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Samsung Elec to expand chip production at the largest plant next year

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Despite estimates of an economic downturn, Samsung Electronics intends to expand chip production capacity at its greatest semiconductor power station next year, according to a South Korean media outlet late on Sunday.

In contrast, rival chipmakers have reduced their investment due to declining demand and chip oversupply.

chip production
Image Source: gizmochina.com

Analysts believe that Samsung’s persistence in investing will help it boost sales of memory chips in the market and assist its share price once demand starts to recover.

According to the Seoul Economic Daily, citing unnamed industry sources, Samsung intends to expand the P3 factory located in Pyeongtaek, South Korea, by incorporating a 12-inch wafer capacity for DRAM memory chips.

The plant will also be expanded with an additional 4-nanometer chip capacity, which will be manufactured under foundry contractual agreements that is, as per the client designs as stated in the paper.

P3, the firm’s largest chip production plant, started the manufacturing of NAND flash memory chips with cutting-edge technology this year.

According to the newspaper, Samsung plans to add at least ten extremely ultraviolet pieces of machinery next year but Samsung did not respond to the report.

In October, it stated that it was not planning intentionally reduce chip production, disobeying the industry’s trend of reducing production to meet mid-term to long-term demand.

“We plan to stand behind our original infrastructure investment plans,” Han Jin-man, executive vice president of memory business at Samsung, said then.

Source: money.usnews.com

Micron Technology Inc, a competitor in memory chips, announced last week that it would reduce its financing in fiscal 2023 somewhere between 7 billion USD and 7.5 billion USD, down from 12 billion USD in fiscal 2022. It would also significantly reduce capital expenditure plans in fiscal 2024, according to the firm.

Taiwanese chipmaker TSMC reduced its 2022 annual fund budget by at least 10 percent in October, sounding more careful than usual about future demand.

“The chip industry downturn will add to the difficulties of No. 2 and below chip companies, and have a positive impact on the market control of top companies such as Samsung,” Greg Roh, head of research at Hyundai Motor Securities, said in a client note on Monday.

Source: money.usnews.com
Twitter

Twitter now shows how many people view your tweets

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Twitter is launching a functionality that shows how many people have seen your tweets, similar to the number of times a video has been seen on platforms like YouTube.

Twitter
Image Source: nme.com

“Twitter is rolling out View Count, so you can see how many times a tweet has been seen! This is normal for video,” Elon Musk wrote in a tweet. “Shows how much more alive Twitter is than it may seem, as over 90% of Twitter users read, but don’t tweet, reply or like, as those are public actions.”

Reference: techcrunch.com

According to Musk, he is excited about this feature that shows users the number of people they would reach, the similarity to internet video seems like a call out to all the content creators such as YouTuber MrBeast, whom Musk explicitly states is not out of the question in the search for Twitter’s upcoming Chief exec. But even so, for some users, this feature may have the inverse result, revealing that relatively few people view their Twitter posts than they thought.

It already includes a feature that displays a lot more detailed analytics regarding your Twitter posts than simply likes, retweets, and quote tweets. You can check out how people interacted with your Twitter post by clicking “view Tweet analytics” under your Twitter post, such as tapping to see your profile or broadening the specifics of a quote tweet.

You can also view total impressions, which are defined as “Times this Tweet was seen on Twitter.” This definition is somewhat ambiguous because we don’t comprehend what it entails for a Twitter post to be “seen.”

The latest views feature differs in that views will now be viewable to all, not just the account owner.

This feature is not yet available to all users because it requires a while for a launch to reach all users. The feature is now useable on both iOS and Android together with web usage coming soon. Reverse app researcher Nima Owji demonstrates just what functionality will look like in practice for people who can’t see it just yet, introducing that it appears to only work for tweeter posts that were made after December 15.

Twitter’s product launches have indeed been hit or miss. for instance, remember how you could get blacklisted for posting on Twitter the URL to your Instagram only about a week ago? That was short-lived. Twitter appears to be prioritizing less controversial feature updates in recent days.

Twitter upgraded its hashtag system on Wednesday, allowing you to view the price of a particular stock or cryptocurrency just by typing $ETH or $GOOG into the search bar.

Apple

Apple ‘temporarily’ pulls new Home app architecture in iOS 16.2

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On its products, Apple has momentarily disabled the ability to upgrade to the updated HomeKit architecture. The new Home app architecture is one of the new features of iOS 16.2, which was formally made available to all customers this month.

Home app
Image Source: theverge.com

Apple claims that this new architecture improves the efficiency and dependability of using HomeKit accessories. However, because users have been reporting problems with HomeKit, the company has now removed the option to update to the new architecture.

Prior to its removal, Reddit users who installed the optional update had complained about problems with the app kicking other users from a Home account and the inability to add them back. On the MacRumors forum, users have complained that they are unable to share the Home with others, that HomeKit devices are perpetually stuck in the “updating” state, and that some accessories have completely vanished from the Home app. After upgrading, users cannot go back to the earlier version of the application.

Apple clarified the issue in a statement, “We are aware of an issue that may impact the ability for users to share the Home within the Home app. A fix will be available soon. In the meantime, we’ve temporarily removed the option to upgrade to the new Home architecture. Users who have already upgraded will not be impacted.”

Apple has also updated its help website with information on what to do if, after switching to the new HomeKit architecture, users are unable to access a Home’s gadgets or invite another user to it.

It’s unclear when Apple plans to reinstate the upgrade option since the company hasn’t commented on its removal from the Home app. What will happen to customers who have updated their Home apps to the new architecture is likewise an issue. With the release of iOS 16.2’s first developer beta in October, the redesigned Home app architecture was unveiled.

The upgrading remained optional even in iOS 16.2’s final release before the option was eliminated. All Apple devices must be logged into iCloud and running the newest versions of iOS, macOS, and tvOS in order to upgrade the Home app to the new architecture. Perhaps the upgrade option will reappear in iOS 16.3, which is now in beta and is anticipated to be made accessible to the general public between February-March 2023.

HomeKit is Apple’s simple-to-use platform for building a trustworthy and protected DIY smart home. A completely functional smart home system can be set up and operational in a matter of minutes with just a few HomeKit-compatible gadgets and an iPad or iPhone to operate them.

HomeKit enables users to connect a number of voice-controlled smart home gadgets from many manufacturers into one system, similar to other voice-controllable smart home devices, primarily Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant. HomeKit differs from the competition in two ways: first, it’s simple to set up and manage all of one’s devices via a single app; second, one’s privacy and security are safeguarded.

LastPass

LastPass Says Hackers Stole Customer’s Data and Passwords

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LastPass has released a doozy of an update regarding a recent data breach. The company now claims that hackers were able to “copy a backup of customer vault data,” meaning they now theoretically have access to all of those passcodes if they can crack the stolen vaults.

LastPass
Image Source: forbes.com

LastPass has acknowledged that hackers stole user password vaults that were encrypted as well as other private information. This is the most recent information provided by the corporation concerning a security incident involving the theft of the platform’s source code, which was initially revealed in August 2022.

Once obtained, source code provides hackers with a better understanding of closed systems and increases a platform’s susceptibility to attacks. By first acquiring source code and technical information from the firm back in August, the hacker was able to gain access to LastPass.

The attacker then used the information they had obtained to hack a LastPass employee, steal their security codes, and access files stored on the company’s cloud storage service.

According to LastPass, it has reset all companywide corporate login credentials in reaction to the breach. Although LastPass does not expressly state this, it is obvious that users must take steps to protect their account information. Users are advised to update any passwords they have on the platform.

The company noted, “We are also performing an exhaustive analysis of every account with signs of any suspicious activity within our cloud storage service, adding additional safeguards within this environment.” There is, however, ample proof that not everyone uses the optimal password procedures. One’s entire data is at risk if they have an easily cracked master password.

Additionally, according to LastPass, the hackers would attempt to access users’ accounts by “phishing attacks, credential stuffing, or other brute force attacks”. Do not click on any links in emails requesting personal information that purport to be from LastPass. It is advised that one immediately change their master password if it is brief, simple to guess, or contains information about you that is readily available online to prevent additional account vulnerability.

The minimum suggested length for master passwords is 12 characters. Additionally, it is advised against using the master password on some other websites. LastPass asserts that users who have safe master passwords need not be concerned, but advises those who have not complied with the suggestions to “consider minimizing risk by changing passwords of websites you have stored.”

Concerned users may want to think about changing any important passwords kept in their vault and turning on two-factor authentication for the relevant online accounts. The CEO of the company, Karim Toubba, claimed in a new blog article that hackers got access to other “credentials and keys which were used to access and decrypt some storage volumes within the cloud-based storage service.”

The IP addresses from which clients were using the LastPass service, as well as corporate names, end-user identities, mailing addresses, email addresses, and phone numbers, were also stolen by hackers. The most alarming fact is that they were also able to “copy a backup of customer vault data from the encrypted storage container.”

Poe

Quora introduces Poe, a way to talk to AI chatbots like ChatGPT

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Quora this week launched Poe, a platform that allows individuals to ask questions, get instant answers, and engage in back-and-forth conversation with AI chatbots, indicating its involvement in text-generating AI systems like ChatGPT.

Poe
Image Source: analyticsinsight.net

Short for “Platform for Open Exploration,” Poe — which is invite-only and currently only available on iOS — is “designed to be a place where people can easily interact with a number of different AI agents,” a Quora spokesperson told TechCrunch via text message.

“We have learned a lot about building consumer internet products over the last 12 years building and operating Quora. And we are specifically experienced in serving people who are looking for knowledge,” the spokesperson said. “We believe much of what we’ve learned can be applied to this new domain where people are interfacing with large language models.”

Source: techcrunch.com

Poe, then, isn’t an attempt to develop a ChatGPT-like Ai system from the ground up. ChatGPT, which is adept at responding to questions on various topics from literature to coding, has been the source of debate due to its ability to provide responses that sound persuasive but aren’t factually correct.

Stack Overflow, a Q&A coding site, temporarily prohibited users from trying to share content generated by ChatGPT this month, claiming that the AI made it too simple for visitors to create responses and overflow the site with questionable answers.

Microsoft, GitHub, and OpenAI, for example, are being sued in a class action lawsuit for allegedly violating copyrighted material by letting Copilot simply repeat sections of licensed code without credit. Representatives of the art society portal ArtStation, which started enabling AI-generated craft on its platform earlier this year, began extensively rebelling by placing No AI Art images in their portfolios.

Poe’s initial release includes access to many text-generating Ai applications, including ChatGPT. At the moment, OpenAI does not offer a public API for ChatGPT. A Quora spokesperson declined to comment as to whether Quora does indeed have an alliance with OpenAI for Poe or some other form of early access.

Poe functions similarly to a text messenger app but for AI models the users can communicate with the models separately. Poe’s chat interface offers a variety of topics of conversation and use cases, such as posting help, preparing food, solving problems, and nature.

Poe comes with only a few models at launch, but Quora intends to add a way for model providers, such as businesses, to submit their systems for incorporation soon.

For the time being, Quora says it is concentrating on scalability, gathering feedback from beta testers, and addressing any issues that arise.

Activision Merger

COD gamers sue Microsoft to stop the Activision merger

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A lawsuit was filed by gamers to prevent Microsoft from Activision Merger, claiming that doing so would decrease consumer choice and impede competition.

A private consumer lawsuit was filed against Microsoft Corp. on Tuesday in a U.S. court, alleging that the technology corporation’s $69 billion offer to buy Activision Blizzard Inc., the company behind the video game “Call of Duty,” will unjustly stifle competition in the sector.

Activision Merger
Image Source: headtopics.com

About two weeks ago, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission filed a lawsuit with an administrative law judge to prevent Microsoft, the company that owns the Xbox system, from completing the biggest-ever acquisition in the video-gaming industry.

The gamers want to exert pressure on Microsoft in order to stop it from completing “the largest tech deal ever in the video gaming market and absorbing its main rival in the sector, which is similar to many of the FTC’s worries. Prior to filing suit, the FTC stated that it did so to prevent Microsoft from controlling a leading independent game studio.

The organization said that the Activision Merger would hurt competition between competing gaming platforms from Sony Group Corp. and Nintendo Co Ltd.

Ten video game gamers from California, New Mexico, and New Jersey filed the lawsuit. The plaintiffs identify Activision Blizzard as a significant rival that promotes industry-wide innovation and pricing competition in their lawsuit.

Consumers can object to acquisitions like this through the Clayton Antitrust Act, which gives courts the opportunity to consider the anti-competitive harms argued by consumers. The gamers who are suing Microsoft for potentially breaking antitrust laws are extremely concerned that the pricing of their favorite games may soon rise while the quality of those games may decline.

They claim that if the Activision Merger is approved, Microsoft would be in a position to monopolize the greatest talent and the most well-liked games in order to perhaps obtain “far-outsized market power.”

In a statement on Tuesday, a Microsoft spokesman justified the agreement and said that it would boost competition and generate more options for gamers and game creators. Microsoft President Brad Smith stated, “We have complete confidence in our case and welcome the opportunity to present our case in court,” following the FTC’s lawsuit.

Plaintiffs’ attorney Joseph Saveri in San Francisco stated in a statement, “as the video game industry continues to grow and evolve, it’s critical that we protect the market from monopolistic mergers that will harm consumers in the long run.”

The lawsuits offer a distinctive viewpoint to the discussion around Microsoft’s proposed acquisition of Activision, which Microsoft intends to conclude in 2023. They claim in their case that because Microsoft is aware that gamers are unlikely to switch to other games in place of their favorites, they are especially susceptible to price increases.

This means that Microsoft might block access to platforms or services outside of its gaming ecosystem and take popular games—like Call of Duty games, which are played by all plaintiffs.