Tencent partners with Visa to launch a palm biometric authentication payment service at stores and restaurants in Singapore, its first expansion outside China (Nikkei Asia)

Nikkei Asia: Tencent partners with Visa to launch a palm biometric authentication payment service at stores and restaurants in Singapore, its first expansion outside China  —  GUANGZHOU — China’s Tencent Holdings announced that it is partnering with Visa to launch a palm biometric authentication payment service …

A Michigan man, a member of an online terrorist network called 764, is sentenced to 30 years in prison for preying on kids in Discord servers and chat rooms (Ashley Belanger/Ars Technica)

Ashley Belanger / Ars Technica: A Michigan man, a member of an online terrorist network called 764, is sentenced to 30 years in prison for preying on kids in Discord servers and chat rooms  —  A Michigan man who ran chat rooms and Discord servers targeting children playing online games and coercing them into self-harm […]

Google rolls out its Gemini-powered Vids app that lets users create video presentations using a prompt, with full access for Workspace users until at least 2026 (Umar Shakir/The Verge)

Umar Shakir / The Verge: Google rolls out its Gemini-powered Vids app that lets users create video presentations using a prompt, with full access for Workspace users until at least 2026  —  Google is generally rolling out its Gemini AI-powered Vids app that lets you create video presentations using a prompt.

Amazon is testing grocery formats that pull together fulfillment networks for Whole Foods and Amazon Fresh stores into a common delivery platform (Liz Young/Wall Street Journal)

Liz Young / Wall Street Journal: Amazon is testing grocery formats that pull together fulfillment networks for Whole Foods and Amazon Fresh stores into a common delivery platform  —  The e-commerce giant is testing store formats that more seamlessly align online fulfillment and in-person shopping

Faces of MIT: Gene Keselman

Gene Keselman wears a lot of hats. He is a lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management, the executive director of Mission Innovation Experimental (MIx), and managing director of MIT’s venture studio, Proto Ventures. Colonel in the Air Force Reserves at the Pentagon, board director, and startup leader are only a few of the […]

Tackling the energy revolution, one sector at a time

As a major contributor to global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, the transportation sector has immense potential to advance decarbonization. However, a zero-emissions global supply chain requires re-imagining reliance on a heavy-duty trucking industry that emits 810,000 tons of CO2, or 6 percent of the United States’ greenhouse gas emissions, and consumes 29 billion gallons of diesel […]

Mercury Research: AMD’s desktop CPU market share, in units, grew from 19.1% in Q3 2023 to 28.7% in Q3 2024 and from 19.5% to 22.3% for mobile in the same period (Mark Hachman/PCWorld)

Mark Hachman / PCWorld: Mercury Research: AMD’s desktop CPU market share, in units, grew from 19.1% in Q3 2023 to 28.7% in Q3 2024 and from 19.5% to 22.3% for mobile in the same period  —  AMD’s desktop CPU market share jumped nearly 10 percent in the last year, an analyst reported Thursday, on the […]

Sony reports Q2 revenue up 9% YoY to ~$19.45B, operating profit up 73% YoY to ~$2.96B vs. ~$2.18B est., and PS5 sales of 3.8M units, down from 4.9M a year ago (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg: Sony reports Q2 revenue up 9% YoY to ~$19.45B, operating profit up 73% YoY to ~$2.96B vs. ~$2.18B est., and PS5 sales of 3.8M units, down from 4.9M a year ago  —  – Chinese hit ‘Wukong’ helped game sales on aging PlayStation 5  — Image sensor business was hurt by demand lull in North […]

Sources: Trump’s transition team is considering Dan Gallagher, an ex-SEC commissioner and Robinhood’s current legal chief, as SEC chair replacing Gary Gensler (Reuters)

Reuters: Sources: Trump’s transition team is considering Dan Gallagher, an ex-SEC commissioner and Robinhood’s current legal chief, as SEC chair replacing Gary Gensler  —  Trump transition team officials are considering retail brokerage Robinhood’s top lawyer, as well as bank regulators and corporate attorneys …

Bridging military service and engineering

For graduate students Kelsey Pittman and Jacqueline Orr, service in the U.S. military led to their interest in engineering, and to the MIT Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE). Pittman’s first exposure to the military and engineering took place during her undergraduate years at the United States Military Academy West Point.  “I remember back […]

A US judge dismisses a copyright lawsuit by Raw Story and AlterNet against OpenAI over AI training, saying they couldn’t show enough harm to support the lawsuit (Blake Brittain/Reuters)

Blake Brittain / Reuters: A US judge dismisses a copyright lawsuit by Raw Story and AlterNet against OpenAI over AI training, saying they couldn’t show enough harm to support the lawsuit  —  A New York federal judge on Thursday dismissed a lawsuit against artificial intelligence giant OpenAI that claimed it misused articles …

Source: Amazon is discussing a second multibillion-dollar investment in Anthropic, but wants Anthropic to use a large number of servers powered by Amazon chips (Anissa Gardizy/The Information)

Anissa Gardizy / The Information: Source: Amazon is discussing a second multibillion-dollar investment in Anthropic, but wants Anthropic to use a large number of servers powered by Amazon chips  —  Amazon is discussing making a second multibillion-dollar investment in OpenAI rival Anthropic, according to a person involved in the discussions.

TikTok launches Share to TikTok, which lets users directly share music from Apple Music and Spotify in a post to their TikTok Feed or in DMs via TikTok Messages (Sarah Perez/TechCrunch)

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: TikTok launches Share to TikTok, which lets users directly share music from Apple Music and Spotify in a post to their TikTok Feed or in DMs via TikTok Messages  —  TikTok on Thursday debuted a new feature that will more closely connect its app, which already influences which songs top the […]

3 questions: Leveraging insights to enable clinical outcomes

Associate Professor Thomas Heldt joined the MIT faculty in 2013 as a core member of the Institute for Medical Engineering and Science (IMES) and the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. Additionally, Heldt is a principal investigator with MIT’s Research Laboratory of Electronics (RLE), and he directs the Integrative Neuromonitoring and Critical Care Informatics […]

Connecting the US Coast Guard to MIT Sloan

Jim Ellis II SM ’80 first learned about a special opportunity for members of the U.S. Coast Guard while stationed in Alaska. “My commander had received a notice from headquarters about this opportunity. They were asking for recommendations for an officer who might be interested,” says Ellis. The opportunity in question was the MIT Sloan […]

SMIC reports Q3 revenue up 34% YoY to ~$2.17B, vs $2.2B est., and net income up 58.3% YoY to ~$148.8M, below $199.71M est., as the chip sector recovers (Reuters)

Reuters: SMIC reports Q3 revenue up 34% YoY to ~$2.17B, vs $2.2B est., and net income up 58.3% YoY to ~$148.8M, below $199.71M est., as the chip sector recovers  —  China’s largest chipmaker Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (0981.HK) reported its net profit increased 58.3% for the third quarter of 2024.

France’s gambling regulator says it is “aware” of Polymarket and is “currently examining its operation and compliance”, after user Fredi9999 made a $48M profit (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg: France’s gambling regulator says it is “aware” of Polymarket and is “currently examining its operation and compliance”, after user Fredi9999 made a $48M profit  —  – Inquiry follows publicity around French trader’s huge bets  — Online gambling and betting is tightly regulated in France

TSMC SVP Cliff Hou says Taiwan must improve its chip tech to maintain its global leadership; in October, Trump said that Taiwan “stole 95% of our business” (Debby Wu/Bloomberg)

Debby Wu / Bloomberg: TSMC SVP Cliff Hou says Taiwan must improve its chip tech to maintain its global leadership; in October, Trump said that Taiwan “stole 95% of our business”  —  – Taiwan’s chip industry association chair speaks in Hsinchu  — Island plays indispensable role in AI hardware supply chain

CrowdStrike agrees to acquire Tel Aviv-based Adaptive Shield, which offers cloud security for SaaS apps; sources say CrowdStrike will pay ~$300M for the company (Meir Orbach/CTech)

Meir Orbach / CTech: CrowdStrike agrees to acquire Tel Aviv-based Adaptive Shield, which offers cloud security for SaaS apps; sources say CrowdStrike will pay ~$300M for the company  —  The Israeli startup’s solutions help security teams manage the organization’s applications, identities, and detect unusual behavior within the SaaS ecosystem.

Canada orders TikTok’s business in the country to be dissolved, citing national security risks, and says it’s not blocking Canadians’ access to the app (Ismail Shakil/Reuters)

Ismail Shakil / Reuters: Canada orders TikTok’s business in the country to be dissolved, citing national security risks, and says it’s not blocking Canadians’ access to the app  —  Canada on Wednesday ordered Chinese-owned TikTok’s business in the country to be dissolved, citing national-security risks …

Match Group reports Q3 revenue up 2% YoY to $895M, vs. $900.9M est., paying users down 3% to 15.2M, forecasts Q4 revenue below est.; MTCH drops 12%+ after hours (Jaspreet Singh/Reuters)

Jaspreet Singh / Reuters: Match Group reports Q3 revenue up 2% YoY to $895M, vs. $900.9M est., paying users down 3% to 15.2M, forecasts Q4 revenue below est.; MTCH drops 12%+ after hours  —  Match Group (MTCH.O) forecast fourth-quarter revenue below Wall Street estimates on Wednesday, signaling weak demand …

Neuroscientists create a comprehensive map of the cerebral cortex

By analyzing brain scans taken as people watched movie clips, MIT researchers have created the most comprehensive map yet of the functions of the brain’s cerebral cortex. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data, the research team identified 24 networks with different functions, which include processing language, social interactions, visual features, and other types of […]

A portable light system that can digitize everyday objects

When Nikola Tesla predicted we’d have handheld phones that could display videos, photographs, and more, his musings seemed like a distant dream. Nearly 100 years later, smartphones are like an extra appendage for many of us. Digital fabrication engineers are now working toward expanding the display capabilities of other everyday objects. One avenue they’re exploring is […]