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Submission + - China's Moonshot in talks with Microsoft, Amazon, Google over K3 revenue sharing (reuters.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: China's Moonshot AI is negotiating revenue-sharing agreements with Microsoft, Amazon, and Alphabet's Google, that would allow the U.S. cloud giants to host its blockbuster Kimi K3 model, three people familiar with the talks said.

Any deal could mark the first big revenue-sharing pact between a Chinese AI firm and a major U.S. cloud company.

The discussions highlight how China's leading AI models, often far cheaper than Western offerings, are gaining traction in the U.S., despite national security concerns in Washington that have led to bans on exports of AI chips to China. They are also taking place despite critical comments about Moonshot from senior U.S. officials.

IPO-bound Moonshot is seeking up to a 30% share of revenue generated from K3-related services on Microsoft's Azure, Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud, according to the sources who declined to be identified because the discussions are private.

That would be in line with terms that sources have said the startup has outlined for major customers using the open-weight model.

Moonshot has come under fire from U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent who said last month that he might add it to a trade blacklist. U.S. officials have accused the Beijing-based company of stealing from Anthropic's most sophisticated model, Fable, to help create Kimi K3 and illegally acquiring Nvidia chips.

Founded in 2023 by Carnegie Mellon-trained AI researcher Yang Zhilin, Moonshot is backed by several Chinese tech giants including cloud computing giant Alibaba.

Submission + - Google plans to stop making Pixel products in China in 2027 (archive.is)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The news broke only after Google quietly passed word to suppliers. The company has made no public announcement and ignored a request for comment.

Vietnam first got a piece of Pixel production in 2019, but the real engineering — how new models get designed for mass production, down to the testing gear and tooling — stayed in China. The Pixel 11 was the first time Google moved all of that work to Vietnam, too. That was the hard part.

Pulling that off proved the concept. Google did not need to build from scratch, either; Samsung's massive investment in Vietnam had already drawn component suppliers to the country, and if Vietnam can handle a flagship smartphone, earbuds and watches are no problem.

Google also has far less to lose in China than Apple does. Pixel phones aren't sold there, so Beijing can't threaten Google's customer base the way it can Apple's. Apple is tangled up with Chinese consumers and Chinese factories at the same time; Google can cut the manufacturing cord without sacrificing a single sale.

China still accounts for a significant share of Pixel production today. Once those lines are gone, Beijing loses whatever leverage it currently holds over Google's hardware. That's not a small thing; the ability to slow, disrupt, or pressure a company through its own factories is a tool authoritarian governments have used before.

Submission + - Alibaba secretly hijacking computer audio system (ppc.land)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A developer using Bluetooth headphones accidentally caught Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba secretly hijacking his computer's audio system without making a single sound.

When his wireless headphones refused to switch audio to his phone while browsing AliExpress, he inspected the site's hidden code. He discovered background scripts holding his computer's audio pipeline wide open.

Alibaba was using the browser's WebAudio API to run invisible sound waves at zero volume. By measuring tiny hardware differences in how each computer processes those signals, the site created a unique digital fingerprint to track devices.

Because the secret audio path stayed active, it froze his Bluetooth connection while quietly scraping hardware memory, screen dimensions, and network data in the background.

https://x.com/Unveiled_ChinaX/...

Submission + - Nations hiding censorship in cybercrime bills. UN treaty could make things worse (fire.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The likely outcome here is obvious: The treaty will streamline unfree countries’ involvement with other unfree countries’ repression and pressure freer ones into helping, too. And it can all take place confidentially, without the knowledge of the public or even those being targeted . . .

And as though existing national laws punishing political expression aren’t enough, the treaty could even incentivize governments to enact harsher penalties on expressive acts. After all, if you’d like other nations to assist you in punishing your critics on the internet, you’ll want to ensure their expression qualifies for inclusion under the treaty’s definition of “serious crimes.”

It's already happening in the UK
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/ne...

Submission + - Evidence of the Covid origin cover-up emerging in court (telegraph.co.uk)

Submitted by Bruce66423
Bruce66423 writes: 'A British zoologist involved in risky bat coronavirus experiments in Wuhan is accused of plotting with a senior US health official to shut down the theory that Covid-19 leaked from a lab.

'Dr Peter Daszak, the former president of EcoHealth Alliance, sent bottles of wine to David Morens, thanking him for his “behind the scenes shenanigans” and promising further gifts, such as dinners at Michelin-starred restaurants, US court documents state.

'Morens, 78, a former employee at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), and adviser to Dr Anthony Fauci, this week pleaded guilty to conspiring to evade public records laws and conceal government documents related to grant research funding and the Covid-19 pandemic.

'He is facing five years in jail. No charges have been brought against Dr Daszak.'

Submission + - American Airlines Changed Passengers' Flights w/o Asking and No Human Oversight (inc.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: In recent years, American Airlines has embraced artificial intelligence. Now the new technology appears to be changing flight tickets.

Earlier this week, columnist Marc Thiessen took to social media to voice his frustration with American‘s rebooking system. He claimed the airline rebooked his connecting flight in Chicago without his knowledge when his inbound flight was delayed. “Since when do you change my itinerary without asking?” Thiessen wrote on X.

The rebooking automation appears to be part of an American Airlines system called AURA (for AUtomated ReAccommodation). The system, which initially rolled out in 2023, is meant to help passengers with their connecting flights. “Our Automated Reaccommodation tool proactively rebooks customers impacted by flight cancellations and delays, and exchanges tickets,” the company said on its site. However, the automated system appears to have negatively impacted more than one traveler.

Below Thiessen’s post, media consultant Beverly Hallberg replied that American had done the same thing to her the day before. “I had to call and switch my connecting flight back to the original itinerary, and I had enough time to do that since we were stuck on the tarmac for so long. But, like you, they didn’t ask,” she wrote on X.

https://x.com/danikkk_wqs/stat...

Submission + - California regulators approve rules limiting what replacement tires you can buy (kcra.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: California regulators on Monday approved new rules that will restrict what tires you can buy when it’s time to replace them on your car.

In a unanimous vote, the California Energy Commission voted to adopt new rules that will phase out the sale of replacement tires that don’t meet certain energy efficiency standards.

“This ultimately is about protecting consumers,” said David Hochschild, the chairman of the California Energy Commission. “I see this as sheltering the public from higher costs in the long run.”

Tire manufacturers and the commission’s staff are at odds over whether this will add to the cost of living in the state. Both sides acknowledged this will no longer allow the sale of a significant portion of the tires currently sold in California.

Submission + - X open sources its ranking algorithm, lets users see if they're 'shadowbanned' (techcrunch.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: X has open-sourced the core algorithm for its For You feed, including ranking weights and filters like a Brazil 2026 election rule that limits certain accounts unless followed directly. The system predicts user actions—such as replies (+5 to +20 points), likes (+0.5), or reports (-234)—multiplies them by fixed scores, and ranks posts accordingly, with boosts for small accounts and penalties for spam or repeats. A new 'Under the Hood' tool lets eligible users check visibility labels on their posts, while VP Keith Coleman says it helps everyone verify fairness without guessing about hidden limits.

This has infuriated foreign governments by making PUBLIC any and all censorship required by governments in the open source.

"Any censorship required by governments is now clearly visible."

The censors hate this.

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