Apple abandons the budget phone market with the iPhone 16e; sources: the M4 MacBook Air may launch in March and Apple may eventually meld the modem and main CPU — Last week, Apple introduced the long-awaited successor to the iPhone SE: the iPhone 16e. In doing so, it all but abandoned the budget smartphone market.
Some US school districts are adopting Sonny, an AI “wellbeing companion,” to provide mental health support to students when there aren't enough counselors — Is a human-AI texting service the future of mental-health care for students? — Teens around the country are confiding …
A look at India's Svamitva Scheme, which has digitally mapped out landholdings using drones in 300K+ villages as of January 2025, as concerns mount over errors — The Svamitva scheme seeks to use drones to map out landholdings in inhabited rural areas. But so far, work has been opaque and riddled with errors.
An investigation details how Chinese cybercrime groups are turning phished payment card data into new Apple or Google wallets for online and in-store use — Carding — the underground business of stealing, selling and swiping stolen payment card data — has long been the dominion of Russia-based hackers.
Even as Trump embraces crypto, attracting millions of new investors, the Bybit hack and memecoins show how crypto remains the wild West of the financial world — Hours after Coinbase said the S.E.C. was dropping a lawsuit against it, another major cryptocurrency exchange reported a potentially record-setting theft.
A look at the debate about whether AI models can truly reason, as some researchers describe the current pattern of reasoning as “jagged intelligence” — The AI world is moving so fast that it's easy to get lost amid the flurry of shiny new products.
Many SV startups are using AI to boost productivity in research, coding, and more, reducing reliance on VC money for hiring, fueling “tiny team” success stories — Tech start-ups typically raised huge sums to hire armies of workers and grow fast.
DeepSeek will start open-sourcing five code repositories next week, letting anyone download, build on, or improve the code behind its well-regarded AI models — - The startup will begin making technology available next week — DeepSeek is pushing harder on its open-source approach
Sensor Tower: Xiaohongshu's downloads fell 91% in five days after Apple and Google relisted TikTok on their US app stores on February 13, while TikTok's doubled — - TikTok absence from app stores estimated to cost $142 million — Rednote emerged as the go-to TikTok replacement in January
OpenAI launches Operator in the UK, Japan, and most ChatGPT regions, and says it's working to expand to the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Liechtenstein, and Iceland — OpenAI said on Friday that it is rolling out Operator, its so-called AI agent that can perform tasks on behalf of users …
Russian search and ad giant Yandex reports 2024 revenue up 37% YoY to a record ~$12.3B and expects 2025 revenue up 30%+, after splitting from Nebius Group — Russian internet firm Yandex reported annual revenues above 1 trillion roubles ($11.22 billion) for the first time on Thursday …
Australia eSafety Commissioner study: social media platforms likely have ~1.3M under-13 Australian users, suggesting a lack of preparation for the under-16 ban — - Study indicates over 1 million underage social media users — Findings show lack of preparation for Australia's under-16 ban
An interview with Accel's Harry Nelis, who led early investments in Zepz and Kayak, on how the European startup industry has changed, the AI boom, and more — The venture capital group's long-serving partner reflects on how the continent's start-up industry has evolved and discusses the AI boom
Signal updates its apps to add phishing protections after Google warned Russia-linked hackers are using fake QR codes to target Ukrainian soldiers — Google warns that hackers tied to Russia are tricking Ukrainian soldiers with fake QR codes for Signal group invites that let spies steal their messages.
Source: in text messages, Libra co-creator Hayden Davis bragged he could “control” Argentine President Javier Milei due to payments to Milei's sister — A key player behind the Libra token bragged about buying access to Argentine President Javier Milei's inner circle months …
Sherry Qin / Wall Street Journal : Chinese video game giant NetEase reports Q4 revenue up 3% YoY to ~$4B and net profit down 29% to ~$903...
