Business, Financial & Legal News - Page 1

US federal judge Pamela Chan has ordered Martin Shkreli "Pharma Bro" to turn over any and all copies he possesses of an ultra-rare Wu-Tang Clan album "Once Upon A Time in Shaolin" from 2015.

Not only that, but Shkreli is also forbidden from streaming or disseminating copies of the record, which is not just ultra-rate, but only a single copy exists on the planet, and Pharma Bro owns it. Why is this happening? The album's current owner, digital collective "PleasrDAO", claims that Shkreli has unauthorized copies of the album, and distributed it without permission.

Steven Cooper, one of the attorneys representing PleasrDAO provided an oral argument in the US District Court for the Eastern District of New York with Judge Pamela Chan, with Cooper releasing a statement saying: "Today's ruling by the court is an important victory for our client PleasrDAO, who owns the exclusive rights to the one-of-a-kind-Wu-Tang Clan album".

Telegram CEO Pavel Durov was arrested at the Le Bourget airport outside of France over the weekend, where he was arrested as part of a police investigation into a wide range of alleged crimes including money laundering, drug trafficking, and human trafficking.

Durov is a dual citizen of both France and Russia, taken into custody after landing from a private jet at the Paris-Le Bourget Airport on Saturday night. Investigators from the National Anti-Fraud Office, attached to the French customs department notified Durov that he was being placed into police custody.

Chinese companies have imported around $26 billion worth of semiconductor manufacturing equipment, according to new trade data released by China's General Administration of Customs this week.

In a new report from Bloomberg, we're finding out that Chinese imports of semiconductor equipment hit a new record for the first 7 months of 2024, as Chinese companies are racing to increase pricing in case the United States and its allies continue to block them from purchasing semiconductor-related equipment.

ASML makes the world's leading-edge High-NA EUV lithography machines, used by semiconductor giants TSMC, Samsung, and Intel has been a recent -- and big-paying -- customer of ASML's machines. ASML is based in the Netherlands, and wouldn't you know, shipments from ASML to China surged 21% in Q2 2024 to almost half of ASML's total revenue.

KIOXIA plans to IPO in October driven by the insatiable AI demand, and the soaring demand of semiconductors to fuel the AI demand.

The Japanese NAND flash memory chip maker is looking at an anticipated valuation of 1.5 trillion yen (around $10.3 billion USD or so) reports Nikkei. The outlet reports that KIOXIA would use the future funds raised from its IPO to increasing the production of cutting-edge memory as well as development of next-generation chips.

Nikkei talked with a "KIOXIA insider" who hoped the IPO would diversity its funding channels, and said: "We've been tight on cash so far, which has left us lagging behind in our ability to invest". Another insider said "even though memory demand is strong now, we don't know what might happen right up to the last minute, like in 2020, so we can't let our guard down".

President Donald Trump said he would have Elon Musk on his cabinet or in an advisory role if he won the 2024 US elections, to which SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk posted on X saying: "I am willing to serve".

Better yet, Musk posted a picture on X of himself (AI-generated, probably using Grok) with "DOGE" or Department of Government Efficiency, which if you know Elon, he's referring to one of his favorite cryptocurrencies, Dogecoin (DOGE).

Age of Empires is one the real-time-strategy games that carved itself into the Mount Rushmore of golden-age PC games, and now a spin-off of the iconic title is making its way over to mobile.

The mobile title is slated for a global launch on both Android and iOS on October 17, and according to the announcement it will be seamlessly blend classic elements of Age of Empires with "brand-new mobile gameplay." The idea behind the title is to bring players a "fresh gaming experience" while also making sure to capture what was loved most about the classic game.

Age of Empires Mobile was developed by TiMi Studio Group in collaboration with World's Edge and Xbox Game Studios. Reports indicate the new title will come with multiple single-player modes, and players will be able to lead their empires by selecting legendary historical figures such as Darius the Great, Joan of Arc, and more. As you can probably imagine, each of these historical figures will come with a unique set of skills and talents that can be used to swat down your enemies.

Samsung is expected to have a new High-NA EUV lithography machine set up by the end of the year, as the South Korean giant wants to better compete with TSMC in the semiconductor manufacturing space.

In a new report from the SEDaily, we're hearing that Samsung Electronics' Semiconductor (DS) Division will have a High-NA EUV lithography machine set to receive one of ASML's bleeding-edge TwinScan EXE:5000 High-NA EUV (Extreme Ultra Violet) lithography machines.

Intel was the first customer of ASML's new High-NA EUV machines for use in the United States, as well as TSMC in Taiwan, and now Samsung in South Korea.

Texas Instruments has signed a preliminary agreement to receive up to $1.6 billion in CHIPS and Science Act proposed funding for semiconductor manufacturing in both Texas and Utah, in the United States.

The US Department of Commerce has proposed up to $1.6 billion for Texas Instruments through the CHIPS and Science Act to support three new 300mm semiconductor wafer fabs that are under construction in Texas and Utah.

TSMC's board of directors has just approved $37.1 billion in new capital spending, with $29.62 billion that will be used "to meet long-term capacity plans... and TSMC's technology development roadmap".

In this new injection of spending, there will be $7.5 billion for TSMC's new plant in Arizona, US, noting that in June 2024, TSMC approved $17.36 billion for fab construction and $5 billion for TSMC global. Ctee reports that we don't know exactly what this money will be funding, but the money is going towards long-term capacity plans and TSMC is pretty much booked deep into 2024, and even into 2025 with some companies.

TSMC isn't just expanding its operations in Taiwan, its home country, but also its production capacity and leading semiconductor technology worldwide, especially in the US with multiple fabs under construction (of which Intel is trying to poach senior engineers for its own Intel Foundry business, away from TSMC's new operations in Arizona).

Two cybersecurity vulnerabilities in Microsoft's Azure Health Bot Service were discovered by a team of researchers, which could have led to access to sensitive health data.

A new report shared with The Hacker News has highlighted two security vulnerabilities that Microsoft has now patched, and according to the report, the vulnerabilities, when exploited, could have enabled a bad actor to gain access to sensitive patient data. The Azure Health Bot Service enables developers in healthcare organizations to easily implement AI virtual health assistants that are interactable by patients and can also be used to offload administrative tasks.

Additionally, these services are also used by insurance providers that allow customers to query the AI chatbot for answers on their personal insurance claim, any benefits they may be getting, and available services. Tenable's research found that an aspect of the Azure AI Health Service featured a vulnerability, which was called Data Connections. Reports indicate this mechanism was responsible for integrating data from third-party sources through an API.