Russia's finance minister says Russian companies have begun using bitcoin and other digital currencies in international payments to counter Western sanctions (Gleb Bryanski/Reuters)

Gleb Bryanski / Reuters:
Russia's finance minister says Russian companies have begun using bitcoin and other digital currencies in international payments to counter Western sanctions  —  Russian companies have begun using bitcoin and other digital currencies in international payments following legislative changes …

A look at the more challenging AI evaluations emerging in response to the rapid progress of models, including FrontierMath, Humanity's Last Exam, and RE-Bench (Tharin Pillay/Time)

Tharin Pillay / Time:
A look at the more challenging AI evaluations emerging in response to the rapid progress of models, including FrontierMath, Humanity's Last Exam, and RE-Bench  —  Despite their expertise, AI developers don't always know what their most advanced systems are capable of—at least, not at first.

Taiwan's FTC blocks Uber's $950M acquisition of Delivery Hero's Foodpanda, arguing it would decrease competition as their combined market share would be 90%+ (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg:
Taiwan's FTC blocks Uber's $950M acquisition of Delivery Hero's Foodpanda, arguing it would decrease competition as their combined market share would be 90%+  —  - Fair Trade Commission concerned deal would limit competition  — Uber had sought Delivery Hero's Foodpanda unit in Taiwan

Benchmarking AMD's MI300X and Nvidia's H100 and H200; in theory, AMD's GPU has advantages in specs and Total Cost of Ownership, but software bugs hold it back (Dylan Patel/SemiAnalysis)

Dylan Patel / SemiAnalysis:
Benchmarking AMD's MI300X and Nvidia's H100 and H200; in theory, AMD's GPU has advantages in specs and Total Cost of Ownership, but software bugs hold it back  —  SemiAnalysis has been on a five-month long quest to settle the reality of MI300X.  In theory, the MI300X should be at a huge advantage …

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 …

Google says it plans to counter Japan's FTC over claims that it hobbles rivals in search; a source says Japan's FTC sent a cease-and-desist order to Google (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg:
Google says it plans to counter Japan's FTC over claims that it hobbles rivals in search; a source says Japan's FTC sent a cease-and-desist order to Google  —  - Google prepares case against antitrust watchdog's allegations  — Regulators around the world are ramping up Big Tech scrutiny

AI platforms are unlikely to become a major source of traffic or ad revenue for media outlets, with content deals offering only a short-term revenue boost (Om Malik/On my Om)

Om Malik / On my Om:
AI platforms are unlikely to become a major source of traffic or ad revenue for media outlets, with content deals offering only a short-term revenue boost  —  I recently wrote about the future of the browser and Surf, a new app from the creators of Flipboard.

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

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.