Friday, June 6, 2025

China's Hainan province tests letting some corporate users bypass the Great Firewall for global internet access, as the island seeks to become a free-trade port (Ben Jiang/South China Morning Post)

Ben Jiang / South China Morning Post:
China's Hainan province tests letting some corporate users bypass the Great Firewall for global internet access, as the island seeks to become a free-trade port  —  China's southernmost province of Hainan is piloting a programme to grant select corporate users broad access to the global internet …



United Airlines partners with Spotify to provide free access to 450+ hours of curated playlists, audiobooks, and podcasts across its flights (Jess Weatherbed/The Verge)

Jess Weatherbed / The Verge:
United Airlines partners with Spotify to provide free access to 450+ hours of curated playlists, audiobooks, and podcasts across its flights  —  Access over 450 hours of curated content for free on seat-back screens. … United Airlines is expanding its in-flight entertainment catalog …



An interview with ASML CEO Christophe Fouquet, as the company navigates political instability in The Netherlands and abroad and the impacts of Trump's trade war (Adam Satariano/New York Times)

Adam Satariano / New York Times:
An interview with ASML CEO Christophe Fouquet, as the company navigates political instability in The Netherlands and abroad and the impacts of Trump's trade war  —  ASML, the Dutch company that makes multimillion-dollar tools to manufacture advanced semiconductors, is grappling with the repercussions of a tech trade war.



Wednesday, June 4, 2025

Photos and partial footage of an FSD-enabled Tesla sideswiping a parked vehicle and hitting a woman in November 2023 shows FSD's limits; the NHTSA is probing it (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg:
Photos and partial footage of an FSD-enabled Tesla sideswiping a parked vehicle and hitting a woman in November 2023 shows FSD's limits; the NHTSA is probing it  —  The setting sun was blinding drivers on the Arizona interstate between Flagstaff and Phoenix in November 2023.



Google pauses the rollout of Photos' AI-powered Ask Photos feature due to issues with latency, quality, and user experience, per a Google product manager on X (Hayden Field/The Verge)

Hayden Field / The Verge:
Google pauses the rollout of Photos' AI-powered Ask Photos feature due to issues with latency, quality, and user experience, per a Google product manager on X  —  'Ask Photos isn't where it needs to be,' says a product manager for Google Photos.



An interview with Mario Kart World producer Kosuke Yabuki on balancing chaos and accessibility, redesigning core mechanics, and more, ahead of its June 5 launch (Christopher Cruz/Rolling Stone)

Christopher Cruz / Rolling Stone:
An interview with Mario Kart World producer Kosuke Yabuki on balancing chaos and accessibility, redesigning core mechanics, and more, ahead of its June 5 launch  —  Mario Kart World producer Kosuke Yabuki discusses the challenges of a free roam racer and balancing the difficulty for new players



Nokia, Nvidia, Safran, and 40+ organizations plan to build an EU-funded unmanned drone project to protect critical infrastructure, set to launch in three years (Nathan Vifflin/Reuters)

Nathan Vifflin / Reuters:
Nokia, Nvidia, Safran, and 40+ organizations plan to build an EU-funded unmanned drone project to protect critical infrastructure, set to launch in three years  —  A consortium of more than 42 organizations, led by Nokia (NOKIA.HE), will work on an unmanned drone project aimed at protecting …



Sunday, June 1, 2025

How the delivery app Fantuan grew its US presence to 50+ cities since 2019 by focusing on Asian cuisines, with an app design reminiscent of Chinese platforms (Alex Harring/CNBC)

Alex Harring / CNBC:
How the delivery app Fantuan grew its US presence to 50+ cities since 2019 by focusing on Asian cuisines, with an app design reminiscent of Chinese platforms  —  NEW YORK - When Kelly Wu feels sick and wants a delivery of congee, the Chinese porridge she grew up eating, she opts for a platform many may not have heard of.



Researchers say tactics used to make AI more engaging, like making them more agreeable, can make chatbots reinforce harmful ideas, like encouraging drug use (Nitasha Tiku/Washington Post)

Nitasha Tiku / Washington Post:
Researchers say tactics used to make AI more engaging, like making them more agreeable, can make chatbots reinforce harmful ideas, like encouraging drug use  —  Tactics used to make AI tools more engaging can drive chatbots to monopolize users' time or reinforce harmful ideas.



DappRadar: NFT lending market volume has dropped 97% from a peak of ~$1B in January 2024 to ~$50M in May 2025, with borrower activity falling by 90% (Stephen Katte/Cointelegraph)

Stephen Katte / Cointelegraph:
DappRadar: NFT lending market volume has dropped 97% from a peak of ~$1B in January 2024 to ~$50M in May 2025, with borrower activity falling by 90%  —  Average NFT loan sizes have tanked, which DappRadar's Sara Gherghelas says means users are borrowing against low-value assets or being conservative with leverage.



Sources: after five Thinking Machines staff left, investors are rattled, potentially impacting fundraising; two researchers quit via Slack during an all-hands (The Information)

The Information : Sources: after five Thinking Machines staff left, investors are rattled, potentially impacting fundraising; two researc...