The US is expected to put pressure on SMIC, Lenovo, and other Chinese companies to join sanctions on Russia; China is Russia’s biggest electronics supplier (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg: The US is expected to put pressure on SMIC, Lenovo, and other Chinese companies to join sanctions on Russia; China is Russia’s biggest electronics supplier  —  Washington is expected to lean on major Chinese companies from Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. to Lenovo Group Ltd …

After dire predictions, Russia has not yet unleashed a crippling cyberattack on Ukraine, leaving the country with functioning internet and infrastructure (Washington Post)

Washington Post: After dire predictions, Russia has not yet unleashed a crippling cyberattack on Ukraine, leaving the country with functioning internet and infrastructure  —  For more than a decade, military commanders and outside experts have laid out blueprints for how cyberwar would unfold …

Injecting fairness into machine-learning models

If a machine-learning model is trained using an unbalanced dataset, such as one that contains far more images of people with lighter skin than people with darker skin, there is serious risk the model’s predictions will be unfair when it is deployed in the real world. But this is only one part of the problem. […]

Ashneer Grover, co-founder of Indian fintech unicorn BharatPe, resigns from the company’s board, following a probe into alleged financial irregularities (Manish Singh/TechCrunch)

Manish Singh / TechCrunch: Ashneer Grover, co-founder of Indian fintech unicorn BharatPe, resigns from the company’s board, following a probe into alleged financial irregularities  —  Ashneer Grover, a founder and the public face of BharatPe, has resigned from the board and left the managing director position he held …

Zoom reports Q4 revenue of $1.07B, up 21% YoY, vs $1.05B est., net income of $490.5M, up 88% YoY, and 2,725 customers paying $100K+ annually, up 66% YoY (Stephanie Condon/ZDNet)

Stephanie Condon / ZDNet: Zoom reports Q4 revenue of $1.07B, up 21% YoY, vs $1.05B est., net income of $490.5M, up 88% YoY, and 2,725 customers paying $100K+ annually, up 66% YoY  —  Growth has slowed in comparison to Zoom’s business at the outset of the pandemic, but the company is shifting its focus to […]

Following Ukraine’s request, Binance says banning Russian users would “fly in the face of” crypto’s purpose; NFT market DMarket bans Russians and Belarusians (Maxwell Strachan/VICE)

Maxwell Strachan / VICE: Following Ukraine’s request, Binance says banning Russian users would “fly in the face of” crypto’s purpose; NFT market DMarket bans Russians and Belarusians  —  Binance, the world’s largest exchange, said “unilaterally” banning users “would fly in the face of the reason why crypto exists.”

Study reveals chemical link between wildfire smoke and ozone depletion

The Australian wildfires in 2019 and 2020 were historic for how far and fast they spread, and for how long and powerfully they burned. All told, the devastating “Black Summer” fires blazed across more than 43 million acres of land, and extinguished or displaced nearly 3 billion animals. The fires also injected over 1 million […]

Lenovo debuts updated Windows 11 and Chromebook IdeaPads with 12th-Gen Intel CPUs and the Tab M10 Plus running Android 12, available in June starting at $190 (João Carrasqueira/XDA Developers)

João Carrasqueira / XDA Developers: Lenovo debuts updated Windows 11 and Chromebook IdeaPads with 12th-Gen Intel CPUs and the Tab M10 Plus running Android 12, available in June starting at $190  —  Lenovo has a ton of announcements coming out of MWC 2022, and among them are a handful of new laptops geared towards consumers […]

Lenovo unveils updated ThinkPads: X13 with Snapdragon chips, X1 Extreme with a 165Hz display, and updated P-series and T-series with new Intel processors (Monica Chin/The Verge)

Monica Chin / The Verge: Lenovo unveils updated ThinkPads: X13 with Snapdragon chips, X1 Extreme with a 165Hz display, and updated P-series and T-series with new Intel processors  —  A new X13, a new X1 Extreme, and more  —  Lenovo has dumped a whole bunch of new ThinkPads into the world, and there’s some exciting […]

A look at AcadArena and other “game guilds” in Southeast Asia, which loan out NFTs of in-game creatures as “scholarships” to players of games like Axie Infinity (Rest of World)

Rest of World: A look at AcadArena and other “game guilds” in Southeast Asia, which loan out NFTs of in-game creatures as “scholarships” to players of games like Axie Infinity  —  In just a year, guilds boosting players into NFT games raised more than $80 million in Southeast Asia.

A profile of iSTARE, an Intel hardware hacking group that analyzes and attacks future generations of chips to find critical flaws before they go into production (Lily Hay Newman/Wired)

Lily Hay Newman / Wired: A profile of iSTARE, an Intel hardware hacking group that analyzes and attacks future generations of chips to find critical flaws before they go into production  —  Researchers at iSTARE have to think like the bad guys, finding critical flaws before processors go to production.

Samsung updates its Galaxy Book Pro laptops with 1080p webcams, Intel 12th Gen CPUs, and brighter AMOLED displays, starting at $1,050 and shipping on April 1 (Monica Chin/The Verge)

Monica Chin / The Verge: Samsung updates its Galaxy Book Pro laptops with 1080p webcams, Intel 12th Gen CPUs, and brighter AMOLED displays, starting at $1,050 and shipping on April 1  —  There’s a clamshell and a convertible  —  Samsung has announced two updates to its premium Galaxy Book line: the Galaxy Book 2 Pro […]

Opinion: as Apple prepares to launch an iPhone SE 5G, the company should keep selling the older iPhone SE model and bring its price down to $199 (Mark Gurman/Bloomberg)

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg: Opinion: as Apple prepares to launch an iPhone SE 5G, the company should keep selling the older iPhone SE model and bring its price down to $199  —  Apple is planning to unveil a 5G iPhone SE in March—but the big news could be a price drop for the current model.

An interview with Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger about his IDM 2.0 strategy, partnering with TSMC, the Tower Semiconductor acquisition, and learning from AMD’s success (Ben Thompson/Stratechery)

Ben Thompson / Stratechery: An interview with Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger about his IDM 2.0 strategy, partnering with TSMC, the Tower Semiconductor acquisition, and learning from AMD’s success  —  Intel has been one of the companies I have focused on from the very beginning of Stratechery.

Sources: the UK government has shelved plans for a Silicon Valley rival around Oxford and Cambridge in order to prioritize spending in Northern England (Financial Times)

Financial Times: Sources: the UK government has shelved plans for a Silicon Valley rival around Oxford and Cambridge in order to prioritize spending in Northern England  —  UK prime minister’s levelling up agenda means plans for the Oxford-Cambridge Arc have been put on the backburner

Analysts: Ukraine conflict could accelerate the fracturing of internet, amid pressure on US tech giants from both Russia and the West to respond to the conflict (Wall Street Journal)

Wall Street Journal: Analysts: Ukraine conflict could accelerate the fracturing of internet, amid pressure on US tech giants from both Russia and the West to respond to the conflict  —  Conflict could accelerate the fracturing of the internet into the ‘splinternet,’ analysts say

Bridging the worlds of research and industry

Graduate student Nidhi Juthani was not content with just one graduate degree. Instead, she decided to earn two in one fell swoop, via MIT’s PhD in Chemical Engineering Practice (PhDCEP) program, which allows her to obtain a doctorate and an MBA concurrently. The combination is a perfect fit for Juthani, who wants to pursue a […]

Customers of sanctioned Russian banks are unable to use their cards with Apple Pay and Google Pay, according to the Central Bank of Russia (Grace Dean/Insider)

Grace Dean / Insider: Customers of sanctioned Russian banks are unable to use their cards with Apple Pay and Google Pay, according to the Central Bank of Russia  —  – Customers of sanction-hit Russian banks are unable to use Apple and Google Pay, Russia’s central bank said.  — These banks include VTB Group …

Crypto became a viable option for transactions in Ukraine, where Tether is popular, after digital cash transfers were suspended and cash withdrawals limited (Elizabeth Lopatto/The Verge)

Elizabeth Lopatto / The Verge: Crypto became a viable option for transactions in Ukraine, where Tether is popular, after digital cash transfers were suspended and cash withdrawals limited  —  More than $15 million in cryptocurrency has been donated to Ukrainian groups since Russia attacked the country on February 24th, according to research firm Elliptic.

Interview with Gabe Newell, Valve president and co-founder, on the Steam Deck, the company’s past and future hardware plans, consolidation in gaming, and more (James Archer/Rock, Paper, Shotgun)

James Archer / Rock, Paper, Shotgun: Interview with Gabe Newell, Valve president and co-founder, on the Steam Deck, the company’s past and future hardware plans, consolidation in gaming, and more  —  We interview Valve’s co-founder on hardware plans and consolidation in gaming  —  I recently had the chance to grill Gabe Newell …

In a report, Chinese cybersecurity company Pangu Lab says the NSA is behind the Equation Group and Bvp47, a hacking tool in use for the past 10 years (Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai/VICE)

Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai / VICE: In a report, Chinese cybersecurity company Pangu Lab says the NSA is behind the Equation Group and Bvp47, a hacking tool in use for the past 10 years  —  A Chinese security firm released a detailed report about what it says is malware created by Equation Group, a hacking group widely […]

In a letter, Ukraine’s vice prime minister requested Tim Cook halt Apple’s product sales and shut down its App Store in Russia (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg: In a letter, Ukraine’s vice prime minister requested Tim Cook halt Apple’s product sales and shut down its App Store in Russia  —  Mykhailo Fedorov, who serves as Ukraine’s vice prime minister and oversees digital operations, urged Apple Inc. to halt product sales in Russia and shut down its App Store in the country.