Business Articles

China's Ministry of Commerce has announced a ban on the export of key minerals used in microchip production to the U.S. The move follows U.S. restrictions on the trade of semiconductor technologies with China.

Devices such as next-gen iPhones, Macs and iPad Pros are believed to be powered by processors supplied by the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) as it has mastered the production of the bleeding-edge 2 nanometer production process. Now, the firm is said to be even closer to its target of producing this kind of silicon on schedule than expected.

The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) now requires fingerprint verifications of Uber drivers who provide a ride to teens. Uber has 30 days to comply.

OpenAI has introduced a new $200 monthly Pro subscription plan for ChatGPT aimed at researchers, engineers, and individuals who want to use research-grade AI.

Now waiting for the Senate's vote, Jared Isaacman is Donald Trump's choice as NASA's next administrator. Isaacman has been to space twice on SpaceX capsules in private missions and is a business associate of Elon Musk. If confirmed, he would succeed Bill Nelson and become NASA's 15th administrator.

The next iPad Pro seems on track for a late 2025 release thanks to the latest report from a widely-regarded securities analyst. It seems the next-gen flagship tablet with its supposed next-gen silicon will be manufactured in China, which is a major win for certain companies.

The Sharp XP-A201U-B projector for business use has arrived in the US. The WUXGA model has a laser light source that is said to deliver up to 20,000 lumens brightness. Plus, the projector offers a range of ports, including two HDMI, and integrated applications like Crestron Roomview.

Citigroup has begun rolling out new AI tools to employees in eight countries. Around 140,000 employees will be given access to the tools, and the company says it will monitor how they use them to improve and develop new ones.

Apple's Tim Cook, in a recent interview with WIRED, shares his thoughts on the the ever-eveolving AI landscape, and how Apple plans on navigating these uncharted waters. With an emphasis on privacy and cautious optimism, Cook reveals what he expects from the future.

TSMC is talking with Nvidia to bolster their clientele for the manufacturer's plant in Arizona. According to a new report, TSMC could move manufacturing of Blackwell AI chips in the US state.

Bitcoin has finally crossed the long-awaited six figures mark. The cryptocurrency is up 140% in 2024 and is expected to continue its upward trajectory under the upcoming Trump administration.

The facility is expected to require an investment of approximately $10 billion and will become Meta's 27th data center globally. The company has not yet disclosed the anticipated completion or operational date for the center.

Google has announced a new video generation model, Veo, for Vertex AI. It also announced Imagen 3, the next-generation update for the company's image generation model.

Strix Point is finally arriving in more devices and flavors. For example, the new Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 with the AMD Ryzen AI 7 Pro 360. This slender business laptop is ideally suited for the 8 core version of Zen 5.

Honda has officially completed its first solid-state battery production facility. It looks like the motorcycle maker will get into full-swing with solid-state electric motorcycle batteries as early as January, with the hopes of shorter EV charge times, better range, and lighter designs.

Based on new reports, Nvidia is working towards releasing its Rubin architecture up to six months earlier than previous rumours suggested. As a result, the first Rubin-based GPUs could arrive as soon as Q3 2025 sporting HBM4 memory and TSMC N3 (3 nm) nodes.

EU's antitrust watchdogs have begun probing Nvidia's proposed bid for Run:ai by asking the company's customers if they saw a GPU software and hardware bundle as a competitive advantage.

A South Korean media outlet reports Intel's 18A yields are worse than that of Samsung Foundry's second-gen 3 nm node. Apparently, they're at 10%, effectively rendering the node not viable for mass production.

The free-to-play shooter XDefiant is coming to an end: Ubisoft is shutting down the servers on June 3, 2025, and the game is no longer available for download. Nearly 300 Ubisoft employees will lose their jobs as a result of XDefiant's demise.

Amazon has introduced a new family of Nova AI models for businesses. These models will be available as part of Amazon Bedrock. The company claims they are 75% more cost-effective than the competition and are the fastest models in their classes on Bedrock.

Meta, the company behind Facebook, has announced that it's about to put out a request for proposals on a nuclear energy system for its AI data centers. The company says it's seeking a US-based solution that can generate between 1 and 4 gigawatts.

Hyundai has reported its best-ever monthly sales in the US in November after Ioniq 5 EV sales doubled.

Jaguar aims to establish itself as the leading brand for luxury electric cars and has unveiled its first concept vehicle to support this vision. The Type 00 features a futuristic design with a strikingly long hood and the absence of a rear window. However, initial reactions from the community have been less than enthusiastic.

Pat Gelsinger, who got Intel out of the Rocket Lake rut, has announced his resignation as the company's CEO. He hasn't announced an immediate successor, and the company will be led in the interim by David Zinsner and Michelle (MJ) Johnston Holthaus.

TSMC unveils ambitious plans to bring 2nm chip production to Arizona by 2028, following the company's established timeline for domestic manufacturing in Taiwan.

More than 80 Spanish media companies sued Meta in December 2023 for unfair competition in advertising. The lawsuit said Meta's access to user data on Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp gave them an unfair competitive edge in offering personalized ads.

Using the Linux kernel 6.8.12-4 as a stable default with 6.11 as an option, Proxmox Backup Server 3.3 sports ZFS 2.2.6 support and is based on the Debian 12.8 "Bookworm" release. The list of changes also includes removable datastores support, new change detection modes and push direction for remote sync jobs, and more.

Revolut is significantly expanding its business as Neobank. Although there will still be no Neobank branches, the bank is planning its own unusual ATMs. Revolut is also taking a stand against the questionable and very expensive dynamic currency conversion in other eurozone countries.

Nintendo appears to be continuing its anti-piracy strategy and is now targeting the subreddit r/SwitchPirates. In order to track down an alleged string-puller who has not appeared in court, the company is now demanding the release of user data.

Shortly after CATL detailed its second Na-ion cell generation that delivers normal discharge at extremely low temperatures, BYD is out in force with the 'world's first high-performance' sodium-ion storage battery.

The Competition Bureau argues that the tech company is abusing its dominant position, and called for Google to sell off two of its key ad tech tools in order to restore competition in the market.

The shift in U.S. administration and growing competition from countries like China present challenges to South Korea's semiconductor industry. The government is also considering additional support measures for various sectors.

Maingear has announced that it has used on-trend Fractal Design cases to make its latest series of custom workstations. They include the Pro WS, based on the popular North XL with its wooden finish. The new line has AMD Ryzen 9000- or Intel Raptor Lake-K to Arrow Lake variants and NVIDIA RTX graphics that run from the 4060 to multiple A6000 Ada cards.

The U.S. Department of Commerce and the American company Intel announced an agreement on $7.9 billion in direct funding for semiconductor manufacturing projects. This is the largest direct funding ever granted by the U.S. federal government to a company.

60% market share by 2027. This was Qualcomm's ambitious goal for the Snapdragon X series on the laptop market. However, in the third quarter of 2024, in which numerous laptops with Snapdragon X Elite and Snapdragon X Plus were available, Qualcomm only achieved moderate sales figures.

Expected with high hopes by all those affected by Alzheimer's and investors alike, the Phase 3 trial of Cassava Sciences' proprietary small molecule Simufilam failed to deliver the anticipated results. As a direct consequence, the company's shares dropped from around $26 to less than $4, with no comeback yet.

The Lenovo ThinkPad T16 Gen 3 has a user-replaceable keyboard - just two screws loosened, and the keyboard comes right out. Why is this feature so rare nowadays, even among laptops for work?

According to a recent report that is based on official tournament statistics, 21 out of the top 35 esports millionaires are Dota 2 pro players. While having roughly four times fewer tournaments when compared to Counter-Strike, Dota 2 had a prize pool of over $21 million vs. $18 million this year alone.

A US judge ruled against the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which sought to sanction Elon Musk. The SEC went to court after Musk missed his testimony for the regulator's investigation into X's (formerly Twitter) buyout.

A US judge has ruled Tesla must face a proposed class-action lawsuit alleging it failed to inform would-be buyers that its cars could brake automatically - without an apparent collision risk. The Elon Musk-owned company did manage to get a few parts removed from the case, though.

The American tech giant has announced the third quarter (Q3) results of the fiscal year 2025, reporting a remarkable growth in revenue over the previous year. For the three-month period that ended in October 27, 2024, the company reported a revenue of $35.1 billion, a 94% YoY increase. Hopper and Blackwell products, used for language model training among other things, are the main reasons for this success.

Based on Debian 12.8 "Bookworm" and the Linux kernel 6.8.12-4 (with 6.11 as an option), Proxmox Virtual Environment 8.3 comes with multiple package updates, supporting QEMU 9.0.2, LXC 6.0.0, and ZFS 2.2.6. A new "Tag View" for the resource tree is also available, as well as Ceph Squid 19.2.0 support, faster container backups, and more.

Amazon is stepping up its partnership with the US-based AI startup Anthropic. The e-commerce and cloud services company is now Anthropic's primary cloud and training partner, with a total investment of $8 billion.

Playlists have recently appeared on Spotify that lure users to fraudulent websites. The streaming provider has since removed the affected content. However, it is not yet clear how the company intends to tackle such scams in the long term.

The Panasonic PT-VMZ7ST and PT-VMZ6ST projectors have been unveiled. Designed for business use, these LCD laser models have a WUXGA resolution, image perfection tools like keystone correction and support for 4K signals. Plus, the PT-VMZ7ST offers up to 7,000 ANSI lumens brightness.

The US Department of Justice has found Google to be a monopoly, forcing competitors out of the search market through its control over the Chrome web browser and Android smartphone operating system. The final proposal seeks to force the divesture of Chrome, even Android, to reopen the market.