Techmeme: Law enforcement officials worldwide say Chinese mafia boss Wan Kuok-koi, aka Broken Tooth, has played a central role in the emergence of “pig butchering” scams (Wall Street Journal)

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Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:

Nvidia completes its $700M acquisition of Israel-based Run:ai, which helps orchestrate GPU clouds for AI, and plans to open source Run:ai's software — Nvidia has completed its acquisition of Run:ai, a software company that makes it easier for customers to orchestrate GPU clouds for AI, and said that it would open-source the software.

More: Bloomberg, TechCrunch, Tom's Hardware, Reuters, and CTech. Forums: r/nvidia

Elizabeth Dwoskin / Washington Post:

Sources detail the IDF's Unit 8200, which identifies human targets as candidates for elimination amid the Israel-Hamas war; one source calls it an “AI factory” — Years before the Gaza war, Israel transformed its intelligence unit into an AI testing ground …

More: SPLICETODAY.com, Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion, Associated Press, The Guardian, and New York Post

Bluesky: @bengoggin, @vgalaz, @abujamajem.com, @maxboot, and @washingtonpost.com

X: @lailaalarian, @ryangrim, @lizzadwoskin, @lizzadwoskin, @shashj, @lizzadwoskin, @novussubsole, @jimsciutto, @mchorowitz, and @shashj. LinkedIn: Benjamin Donham

Forums: Hacker News and r/worldnews

Cagan Koc / Bloomberg:

Kyivstar, Ukraine's largest mobile operator, signs a deal with Starlink to roll out text messaging in Q4 2025, and plans to add voice and data in later stages — - Kyivstar to offer text messages via Starlink by late 2025 — Starlink terminals are critical to Ukraine's war effort

More: Business Insider, Quartz, Benzinga, ZeroHedge News, The Kyiv Independent, The Stack, UPI, Reuters, and Daily Sabah

Bloomberg:

Elon Musk's new political influence may make it harder for regulators and politicians worldwide to resist SpaceX's Starlink, which added 20+ nations in 2024

More: Reuters. Bluesky: @parismarx.com and @lolgop. Forums: r/politics

Mark Johnson / Washington Post:

Johns Hopkins and Stanford researchers say they trained robots with videos to perform surgical tasks with the skill of human doctors, even correcting mistakes — Robots have been trained to perform surgical tasks with the skill of human doctors, even learning to correct their own mistakes during surgeries.

Bluesky: @bekese

Wall Street Journal:

Law enforcement officials worldwide say Chinese mafia boss Wan Kuok-koi, aka Broken Tooth, has played a central role in the emergence of “pig butchering” scams — Chinese mobster known as Broken Tooth is sanctioned by U.S. but remains free, selling swag and cutting ribbons

Bluesky: @toferh. X: @kleptocracyintv and @jchengwsj. Forums: r/geopolitics

Wall Street Journal:

Philippine investigators say Alice Guo, ex-mayor of the Bamban town, owned the land on which a “pig butchering” scam center was built, housing ~3,000 scammers

Bluesky: @shelbygrossman. X: @jchengwsj, @jchengwsj, and @jchengwsj

Bloomberg:

As Tether says it is on track for a record $10B net profit in 2024, banks around the world are exploring launching their own stablecoins for payments — - Banks are starting to issue stablecoins for payments, payroll — SocGen, Standard Chartered are among banks expanding efforts

More: Cautious Optimism, Finextra, PYMNTS.com, The Coin Republic, Blockchain.News, Cryptopolitan, and CoinGape

New York Times:

About 50% of the 2,200 employees at TSMC's Arizona plant are from Taiwan, seeding a cultural and demographic shift at the edge of Phoenix and the Sonoran Desert — Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, a global tech giant, brought thousands of workers from Asia to the Phoenix suburbs …

More: 9to5Mac, Fortune, DigiTimes, and Tech in Asia. LinkedIn: John Liu

Ryan Browne / CNBC:

How cloud computing, AI, and geopolitics could shape the evolution of ransomware, which could cost victims $265B annually by 2031, as the AIDS Trojan turns 35 — Ransomware is now a billion-dollar industry. But it wasn't always that large — nor was it a prevalent cybersecurity risk like it is today.

Bluesky: @michae.lv. LinkedIn: Ryan Browne

Tim Bradshaw / Financial Times:

DFC Intelligence expects GTA VI to generate $3.2B in its first year, double that of 2013's GTA V, making it a bright spot in a lackluster video games market — Long-awaited release expected to be a bright spot in lacklustre video games market — The long-awaited release …

More: The Game Post and BBC

Farhad Manjoo / Slate:

Reddit must continue growing its ad and content licensing revenue to justify its market valuation, which could fast-track the platform's “enshittification” — If you spent $1,000 on shares of Tesla at the start of 2024, you'd be sitting on nearly $1,700 now—a 70 percent gain …

Bluesky: @slate and @98antym

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Tom Warren / The Verge:

2024 was a big year for Windows on ARM, and fierce competition between Intel, AMD, and Qualcomm promises to make 2025 an exciting year for Windows laptops — With rumors of Nvidia entering the CPU market, 2025 might be an even bigger year for Microsoft's Arm efforts.

More: Thurrott and Laptop Mag

Bluesky: @tomwarren.co.uk. Forums: Slashdot

Sunil Jagtiani / Bloomberg:

Bitcoin's rally, fueled by Trump's reelection, has lost steam near the end of 2024; bitcoin hovers at ~$93,500, around $15,000 below its mid-December record — - Digital asset is down some $15,000 since a mid-December record — Traders await concrete policies from Trump's embrace of crypto

More: PYMNTS.com, Blockhead, Finextra, Cryptopolitan, Cointelegraph, and South China Morning Post

New York Times:

Donald Trump's next term may widen the longstanding speech divide between the US and Europe, putting social media companies in the middle of a global tug-of-war — President-elect Donald J. Trump's picks for the F.C.C. and F.T.C. have vowed to remove censorship online.

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