Tuesday, October 25, 2022

A look at TSMC's efforts to build ever-smaller, more powerful, and energy efficient semiconductors, as competitors race to catch up and erode its edge (Financial Times)

Financial Times:
A look at TSMC's efforts to build ever-smaller, more powerful, and energy efficient semiconductors, as competitors race to catch up and erode its edge  —  Taiwan chipmaker ‘could stumble’ as industry is forced to develop new transistor technology  —  Smartphone chip design house MediaTek …



New York-based Bilt, which offers a loyalty program and credit card to convert rent payments into points, raised $150M led by Left Lane at a $1.5B valuation (Gillian Tan/Bloomberg)

Gillian Tan / Bloomberg:
New York-based Bilt, which offers a loyalty program and credit card to convert rent payments into points, raised $150M led by Left Lane at a $1.5B valuation  —  Bilt Rewards, which operates a loyalty program and credit card that converts rent payments into points, said its valuation more than quadrupled to $1.5 billion.



Wikimedia begins rolling out updated editing features for new contributors, such as mentorship and suggestions for cross-linking articles and other first steps (Adi Robertson/The Verge)

Adi Robertson / The Verge:
Wikimedia begins rolling out updated editing features for new contributors, such as mentorship and suggestions for cross-linking articles and other first steps  —  Wikipedia is one of the sturdiest survivors of the old web, as well as one of the most clearly human-powered ones …



Monday, October 24, 2022

iPad (10th gen) review: great performance and battery, lots of apps, and USB-C, but accessories are confusing and expensive, high price, and average display (Dan Seifert/The Verge)

Dan Seifert / The Verge:
iPad (10th gen) review: great performance and battery, lots of apps, and USB-C, but accessories are confusing and expensive, high price, and average display  —  Apple's latest base-model iPad cribs a lot of features from the more expensive iPad Air.  But it also is considerably more expensive than before, making it a tough sell.



Research: Binance had a 55.1% market share in spot crypto trading in the past 24 hours and 54.4% of derivatives trading, easily surpassing FTX and others (Adam James/The Block)

Adam James / The Block:
Research: Binance had a 55.1% market share in spot crypto trading in the past 24 hours and 54.4% of derivatives trading, easily surpassing FTX and others  —  - Binance accounted for more than 55% of the spot crypto market over the last 24 hours.  — The exchange also claimed …



The Coterie, which lets founders access funds from Coatue, a16z, and others to sidestep illiquid stock, raised a $40M Series A led by a16z at a $100M+ valuation (Gillian Tan/Bloomberg)

Gillian Tan / Bloomberg:
The Coterie, which lets founders access funds from Coatue, a16z, and others to sidestep illiquid stock, raised a $40M Series A led by a16z at a $100M+ valuation  —  Andreessen Horowitz led a $40 million funding round for The Coterie, valuing the financial technology platform at more than $100 million.



Ahead of the midterms, US political campaigns are using voter-profiling companies and vast amounts of data to target campaign ads on guns, vaccines, and QAnon (Natasha Singer/New York Times)

Natasha Singer / New York Times:
Ahead of the midterms, US political campaigns are using voter-profiling companies and vast amounts of data to target campaign ads on guns, vaccines, and QAnon  —  To help campaigns target ads, voter-profiling firms score millions of Americans on issues like guns, vaccines and QAnon.



As President Xi Jinping consolidates his grip on China's ruling party, Alibaba, JD.com, Naspers, and other tech stocks drop by 10%+ (Henry Ren/Bloomberg)

Henry Ren / Bloomberg:
As President Xi Jinping consolidates his grip on China's ruling party, Alibaba, JD.com, Naspers, and other tech stocks drop by 10%+  —  US-listed Chinese stocks tumbled in premarket trading, with investors spooked by President Xi Jinping's tightening grip on China's ruling party …



Chinese government data shows chip imports fell 12.4% YoY to 47.6B units in September; in January to September, domestic chip production fell 10.8% YoY to 245B (Josh Horwitz/Reuters)

Josh Horwitz / Reuters:
Chinese government data shows chip imports fell 12.4% YoY to 47.6B units in September; in January to September, domestic chip production fell 10.8% YoY to 245B  —  China's chip imports fell 12.4 percent in September, according to official customs data published on Monday …



Ikea Dirigera review: the Matter-ready smart home hub is easy to use and works well, but is expensive, lacks a migration tool from Trådfri, and is simplistic (Thomas Ricker/The Verge)

Thomas Ricker / The Verge:
Ikea Dirigera review: the Matter-ready smart home hub is easy to use and works well, but is expensive, lacks a migration tool from TrÃ¥dfri, and is simplistic  —  Easier to use and stable.  But let's check in again after a few months. … Ikea's new Matter-ready Dirigera smart home hub …



Sunday, October 23, 2022

FTX to provide $6M in compensation to account holders impacted by a phishing incident via a 3rd-party site but says this kind of relief will not become the norm (Sunil Jagtiani/Bloomberg)

Sunil Jagtiani / Bloomberg:
FTX to provide $6M in compensation to account holders impacted by a phishing incident via a 3rd-party site but says this kind of relief will not become the norm  —  Digital-asset exchange FTX will provide about $6 million compensation to its account holders impacted by a phishing incident via a third-party website.



Whereas Creator Economy companies have mostly built infrastructure for the top 1% of creators, new AI tools will fuel businesses that democratize creativity (Michael Mignano/Lightspeed Venture ...)

Michael Mignano / Lightspeed Venture Partners:
Whereas Creator Economy companies have mostly built infrastructure for the top 1% of creators, new AI tools will fuel businesses that democratize creativity  —  Creativity has become the focal point of our modern Internet economy.  What was once just a means of artistic expression now powers …



An interview with eBay CEO Jamie Iannone on eBay's strategy to focus on the second-hand luxury market, as its market value has fallen from $53B in 2021 to $21B (Dave Lee/Financial Times)

Dave Lee / Financial Times:
An interview with eBay CEO Jamie Iannone on eBay's strategy to focus on the second-hand luxury market, as its market value has fallen from $53B in 2021 to $21B  —  “One of a kind!” said Jamie Iannone, the chief executive of eBay, pointing down to the pair of pristine, custom-made Nike sneakers on his feet.



Iran's atomic energy agency says its email system was breached; a hacking group says it leaked 50GB of emails, construction plans related to Bushehr power plant (Associated Press)

Associated Press:
Iran's atomic energy agency says its email system was breached; a hacking group says it leaked 50GB of emails, construction plans related to Bushehr power plant  —  Iran's atomic energy agency alleged on Sunday that hackers acting on behalf of an unidentified foreign country broke …



Sources: 14" and 16" MacBook Pro with M2 Pro and M2 Max, M2 Mac mini are coming soon; Apple is testing Mac Pro with 24 CPU cores, 72 graphics cores, 192 GB RAM (Mark Gurman/Bloomberg)

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: 14" and 16" MacBook Pro with M2 Pro and M2 Max, M2 Mac mini are coming soon; Apple is testing Mac Pro with 24 CPU cores, 72 graphics cores, 192 GB RAM  —  Apple's latest iPad lineup and software strategy is its most confusing to date, but here's how the company could ultimately fix it.



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 202...