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1
Tencent’s Honor of Kings spin-off gets green light as China approves 136 new games in January

2025-01-22 20:30:13                scmp.com

While the launch date is unclear, there is hope it will be rolled out this year as it was featured in the iPhone 16 release last September.

2
Tencent ramps up global AI efforts with roll-out of advanced Hunyuan 3D-generation system

2025-01-22 19:30:34                scmp.com

The open-source Hunyuan3D 2.0 is expected to lower barriers to entry for using AI models across video gaming, social media and other sectors.

3
China’s most popular AI app gets facelift with ByteDance’s Doubao 1.5

2025-01-22 18:30:12                scmp.com

The closed-source model bested leading models from OpenAI, Anthropic and Alibaba in some benchmark tests.

4
Infosec was literally the last item in Trump's policy plan, yet major changes are likely on his watch

2025-01-22 13:15:11                theregister.com

Everyone agrees defense matters. How to do it is up for debate Feature  The Trump administration came to office this week without a detailed information security policy, but analysis of cabinet nominees’ public remarks and expert comments suggest it will make significant changes in the field.…

5
UK tax collector's phone service 'deliberately' bad to push users online, say MPs

2025-01-22 12:50:26                theregister.com

Cut off nearly 44k peeps who had been waiting 70 minutes for advice on unavoidable chore The UK tax collector must "take responsibility for its own failings to offer sufficiently effective digital services to customers," according to a committee of MPs which accused HMRC of "deliberately" poor phone service to push callers online.…

6
Nokia names new president for technology unit

2025-01-22 12:40:56                mobileworldlive.com

Nokia named Patrik Hammaren as its new president of the vendor's Technologies division, after he served in the role on an acting basis since October 2024 following the departure of Jenni Lukander. The post Nokia names new president for technology unit appeared first on Mobile World Live.

7
Former Amazon exec appointed as chair of UK's competition watchdog

2025-01-22 12:12:58                theregister.com

Interim appointment after former head booted out for not being 'sufficiently focused on growth' The UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has a new chair after the sudden departure of the previous incumbent.…

8
Iconic use of AI boosts online fashion platform

2025-01-22 11:56:42                mobileworldlive.com

Online Australian fashion retail platform The Iconic offered insights into the real-world operational improvements generative AI can deliver, after employing the technology as part of its use of Google Cloud. The post Iconic use of AI boosts online fashion platform appeared first on Mobile World Live.

9
Business value from GenAI remains elusive despite IT spending boom

2025-01-22 10:15:13                theregister.com

The nascent tech enters Hype Cycle’s downward slope, says Gartner Tech analysts have forecast 9.8 percent year-over-year growth in worldwide IT spending in 2025, reaching $5.61 trillion and driven by continuing AI investments, despite “moonshot” projects seeing a high failure rate.…

10
Ransomware scum make it personal for Reg readers by impersonating tech support

2025-01-22 09:29:14                theregister.com

That invitation to a Teams call on which IT promises to mop up a spamstorm may not be what it seems Two ransomware campaigns are abusing Microsoft Teams to infect organizations and steal data, and the crooks may have ties to Black Basta and FIN7, according to Sophos.…

11
Vodafone Idea wins big in India court tax ruling

2025-01-22 09:22:31                mobileworldlive.com

Vodafone Idea received some welcome news this week after the Supreme Court upheld a lower court's order for authorities to refund excess prepaid tax and interest totalling INR16.5 billion ($190.9 million). The post Vodafone Idea wins big in India court tax ruling appeared first on Mobile World Live.

12
India smartphone shipments book full-year growth

2025-01-22 09:12:26                mobileworldlive.com

Indian smartphone shipments grew across the whole of 2024 despite declining in Q4 2024, Canalys stated, predicting further growth across this year. The post India smartphone shipments book full-year growth appeared first on Mobile World Live.

13
KDDI launches Starlink service on ferry

2025-01-22 09:03:56                mobileworldlive.com

Japan-based KDDI launched free Wi-Fi onboard an overnight ferry using Starlink's satellite broadband service, with plans to add additional routes. The post KDDI launches Starlink service on ferry appeared first on Mobile World Live.

14
Huawei smartphone spin-off Honor reshuffles management in wake of CEO’s abrupt departure

2025-01-22 09:00:12                scmp.com

The latest departures reflect internal complexities within the company after its organisational overhaul to prepare for a public listing.

15
Gartner predicts IT spend to hit $5.6 trillion in 2025

2025-01-22 08:57:47                mobileworldlive.com

Gartner forecast worldwide IT spending would reach $5.6 trillion in 2025, a 9.8 per cent year-on-year increase. The post Gartner predicts IT spend to hit $5.6 trillion in 2025 appeared first on Mobile World Live.

16
China claims major fusion advance and record after 17-minute Tokamak run

2025-01-22 08:29:07                theregister.com

1,066 seconds of steady-state high-confinement plasma operation and all that China’s Hefei Institutes of Physical Science has claimed a new world record for maintaining a steady-state high-confinement plasma operation, a feat needed to create a fusion reactor that in theory will produce vast amounts of energy at little cost.…

17
London-based Vertice, which offers an AI-powered SaaS spend platform, raised a $50M Series C led by Lakestar, taking its total funding to ~$100M (Ingrid Lunden/TechCrunch)

2025-01-22 08:20:01                techcrunch.com

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch: London-based Vertice, which offers an AI-powered SaaS spend platform, raised a $50M Series C led by Lakestar, taking its total funding to ~$100M  —  Vertice has made a name for itself over the years in the crowded world of expenditure management by focusing on applying AI to optimize an area …

18
Google DeepMind CEO says 2025's the year we start popping pills AI helped invent

2025-01-22 07:28:06                theregister.com

Nobel Prize winner Demis Hassabis thinks human trials will happen soon Clinical trials of the first drugs designed with the help of artificial intelligence could commence this year, Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis suggested Tuesday.…

19
Google unveils classroom and accessibility ChromeOS features, including rolling out a tool to let users control a device with their head and facial expressions (Antonio G. Di Benedetto/The Verge)

2025-01-22 07:20:01                theverge.com

Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge: Google unveils classroom and accessibility ChromeOS features, including rolling out a tool to let users control a device with their head and facial expressions  —  Google is announcing a variety of classroom and accessibility-focused ChromeOS features today, and one of the standouts is being able …

20
Memo: ByteDance asks Chinese staff in Singapore to pay tax to China or risk losing their ability to cash out on stock options, as China steps up tax enforcement (Financial Times)

2025-01-22 06:40:00                t.co

Financial Times: Memo: ByteDance asks Chinese staff in Singapore to pay tax to China or risk losing their ability to cash out on stock options, as China steps up tax enforcement  —  ByteDance's missive comes as China steps up enforcement of global tax collection  —  TikTok parent ByteDance is asking Chinese employees …

21
Apple Intelligence turned on by default in upcoming macOS Sequoia 15.3, iOS 18.3

2025-01-22 06:32:10                theregister.com

Plus: Google stuffs Gemini into Workspace, with a hidden off switch? Ready or not, generative AI assistants and productivity aids are getting harder to avoid with a growing number of software vendors enabling them by default.…

22
Crypto exchange Deribit reports total trading volume, including options, futures, and more, rose 95% YoY to $1.19T in 2024; options volume rose 99% YoY to $743B (Omkar Godbole/CoinDesk)

2025-01-22 06:15:01                coindesk.com

Omkar Godbole / CoinDesk: Crypto exchange Deribit reports total trading volume, including options, futures, and more, rose 95% YoY to $1.19T in 2024; options volume rose 99% YoY to $743B  —  Need evidence of the crypto market's maturation?  Look no further than Deribit, the crypto exchange that registered record trading volumes in 2024.

23
A Texas District Court rules against Tornado Cash sanctions, ordering a previous decision to be reversed; the US sanctioned Tornado Cash in August 2022 (Danny Park/The Block)

2025-01-22 06:00:34                theblock.co

Danny Park / The Block: A Texas District Court rules against Tornado Cash sanctions, ordering a previous decision to be reversed; the US sanctioned Tornado Cash in August 2022  —  - A U.S. District Court has ordered the sanctions on Tornado Cash to be reversed.  — The price of TORN jumped over 140% following the news.

24
UK CMA Chair Marcus Bokkerink plans to leave the antitrust agency, after pressure from UK ministers; the CMA appoints ex-Amazon exec Doug Gurr as interim chair (Financial Times)

2025-01-22 05:35:01                ft.com

Financial Times: UK CMA Chair Marcus Bokkerink plans to leave the antitrust agency, after pressure from UK ministers; the CMA appoints ex-Amazon exec Doug Gurr as interim chair  —  Marcus Bokkerink replaced at CMA with government saying it wants pro-business decisions to drive prosperity and growth

25
From TikTok to RedNote: a digital migration that defies geopolitics

2025-01-22 05:30:08                scmp.com

The unexpected and spontaneous grass-roots response demonstrates the untapped potential for people-to-people diplomacy in our digital age.

26
In 2024, Cloudflare's autonomous DDoS defense systems blocked 21.3M DDoS attacks, up 53% YoY, and 420 DDoS attacks in Q4 2024 exceeded 1 Tbps, up 1,885% QoQ (The Cloudflare Blog)

2025-01-22 04:55:00                blog.cloudflare.com

The Cloudflare Blog: In 2024, Cloudflare's autonomous DDoS defense systems blocked 21.3M DDoS attacks, up 53% YoY, and 420 DDoS attacks in Q4 2024 exceeded 1 Tbps, up 1,885% QoQ  —  This post is also available in .體中文, Deutsch, 한국어, Español (Espaňa) and Français.

27
Eager to attract investments, politicians in Brazil, India, and other non-Western nations with nascent AI regulations have warmly welcomed major AI companies (Rest of World)

2025-01-22 04:24:08                restofworld.org

Rest of World: Eager to attract investments, politicians in Brazil, India, and other non-Western nations with nascent AI regulations have warmly welcomed major AI companies  —  Big AI companies have come out hard against comprehensive regulatory efforts in the West — but are receiving a warm welcome from leaders in many other countries.

28
OpenAI to blow through $500B on AI infrastructure for itself with help from pals

2025-01-22 03:10:56                theregister.com

SoftBank, Oracle, MGX form Stargate Project with ChatGPT maker, intend to outspend Microsoft this year OpenAI, Oracle, SoftBank, and investment firm MGX on Tuesday announced plans to spend $500 billion on AI infrastructure in America over the next four years, to be used by the ChatGPT super-lab.…

29
Days before TikTok briefly went dark, Instagram and Facebook made design tweaks, released new features, and ran ads promoting its apps as TikTok alternatives (Louise Matsakis/Wired)

2025-01-22 02:30:01                wired.com

Louise Matsakis / Wired: Days before TikTok briefly went dark, Instagram and Facebook made design tweaks, released new features, and ran ads promoting its apps as TikTok alternatives  —  In the days before TikTok went dark, Instagram and Facebook released a flurry of new features and ran advertisements promoting its platforms as a comparable alternative.

30
PowerSchool theft latest: Decades of Canadian student records, data from 40-plus US states feared stolen

2025-01-22 02:26:10                theregister.com

Lawsuits pile up after database accessed by miscreants Canada's largest school board has revealed that student records dating back to 1985 may have been accessed by miscreants who compromised software provider PowerSchool.…

31
Quant trading firm XTX, managing $250B+ in daily trades, plans to invest €1B+ on five data centers in Finland to support its growing use of machine learning (Bloomberg)

2025-01-22 02:10:00                bloomberg.com

Bloomberg: Quant trading firm XTX, managing $250B+ in daily trades, plans to invest €1B+ on five data centers in Finland to support its growing use of machine learning  —  - Billionaire's quant firm plans five data centers in Finland  — The move bucks trend of relying on third-party infrastructure

32
Some crypto executives fear investor backlash over $TRUMP and $MELANIA memecoins; CoinMarketCap reports most $TRUMP trading is concentrated on Asian exchanges (Financial Times)

2025-01-22 02:00:49                t.co

Financial Times: Some crypto executives fear investor backlash over $TRUMP and $MELANIA memecoins; CoinMarketCap reports most $TRUMP trading is concentrated on Asian exchanges  —  Industry trying to rebuild its reputation frets over potential conflicts of interest and investor losses

33
Truecaller rolls out real-time caller ID to its ~750K iOS subscribers, who account for 40% of its revenue; Truecaller has 2.6M+ paying subscribers in total (TechCrunch)

2025-01-22 01:50:07                techcrunch.com

TechCrunch: Truecaller rolls out real-time caller ID to its ~750K iOS subscribers, who account for 40% of its revenue; Truecaller has 2.6M+ paying subscribers in total  —  Popular caller ID app Truecaller has long left iPhone users at a disadvantage by not offering the caller information in real-time …

34
Microsoft plans to buy 3.5M carbon credits, estimated to be worth ~$200M, from Re.green over 25 years to restore parts of Brazil's Amazon and Atlantic forests (Kenza Bryan/Financial Times)

2025-01-22 01:25:01                t.co

Kenza Bryan / Financial Times: Microsoft plans to buy 3.5M carbon credits, estimated to be worth ~$200M, from Re.green over 25 years to restore parts of Brazil's Amazon and Atlantic forests  —  Tech giant acquires carbon credits worth around $200mn, as energy usage surges due to generative artificial intelligence

35
Trump Frees Silk Road Creator Ross Ulbricht After 11 Years in Prison

2025-01-22 00:49:46                wired.com

Donald Trump pardoned the creator of the world’s first dark-web drug market, who is now a libertarian cause célèbre in some parts of the crypto community.

36
The Trump administration removed all advisory committee members within the DHS, including those in CISA and CSRB, which was investigating Salt Typhoon (Becky Bracken/Dark Reading)

2025-01-22 00:25:14                darkreading.com

Becky Bracken / Dark Reading: The Trump administration removed all advisory committee members within the DHS, including those in CISA and CSRB, which was investigating Salt Typhoon  —  In a letter sent today, the acting DHS secretary terminated membership to all advisory boards, including the Cyber Safety Review Board …

37
Sources: Google is investing $1B+ more in Anthropic, which is also nearing a further $2B round from Silicon Valley VCs led by Lightspeed at a ~$60B valuation (Financial Times)

2025-01-22 00:16:13                t.co

Financial Times: Sources: Google is investing $1B+ more in Anthropic, which is also nearing a further $2B round from Silicon Valley VCs led by Lightspeed at a ~$60B valuation  —  Artificial intelligence group closes in on $60bn valuation  —  Google is making a fresh investment of more than $1bn into OpenAI rival Anthropic …

38
App stores unconvinced by Trump's TikTok ban pause, which may itself be on shaky legal ground

2025-01-21 23:43:13                theregister.com

El Reg asked a lawyer to explain WTH is going on Analysis  President Trump's executive order stalling the enforcement of the TikTok ban in the United States has created legal uncertainty for companies hosting or distributing the app. To further confuse the matter, it's not even clear that Trump's decree is within his power to issue or enforce. …

39
TikTok app missing on Google, Apple US stores

2025-01-21 22:54:33                mobileworldlive.com

While US President Donald Trump issued an executive order that delayed the ban of TikTok for 75 days, the app wasn’t available on Google and Apple stores the following day. The post TikTok app missing on Google, Apple US stores appeared first on Mobile World Live.

40
Trump unveils $100B AI infrastructure JV

2025-01-21 22:52:11                mobileworldlive.com

US President Donald Trump announced a joint venture with technology giants OpenAI, SoftBank Group and Oracle to build out AI infrastructure, initially worth $100 billion. The post Trump unveils $100B AI infrastructure JV appeared first on Mobile World Live.

41
How Meta Tried to Lure TikTok Users to Instagram

2025-01-21 22:44:32                wired.com

In the days before TikTok went dark, Instagram and Facebook released a flurry of new features and ran advertisements promoting its platforms as a comparable alternative.

42
How Windows got to version 3 – an illustrated history

2025-01-21 21:35:53                theregister.com

With added manga and snark. What's not to like? Opinion  Windows 1 and 2 flopped almost as badly as OS/2 did. How did Microsoft stage one of the greatest comebacks ever with Windows 3?…

43
China softens stance on TikTok deal in US as Trump offers 75-day grace period, sources say

2025-01-21 21:30:07                scmp.com

Beijing could be more open to ByteDance selling some shares to American investors to improve US relations, sources and analysts say.

44
This is how Elon's Department of Government Efficiency will work – overwriting the US Digital Service

2025-01-21 21:15:47                theregister.com

Tycoon's auditors to probe Uncle Sam's IT with full access to unclassified data US President Donald Trump has renamed the US Digital Service the Department of Government Efficiency and given it a mission to modernize government technology.…

45
Atlassian's Bitbucket Cloud went down 'hard' today

2025-01-21 20:59:57                theregister.com

Same, Big A, same If you were unable to access Atlassian's Bitbucket Cloud today, it's because in the words of the IT giant, the service was "hard down."…

46
Trump hits undo on Biden AI safety order, EV mandate, emissions standards, and more

2025-01-21 20:46:59                theregister.com

Also, prepare for paused wind projects and the Gulf of America from Trump 2.0 – and that's just day 1 US President Donald Trump has wasted no time in culling Biden-era programs, including the elimination of the prior administration's executive orders on AI safety and electric vehicles, and freezing funds for EV infrastructure.…

47
TSMC pauses production after strong earthquake hits Taiwan

2025-01-21 20:39:00                theregister.com

Geopolitical rumblings one day, geological rumblings the next Taiwan has experienced an earthquake significant enough that chipmaking champ TSMC has halted work at its plants.…

48
Meta, X sign up to Euro Commish code of conduct on hate speech

2025-01-21 19:56:53                theregister.com

Under Digital Services Act, monitors will be allowed to report abusive language and platforms should respond in 1 day Online platform companies, including X and Meta, have signed up to a new code of conduct aimed at targeting online hate speech, which the European Commission has now baked into the Digital Services Act.…

49
Alibaba Cloud rolls out expanded suite of AI models, development tools in overseas push

2025-01-21 19:55:24                scmp.com

The company’s latest move aligns with its broader strategy to ramp up overseas investments in key markets around the world.

50
SpaceX and Blue Origin both face FAA mishap probes

2025-01-21 19:42:31                theregister.com

Only one called exploding a rocket over the Caribbean 'entertainment' SpaceX is not the only company involved in a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) mishap inquiry. Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin has also come under scrutiny after losing its New Glenn rocket's first stage.…