Sunday, July 5, 2026

ByteDance's Doubao and Alibaba's Qwen will disable humanlike and user-created agents before July 15, as China's anthropomorphic AI interaction rules take effect (Wency Chen/South China Morning Post)

Wency Chen / South China Morning Post:
ByteDance's Doubao and Alibaba's Qwen will disable humanlike and user-created agents before July 15, as China's anthropomorphic AI interaction rules take effect  —  Two of China's major consumer-facing artificial intelligence apps, ByteDance's Doubao and Alibaba Group Holding's Qwen …



Data centers offer US a chance to get ahead in the next key technologies and to build domestic supply chains based on demand rather than subsidies and tariffs (Josh Zoffer/Financial Times)

Josh Zoffer / Financial Times:
Data centers offer US a chance to get ahead in the next key technologies and to build domestic supply chains based on demand rather than subsidies and tariffs  —  America must not repeat the mistakes that handed China rare-earth dominance … America's China policy over the past decade …



Chainalysis: addresses linked to Iran, Russia, North Korea, and other US-sanctioned entities received $100B+ in crypto last year, almost 8x the amount in 2024 (Patricia Kowsmann/Wall Street Journal)

Patricia Kowsmann / Wall Street Journal:
Chainalysis: addresses linked to Iran, Russia, North Korea, and other US-sanctioned entities received $100B+ in crypto last year, almost 8x the amount in 2024  —  Blacklisted entities handled $100 billion in crypto in 2025, financing terrorism and weapons  —  Iran, Russia, North Korea …



Analysis: ~1M $TRUMP retail buyers lost a combined $3.81B, while ~500K mostly-early wallets captured $4B in gains, a textbook memecoin wealth transfer (New York Times)

New York Times:
Analysis: ~1M $TRUMP retail buyers lost a combined $3.81B, while ~500K mostly-early wallets captured $4B in gains, a textbook memecoin wealth transfer  —  A report from a cryptocurrency analytics firm details how those who bought the Trump memecoin have fared, with most retail investors having lost money …



Saturday, July 4, 2026

A look at the troubled rollout of the EU's automated biometric entry/exit border system, as airport operators warn of severe delays ahead of the summer holidays (Financial Times)

Financial Times:
A look at the troubled rollout of the EU's automated biometric entry/exit border system, as airport operators warn of severe delays ahead of the summer holidays  —  Automated system first mooted in 2008 was meant to keep out criminals — instead, it is delaying travellers



How ByteDance is making Hollywood inroads with its Seedance video generator, thanks to low pricing, striking realism, and features like timeline-based prompting (Nilesh Christopher/Los Angeles Times)

Nilesh Christopher / Los Angeles Times:
How ByteDance is making Hollywood inroads with its Seedance video generator, thanks to low pricing, striking realism, and features like timeline-based prompting  —  - 8 min Click here to listen to this article … - A viral AI video of Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise sparked industry outrage …



Q&A with Doug Brooks, senior product manager of Apple silicon, about Mac minis becoming preferred AI agent machines, future of on-device AI, and more (Jason Hiner/The Deep View)

Jason Hiner / The Deep View:
Q&A with Doug Brooks, senior product manager of Apple silicon, about Mac minis becoming preferred AI agent machines, future of on-device AI, and more  —  W  —  alk into any of the frontier AI labs, and you'll find wall-to-wall Macs.  —  Decisions Apple made years ago …



Official data shows Hong Kong accounted for 50%+ of China's $239B in chip imports in the first five months of 2026, a record share, up from ~33% a decade ago (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg:
Official data shows Hong Kong accounted for 50%+ of China's $239B in chip imports in the first five months of 2026, a record share, up from ~33% a decade ago  —  Hong Kong has become a vital conduit for high-tech products moving in and out of China, emerging as one node in a $2 trillion network …



UK-based AI infrastructure startup Nscale secures a $900M line of credit to expand its data center buildout across Europe, the US, and the Asia Pacific (Mauro Orru/Wall Street Journal)

Mauro Orru / Wall Street Journal : UK-based AI infrastructure startup Nscale secures a $900M line of credit to expand its data center bui...