Category: Technology

  • Xiaomi Suffers From Less Demand for Mobile Phones

    Xiaomi Suffers From Less Demand for Mobile Phones

    The Chinese electronics group Xiaomi has seen turnover fall sharply in the third quarter. A worldwide drop in demand for smartphones bothered the company.

     

    Less desire to buy on the home market due to the many corona lockdowns in China also played a role. Xiaomi also sells many other electronics in Asia, such as vacuum cleaners, air purifiers and humidifiers, electric toothbrushes and hair dryers.

    The company sold 70.5 billion yuan products in July, August and September, down 10 percent from a year earlier. Turnover amounted to 9.6 billion euros.

    Below the line, a loss of 1.5 billion yuan remained. That was caused because Xiaomi wrote off 3 billion yuan on investments in other companies.

    The downturn is not the first for Xiaomi, which also has to deal with increased inflation and disappointing economic growth, especially in China. Although turnover fell for the first time on an annual basis in the first quarter, it decreased by 20 percent in the second quarter.

    Xiaomi has high expectations for the future of the electric car market. However, an investment of more than 9 billion euros will still take several years to yield a return.

  • China Would Like to Fine Ant Group of Jack Ma (Alibaba) of Billion Yuan

    China Would Like to Fine Ant Group of Jack Ma (Alibaba) of Billion Yuan

    The Chinese authorities are preparing to fine the Ant Group of the Chinese billionaire Jack Ma 18.2 billion yuan. That says the Reuters news agency based on several anonymous sources.

     

    The move would also herald the end of government regulation of the financial services company.

    The Chinese government intervened two years ago at Ant Group, a subsidiary of the well-known Chinese webshop Alibaba. Chinese regulators blocked Ant’s planned IPO because they feared the company would pose a risk to the stability of China’s financial system. Ant’s IPO should have been the largest in the world.

    Shortly before the government interference, CEO Jack Ma had been critical of the financial regulators. After that, he disappeared from public view for a long time.

    For a long time, the Chinese government took stricter action against the large technology groups in the country that have a lot of power and, until recently, were only bound by a few rules. In April 2021, for example, Alibaba was fined a record 18.2 billion yuan for abusing its dominant market position. But strict government action has eased somewhat in recent months as part of measures to boost the economy after the blows it received from the corona pandemic.

    According to Reuters, the fine could be officially announced in the second quarter of 2023. In time, Ant could go for an IPO again, the news agency says.

  • The EU Invests 2.4 Billion Euros in Its Own Communication System in Space

    The EU Invests 2.4 Billion Euros in Its Own Communication System in Space

    Over the next five years, the European Union will invest 2.4 billion euros in installing a communication system for European governments in space.

     

    The programme” puts the EU ‘at the forefront of secure satellite communications’, says European Commission Vice-President Margrethe Vestager. Member States and the European Parliament have agreed to the project, dubbed IRIS square (IRIS²).

    According to the EU’s day-to-day administration, it is of the utmost importance that Europe has a secure network of its own telecommunications satellites to be less dependent on third parties, such as the United States.

    Moreover, such a system makes internet and other services possible in places in the European Union where ground networks are missing or are disrupted. The EU also wants to use communication satellites for defence purposes.

    The public tender for the satellite systems is expected to start early next year. It is the EU’s third space programme, alongside the civilian global satellite navigation system Galileo and the Earth observation program Copernicus.

  • European Commissioner: Twitter Should Appoint More Moderators in the EU

    European Commissioner: Twitter Should Appoint More Moderators in the EU

    Twitter must appoint more moderators in Europe to check which messages appear on the social medium.

     

    Billionaire Elon Musk has been working on reducing the number of employees in this area since his recent takeover, according to European Commissioner Thierry Breton (Internal Market), but the Frenchman disagrees. He told radio station Franceinfo.

    Breton wants to form a professional relationship with Musk about where Twitter should go in Europe.

    “He will have to make his algorithms public. Then, we will be in control; people will no longer be able to say nonsense,” said the European Commissioner. Musk has just indicated that he wants to promote freedom of expression on Twitter.

    The European Commission previously warned Musk that Twitter must also comply with European rules under his rule.

  • Voluntary Departures and Technical Problems Plague Twitter

    Voluntary Departures and Technical Problems Plague Twitter

    The chaos at Twitter continues as employees are both required to come to the office, while those offices are suddenly closed. In the meantime, the platform is struggling with technical problems that some see as the beginning of the end.

     

    After Musk had already fired half of the staff and shortly afterwards rehired some because they turned out to be more crucial than he thought, Musk launched a new personnel policy in recent days: employees had a choice: to agree to long working hours and a much higher workload or resign for the next three months.

    That call also boomeranged back in Musk’s face. According to Bloomberg, far more people than thought chose not to be pushed by Musk and preferred to be fired. This means that Twitter now has to temporarily close its offices until November 21 because it is currently unclear who will still be allowed access to Twitter’s buildings.

    Meanwhile, Musk also lightened his tone around homework. He will tolerate remote work if your manager can confirm that you are doing an exceptional job.

    With the great exodus and general chaos at Twitter, many fear that sooner or later, the site will go under as a lot of knowledge of its inner workings disappears. For example, a plan by Musk to disable some microservices already led to two-step verification no longer working so that some people could no longer log in.

    The stability of the platform seemed to waver briefly last night. According to Downdetector, there were a lot of reports that Twitter was unreachable between midnight and this morning. This prompts many to fear the end of the site with the hashtag #riptwitter. However, we have to nuance that the reports are now in a downward trend again.

    Musk himself, meanwhile, continues to laugh at the situation. He claims that Twitter has never been more popular and shares memes about Twitter’s demise. It seems that the platform will continue to operate for the time being, but it remains unclear how much staff will be required and how long that staff can sustain the whims of Musk, who is regularly described by his portion of drama as “space Karen.”

    Although Musk likes to boast about Twitter’s success, it is striking that Twitter is actively blocking competitor Mastodon. As a result, anyone attempting to tweet the Joinmastodon.com URL will receive a warning that it will be blocked because it is a potentially malicious link. As is often the case with Musk’s interventions, it is only half done because Joinmastodon.org tweeting is still possible.

    Anyone who fears that the end of Twitter is near can download their archive completely. That is simple but requires a few hours of waiting time. In your account, click on ‘more’ -> settings and support -> settings and privacy -> Your account. There you click on ‘Download archive of your data’. Then you must enter your password and enter the code sent to your email address or telephone number.

    Attention: the archive is not immediately available; it can take several hours to days before you receive a notification. Afterwards, the download will be available for a few days. That way, you still have an archive of your tweets and interactions should the Twitter Titanic sink.

  • Meta Stops Smartwatches and Portal Hub

    Meta Stops Smartwatches and Portal Hub

    Facebook mother Meta would halt the development of a series of hardware products. Among other things, a wearable and the Portal hub for video calls will be deleted.

     

    Meta announced the shutdown at a general meeting with employees, according to Reuters news agency sources. In practice, this involves the discontinuation of several divisions. However, virtual reality headsets will continue to exist.

    But a project on smartwatches with which you can monitor your health and exchange messages will be scrapped. There would also be no new version of the Portal. That is the intelligent speaker with a screen that Meta released a few years ago.

    The Portal was intended to make video calls more accessible, but it doesn’t seem to fit into the current metaverse strategy (or just wasn’t very popular). Its production and further development are therefore discontinued.

    The tech giant Meta is working on a solid savings round this month. Last week, the company already cut more than 11,000 jobs. As a result, Meta’s (and a range of other tech companies’) sales have fallen in recent months, and profits have halved.

  • Lock Screen Android is Bypassable

    Lock Screen Android is Bypassable

    A security researcher accidentally exposed how to bypass the lock screen on Android. As a result, Google paid him $70,000 for reporting the issue.

     

    David Schütz describes on his blog how it is relatively easy to bypass the lock screen. The big ‘but’ is that you need physical access to the device for a few minutes.

    Schütz locked himself out of his own device by using the wrong PIN code. However, after entering the PUK code, he noticed that he could directly enter the device with only the fingerprint scanner. At the same time, after a reboot, you normally also need your lock pattern.

    That fingerprint scanner also turned out to be circumventable. By first offering a wrong finger often enough, it is no longer requested afterwards. So in principle, you have to pass the lock screen, but because it does not appear, you can immediately enter the device.

    Schütz was able to reproduce the problem with both a Pixel 6 and Pixel 5, each time with all patches and updates. He reported the issue to Google in June 2022, which it has now addressed since the November update. He also received a $70,000 bug bounty for the report.

  • Apple and Amazon Sued Over iPhone and iPad Price Fixing

    Apple and Amazon Sued Over iPhone and iPad Price Fixing

    Tech companies Apple and Amazon have been sued in the United States. The companies are accused of having agreed on prices for iPads and iPhones.

     

    The companies would do this by excluding other sellers of the latest Apple products from Amazon’s website, according to reports from the Reuters news agency.

    An agreement that passed on into effect in January 2019 specified that Apple would give Amazon discounts of up to 10 percent on its products. In return, Amazon only allowed seven of its 600 resellers to continue using its platform.

    According to the complainants, building barriers to keep competitors out and thus raise prices is precisely the kind of behaviour the US Congress wants to prevent through antitrust laws.

    In the third quarter of this year, Apple and Amazon combined product revenues exceeded $125 billion. An Italian judge recently cancelled a €173 million fine imposed on Apple and Amazon by Italy’s Antitrust Commission for alleged price fixing.

  • Musk Wants Twitter Staff in the Office Minimum 40 Hours a Week

    Musk Wants Twitter Staff in the Office Minimum 40 Hours a Week

    Elon Musk ended the social medium’s work-from-home policy in his first email to Twitter staff. Instead, the new owner of the messaging service said he expects his employees to be in the office “minimum of 40 hours a week”.

    Under the previous leadership, Twitter had made it possible for everyone to always work from home.

    In the email, Musk also says that economic expectations are wrong. He expects this to affect the advertising revenue, which Twitter relies heavily on on. Musk wants Twitter to get half of its revenue from subscription services.

    The billionaire has already tinkered with Twitter’s existing subscription service. At Twitter Blue, the price went up. From now on, paying Twitter users will also receive a blue tick, previously reserved for people and organizations that Twitter verified.

  • Crypto Platform Binance Will Not Take Over Rival FTX.com After All

    Crypto Platform Binance Will Not Take Over Rival FTX.com After All

    Crypto platform Binance, which had just announced its intention to acquire its troubled rival FTX.com, has said it is withdrawing from the deal.

     

    After an audit of FTX’s operations, “we have unquestionable not to ensue with the acquisition of FTX.com,” it said in a tweet. On Tuesday, Binance said it wanted to acquire FTX “to help customers” after the platform encountered liquidity problems. Those same liquidity problems were partly due to a bank run after Binance started to dump FTX tokens massively.

    Binance also mentioned in the tweet press reports about FTX’s mismanagement of client funds and the investigation launched by US authorities. The US Justice Department and the US stock market watchdog have undertaken an initial analysis after the FTX crash earlier this week. Authorities fear FTX did not register all of its funds before selling them to investors.

    “Initially, we hoped that we could help FTX customers provide liquidity, but the matters are beyond our control or aptitude to help,” Binance said. As a result, the future of FTX.com is now uncertain. The crypto market has also been falling for several days due to the scandal. A bitcoin is now worth less than $16,000.