An anonymous reader quotes a report from MacRumors: Apple will begin making AirPods in India for the first time early next year, reports Bloomberg. Foxconn will make the wireless earphones at a factory near Hyderabad in Telangana state, beginning around Q1 2025. The factory has reportedly been making AirPods on a trial basis, with manufacturing set to ramp up quickly after production begins. It will make AirPods only the second major Apple product to be assembled in India after the iPhone.

The decision to set up production in India was requested by Apple back in 2023, according to a previous report. Foxconn officials apparently debated internally for months about whether to assemble AirPods due to the relatively low profit margins, but ultimately decided to go ahead with it to "reinforce engagement" with Apple. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government offers financial incentives to companies that produce wireless earphones and smartwatches locally, which influenced Apple's decision to move manufacturing there. The move is also part of Apple's plan to reduce its production reliance on China amid rising geopolitical tensions between the country and the United States.

The U.S. military has begun openly discussing offensive capabilities in space, reports ArsTechnica, a significant shift from previous policies that avoided mentioning space-based weapons to prevent an arms race. U.S. Space Command recently listed "integrated space fires" -- military terminology for offensive or defensive actions against adversaries -- among its priorities.

The move follows increasing concerns about China and Russia's space warfare capabilities, including satellite-disabling weapons and potential nuclear anti-satellite systems. "Space is a war-fighting domain," Space Force Chief Gen. Chance Saltzman said at a conference in Orlando. "Ten years ago, I couldn't say that." Gen. Stephen Whiting, head of U.S. Space Command, identified "integrated space fires" as his organization's most urgent requirement. The capabilities under consideration range from cyberattacks and directed energy weapons to satellite-capture systems, though specific details remain classified.

Leaders of the U.S. House of Representatives committee on China told Apple and Google's parent Alphabet to prepare to remove TikTok from U.S. app stores on January 19, following a federal appeals court decision upholding legislation requiring Chinese-based ByteDance to divest the platform or face a ban.

The U.S. and China signed a modified science and technology agreement on Friday, narrowing its scope and adding security safeguards to address growing technological rivalry between the world's two largest economies.

The updated pact, which extends cooperation for five years, focuses solely on basic research and excludes critical technologies like AI and quantum computing. The State Department said the agreement strengthens intellectual property protections and introduces new provisions for transparency and data sharing. The revision comes amid escalating tech tensions, with Washington restricting advanced chip exports to China and limiting U.S. investments in sensitive technologies that could enhance Chinese military capabilities.

Indian teenager Gukesh Dommaraju made history by defeating China's Ding Liren to become the youngest world chess champion at 18, sealing a dramatic 7.5-6.5 victory in the 14-game match. The Guardian reports: The 18-year-old from Chennai dramatically snatched the decisive victory from a dead-drawn position in the final contest of their best-of-14-games showdown when Ding made one of the worst blunders in the 138-year history of world championship matchplay. The 32-year-old defending champion resigned moments later after a game that lasted 58 moves and just over four hours, sealing Gukesh's 7.5-6.5 win in the three-week match and rendering moot the widely expected prospect of tiebreaker matches on Friday afternoon.

In doing so, Gukesh shattered the age record held by Garry Kasparov, who was 22 when he toppled Anatoly Karpov in 1985. Gukesh admitted he didn't initially recognize Ding's rook move (55 Rf2??) as a blunder, saying it took a few seconds to spot that his opponent's bishop was trapped. He could barely conceal his excitement upon the discovery, while a devastated Ding could only bury his head in his hands. "When I realized it, it was probably the best moment of my life," said Gukesh, who brings home the $1.35 million winner's share of the $2.5 million prize fund along with the sport's most prestigious title.

Security researchers have uncovered a new surveillance tool that they say has been used by Chinese law enforcement to collect sensitive information from Android devices in China. From a report: The tool, named "EagleMsgSpy," was discovered by researchers at U.S. cybersecurity firm Lookout. The company said at the Black Hat Europe conference on Wednesday that it had acquired several variants of the spyware, which it says has been operational since "at least 2017."

Kristina Balaam, a senior intelligence researcher at Lookout, told TechCrunch the spyware has been used by "many" public security bureaus in mainland China to collect "extensive" information from mobile devices. This includes call logs, contacts, GPS coordinates, bookmarks, and messages from third-party apps including Telegram and WhatsApp. EagleMsgSpy is also capable of initiating screen recordings on smartphones, and can capture audio recordings of the device while in use, according to research Lookout shared with TechCrunch.

A manual obtained by Lookout describes the app as a "comprehensive mobile phone judicial monitoring product" that can obtain "real-time mobile phone information of suspects through network control without the suspect's knowledge, monitor all mobile phone activities of criminals and summarize them."

China should focus on developing original technologies and scientific knowledge and leverage the expertise of scientists returning from the United States, according to a top Chinese-American mathematician. From a report: Yau Shing-Tung retired from Harvard University in 2022 to teach at Tsinghua University and help China become a maths powerhouse. He said many ethnic Chinese students had been driven away from the US by discrimination from the government, including accusations of misusing American research funds for China's benefit.

"Chinese scientists have no choice but to leave the US because they work best under a supportive research environment," he said. "This exodus is unfortunate for the US as it could diminish its research capabilities. For China, the return of these scientists means it is gaining top talent, but it also results in weakened ties with the US and a loss of first-hand knowledge of advanced technologies."

An increasing number of leading scientists are leaving the West for Chinese institutions. Yau's maths centre at Tsinghua in Beijing is one example where top foreign mathematicians have been recruited. In a survey of 1,300 US-based scientists of Chinese descent conducted between late 2021 and early 2022, 72 per cent of respondents said they did not feel safe as academic researchers. And 61 per cent said they had thought about leaving the United States for either Asian or non-Asian countries.

China's high-speed rail network, which has tripled to nearly 30,000 miles under President Xi Jinping's leadership, faces mounting financial challenges amid aggressive expansion plans. China State Railway Group, the national operator, has accumulated nearly $1 trillion in debt and liabilities, requiring $25 billion annually for debt service.

Despite this, plans call for adding 15,000 more miles by 2035. While flagship routes between major cities like Beijing and Shanghai remain profitable, newer lines into rural regions are struggling with low ridership. In Sichuan province's Fushun County, which received high-speed rail service in 2021, stations built for thousands sit largely empty despite having 12 high-speed rail stops within a 40-mile radius.

The expansion has become a symbol of China's technological advancement but raises concerns about economic viability. Ticket prices are maintained at about one-quarter of global averages to ensure public access, limiting profit potential. The railway operator turned a modest $460 million profit in 2023, aided by government subsidies, after three years of losses during the pandemic.

The head of America's FCC "has drafted plans to regulate the cybersecurity of telecommunications companies," reports the Washington Post, and the plans could include financial penalties phone network operators with insufficient security — "the first time the agency has asserted such powers under federal wiretapping law." Rosenworcel said the FCC's authority in this matter comes from Section 105 of the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act [passed in 1994] — a single sentence that stipulates, without elaboration, that telecommunications carriers should ensure systems security "in accordance with regulations prescribed by the Commission." As one of the measures, she is seeking to require network providers to submit an annual certification to the FCC that they are implementing a cybersecurity risk management plan. In addition to imposing fines, the FCC could coordinate with other agencies to pursue criminal penalties against carriers deemed too careless on cybersecurity...

Biden administration officials said voluntary efforts to protect against aggressive Chinese hacking activity have fallen short. "We've had for the last decade voluntary public-private partnership efforts," Neuberger told The Post in a recent interview. "But we continue to see successful breaches, and in many cases, as with ransomware attacks, we continue to see pretty basic cybersecurity practices not being followed." With China's hackers becoming more brazen, pre-positioning themselves in U.S. critical networks, "we need to lock our digital doors," Neuberger said...

Cyber requirements can make a difference, she said. After the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack in 2021 shut down one of the nation's largest energy pipelines for several days, creating a national security scare, the Transportation Security Administration issued several security directives, and today, all of the country's several dozen critical pipeline companies are in compliance, she said. Similar directives were subsequently issued for rail and aviation sectors, and the compliance rates in those industries are now at 68 and 57 percent respectively, she said.

China-linked spies may still be lurking in U.S. telecommunications networks — but the breach could be much, much wider. In fact, a "couple dozen" countries were hit by the attack, the Wall Street Journal reported this week, citing a top U.S. national security adviser. "Chinese government hackers have compromised telecommunications infrastructure across the globe as part of a massive espionage campaign..." Speaking during a press briefing Wednesday, Anne Neuberger, President Biden's deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technology, said the so-called Salt Typhoon campaign is ongoing and that at least eight telecommunications firms in the U.S. had been breached... The Journal previously identified Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile and Lumen Technologies among the victims... [M]etadata grabs appeared to be "regional" in focus, and were likely a means to identify phone lines of valuable senior government officials, which the hackers then targeted to steal encrypted text messages and listen in on some phone calls, the official said... President-elect Donald Trump, Vice President-elect JD Vance, senior congressional staffers and an array of U.S. security officials were among scores of individuals to have their calls and texts directly targeted, an intelligence-collection coup that likely ensnared their private communications with thousands of Americans, the Journal has reported.

The senior administration official said the global tally of countries victimized was currently believed to be in the "low, couple dozen" but didn't give a precise figure. The global campaign of hacking activity dates back at least a year or two, the official said.
"Neuberger, on the press briefing, said that it wasn't believed that classified communications were accessed in the breaches."

60-year-old Chinese virologist Shi Zhengli led the Wuhan Institute of Virology's group studying bat coronaviruses (prompting Science magazine to call her "Bat Woman"). In June of 2020 Scientific American described Zhengli as "distressed because stories from the Internet and major media have repeated a tenuous suggestion that SARS-CoV-2 accidentally leaked from her lab — despite the fact that its genetic sequence does not match any her lab had previously studied."

More than four years later, Nature writes Friday that Zhengli "reported that none of the viruses stored in her freezers are the most recent ancestors of the virus SARS-CoV-2," presenting data at a conference in Japan "on dozens of new coronaviruses collected from bats in southern China." Shi has consistently said that SARS-CoV-2 was never seen or studied in her lab. But some commentators have continued to ask whether one of the many bat coronaviruses her team collected in southern China over decades was closely related to it. Shi promised to sequence the genomes of the coronaviruses and release the data. The latest analysis, which has not been peer reviewed, includes data from the whole genomes of 56 new betacoronaviruses, the broad group to which SARS-CoV-2 belongs, as well as some partial sequences. All the viruses were collected between 2004 and 2021.

"We didn't find any new sequences which are more closely related to SARS-CoV-1 and SARS-CoV-2," said Shi, in a pre-recorded presentation at the conference... The results support her assertion that the WIV lab did not have any bat-derived sequences from viruses that were more closely related to SARS-CoV-2 than were any already described in scientific papers, says Jonathan Pekar, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Edinburgh, UK. "This just validates what she was saying: that she did not have anything extremely closely related, as we've seen in the years since," he says.
"Earlier this year, Shi moved from the WIV to the Guangzhou Laboratory, a newly established national research institute for infectious diseases."

"TikTok has lost its bid to strike down a law that could result in the platform being banned in the United States," reports CNN.

A U.S. federal appeals court just unanimously ruled in favor of the new U.S. law requiring TikTok's China-based owners to either sell the app next month or face an effective ban in the United States. Denying TikTok's argument that the law was unconstitutional, the judges found that the law does not "contravene the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States," nor does it "violate the Fifth Amendment guarantee of equal protection of the laws"... After the [January 25] deadline, U.S. app stores and internet services could face hefty fines for hosting TikTok if it is not sold. (Under the legislation, President Biden may issue a one-time extension of the deadline.)

In a statement, TikTok indicated it would appeal the decision. "The Supreme Court has an established historical record of protecting Americans' right to free speech, and we expect they will do just that on this important constitutional issue," said company spokesperson Michael Hughes. "Unfortunately, the TikTok ban was conceived and pushed through based upon inaccurate, flawed and hypothetical information, resulting in outright censorship of the American people. The TikTok ban, unless stopped, will silence the voices of over 170 million Americans here in the US and around the world on January 19th, 2025"....

"People in the United States would remain free to read and share as much PRC propaganda (or any other content) as they desire on TikTok or any other platform of their choosing," the judges said. "What the Act targets is the PRC's ability to manipulate the content covertly. Understood in that way, the Government's justification is wholly consonant with the First Amendment."
The judges also wrote that "in part precisely because of the platform's expansive reach, Congress and multiple Presidents determined that divesting it from the PRC's control is essential to protect our national security... Congress judged it necessary to assume that risk given the grave national-security threats it perceived."

CNN notes that ByteDance "has previously indicated it will not sell TikTok."

The Carnegie Endowment for Peace, a nonpartisan international affairs think tank, points out that when subsea internet cables were cut in November, Europe was more prepared: Where in the past there were no contingency plans for sabotage, there are now more maritime patrols, an attempt to forge deeper intelligence connections, and the beginnings of a new relationship with the private sector...

Even before the October 2023 incident, NATO, the EU, and certain European governments began to increase their efforts to boost subsea cable resilience and security. In February 2023, NATO stood up a new Critical Undersea Infrastructure Coordination Cell in Brussels to convene stakeholders and enhance coordination between the public and private sectors. In July 2023, NATO allies at the Vilnius Summit established a Maritime Center for the Security of Critical Undersea Infrastructure as part of the alliance's Maritime Command in Northwood, UK. In October 2023, after the first incident, NATO defense ministers endorsed a new Digital Ocean Vision, an initiative aimed at improving undersea surveillance. And in February 2024, the European Commission released its first "Recommendation on Secure and Resilient Submarine Cable Infrastructures," encouraging member states to conduct regular stress tests, improve information sharing amongst themselves, and improve cable maintenance and repair capabilities.
The article points out that the Chinese ship suspected in the 2023 cable cutting "ignored requests from Finnish and Estonian authorities to halt" and returned to China. But the Chinese ship suspected in November's cable-cutting "remains in international waters in the Kattegat, with naval and coast guard vessels from Denmark, Germany, and Sweden circling close by." Yet "Under international maritime law, these countries' authorities are not allowed to board..." Current provisions of international law are neither formulated to adequately protect subsea data cables from sabotage nor hold perpetrators accountable. This reality should lead the EU, as a body inherently focused on the resilience of international legal regimes, to push for updates that are better suited for the current geopolitical reality... Lawmakers should also explore ways to increase penalties for subsea cable damage, in part to deter acts of sabotage in the first place....

A forthcoming Carnegie Endowment report will detail more in-depth recommendations on how Europe can both protect itself against future subsea cable damage and help expand trusted networks around the world.
The article also notes that "Of the hundreds of disruptions to cables that occur each year, the vast majority are caused by accidental human activity, like fishing, or natural events, like earthquakes."

"$15.8 million every 60 seconds. That's how much US consumers spent in two hours on Monday night," reports CNN, "capping off a five-day spending spree that smashed previous records." U.S. consumers spent a total of $13.3 billion on Cyber Monday, up 7.3% from the previous year, according to Adobe Analytics... Consumers spent a record $41.1 billion across the five days beginning Thanksgiving Day, according to Adobe. "While Cyber Monday remained the season's and year's biggest online shopping day, year-over-year growth was stronger on both Thanksgiving and Black Friday," Vivek Pandya, lead analyst at Adobe Digital Insights, said in a statement... The company's data projects that holiday spending from November 1 to December 31 will surpass $240 billion, up 8.4% from the previous year.

The record sales on Cyber Monday were boosted by US consumers shopping on their mobile devices, which accounted for $7.6 billion in spending. This year, 57% of online sales came through a mobile device, compared to 33% in 2019, as shopping on mobile phones has surged in popularity... Buy now, pay later" programs also contributed nearly $1 billion in spending on Cyber Monday, a record high. About 75% of these types of transactions occurred through a mobile device.

Cyber Monday shopping wasn't just confined to the US, either. Global sales reached $49.7 billion, up 3% from the previous year, according to data from Salesforce.
The top-selling items included consumer electronics like the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and Nintendo Switch OLED, the article points out (adding that "About 78% of all consumer smartphones and 87% of consoles were imported from China in 2023, according to a report from the Consumer Technology Association.")

More interesting statistics from CNN:

• "Discounts on apparel peaked at just over 23% off, while TVs and computers peaked at almost 22% off, according to Adobe. And the discounts might last: Adobe projects discounts of up to 18% off computers through the end of the year... "

• "For US retail sites, the share of revenue from affiliates and partners like social media influencers was 20.3% on Cyber Monday, up almost 7% from the previous year. "

• "Additionally, companies employed AI chatbots to assist consumers, like Amazon's Rufus. Traffic to retail sites from chatbots increased by nearly 2,000% on Cyber Monday, according to Adobe."

An anonymous reader shared this report from NBC News: Amid an unprecedented cyberattack on telecommunications companies such as AT&T and Verizon, U.S. officials have recommended that Americans use encrypted messaging apps to ensure their communications stay hidden from foreign hackers...

In the call Tuesday, two officials — a senior FBI official who asked not to be named and Jeff Greene, executive assistant director for cybersecurity at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency — both recommended using encrypted messaging apps to Americans who want to minimize the chances of China's intercepting their communications. "Our suggestion, what we have told folks internally, is not new here: Encryption is your friend, whether it's on text messaging or if you have the capacity to use encrypted voice communication. Even if the adversary is able to intercept the data, if it is encrypted, it will make it impossible," Greene said. The FBI official said, "People looking to further protect their mobile device communications would benefit from considering using a cellphone that automatically receives timely operating system updates, responsibly managed encryption and phishing resistant" multi-factor authentication for email, social media and collaboration tool accounts...

The FBI and other federal law enforcement agencies have a complicated relationship with encryption technology, historically advocating against full end-to-end encryption that does not allow law enforcement access to digital material even with warrants. But the FBI has also supported forms of encryption that do allow some law enforcement access in certain circumstances.
Officials said the breach seems to include some live calls of specfic targets and also call records (showing numbers called and when). "The hackers focused on records around the Washington, D.C., area, and the FBI does not plan to alert people whose phone metadata was accessed."

"The scope of the telecom compromise is so significant, Greene said, that it was 'impossible" for the agencies "to predict a time frame on when we'll have full eviction.'"

China-linked spies are still lurking inside U.S. telecommunications networks roughly six months after American officials started investigating the intrusions, senior officials told reporters Tuesday. From a report: This is the first time U.S. officials have confirmed reports that Salt Typhoon hackers still have access to critical infrastructure -- and they're proving difficult to kick out. Officials added that they don't yet know the full scope of the intrusions, despite starting the investigation in late spring.

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and FBI released guidance Tuesday for the communications sector to harden their networks against Chinese state-sponsored hackers. The guide includes basic steps like maintaining logs of activity on the network, keeping an inventory of all devices in the telecom's environment and changing any default equipment passwords. The hack has given Salt Typhoon unprecedented access to records from U.S. telecommunications networks about who Americans are communicating with, a senior FBI official told reporters during a briefing.

India, the world's fifth-largest economy, is offering the heftiest electric vehicle subsidies globally -- yet has achieved just 2% market penetration so far. From a report: India's total EV subsidies amount to 40-50% of vehicle prices when accounting for GST (goods and services tax), road tax benefits, state subsidies and production-linked incentives. For larger vehicles like the Grand Vitara, the effective subsidy reaches 61%.

This dwarfs incentives in other major markets. China's subsidies represent about 10% of EV prices, while South Korea and Germany offer around 16-20%. The US provides roughly 26% through various federal and state programs.

Yet India's EV penetration significantly lags these markets. China has reached 24% penetration, South Korea 18%, Germany 20%, and the US 8%. India's 2% looks particularly stark in comparison.

China banned exports of minerals and metals used in semiconductor manufacturing and military applications to the United States on Tuesday, escalating tensions in the growing technology trade war between the world's two largest economies.

The commerce ministry halted shipments of gallium, germanium, antimony and related compounds, citing national security concerns. These materials are crucial components in advanced electronics and military hardware, with China controlling 98% of global gallium production and 60% of germanium output, according to U.S. Geological Survey data. The move comes in direct response to Washington's new restrictions on semiconductor exports to China, including controls on high-bandwidth memory chips used in AI systems and limits on manufacturing equipment sales.

schwit1 writes: Recruiters approach students with tempting offers, often after observing them for weeks. Promising salaries of over $800 per month -- double the average pay for chemists in Mexican companies, along with potential bonuses like cars or housing -- recruiters capitalize on the financial struggles of young professionals.

These "cooks" are tasked with improving fentanyl's addictive quality and finding alternative synthesis methods to mitigate supply chain disruptions caused by stricter chemical export controls from China and pandemic-induced bottlenecks. The Times interviewed seven drug "cooks," three university chemistry students recruited by the Sinaloa cartel, two agents, a recruiter, and a university professor -- all anonymously to avoid cartel retaliation. According to the recruiter, candidates must be passionate, discreet, and indifferent to the ethical consequences of their work.

The university professor highlighted a disturbing trend: students openly expressed interest in synthesizing illicit drugs during lectures.

China has overtaken the United States as the dominant force in critical technology research, according to a report from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. The study found China now leads in 57 of 64 critical technologies, up from just three technologies in 2003-2007, while U.S. leadership dropped from 60 to seven technologies over the same period.

China has made significant gains in quantum sensors, high-performance computing, and semiconductor chip manufacturing. The U.S. maintains its edge in quantum computing, vaccines, and natural language processing. The report identified 24 technologies at "high risk" of Chinese monopoly, including radar, advanced aircraft engines, and drone technology - nearly double from last year's assessment. India has also emerged as a rising power, ranking among the top five countries in 45 technologies and displacing the U.S. for second place in biological manufacturing and distributed ledgers.