Stay ahead with today’s tech updates – your gateway to the latest in innovation and breakthroughs.
1. Fallen ‘Crypto King’ Sam Bankman-Fried gets 25 years for fraud
Crypto entrepreneur Sam Bankman-Fried was sentenced Thursday to 25 years in prison for a massive fraud on hundreds of thousands of customers that unravelled with the collapse of FTX, once one of the world’s most popular platforms for exchanging digital currency. (BBC)
2. SBF sentenced, Worldcoin hit with another ban order and big web3 pre-seed rounds are back
Sam Bankman-Fried, the former FTX CEO who was found guilty on seven counts related to money laundering and fraud in November, was sentenced, Borderless Capital acquired CFT Capital, Worldcoin faces another ban in Europe and more. (TechCrunch)
3. Sam Bankman-Fried FTX fraud victim tells judge: ‘My whole life has been destroyed’
In a letter to the Department of Justice, an FTX customer who lost $4 million when the exchange filed for bankruptcy in 2022 expressed disgust at a circulating narrative that clients of the crypto exchange would ever be made whole. (CNBC)
4. MoneyGram teams up with Saudi fintech barraq
MoneyGram has forged a strategic partnership with the innovative financial technology app barraq. Through this partnership, consumers in Saudi Arabia can use the barraq mobile app to send funds to family and friends globally. (Finextra)
5. Data centre power use ‘to surge six-fold in 10 years’
Advancements in AI and quantum computing will increase the amount of power usage in data centres by six-fold in the next ten years, according to the National Grid CEO. CEO John Pettigrew said the national grid was becoming “constrained” by “dramatically” growing demand and a new network was needed to handle it. (Yahoo)
6. Cloud server host Vultr rips user data ownership clause from ToS after web outrage
In response to online outcry, largely stemming from Reddit, Vultr in the past few hours rewrote its ToS to delete those asserted content rights. Vultr CEO J.J. Kardwell told The Register earlier today it’s a case of standard legal boilerplate being taken out of context. (The Register)
7. Comcast taps edge compute and AI to detect and localize power outages
Comcast taps edge compute and AI to detect and localise power outages. Comcast is pairing AI with its distributed access architecture to detect and localise power outages. ‘This is a step-function in ultimate reliability,’ says Chief Network Officer Elad Nafshi. (Light reading)
8. Microsoft’s new safety system can catch hallucinations in its customers’ AI apps
Comcast taps edge compute and AI to detect and localize power outages. Comcast is pairing AI with its distributed access architecture to detect and localize power outages. ‘This is a step-function in ultimate reliability,’ says Chief Network Officer Elad Nafshi. (The Verge)
9. Google DeepMind unveils ‘superhuman’ AI system that excels in fact-checking, saving costs and improving accuracy
A new study from Google’s DeepMind research unit has found that an artificial intelligence system can outperform human fact-checkers when evaluating the accuracy of information generated by large language models. (Venture beat)
10. The White House puts new guardrails on government use of AI
The US government issued new rules Thursday requiring more caution and transparency from federal agencies using artificial intelligence, saying they are needed to protect the public as AI rapidly advances. But the new policy also has provisions to encourage AI innovation in government agencies when the technology can be used for the public good. (Wired)
11. Microsoft’s Copilot AI set to operate locally on future PCs, says Intel
Intel mentioned that these AI PCs would be equipped to handle “more elements of Copilot” directly on the machine. Copilot currently relies predominantly on cloud processing for most tasks, leading to noticeable delays, especially for minor requests. (Computerworld)
12. Virtual reality helping people with Parkinson’s
Virtual reality headsets are helping alleviate the symptoms of people with Parkinson’s, a charity has said. (BBC)
13. Quectel unveils a series of new high performing 5G, GNSS and 5-in-1 Combo Antennas
Quectel Wireless Solutions, a global IoT solutions provider, has made further additions to its comprehensive range of antennas for IoT devices and deployments. The latest launches include the YEMN016AA and YEMN017AA 5G 5-in-1 combo antennas, the YECN001J1A and YECT000WBA external 5G antennas and the YEGB000Q1A and YEGN000Q1A active GNSS L1 and L5 antennas. (IoT Business News)
