

49
Russia's Star Blizzard phishing crew caught targeting WhatsApp accounts

2025-01-16 19:15:14                theregister.com

FSB cyberspies venture into a new app for espionage, Microsoft says Star Blizzard, a prolific phishing crew backed by the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), conducted a new campaign aiming to compromise WhatsApp accounts and gain access to their messages and data, according to Microsoft.…

50
Apple trails Huawei, Vivo in China smartphone market in 2024, iPhone leads fourth quarter

2025-01-16 19:00:17                scmp.com

iPhone shipments plummeted 25 per cent in China last quarter, pushing Apple to third place for the year amid rising competition.