Thursday, January 9, 2025

Taiwan's National Security Bureau says daily average cyberattacks on government departments doubled in 2024 vs. 2023 to 2.4M, mostly from Chinese cyber forces (Yimou Lee/Reuters)

Yimou Lee / Reuters:
Taiwan's National Security Bureau says daily average cyberattacks on government departments doubled in 2024 vs. 2023 to 2.4M, mostly from Chinese cyber forces  —  Cyberattacks on Taiwan government departments doubled in 2024 from the previous year to an average of 2.4 million attacks a day …



Istanbul-based gaming startup Grand Games, maker of Magic Sort and Car Match, raised a $30M Series A led by Balderton, after securing a $3M seed in 2024 (Ingrid Lunden/TechCrunch)

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Istanbul-based gaming startup Grand Games, maker of Magic Sort and Car Match, raised a $30M Series A led by Balderton, after securing a $3M seed in 2024  —  Gaming startups, specifically those building casual mobile games, are very hot in Turkey right now, and today, another one is announcing …



A new English-language Polish film about Vladimir Putin, in which AI is used to superimpose his real face onto an actor, sparks a debate about use of AI (Alicja Ptak/Notes From Poland)

Alicja Ptak / Notes From Poland:
A new English-language Polish film about Vladimir Putin, in which AI is used to superimpose his real face onto an actor, sparks a debate about use of AI  —  A new English-language Polish film about Vladimir Putin, in which the Russian president is portrayed using AI-powered special effects …



Monday, January 6, 2025

Avataar debuts Velocity, an AI tool that generates product videos based on a product link, and says HP, Victoria's Secret, Lowe's, and others are using the tool (Ivan Mehta/TechCrunch)

Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
Avataar debuts Velocity, an AI tool that generates product videos based on a product link, and says HP, Victoria's Secret, Lowe's, and others are using the tool  —  Generative AI models have reached a baseline capability of producing at least a passable video from a single image or short sentence.



Sam Altman says "we are now confident we know how to build AGI as we have traditionally understood it" and that OpenAI is turning its focus to superintelligence (Sam Altman)

Sam Altman:
Sam Altman says “we are now confident we know how to build AGI as we have traditionally understood it” and that OpenAI is turning its focus to superintelligence  —  The second birthday of ChatGPT was only a little over a month ago, and now we have transitioned into the next paradigm of models that can do complex reasoning.



Uber and Lyft are embracing autonomous vehicle operators like Waymo, May Mobility, and others, after abandoning their own self-driving car programs (Preetika Rana/Wall Street Journal)

Preetika Rana / Wall Street Journal:
Uber and Lyft are embracing autonomous vehicle operators like Waymo, May Mobility, and others, after abandoning their own self-driving car programs  —  After ending their own driverless plans, the ride-sharing companies are embracing autonomous-vehicle operators and offering new app features



Sources: India plans $2.7B in fresh subsidies and import tariff cuts to boost local manufacturing, especially of smartphones made by companies like Apple (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg:
Sources: India plans $2.7B in fresh subsidies and import tariff cuts to boost local manufacturing, especially of smartphones made by companies like Apple  —  - Proposed incentives will help smartphone makers like Apple  — Final decision to be made by cabinet; details likely in budget



Sunday, January 5, 2025

A look at Chinese hackers' attacks on US infrastructure and telecoms; sources: Charter, Consolidated Communications, and Windstream networks were also breached (Wall Street Journal)

Wall Street Journal:
A look at Chinese hackers' attacks on US infrastructure and telecoms; sources: Charter, Consolidated Communications, and Windstream networks were also breached  —  Massive ‘Typhoon’ cyberattacks on U.S. infrastructure and telecoms sought to lay groundwork for potential conflict with Beijing …



Foxconn reports Q4 revenue of ~$64.6B, up 15% YoY and exceeding analyst expectations for a 13% rise, with December 2024 bringing in ~$19.8B, up 42% YoY (Jane Lanhee Lee/Bloomberg)

Jane Lanhee Lee / Bloomberg:
Foxconn reports Q4 revenue of ~$64.6B, up 15% YoY and exceeding analyst expectations for a 13% rise, with December 2024 bringing in ~$19.8B, up 42% YoY  —  - Company sees significant sales growth for the first quarter  — December sales NT$655 billion up 42% on strong AI server sales



PitchBook: AI startups developing medical note-taking apps raised $800M in 2024, compared to $390M in 2023, as Microsoft and others compete for market share (Madhumita Murgia/Financial Times)

Madhumita Murgia / Financial Times:
PitchBook: AI startups developing medical note-taking apps raised $800M in 2024, compared to $390M in 2023, as Microsoft and others compete for market share  —  Investment in the apps has doubled as Big Tech and start-ups compete to grab share of market  —  Investment in artificial …



YouTube launches a Premium paywall for song lyrics on YouTube Music, after testing it in recent months; users get five free lyrics before they have to subscribe (Abner Li/9to5Google)

Abner Li / 9to5Google : YouTube launches a Premium paywall for song lyrics on YouTube Music, after testing it in recent months; users get...