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A Tokyo court ruled that Cloudflare is liable for aiding manga piracy after failing to act on infringement notices and continuing to cache and serve content for major piracy sites, awarding about $3.2 million in damages. TorrentFreak says the decision sets a significant precedent in Japan, suggesting CDN providers can face direct liability when they don't verify customers or respond adequately to large-scale copyright abuse. From the report: After a wait of more than three and a half years, the…

Adobe is buying Semrush for $1.9 billion in a move to supercharge its AI-driven marketing stack. Reuters reports: Semrush designs and develops AI software that helps companies with search engine optimization, social media and digital advertising. The acquisition, expected to close in the first half of next year, would allow Adobe to help marketers better understand how their brands are viewed by online consumers through searches on websites and generative AI bots such as ChatGPT and Gemini. "Th…

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: This year's newest iPhones included one momentous change that marked a new phase in the evolution of Apple Silicon: the Apple N1, Apple's first in-house chip made to handle local wireless connections. The N1 supports Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6, and the Thread smart home communication protocol, and it replaces the third-party wireless chips (mostly made by Broadcom) that Apple used in older iPhones. Apple claimed that the N1 would enable more reli…

pbahra writes: Saudi Arabia is betting that the future of Hollywood won't be built in physical stages but in datacenters. In a push to anchor itself in next-generation film production, Riyadh-based Humain has led Luma AI's latest Series C round, backing the shift towards cloud-based, AI-generated video rather than traditional studio infrastructure.. Humain's announcement says the new investment will accelerate Luma's development of world models capable of learning from video, audio and language…

Nvidia blew past earnings expectations with soaring revenue and profit, easing fears of an AI bubble and reinforcing its position as the engine of the global AI boom. From a report: Nvidia's sales grew 62% year-over-year to $57 billion in the October quarter, ahead of the $54.9 billion Wall Street had projected, signaling that demand for AI chips remains strong even as more questions emerge about whether returns from the technology will keep up with the pace of AI infrastructure investments. It…

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: The Dutch government suspended its powers over chipmaker Nexperia, restoring control to its Chinese owner (paywalled; alternative source) and defusing a standoff with Beijing that had begun to hamper automotive production around the world. The order that gave the Netherlands powers to block or revise decisions at Nexperia was dropped as "a show of goodwill," Economic Affairs Minister Vincent Karremans said Wednesday in a post on social media s…

An anonymous reader shares a report: This summer, Oslo's public-transport authority drove a Chinese electric bus deep into a decommissioned mine inside a nearby mountain to answer a question: Could it be hacked? Isolated by rock from digital interference, cybersecurity experts came back with a qualified yes: The bus could in theory be remotely disabled using the control system for the battery. The revelation, presented at a recent public-transport conference, has spurred officials in Denmark an…

A new treatment for tuberculosis could boost cure rates and shorten the time needed to treat the disease by months, trial results suggest. The Guardian: Globally, an estimated 10.7 million people fell ill with TB last year and 1.23 million died from it. In its annual report on tuberculosis, launched last week, the World Health Organization said it remained a "major global public-health problem" and the leading infectious cause of death. [...] Sorfequiline, a new antibiotic, showed stronger acti…

Action is needed now to reduce ultra-processed food (UPF) in diets worldwide because of their threat to health, say international experts in a global review of research. From a report: They say the way we eat is changing - with a move away from fresh, whole foods to cheap, highly-processed meals - which is increasing our risk of a range of chronic diseases, including obesity and depression. Writing in The Lancet, the researchers say governments need "to step up" and introduce warnings and highe…

The EU's cookie consent policies have been an annoying and unavoidable part of browsing the web in Europe since their introduction in 2018. But the cookie nightmare is about to crumble thanks to some big proposed changes announced by the European Commission today. From a report: Instead of having to click accept or reject on a cookie pop-up for every website you visit in Europe, the EU is preparing to enforce rules that will allow users to set their preferences for cookies at the browser level.…

Linus Torvalds is "fairly positive" about vibe coding as a way for people to get computers to do things they otherwise could not. The Linux kernel maintainer made the comments during an interview at the Linux Foundation Open Source Summit in Seoul earlier this month. But he cautioned that vibe coding would be a "horrible, horrible idea from a maintenance standpoint" for production code. Torvalds told Dirk Hohndel, head of open source at Verizon, that computers have become more complicated than …

Britain said on Wednesday it would ban the resale of tickets to concerts, sport and other live events for profit, disrupting ticket touts and the platforms that benefit from their activities. From a report: Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy said touts were ripping off fans by using bots to snap up batches of tickets for coveted shows and reselling them at sky-high prices. "Our new proposals will shut down the touts' racket and make world-class music, comedy, theatre and sport affordable for everyone…

Chinese economist Gao Shanwen told a Washington panel in December that China's real GDP growth might be around 2% rather than the official figure near 5%. By January, Gao was no longer chief economist at SDIC Securities and went silent for almost a year. As FT points out in a long piece, China does not publish quarterly GDP breakdowns showing consumption, investment and net exports. Every other major economy produces these figures. The IMF in 2024 gave China a C grade for national accounts. The…

Boston Dynamics' Spot robot is now deployed by more than 60 bomb squads and SWAT teams across the US and Canada. The 75-pound four-legged machine starts at around $100,000 and has been used in armed standoffs, hostage rescues and hazardous materials incidents since its commercial debut five years ago. The Massachusetts State Police operates two Spot units purchased in 2020 and 2022. Each cost about $250,000 including add-ons funded through state grants. Last year one of the robots helped corner…

An anonymous reader shares a report: Federal health officials have linked two massive US measles outbreaks, confirming that the country is about two months away from losing its measles elimination status, according to a report by The New York Times. The Times obtained a recording of a call during which officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed to state health departments that the ongoing measles outbreak at the border of Arizona and Utah is a continuation of the ex…