Monday, July 31, 2023

Tether reports a $850M net profit in Q2, vs. $1.5B in Q1, with ~$3.3B in excess reserves, up from $2.44B in Q1, and $86.5B+ in total assets as of June 30 (Yogita Khatri/The Block)

Yogita Khatri / The Block:
Tether reports a $850M net profit in Q2, vs. $1.5B in Q1, with ~$3.3B in excess reserves, up from $2.44B in Q1, and $86.5B+ in total assets as of June 30  —  - In its latest attestation report, Tether said it had a net profit of $850 million in the second quarter.



Twitter/X threatens to sue Center for Countering Digital Hate, alleging the nonprofit made "troubling and baseless claims" to hurt Twitter and its ad business (New York Times)

New York Times:
Twitter/X threatens to sue Center for Countering Digital Hate, alleging the nonprofit made “troubling and baseless claims” to hurt Twitter and its ad business  —  The Center for Countering Digital Hate said it had received a letter from X, Twitter's parent company …



Italy's AGCM says it accepted Google's proposed commitments to end a case over the company's alleged abuse of its position in the user data portability market (Elvira Pollina/Reuters)

Elvira Pollina / Reuters:
Italy's AGCM says it accepted Google's proposed commitments to end a case over the company's alleged abuse of its position in the user data portability market  —  - Regulator probed Google over alleged abuse of its position  — Company pledged to update backup service, to launch new tool



Customs data shows China's chip imports fell 22% YoY during H1 2023 and chipmaking equipment imports fell 23% YoY, suggesting US export restrictions are working (Wall Street Journal)

Wall Street Journal:
Customs data shows China's chip imports fell 22% YoY during H1 2023 and chipmaking equipment imports fell 23% YoY, suggesting US export restrictions are working  —  Washington's restrictions on sale of advanced technology to Beijing appear to be working—for now



How to check CIBIL score in Google Pay

Google Pay, a popular Unified Payments Interface (UPI) app in India, has a feature to access credit reports or CIBIL scores. A CIBIL score is a three-digit number between 300 and 900 that determines the user's creditworthiness through their payment history and credit accounts. Google Pay helps improve the credit score by providing users with suggestions to increase it. https://ift.tt/NCFwRv4

Source: Shenzhen-based Luxshare has won favor and increased business with Apple by being prepared to test "crazy" ideas and is the sole maker of the Vision Pro (Qianer Liu/Financial Times)

Qianer Liu / Financial Times:
Source: Shenzhen-based Luxshare has won favor and increased business with Apple by being prepared to test “crazy” ideas and is the sole maker of the Vision Pro  —  Chinese contract manufacturer is sole assembler of Vision Pro mixed-reality headset



Sunday, July 30, 2023

A look at nine under-the-radar lobbying firms helping influence US crypto legislation in 2023 on behalf of Binance, Crypto.com, Coinbase, and others (Kari McMahon/The Block)

Kari McMahon / The Block:
A look at nine under-the-radar lobbying firms helping influence US crypto legislation in 2023 on behalf of Binance, Crypto.com, Coinbase, and others  —  - Crypto companies are looking for a seat at the table in Washington as scrutiny on the industry intensifies this year.



An in-depth look at a January strike at Amazon's BHX4 Coventry warehouse, a carefully planned and legal effort, the likes of which Amazon UK had never faced (Jack Shenker/The Guardian)

Jack Shenker / The Guardian:
An in-depth look at a January strike at Amazon's BHX4 Coventry warehouse, a carefully planned and legal effort, the likes of which Amazon UK had never faced  —  When staff in Coventry downed tools, they kickstarted a David v Goliath battle against one of the most powerful companies on Earth.



Study: just 2% of Spotify "super listeners" drive over 18% of monthly streams on average for an artist, with the number rising to 30% for the biggest artists (Murray Stassen/Music Business Worldwide)

Murray Stassen / Music Business Worldwide:
Study: just 2% of Spotify “super listeners” drive over 18% of monthly streams on average for an artist, with the number rising to 30% for the biggest artists  —  MBW's Stat Of The Week is a series in which we highlight a data point that deserves the attention of the global music industry.



A deep dive into Apple's plans for the new iPhones and Watches coming this fall, including iPhone 15 Pro with 1.5mm bezels, a step towards a borderless iPhone (Mark Gurman/Bloomberg)

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
A deep dive into Apple's plans for the new iPhones and Watches coming this fall, including iPhone 15 Pro with 1.5mm bezels, a step towards a borderless iPhone  —  Apple is just weeks away from introducing the iPhone 15 and next-generation watches.  The new lineup will mark another stepping stone toward …



A look at C2PA, a standard that relies on cryptography to encode provenance information of media content, started by Adobe, Arm, Intel, Microsoft, and Truepic (Tate Ryan-Mosley/MIT Technology Review)

Tate Ryan-Mosley / MIT Technology Review:
A look at C2PA, a standard that relies on cryptography to encode provenance information of media content, started by Adobe, Arm, Intel, Microsoft, and Truepic  —  An internet protocol called C2PA adds a “nutrition label” to images, video, and audio.  —  The White House wants big AI companies …



An interview with Yael Tauman Kalai, a Microsoft cryptographer who won the 2022 ACM Prize in Computing, on cryptography, "post-quantum" security, and more (Allison Parshall/Quanta Magazine)

Allison Parshall / Quanta Magazine:
An interview with Yael Tauman Kalai, a Microsoft cryptographer who won the 2022 ACM Prize in Computing, on cryptography, “post-quantum” security, and more  —  Yael Tauman Kalai's breakthroughs secure the digital world, from cloud computing to our quantum future.



Saturday, July 29, 2023

Sources: the Biden admin is looking for malware it believes China hid inside critical infrastructure, mainly aimed to disrupt the military if a conflict emerges (New York Times)

New York Times:
Sources: the Biden admin is looking for malware it believes China hid inside critical infrastructure, mainly aimed to disrupt the military if a conflict emerges  —  American intelligence officials believe the malware could give China the power to disrupt or slow American deployments or resupply operations …



A profile of Mike Masnick, who founded Techdirt in 1998, considered by lawmakers, CEOs, and activists as an essential guide for what's happening in tech (Kashmir Hill/New York Times)

Kashmir Hill / New York Times:
A profile of Mike Masnick, who founded Techdirt in 1998, considered by lawmakers, CEOs, and activists as an essential guide for what's happening in tech  —  Mike Masnick, who founded Techdirt in 1998, writes for an influential audience of lawmakers, C.E.O.s and activists.



Adam Mosseri and current and former employees recount how Threads came to life with a small team focused on shipping a bare-bones app on a breakneck schedule (Washington Post)

Washington Post:
Adam Mosseri and current and former employees recount how Threads came to life with a small team focused on shipping a bare-bones app on a breakneck schedule  —  A company in crisis went back to basics to deliver a viral hit.  But can Adam Mosseri's bare-bones Twitter clone reinvigorate an aging tech giant?



Last day to file ITR is July 31: How to file Income Tax Return online

Filing Income Tax Returns (ITR) is mandatory for salaried and self-employed individuals, HUF, MNCs, and firms to declare their income and pay taxes. The last date for filing ITR for the assessment year 2023-24 is July 31, and belated filers would incur a Rs. 5,000 penalty. Taxpayers must file ITRs to establish financial credibility with banks and get loans. ITRs can be filed online via the Income Tax Department's e-filing portal, which requires personal and income details, deduction proofs, and bank account details. https://ift.tt/dJKI4kS

An investigation citing hundreds of Turkish people claims Android's earthquake warning system failed to send alerts for the 7.8-magnitude quake on February 8 (BBC)

BBC:
An investigation citing hundreds of Turkish people claims Android's earthquake warning system failed to send alerts for the 7.8-magnitude quake on February 8  —  James Clayton and Ben Derico in San Francisco & Anna Foster in Turkey  —  Google's earthquake warning system failed …



A look at Indian nonprofit Karya, which sells AI training data and redirects all the profit to its workers, who retain ownership of the data they create (Billy Perrigo/TIME)

Billy Perrigo / TIME:
A look at Indian nonprofit Karya, which sells AI training data and redirects all the profit to its workers, who retain ownership of the data they create  —  In the shade of a coconut palm, Chandrika tilts her smartphone screen to avoid the sun's glare.  It is early morning in Alahalli village …



Friday, July 28, 2023

AMD plans to invest $400M and create 3,000 new engineering roles in India by 2028 and to build its largest design center in Bengaluru by the end of 2023 (Munsif Vengattil/Reuters)

Munsif Vengattil / Reuters:
AMD plans to invest $400M and create 3,000 new engineering roles in India by 2028 and to build its largest design center in Bengaluru by the end of 2023  —  U.S. chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices (AMD.O) said on Friday it will invest around $400 million in India over the next five years …



Apple plans to require developers to submit reasons to use certain APIs in their apps starting this fall, to prevent the misuse of those APIs for fingerprinting (Filipe Espósito/9to5Mac)

Filipe Espósito / 9to5Mac:
Apple plans to require developers to submit reasons to use certain APIs in their apps starting this fall, to prevent the misuse of those APIs for fingerprinting  —  The App Store review process is very strict to ensure that apps comply with Apple's guidelines.  And soon, this whole process will get even stricter.



How to pin, unpin a conversation on Snapchat

https://ift.tt/34VF7Q6

Hackers infecting Call of Duty players with new malware, here’s how

Hackers are distributing a worm through Activision’s popular Call of Duty gaming franchise, according to a report by Techcrunch. The malware is believed to be able to spread automatically through online lobbies from one infected player to another. It is thought that hackers have found one or multiple bugs in the game which are being exploited to execute malicious code on other players’ computers. This has prompted Activision to take the game offline while they investigate the issue. https://ift.tt/x6odFgA

The SEC's Paul Munter warns that the accounting firms working with crypto companies could be held liable for misleading public statements made by their clients (Colin Wilhelm/The Block)

Colin Wilhelm / The Block:
The SEC's Paul Munter warns that the accounting firms working with crypto companies could be held liable for misleading public statements made by their clients  —  - The SEC's chief accountant issued a warning to accounting firms that work with crypto clients, saying auditors …



Realme GT 5 name officially confirmed, tipped to launch in August

Realme has announced its flagship smartphone, the Realme GT 5, which will be launched in August 2023 with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 SoC. While the Realme GT 5 Pro will be launched towards the end of this year or the first quarter of 2024. The smartphone is expected to have a 6.74-inch OLED panel with a 144Hz refresh rate, a 16-megapixel front camera, and a triple-camera unit on the back. The Realme GT 5 is expected to be powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Gen chipset and offer up to 16GB LPDDR5 X RAM and 1TB UFS 4.0 storage. https://ift.tt/j4flwMp

Thursday, July 27, 2023

PUBG releases official collaboration trailer with Street Fighter

PUBG has released a trailer showcasing its collaboration with Street Fighter, which includes character skins, special moves and Street Fighter-themed loot crates. The new features come as part of the game's summer update, which also rewards players with exclusives for in-game events. PUBG also announced a partnership with Dragon Ball Super, which sees characters Goku, Vegeta, Piccolo and Frieza all added to the game. https://ift.tt/WCbmUP7

Source: about 10 years ago, Tesla rigged the dashboard to overstate battery range; in 2022, Tesla created a "Diversion Team" to suppress thousands of complaints (Reuters)

Reuters:
Source: about 10 years ago, Tesla rigged the dashboard to overstate battery range; in 2022, Tesla created a “Diversion Team” to suppress thousands of complaints  —  About a decade ago, Tesla rigged the dashboard readouts in its electric cars to provide “rosy” …



Indian political parties court big and small social media influencers ahead of the 2024 elections, offering to pay for political messages with no disclosures (Srishti Jaswal/Rest of World)

Srishti Jaswal / Rest of World:
Indian political parties court big and small social media influencers ahead of the 2024 elections, offering to pay for political messages with no disclosures  —  As the campaign for the 2024 elections in India goes digital, social media influencers have become a powerful tool to try and shape voter behavior.



Slack experienced an "outage across the app" starting around 5AM ET for about an hour, including issues with sending messages and search (Jon Porter/The Verge)

Jon Porter / The Verge:
Slack experienced an “outage across the app” starting around 5AM ET for about an hour, including issues with sending messages and search  —  Slack, the workplace chat app, experienced an outage this morning, with messages failing to send on the service.



Franco-Italian chipmaker STMicro reports Q2 revenue up 13% YoY to $4.33B, beating estimates of $4.29B, and inventory rose to 126 days, up from 104 in Q2 2022 (Benoit Berthelot/Bloomberg)

Benoit Berthelot / Bloomberg:
Franco-Italian chipmaker STMicro reports Q2 revenue up 13% YoY to $4.33B, beating estimates of $4.29B, and inventory rose to 126 days, up from 104 in Q2 2022  —  - Revenue revenue rose 13% to $4.33 billion in second quarter  — Inventory rose to 126 days at the end of the quarter



Wednesday, July 26, 2023

Evan Blass leaks over a dozen official images from Samsung Unpacked, showing the Galaxy Z Fold 5, Z Flip 5, new Galaxy Watch 6, Galaxy Tab S9 tablets, and more (Hadlee Simons/Android Authority)

Hadlee Simons / Android Authority:
Evan Blass leaks over a dozen official images from Samsung Unpacked, showing the Galaxy Z Fold 5, Z Flip 5, new Galaxy Watch 6, Galaxy Tab S9 tablets, and more  —  All we need to know at this stage is pricing and availability details.  —  •  —  TL;DR



Amazon launches 'Your Recalls and Product Safety Alerts' page: Details

Amazon has created a page called "Your Recalls and Product Safety Alerts" that will allow customers to check whether products they have bought have been recalled or have safety alerts. Users will receive a personalised email if a recall or safety alert is issued, along with an alert banner to view their safety alerts page for more information. The new feature will help users navigate to get more information about recalls and view available refund or return options. The page also provides clear and concise information about product recalls and safety alerts. https://ift.tt/AHByxT8

Apple may bring macOS Sonoma's gaming made to iPhone

A new Gaming Mode will come to Mac devices with macOS Sonoma. There are hints in the latest developer beta version of iOS that it may come to iPhones as well. https://ift.tt/pLKE9W7

A look at Abu Dhabi-based AI startup G42, as sources say US intelligence officials fixated on CEO Xiao Peng ahead of its China divestment and Microsoft deal (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg : A look at Abu Dhabi-based AI startup G42, as sources say US intelligence officials fixated on CEO Xiao Peng ahead of its Chin...