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  • The identities behind the 30 unindicted co-conspirators in Trump’s Georgia case | CNN Politics

    The identities behind the 30 unindicted co-conspirators in Trump’s Georgia case | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Fulton County’s sweeping indictment against former President Donald Trump and 18 additional co-defendants also includes details involving 30 “unindicted co-conspirators” – people who Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis alleges took part in the criminal conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election.

    Some of the co-conspirators are key Trump advisers, like Boris Epshteyn, while several others are likely Georgia officials who were the state’s fake electors for Donald Trump.

    One of the unindicted co-conspirators who appears multiple times in the indictment is Georgia’s Republican Lt. Gov. Burt Jones. Willis was barred by a state judge from investigating Jones after she hosted a fundraiser last year for Jones’ Democratic opponent when he was a state senator running for lieutenant governor.

    The 98-page document alleges the 30 unindicted co-conspirators, who are not named, “constituted a criminal organization whose members and associates engaged in various related criminal activities” across the 41 charges laid out in the indictment.

    “Prosecutors use the ‘co-conspirator’ label for people who are not charged in the indictment but nonetheless were participants in the crime,” said Elie Honig, a CNN senior legal analyst and former federal and state prosecutor. “We do this to protect the identity and reputation of uncharged people – though they often are readily identifiable – and, at times, to turn up the pressure and try to flip them before a potential indictment drops.”

    CNN was able to identify some of the co-conspirators by piecing together details included in the indictment. Documents reviewed from previous reporting also provide clues, especially the reams of emails and testimony from the House January 6 Committee’s report released late last year.

    CNN has been able to identify or narrow down nearly all of the unindicted co-conspirators:

    The indictment refers to Trump’s speech on November 4, 2020, “falsely declaring victory in the 2020 presidential election” and that Individual 1 discussed a draft of that speech approximately four days earlier, on October 31, 2020.

    The January 6 committee obtained an email from Fitton sent on October 31 to Trump’s assistant Molly Michael and his communications adviser Dan Scavino, which says, “Please see below a draft statement as you requested.”

    The statement Fitton wrote also says in part, “We had an election today – and I won.”

    The indictment states that co-conspirator 3 appeared at the infamous November 19, 2020, press conference at the Republican National Committee headquarters in Washington, with Rudy Giuliani, one of the defendants in the case. Epshteyn was there.

    A November 19, 2020 photo shows Trump campaign advisor Boris Epshteyn at the Republican National Committee headquarters in Washington, DC.

    The indictment also includes two emails between co-conspirator 3, John Eastman and Kenneth Chesebro, two lawyers who pushed the strategy of then-Vice President Mike Pence trying to overturn the election on January 6, 2021, including one with a draft memo for options of how to proceed on January 6.

    According to emails released by the January 6 committee, Epshteyn was the third person on those emails.

    Individual 4 received an email from co-defendant David Shafer, who was then Georgia’s Republican Party chair, on November 20, 2020, that said Scott Graham Hall, a Georgia bail bondsman, “has been looking into the election on behalf of the President at the request of David Bossie,” according to the indictment.

    CNN obtained court documents that show Shafer sent this email to Sinners in November 2020: “Scott Hall has been looking into the election on behalf of the President at the request of David Bossie. I know him.” Hall is one of the 19 defendants charged in the indictment.

    The indictment notes an additional email from December 12, 2020, from Shafer to Individual 4 advising them to “touch base” with each of the Trump presidential elector nominees in Georgia in advance of the December 14, 2020, meeting to confirm their attendance.

    CNN reporting from June 2022 reveals an email exchange between Sinners and David Shafer on December 13, 2020, 18 hours before the group of alternate electors gathered at the Georgia State Capitol.

    “I must ask for your complete discretion in this process,” Sinners wrote. “Your duties are imperative to ensure the end result – a win in Georgia for President Trump – but will be hampered unless we have complete secrecy and discretion.”

    Kerik’s attorney, Tim Parlatore, confirmed to CNN that his client is the unnamed individual listed in the indictment as co-conspirator 5. The indictment refers to co-conspirator 5 taking part in several meetings with lawmakers in Pennsylvania and Arizona, states Trump was contesting after the 2020 election.

    That included the meeting Kerik attended at the White House on November 25, 2020, with a group of Pennsylvania legislators, along with Trump, then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, Giuliani, Jenna Ellis and individual 6.

    Former New York Police Department Commissioner Bernie Kerik at Trump National Golf Club on June 13.

    Parlatore took issue with Willis’ definition of co-conspirator in the case of Kerik, saying that the indictment only refers to him in the context of receiving emails and attending meetings.

    The indictment says on November 25, 2020, Trump, Meadows, Giuliani, Ellis, Individuals 5 and 6 met at the White House with a group of Pennsylvania legislators.

    According to the January 6 committee report, Waldron was among the visitors who were at the White House that day, along with Kerik and attorney Katherine Freiss. Cassidy Hutchinson, former aide to Meadows, explained that their conversation with the president touched on holding a special session of the Pennsylvania state legislature to appoint Trump electors.

    The indictment also says on December 21, 2020, Sidney Powell, a defendant in the case, sent an email to Individuals 6, 21 and 22 that they were to immediately “receive a copy of all data” from Dominion’s voting systems in Michigan.

    The Washington Post reported last August that the email stated Waldron was among the three people to receive the data, along with Conan Hayes and Todd Sanders.

    Waldron at a hearing in front of Michigan lawmakers in December 2020.

    Waldron is the only person who was involved in both the White House meeting and received the Powell email.

    The indictment says Giuliani re-tweeted a post from co-conspirator 8 on December 7, 2020, calling upon Georgia voters to contact their local representatives and ask them to sign a petition for a special session to ensure “every legal vote is counted.” The date and content of the tweet match a tweet posted by Jones, who was at the time a state senator.

    Burt Jones, Georgia's Republican Lieutenant Governor

    Jones, who was elected lieutenant governor in November, appears more than a dozen times throughout the indictment as co-conspirator 8, including as a fake elector.

    After the 2020 election, Jones was calling for a special session of the Georgia legislature, something Gov. Brian Kemp and former Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan refused to do.

    On Thursday, Pete Skandalakis, the executive director of the Prosecuting Attorneys Council of Georgia, told CNN that he will appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Jones’ role in the state’s 2020 election interference case, after a judge blocked Willis from investigating him last year.

    The indictment lists several emails sent to co-conspirator 9 related to preparations for the fake electors who met on December 14, 2020, including an email from Chesebro “to help coordinate with the other 5 contested States, to help with logistics of the electors in other States hopefully joining in casting their votes on Monday.”

    According to emails obtained by the January 6 committee, that email was sent to an account belong to the Georgia GOP treasurer, which at the time was Brannan.

    Co-conspirator 9 is also included in the indictment as one of the 13 unindicted co-conspirators who served as fake electors.

    Co-conspirators 10 and 11 are Georgia GOP officials Carolyn Fisher and Vikki Consiglio

    The indictment says on December 10, 2020, Ken Chesebro sent an email to Georgia state Republican Chair David Shafer and Individuals 9, 10 and 11, with documents that were to be used by Trump electors to create fake certificates.

    The January 6 committee obtained as part of its evidence an email from Chesebro sent on December 10 sent to Shafer and three other email addresses. One is for Carolyn Fisher, the former Georgia GOP first vice chair, one is for the Georgia Republican Party treasurer and one is for the Georgia GOP assistant treasurer, the role Consiglio was serving in 2020.

    The email contains attachments of memos and certificates that could be used to help swap out the Biden electors with a slate of electors for Trump.

    Both co-conspirators 10 and 11 also served as fake electors in Georgia.

    Co-conspirators 2 and 8-19 are the fake electors

    Of the 30 unindicted co-conspirators, 13 are listed as the fake electors for Donald Trump, who signed papers “unlawfully falsely holding themselves out as the duly elected and qualified presidential electors from the State of Georgia,” according to the indictment.

    Three of the 16 Georgia fake electors were charged in the indictment: David Shafer, Shawn Still and Cathleen Alston Latham.

    The other 13 fake electors, according to the fake electors certificate published by the National Archives, are Jones (co-conspirator 8), Joseph Brannan (co-conspirator 9), James “Ken” Carroll, Gloria Godwin, David Hanna, Mark Hennessy, Mark Amick, John Downey, Daryl Moody, Brad Carver, CB Yadav and two others who appear to be Individuals 10 and 11.

    Several of the fake electors who were not charged are only listed in the indictment for their role signing on as electors for Trump, while others, like Jones, appear in other parts of the indictment as being more actively involved with the alleged conspiracy.

    The indictment says Individual 20 was part of a meeting at the White House on December 18, 2020, with Trump, Giuliani and Powell, known to have discussed the possibility of seizing voting machines.

    The December 18 meeting featured prominently during some of the hearings from the January 6 committee. All but two of the outside advisers who attended have been named as co-defendants in the indictment already: former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn and former Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne.

    The meeting featured fiery exchanges between Trump’s White House lawyers and his team of outside advisers, including on whether to appoint Sidney Powell as special counsel to investigate voter fraud, according to the indictment and previous details that have been disclosed about the meeting.

    The outside advisers famously got into a screaming match with Trump’s White House lawyers – Pat Cipollone and Eric Herschmann – at the Oval Office meeting. Cipollone and Herschmann, along with Meadows, pushed back intensely on the proposals, Cipollone and Herschmann testified to the January 6 committee.

    Co-conspirators 21 and 22 are Conan Hayes and Todd Sanders

    Co-conspirators 21 and 22 are Conan Hayes and Todd Sanders – who are both affiliated with Byrne’s America Project, a conservative advocacy group that contributed funding to Arizona’s Republican ballot audit. Hayes was a former surfer from Hawaii and Sanders has a cybersecurity background in the private sector.

    The indictment says on Dec. 21, 2020, Sidney Powell sent an email to the chief operations officer of SullivanStrickler, saying that individual 6, who CNN identified as Waldron, along with individuals 21 and 22, were to immediately “receive a copy of all data” from Dominion’s voting systems in Michigan.

    According to the Washington Post, Conan and Todd were the other two people listed on the email to receive the data.

    The final eight co-conspirators listed in the indictment are connected to the effort to access voting machines in Georgia’s Coffee County.

    Co-conspirator 25 and 29 are a Cyber Ninjas CEO Doug Logan and analyst Jeffrey Lenberg

    The indictment says that Misty Hampton allowed co-conspirators 25 and 29 to access non-public areas of the Coffee County elections office on January 18, 2021. Logan and Lenberg were the two outsiders granted access to the elections office that day by Hampton, according to surveillance video previously obtained by CNN. No one else was given access to the office that day, according to a CNN review of the footage.

    The indictment also notes that co-conspirator 25 downloaded Coffee County election data that SullivanStrickler then had uploaded to a separate server. Documents previously obtained by CNN show five accounts that downloaded the data – one account belongs to Logan and none of them belong to Lenberg. Still, CNN could not definitively determine who exactly downloaded the data.

    Logan and his company conducted the so-called Republican audit of the 2020 ballots cast in Arizona’s Maricopa County.

    The indictment says that co-conspirator 28 “sent an e-mail to the Chief Operations Officer of SullivanStrickler LLC” directing him to transmit data copied from Coffee County to co-conspirator 30 and Powell. CNN has previously reported on emails Penrose and Powell arranged upfront payment to a cyber forensics firm that sent a team to Coffee County.

    This story has been updated with additional developments.

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  • Wall Street Journal: China bans use of iPhones for government officials | CNN Business

    Wall Street Journal: China bans use of iPhones for government officials | CNN Business

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    Hong Kong/New York
    CNN
     — 

    China has banned the use of iPhones for central government officials, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing unnamed people familiar with the matter.

    The WSJ reports that managers have been notifying staff of the ban via chat groups or meetings.

    CNN has reached out to China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Apple (AAPL), but has not received a response.

    A source who regularly deals with Chinese central government agencies told CNN that Chinese officials had already been following an unwritten rule of shunning iPhones for months despite the absence of a formal policy. The source asked not to be named due to the sensitivity of the subject.

    Last June, CNN reported that some Chinese government ministries had banned Teslas from entering their premises over security fears.

    Apple CEO Tim Cook made a high profile visit to the country in March. China is a significant market and manufacturing center for the company, accounting for around 19% of its overall revenue.

    The iPhone ban for government officials may be retaliation for similar moves made by the US against Chinese tech, and could have a chilling effect on Apple and other large foreign brands with an established China presence.

    China’s Huawei and ZTE have long been subject to US restrictions. And in November 2022, the Biden administration banned approvals of new telecommunications equipment from both companies because they pose “an unacceptable risk” to US national security.

    TikTok has also been banned from devices issued by multiple US institutions, including the House of Representatives, the City of New York, Montana, New Jersey, Ohio, Texas and Georgia, over concerns that the Chinese government could have access to users’ data through its Chinese parent company, Bytedance.

    — CNN’s Beijing bureau contributed to this article.

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  • China says it hasn’t issued any ban on Apple’s iPhone | CNN Business

    China says it hasn’t issued any ban on Apple’s iPhone | CNN Business

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    Beijing/Washington
    CNN
     — 

    China hasn’t issued any laws or rules to ban the use of iPhones or any other foreign phone brand, a Chinese government spokesperson said on Wednesday.

    “We have always been open to foreign companies and welcome them to seize the opportunities and share the fruits of China’s economic development,” Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Mao Ning said at a press conference in Beijing.

    She added that China has noticed “many media reports on the security incidents of Apple’s iPhone,” and that the country “attaches great importance to information and cyber security.”

    Mao did not elaborate. She also urged foreign cellphone companies in China to follow the country’s privacy laws and to prevent “any person or organization” stealing data stored in their customers’ phones.

    Last week, The Wall Street Journal reported that China had banned the use of iPhones by central government officials, citing unnamed people familiar with the matter. The report triggered a drop in Apple’s shares -— the stock suffered its largest daily loss in a month.

    The White House said on Wednesday it was watching the developments with “concern.”

    “It seems to be a piece of the kinds of aggressive and inappropriate retaliation to US companies that we’ve seen from the PRC in the past, that’s what this appears to be,” John Kirby, National Security Council spokesman, told reporters during a news conference, referring to the People’s Republic of China.

    “But the truth is, we don’t have perfect visibility on exactly what they’re doing and why, and we certainly would call on them to be more transparent about what they’re seeing and what they’re doing,” he said.

    Over the past few months, a growing list of American and international consulting companies have been ensnared in Beijing’s widening crackdown on what it perceives as national security risks.

    In March, Chinese authorities closed the Beijing office of Mintz Group, an American corporate due diligence firm, and detained five of its local staff. The company was later fined about $1.5 million for allegedly conducting unapproved statistical work in the country.

    In April, police questioned staff at the Shanghai offices of global consulting giant Bain & Company. A few weeks later, state media released details of multiple raids on the offices of Capvision, an international expert network firm with headquarters in Shanghai and New York, by state security forces.

    Apple is one of the highest profile and most established American brands in China. It is the largest foreign market for the company’s products, and Chinese sales represented about a fifth of the company’s total revenue last year. Apple hasn’t replied to a request for comment.

    The company doesn’t disclose iPhone sales by country, but analysts at research firm TechInsights estimate that there were more iPhone sales in China than in the United States last quarter. Apple also produces the majority of its iPhones in Chinese factories.

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  • Britain says may clear restructured Microsoft-Activision deal | CNN Business

    Britain says may clear restructured Microsoft-Activision deal | CNN Business

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    Microsoft’s restructuring of its proposed $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard “opens the door” to the biggest ever gaming deal being cleared, Britain’s antitrust regulator said Friday.

    Microsoft (MSFT) announced the deal in early 2022, but it was blocked in April by the UK competition regulator, which was concerned the US tech giant would gain too much control of the nascent cloud gaming market.

    Activision Blizzard (ATVI), which makes “Call of Duty,” agreed in August to sell its streaming rights to Ubisoft Entertainment in a new attempt to win over the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA).

    The Ubisoft divestment “substantially addresses previous concerns,” the Competition and Markets Authority said in a statement.

    “While the CMA has identified limited residual concerns with the new deal, Microsoft has put forward remedies which the CMA has provisionally concluded should address these issues,” the regulator said.

    Consummating the deal would turn Microsoft into the third largest video game publisher in the world, after Tencent and Sony.

    Microsoft said it was “encouraged by this positive development in the CMA’s review process.”

    “We presented solutions that we believe fully address the CMA’s remaining concerns related to cloud game streaming, and we will continue to work toward earning approval to close prior to the October 18 deadline,” Microsoft President Brad Smith said.

    Activision, which also makes “World of Warcraft,” “Overwatch” and “Candy Crush,” said the preliminary approval was great news for its future with Microsoft.

    The European Union waved the deal through in May after accepting Microsoft’s commitments to license Activision’s games to other platforms, the same remedies that Britain had rejected.

    The US Federal Trade Commission also opposes the deal, but it has failed to stop it. A federal judge ruled in July that the deal can close, a decision the FTC is appealing.

    The CMA’s decision to reopen the case was a radical departure from its play book, but it said on Friday it had been consistent and Microsoft had “substantially restructured the deal” to address its concerns.

    “It would have been far better, though, if Microsoft had put forward this restructure during our original investigation,” CMA Chief Executive Sarah Cardell said.

    “This case illustrates the costs, uncertainty and delay that parties can incur if a credible and effective remedy option exists but is not put on the table at the right time.”

    Equity analyst Sophie Lund-Yates at Hargreaves Lansdown said the loss of the cloud gaming rights was not an ideal concession for Microsoft to have to make, but it was necessary collateral if the deal were to be waved through.

    “This looks to be the final bump in the road,” she said.

    The CMA said there were “residual concerns” around the Ubisoft deal, but Microsoft has offered remedies to ensure the terms of the sale were enforceable by the regulator.

    It is now consulting on the remedies before making a final decision.

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  • Apple confirms that a bug and some apps are causing iPhone 15 models to overheat | CNN Business

    Apple confirms that a bug and some apps are causing iPhone 15 models to overheat | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    Apple is working on a software fix following reports that some of its new iPhone 15 models are overheating.

    The company told CNN the current overheating issues are not a safety risk and will not affect the long-term performance of impacted iPhone models. It also emphasized that iPhones have internal protections for components to help regulate the temperature if it gets too high.

    Apple also told CNN there are several circumstances that are causing its next-generation lineup to heat up. User complaints started to circulate after the latest iPhones hit stores on September 22.

    “We have identified a few conditions which can cause iPhone to run warmer than expected,” Apple told CNN in a statement.

    To start, overheating can occur with some recently updated third-party apps, causing them to “overload the system,” the company said. Those apps include Instagram, Uber and arcade racing game Asphalt 9.

    “We’re working with these app developers on fixes that are in the process of rolling out,” Apple said in a statement.

    It also said it discovered a bug in iOS 17 impacting some users, and plans to roll out a software update to address the issue. It did not comment on when the fix will be made available.

    In addition, Apple said the device may feel warmer during the first few days after setting up or restoring the device because of “increased background activity.”

    Apple’s support page warns users that a device can get hotter when restoring it from a backup, using graphic-intensive apps, streaming high-quality video, and charging it wirelessly.

    “These conditions are normal, and your device will return to a regular temperature when the process is complete or when you finish your activity,” the company states on the website. “If your device doesn’t display a temperature warning, you can keep using your device.”

    The news comes as demand for the iPhone 15 appears strong. Leading up to launch day, analysts at firms such as Wedbush Securities reported iPhone 15 pre-orders tracking better than originally expected, with a heavy demand on its premium iPhone 15 Pro offerings, especially the Pro Max. Delivery and shipment times have moved to late October through mid-November for various Pro models.

    The new iPhones come as Apple reported in August that sales fell for the third consecutive quarter. iPhone revenue came in at $39.7 billion for the third quarter, marking an approximately 2% year-over-year decline, as users update their devices less often.

    But according to Wedbush estimates, about 250 million iPhones have not been upgraded in more than four years. Advancements made to the processor, camera and charging system, along with discounts from mobile carriers, could be more than enough reason for users to finally upgrade this year.

    The iPhone 15 Pro starts at $1,099, and the iPhone 15 Pro Max starts at $1,199. Apple’s entry-level iPhones, the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus, cost $799 and $899, respectively.

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  • Microsoft Outlook will soon write emails for you | CNN Business

    Microsoft Outlook will soon write emails for you | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    Artificial intelligence could soon be writing more company emails in Microsoft Outlook, as the company expands its rollout of AI tools for corporate users.

    The Microsoft 365 Copilot tool – “your everyday AI companion,” as the company bills it – will help users write their emails to “keep your sentences concise and error-free.” The tool also summarizes long email threads to quickly draft suggested replies.

    Users with Microsoft 365 Personal or Family subscriptions will get more advanced AI help through Microsoft Editor, an intelligent writing assistant. The update will include suggested edits for “clarity, conciseness, inclusive language and more” to help workers create more “polished and professional” emails, according to a blog post from the company in September.

    The company said the tool will be available to more corporate clients starting on November 1. It has already been in months-long testing with customers including Visa, General Motors, KPMG and Lumen Technologies.

    In March, Microsoft outlined its plans to bring artificial intelligence to its most recognizable productivity tools, including Outlook, PowerPoint, Excel and Word, with the promise of changing how millions do their work every day. The addition of its AI-powered “copilot” – which will help edit, summarize, create and compare documents – is built on the same technology that underpins ChatGPT.

    In addition to writing emails, Microsoft 365 users will be able to summarize meetings and create suggested follow-up action items, request to create a specific chart in Excel, and turn a Word document into a PowerPoint presentation in seconds.

    Corporate customers will also get to use Microsoft 365 Chat, previously called Business Chat, which can scan the internet and employee emails, meetings, chats and files, to behave as a sort of personalized secretary.

    The expansion will come less than a year after OpenAI publicly released viral AI chat tool ChatGPT, which stunned many users with its impressive ability to generate original essays, stories and song lyrics in response to user prompts. The initial wave of attention on the tool helped renew an arms race among tech companies to develop and deploy similar AI tools in their products.

    In the months since, many other companies have rolled out features underpinning or similar to the technology. Microsoft rival Google, for example, has also brought AI to its productivity tools, including Gmail, Sheets and Docs.

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  • iPhone users will soon have to adjust to this small but significant change | CNN Business

    iPhone users will soon have to adjust to this small but significant change | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    Get your thumb ready for next month. Apple

    (AAPL)     is making a subtle change to the iPhone’s software that will likely mess with your muscle memory: The big red “end call” button is moving.

    The iPhone’s phone app will get a series of updates coming to iOS 17, including an updated design that repositions the hang up button to the bottom right of the screen, next to other functions. The button currently sits separately at the bottom middle of the phone app, underneath the buttons to mute, access the keypad or add a call.

    The new call screen, which is already available for download in a beta version for developers, sparked some strong reactions among iOS users on social media: “iOS 17 has the FaceTime button where the end call button used to be,” tweeted one user. “Muscle memory be damned.”

    The change is likely to streamline the look of the phone app and put all functions in one place. Apple did not respond to a request for comment.

    At its annual Worldwide Developer Conference in May, the company showed off a slew of new tools coming to iOS 17 that make calling and messaging others more personalized and customized. iPhone users, for example, will be able to design contact “posters,” a custom image to appear when they call someone or receive their call.

    Meanwhile, a new feature called Live Voicemail will transcribe a caller’s message in real time, so users can decide whether to ignore or take the call, and a tool called NameDrop will let users share their contact information by holding two iPhones close together. In addition, FaceTime will support the ability to leave video messages when someone isn’t available to chat.

    Other changes coming to iOS 17 include a more accurate autocorrect, improved dictation in iMessage, and a more responsive Siri. Apple typically launches its latest mobile operating system in September, following its annual iPhone event.

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  • Arm’s mega IPO could be just around the corner, a year after the biggest chip deal in history fell apart | CNN Business

    Arm’s mega IPO could be just around the corner, a year after the biggest chip deal in history fell apart | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    A hotly anticipated IPO for a company that designs chips for 99% of the world’s smartphones is just around the corner, after it filed paperwork Monday to go public.

    Arm is a British tech company that architects power-sipping microchips for phones and tablets and licenses them to CPU makers, including Apple and Samsung. The company was public until 2016, when Japan’s Softbank bought it for $32 billion.

    Softbank tried to offload Arm to Nvidia for $40 billion, in what would have been the biggest chip deal of all time. But global antitrust regulators put a stop to it, and the deal fell apart in February 2022.

    Arm had been a hot commodity for decades, when the smartphone business was booming. But sales of smartphones have subsided recently, as customers opt to keep their phones for longer and new tech features have become less enticing to consumers.

    The company, in its regulatory filing, said sales slipped 1% to $2.7 billion in the year that ended March 31, 2023. In the following quarter, which ended in June, sales fell 2.5%.

    Still, Arm has piqued the interest of tech investors who are looking to catch the AI wave. Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son has touted Arm as an AI company that could have “exponential growth.” He promised ChatGPT-like services would eventually be offered on Arm-designed machines.

    In its IPO filing, Arm said the company “will be central” to the transition to AI.

    “Arm CPUs already run AI and [machine learning] workloads in billions of devices, including smartphones, cameras, digital TVs, cars and cloud data centers,” the company said. “In the emerging area of large language models, generative AI and autonomous driving, there will be a heightened emphasis on the low power acceleration of these algorithms.”

    But Son and Arm’s AI promises may overstate the company’s potential, at least somewhat. Arm-based chips have appeared in some gadgets beyond smartphones and tablets, such as servers that are less power-hungry. But Arm said it does not make AI chips and is not a direct competitor to Nvidia and others that make chips that are purpose-built for AI. Nvidia’s stock has exploded more than 200% this year.

    Arm did not list the number of shares it planned to sell, so a valuation wasn’t determinable yet. But Reuters reported Softbank is looking to basically double its investment from seven years ago with a $60 billion to $70 billion valuation for Arm when it IPOs, likely next month.

    Softbank also this week bought the 25% stake in Arm that it did not own directly but that had been held by the Saudi Vision Fund, which Softbank manages. That purchase valued Arm at $64 billion, according to the Financial Times.

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  • China’s top chipmaker may be in hot water as US lawmakers call for further sanctions after Huawei ‘breakthrough’ | CNN Business

    China’s top chipmaker may be in hot water as US lawmakers call for further sanctions after Huawei ‘breakthrough’ | CNN Business

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    Editor’s Note: Sign up for CNN’s Meanwhile in China newsletter which explores what you need to know about the country’s rise and how it impacts the world.


    Hong Kong
    CNN
     — 

    Shares in SMIC, China’s largest contract chipmaker, plunged on Thursday, after two US congressmen called on the White House to further restrict export sales to the company.

    The comments came after Huawei Technologies introduced the Mate 60 Pro, a Chinese smartphone powered by an advanced chip that is believed to have been made by SMIC.

    Last week’s launch shocked industry experts who didn’t understand how SMIC, which is headquartered in Shanghai, would have the ability to manufacture such a chip following sweeping efforts by the United States to restrict China’s access to foreign chip technology.

    TechInsights, a research organization based in Canada specializing in semiconductors, revealed shortly after the launch that the smartphone contained a new 5G Kirin 9000s processor developed specifically for Huawei by SMIC.

    This is a “big tech breakthrough for China,” Jefferies analysts said Tuesday in a research note.

    The development has fueled fears among analysts that the US-China tech war is likely to accelerate in the near future.

    US representative Mike Gallagher, chair of the US House of Representatives committee on China, called on the US Commerce Department on Wednesday to end all technology exports to Huawei and SMIC, according to Reuters.

    Gallagher was quoted as saying SMIC may have violated US sanctions, as this chip likely could not be produced without US technology.

    “The time has come to end all US technology exports to both Huawei and SMIC to make clear any firm that flouts US law and undermines our national security will be cut off from our technology,” he said.

    Shares in SMIC, which stands for Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation, sank 8.3% in Shanghai and 7.6% in Hong Kong on Thursday. Hua Hong Semiconductor, China’s second largest chip foundry, tumbled 5.8%.

    Texas Republican Michael McCaul, who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee, was quoted by Reuters as saying he was concerned about the possibility of China trying to “get a monopoly” in the manufacture of less-advanced computer chips.

    “We talked a lot about advanced semiconductor chips, but we also need look at legacy,” he reportedly said, referring to older computer chip technology which does not fall under export controls.

    “I think China is trying to get a monopoly on the market share of legacy semiconductor chips as well. And I think that’s a part of the discussion we’ll be having,” he said.

    Chinese state media have touted the development as a sign the country had successfully “broken US sanctions” and “achieved technological independence” in advanced chipmaking.

    Meme makers on the Chinese internet have even crowned US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo the unofficial brand ambassador for the Mate 60 series.

    The memes poke fun at the idea that that US sanctions, which are implemented and enforced by the US Commerce department, may have indirectly led to the launch of the new phone as China’s homegrown firms had to work with the available technology.

    Raimondo visited China last week, when the phone was launched. The memes have gone viral online and been reported on by state broadcaster CCTV.

    Before Thursday, SMIC’s shares in Hong Kong had rallied more than 20% within two weeks due to investor optimism. Huahong Semiconductor jumped 11%.

    CNN has reached out to Gallagher’s and McCaul’s offices for comment, but has yet to receive a response.

    Huawei was added to a blacklist in May 2019 by the US Commerce Department over national security concerns. That means companies have to apply for US export licenses to supply technology to Huawei.

    SMIC was also put on the same list in 2020, as US officials were concerned it could use American technology to aid the Chinese military. SMIC has denied having any relationship with the Chinese military.

    “The fact that China has achieved a big breakthrough in [semiconductor] tech will likely create more debate in the US about the effectiveness of sanctions,” said the Jefferies analysts.

    They expect the Biden administration to tighten chips ban on China, which was introduced in October 2022, in the next few months, further limiting China’s access to advanced US semiconductors.

    “Overall the US-China tech war is likely to escalate,” they said.

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  • Apple just killed the iPhone Lightning connector. What to do with your old chargers | CNN Business

    Apple just killed the iPhone Lightning connector. What to do with your old chargers | CNN Business

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    Editor’s Note: A version of this story appeared in CNN Business’ Nightcap newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free, here.


    New York
    CNN
     — 

    At long last, Apple is killing its proprietary Lightning port in the iPhone 15 and embracing a charging cable that’s compatible with non-Apple products. That’s one less extra cord cluttering your nightstand. One less thing to forget when packing for a weekend getaway.

    But the move, hastened by a European regulatory mandate passed last year, is a largely symbolic measure that comes years after most other gadgets switched to USB-C. And it won’t do much to shrink the mountains of e-waste piling up around the globe.

    “I would classify the EU law and Apple as an evolution, not a revolution,” says Marian Chertow, a professor of industrial environmental management at the Yale School of the Environment.

    When the European Commission passed the directive last year,  it cited two motivations: First, everyone agrees that it’s super annoying to have so many cables lying around. Second, having a common charger across devices — whether they’re made by Apple or Samsung or Garmin or whoever — would “significantly reduce electronic waste.”

    Apple initially pushed back, of course, partly because selling extra Lightning cables made it lots of money. But it also said the waste argument was misguided, and that the promise of wireless charging would make the cable issue moot. (Still, the company ultimately said it would comply with the common cable rules.)

    Retiring the Lightning cable could even generate, in the short term, a surge of e-waste as iPhone users toss their useless Lightning cables in a drawer. (Which, to be clear, isn’t recommended. Apple says it has a “robust” recycling program where you can bring in used chargers and cables. You can also look for a local e-waste recycling center or Best Buy store for environmentally friendly options.)

    Big-picture, though, the impact on the mountains of global e-waste will likely be minimal.

    There are about 66 million tons of electronic waste generated each year, says Ruediger Kuehr, head of the United Nations Institute for Training and Research in Bonn, Germany. Charging cables, he said account for “a few hundred thousand tons.”

    “When we look to the pure numbers, it’s close to nothing,” Kuehr said. “But we nevertheless think it’s a very important step in order to make people … aware of the issue we are facing.”

    E-waste is a growing problem that has yet to enter the mainstream consciousness. Most of it ends up where it shouldn’t — in our closets and junk drawers — which means more materials such as copper, gold and platinum have to be mined to produce new products.

    “You can make money out of it, but you have to really do a lot of steps,” Kuehr says. “This is not understandable for the consumer in comparison to all the other waste streams.”

    Nearly 80% of all e-waste generated around the globe is not properly treated, he said.

    Whether the EU rule actually reduces waste is beside the point if it can push Apple and other manufacturers to help close the loop by making it easier to refurbish and recycle old products.

    And to Apple’s credit, the company has been “a leader in scraping off rare earth metals from its reuse pile to recover these expensive materials,” Chertow says, noting that last year Apple said it was reusing more than two-thirds of the aluminum it needed. “These days, waste experts find that “reuse” is most often a better path than recycling as more can be recovered.”

    —CNN’s Samantha Murphy Kelly contributed to this article.

    Enjoying Nightcap? Sign up and you’ll get all of this, plus some other funny stuff we liked on the internet, in your inbox every night. (OK, most nights — we believe in a four-day work week around here.)

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  • How companies are embracing generative AI for employees…or not | CNN Business

    How companies are embracing generative AI for employees…or not | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    Companies are struggling to deal with the rapid rise of generative AI, with some rushing to embrace the technology as workflow tools for employees while others shun it – at least for now.

    As generative artificial intelligence – the technology that underpins ChatGPT and similar tools – seeps into seemingly every corner of the internet, large corporations are grappling with whether the increased efficiency it offers outweighs possible copyright and security risks. Some companies are enacting internal bans on generative AI tools as they work to better understand the technology, and others have already begun to introduce the trendy tech to employees in their own ways.

    Many prominent companies have entirely blocked internal ChatGPT use, including JPMorgan Chase, Northrup Grumman, Apple, Verizon, Spotify and Accenture, according to AI content detector Originality.AI, with several citing privacy and security concerns. Business leaders have also expressed worries about employees dropping proprietary information into ChatGPT and having that sensitive information potentially emerge as an output by the tool elsewhere.

    When users input information into these tools, “[y]ou don’t know how it’s then going to be used,” Mark McCreary, the co-chair of the privacy and data security practice at law firm Fox Rothschild LLP, told CNN in March. “That raises particularly high concerns for companies. As more and more employees casually adopt these tools to help with work emails or meeting notes, McCreary said, “I think the opportunity for company trade secrets to get dropped into these different various AI’s is just going to increase.”

    But the corporate hesitancy to welcome generative AI could be temporary.

    “Companies that are on the list of banning generative AI also have working groups internally that are exploring the usage of AI,” Jonathan Gillham, CEO of Originality.AI, told CNN, highlighting how companies in more risk-averse industries have been quicker to take action against the tech while figuring out the best approach for responsible usage. “Giving all of their staff access to ChatGPT and saying ‘have fun’ is too much of an uncontrolled risk for them to take, but it doesn’t mean that they’re not saying, ‘holy crap, look at the 10x, 100x efficiency that we can lock when we find out how to do this in a way that makes all the stakeholders happy” in departments such as legal, finance and accounting.

    Among media companies that produce news, Insider editor-in-chief Nicholas Carlson has encouraged reporters to find ways to use AI in the newsroom. “A tsunami is coming,” he said in April. “We can either ride it or get wiped out by it. But it’s going to be really fun to ride it, and it’s going to make us faster and better.” The organization discouraged staff from putting source details and other sensitive information into ChatGPT. Newspaper chain Gannett paused the use of an artificial intelligence tool to write high school sports stories after the technology called LedeAI made several mistakes in sports stories published in The Columbus Dispatch newspaper in August.

    Of the companies currently banning ChatGPT, some are discussing future usage once security concerns are addressed. UBS estimated that ChatGPT reached 100 million monthly active users in January, just two months after its launch.

    That rapid growth initially left large companies scrambling to find ways to integrate it responsibly. That process is slow for large companies. Meanwhile, website visits to ChatGPT dropped for the third month in a row in August, creating pressure for large tech companies to sustain popular interest in the tools and to find new enterprise applications and revenue models for generative AI products.

    “We at JPMorgan Chase will not roll out genAI until we can mitigate all of the risks,” Larry Feinsmith, JPM’s head of global tech strategy, innovation, and partnerships said at the Databricks Data + AI Summit in June. “We’re excited, we’re working through those risks as we speak, but we won’t roll it out until we can do this in an entirely responsible manner, and it’s going to take time.” Northrop Grumman said it doesn’t allow internal data on external platforms “until those tools are fully vetted,” according to a March report from the Wall Street Journal. Verizon also told employees in a public address in February that ChatGPT is banned “[a]s it currently stands” due to security risks but that the company wants to “safely embrace emerging technology.”

    “They’re not just waiting to sort things out. I think they’re actively working on integrating AI into their business processes separately, but they’re just doing so in a way that doesn’t compromise their information,” Vern Glaser, Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship and Family Enterprise at the University of Alberta, told CNN. “What you’ll see with a lot of the companies that will be using AI strategies, particularly those who have their own unique content, they’re going to end up creating their custom version of generative AI.”

    Several companies – and even ChatGPT itself – seem to have already found their own answers to the corporate world’s genAI security dilemma.

    Walmart introduced an internal “My Assistant” tool for 50,000 corporate employees that helps with repetitive tasks and creative ideas, according to an August LinkedIn post from Cheryl Ainoa, Walmart’s EVP of New Businesses and Emerging Technologies, and Donna Morris, Chief People Officer. The tool is intended to boost productivity and eventually help with new worker orientation, according to the post.

    Consulting giants McKinsey, PwC and EY are also welcoming genAI through internal, private methods. PwC announced a “Generative AI factory” and launched its own “ChatPwC” tool in August powered by OpenAI tech to help employees with tax questions and regulations as part of a $1 billion investment for AI capability scaling.

    McKinsey introduced “Lilli” in August, a genAI solution where employees can pose questions, with the system then aggregating all of the firm’s knowledge and scanning the data to identify relevant “With Lilli, we can use technology to access and leverage our entire body of knowledge and assets to drive new levels of productivity,” Jacky Wright, a McKinsey senior partner and chief technology and platform officer, wrote in the announcement. content, summarize the main points and offer experts.

    EY is investing $1.4 billion in the technology, including “EY.ai EYQ,” an in-house large language model, and AI training for employees, according to a September press release

    Tools like MyAssistant, ChatPwC and Lilli solve some of the corporate concerns surrounding genAI systems through custom adaptions of genAI tech, offering employees a private, closed alternative that both capitalizes its ability to increase efficiency and eliminates the risk of copyright or security leaks.

    The launch of ChatGPT Enterprise may also help quell some fears. The new version of OpenAI’s new tool, announced in August, is specifically for businesses, promising to provide “enterprise-grade security and privacy” combined with “the most powerful version of ChatGPT yet” for businesses looking to jump on the generative AI bandwagon, according to a company blog post.

    The highly-anticipated announcement from OpenAI comes as the company says employees from over 80% of Fortune 500 companies have already begun using ChatGPT since it launched publicly late last year, according to its analysis of accounts associated with corporate email domains.

    In response to the concerns raised by many companies over security, about employees dropping proprietary information into ChatGPT and having that sensitive information potentially emerge as an output by the tool elsewhere, OpenAI’s announcement blog post for ChatGPT Enterprise states that it does “not train on your business data or conversations, and our models don’t learn from your usage.”

    In July, Microsoft unveiled a business-specific version of its AI-powered Bing tool, dubbed Bing Chat Enterprise, and promised much of the same security assurances that ChatGPT Enterprise is now touting – namely, that users’ chat data will not be used to train AI models.

    It is still unclear whether the new tools will be enough to convince corporate America that it is time to fully embrace generative AI, though experts agree the tech’s inevitable entry into the workplace will take time and strategy.

    “I don’t think it’s that companies are against AI and against machine learning, per se. I think most companies are going to be trying to use this type of technology, but they have to be careful with it because of the impacts on intellectual property,” Glaser said.

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  • Microsoft CEO warns of ‘nightmare’ future for AI if Google’s search dominance continues | CNN Business

    Microsoft CEO warns of ‘nightmare’ future for AI if Google’s search dominance continues | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella warned on Monday of a “nightmare” scenario for the internet if Google’s dominance in online search is allowed to continue, a situation, he said, that starts with searches on desktop and mobile but extends to the emerging battleground of artificial intelligence.

    Nadella testified on Monday as part of the US government’s sweeping antitrust trial against Google, now into its 14th day. He is the most senior tech executive yet to testify during the trial that focuses on the power of Google as the default search engine on mobile devices and browsers around the globe.

    Taking the stand in a charcoal suit and tie, Nadella painted Google as a technology giant that has blocked off ways for consumers to access rival search engines. His testimony reflected the frustrations of a long-running rivalry between Microsoft and Google whose tensions have permeated the weeks-long trial. (Google didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.)

    Central to Google’s strategy has been its agreements with companies such as Apple that have made Google the default search engine for millions of internet users.

    “You get up in the morning, you brush your teeth, you search on Google,” Nadella said.

    Nadella testified that every year he has been Microsoft’s CEO, he has unsuccessfully sought to persuade Apple to switch away from Google as its default search partner. Nadella added that Microsoft has been willing to spend close to $15 billion a year for the privilege. (A senior Apple executive, Eddy Cue, testified last week that Apple has always considered Google the best search product for its users, a claim echoed by Google itself throughout the trial.)

    However, even more worrisome, Nadella argued, is that the enormous amount of search data that is provided to Google through its default agreements can help Google train its AI models to be better than anyone else’s — threatening to give Google an unassailable advantage in generative AI that would further entrench its power.

    “This is going to become even harder to compete in the AI age with someone who has that core… advantage,” Nadella testified.

    Despite being profitable, and despite investing some $100 billion in it over the past 20 years, Microsoft’s Bing search engine has only a single-digit market share in mobile search, and only slightly more — into the teens — in desktop search, Nadella said, adding that one of his dreams has been to see Bing account for at least 20% of the market in both segments.

    Bing has struggled to grow its market share in part because being the default search provider for billions of devices means Google receives enormous amounts of data through search queries that helps Google understand at scale what users are likely to be interested in, Nadella noted. And for years, that “dynamic data” has enabled Google to stay ahead of Bing, he added.

    “Every misspelling of a new movie, every local restaurant whose name you mistype,” Nadella explained, “…is a very critical asset to have your search quality get better.” And because the physical world is constantly changing, capturing shifts in search trends are essential to helping a search engine stay relevant as historical data becomes less relevant. Nadella previously led Microsoft’s cloud computing business and before that had spent several years overseeing the engineering team responsible for search and advertising at the company, making him well-versed in Bing’s various challenges.

    Now, Nadella has said that the same data advantage could create “even more of a nightmare” as large language models compete on the basis of the data they are trained on.

    “What is concerning is, it reminds me of what happened with distribution deals [in search],” he testified.

    Under questioning by a Google attorney, Nadella admitted that in some cases, defaults are not the sole determinant of success: Google was able to overcome Microsoft’s own Internet Explorer defaults on Windows PCs to become the market-leading desktop web browser.

    But Nadella attributed Google’s success to the relative openness of the Windows platform, arguing that on more tightly controlled mobile operating systems, and in search, default status plays a much larger role than in competition for desktop web browsers.

    In addition to training its models on search queries, Google has also been moving to secure agreements with content publishers to ensure that it has exclusive access to their material for AI training purposes, according the Microsoft CEO. In Nadella’s own meetings with publishers, he said that he now hears that Google “wants … to write this check and we want you to match it.” (Google didn’t immediately respond to questions about those deals.)

    The requests highlight concerns that “what is publicly available today [may not be] publicly available tomorrow” for AI training, according to the testimony.

    While Microsoft and Apple have their own defaults — for example, by making Apple Maps the default maps app on iOS devices — Google goes much further than other tech companies in using “carrots and sticks” to keep people using its products by default, Nadella claimed. He cited Google’s licensing requirements that make Google’s Play Store a required installed app as a condition of using the Android operating system — another topic of dispute in the trial. The equivalent would be if Microsoft threatened to withhold Microsoft Office if Bing were not the default search engine, Nadella said, a move he claimed would not be in Microsoft’s business interests.

    Acknowledging that Google would not be in its dominant position without Microsoft’s own antitrust battles with the US government in the 1990s, Nadella said the situation involving Google today is vastly different. Internet search and, particularly on mobile devices, is the single largest software business opportunity in the world.

    Google’s dominance in search is reinforced when websites and publishers optimize for Google’s search algorithm and not Bing’s, when advertisers flock to Google and when users stick to what’s familiar, Nadella argued.

    In his fruitless negotiations with Apple, Nadella said he has tried to argue that Bing’s current role is little more than as a useful tool for Apple to “bid up the price” of hosting Google as the default search provider — but that Bing provides an important counterweight to Google and that Apple should consider investing in the Microsoft alternative for competition’s sake. Nadella has also proposed running Bing on Apple devices as a kind of “public utility,” he said.

    “Let’s say Bing exited the market,” Nadella said. “You think Google would keep paying [Apple]?”

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  • Adobe previews new AI editing tools | CNN Business

    Adobe previews new AI editing tools | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    Photo-editing software maker Adobe unveiled a slew of new AI-powered tools and features last week at its annual Max event, including a dress that transforms into a wearable screen and streamlined ways to delete elements from photos.

    The company previewed a series of prototype tools that make use of both generative AI and 3D image technology in the Adobe MAX Sneaks showcase. Covering photo, audio, video, 3D, fashion and design, the new capabilities are meant to give the public a sneak peak into early-stage ideas that might one day become widely used components of Adobe products.

    A highlight of the event was Adobe’s Project Primrose, an interactive dress that shifts into different colors and patterns as it’s worn.

    Other previewed items include a tool that automatically detects each object in an image and lets users perform a variety of tasks, labeled Project Stardust. For example, it can spot a suitcase within a photo to then be moved or deleted or predict and prompt likely tasks, such as deleting people from the background of an image.

    A screenshot of Project Stardust, a tool unveiled as part Adobe's annual

    Also on display was Project Dub Dub Dub, technology that can automatically dub audio over a video into all supported languages while preserving the speaker’s voice, as was a new tool that shows Adobe users what the ability to apply text-to-image generative AI tool Firefly to videos might look like.

    Adobe first began adding Firefly into a Photoshop beta app in May, with the goal of “dramatically accelerating” how users edit their photos. It allows users to add or delete elements from images with just a text prompt. It can also match the lighting and style of the existing images automatically, the company said.

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  • Justice Kagan order: Apple doesn’t have to change app store terms while battling Epic in court | CNN Business

    Justice Kagan order: Apple doesn’t have to change app store terms while battling Epic in court | CNN Business

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    A judicial order forcing Apple to change some of its app store terms will not need to take immediate effect while litigation over the decision plays out, Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan said on Wednesday, handing a temporary defeat to opponents of the company.

    The order is a setback for “Fortnite”-maker Epic Games as Apple appeals a lower-court ruling that found the iPhone-maker had violated California competition law.

    Epic Games declined to comment on Kagan’s decision, which occurred in the Supreme Court’s so-called “shadow docket” and was not referred to the full court.

    Apple didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

    Apple had previously been ordered not to interfere with efforts by iOS app developers to inform their users within their apps about alternatives to Apple’s in-app payment system, which allows Apple to take a commission.

    In April, a federal appeals court upheld the order that, if allowed to take effect, would prevent Apple from intervening when developers include “buttons, external links or other calls to action that direct customers to purchasing mechanisms” apart from Apple’s own channels.

    The appeals court temporarily paused enforcement of the injunction while Apple appeals the ruling to the Supreme Court. But last month, Epic Games filed an emergency request to the court calling for the order to be put into effect immediately, saying the public would otherwise be harmed by Apple’s practices.

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  • Microsoft gives ground on streaming in bid to remove UK block on Activision deal | CNN Business

    Microsoft gives ground on streaming in bid to remove UK block on Activision deal | CNN Business

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    London
    CNN
     — 

    Microsoft has made a major concession to UK authorities in a bid to remove the last remaining regulatory obstacle to its huge takeover of Activision Blizzard.

    The companies have submitted a new proposal to the UK antitrust watchdog — the only regulator worldwide standing in the way of the $69 billion deal — that would see Activision’s (ATVI) cloud streaming rights outside the European Union and three other European countries sold to a rival, Ubisoft Entertainment. Microsoft President Brad Smith said in a blog post Tuesday that the companies believe the new proposal “presents a substantially different transaction” for the CMA to consider than its previous merger agreement.

    “We believe that this development is positive for players, the progression of the cloud game streaming market, and for the growth of our industry,” Smith said.

    The restructured deal, announced by the UK Competition and Markets Authority Tuesday, follows a decision by the CMA to block the acquisition on its original terms. That move put it at odds with EU regulators, which approved the plan in May. A US federal court also said in July that it would not block the deal from closing.

    CMA chief executive Sarah Cardell said the regulator would now consider the new proposal.

    “Our goal has not changed — any future decision on this new deal will ensure that the growing cloud gaming market continues to benefit from open and effective competition driving innovation and choice.”

    Under the restructured deal, Ubisoft — a French video game developer — will be able to license out Activision’s content to any cloud gaming provider outside the European Economic Area, including in the United Kingdom. Shares in Ubisoft jumped 7% in Paris Tuesday.

    “This will allow gamers to access Activision’s games in different ways, including through cloud-based multigame subscription services,” Cardell said.

    Microsoft and Activision agreed last month to extend their merger deadline by three months to October 18, to allow more time to come to an agreement with the CMA. October 18 is now also the statutory deadline for a CMA decision on the new merger proposal, and Microsoft said it expects the agency’s review process to be completed ahead of that date.

    Microsoft (MSFT) announced the planned acquisition of Activision early last year. The transaction was valued at $69 billion at the time, making it one of the tech industry’s largest deals.

    Activision Blizzard is one of the world’s biggest video game developers, producing games such as “Candy Crush,” “Call of Duty,” “World of Warcraft” and “Overwatch.”

    –CNN’s Clare Duffy contributed to this report.

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  • Snapchat adds new safety features for teen users | CNN Business

    Snapchat adds new safety features for teen users | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    Snapchat says it’s working to make its app even safer for teen users.

    Parent company Snap said Thursday that it is rolling out a suite of new features and policies aimed at better protecting 13- to 17-year-old users, including restrictions on friend suggestions and a new system for removing age-inappropriate content. The company also launched a series of YouTube videos for parents about the features and an updated website laying out its teen safety and parental control policies.

    The new features come amid increasing pressure on social media platforms by lawmakers, educators and parents to protect young users from inappropriate content, unwanted adult attention, illicit drug sales and other issues. A Snap executive testified alongside leaders from TikTok and YouTube in a fall 2021 Senate committee hearing about youth safety on social media, promising new tools to help parents keep their teens safe. And since then, Snapchat — like other platforms — has rolled out a variety of new teen safety and parental supervision tools.

    Thursday’s announcement follows the launch last year of Snapchat’s Family Center, which offers parents more insight into who their teenagers are communicating with on the messaging app. The app’s other existing teen safety measures include prohibiting young users from having public profiles and having teens’ Snap Map location-sharing tool turned off by default.

    As part of Thursday’s feature rollout, Snapchat will now require 13-to-17-year-old users to have a greater number of mutual friends in common with another account before that account will show up in Search results or as a friend suggestion, in an effort to avoid teens adding users on the app who they don’t know in real life. The app will also send a pop-up warming to teens if they are about to add an account that doesn’t share any mutual Snapchat friends or phone book contacts.

    “When a teen becomes friends with someone on Snapchat, we want to be confident it is someone they know in real life — such as a friend, family member, or other trusted person,” the company said in a blog post.

    Snapchat will also impose a new strike system for accounts promoting content inappropriate for teens in its Stories and Spotlight sections, where users can share content publicly on the app. If inappropriate content is reported or detected by the company, it will immediately remove the content and issue a strike against the poster’s account. If a user accrues “too many strikes over a defined period of time, their account will be disabled,” the platform says, although it does not lay out how many strikes would lead to a suspension.

    Teen users will also start to see in-app content aimed at educating them on online risks such as catfishing and financial sextortion — when someone persuades a victim to share nude photos and then blackmails them for money — and letting them know what to do if they see it, including providing hotlines to contact for help. The PSA-style content will be featured on Snapchat’s Stories platform and in response to certain search terms or keywords.

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  • Google reaches $93 million settlement in tracking location case | CNN Business

    Google reaches $93 million settlement in tracking location case | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    Google has reached a $93 million settlement with the state of California to resolve allegations that it was collecting consumers’ data without their consent, the state’s attorney general said in a statement Thursday.

    The California Department of Justice found that, after a multi-year investigation, the tech giant was “deceiving users by collecting, storing, and using their location data for consumer profiling and advertising purposes without informed consent.”

    California Attorney General Rob Bonta also said Google accepted taking future actions to prevent those practices. These actions would apply beyond California to other states, according to the proposed order.

    “Consistent with improvements we’ve made in recent years, we have settled this matter, which was based on outdated product policies that we changed years ago,” a Google spokesperson said.

    The company pointed to a 2022 blog post which introduced transparency tools, such as auto-delete controls and incognito mode on Google Maps.

    Google’s location-based advertising is an important part of its business because companies want to cater their content based on who lives where, the state said. The state also said that Google factors in location in its “behavioral profile” of users.

    Bonta had alleged Google wasn’t truthful about its location collection and storage tactics. For example, the original complaint said that Google continued to collect and store location data even when users turned off the “location history” setting, just in different ways.

    As part of the settlement, Google would have to be more transparent about its location tracking and disclose to users that their location information could be used for targeted ads. The proposed order is subject to court approval, the state’s attorney general said.

    A lawsuit by the Biden administration in January argued Google’s ad tech business should be broken up.

    Google’s practices are under scrutiny by other lawmakers right now, too. A landmark antitrust trial against Google opened earlier this week, with sweeping allegations from the US DOJ that for years the company intentionally stifled competition challenging its massive search engine, accusing the tech giant of spending billions to operate an illegal monopoly that has harmed every computer and mobile device user in the United States.

    For Google’s opening statement in that case, attorney John Schmidtlein said that Apple’s decision to make Google the default search engine in its Safari browser demonstrates how Google’s search engine is the superior product consumers prefer.

    Last week, Google reached an agreement in principle with multiple US states to settle an antitrust lawsuit for its alleged conduct in the Google Play Store. The lawsuit alleged the company inflated prices for paid apps and in-app purchases in the Android app market.

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  • US says it has no evidence that Huawei can make advanced smartphones ‘at scale’ | CNN Business

    US says it has no evidence that Huawei can make advanced smartphones ‘at scale’ | CNN Business

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    Editor’s Note: Sign up for CNN’s Meanwhile in China newsletter which explores what you need to know about the country’s rise and how it impacts the world.


    Hong Kong
    CNN
     — 

    Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo says the US government has no evidence that Huawei can produce smartphones with advanced chips “at scale,” as it continues to investigate how the sanctioned Chinese manufacturer made an apparent breakthrough with its latest flagship device.

    On Tuesday, Raimondo told US lawmakers that she was “upset” by news of the launch of Huawei’s Mate 60 Pro during her visit to China last month.

    “The only good news, if there is any, is we don’t have any evidence that they can manufacture 7-nanometer [chips] at scale,” she told a US House of Representatives hearing.

    “Although I can’t talk about any investigations specifically, I promise you this: every time we find credible evidence that any company has gone around our export controls, we do investigate.”

    Analysts who have examined the smartphone said it represented a “milestone” achievement for China, suggesting Huawei may have found a way to overcome American export controls.

    US officials have long argued that the company poses a risk to US national security, using it as grounds to restrict trade with the company. Huawei has vehemently denied the claims.

    TechInsights, a research organization that specializes in semiconductors and took the phone apart for analysis, says it includes a 5G Kirin 9000s processor developed by China’s leading chipmaker, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC).

    That surprised many because SMIC, a partially state-owned Chinese company, has also been subject to US export restrictions for years. It has not responded to previous requests for comment from CNN.

    TechInsights also found two chips belonging to SK Hynix, a South Korean chipmaker, inside the handset.

    A SK Hynix spokesperson told CNN earlier this month that it was aware of the issue and investigating how that was possible, since the South Korean firm “no longer does business with Huawei” because of US export controls.

    Huawei declined to comment on the capabilities and components of its phone.

    Raimondo said Tuesday that US officials were “trying to use every single tool at our disposal … to deny the Chinese an ability to get intellectual property to advance their technology in ways that can hurt us.”

    In 2019, Huawei was added to the US “entity list,” which restricts exports to select organizations without a US government license. The following year, the US government expanded on those curbs by seeking to cut Huawei off from chip suppliers that use US technology.

    That left the company, once the world’s second largest smartphone seller, in bad shape.

    As of the second quarter of 2023, Huawei was no longer in the top five of mobile phone vendors in China, let alone globally, according to Counterpoint Research.

    But its new phone is a big help for the company — and may pose a challenge to Apple’s (AAPL) market share in China, according to Ivan Lam, a senior analyst at Counterpoint.

    Huawei is scheduled to hold a product launch event next Monday, where new phones are expected to be the main focus, according to Toby Zhu, a Canalys mobility analyst.

    Other devices, like tablets or earphones, may also be shown off. Huawei has not publicly released details of the event.

    In the coming months, the firm plans to release another 5G phone, possibly under Nova, its mid-range lineup, Chinese news outlet IT Times reported Tuesday, citing unidentified industry sources. Huawei declined to comment.

    Zhu said the phone was widely expected to come with 5G capability, powered either by the “Kirin 9000s chip or another chip.”

    If it does, the new model could become even more popular than the Mate 60 Pro, which starts at 6,999 yuan (about $959), because of its relative affordability, he added.

    While Raimondo was unhappy with the timing of Huawei’s launch, analysts say it was unlikely to have been arranged to coincide with her presence in China.

    It was likely “a marketing campaign aimed at winning over customer interest before the iPhone 15 hits the market,” analysts at Eurasia Group wrote in a report.

    The move helped the Shenzhen-based company capture the second spot in China’s smartphone market in the first week of September, ahead of Apple’s big event, said Lam of Counterpoint.

    — Rashard Rose and Mengchen Zhang contributed to this report.

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  • Bed Bath & Beyond is back from the dead | CNN Business

    Bed Bath & Beyond is back from the dead | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    A month after Overstock.com announced it bought Bed Bath & Beyond’s brand out of bankruptcy, the company has dumped its name and morphed its website and app.

    On Tuesday, Overstock’s website relaunched as BedBathandBeyond.com, a move that merges Overstock’s online business model and merchandise categories with popular branded products favored by Bed Bath & Beyond shoppers.

    “All of Overstock’s categories will transition over and new products will also come in,” Jonathan Johnson, CEO of Overstock, said in an interview with CNN.

    The relaunched website touted a “Welcome to a bigger, better beyond” welcome message, offering deals of an extra 15%-20% off bedding, bath and furniture items.

    “Since this deal was announced, we have added over 600,000 new products to the site,” said Johnson, adding that a lot of the new products “are the name-brand products that people have always bought and expected to buy at the old Bed Bath & Beyond.”

    Overstock

    (OSTK)    , which sells furniture, home furnishings, bath, lighting, rugs and an array of other products online at discounted prices, acquired Bed Bath & Beyond’s name, intellectual property and digital assets in June with a winning bid of $21.5 million for its assets.

    Johnson promised newness blended with familiarity for Bed Bath & Beyond customers in the latest digital-only version of the retailer.

    “It will have the same great bed, bath and kitchen items but it will also have a much bigger beyond,” he said. The “beyond” includes a wider array of linens, cookware and small appliances.

    Fans of Bed Bath & Beyond’s 20%-off a single item “Big Blue” coupon will be somewhat disappointed that it will not be resurrected.

    “I guess what I would say about the coupon is that if you like Bed Bath & Beyond coupons in the past, you will like new Bed Bath & Beyond mobile app we will be rolling out with launch in US,” said Johnson.

    He said shoppers can avail themselves of special deals and promotions through the new app, including a 25% off coupon for downloading the app and making purchases. Former Overstock.com loyalty program members will get a 20% off coupon and their membership transferred to the rebranded loyalty program.

    BedBathand Beyond.com is also reinstating up to $50 in unused loyalty rewards points for active members of the former Bed Bath & Beyond loyalty program. “Those rewards points had gone away in the bankruptcy,” he said.

    Overstock.com relaunched as BedBathandBeyond.com Tuesday.

    “We’ll still be offering coupons even if they’re not as large as the 20% coupon that people expected and frankly demanded from Bed Bath & Beyond,” said Johnson.

    What’s not coming back — at least in the foreseeable future — are physical stores.

    “Never say never,” said Johnson. “We’re focused on this transition now and we like our asset-light business model…. But never say never. We’ll look, we may test, but right now, it’s not in the current strategic plan.”

    Bed Bath & Beyond announced in April it would close all 360 of its stores and go out of business.

    One change that Overstock is contemplating is the company ticker symbol.

    “We think the corporate name, which is Overstock and ticker ‘OSTK’ is probably not a fit anymore. We’re figuring out what to do. We’re not sure we want it to be the “BBBY” tainted ticker of a meme stock gone bankrupt. We’ll find the right name in time.”

    Bed Bath & Beyond’s return comes close on the heels another iconic retail brand’s comeback.

    Babies R Us, which went out of business in tandem with its parent company, Toys R Us, in 2018, opened its new US flagship store last month at the American Dream Mall in New Jersey.

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  • Lost in translation: How New Zealand’s plan for bilingual road signs took an unexpected turn | CNN

    Lost in translation: How New Zealand’s plan for bilingual road signs took an unexpected turn | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    It was meant to be an inclusive gesture to New Zealand’s indigenous Maori community. But plans to introduce bilingual road signs featuring both the English and te reo Maori languages have sparked a divisive, racially charged debate ahead of the country’s looming general election.

    New Zealand – or Aotearoa as it is known to the Maori – recently hosted a public consultation on whether to include te reo Maori on 94 types of road signs, including for place names, speed limits, warnings and expressway advisories.

    The idea, according to the national Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency (whose name means “traveling together as one”), is to promote “cultural understanding and social cohesion” with the Maori community, which makes up almost a fifth of New Zealand’s population of 5.15 million.

    But the idea hasn’t gone down well with right-wing opposition parties, who have attacked the signs claiming they will jeopardize road safety. An extra language will mean less space for the English words, the theory goes, and smaller type will be harder for motorists to read.

    “Signs need to be clear. We all speak English, and they should be in English,” the main opposition National Party’s spokesman Simeon Brown told reporters, insisting the signs could confuse people “traveling at speed.”

    That claim prompted criticism from the ruling Labour Party government, with Prime Minister Chris Hipkins accusing the opposition of thinly disguised racial politics. “I’m not entirely sure where they are going with this unless it’s just an outright dog whistle,” he said.

    While the National Party has since insisted it is not opposed to bilingual signs “per se” – rather, it says, it wants the government to prioritize other things like fixing potholes and improving traffic networks – the issues has sparked heated debate in the run up to the vote in October where Labour are facing a tough fight to hold onto power.

    For many in the Maori community, the plan is as much about signposting and preserving their cultural heritage as it is about understanding road directions.

    Slightly less than a quarter of New Zealand’s 892,200 Maori speak te reo Maori as one of their first languages, according to the latest government data.

    While opponents use this as an argument against the signs – pointing out that 95% of New Zealanders speak English according to the most recent census in 2018 – supporters use the same data as an argument in favor.

    Part of the reason that te reo Maori is not so widely spoken is that back in New Zealand’s colonial era there were active efforts to stamp it out. The Native Schools Act 1867 required schools to teach in English where possible and children were often physically punished for speaking te reo Maori.

    That led to a decline in the language that the New Zealand government of today is trying to reverse. It wants to preserve the language as part of the country’s cultural heritage and sees bilingual signs as one way of encouraging its use.

    As Maori language expert Awanui Te Huia, from the Victoria University of Wellington, put it: “Having bicultural signage allows us to see our language as part of our daily surroundings and contributes to the development of a bilingual national identity.”

    To this end the government in 2018 launched a five-year plan aimed at revitalizing the language. Five years ago just 24% of New Zealanders were able to speak “more than a few words or phrases” of te reo Maori; by 2021 that had risen to 30%.

    Over the same period, support for bilingual signs rose from 51% to 56%.

    The longer term vision is that by 2040, 85% of New Zealanders will value te reo Maori as a key part of their nationality; 1 million people will be able to speak the basics, and that 150,000 Maori ages 15 or above will use it as much as English.

    For Professor Tania Ka’ai, director of The International Centre for Language Revitalisation at Auckland University of Technology, bilingual signs are at least a move in the right direction.

    “I would describe it as a ‘work in progress’ because the language is still at risk of dying and it does not deserve to die – no language does,” Ka’ai said.

    While the transport agency acknowledges some people have “safety concerns” over the plan, it points to the example of Wales in the United Kingdom, where it says signs featuring both English and Welsh have managed to “improve safety” by catering to speakers of the two most common local languages.

    It also says the parallel between New Zealand and Wales will be “particularly salient if te reo Maori becomes understood more widely in the future” – as the government is hoping.

    Several other experts have downplayed the suggestion bilingual signs pose a hazard. Even so, the issue is not entirely clear cut.

    Kasem Choocharukul, an engineering scholar who specializes in traffic behavior, told CNN there is no evidence that bilingual road signs in themselves negatively impact a driver’s comprehension.

    However, design and placement of road signs, as well as the languages and the context in which they are used, have to be treated with care, said Kasem, associate dean of the engineering faculty of Chulalongkorn University in Thailand.

    Research by the University of Leeds suggests road signs consisting of four lines, or more, are likely to slow drivers’ response time significantly.

    Kasem said that in cases where signs featured multiple languages all based on the same alphabet – for instance, both Welsh and English are based on the Latin alphabet – greater care was needed to differentiate them, such as by using different colors or font sizes.

    “The primary objective of these standards is to guarantee that all road signs are unambiguous, uniform, and legible to all,” he said.

    Essentially, poor design can be dangerous, not multiple languages, if done badly.

    A bilingual traffic sign on the A465 in Tredegar, Wales.

    The example of Wales – situated more than 10,000 miles away from New Zealand – isn’t as random as it may seem.

    Commentators say there are a host of uncomfortable parallels between the fortunes of te reo Maori and Welsh, which was also once in danger of dying out but has since witnessed a resurgence.

    At the same time as 19th century European settlers in New Zealand were punishing students for speaking te reo Maori, the British government was actively discouraging the use of the Welsh language, or Cymraeg, in the wake of widespread social unrest.

    In 1847 (20 years before New Zealand’s Native Schools Act) a British government report into Welsh linked the language to stupidity, sexual promiscuity and unruly behavior, prompting a drive to remove the language from local schools.

    This led to the notorious punishment known as the Welsh Nots. These were planks of wood with the initials W.N. on them that would be hung around the necks of students caught speaking the language in school.

    The turning point for Welsh came a century later, following a series of civil disobedience campaigns by the Welsh Language Society in the 1960s. One of these campaigns involved activists defacing and removing English-only signs on streets and roads. Bilingual road signs began to spring up.

    Three decades later, and the British Parliament was actively encouraging the use of Welsh.

    In 1993, it passed the Welsh Language Act to ensure the language shares the same status as English during day-to-day business in Wales. The language is now spoken by more than 900,000 people in Wales, out of a population of more than 3 million.

    James Griffiths, author of “Speak Not: Empire, Identity and the Politics of Language” and a former CNN journalist, said Wales was a prime example of how sound policies could revive a native language, but he noted that, as in New Zealand, there had been resistance from some quarters.

    “I think for a lot of people, if they speak the language of the majority, they don’t appreciate the type of recognition and representation of having it on road signs,” he said.

    Across the Irish Sea, bilingual signs bearing both Irish Gaelic and English have existed in the Republic of Ireland dating back to the start of the 20th century.

    Other commentators draw parallels to how the US state of Hawaii has used road signs to encourage use of Olelo Hawai’i which, like te reo Maori, is a Polynesian language.

    Before the passing of the Hawaii State Constitutional Convention in 1978, which made Hawaiian an official language of the the state, there had been concerns it might go extinct.

    In the 1980s, teaching of Hawaiian in schools began to pick up momentum and parents began making greater efforts to pass the language on to later generations, said Puakea Nogelmeier, professor emeritus of Hawaiian Language at the University of Hawaii.

    This momentum continues to build to this day, with Hawaii’s Department of Transportation last year moving to introduce diacritical markings such as the okina and kahako – dots and lines that indicate glottal stops or longer vowels – to its road signs to help non-native Hawaiian speakers grasp correct pronunciations.

    According to a local government survey in 2016, about 18,000 residents now speak Hawaiian at home in a state with a population of more than 1.4 million.

    But Nogelmeier says that while it has become more common to hear conversations conducted in Olelo Hawai’i, the battle to revive the language is far from over.

    Unlike in New Zealand, where the Maori people reached an agreement with the New Zealand government to preserve te reo Maori under the Maori Language Act 2016, he says the movement in Hawaii is driven primarily by the community, making the cause “more decorative than functional” and akin to “a bit of a hobby.”

    Nogelmeier also says that efforts in Hawaii are largely limited to using Olelo Hawai’i for place names, rather than more complicated linguistic uses.

    He should know: On Hawaiian buses, it is Nogelmeier’s voice that calls out the names of stops in the local language.

    Using indigenous place names also allows outsiders to have a better understanding of how to pronounce words and boost tourism.

    Both Wales and New Zealand have some famous tongue-twisters for those unfamiliar with the local language.

    Llanfairpwllgwyngyll – or to give it its full title Llanfair-pwllgwyngyll-gogery-chwyrn-drobwll-llan-tysilio-gogo-goch – is a little village on the Welsh island of Anglesey and lays claim to being the longest town name in Europe.

    That however it is dwarfed by New Zealand’s own Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu, a hill near Hawke’s Bay which prides itself as the world’s longest place name.

    With New Zealand having wrapped up its public consultation on the signs at the end of June, one other challenge remains should the plan go ahead: ensuring there aren’t any translation bloopers.

    One road sign in Wales made national headlines in 2008 when local council officials sought a translation for a road sign that was meant to say: “No entry for heavy goods vehicles. Residential site only.”

    Their mistake was to email the in-house translation service and not scrutinize its reply too closely.

    Officials requested a sign that read: “Nid wyf yn y swyddfa ar hyn o bryd. Anfonwch unrhyw waith i’w gyfieithy.”

    Only later did they realize that is the Welsh for: “I am not in the office at the moment. Send any work to be translated.”

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