Apple might be the king of tech. But in the growing cold economic war between the world's two biggest economies, it is becoming just another game piece -- albeit a big one. WSJ: Still the world's largest public company by market value, Apple has seen that value take a notable hit this week on increasing signs that its business in China might be coming under threat. The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday that the Chinese government is banning the iPhone and other foreign-branded devices from use by workers at central government agencies. Bloomberg reported Thursday that such a ban might also be extended to state-owned enterprises and other government-backed entities. That could amount to a significant swath of people in a state-led economy with a population totaling more than 1.4 billion.

According to China's National Bureau of Statistics, about 56.3 million urban workers were employed by "state-owned units" in 2021. Those jobs commanded an average wage about 8% above the national urban average -- an attractive segment for a company specializing in premium devices. And because Apple now ships roughly 230 million iPhones globally every year, 56 million would be a notable chunk to take out of the pool of potential buyers -- especially in a mature global smartphone market with low growth prospects. [...] Apple's stock price has thus slumped nearly 7% over the past two days, costing the company about $194 billion in market value. That might seem excessive considering the many unknowns about the reported iPhone bans and how they could ultimately play out. Also, China has at least some interest in not overly harming a major local employer during a time of growing unemployment. One Chinese city alone reportedly has more than one million workers building Apple products or employed in related jobs.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: Chinese state-aligned influence and disinformation campaigns are impersonating U.S. voters and targeting political candidates on multiple social media platforms with improved sophistication, Microsoft said in a threat analysis report Thursday. Chinese Communist Party-affiliated "covert influence operations have now begun to successfully engage with target audiences on social media to a greater extent than previously observed," according to the report, which focused on the rise in "digital threats from East Asia." The Microsoft report also cautioned that some Chinese influence campaigns are now using generative artificial intelligence to create visual content that's "already drawn higher levels of engagement from authentic" users, a trend the company said began around March.

Chinese influence campaigns have historically struggled to gain traction with intended targets, who in this case are U.S. voters and residents. But since the 2022 midterm elections, those efforts have become more effective, Microsoft warned. Microsoft found content from Chinese influence campaigns on multiple apps, including Meta's Facebook and Instagram, Microsoft-owned LinkedIn, and X. In August, Facebook parent Meta announced it had disrupted the largest ever identified disinformation campaign and linked it to China state-affiliated actors. Microsoft's report included screenshots of two different X posts in April that were identified as CCP-affiliated disinformation. Both were about the Black Lives Matter movement and had the same graphic. The first came from an automated CCP-affiliated account. The second, Microsoft said, was uploaded by an account impersonating a conservative U.S. voter seven hours later.

Slash_Account_Dot writes: An artificial intelligence company, whose founder Forbes included in a 30 Under 30 list recently, promises to use machine learning to convert clients' 2D illustrations into 3D models. In reality the company, called Kaedim, uses human artists for 'quality control.' According to two sources with knowledge of the process interviewed by 404 Media, at one point, Kaedim often used human artists to make the models. One of the sources said workers at one point produced the 3D design wholecloth themselves without the help of machine learning at all.

The news pulls back the curtain on a hyped startup and is an example of how AI companies can sometimes overstate the capabilities of their technology. Like other AI startups, Kaedim wants to use AI to do tedious labor that is currently being done by humans. In this case, 3D modeling, a time consuming job that video game companies are already outsourcing to studios in countries like China.

The Pentagon is considering the development of a vast network of AI-powered technology, drones and autonomous systems within the next two years to counter threats from China and other adversaries. WSJ: Kathleen Hicks, the deputy secretary of defense, will provide new details in a speech later Wednesday about the department's plans to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to develop an array of thousands of air-, land- and sea-based artificial-intelligence systems that are intended to be "small, smart, cheap."

The U.S. is seeking to keep pace with China's rapidly expanding military amid concerns that the Pentagon bureaucracy takes too long to develop and deploy cutting-edge systems. [...] One approach could be to build on the capabilities demonstrated by Task Force 59, the U.S. Navy's network of drones and sensors designed to monitor Iran's military activities in the Middle East.

China ordered officials at central government agencies not to use Apple's iPhones and other foreign-branded devices for work or bring them into the office, WSJ is reporting, citing people familiar with the matter. From the report: In recent weeks, staff were given the instructions by their superiors in workplace chat groups or meetings, the people said. The directive is the latest step in Beijing's campaign to cut reliance on foreign technology and enhance cybersecurity, and comes amid a campaign to limit flows of sensitive information outside of China's borders.

The move by Beijing could have a chilling effect for foreign brands in China, including Apple. Apple dominates the high-end smartphone market in the country and counts China as one of its biggest markets, relying on it for about 19% of its overall revenue. It wasn't clear how widely the orders were being distributed, but similar messages were communicated to employees at some central government regulators. Beijing has for years restricted government officials at some agencies from using iPhones for work, but the order has now been widened, the people said. The latest order also signals an intensified effort by Beijing to ensure its rules are strictly enforced.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Two weeks after Intel said it would cancel its plan to acquire Tower Semiconductor for $5.4 billion amidst pushback from regulators, the two companies intend to work together anyway. Intel today said that it would provide foundry services and 300mm manufacturing capacity to Tower. As part of the deal, Tower would use Intel's plant in New Mexico, operated by Intel Foundry Services (IFS), investing up to $300 million to "acquire and own equipment and other fixed assets" that would be installed in the manufacturing facility.

The deal will give Tower a new capacity corridor, it said, of "over 600,000 photo layers per month" to meet expected demand for 300mm chips. The deal will mean that Intel will be manufacturing Tower's 65-nanometer power management BCD (bipolar-CMOS-DMOS) flows. Tower itself also owns its own manufacturing facilities in owns manufacturing facilities in Israel (150mm and 200mm), the U.S. (200mm), Japan (200mm and 300mm) and soon in Italy in partnership with STMicroelectronics. "We launched Intel Foundry Services with a long-term view of delivering the world's first open system foundry that brings together a secure, sustainable, and resilient supply chain with the best of Intel and our ecosystem. We're thrilled that Tower sees the unique value we provide and chose us to open their 300mm U.S. capacity corridor," said Stuart Pann, Intel SVP and GM of Intel Foundry Services, in a statement.

"We are excited to continue working with Intel," added Tower CEO Russell Ellwanger. "As we look to the future, our primary focus is to expand our customer partnerships through high-scale manufacturing of leading-edge technology solutions. This collaboration with Intel allows us to fulfill our customers' demand roadmaps, with a particular focus on advanced power management and radio frequency silicon on insulator (RF SOI) solutions, with full process flow qualification planned in 2024. We see this as a first step towards multiple unique synergistic solutions with Intel."

Julian Assange's supporters will urge the US to drop the prosecution of the Australian citizen on the basis the "very dangerous" precedent will be exploited by China and Russia. From a report: Six Australian politicians are expected to focus on freedom-of-speech arguments when they fly to Washington DC later this month to warn against extraditing the WikiLeaks founder from the UK. The MPs and senators from across the political spectrum are aiming to help build momentum for the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, to raise the case in bilateral talks with Joe Biden at the White House in late October. The trip is being funded by the Assange campaign.

Assange remains in Belmarsh prison in London as he fights a US attempt to extradite him to face charges in connection with the publication of hundreds of thousands of leaked documents about the Afghanistan and Iraq wars as well as diplomatic cables. Greg Barns SC, an adviser to the Assange campaign, said on Tuesday that it was "not an ordinary run-of-the-mill extradition case." He said freedom of speech was "an important theme in the US."

"You've got China chasing journalists around the world, and you've got the Russians who have recently arrested journalists," Barns told Guardian Australia. "You've now got China using the Assange case as a sort of moral equivalence argument. So the message [of the Australian delegation] is going to be: this is very dangerous for journalists around the world and a race to the bottom that's going on."

More than 70 large artificial intelligence language models with over 1 billion parameters have been released in China, Baidu CEO Robin Li told an industry event in Beijing on Tuesday. From a report: Baidu joins several other Chinese companies that launched AI chatbots last week after securing regulatory approval for mass market releases. These include facial recognition firm SenseTime and AI startups Baichuan Intelligent Technology, Zhipu AI, and MiniMax. Li said the latest version of Baidu's AI chatbot, Ernie 3.5, has processing speed twice that of the previous version with 50% improved efficiency. Li also revealed that Baidu will launch a new version in the near future.

An anonymous reader shares a report: China is set to launch a new state-backed investment fund that aims to raise about $40 billion for its semiconductor sector, two people familiar with the matter said, as the country ramps up efforts to catch up with the U.S. and other rivals. It is likely to be the biggest of three funds launched by the China Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund, also known as the Big Fund. Its target of 300 billion yuan ($41 billion) outdoes similar funds in 2014 and 2019, which according to government reports, raised 138.7 billion yuan and 200 billion yuan respectively. One main area of investment will be equipment for chip manufacturing, said one of the two people and a third person familiar with the matter. President Xi Jinping has long stressed the need for China to achieve self-sufficiency in semiconductors.

Chinese oil giant Sinopec last month made a surprise announcement that mostly flew under the radar. It's now expecting gasoline demand in China to peak this year, two years earlier than its previous outlooks. The main culprit? The surging number of electric vehicles on the road. Bloomberg: Calling peaks is often a no-win endeavor for industry analysts. The call will either be correct but seem obvious after the fact, or wrong and lead to years of mockery. But this isn't an analyst calling a peak; it's China's largest fuel distributor. Sinopec knows the fuel business, and more importantly, it has an interest in the business remaining robust. Saying it's all downhill from here for gasoline is quite a statement.

China has been the largest driver of global growth for refined oil products like gasoline and diesel over the last two decades. But EV adoption rates in China are now soaring, with August figures likely to show plug-in vehicles hitting 38% of new passenger-vehicle sales. That's up from just 6% in 2020 and is starting to materially dent fuel demand. Fuel demand in two and three-wheeled vehicles is already in structural decline, with BNEF estimating that 70% of total kilometers traveled by these vehicles already switched over to electric. Fuel demand for cars will be the next to turn, since well over 5% of the passenger-vehicle fleet is now either battery-electric or plug-in hybrid. The internal combustion vehicle fleet is also becoming more efficient due to rising fuel-economy targets.

The BBC has an article about Japan's release into the sea of treated waste water from the damaged Fukushima nuclear plant. "Scientists largely agree that the impact will be negligible, but China has strongly protested the release. And disinformation has only fuelled fear and suspicion in China." A report by a UK-based data analysis company called Logically, which aims to fight misinformation, claims that since January, the Chinese government and state media have been running a coordinated disinformation campaign targeting the release of the waste water. As part of this, mainstream news outlets in China have continually questioned the science behind the nuclear waste water discharge. The rhetoric has only increased since the water was released on 24 August, stoking public anger... Japan's foreign ministry even warned its citizens in China to be cautious and to avoid speaking Japanese loudly in public...

Logically's data also showed that, since the beginning of the year, state-owned media have run paid ads on Facebook and Instagram, without disclaimers, about the risks of the waste water release in multiple countries and languages, including English, German, and Khmer. "It is quite evident that this is politically motivated," Hamsini Hariharan, a China expert at Logically, told the BBC. She added that misleading content from sources related to the Chinese government had intensified the public outcry...

Dozens of posts on Chinese social media Weibo showed panicked crowds buying giant sacks of salt ahead of the Fukushima water release. Some worried that future supply would be contaminated. Others believed — falsely — that salt protected them against radiation. A restaurant in Shanghai, in an apparent effort to profit off the hysteria, advertised "anti-radiation" meals with errant claims of reducing skin damage and cell regeneration. A social media user asked wryly, "Why would I pay 28 yuan for tomato with seasoning?"

Researchers in China have found evidence suggesting that 930,000 years ago, the ancestors of modern humans suffered a massive population crash. They point to a drastic change to the climate that occurred around that time as the cause. The New York Times: Our ancestors remained at low numbers -- fewer than 1,280 breeding individuals -- during a period known as a bottleneck. It lasted for over 100,000 years before the population rebounded. "About 98.7 percent of human ancestors were lost at the beginning of the bottleneck, thus threatening our ancestors with extinction," the scientists wrote. Their study was published on Thursday in the journal Science.

If the research holds up, it will have provocative implications. It raises the possibility that a climate-driven bottleneck helped split early humans into two evolutionary lineages -- one that eventually gave rise to Neanderthals, the other to modern humans. But outside experts said they were skeptical of the novel statistical methods that the researchers used for the study. "It is a bit like inferring the size of a stone that falls into the middle of the large lake from only the ripples that arrive at the shore some minutes later," said Stephan Schiffels, a population geneticist at Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany.

Researchers say they have found fake apps in Google Play that masqueraded as legitimate ones for the Signal and Telegram messaging platforms. The malicious apps could pull messages or other sensitive information from legitimate accounts when users took certain actions. ArsTechnica: An app with the name Signal Plus Messenger was available on Play for nine months and had been downloaded from Play roughly 100 times before Google took it down last April after being tipped off by security firm ESET. It was also available in the Samsung app store and on signalplus[.]org, a dedicated website mimicking the official Signal.org. An app calling itself FlyGram, meanwhile, was created by the same threat actor and was available through the same three channels. Google removed it from Play in 2021. Both apps remain available in the Samsung store.

Both apps were built on open source code available from Signal and Telegram. Interwoven into that code was an espionage tool tracked as BadBazaar. The Trojan has been linked to a China-aligned hacking group tracked as GREF. BadBazaar has been used previously to target Uyghurs and other Turkic ethnic minorities. The FlyGram malware was also shared in a Uyghur Telegram group, further aligning it to previous targeting by the BadBazaar malware family. Signal Plus could monitor sent and received messages and contacts if people connected their infected device to their legitimate Signal number, as is normal when someone first installs Signal on their device. Doing so caused the malicious app to send a host of private information to the attacker, including the device IMEI number, phone number, MAC address, operator details, location data, Wi-Fi information, emails for Google accounts, contact list, and a PIN used to transfer texts in the event one was set up by the user.

An anonymous reader writes: A Guangdong-based state-backed enterprise in charge of e-government projects in the Southern Chinese province has apologized after admitting that its "home-developed" software was based on open-source code from US tech giant Microsoft. Digital Guangdong, known as DigitalGD, published an apology last week after it was revealed that its CEC-IDE software application, which helps programmers write code, was based on Microsoft's Visual Studio Code (VS Code), with just minor modifications and certain functions added.

VS Code is available under the Massachusetts Institute of Technology licence, a permissive open source licence allowing for reuse even for commercial purposes. DigitalGD said this fact was not disclosed due to "negligence," and admitted that its description of its software as "self-developed" has met scrutiny and doubt from Chinese programmers. "We are deeply sorry and humiliated for this, and relevant teams have been ordered to make rectifications," the company said. "Chinese authorities have repeatedly demanded 'safe and controllable' hardware and software for key infrastructure, rewarding businesses for indigenous innovations, but this has motivated some companies to make false claims about their products," notes the South China Morning Post.

A similar incident happened in May when a Shenzhen-based Powerleader announced a "home developed" Powerstar P3-01105 CPU that was later revealed to be Intel's Core i3-10105 Comet Lake CPU.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Associated Press: A Saudi court has sentenced a man to death over his posts on X, formerly known as Twitter, and his activity on YouTube, the latest in a widening crackdown on dissent in the kingdom that has drawn international criticism. The judgement against Mohammed bin Nasser al-Ghamdi, seen Wednesday by The Associated Press, comes against the backdrop of doctoral student Salma al-Shehab and others facing decades-long prison sentences over their comments online. The sentences appear part of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's wider effort to stamp out any defiance in the kingdom as he pursues massive building projects and other diplomatic deals to raise his profile globally.

According to court documents, the charges levied against al-Ghamdi include "betraying his religion," "disturbing the security of society," "conspiring against the government" and "impugning the kingdom and the crown prince" -- all for his activity online that involved re-sharing critics' posts. Saudi officials offered no reason for why they specifically targeted al-Ghamdi, a retired school teacher living in the city of Mecca. However, his brother, Saeed bin Nasser al-Ghamdi, is a well-known critic of the Saudi government living in the United Kingdom. "This false ruling aims to spite me personally after failed attempts by the investigators to have me return to the country," the brother tweeted last Thursday. Saudi Arabia has used arrests of family members in the past as a means to pressure those abroad into returning home, activists and those targeted in the past say. [...]

Saudi Arabia is one of the world's top executioners, behind only China and Iran in 2022, according to Amnesty International. The number of people Saudi Arabia executed last year -- 196 inmates -- was the highest recorded by Amnesty in 30 years. In one day alone last March, the kingdom executed 81 people, the largest known mass execution carried out in the kingdom in its modern history. However, al-Ghamdi's case appears to be the first in the current crackdown to level the death penalty against someone for their online behavior.

Cigarette smoking and other uses of tobacco shave an average of 2.2 years off lifespans globally. But merely breathing -- if the air is polluted -- is more damaging to human health. From a report: That is the conclusion of a report published Tuesday by the University of Chicago's Energy Policy Institute, which identified air pollution as the world's top threat to public health, responsible for reducing average life expectancy by 2.3 years worldwide. China, once the poster child for smog-filled skies, has been a surprise success story. Between 2013 and 2021, the world's second-largest economy improved overall air quality by more than 40% while the average lifespan of residents increased by more than two years, according to the report.

By contrast, four countries in South Asia -- India, Bangladesh Nepal and Pakistan -- accounted for more than half of the total years of life lost globally due to pollution in the atmosphere over the same eight years. India alone was responsible for nearly 60% of the growth in air pollution across the globe during that time. If India were to meet World Health Organization guidelines for particulate pollution, the life expectancy for residents of capital city New Delhi would increase by 12 years. An increase in wildfires in places such as California and Canada has renewed attention on the dangers of polluted air. Around 350 cities globally suffer the same level of dangerous haze that enveloped New York City in June at least once a year, according to calculations from environmental think tank Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, which aggregates data from dozens of official government sources.

Under an ambitious program, dubbed Replicator, the Pentagon aims to field thousands of autonomous systems within two years to counter China. The effort is being spearheaded by Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks. Politico reports: Hicks said the time is right to push to rapidly scale up innovative technology. The move comes as the U.S. looks to get creative to deter China in the Indo-Pacific and Pentagon leadership has taken stock of how Ukraine has fended off Russia's invasion. "Industry is ready. The culture is ready to shift," Hicks said. "We have to drive that from the top, and we need to give it a hard target." "The great paradox of military innovation is you're going to have to make big bets and you've got to execute on those bets," she added.

With Replicator, the Pentagon aims to have thousands of autonomous systems across various domains produced and delivered in 18 to 24 months. Hicks declined to discuss what specific platforms might be produced under the program -- such as aerial drones or unmanned ships -- citing the "competition landscape" in the defense industry as well as concerns about tipping DOD's hand to China. The Pentagon will instead "say more as we get to production on capabilities."

Autonomous weapons are seen as a potential way to counter China's numerical advantages in ships, missiles and troops in a rapidly narrowing window. Fielding large numbers of cheap, expendable drones, proponents argue, is faster and lower-cost than exquisite weapons systems and puts fewer troops at risk. Another major aim of the Replicator initiative is to provide a template for future efforts to rapidly field military technology. She said lessons from the Replicator program could be applied throughout the Pentagon, military services and combatant commands.

The Verge's Nilay Patel writes: Hey, remember when Foxconn bought a bunch of buildings around Wisconsin just before an election and said it was building "innovation centers" around the state in a transparent attempt to build support for the giant tax credits it was given to build an LCD factory that never arrived? Yeah, it's selling two of those buildings. The news was first reported by Wisconsin Public Radio, which got a quote from Foxconn saying that "selling its Green Bay property, known as the Watermark building, will add to the vibrancy of the city's downtown." Very good.

Foxconn's billionaire founder, Terry Gou, has announced he intends to enter Taiwan's 2024 presidential race as an independent." Touting his business and finance experience at the tech giant, Gou is pledging to boost the country's economy and fix its relations with China. "Give me four years and I promise that I will bring 50 years of peace to the Taiwan Strait and build the deepest foundation for the mutual trust across the strait ... Taiwan must not become Ukraine and I will not let Taiwan become the next Ukraine." The Guardian reports: Gou has hinted at running for several months after he was not chosen as the candidate for the main opposition party, the Kuomintang (KMT). He pledged support for the KMT's chosen candidate, Hou Yo-ih, but continued to hold public campaign-style events. Gou will need to collect 290,000 signatures by early November to qualify as an independent candidate.

The entrance of Gou into the campaign adds further intrigue to what was already an unusual race. Lai Ching-te, the current vice-president and presidential nominee for the ruling DPP, is polling ahead of both the KMT's Hou, the current mayor of New Taipei City and a former police chief, and Ko Wen-je, the former mayor of Taipei City and nominee for the Taiwan People's party he founded. A poll last week found Lai's support was at 43%, compared with 27% for Ko, and just 14% for the KMT's Hou. More than 16% were undecided or refused to answer.

In his speech Gou called for an anti-DPP coalition. Ko, Hou and Gou are all considered to be from the pan-blue side of Taiwanese politics which adheres more closely to a Chinese identity. However initial reaction from analysts was that Gou's entry into the race would probably split the blue vote further and instead benefit the DPP.

U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo opened talks with Chinese government officials on Monday, saying it is "profoundly important" for the world's two largest economies to have a stable economic relationship. From a report: Raimondo is looking to boost business ties as U.S. firms have reported increasing challenges with operating in China, while China has sharply criticized U.S. efforts to block its access to advanced semiconductors. Raimondo said the entire world expects the United States and China will have a stable economic relationship; the two countries share more than $700 billion in annual trade. "It's a complicated relationship. "It's a challenging relationship. We will of course disagree on certain issues," Raimondo said. "I think we can make progress if we are direct, open and practical."