Tuesday, June 14, 2022

Thailand approves $1 billion Foxconn-PTT venture for BEVs

The Horizon Plus Co project is one of several investment applications worth a total of 209.5 billion baht in manufacturing and infrastructure that were approved, the Board of Investment (BOI) said in a statement. https://ift.tt/Eoj3OCY

Amazon suffers outage with error messages for thousands of shoppers

"I'm getting the same message on every single product I try to look at. Totally unrelated products, same exact messages. The other odd thing I noticed was that I had to log in to my Amazon account this morning, on all my devices I'd suddenly become logged out," an affected user posted on Reddit. https://ift.tt/yad4sPQ

Data shows Chinese orders for chipmaking equipment rose 58% YoY in 2021, as some US chipmakers claim Chinese companies are paying above-market prices (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg:
Data shows Chinese orders for chipmaking equipment rose 58% YoY in 2021, as some US chipmakers claim Chinese companies are paying above-market prices  —  China's semiconductor industry is showing signs of flourishing even in the face of Biden administration efforts to counter its growth, raising alarm bells in Washington.



A Chinese regulator says automaker Geely plans to acquire a 79% stake in smartphone maker Meizu for an undisclosed amount and release a smartphone by 2023 (Brenda Goh/Reuters)

Brenda Goh / Reuters:
A Chinese regulator says automaker Geely plans to acquire a 79% stake in smartphone maker Meizu for an undisclosed amount and release a smartphone by 2023  —  A venture run by the founder of Chinese automaker Zhejiang Geely Holding (GEELY.UL) plans to acquire an 79% stake in Chinese smartphone maker Meizu …



Monday, June 13, 2022

South Korea to attempt space rocket launch this week

South Korea's state-run Korea Aerospace Research Institute (Kari) was carrying out final preparations on Monday ahead of this week's second attempt to send multiple satellites into orbit. Nuri, also known as KSLV-II, is scheduled to be transported to the launch pad and erected vertically on Tuesday at the Naro Space Centre in the country's southern coastal village of Goheung, one day ahead of the launch, Yonhap news agency reported. https://ift.tt/V4JLR7u

A look at the growing split over ad blocker browser extensions, as Google's Manifest V3 cuts out blocking via Web Request while Mozilla maintains support for it (Corin Faife/The Verge)

Corin Faife / The Verge:
A look at the growing split over ad blocker browser extensions, as Google's Manifest V3 cuts out blocking via Web Request while Mozilla maintains support for it  —  There's a growing split over how much room browsers should leave for ad blocking — and Chrome and Firefox have ended up on opposite sides of the fight.



Facebook accused of playing determinative role in Rohingya genocide, claims report

Representatives of the Rohingya genocide victims in Myanmar were set to write a Letter Before Action against against Facebook, the social media giant now known as Meta, over its role in enabling the genocide, a report said on Monday. The Letter comes in advance of an anticipated claim seeking damages from the tech giant that, it is alleged, encouraged and facilitated the violence and ethnic cleansing carried out by the Myanmar regime. https://ift.tt/t72wO46

A skeptical look at crypto as a foundation for self-sovereign identity and some likely dystopian outcomes, as Buterin, Dorsey, and others explore the idea (Molly White)

Molly White:
A skeptical look at crypto as a foundation for self-sovereign identity and some likely dystopian outcomes, as Buterin, Dorsey, and others explore the idea  —  Anonymity and trustlessness are central to the crypto world.  People don't have to attach real-world identities to crypto wallets …



As crypto tumbles, MicroStrategy, which owns 129K+ bitcoins, drops as much as 23%, while Coinbase, Riot Blockchain, and Marathon Digital each drop 14%+ (Matt Turner/Bloomberg)

Matt Turner / Bloomberg:
As crypto tumbles, MicroStrategy, which owns 129K+ bitcoins, drops as much as 23%, while Coinbase, Riot Blockchain, and Marathon Digital each drop 14%+  —  Cryptocurrency-related stocks plunged in premarket trading Monday as Bitcoin tumbled to its lowest level in 18 months amid a deepening selloff …



Despite differences within the AI community, pretty much all AI experts find the notion that Google's LaMDA might be sentient completely ridiculous (Gary Marcus/The Road to AI We Can Trust)

Gary Marcus / The Road to AI We Can Trust:
Despite differences within the AI community, pretty much all AI experts find the notion that Google's LaMDA might be sentient completely ridiculous  —  No, LaMDA is not sentient.  Not even slightly. … Blaise Aguera y Arcas, polymath, novelist, and Google VP, has a way with words.



How to search, translate, or OCR an image in Chrome on desktop

​OCR is frequently used on systems that have a well-balanced combination of hardware and software. Google Lens is a great example of this type of system. It allows you to scan text and convert it to a digital format. https://ift.tt/iKWrDSX

Major cryptocurrencies are crashing: bitcoin drops by 10%+ to below ~$24K, ether drops by 12%+ to ~$1.2K, Avalanche drops 15%+, and Solana drops 14%+ (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg:
Major cryptocurrencies are crashing: bitcoin drops by 10%+ to below ~$24K, ether drops by 12%+ to ~$1.2K, Avalanche drops 15%+, and Solana drops 14%+  —  Bitcoin plunged to the lowest in about 18 months in Asia trading Monday as the impact of Friday's shock US inflation data continued to reverberate through global risk assets.



London-based Tessl, which is building an AI to write and maintain code, raised $125M across seed and Series A, sources say at a $500M+ post-money valuation (Ingrid Lunden/TechCrunch)

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch : London-based Tessl, which is building an AI to write and maintain code, raised $125M across seed and Series ...