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    • Berlin Apple Store vandalized by Congo activists

    Protesting the alleged exploitation of the Congo by tech firms including Apple, activists have spray-painted Berlin’s Apple Rosenthaler Strasse store. Berlin Apple Store vandalized (Source: Nexta.tv) Apple has been accused of its supply chain using what are called conflict materials, linked to militia groups in the Congo. Apple maintains that it has stopped using tin,

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    • Hopes For Sustainable Jet Fuel Not Realistic, Report Finds

    Hopes that replacement fuels for airplanes will slash carbon pollution are misguided and support for these alternatives could even worsen the climate crisis, a new report has warned. The Guardian: There is currently “no realistic or scalable alternative” to standard kerosene-based jet fuels, and touted “sustainable aviation fuels” are well off track to replace them

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    AI assistants are so back

    Image: Alex Parkin / The Verge AI. AI? AI! AI… A. I. This has been a week filled with AI announcements from some of the biggest and most important companies in tech, all of whom seem totally convinced that we’re due for a revolution in virtual assistants. If Silicon Valley gets its way, you might

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    • Microsoft’s partnership with Mistral AI will avoid a UK antitrust probe after the CMA finds Microsoft can’t “materially influence” Mistral’s commercial policy (Katharine Gemmell/Bloomberg)

    Katharine Gemmell / Bloomberg: Microsoft’s partnership with Mistral AI will avoid a UK antitrust probe after the CMA finds Microsoft can’t “materially influence” Mistral’s commercial policy  —  – CMA said the tie-up does not qualify under merger rules  — Watchdog is looking into Big Tech AI startup investment

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    • The EU warns Microsoft it could be fined up to 1% of its global annual turnover under DSA after failing to provide risk info about its generative AI tools (Natasha Lomas/TechCrunch)

    Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch: The EU warns Microsoft it could be fined up to 1% of its global annual turnover under DSA after failing to provide risk info about its generative AI tools  —  The European Union has warned Microsoft that it could be fined up to 1% of its global annual turnover under the

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    • Hong Kong launches a pilot program enabling digital yuan payments through major Chinese banks, first deployment of China’s currency beyond the mainland (Kiuyan Wong/Bloomberg)

    Kiuyan Wong / Bloomberg: Hong Kong launches a pilot program enabling digital yuan payments through major Chinese banks, first deployment of China’s currency beyond the mainland  —  – The launch is the first to take place beyond mainland China  — China is pushing to grow the yuan’s share of global payments

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    Betta Aims to Bring Wire EDM to the Desktop

    Just as practical nuclear fusion has been “only 20 years away” for the last 80 years or so, the promise of electrical discharge machining (EDM) in the home shop seems to always be just around the corner. It’s hard to understand why this is so — EDM is electrically and mechanically more complicated than traditional

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    • Cloud GPU provider CoreWeave raised $7.5B in debt financing, two weeks after raising $1.1B equity funding at a $19B valuation; it raised $2.3B in debt in 2023 (Wall Street Journal)

    Wall Street Journal: Cloud GPU provider CoreWeave raised $7.5B in debt financing, two weeks after raising $1.1B equity funding at a $19B valuation; it raised $2.3B in debt in 2023  —  Deal is one of the largest-ever private debt financings  —  CoreWeave, an artificial-intelligence cloud-computing startup backed by Nvidia …

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