Tech News

1. OpenAI Funding and Developments:

   • OpenAI has closed a $40 billion funding round, the largest ever for a private tech company, with a post-money valuation of $300 billion, led by SoftBank. 👉 cnbc.com
   • Sam Altman announced OpenAI plans to release a new open-weight language model with reasoning capabilities in the coming months, its first since GPT-2. 👉 techcrunch.com
   • ChatGPT gained one million users in the last hour after releasing Images for ChatGPT, causing strain on GPUs. 👉 theverge.com

2. Apple iOS and visionOS Updates:

   • Apple released iOS 18.4 with Priority notifications for Apple Intelligence and eight new languages. 👉 macrumors.com
   • Apple released visionOS 2.4 with Apple Intelligence and a Spatial Gallery app featuring curated media. 👉 9to5mac.com
   • France's competition authority fined Apple €150M for abusing its market dominance through its App Tracking Transparency system. 👉 finance.yahoo.com

3. Cybersecurity and Data Breaches:

   • Oracle Health experienced a data breach compromising patient data at US hospitals. 👉 bleepingcomputer.com
   • Sam's Club is investigating claims of a Clop ransomware breach. 👉 bleepingcomputer.com
   • A former GCHQ intern admitted to risking national security by taking top-secret data home on his mobile phone. 👉 bbc.com
   • A new Android trojan called Crocodilus abuses accessibility services to steal banking and crypto credentials, primarily targeting users in Spain and Turkey. 👉 thehackernews.com
   • A phishing-as-a-service platform called 'Lucid' has been targeting 169 entities across 88 countries using iMessage and RCS. 👉 bleepingcomputer.com

4. China's Tech Industry:

   • Microsoft has closed its IoT & AI Insider Lab in Shanghai amid rising geopolitical tensions. 👉 scmp.com
   • Huawei reported a 22.4% YoY revenue increase for FY 2024, reaching ~$118.2B, but net profit decreased by 28% YoY to ~$8.63B. 👉 cnbc.com
   • Taiwanese authorities accused 11 Chinese companies, including SMIC, of illegally recruiting tech talent from Taiwan by setting up disguised entities. 👉 theregister.com
   • China is already testing AI-powered humanoid robots in factories. 👉 wsj.com^$
   • Chinese AI startup Zhipu launched a free AI agent, intensifying the domestic AI race. 👉 reuters.com
   • Chinese startup Manus, whose AI agent service is still in beta, announces a $39-per-month Manus Starter plan and an upgraded $199-per-month Pro tier. 👉 bloomberg.com^$

5. Memory Chip Price Hikes:

   • Micron confirmed it would raise prices for DRAM and NAND flash memory chips through 2026 due to increased demand from AI and data centers. 👉 tomshardware.com

6. Financial and Legal Matters:

   • Google agreed to pay $100 million to settle a lawsuit claiming it overcharged advertisers by manipulating its Smart Pricing formula. 👉 msn.com
   • Trump signed an EO to establish an office within the Commerce Department to facilitate investments above $1B in the US and administer funds from the CHIPS Act. 👉 bloomberg.com^$
   • How the Trump family took over World Liberty Financial, which raised $550M+ via governance tokens; the family has a claim on 75% of net revenues of token sales. 👉 reuters.com
   • Eric and Donald Trump Jr.'s American Data Centers plans to merge with Hut 8's American Bitcoin and take a 20% stake, aiming to create the world's largest miner. 👉 wsj.com^$
   • Memecoins attempting to profit from a man's suicide highlight Pump.fun's extreme lack of boundaries; one of the memecoins soared past $2M in total value. 👉 wsj.com^$

7. Software and Extension Updates:

   • Honey Chrome extension lost over 4 million users after a viral video exposed its affiliate code hijacking practices. 👉 9to5google.com
   • Microsoft is overhauling its Blue Screen of Death error message in Windows 11. 👉 theverge.com
   • VMware Workstation auto-updates are broken after Broadcom URL redirect. 👉 bleepingcomputer.com
   • Microsoft is testing a new Windows 11 tool to remotely fix boot crashes. 👉 bleepingcomputer.com
   • Microsoft fixed a button that restores classic Outlook client. 👉 bleepingcomputer.com
   • Microsoft's killing script used to avoid Microsoft Account in Windows 11. 👉 bleepingcomputer.com

8. Micellaneous:

   • A prominent computer scientist at Indiana University went incommunicado after an FBI raid, with his university profile and contact information removed. 👉 arstechnica.com
   • France's antitrust regulator fines Apple €150M after a lengthy investigation into how iOS asks to collect user data under ATT and the impact on advertisers. 👉 bloomberg.com^$
   • OpenSNP, an open-source genetic database, is shutting down and deleting its data due to concerns about authoritarian governments and law enforcement use. 👉 404media.co
   • Learning to code has become pointless as AI increasingly dominates programming tasks, according to Replit founder and chief executive Amjad Masad. 👉 x.com
   • Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos stated that movie theaters are never coming back, citing the rebound of live events and a decline in theatrical box office revenue. 👉 semafor.com
   • Two scientific journals that experimented with paying peer reviewers found the practice sped up the review process without compromising quality. 👉 nature.com
   • GlobalFoundries is considering a merger with UMC, Taiwan's second-largest chipmaker. 👉 asia.nikkei.com
   • AMD completes its $4.9B purchase of data center equipment designer ZT Systems, announced in August 2024, taking on its roughly 1,000 design engineers. 👉 wsj.com^$
   • Japan earmarks up to ~$5.4B in additional aid for chipmaker Rapidus, which aims to begin mass production of 2nm chips in 2027. 👉 bloomberg.com^$
   • Trump signs an EO to establish an office within the Commerce Department to facilitate investments above $1B in the US and administer funds from the CHIPS Act. 👉 bloomberg.com^$

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