Samsung's 2024 OLED TV lineup will feature both QD-OLED and WOLED panels, making it harder for consumers to distinguish between the two technologies. The company announced three new series without specifying the panel types, but reports suggest that even within the S90D series, both QD-OLED and WOLED may be used. Samsung's decision to use both panel types is attributed to LG Display's request not to position WOLED as inferior to QD-OLED.

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A directive known as Document 79 ramps up Beijing's effort to replace U.S. tech with homegrown alternatives. From a report: For American tech companies in China, the writing is on the wall. It's also on paper, in Document 79. The 2022 Chinese government directive expands a drive that is muscling U.S. technology out of the country -- an effort some refer to as "Delete A," for Delete America. Document 79 was so sensitive that high-ranking officials and executives were only shown the order and weren't allowed to make copies, people familiar with the matter said. It requires state-owned companies in finance, energy and other sectors to replace foreign software in their IT systems by 2027. American tech giants had long thrived in China as they hot-wired the country's meteoric industrial rise with computers, operating systems and software. Chinese leaders want to sever that relationship, driven by a push for self-sufficiency and concerns over the country's long-term security. The first targets were hardware makers. Dell, International Business Machines and Cisco Systems have gradually seen much of their equipment replaced by products from Chinese competitors. Document 79, named for the numbering on the paper, targets companies that provide the software -- enabling daily business operations from basic office tools to supply-chain management. The likes of Microsoft and Oracle are losing ground in the field, one of the last bastions of foreign tech profitability in the country. The effort is just one salvo in a yearslong push by Chinese leader Xi Jinping for self-sufficiency in everything from critical technology such as semiconductors and fighter jets to the production of grain and oilseeds. The broader strategy is to make China less dependent on the West for food, raw materials and energy, and instead focus on domestic supply chains.

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The European Union has confirmed it's looking into Apple's decision to close Epic Games' developer account -- citing three separate regulations that may apply. From a report: Yesterday the Fortnite maker revealed Apple had terminated the account, apparently reversing a decision to approve the developer account last month. Epic had planned to launch its own app store, the Epic Games Stores, on iOS in Europe, as well as Fortnight on Apple's platform. And it accused Apple of breaching the bloc's Digital Markets Act (DMA) by killing its developer account. Responding to the development, a European Commission spokesperson told TechCrunch it has "requested further explanations on this from Apple under the DMA." The pan-EU regulation applies on Apple from midnight Brussels' time today. The spokesperson also said the EU is evaluating whether Apple's actions raise compliance "doubts" with regard to two other regulations -- the Digital Services Act (DSA) and the platform-to-business regulation (P2B) -- given what they described as "the links between the developer program membership and the App Store as designated VLOP" (very large online platform).

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An anonymous reader shares a report: For the past 10 years it has remained one of the modern era's greatest mysteries. A commercial airliner with a strong safety record carrying 239 people vanishing from the map, spawning a wide variety of competing theories, books and documentaries and leaving the families of those left behind asking themselves every March 8 -- what happened to those aboard Malaysia Airlines flight 370? In an era when black boxes have been successfully hauled up from the very depths of the ocean and whole chunks of a downed airliner painstakingly pieced back together to determine what caused a catastrophe, the fate of MH370 remains infuriatingly elusive. It is a plane crash without a plane. A disaster without conclusive proof of what happened to its victims. A story that anyone who embarks on a commercial flight can instantly relate to but one that, for now at least, doesn't have a closing chapter. [...] This week, many loved ones of those missing returned to Malaysia to urge local authorities to relaunch a search ahead of Friday's anniversary. [...] Aviation experts tell CNN that improved detection technology will likely bring families closer to the missing plane than they ever have been, if a search were to be relaunched. But that will not be cheap. Hundreds of millions of dollars were spent scouring more than 710,000 square kilometers of the Indian Ocean until 2018, but nothing transpired that moved our understanding on from that already available since the very early days.

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China is in the process of raising more than $27 billion for its largest chip fund to date, accelerating the development of cutting-edge technologies to counter a US campaign to thwart its rise. From a report: The National Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund is amassing a pool of capital from local governments and state enterprises for its third vehicle that should exceed the 200 billion yuan of its second fund, according to people familiar with the matter. Known as the Big Fund, the state-backed firm is expanding its remit just as the US prepares to sharply escalate technology curbs designed to curtail Chinese chip and artificial intelligence progress. The establishment of a much larger third fund -- directly overseen by China's powerful tech ministry -- signals a resurgent effort to harness the world's largest semiconductor market after years of mixed success with central stewardship. Huawei and its partner Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. still had to rely on US-origin technology to build an advanced processor last year.

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President Biden included a nod to a rising issue in the entertainment and tech industries during his State of the Union address Thursday evening, calling for a ban on AI voice impersonations. From a report: "Here at home, I have signed over 400 bipartisan bills. There's more to pass my unity agenda," President Biden said, beginning to list off a series of different proposals that he hopes to address if elected to a second term. "Strengthen penalties on fentanyl trafficking, pass bipartisan privacy legislation to protect our children online, harness the promise of AI to protect us from peril, ban AI voice impersonations and more." The president did not elaborate on the types of guardrails or penalties that he would plan to institute around the rising technology, or if it would extend to the entertainment industry. AI was a peak concern for SAG-AFTRA during the actors union's negotiations with and strike against the major studios last year.

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Microsoft revealed earlier this year that Russian state-sponsored hackers had been spying on the email accounts of some members of its senior leadership team. Now, Microsoft is disclosing that the attack, from the same group behind the SolarWinds attack, has also led to some source code being stolen in what Microsoft describes as an ongoing attack. From a report: "In recent weeks, we have seen evidence that Midnight Blizzard [Nobelium] is using information initially exfiltrated from our corporate email systems to gain, or attempt to gain, unauthorized access," explains Microsoft in a blog post. "This has included access to some of the company's source code repositories and internal systems. To date we have found no evidence that Microsoft-hosted customer-facing systems have been compromised." It's not clear what source code was accessed, but Microsoft warns that the Nobelium group, or "Midnight Blizzard," as Microsoft refers to them, is now attempting to use "secrets of different types it has found" to try to further breach the software giant and potentially its customers. "Some of these secrets were shared between customers and Microsoft in email, and as we discover them in our exfiltrated email, we have been and are reaching out to these customers to assist them in taking mitigating measures," says Microsoft.

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Astra Space, a California-based rocket company, has announced it will go private at a valuation significantly lower than its $2.1 billion debut in 2021. The company's market value is about $13 million at current levels. The company's co-founders, Chris Kemp and Adam London, will acquire all outstanding shares at $0.50 each, well below the current trading price of $0.80. Astra has faced challenges, with only two successful launches out of seven attempts of its Rocket 3 vehicle. The company pivoted to the larger Rocket 4 in 2022 but has yet to conduct test launches. Astra faces competition from established players like Rocket Lab and Firefly, as well as new entrants such as ABL Space and Stoke Space. The company's future remains uncertain as it navigates a competitive small launch market, with SpaceX's Transporter missions offering lower prices by launching dozens of satellites simultaneously on its Falcon 9 booster.

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An anonymous reader shares a report: In the 1960s, secret test flights of advanced government spy planes generated U.F.O. sightings. More recently, government and commercial drones, new kinds of satellites and errant weather balloons have led to a renaissance in unusual observations. But, according to a new report, none of these sightings were of alien spacecraft. The new congressionally mandated Pentagon report found no evidence that the government was covering up knowledge of extraterrestrial technology and said there was no evidence that any U.F.O. sightings represented alien visitation to Earth. The 63-page document is the most sweeping rebuttal the Pentagon has issued in recent years to counter claims that it has information on extraterrestrial visits or technology. But amid widespread distrust of the government, the report is unlikely to calm a growing obsession with aliens. Maj. Gen. Patrick Ryder, a Defense Department spokesman, said the Pentagon approached the report with an open mind and no preconceived notions, but simply found no evidence to back up claims of secret programs, hidden alien technology or anything else extraterrestrial. The new report suggests that the public's belief that the government is hiding what it knows will probably continue. The report adds: Nevertheless the public is unlikely to be swayed. Many people dismiss the government's claims that nothing interesting is going on in Pentagon videos that appear to show strange objects, citing accounts by Navy pilots that they observed objects whose movements cannot be easily explained. The new report notes that in the past, particularly in the 1950s, there was interest in U.F.O.s, but today the attention on unexplained sightings is greater than ever before. Politico adds: The Pentagon has disclosed that the government once considered a program to recover and reverse-engineer any captured alien spacecraft, an effort that never came to fruition but fueled conspiracy theories about a cover-up.

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A United Airlines Holdings aircraft ran off the taxiway into a grassy area after landing at Houston Friday, the third incident this week involving the airline's Boeing planes. From a report: United Flight 2477, with 160 passengers and six crew, had just landed at George Bush Intercontinental Airport about 8 a.m. local time Friday when it veered into the grass on a turn. No one was injured, and passengers left the plane on a set of stairs before being bused to the terminal, the airline said. The incident follows the mid-air loss of a tire from a United Boeing 777-200 Thursday, just after the plane took off from San Francisco on a flight to Osaka, Japan, and an engine fire on a United flight from Houston to Fort Myers, Florida, earlier this week. The plane in the Houston-to-Florida flight had to make an emergency landing after one of its engines burst into flames 10 minutes after takeoff. The 21-year-old aircraft was also a 737 -- but an earlier version than the Max, according to FlightRadar24.

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Epic Games, in a blog post: Apple has told us and committed to the European Commission that they will reinstate our developer account. This sends a strong signal to developers that the European Commission will act swiftly to enforce the Digital Markets Act and hold gatekeepers accountable. We are moving forward as planned to launch the Epic Games Store and bring Fortnite back to iOS in Europe. Epic CEO Tim Sweeney adds: The DMA went through its first major challenge with Apple banning Epic Games Sweden from competing with the App Store, and the DMA just had its first major victory. Following a swift inquiry by the European Commission, Apple notified the Commission and Epic that it would relent and restore our access to bring back Fortnite and launch Epic Games Store in Europe under the DMA law.

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Microsoft has abruptly pulled a feature from OneDrive that allows users to upload files to the cloud storage service directly from a URL. From a report: The feature turned up as a preview in 2021 and was intended for scenarios "where the file contents aren't available, or are expensive to transfer," according to Microsoft. It was particularly useful for mobile users, for whom uploading files directly through their apps could be costly. Much better to simply point OneDrive at a given URL and let it handle the upload itself. However, the experimental feature never made it past the consumer version of OneDrive. It also didn't fit with Microsoft's "vision for OneDrive as a cloud storage service that syncs your files across devices." Indeed, the idea of hosing data into OneDrive from a remote source sits at odds with the file synchronization model being championed by Microsoft and conveniently available from macOS and Windows.

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Astronomers have observed a distant planet that could be entirely covered in a deep water ocean, in findings that advance the search for habitable conditions beyond Earth. From a report: The observations, by Nasa's James Webb space telescope (JWST), revealed water vapour and chemical signatures of methane and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of the exoplanet, which is twice Earth's radius and about 70 light years away. This chemical mix is consistent with a water world where the ocean would span the entire surface, and a hydrogen-rich atmosphere, according to researchers from the University of Cambridge, although they do not envisage a balmy, inviting seascape. "The ocean could be upwards of 100 degrees [Celsius] or more," said Prof Nikku Madhusudhan, who led the analysis. At high atmospheric pressure, an ocean this hot could still be liquid, "but it's not clear if it would be habitable," he added. This interpretation is favoured in a paper published in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics Letters, but is disputed by a Canadian team that made additional observations of the same exoplanet, which is known as TOI-270 d. They detected the same atmospheric chemicals but argue the planet would be too hot for liquid water -- possibly 4,000C -- and instead would feature a rocky surface topped by an incredibly dense atmosphere of hydrogen and water vapour. Whichever view wins out, these latest observations showcase the stunning insights James Webb is giving into the nature of planets beyond our solar system. The telescope captures the starlight that has been filtered through the atmospheres of orbiting planets to give detailed breakdowns of the chemical elements present. From this, astronomers can build up a picture of conditions at a planet's surface -- and the likelihood of life being able to survive there.

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An anonymous reader shares a report: Dario Amodei, chief executive of the high-profile A.I. start-up Anthropic, told Congress last year that new A.I. technology could soon help unskilled but malevolent people create large-scale biological attacks, such as the release of viruses or toxic substances that cause widespread disease and death. Senators from both parties were alarmed, while A.I. researchers in industry and academia debated how serious the threat might be. Now, over 90 biologists and other scientists who specialize in A.I. technologies used to design new proteins -- the microscopic mechanisms that drive all creations in biology -- have signed an agreement that seeks to ensure that their A.I.-aided research will move forward without exposing the world to serious harm. The biologists, who include the Nobel laureate Frances Arnold and represent labs in the United States and other countries, also argued that the latest technologies would have far more benefits than negatives, including new vaccines and medicines. "As scientists engaged in this work, we believe the benefits of current A.I. technologies for protein design far outweigh the potential for harm, and we would like to ensure our research remains beneficial for all going forward," the agreement reads. The agreement does not seek to suppress the development or distribution of A.I. technologies. Instead, the biologists aim to regulate the use of equipment needed to manufacture new genetic material. This DNA manufacturing equipment is ultimately what allows for the development of bioweapons, said David Baker, the director of the Institute for Protein Design at the University of Washington, who helped shepherd the agreement.

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Ahead of its IPO, Reddit has announced a set of tools for businesses that want to be more active on the platform -- including the ability to see which subreddits are mentioning a brand. For businesses, Reddit says it's a way to "establish and grow a meaningful organic presence on Reddit."

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Streamers narrowly avoided getting shut out at the 2024 Oscars: Netflix came away with just one trophy and Apple left empty-handed, after they garnered a total of 32 nominations. From a report: Netflix collected its one win for Wes Anderson's "The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar," an adaptation of a Roald Dahl story, in the live action short film category. The 40-minute film, with a cast that includes Benedict Cumberbatch, Dev Patel, Ben Kingsley, and Ralph Fiennes, is the first Oscar for Anderson (who wasn't in attendance to receive the award). Heading into Sunday's 96th Academy Awards, Netflix led all studios and platforms with 19 nominations across 11 films, including seven for Bradley Cooper's "Maestro" -- which was shut out. Apple had picked up 13 nods, including 10 for Martin Scorsese's "Killers of the Flower Moon," which also drew a goose egg. Since 2017, Netflix has now won 23 Oscars in all. But the best picture prize continues to elude the streamer as "Maestro" lost out to this year's awards powerhouse, "Oppenheimer." Nor has Netflix won in the lead actor or actress categories, coming up empty this year after four noms (Cooper and Carey Mulligan for "Maestro"; Colman Domingo for "Rustin"; and Annette Bening for "Nyad"). "Killers of the Flower Moon's" nominations included one for Scorsese in the best director category. His only Oscar to date came in 2007 for "The Departed" (for director). In 2020, his mafioso pic "The Irishman" for Netflix was shut out at the Oscars after receiving 10 nominations.

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Elon Musk's AI startup xAI will open-source Grok, its chatbot rivaling ChatGPT, this week, the entrepreneur said, days after suing OpenAI and complaining that the Microsoft-backed startup had deviated from its open-source roots. From a report: xAI released Grok last year, arming it with features including access to "real-time" information and views undeterred by "politically correct" norms. The service is available to customers paying for X's $16 monthly subscription.

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An anonymous reader shares a report: Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang recently took to the stage to claim that Nvidia's GPUs are "so good that even when the competitor's chips are free, it's not cheap enough." Huang further explained that Nvidia GPU pricing isn't really significant in terms of an AI data center's total cost of ownership (TCO). The impressive scale of Nvidia's achievements in powering the booming AI industry is hard to deny; the company recently became the world's third most valuable company thanks largely to its AI-accelerating GPUs, but Jensen's comments are sure to be controversial as he dismisses a whole constellation of competitors, such as AMD, Intel and a range of competitors with ASICs and other types of custom AI silicon. Starting at 22:32 of the YouTube recording, John Shoven, Former Trione Director of SIEPR and the Charles R. Schwab Professor Emeritus of Economics, Stanford University, asks, "You make completely state-of-the-art chips. Is it possible that you'll face competition that claims to be good enough -- not as good as Nvidia -- but good enough and much cheaper? Is that a threat?" Jensen Huang begins his response by unpacking his tiny violin. "We have more competition than anyone on the planet," claimed the CEO. He told Shoven that even Nvidia's customers are its competitors, in some cases. Also, Huang pointed out that Nvidia actively helps customers who are designing alternative AI processors and goes as far as revealing to them what upcoming Nvidia chips are on the roadmap.

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An anonymous reader shares a report: Linus Torvalds has released version 6.8 of the Linux Kernel. "So it took a bit longer for the commit counts to come down this release than I tend to prefer," Torvalds wrote on the Linx kernel mailing list on Sunday, "but a lot of that seemed to be about various selftest updates (networking in particular) rather than any actual real sign of problems." "And the last two weeks have been pretty quiet, so I feel there's no real reason to delay 6.8." So he delivered it, ending his own speculation that this cut of the kernel might need an eighth release candidate. Torvalds found time to note what he described as "a bit of random git numerology" as when work ended on this version of the kernel the git repository used to track it contained 9.996 million objects." "This is the last mainline kernel to have less than ten million git objects," Torvalds wrote. "Of course, there is absolutely nothing special about it apart from a nice round number. Git doesn't care," he added. Fair enough -- especially as noted that other trees, such as linux-next, have well and truly passed ten million objects.

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