Business, Financial & Legal - Page 31

Raytheon has just announced a new $20 million contract through its Strategic and Spectrum Missions Advanced Resilient Trusted Systems (SSMARTS) consortium to develop a next-gen, multi-chip package that will be used in ground, maritime, and airborne sensors and built by AMD.

Under the new contract, Raytheon says it will package state-of-the-art commercial devices from partners like AMD to create a compact microelectronics package that will convert radio frequency energy to digital information with more bandwidth and higher data rates. This new chip will enable new system capabilities designed with higher performance, lower power consumption, and reduced weight.

Colin Whelan, president of Advanced Technology at Raytheon, said: "By teaming with commercial industry, we can incorporate cutting-edge technology into Department of Defense applications on a much faster timescale. Together, we will deliver the first multi-chip package that features the latest in interconnect ability - which will provide new system capabilities to our warfighters".

Google conducted massive layoffs last year, which is going to cost the company billions of dollars in severance packages and costs related to layoffs.

More specifically, Alphabet's earnings report for the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2023 stated the company was expecting to shell out $700 million in severance costs this quarter. Alphabet, Google's parent company, continued with the layoffs at the company behind the world's largest search engine, with additional layoffs occurring in January 2024 that amounted to hundreds of workers across core engineering and hardware teams.

Furthermore, Google conducted layoffs in January 2023, and according to Business Insider, the company "recorded employee severance and related charges of $2.1 billion for the twelve months ended December 31, 2023." During this time period, in January 2023, the company laid off 6% of its total workforce, or 12,000 employees. Affected staff or former staff, were paid during the 60-day-minimum WARN notification period, with the offer of severance of at least 16 weeks' salary + two weeks of severance for every year they worked at the company.

Tesla stock slid 13.2% on Thursday after the company released its 4th quarter earnings report, which revealed the company missed several of its internal estimates.

The massive loss in Musk's total value can be attributed to Tesla's stock price sliding to 180.38 on Thursday, and according to Forbes, the Tesla CEO lost $17 billion more than any other billionaire. For those that don't know, Musk owns 21% of Tesla, so when Tesla's stock price dips, so does Musk's total net worth, which is estimated to be around $203.6 billion - $20 billion more than LVMH's Bernard Arnault. Notably, Musk's net worth was a staggering $320 billion in November 2021, which made him the first person ever to obtain such a fortune.

Tesla's quarterly financial report revealed the company missed some targets, including total revenue. Tesla reported top-line revenue of $25.17 billion against the expected $25.87 billion. Furthermore, Tesla's revenue increased by 3% compared to a year ago, with the company also telling shareholders it expects its "vehicle volume growth rate may be notably lower than the growth rate achieved in 2023 as our teams work on the launch of the next-generation vehicle at Gigafactory Texas."

TSMC has just announced its plans for 1nm process node production, where the company plans to build a new state-of-the-art fabrication plant in Taiwan to handle the influx of next-gen chip orders.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) reaching the "holy grail" of semiconductor leadership with its 1nm process node will only continue its dominance in the field, leaving both Samsung and Intel in their (1nm) dust. The new cutting-edge facility is expected to be developed in Chiayi County in southern Taiwan.

It's expected that TSMC's advanced new 1nm fabrication plant would cost somewhere up to 1 trillion won (around $32 billion USD) and should be built at the Southern Taiwan Science Park (STSP). It's expected to take up close to 100 hectares, divided into a "60/40 ratio," where the facilities will handle both semiconductor and IC packaging production in the same facility.

James "Jimmy" Donaldson, more commonly known as MrBeast, is the biggest YouTuber in the world, and now reports indicate he's in talks for a massive deal over at Amazon.

Donaldson is known for his philanthropy and often out-of-this-world videos, such as spending 50 hours in prison, 7 days buried alive, recreating the viral Squid Game series, and so much more. With MrBeast being such a massive name in the entertainment industry, it's no surprise that everyone wants in on the action. According to a new report, MrBeast is currently in the final stages of a deal with Amazon to bring his content to the streaming service Prime Video for a whopping $100 million.

The deal was first reported by Puck News, which mentions that MrBeast will continue to make YouTube content with part of the deal for the series to have the first episode air on MrBeast's YouTube Channel before it moves over to Prime Video. Currently, it is unclear if that will continue throughout the entire series or if this is a once-off just for promotion, though we will get more information when the series is officially announced.

Unless you're living under a rock, you know what eBay is, and it turns out the staff over at eBay aren't very fond of critics.

Unfortunately for them, the behavior of former staff at the company has landed them in $3 million dollars of hot water to resolve criminal charges against a couple who wrote a critical newsletter about the company in 2019.

Former employees of eBay sent living spiders, cockroaches, and a fetal pig to the Massachusetts couple who had scolded the company in an online newsletter in 2019. The online auction giant was criminally charged with two counts of stalking through interstate travel, two counts of stalking through electronic communication services, witness tampering, and obstruction of justice.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has aired out some of the company's dirty laundry on the social media platform X, formerly called Twitter, as the company's CEO has called for more control before he expands Tesla's presence in AI and robotics.

Musk took to X to write that he simply is "uncomfortable" growing Tesla's AI and robotics capabilities without having 25% of voting control, which would be enough for him to remain "influential, but not so much that I can't be overturned". Musk went as far as to say that unless he is given that control, he would "prefer to build products outside of Tesla". Currently, Musk has about a 13% stake in Tesla, equating to a whopping $206 billion of Musk's $230+ billion net worth.

In the past, Musk has described Tesla as not an electric car company but an AI and robotics company that happens to make electric cars. It seems that Musk wants to pump the breaks on development in both of those areas, whether it be autonomous driving or robotics, until he is given this 25% voting power. Musk added in a follow-up post that if he had 15% voting power or lower, "the for/against ratio to override me makes a takeover by dubious interests too easy."

A new report by RespawnFirst has detailed a lawsuit by Take-Two Interactive that believes Remedy Entertainment's logo too closely resembles Take-Two's own trademarked logos, such as Rockstar Games.

Remedy applied for its current trademark back in May 2013 with the UK Intellectual Property Office, which was then publicly published in June 2023. In September of the same year Take-Two filed an opposition against the logo, claiming there is a chance the public could become confused between Remedy's logo and Rockstar Games' logo. `

Notably, this isn't the first time Take Two has gone after another company within the gaming industry over trademarks, as Hazelight came under fire when it attempted to file a trademark for "It Takes Two". The dispute between the two companies ended in Hazelight having to abandon its trademark. It doesn't stop there, as Take-Two have also gone after modders within the Grand Theft Auto community; AI-powered story mod for GTA V = shut down, Grand Theft Auto IV Definitive Edition Mod = shut down, and many more.

NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang is celebrating in a big way right now, with The Economic naming him the "Best CEO of 2023" after the explosive dominance of NVIDIA's fleet of AI GPUs.

The Economist took a look at the performance of the leaders of the largest companies in the S&P 1200 index, which looks at the big economies except for China and India. The list doesn't include any CEO that hasn't been in their position for less than three years, ranking the list of executives by the returns they generated for their shareholders relative to their sector's average.

On the list of the top 10 bosses, included Canadian mining firm Cameco and American homebuilder PulteGroup, which were left out of the left. A few other CEOs were left out of the group, leaving five "superstar chief executives" for 2023. At the top of that list was NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang, which delivered an astounding 172.9% shareholder return; second under Huang was Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta.

The last twelve months have been absolutely phenomenal for semiconductor companies, which just enjoyed their best year in over a decade.

Bloomberg reports that the huge numbers were driven by the insatiable demand of artificial intelligence (AI) chips, with the site reporting the Philadelphia Stock Exchange Semiconductor Index rising 65% in 2023, which represents the biggest single-year gain for the index since 2009.

All of the stocks except for a single one in the 30-member index skyrocketed in 2023, with a single massive standout on the index: NVIDIA. The company had amazing sales throughout 2023, mostly driven by their extensive AI GPUs. Shares more than tripled, giving NVIDIA the title of the first chipmaker to hit a market capitalization of over $1 trillion.

LG has plenty to show off at CES 2024 next week, with new TVs, speakers, gaming monitors and more... including its new LG Styler clothing care solution. Check it out:

The new LG Styler clothing care solution features a handheld, high-pressure steamer, the Dynamic Moving Hanger, and Dual TrueSteam technology, the company says its latest Styler delivers faster and more effective clothes-refreshing cycles with improved drying, dehumidification, and de-wrinkling performance.

We have a first for the LG Styler lineup, with its new model featuring a handheld, high-pressure steamer that makes it even easier to remove wrinkles from shirts and other garments, which saves the trouble (and time) of using a separate iron. LG Styler owners can hang their wrinkled clothes inside of the door, take out the steamer attached to the bottom of the Styler itself, and start the steam process with a simple press of a button.

Vizio buyers filed a class action lawsuit all the way back in 2018, claiming the TV maker was selling its TVs with an "effective refresh rate" that is in reality, false advertising.

Fast forward to today, and the company has just paid out $3 million from a court case with the Superior Court of California in Los Angeles, which was meant to go back to trial in March 2024. Still, the company and its lawyers decided to settle instead.

The lawsuit read: "Vizio knows, or at the very least should know, that its television with 60Hz display panels have a refresh rate of 60 images per second and that backlight manipulation methods cannot and do not increase the effective Hz (refresh rate) of a television".

US President Joe Biden's administration has pushed ASML to cancel shipments of some of its high-end chip-making machines into China, after new US export bans come into effect.

The news is coming from Bloomberg and the usual "people familiar with the matter," who said that the Dutch manufacturer had licenses to ship three of its new high-end deep ultraviolet lithography machines to Chinese firms this month, when new Dutch restrictions will begin taking effect.

US officials reached out to ASML, asking them to immediately stop the pre-scheduled shipments of their new machines to Chinese customers, once again, "according to people familiar with the matter". These people asked not to be identified because the discussions were confidential.

TSMC has shared new plans for its next-gen chip packages, where the company plans over 1 trillion transistors on its next-gen A10 process node by the year 2030... identical to what Intel has planned, and announced last year.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) shared the news during the recent IEDM conference, where it lists its newer N5 and N4 process nodes, as well as N3 and N3E process nodes. N5 and N4 began their lives back in 2020, while N3 and N3E process nodes started out this year in 2023, while N2 and N2P process nodes will be unleashed in 2025.

NVIDIA's upcoming H200 AI GPU is a monolithic chip with 80 billion transistors, while AMD's upcoming Instinct MI300X AI GPU uses a chiplet design with a whopping 153 billion transistors using a blend of 5nm and 6nm IPs on the MI300X. However, TSMC teases it will have 200 billion transistors on a single monolithic chip with its N3 and N3E process nodes very soon.

The New York Times has sued OpenAI and Microsoft for alleged unauthorized use of the publication's copyrighted works to train its AI via large language models (LLMs).

The lawsuit (The New York Times Company v. MICROSOFT CORPORATION 1:23-cv-11195) could be a landmark case that establishes precedent for artificial intelligence, namely those fueled by large language models like ChatGPT.

On Wednesday, December 27, the The New York Times filed a complaint against OpenAI and Microsoft for allegedly using its lawfully protected written material to train AI chatbots like ChatGPT. More specifically, NYT is suing both parties for copyright violation. One exhibit (Exhibit J) provided 100 instances where chatbots quoted NYT articles verbatim.

ASML has just officially shipped its very first High-NA EUV lithography scanner to Intel, with the sparkling new Twinscan EXE:5000 extreme ultraviolet (EUV) scanner being the first High-NA scanner from the company and now in the hands of Intel.

Intel placed its order with ASML for the advanced EUV scanner all the way back in 2018, where Team Blue will be playing around with the new High-NA EUV scanner before it uses the commercial-grade Twinscan EXE:5200 tool for high-volume manufacturing (HVM), which is expected to take place in 2025.

An ASML spokesperson said: "We are shipping the first High NA system and announced this in a social media post today. It goes to Intel as planned and announced earlier".

The founder of Amazon and Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos, has sat down for the longest interview he has ever done, where he touched on many different aspects of his long career, including the iconic phone call he made during the early days of Amazon.

Bezos, who has since left his role as CEO of Amazon and moved on to his new concentration of space exploration through Blue Origin, responded to a question from Lex Fridman on the Lex Fridman Podcast where he was asked about the call he made to Amazon's customer service. Bezos first touched on one of his business philosophies: "When the data and the anecdotes disagree, the anecdotes are usually right."

Bezos continued to explain that typically, when you are faced with this issue, the wrong data is being collected, and there isn't a problem with the way it's being collected. The former Amazon CEO recounted an early problem for the company; internal metrics indicated that Amazon customers were waiting less than a minute to reach a customer service representative. However, Amazon was receiving a lot of complaints about wait times far exceeding the expected 1-minute wait time.

Apple has informed 9to5Mac that it will soon be stopping sales of its flagship Apple Watch models following a recent ruling by the International Trade Commission (ITC).

The ruling by the ITC involves an extensive patent dispute between Apple and medical technology company Masimo, which is debating over the ownership of the Apple Watch's blood oxygen sensor technology. Notably, the ITC announced its ruling back in October, which upheld a judge's decision from January. The case was then sent to the Biden administration, where it will undergo a 60-day Presidential Review Period, and throughout this period, President Biden can veto the ruling. The Presidential Review Period is scheduled to end on December 24, 2023.

As for the Apple Watch's in question, Apple has told the publication that it will no longer be able to sell its Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2 in the United States after 3 pm ET on Thursday, December 21. Additionally, in-store inventory won't be available from Apple stores after December 24. The two affected watches are Apple's only devices using the blood oxygen monitoring technology, hence their imminent removal.

It appears that Elon Musk's rocket company, SpaceX, is worth more than Disney or Comcast, according to recent reports from Bloomberg.

The new report from the publication indicates that SpaceX is considering selling shares at a valuation of $175 billion, which would make Musk's company worth more than Disney or Comcast. Notably, SpaceX officially denied reports that insinuated the company was having an internal consideration about an IPO for its Starlink division next year while also upping its valuation by $25 billion more than it was last summer.

According to unnamed sources in the report, SpaceX is considering a share price of $95, which would generate $500 to $750 million if initiated. For reference, Comcast and Disney are worth about $167 billion, and Musk's rocket company hasn't even released put into place its best product - Starship. The company's newest generation rocket that's designed to land on the moon and Mars.

Following the severing of many notable brands as advertisers on X, the social media platform formerly called Twitter, Elon Musk has continued his tirade of comments aimed directly at Disney CEO Bob Iger.

The latest comments from Musk emerged on his personal X account, where he wrote, "Bob, Iger thinks it's cool to advertise next to child exploitation material. Real stand-up guy." The comment was in reference to a lawsuit filed by Attorney General Raúl Torrez of New Mexico against Meta, which alleges the Mark Zuckerberg-run company isn't doing enough to protect kids on both Instagram and Facebook.

How does this connect to Iger? Musk has pointed out that Disney is still continuing to advertise on Meta despite the allegations against the company. The X owner called for Iger's immediate resignation, writing he should be "fired immediately", and that Walt Disney himself was "turning in his grave over what Bob has done to his company."