A profile of Klarna and its CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski as it filed for a US IPO on November 13; investors hope Klarna can achieve a $150B-$200B valuation (Financial Times)

Financial Times: A profile of Klarna and its CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski as it filed for a US IPO on November 13; investors hope Klarna can achieve a $150B-$200B valuation  —  Swedish entrepreneur born to Polish immigrants seeks to list the ‘buy now, pay later’ fintech in New York

Biden admin finalizes its $6.6B CHIPS Act grant to TSMC; money will be disbursed in stages and TSMC is expected to receive at least $1B by the end of 2024 (Yifan Yu/Nikkei Asia)

Yifan Yu / Nikkei Asia: Biden admin finalizes its $6.6B CHIPS Act grant to TSMC; money will be disbursed in stages and TSMC is expected to receive at least $1B by the end of 2024  —  LIMA, Peru — The Biden administration has finalized its $6.6 billion CHIPS Act grant to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. […]

Filing: Samsung plans to buy back about $7.2B of its own stock in stages over the next year, in one of the larger shareholder return programs in its history (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg: Filing: Samsung plans to buy back about $7.2B of its own stock in stages over the next year, in one of the larger shareholder return programs in its history  —  – Samsung’s stock soared as much as almost 9% on Friday  — Investors fear the company is missing out on the AI boom

Thomas E. Kurtz, an American mathematician, computer scientist, and co-inventor of the BASIC programming language with John Kemeny, died at 96 on November 12 (Dag Spicer/CHM)

Dag Spicer / CHM: Thomas E. Kurtz, an American mathematician, computer scientist, and co-inventor of the BASIC programming language with John Kemeny, died at 96 on November 12  —  2023 CHM FELLOW  —  With deep sadness, we say goodbye to computer pioneer Thomas Kurtz.  —  Thomas Eugene Kurtz (Feb. 22 1928-Nov. 12 …

Ilya Lichtenstein is sentenced to five years in prison for conspiring with his wife, Heather “Razzlekhan” Morgan, to launder money from the 2016 Bitfinex hack (Sabrina Willmer/Bloomberg)

Sabrina Willmer / Bloomberg: Ilya Lichtenstein is sentenced to five years in prison for conspiring with his wife, Heather “Razzlekhan” Morgan, to launder money from the 2016 Bitfinex hack  —  – Ilya Lichtenstein tried to launder proceeds of Bitfinex hack  — His rapper wife ‘Razzlekahn’ is set to be sentenced on Monday

OpenAI makes the ChatGPT desktop app for Windows available to all users, following an October release limited to paying ChatGPT subscribers (Michael Kan/PCMag)

Michael Kan / PCMag: OpenAI makes the ChatGPT desktop app for Windows available to all users, following an October release limited to paying ChatGPT subscribers  —  Previously limited to ChatGPT Plus subscribers, the app opens a ‘companion window’ on your PC, allowing you to easily use the AI chatbot alongside any other Windows programs.

Linzixuan (Rhoda) Zhang wins 2024 Collegiate Inventors Competition

Linzixuan (Rhoda) Zhang, a doctoral candidate in the MIT Department of Chemical Engineering, recently won the 2024 Collegiate Inventors Competition, medaling in both the Graduate and People’s Choice categories for developing materials to stabilize nutrients in food with the goal of improving global health.   The annual competition, organized by the National Inventors Hall of Fame […]

Dancing with currents and waves in the Maldives

Any child who’s spent a morning building sandcastles only to watch the afternoon tide ruin them in minutes knows the ocean always wins. Yet, coastal protection strategies have historically focused on battling the sea — attempting to hold back tides and fighting waves and currents by armoring coastlines with jetties and seawalls and taking sand […]

School of Engineering faculty receive awards in summer 2024

Faculty and researchers receive many external awards throughout the year. The MIT School of Engineering periodically highlights the honors, prizes, and medals won by community members working in academic departments, labs, and centers. Summer 2024 honorees include the following: Polina Anikeeva, the Matoula S. Salapatas Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, professor of brain and […]

Experts expect Trump to relax business cybersecurity rules, drop human rights concerns on spyware, and take an aggressive stance on US adversaries’ cyber armies (Eric Geller/Wired)

Eric Geller / Wired: Experts expect Trump to relax business cybersecurity rules, drop human rights concerns on spyware, and take an aggressive stance on US adversaries’ cyber armies  —  Experts expect Donald Trump’s next administration to relax cybersecurity rules on businesses, abandon concerns around human rights …

Estonian ride-hailing and food delivery startup Bolt says it hit €2B in annual revenue and plans a 2025 IPO; Bolt had an $8B+ valuation in January 2022 (Alessandro Parodi/Reuters)

Alessandro Parodi / Reuters: Estonian ride-hailing and food delivery startup Bolt says it hit €2B in annual revenue and plans a 2025 IPO; Bolt had an $8B+ valuation in January 2022  —  Estonian ride-hailing and food delivery startup Bolt said on Thursday it had hit 2 billion euros ($2.11 billion) in annual revenue …

JD.com reports Q3 revenue up 5.1% YoY to ~$36B, above $35.9B est., and net income up 48% YoY to ~$1.6B, suggesting a recovery in segments of China’s economy (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg: JD.com reports Q3 revenue up 5.1% YoY to ~$36B, above $35.9B est., and net income up 48% YoY to ~$1.6B, suggesting a recovery in segments of China’s economy  —  JD.com Inc.’s quarterly revenue rose 5.1%, suggesting Chinese consumers are cautiously spending again as Beijing tries to revitalize the economy.

Polymarket says the FBI seized CEO Shayne Coplan’s phone and electronics; source: the DOJ is investigating Polymarket for allegedly accepting bets from US users (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg: Polymarket says the FBI seized CEO Shayne Coplan’s phone and electronics; source: the DOJ is investigating Polymarket for allegedly accepting bets from US users  —  – Polymarket says FBI agents seized CEO’s phone, electronics  — Platform has taken recent measures to weed out US traders

FBI and CISA: Chinese hackers breached multiple US telecom companies, compromising the “private communications” of US officials and stealing customer call data (Sergiu Gatlan/BleepingComputer)

Sergiu Gatlan / BleepingComputer: FBI and CISA: Chinese hackers breached multiple US telecom companies, compromising the “private communications” of US officials and stealing customer call data  —  CISA and the FBI confirmed that Chinese hackers compromised the “private communications” of a “limited number” …

Spotify plans to pay incentives to video creators who hit certain viewing thresholds and, in January, to let Premium subscribers view podcast videos without ads (Anne Steele/Wall Street Journal)

Anne Steele / Wall Street Journal: Spotify plans to pay incentives to video creators who hit certain viewing thresholds and, in January, to let Premium subscribers view podcast videos without ads  —  Audio-streaming giant plans to pay hosts to make podcast videos and allow premium subscribers to watch them without ads

How Roger Ver, known as “Bitcoin Jesus”, is fighting the IRS, which says he owes $48M+ after selling $240M in tokens, from Mallorca after his April 2024 arrest (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg: How Roger Ver, known as “Bitcoin Jesus”, is fighting the IRS, which says he owes $48M+ after selling $240M in tokens, from Mallorca after his April 2024 arrest  —  – Roger Ver charged with underreporting value of token holdings  — Longtime crypto investor renounced US citizenship in 2014

Bluesky says it has gained 1M+ users in the week since the US election, mostly in the US, the UK, and Canada, and now has 14.7M users in total (Callie Holtermann/New York Times)

Callie Holtermann / New York Times: Bluesky says it has gained 1M+ users in the week since the US election, mostly in the US, the UK, and Canada, and now has 14.7M users in total  —  With one million new accounts added since the U.S. elections, Bluesky has solidified itself as an option for people […]

How Italy became an unexpected spyware hub, going under the radar by specializing in cheaper tools, as authorities carry out thousands of operations since 2021 (Suzanne Smalley/The Record)

Suzanne Smalley / The Record: How Italy became an unexpected spyware hub, going under the radar by specializing in cheaper tools, as authorities carry out thousands of operations since 2021  —  In April 2022, about four months after Kazakhstan’s government violently cracked down on nationwide protests …

Amazon is shutting down Freevee, its free, ad-supported streaming service launched in 2019 under the IMDb brand, and plans to move the content to Prime Video (Todd Spangler/Variety)

Todd Spangler / Variety: Amazon is shutting down Freevee, its free, ad-supported streaming service launched in 2019 under the IMDb brand, and plans to move the content to Prime Video  —  Amazon is officially shutting down Freevee, its free, ad-supported video streaming service originally launched under the IMDb brand nearly five years ago.

Sources: Gail Slater, a top aide to JD Vance, and Mark Meador, a former enforcer at the DOJ’s antitrust unit and the FTC, are the front-runners to lead the FTC (Financial Times)

Financial Times: Sources: Gail Slater, a top aide to JD Vance, and Mark Meador, a former enforcer at the DOJ’s antitrust unit and the FTC, are the front-runners to lead the FTC  —  Contenders for prime slots include a top aide to JD Vance and former Department of Justice lawyers

Sources: Marc Lore’s food delivery startup Wonder is in advanced talks to buy Grubhub from Just Eat Takeaway; Just Eat bought Grubhub in 2021 in a $7B+ deal (Wall Street Journal)

Wall Street Journal: Sources: Marc Lore’s food delivery startup Wonder is in advanced talks to buy Grubhub from Just Eat Takeaway; Just Eat bought Grubhub in 2021 in a $7B+ deal  —  Marc Lore’s Wonder is close to a deal to buy the food-delivery startup from Europe’s Just Eat Takeaway.com