Tuesday, December 24, 2024

Arizona's Maricopa County is set to have the second largest concentration of US data centers by 2028, as the state races to increase electricity production (Pranshu Verma/Washington Post)

Pranshu Verma / Washington Post:
Arizona's Maricopa County is set to have the second largest concentration of US data centers by 2028, as the state races to increase electricity production  —  As data centers drain America's power grids, a fierce battle is being waged for electricity.  On Navajo Nation land, many are on the losing end.



Tass: the Russian government bans crypto mining in 10 regions from January 1 to March 15, 2031, citing power consumption, after legalizing mining in July 2024 (Sheldon Reback/CoinDesk)

Sheldon Reback / CoinDesk:
Tass: the Russian government bans crypto mining in 10 regions from January 1 to March 15, 2031, citing power consumption, after legalizing mining in July 2024  —  Temporary bans may be imposed in other regions during peak energy demand, Tass reported  —  What to know:



Sources: the EU will conditionally approve US chip design software company Synopsys' $35B Ansys acquisition, the largest tech deal since Broadcom bought VMware (Foo Yun Chee/Reuters)

Foo Yun Chee / Reuters:
Sources: the EU will conditionally approve US chip design software company Synopsys' $35B Ansys acquisition, the largest tech deal since Broadcom bought VMware  —  U.S. chip design software company Synopsys (SNPS.O) is set to win conditional EU antitrust approval for its $35 billion buy of Ansys …



Sunday, December 22, 2024

A look at the challenges facing Crunchyroll, as current and ex-staffers say its management is out of touch, amid Disney and Netflix's expansion into anime (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg:
A look at the challenges facing Crunchyroll, as current and ex-staffers say its management is out of touch, amid Disney and Netflix's expansion into anime  —  Disney and Netflix are expanding in the popular Japanese cartoon genre  —  At first glance, Sony Group Corp.'s $1.2 billion acquisition …



A look at Amazon's revamped drone delivery program near Phoenix, Arizona, where the company's new MK-30 drones deliver dozens of packages a day to customers (Kevin Roose/New York Times)

Kevin Roose / New York Times:
A look at Amazon's revamped drone delivery program near Phoenix, Arizona, where the company's new MK-30 drones deliver dozens of packages a day to customers  —  A recent visit to the company's overhauled drone delivery program in Arizona left me impressed by the drones, but skeptical that the public will welcome them.



Sources: Apple is working on a smart doorbell system with advanced facial recognition that can wirelessly connect and unlock third-party smart locks (Mark Gurman/Bloomberg)

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple is working on a smart doorbell system with advanced facial recognition that can wirelessly connect and unlock third-party smart locks  —  Also: Company ramps up work on turning AirPods into a health device.



Preqin data: Southeast Asia's AI startups raised just $1.7B across 122 deals so far in 2024, out of ~$20B across 1,845 deals for the whole Asia-Pacific region (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg:
Preqin data: Southeast Asia's AI startups raised just $1.7B across 122 deals so far in 2024, out of ~$20B across 1,845 deals for the whole Asia-Pacific region  —  - While global tech expands in the region, its startups languish  — Its homegrown tech industry risks falling behind in AI



Saturday, December 21, 2024

Albania bans TikTok for a year from January 2025, part of a broader plan to make schools safer following the killing of a 14-year-old near a school in November (Reuters)

Reuters:
Albania bans TikTok for a year from January 2025, part of a broader plan to make schools safer following the killing of a 14-year-old near a school in November  —  Albania on Saturday announced a one-year ban on TikTok, the popular short video app, following the killing of a teenager last month …



As part of its remedies proposal, Google says it won't require device makers and other partners to distribute Gemini to US users for three years (Paresh Dave/Wired)

Paresh Dave / Wired:
As part of its remedies proposal, Google says it won't require device makers and other partners to distribute Gemini to US users for three years  —  Google dominated the last era of search.  Now the company and the US Justice Department are battling over how to set a fair playing field for generative AI.



The US awards a $4.75B CHIPS Act grant to Samsung and $1.6B to Texas Instruments for new factories in Texas and Utah, rounding out the program's largest grants (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg:
The US awards a $4.75B CHIPS Act grant to Samsung and $1.6B to Texas Instruments for new factories in Texas and Utah, rounding out the program's largest grants  —  - Incentives will go toward new factories in Texas and Utah  — Biden administration is racing to complete federal grants



A profile of AWS CEO Matt Garman, including his first few months on the job, what his stewardship means for the business, and his opportunities and challenges (Jason Del Rey/Fortune)

Jason Del Rey / Fortune:
A profile of AWS CEO Matt Garman, including his first few months on the job, what his stewardship means for the business, and his opportunities and challenges  —  Matt Garman joined Amazon Web Services as an intern nearly two decades ago.  But his appearance earlier this month …



Alibaba releases Qwen3.6-Plus, its third proprietary, closed-source AI model launched within a three-day period, saying it "drastically enhanced" agentic coding (Luz Ding/Bloomberg)

Luz Ding / Bloomberg : Alibaba releases Qwen3.6-Plus, its third proprietary, closed-source AI model launched within a three-day period, s...