Sunday, September 18, 2022

How India and US ramping up local manufacturing of semiconductors hurting China

As India and the US double down on domestic semiconductor manufacturing, China witnessed its biggest-ever monthly decline in chip manufacturing in August owing to Covid restrictions and weakening demand. https://ift.tt/a4zwTiy

9 countries where you can get Apple iPhone 14 series cheaper than in India

https://ift.tt/2gAXCsh

Artists say they risk losing income as people use their names as distinctive style prompts in text-to-image AI art generators for commercial purposes (Melissa Heikkilä/MIT Technology Review)

Melissa Heikkilä / MIT Technology Review:
Artists say they risk losing income as people use their names as distinctive style prompts in text-to-image AI art generators for commercial purposes  —  Greg Rutkowski is a more popular prompt than Picasso.  —  Those cool AI-generated images you've seen across the internet?



How Russian troll farm IRA tweeted a torrent of contrived grievances and smears against the leaders of the US Women's March for 18+ months to split the movement (Ellen Barry/New York Times)

Ellen Barry / New York Times:
How Russian troll farm IRA tweeted a torrent of contrived grievances and smears against the leaders of the US Women's March for 18+ months to split the movement  —  As American feminists came together in 2017 to protest Donald Trump, Russia's disinformation machine set about deepening the divides among them.



Over 90 gameplay videos from Rockstar's GTA VI leak online; the uploader claims they were behind last week's Uber hack and have GTA V and VI source code (Tom Warren/The Verge)

Tom Warren / The Verge:
Over 90 gameplay videos from Rockstar's GTA VI leak online; the uploader claims they were behind last week's Uber hack and have GTA V and VI source code  —  Footage of Grand Theft Auto VI, Rockstar's next entry in its open-world franchise, appears to have leaked online.



An in-depth look at a 2019 cyberstalking campaign by eBay employees against two critics who are now suing the company, its former CEO, and others for harassment (David Streitfeld/New York Times)

David Streitfeld / New York Times:
An in-depth look at a 2019 cyberstalking campaign by eBay employees against two critics who are now suing the company, its former CEO, and others for harassment  —  The victims of a bizarre cyberstalking operation are trying to hold the chief executive and the culture of the company responsible.



Saturday, September 17, 2022

Many crypto miners are shutting off rigs and plan to sell their GPUs, as GPU-based mining for most cryptocurrencies becomes unprofitable after Ethereum's Merge (Michael Kan/PCMag)

Michael Kan / PCMag:
Many crypto miners are shutting off rigs and plan to sell their GPUs, as GPU-based mining for most cryptocurrencies becomes unprofitable after Ethereum's Merge  —  Crypto-miners are shutting off their rigs and mulling selling their GPUs since few, if any, cryptocurrencies are currently profitable …



A Vietnamese couple says they wiped some of Intercontinental Hotels Group's data, accessed using the password Qwerty1234, after a failed ransomware attack (Joe Tidy/BBC)

Joe Tidy / BBC:
A Vietnamese couple says they wiped some of Intercontinental Hotels Group's data, accessed using the password Qwerty1234, after a failed ransomware attack  —  Hackers have told the BBC they carried out a destructive cyber-attack against Holiday Inn owner Intercontinental Hotels Group (IHG) “for fun”.



A profile of Figma founder Dylan Field, who will become the wealthiest person from the Thiel Fellowship by far, as PitchBook estimates his stake is worth $2B+ (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg:
A profile of Figma founder Dylan Field, who will become the wealthiest person from the Thiel Fellowship by far, as PitchBook estimates his stake is worth $2B+  —  Dylan Field dropped out of an Ivy League school in 2012 to take a grant from the billionaire Peter Thiel and start a software company called Figma.



How neural network chess engines redefined the game's creativity, leading some top players to use deception, misdirection, and other psychological techniques (Matteo Wong/The Atlantic)

Matteo Wong / The Atlantic:
How neural network chess engines redefined the game's creativity, leading some top players to use deception, misdirection, and other psychological techniques  —  It was as if a bottom seed had knocked out the top team in March Madness: At the Sinquefield Cup chess tournament in St. Louis earlier this month …



Shopify changes its compensation practices to let staff choose a mix of cash, restricted stock units, and stock options; Shopify stock is down 75% in 2022 (Stefanie Marotta/Bloomberg)

Stefanie Marotta / Bloomberg:
Shopify changes its compensation practices to let staff choose a mix of cash, restricted stock units, and stock options; Shopify stock is down 75% in 2022  —  Shopify Inc. is changing its compensation practices to let staff decide how much of their pay will be cash versus equity …



Unsealed court docs in a privacy user profiling suit against Meta show that apps from Zynga, Yahoo, and others had extensive access to users' friends' data (Natasha Lomas/TechCrunch)

Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:
Unsealed court docs in a privacy user profiling suit against Meta show that apps from Zynga, Yahoo, and others had extensive access to users' friends' data  —  It's not the crime, it's the cover up... The scandal-hit company formerly known as Facebook has fought for over four years to keep …



Sources: BeReal is exploring adding paid features to avoid advertising; the app now has 15M DAUs, up from 10K in March 2021, and is now valued at ~$600M (Financial Times)

Financial Times:
Sources: BeReal is exploring adding paid features to avoid advertising; the app now has 15M DAUs, up from 10K in March 2021, and is now valued at ~$600M  —  Photo-sharing app BeReal is exploring the addition of in-app payments for extra features to avoid Instagram-style advertising …



MediaTek says it has started to use Intel Foundry's advanced chip packaging in addition to TSMC's, as the mobile chip designer bets on AI demand for growth (Cheng Ting-Fang/Nikkei Asia)

Cheng Ting-Fang / Nikkei Asia : MediaTek says it has started to use Intel Foundry's advanced chip packaging in addition to TSMC's...