ByteDance launches its first earbuds, the open-ear wearables called Ola Friend, designed as an audio assistant, shipping on October 17 in China for ~$170 — The Ola Friend earphones are linked to ByteDance's self-developed chatbot, Doubao, currently China's most popular GenAI app
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awards the Nobel Prize in Chemistry to David Baker for “computational protein design” and Demis Hassabis and John Jumper — - Demis Hassabis, John Jumper share half the $1.1 million award — Remainder goes to David Baker for building new proteins
CamScanner app maker Intsig is the best-performing China IPO stock in 2024 for $100M+ listings, after a euphoric market response to Beijing's stimulus measures — - Intsig Chairman Zhen Lixin's net worth hits $876 million — Shanghai-listed firm has surged since Sept. 26 debut
Israel compromising Hezbollah pagers shows the West should take hardware security more seriously, especially as most electronics manufacturing shifted to Asia — Unreliable suppliers can modify devices, yet companies devote few resources to verifying the origin of components
Dublin-based Appeals Centre, backed by Meta's Oversight Board, launches to moderate disputes between EU users and Facebook, TikTok, and YouTube under the DSA — Social media users in the European Union will be able to make complaints against Facebook, ByteDance's TikTok and Alphabet's …
SportQuake: crypto companies have spent a record of almost £130M on Premier League sponsorship deals for the 2024/25 season, buoyed by tighter gambling rules — English football club deals with crypto firms are at a record high. … The flood of crypto money into English football is continuing …
A look at the fall of Byju's, India's most valuable startup in 2022 with an estimated $22B valuation, as it faces insolvency and lawsuits in India and the US — Edtech company's legal battles from Delaware to Bengaluru have exposed corporate governance issues
Amazon, Microsoft, and Google are increasingly eyeing nuclear reactors, which provide steady “baseload” power, as their carbon emissions climb due to AI tools — Major tech firms, in search of carbon pollution-free electricity for data centers, are helping to revive nuclear energy in the US.
Sources: Apple plans to launch iOS 18.1 and Apple Intelligence on Oct. 28 and announce new Macs and an iPad mini in late Oct., with shipments starting on Nov. 1 — Apple is inching away from its annual product upgrade cycle, a move that could lead to more frequent releases and fewer jarring delays.
A profile of UK teenage hacker Arion Kurtaj, a Lapsus$ member who leaked GTA VI video in 2022 and was found guilty in 2023 for hacking Nvidia, Uber, and others — The City of London Police had put the teenage boy in the suburban Travelodge to protect him. They even set up a code …
Foxconn Q3: revenue up 20.2% YoY to ~$57.3B on strong AI server demand; consumer electronics revenue, including iPhones, was flat YoY; stock is up ~86% in 2024 — Taiwan's Foxconn (2317.TW), the world's largest contract electronics maker, beat expectations to post its highest-ever revenue …
Mullenweg says “WordPress.org just belongs to me personally”, as his WP Engine feud blurs the lines between WordPress.org, WordPress Foundation, and Automattic — The lines between the WordPress open-source project, the nonprofit backing it, and the commercial arm owned by Automattic are blurring.
A look at the rise and fall of IronNet, a cybersecurity firm led by ex-NSA director Keith Alexander and whose valuation crossed $3B after it went public in 2021 — The future was once dazzling for IronNet. Founded by a former director of the National Security Agency and stacked …
How Beixiazhu, a Chinese village that was a hotspot of activity during the livestream shopping boom on Douyin, Kuaishou and other apps, became a cautionary tale — To the unsuspecting outsider, Beixiazhu looks like any unremarkable Chinese village. But for years, this was the place …
The CJEU rules that social networks, such as Facebook, cannot keep using people's data for ad targeting indefinitely, siding with privacy campaigner Max Schrems — The European Union's top court has sided with a privacy challenge to Meta's data retention policies.
Yimou Lee / Reuters : Taiwan's National Security Bureau says daily average cyberattacks on government departments doubled in 2024 vs....
