Government

Indonesia Suspends TikTok Registration With Over 100 Million Accounts At Risk (reuters.com) 16

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Indonesia has suspended TikTok's registration to provide electronic systems after it failed to hand over all data relating to the use of its live stream feature, a government official said on Friday. The suspension could in theory prevent access to TikTok, which has more than 100 million accounts based in Indonesia.

Alexander Sabar, an official at Indonesia's communications and digital ministry, said in a statement some accounts with ties to online gambling activities used TikTok's live stream feature during national protests. [...] Sabar said the government had asked the company for its traffic, streaming and monetization data. The company, owned by China's ByteDance, did not provide complete data, citing its internal procedures, Sabar said without giving further detail.

Data Storage

Snapchat Caps Free Memory Storage, Launches Paid Storage Plans (techcrunch.com) 11

Snapchat will start charging users who exceed 5GB of saved Memories, with paid plans starting at $1.99/month for 100GB. "If your memories exceed this limit, you'll need to subscribe to one of its new Memories Storage plans," reports TechCrunch. From the report: The company told TechCrunch in an email that the introductory storage plan offers up to 100GB of storage for $1.99 per month. Snapchat+ users will get up to 250GB of storage as part of their $3.99 monthly subscription, while Snapchat Platinum users will get 5TB as part of their $15.99 monthly subscription. Snapchat explains that when it first launched Memories, it didn't expect it to grow to what it has today, as users have saved more than 1 trillion Memories on the platform.

Snapchat will provide 12 months of temporary Memories storage for any Memories that exceed the 5GB storage limit. The company notes that users can download Memories directly to their devices. If you're over the limit, but don't sign up for a plan, your oldest Snaps will be saved, while the most recent ones that are over the storage limit will be deleted. Snapchat says the change won't affect most users, as the vast majority have under 5GB of Memories. It will mainly impact those with "thousands of Snaps," the company notes.
"It's never easy to transition from receiving a service for free to paying for it, but we hope the value we provide with Memories is worth the cost," Snapchat wrote in a blog post. "These changes will allow us to continue to invest in making Memories better for our entire community."
Businesses

Linkedin CEO Says Fancy Degrees Will Matter Less in the Future of Work (businessinsider.com) 53

Top college degrees may no longer provide the edge they once did in the job market, per LinkedIn CEO Ryan Roslansky. "I think the mindset shift is probably the most exciting thing because my guess is that the future of work belongs not anymore to the people that have the fanciest degrees or went to the best colleges, but to the people who are adaptable, forward thinking, ready to learn, and ready to embrace these tools," Roslansky said. "It really kind of opens up the playing field in a way that I think we've never seen before."

A 2024 Microsoft survey found 71% of business leaders would choose less-experienced candidates with AI skills over experienced candidates without them. LinkedIn data showed job postings requiring AI literacy increased about 70% year-over-year. Roslansky said AI will not replace humans but people who embrace AI will replace those who don't.
Apple

Samsung Confirms Plan To Make Foldable Displays for Major American Company (macrumors.com) 23

An anonymous reader shares a report: Samsung Display president Lee Cheong has confirmed plans to make foldable smartphone displays for a major American company, which is widely believed to be Apple. As reported in Chosun Biz, Cheong last week told journalists in Seoul that the company is accelerating preparations for mass production of OLED displays designed for foldable smartphones to be supplied to a "North American client." He declined to provide further information about the client, but it is widely expected to be Apple.
Moon

NASA Backs Lunar Wi-Fi Project To Connect Astronauts and Rovers On the Moon (nerds.xyz) 22

BrianFagioli shares a report from NERDS.xyz: NASA has awarded Solstar Space a $150,000 SBIR Phase I contract to develop a Lunar Wi-Fi Access Point (LWIFI-AP). The system is designed to provide wireless connectivity for astronauts, rovers, and orbiting spacecraft as part of the Artemis and Commercial Lunar Payload Services programs. Solstar's goal is to build a space-rated, multi-band, multi-protocol access point that can survive radiation, extreme lunar temperatures, and other harsh conditions. NASA has identified Wi-Fi and 3GPP standards as core communication needs across mission systems ranging from the Human Landing System and Lunar Terrain Vehicle to the Lunar Gateway.

Although this is only an early-stage contract, Solstar's proposal addresses a clear gap in space-qualified networking hardware. The company says that just as Wi-Fi transformed daily life on Earth, it will be equally important for living and working on the Moon. If the project advances, astronauts could soon be relying on familiar wireless technology that has been adapted for one of the most challenging environments in existence.

EU

Switzerland Approves Digital ID In Narrow Vote, UK Proposes One Too (theguardian.com) 63

"Swiss voters have backed plans for electronic identity cards by a wafer-thin margin," reports the Guardian, "in the second nationwide vote on the issue." In a referendum on Sunday, 50.4% of voters supported an electronic ID card, while 49.6% were against, confounding pollsters who had forecast stronger support for the "yes" vote. Turnout was 49.55%, higher than expected... [V]oters rejected an earlier version of the e-ID in 2021, largely over objections to the role of private companies in the system. In response to these concerns, the Swiss state will now provide the e-ID, which will be optional and free of charge... To ensure security the e-ID is linked to a single smartphone, users will have to get a new e-ID if they change their device... An ID card containing biometric data — fingerprints — will be available from the end of next year.

Critics of the e-ID scheme raised data protection concerns and said it opened the door to mass surveillance. They also fear the voluntary scheme will become mandatory and disadvantage people without smartphones. The referendum was called after a coalition of rightwing and data-privacy parties collected more than 50,000 signatures against e-ID cards, triggering the vote.

"To further ease privacy concerns, a particular authority seeking information on a person — such as proof of age or nationality, for example — will only be able to check for those specific details," notes the BBC: Supporters of the Swiss system say it will make life much easier for everyone, allowing a range of bureaucratic procedures — from getting a telephone contract to proving you are old enough to buy a bottle of wine — to happen quickly online. Opponents of digital ID cards, who gathered enough signatures to force another referendum on the issue, argue that the measure could still undermine individual privacy. They also fear that, despite the new restrictions on how data is collected and stored, it could still be used to track people and for marketing purposes.
The BBC adds that the UK government also announced plans earlier this week to introduce its own digital ID, "which would be mandatory for employment. The proposed British digital ID would have fewer intended uses than the Swiss version, but has still raised concerns about privacy and data security."

The Guardian reports: The referendum came soon after the UK government announced plans for a digital ID card, which would sit in the digital wallets of smartphones, using state-of-the-art encryption. More than 1.6 million people have signed a petition opposing e-ID cards, which would be mandatory for people working in the UK by 2029.
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 for sharing the news.
Transportation

When This EV Company Went Bankrupt, Its Customers Launched a Nonprofit to Keep Their Cars Running (theverge.com) 23

Cristian Fleming paid around $70,000 for one of Fisker Ocean's electric mid-size crossover SUVs. Seven months later the company filed for bankruptcy in June of 2024, reports the Verge, "having only delivered 11,000 vehicles."

"Early adopters were left with cars plagued by battery failures, glitchy software, inconsistent key fobs, and door handles that did not always open. With the company gone, there was no way to fix any issues." Regulators logged dozens of complaints as replacement parts vanished. Passionate owners who spent top dollar on high-end trims saw their cars reduced to expensive driveway ornaments.

Rather than accept defeat, thousands of Ocean owners have organized into their own makeshift car company. The Fisker Owners Association (FOA) is a nonprofit that's launched third-party apps, built a global parts supply chain, and came together around a future for their orphaned vehicles. It's part car club, part tech startup, part survival mission. Fleming now serves as the organization's president... FOA calls itself the first entirely owner-controlled EV fleet in history. So far, 4,055 Ocean owners have signed up, paying $550 a year in dues that the group estimates will raise around $3 million annually, about 0.1 percent of Fisker's peak valuation. Only verified Ocean owners can become full members, but anyone can donate.

The grassroots effort has precedent — DeLorean diehards and Saab enthusiasts have kept their favorite brands alive after factory closures. But those efforts focused on preserving aging vehicles. FOA is attempting something different: real-time software updates and hardware improvements for a connected, two-year-old EV fleet... The organization has spawned three separate companies. Tsunami Automotive handles parts in North America while Tidal Wave covers Europe, scavenging insurance auctions and contracting with tooling manufacturers to reproduce components. UnderCurrent Automotive, run by former Google and Apple engineers, focuses on software solutions.

UnderCurrent's first product is OceanLink Pro, a third-party mobile app now used by over 1,200 members that restores basic EV features, such as remote battery monitoring and climate control. A companion device called OceanLink Pulse adds wireless CarPlay and Android Auto, with plans for future upgrades including keyless entry. "Those are things you would have expected to be in a $70,000 luxury car," says Clint Bagley [FOA's treasurer]. "But, you know, we're happy to provide what the billion-dollar automaker apparently couldn't."

NASA

NASA's New Mission Will Try to Map the Heliosphere After Voyager's Exit (cnn.com) 8

The heliosphere "plays a major role in why life is possible on our planet," reports CNN, "and how it perhaps once existed on others such as Mars." (Basically solar winds create "a constant flow of charged particles" that form "an enormous bubble that protects the planets in our solar system from cosmic radiation permeating the Milky Way".)

NASA says the heliosphere's boundary is three times the distance between Earth and Pluto. (After leaving the heliosphere NASA's Voyager probes collected key data about the heliosphere.) But now there's a new mission to investigate "how that solar wind interacts with interstellar space at the boundary of the heliosphere," CNN reports — called the Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (or IMAP): The spacecraft's 10 instruments will also fill gaps in the existing map of the heliosphere, pieced together from data collected by previous missions, and help further explain how the heliosphere largely shields our solar system from damaging cosmic rays, the most highly energetic particles in the universe. Along with two other space weather missions that lifted off aboard the same rocket on Wednesday, IMAP will help scientists better predict when solar storms unleashed by the sun could affect our planet. When aimed at Earth, harsh radiation from the storms, also known as space weather, can pose risks to astronauts on the International Space Station as well as interfere with communications, the electric power grid, navigation, and radio and satellite operations.

"This next set of missions is the ultimate cosmic carpool," said Dr. Joe Westlake, director of NASA's Heliophysics Division, during a news conference on Sunday. "They will provide unprecedented insight into space weather. Every human on Earth, as well as nearly every system involved in space exploration and human needs, is affected by space weather...." The IBEX, or Interstellar Boundary Explorer, satellite has been mapping the heliosphere since launching in 2008. But IMAP can explore and map the boundaries of the heliosphere like never before because it has instruments with faster imaging that are capable of 30 times higher resolution. Once it reaches an orbit about 1 million miles (1.6 million kilometers) from Earth in about three months, IMAP will also capture observations of the solar wind in real time and measure particles that travel from the sun, study the heliosphere's boundary between 6 billion and 9 billion miles (9.7 billion to 14.5 billion kilometers) away, and even collect data from interstellar space.

Also launching was the SWFO-L1 mission, which CNN says is "intended to act as a solar storm detector, providing early warnings to protect astronauts in low-Earth orbit and satellites that provide critical communications on Earth. It's a tool that will be even more necessary as astronauts venture farther into deep space."

NASA streamed the launch live on YouTube.
Power

Wind and Solar Will Power Datacenters More Cheaply Than Nuclear, Study Finds (theregister.com) 131

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Register: Renewable energy sources could power datacenters at a lower cost than relying on nuclear generation from small modular reactors (SMRs), claims a recently revealed study. ... [A]nalysis from the Centre for Net Zero (CNZ) says it would cost 43 percent less to power a 120 MW data facility with renewables and a small amount of gas-generated energy, when compared with an SMR. It claims that a microgrid comprising offshore wind, solar, battery storage, and backed up by gas generation, would be significantly cheaper to run annually than procuring power sourced from a nuclear SMR.

[...] CNZ describes itself as an open research institute, founded by Octopus Energy Group in the UK, and claims to advise the State of California and Europe's International Energy Agency as well as the British government. While CNZ's study applies to the UK sector, where energy costs are among the highest in the industrialized world, it is likely that the overall conclusion would still be valid in other countries as well. Its analysis shows that renewables can meet 80 percent of the constant demand from a large datacenter over the course of a year. Offshore wind can provide the majority of load requirements, with gas generation backed by battery storage as a stopgap source of power representing the most cost-optimal mix.

Greater capacity in the on-site battery storage system would reduce the reliance on gas power, and this would likely happen over time as the cost of such systems is expected to come down, the report claims. But perhaps the real kicker is that CNZ estimates that microgrids powered largely by renewables could be built in approximately five years, while operational SMRs are not expected to be widely available until sometime in the next decade. CNZ says that it calculated the typical yearly resource cost (capex and opex) of powering a datacenter with a nuclear SMR, and modeled this using Python for Power System Analysis (PyPSA), an open source energy modeling tool, against two renewable energy scenarios. One was the wind, solar, battery, and gas mix, while the other omitted solar.

Bitcoin

European Banks To Launch Euro Stablecoin In Bid To Counter US Dominance (reuters.com) 33

Nine major European banks are creating a Netherlands-based company to launch a euro-backed stablecoin in 2026, aiming to counter U.S. dominance in the digital token market. Reuters reports: While global stablecoin issuance stands at nearly $300 billion, euro-denominated stablecoins totalled just $620 million, according to figures released last week by the Bank of Italy, with dollar-pegged tokens overwhelmingly dominant. "The initiative will provide a real European alternative to the U.S.-dominated stablecoin market, contributing to Europe's strategic autonomy in payments," the banks said. They launched the effort, which they said will create a token that can be used for quick, low-cost payments and settlements, even as the European Central Bank voices scepticism over stablecoins.

ECB President Christine Lagarde in June told European policymakers that privately issued stablecoins posed risks for monetary policy and financial stability. As a safer alternative, she has urged European lawmakers to introduce legislation backing the launch of a digital version of the EU's single currency. Some commercial banks, however, have pushed back against the introduction of a digital euro, fearing that it would empty their coffers as customers transfer cash out of banks and into the safety of an ECB-guaranteed wallet. In addition to ING and UniCredit, the other banks participating in the new company include Banca Sella, KBC, DekaBank, Danske Bank, SEB, Caixabank, and Raiffeisen Bank International. They said that others could join the initiative, and a CEO for the company would be appointed soon.
According to a recent report by Deutsche Bank, emerging market economies are adopting dollar-based stablecoins to replace local deposits and cash. "This has created a global monetary dilemma: countries should adopt stablecoins or risk being left behind. Europe is under particular pressure."
Facebook

Facebook Data Reveal the Devastating Real-World Harms Caused By the Spread of Misinformation (theconversation.com) 174

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Conversation: Twenty-one years after Facebook's launch, Australia's top 25 news outlets now have a combined 27.6 million followers on the platform. They rely on Facebook's reach more than ever, posting far more stories there than in the past. With access to Meta's Content Library (Meta is the owner of Facebook), our big data study analysed more than three million posts from 25 Australian news publishers. We wanted to understand how content is distributed, how audiences engage with news topics, and the nature of misinformation spread. The study enabled us to track de-identified Facebook comments and take a closer look at examples of how misinformation spreads. These included cases about election integrity, the environment (floods) and health misinformation such as hydroxychloroquine promotion during the COVID pandemic. The data reveal misinformation's real-world impact: it isn't just a digital issue, it's linked to poor health outcomes, falling public trust, and significant societal harm. [...]

Our study has lessons for public figures and institutions. They, especially politicians, must lead in curbing misinformation, as their misleading statements are quickly amplified by the public. Social media and mainstream media also play an important role in limiting the circulation of misinformation. As Australians increasingly rely on social media for news, mainstream media can provide credible information and counter misinformation through their online story posts. Digital platforms can also curb algorithmic spread and remove dangerous content that leads to real-world harms. The study offers evidence of a change over time in audiences' news consumption patterns. Whether this is due to news avoidance or changes in algorithmic promotion is unclear. But it is clear that from 2016 to 2024, online audiences increasingly engaged with arts, lifestyle and celebrity news over politics, leading media outlets to prioritize posting stories that entertain rather than inform. This shift may pose a challenge to mitigating misinformation with hard news facts. Finally, the study shows that fact-checking, while valuable, is not a silver bullet. Combating misinformation requires a multi-pronged approach, including counter-messaging by trusted civic leaders, media and digital literacy campaigns, and public restraint in sharing unverified content.

IT

Broadcom's Prohibitive VMware Prices Create a Learning 'Barrier,' IT Pro Says (arstechnica.com) 45

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: When the COVID-19 pandemic forced kids to stay home, educators flocked to VMware, and thousands of school districts adopted virtualization. The technology became a solution for distance learning during the pandemic and after, when events such as bad weather and illness can prevent children from physically attending school. However, the VMware being sold to K-12 schools today differs from the VMware that existed before and during the pandemic. Now a Broadcom business, the platform features higher prices and a business strategy that favors big spenders. This has created unique problems for educational IT departments juggling restrictive budgets and multiple technology vendors with children's needs.

Ars Technica recently spoke with an IT director at a public school district in Indiana. The director requested anonymity for themself and the district out of concern about potential blowback. The director confirmed that the district has five schools and about 3,000 students. The district started using VMware's vSAN, a software-defined storage offering, and the vSphere virtualization platform in 2019. The Indiana school system bought the VMware offerings through a package that combined them with VxRail, which is hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) hardware that Dell jointly engineered with VMware.

However, like many of VMware customers, the Indiana school district was priced out of VMware after Broadcom's acquisition of the company. The IT director said the district received a quote that was "three to six" times higher than expected. This came as the school district is looking to manage changes in education-related taxes and funding over the next few years. As a result, the district's migration from VMware is taking IT resources from other projects, including ones aimed at improving curriculum. For instance, the Indiana district has been trying to bolster its technology curriculum, the IT director said. One way is through a summer employment program for upperclassmen that teaches how to use real-world IT products, like VMware and Cisco Meraki technologies. The district previously relied on VMware-based virtual machines (VMs) for creating "very easily and accessible" test environments for these students. But the school is no longer able to provide that opportunity, creating a learning "barrier," as the IT director put it.
The IT director told Ars that dealing with a migration could be "catastrophic in that that's too much work for one person," adding: "It could be a chokehold, essentially, to where they're going to be basically forced into switching platforms -- maybe before they were anticipating -- or paying exorbitant prices that have skyrocketed for absolutely no reason. Nothing on the software side has changed. It's the same software. There's no features being added. Nobody's benefiting from the higher prices on the education side."
The Internet

Europe's Cookie Law Messed Up the Internet. Brussels Wants To Fix It. (politico.eu) 102

In a bid to slash red tape, the European Commission wants to eliminate one of its peskiest laws: a 2009 tech rule that plastered the online world with pop-ups requesting consent to cookies. From a report: It's the kind of simplification ordinary Europeans can get behind. European rulemakers in 2009 revised a law called the e-Privacy Directive to require websites to get consent from users before loading cookies on their devices, unless the cookies are "strictly necessary" to provide a service. Fast forward to 2025 and the internet is full of consent banners that users have long learned to click away without thinking twice.

"Too much consent basically kills consent. People are used to giving consent for everything, so they might stop reading things in as much detail, and if consent is the default for everything, it's no longer perceived in the same way by users," said Peter Craddock, data lawyer with Keller and Heckman. Cookie technology is now a focal point of the EU executive's plans to simplify technology regulation. Officials want to present an "omnibus" text in December, scrapping burdensome requirements on digital companies. On Monday, it held a meeting with the tech industry to discuss the handling of cookies and consent banners.

Google

Google Experiences Deja Vu As Second Monopoly Trial Begins In US 4

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: After deflecting the US Department of Justice's attack on its illegal monopoly in online search, Google is facing another attempt to dismantle its internet empire in a trial focused on abusive tactics in digital advertising. The trial that opened Monday in an Alexandria, Virginia, federal court revolves around the harmful conduct that resulted in US district Judge Leonie Brinkema declaring parts of Google's digital advertising technology to be an illegal monopoly in April. The judge found that Google has been engaging in behavior that stifles competition to the detriment of online publishers that depend on the system for revenue.

Google and the justice department will spend the next two weeks in court presenting evidence in a "remedy" trial that will culminate in Brinkema issuing a ruling on how to restore fair market conditions. If the justice department gets its way, Brinkema will order Google to sell parts of its ad technology -- a proposal that the company's lawyers warned would "invite disruption and damage" to consumers and the internet's ecosystem. The justice department contends a breakup would be the most effective and quickest way to undercut a monopoly that has been stifling competition and innovation for years. [...]

The case, filed in 2023 under Joe Biden's administration, threatens the complex network that Google has spent the past 17 years building to power its dominant digital advertising business. Digital advertising sales account for most of the $305 billion in revenue that Google's services division generates for its corporate parent Alphabet. The company's sprawling network of display ads provide the lifeblood that keeps thousands of websites alive. Google believes it has already made enough changes to its "ad manager" system, including providing more options and pricing options, to resolve the problems Brinkema flagged in her monopoly ruling.
Microsoft

Microsoft Will Let Copilot Take Control of Your Browser, Navigate Tabs and Complete Tasks As You Watch (theverge.com) 80

Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman told The Verge today that the company plans to transform Edge into an "agentic browser" where Copilot controls tabs, navigates websites and completes tasks while users watch. Unlike The Browser Company's new Dia browser, Microsoft will integrate these capabilities directly into Edge.

Suleyman described Copilot opening tabs, reading multiple pages simultaneously and performing research transparently in real-time. The AI visits websites directly, preserving publisher traffic. Current Copilot features include tab navigation, page scrolling and content highlighting. Users will have the option to disable AI features entirely. Suleyman predicted that within years, AI companions will handle most browsing tasks while users provide oversight and feedback.
Youtube

YouTube Reinstating Creators Banned For COVID-19, Election Content (thehill.com) 226

YouTube's parent company, Alphabet, said it will reinstate creators previously banned for spreading COVID-19 misinformation and false election claims, citing free expression and shifting policy guidelines. The Hill reports: "Reflecting the Company's commitment to free expression, YouTube will provide an opportunity for all creators to rejoin the platform if the Company terminated their channels for repeated violations of COVID-19 and elections integrity policies that are no longer in effect," the company said in a letter to Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), chair of the House Judiciary Committee. "YouTube values conservative voices on its platform and recognizes that these creators have extensive reach and play an important role in civic discourse. The Company recognizes these creators are among those shaping today's online consumption, landing 'must-watch' interviews, giving viewers the chance to hear directly from politicians, celebrities, business leaders, and more," it added in the five-page correspondence.

Alphabet blamed the Biden administration for limiting political speech on the platform. "Senior Biden Administration officials, including White House officials, conducted repeated and sustained outreach to Alphabet and pressed the Company regarding certain user-generated content related to the COVID-19 pandemic that did not violate its policies," the letter read. "While the Company continued to develop and enforce its policies independently, Biden Administration officials continued to press the Company to remove non-violative user-generated content," it continued. Guidelines were changed after former President Biden took office and urged platforms to remove content that encouraged citizens to drink bleach to cure COVID-19, as President Trump suggested in 2020, or join insurrection efforts launched on Jan. 6, 2021, to overthrow his 2020 presidential win. But the company said the Biden administration's decisions were "unacceptable" and "wrong," while noting it would forgo future fact-checking mechanisms and instead allow users to add context notes to content.

Education

Are Elites Meritocratic and Efficiency-Seeking? Evidence from MBA Students (arxiv.org) 80

Abstract of a paper on pre-print server Arxiv: Elites disproportionately influence policymaking, yet little is known about their fairness and efficiency preferences -- key determinants of support for redistributive policies. We investigate these preferences in an incentivized lab experiment with a group of future elites -- Ivy League MBA students. We find that MBA students implement substantially more unequal earnings distributions than the average American, regardless of whether inequality stems from luck or merit. Their redistributive choices are also highly responsive to efficiency costs, with an effect that is an order of magnitude larger than that found in representative U.S. samples. Analyzing fairness ideals, we find that MBA students are less likely to be strict meritocrats than the broader population. These findings provide novel insights into how elites' redistributive preferences may shape high levels of inequality in the U.S.
AI

MediaTek Launches Improved AI Processor To Compete With Qualcomm 2

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: MediaTek is launching a mobile processor more capable of handling agentic AI tasks on devices, positioning to better compete with Qualcomm. The new Dimensity 9500 will provide users with better summaries of calls and meetings, improved output from AI models and superior 4K photos, the Taiwanese company said in a statement. The chip is made using an advanced 3-nanometer process by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., according to MediaTek, and handsets carrying the new chip will become available in the fourth quarter.

Xiaomi is set to launch its latest handset range powered by Qualcomm's newest Snapdragon processor later this week, and the Chinese smartphone maker is aiming to benchmark its upcoming devices against Apple Inc.'s iPhone 17. MediaTek's processor, meanwhile, is expected to give Xiaomi's rivals including Vivo a boost in the premium segment. [...] Separately, the Taiwanese company is preparing to place chip orders for automotive and more sensitive applications with TSMC's Arizona plant as some US customers have security concerns, according to the executives.
Iphone

Apple's iPhone 17 Pro Can Be Easily Scratched (theverge.com) 31

An anonymous reader shares a report: The iPhone 17 Pro and 17 Pro Max appear to provide little resistance to scratches and scuffs around the sharp edges of the camera bump. Tech blogger Zack Nelson demonstrates this weakness in a durability test on his JerryRigEverything YouTube channel, explaining that the anodized aluminium layer on the iPhone 17 Pro and 17 Pro Max "does not stick to corners very well" -- creating a weak point in the coating. This is a known issue with the electrochemical anodizing process, so it was a design decision Apple knowingly made.

"For some reason, Apple didn't add a chamfer, fillet, or radius around the camera plateau, and I think it was intentional, so it looks cooler," Nelson says in the video. "But that decision to look cool out of the box is going to plague everyone who owns this phone down the road." The video shows that everyday objects, like a coin or house key carried in the same pocket as the iPhone 17 Pro, can chip away at the anodized coating around the sharp corners of the camera bump. However, that same mildly aggressive scratching on the flat surface of the camera plateau only produced dust that could be easily wiped away.

AI

Reddit Wants 'Deeper Integration' with Google in Exchange for Licensed AI Training Data (msn.com) 30

Reddit's content became AI training data last year when Google signed a $60 million-per-year licensing agreement. But now Reddit is "in early talks" about a new deal seeking "deeper integration with Google's AI products," reports Bloomberg (citing executives familiar with the discussions).

And Reddit also wants "a deal structure that could allow for dynamic pricing, where the social platform can be paid more" — with both Google and OpenAI — to "adequately reflect how valuable their data has been to these platforms..." Such licensing agreements are becoming more common as AI companies seek legal ways to train their models. OpenAI has also struck a series of partnership agreements with major media publishers such as Axel Springer SE, Time and Conde Nast to use their content in ChatGPT...

Reddit remains among the most cited sources across AI platforms, according to analytics company Profound AI. However, Reddit executives have noticed that traffic coming from Google has limited value, as users seeking answers to a specific question often don't convert into becoming active Redditors, the people said. Now, Reddit is engaging with product teams at Google in hopes of finding ways to send more of its users deeper into its ecosystem of community forums, according to the executives. In return, Reddit is looking for ways to provide more high-quality data to its AI partners. Discussions between Reddit and Google have been productive, the people said. "We're midflight in our data licensing deals and still learning, but what we have seen is that Reddit data is highly cited and valued," Reddit Chief Operating Officer Jen Wong said on July 31 during a call with investors. "We'll continue to evaluate as we go."

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