Coinbase, the cryptocurrency assets company has seen shares plummet amid a recently released earnings report.

The global trader in digital currency released the figures earlier this week as part of its third-quarter report. Inside Bitcoins reported that Coinbase Global (COIN) shares plunged 15.3% to close at $179.25, the steepest drop since July 2022, when the company was investigated for the first substantial time by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)

Coinbase shares fall amid third-quarter earnings report

Market analysts and the media were less than favorable to the released figures, and we have covered the company’s continued battle with the SEC in multiple court cases.

Coinbase filed multiple requests for freedom of information from the SEC and other regulators in the wake of record action against crypto companies. The crypto company hit back with its countersuit, challenging the SEC in a June court case for failing to comply with an existing FOIA request for public disclosures.

In March of this year, the SEC scored a significant victory over Coinbase by winning the argument that the company knowingly traded in 13 digital tokens that should have been registered as securities but were not.

The company is pursuing transparency behind the decisions made by financial regulators in the United States. In 2023 and 2024, the leading lights in the crypto world scrutinized regulations installed by entities like the SEC and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong has been vocal in his criticism of the SEC and recently called for the regulator and the next leader of the government entity to “end all frivolous cases.”

Market analyst Geert Leysen was less scathing in his estimation of the state of the crypto company’s plight. Saying on X, “Coinbase’s earnings were a bit of a letdown. However, it’s still holding above the trendline, and for me, it’s a play on the rise of Bitcoin (which wasn’t happening during the last quarter).”

Image: Pixlr.

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In a recent statement, Italy’s Economy Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti defended a proposed 42% increase in capital gains tax on cryptocurrency.

The news initially shocked the European cryptocurrency community, as the rate will substantially jump from the current rate of 26%. If Italian regulators approve the proposed rate of 42% in the 2025 budget, Italy would have the highest capital gains tax on cryptocurrency in Europe.

Readwrite reported that the Deputy Finance Minister made the initial announcement that rocked the European crypto scene.

Italian Economy Minister defends proposed crypto tax hike

At a World Savings Day conference, Giorgetti defended his stance and that of the current Italian government.

Addressing the audience at the event, Giorgetti said cryptocurrency and digital assets present a “very high level of risk.” He reiterated the need for tighter regulations and bolstered the party’s stance on the tax hike.

“We are completely changing the way the Italian public administration works,” said Giorgetti in a recent Financial Times article, and his endorsement of the proposed tax shows that the current far-right government is showing no signs of slowing down its intentions to make sweeping changes.

He continued, “We are trying to construct a regulatory framework that is certain for investment.

Deputy Economy Minister Maurizio Leo initially announced the increase in early October (2024), saying, “Since this phenomenon is spreading, we expect an increase (in Capital Gains) from 26% to 42%.”

Italy's Deputy Finance Minister Maurizio Leo announcing their plan to increase capital gains on Bitcoin from 26% to 42% because "the phenomenon is spreading." pic.twitter.com/H3ebBE1rPP

— Bitcoin News (@BitcoinNewsCom) October 16, 2024

Italy’s current government has imposed strict charges on banks and insurance companies, which will result in a proposed budget increase of £33 billion.

This was announced in August, and according to a Reuters report, it would result in a 40% tax on profits made by banking and lending institutions on higher interest rates. One cabinet source told the news agency that Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s government hoped to “punish bankers.”

Image: MEF_GOV.

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MGM Resorts has posted its third-quarter revenue results showing $4.2 billion in revenue across all locations in reporting quarter three of 2024.

Benchmarked against the previous reporting quarter, this doubling of that figure is a win for the purveyor of games of chance worldwide.

MGM has seen significant growth in Asia, with the operator of the MGM China resort contributing massive net revenues of $929m. MGM China declared a “special dividend” in August 2024, returning $200 million in cash to MGM Resorts overall throughout the year.

“We are pleased to report record consolidated net revenues for the third quarter, driven by record results from MGM China. In Las Vegas, we drove sequential improvement throughout the quarter and many key metrics are demonstrating strength including growth in ADR and occupancy,” said Bill Hornbuckle, CEO and President of MGM Resorts International.

MGM Resorts record worldwide growth

“During the quarter, we returned over $300 million to shareholders through share repurchases, bringing our year-to-date total to approximately $1.3 billion,” said Jonathan Halkyard, CFO and Treasurer of MGM Resorts International.

Net revenue in the Las Vegas Strip MGM Resorts noted a $2.1 billion contribution to the company’s overall takings in Q3. This is an increase of 1% compared to the prior year’s third-quarter results. The company attributed this primarily to “an increase in non-gaming revenue, partially offset by a decrease in casino revenue.”

BetMGM is also expanding the reach of MGM Resorts and iGaming with the application for a license in Brazil. The company noted that it is advancing its “international digital strategy” in a partnership with Grupo Globo to acquire an iGaming license in the South American region.

As we recently reported the gambling and entertainment giant has launched a European campaign in Sweden. This will broaden the appeal of sports fans throughout the region as the company has strong ties with Premier League clubs Tottenham Hotspur, Newcastle United, and Wolverhampton Wanderers.

Hornbuckle concluded, “MGM Resorts is well positioned for long-term growth driven by the positive inflection to come in our digital investments alongside the enviable integrated resorts pipeline of development that we have in Japan as well as opportunities in New York and beyond.”

Image: MGM Resorts.

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According to cryptocurrency reports, a U.S. government-linked crypto account was hacked and emptied of $20 million, and then a portion of the funds were restored.

Arkham Intelligence, a voice and analyst in the broad spectrum of blockchain analytics, initially reported the news. They were the first to publicly witness the funds being emptied and tracked their movement.

£$20M in USDC, USDT, aUSDC, and ETH has been suspiciously moved from a USG-linked address,” said Arkham in an X post. The hackers subsequently left a calling card in the form of $132 worth of Donald Trump memecoin, MAGA (TRUMP).

𝗨𝗣𝗗𝗔𝗧𝗘: 𝗨𝗦 𝗚𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗻𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗸𝗲𝗱 𝗮𝗱𝗱𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗮𝗽𝗽𝗲𝗮𝗿𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗯𝗲𝗲𝗻 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗺𝗶𝘀𝗲𝗱 𝗳𝗼𝗿 $𝟮𝟬𝗠.

$20M in USDC, USDT, aUSDC and ETH has been suspiciously moved from a USG-linked address 0xc9E6E51C7dA9FF1198fdC5b3369EfeDA9b19C34c to… pic.twitter.com/UXn1atE1Wx

— Arkham (@ArkhamIntel) October 24, 2024

Government-linked crypto account compromised

Arkham has now reported that hackers partially refilled the same account. Although not the full amount, those who took part in the breach refilled the account with $19 million.

“The US Government’s address has just received $19.3M back following yesterday’s reported hack, less than 24 hours after the initial address breach. 88% of the compromised USD value has now been recovered,” said the crypto commentators on X:

𝗨𝗣𝗗𝗔𝗧𝗘: $𝟭𝟵𝗠 𝗨𝗦 𝗚𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗻𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗳𝘂𝗻𝗱𝘀 𝗿𝗲𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗻𝗲𝗱

The US Government’s address has just received $19.3M back following yesterday’s reported hack, less than 24 hours after the initial address breach.

88% of the compromised USD value has now been… https://t.co/F8q6iikBrT pic.twitter.com/Vo7I7ZH9K1

— Arkham (@ArkhamIntel) October 25, 2024

After the initial swipe of $20 million from the account, an immediate list of transactions began laundering the funds. The currency in the account was linked to a 2016 fraud conviction of a couple named Ilya Lichtenstein and Heather Morgan.

As part of the couple’s cybercrime, the DOJ seized $3.6 billion in cryptocurrency, which was nestled in the account that was hacked and now repopulated with 88% of the funds.

The couple was arrested by U.S. authorities in 2022 and pleaded guilty to hacking and theft of approximately 120,000 bitcoin and money laundering charges.

According the the report, the government seized “approximately 95,000 of those stolen bitcoin from cryptocurrency wallets in the defendants’ control. At the time of the seizure, the recovered funds were valued at approximately $3.6 billion. Since their arrests, the government has seized another approximately $475 million tied to the hack.”

What this hack and the associated transactions mean to the wider cryptocurrency world are unknown, but they deepen the mystery of the pair’s 2016 actions.

Image: Pexels.

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The Cayman Islands is considering a revision of gambling legislation on docked cruise ships and their patrons being able to wager.

The news comes from Kenneth Bryan, the current Minister for Tourism and Ports for the nation 480 miles southwest of Miami and a core part of the Caribbean cruise routes.

Caymans considers cruise casino reform

The news of Minister Bryan’s goal of getting the docked ships to entertain games of chance and the lucrative tax benefits that the country would see was reported by the Cayman Compass.

The newspaper reported that Bryan addressed the issue, saying the capital, George Town, could see a boost to the economy and employment for berthed ships.

He said, “ships could econsider overnighting in our ports. Can you imagine what an uplift that could do to downtown George Town?”

He continued, “Most of us in this room is old enough to remember a time when George Town used to be the liveliest place in this country. Now after the sunset, it’s a ghost town. Maybe having a pier can be that one thing we talk about [regarding] the revitalisation of George Town.”

Gambling taxes bring a huge boon to the coffers as sports sides like the recent Super Bowl winners the Kansas City Chiefs have been considering.

Kansas City in Missouri is often confused with the state of Kansas. The state of Missouri has no recognized form of sports wagering on gambling in any part of the territory that the Chiefs call home.

Oklahoma is the only other state with no recognized sports wagering legislation. However, more and more states are considering the boost to their economy that could be applied via tax revenue.

American attitudes toward gambling have changed according to a recent study, covered by Readwrite, that shows a more positive perception of wagering across the nation.

The report carried out by the American Gaming Association (AGA) has shown that sports entertainment, mixed with wagering is a favorable way to pass the time

Image: Pexels.

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Michael Saylor, the co-founder and executive chairman of MicroStrategy, has announced plans to give away his Bitcoin (BTC), like Satoshi Nakamoto, once he passes away.

The self-described “Bitcoin maximalist” made the statement in an interview with Madison Reidy of the New Zealand Herald.

Michael Saylor plans to leave his fortune to the masses once he passes

The former Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) graduate has made a name for himself as a Bitcoin backer and has convinced many public figures to join the crypto movement.

In a 2020 statement on X in response to Elon Musk’s reported interest in Bitcoin, Saylor said, “If you want to do your shareholders a $100 billion favor, convert the $TSLA balance sheet from USD to #BTC. Other firms on the S&P 500 would follow your lead & in time it would grow to become a $1 trillion favor.”

Musk would then buy $1.5 billion worth of the cryptocurrency through Tesla, announcing that the company would also accept Bitcoin transactions as payment.

“I’m a single guy, I have no children — when I’m gone, I’m gone. Just like Satoshi left a million Bitcoin to the universe, so I’m leaving whatever I’ve got to the civilization,” he said as part of the Reidy interview.

Saylor redoubled his trust in Bitcoin, saying, “If you want your company, family, or endowment to last forever, you need to capitalize it with an asset that doesn’t degrade.”

His support comes at a time when the demand for Bitcoin is currently outweighing the supply. Bitcoin is trading at $67,357.79, which isn’t too far off the all-time high of $73,750.07 recorded seven months ago in March 2024.

A new HBO documentary, Money Electric: The Bitcoin Mystery, hopes to unravel the mystery and mystique of Bitcoin’s Satoshi Nakamoto.

The origins of this fabled character and his parting charity long remain one of the biggest conundrums of the internet age.

Image: New Zealand Herald

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Coinbase, the cryptocurrency and trading exchange, has filed multiple Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.

The company is pursuing transparency behind the decisions made by financial regulators in the United States. Regulations installed by entities like the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) have been scrutinized by the leading lights in the crypto world in 2023 and 2024.

Coinbase has been involved in the SEC’s major crackdown on companies trading in crypto over the past two years. In 2023, the SEC charged Coinbase with operating a crypto asset trading platform as an unregistered national securities exchange, broker, and clearing agency.

U.S. District Judge Katherine Polk Failla presided, saying, “The Court finds the SEC has sufficiently pleaded that Coinbase operates as an exchange, as a broker, and as a clearing agency under the federal securities laws, and, through its Staking Program, engages in the unregistered offer and sale of securities.

The crypto company hit back with its countersuit, challenging the SEC in a June court case for failing to comply with an existing FOIA request for public disclosures.

Coinbase fires back FOIA to get answers behind crypto regulations

Paul Grewal, a former US Magistrate Judge is now Coinbase’s acting legal specialist, and he took to X (formerly known as Twitter) to announce the FOIA actions:

We filed two new sets of FOIA requests in our continued effort to get any sort of clarity on how regulatory agencies are approaching digital assets. In short, so long as the government will not relent, neither will @coinbase. 1/3

— paulgrewal.eth (@iampaulgrewal) October 21, 2024

He continues the post on X in three parts: “The first (FOIA) is for documents about a digital asset deposit cap @FDICgov and other banking regulators have apparently been imposing on financial institutions. The second is for logs that show how these agencies are handling other FOIA requests. Each is separate from our FOIA filings from over a year ago that are now the subject of federal lawsuits.”

In March of this year, the SEC scored a major victory over Grewal and Coinbase by winning the argument that the company knowingly traded in 13 digital tokens that should have been registered as securities but were not.

Coinbase contends that this was unnecessary, but as part of Grewal’s X posts, they have launched their counter-offensive to get to the bottom of financial regulators and their decisions to crack down on crypto companies.

Grewal concluded, “You can read our filings related to the apparent 15% digital asset deposit cap here. Our filings related to FOIA logs are here.”

In September of this year (2024), Grewal said, “@SECgov refuses to provide a reasonable explanation for its barebones denial, yet it has wielded its purported authority to engage in an arbitrary enforcement campaign against our industry. Coinbase is determined to leave no stone unturned in our efforts to get clarity for our industry and the millions of Americans who hold crypto.”

Image: Pixlr.

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The Galaxy S25 leaks show off the features of the newest models coming from smartphone giant Samsung. According to TechRadar, the leaks haven’t stopped over the past month as the Korean company’s latest models hit the internet alongside their newest offerings to Android customers.

Samsung leaks show off Galaxy S25, the Galaxy S25 Plus, and Galaxy S25 Ultra

Samsung’s standard Galaxy S25, the Galaxy S25 Plus, and the Galaxy S25 Ultra have all been prominent in leaks. We broke down the expected specifications of the new Galaxy S25 models alongside their anticipated release window, specifications, and price.

Android Central corroborated TechRadar’s news about the Galaxy S25 Ultra’s upcoming color options: Black, Green, Blue, and Titanium.

The Galaxy S25 series also sport thinner bezels than previous Samsung devices, and community leakers such as @UniverseIce have posted the leaked images via X:

S25 and S25 ultra pic.twitter.com/h0zNKbOrW5

— ICE UNIVERSE (@UniverseIce) October 20, 2024

Another source earmarked the possible sizes of the new Galaxy S25, S25 Plus, and S25 Ultra models. Community leaker @Jukanlosreve showed off the specifics via X:

Final detailed dimensions of the Galaxy S25 series

S25 
146.94 x 70.46 x 7.25 mm​
(* S24 147.0 x 70.6 x 7.6mm)

​S25 + ​
158.44 x 75.79 x 7.35 mm​
(* S24 + 158.5 x 75.9 x 7.7mm)​

​S25 U ​
162.82 x 77.65 x 8.25 mm​
(*S24 U 162.3 x 79.0 x 8.6mm)

​Source: yeux1122

— Jukanlosreve (@Jukanlosreve) October 19, 2024

These show a slight difference in the specifics that will replace the Galaxy S24 model, but they will undoubtedly sport a slimmer design. Samsung recorded that the Galaxy S24, Galaxy S24 Plus, and Galaxy S24 Ultra sold 10 million units sold worldwide within a month of their release.

Samsung was recently in the news for the possible launch of rollable phones as early as 2025. As we reported, the Korean tech giant was rumored to have been investigating the possibility of a rollable product that could bring a breakthrough for the electronics corporation if they can deliver on a 12.4-inch screen.

The Korean telecommunications titan has recently been active in India as it released the new affordable Samsung Galaxy M05. Although no global release has been announced, Amazon India has the smartphone on the storefront for ₹7,999 INR ($95).

Image: Samsung newsroom.

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According to TechCrunch’s founder, Stripe, the international Fintech giant, has acquired Bridge in a $1 billion deal.

Bridge is a significant player in the stablecoin environment and markets its payment platform as a new way to process transactions. The platform is built on stablecoins and is backed by heavyweights Bedrock, Sequoia Capital, and Index Ventures.

According to leading sources, the deal, which neither party has publicly confirmed, would be the largest cryptocurrency acquisition in history, says TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington.

TechCrunch founder says $1bn Stripe and Bridge deal done

The mastermind behind technology platforms and media powerhouse TechCrunch, CrunchBase, and Arrington Capital was stoic in his statement to X, saying:

This deal is done. $1.1b https://t.co/J7ppK4uHw0

— Michael Arrington (@arrington) October 20, 2024

Stripe distanced itself from the crypto space in 2018 amid Bitcoin’s volatility but returned at a time when the currency is being strongly backed for growth and naturalization across the United States.

Stripe announced its return after a six-year break at the Solana Sessions, and Stripe’s Co-Founder John Collinson celebrated the landmark news in April of this year. He addressed the audience with a walkthrough of Stripe’s new instant processing payments, saying, “Are you ready for the new crypto?”

Crypto is back. @Stripe will start supporting global stablecoin payments this summer. Transactions instantly settle on-chain and automatically convert to fiat. Join the waitlist https://t.co/hws2OsU3Id and watch the demo (h/t @Solana) from Sessions. pic.twitter.com/zGKYW2FM6i

— John Collison (@collision) April 25, 2024

Bridge has software that presents a seamless way to integrate “stablecoins into your existing flow of funds through Bridge’s Orchestration APIs. Bridge handles all of the regulatory, compliance, and technical complexities.”

Stripe’s takeover of Bridge will be their most significant acquisition to date and the biggest the crypto industry’s has ever seen. Bridge raised $58 million from prospective investors and was previously valued at nearly $200 million.

Crypto has also been a central talking point of the 2024 United States Presidential elections, with Democratic candidate Kamala Harris addressing the currency in a statement. Harris earmarked a possible regulatory framework that could be implemented if elected as the next president of the United States. The document promised that the presidential candidate would support “a regulatory framework for cryptocurrency and other digital assets.”

Image: Pixlr.

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Japan has been advised by United States lawmakers to tighten restrictions on electronics and chip sales to China.

Those same lawmakers also clearly indicated the future of Japanese embargoes if the country fails to comply with these restrictions on the sales of semiconductors and equipment.

Several United States electronics companies benefit from the 25% tax credits to purchase equipment for U.S. facilities. Some of these purchases come from foreign trade partners like Japan, so the nation’s part in the cycle of chip-making is at risk if it continues to deal with China.

Japan urged to cease chip trade with China or risk consequences

A letter showing the opinions of House China Select Committee Chairman John Moolenaar and Ranking Member Raja Krishnamoorthi was drafted to Japanese Ambassador Shigeo Yamada.

This stated, “We write to seek your urgent action to address the flow of Japanese semiconductor manufacturing equipment (SME) to the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The export of Japanese, U.S., and Dutch SME technology to the PRC is significantly contributing to a growing global dependency on the PRC’s semiconductor manufacturing capacity and enabling its industry to manufacture advanced semiconductors.”

Since the CHIPS Act came into force, China’s role in the global chip trade has been a constant narrative.

China has been a lucrative market for electronics companies, and the country is strengthening its position in the artificial intelligence market, which the United States is trying to curb by banning or restricting advanced semiconductor sales to their rival.

The CHIPS Act allows the United States government to provide financial incentives for the domestic creation of semiconductors and equipment. As a result, the United States invested more in 2023 semiconductor manufacturing than in the past three decades combined.

“Congress also retains the ability to adjust restrictions placed on CHIPS Act funding, including whether funds should be restricted to companies or countries that ship sophisticated SME to the PRC,” the letter concluded. “Without this action, we believe the PRC will continue to threaten our collective security interests using sophisticated SME.”

So, Japan’s part in the international electronics trade merry-go-round may yet hinge on its involvement in selling semiconductors to China.

Image: Embassy of Japan in the United States of America.

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As part of Netflix’s Geeked Week 2024, the streaming platform has added some new titles to its games catalog.

For those paying for the monthly subscription, these include Civilization VI and Street Fighter IV, alongside a host of other cult classics.

Netflix adds new game titles as part of Geeked Week 2024

The world’s largest on-demand video subscription dropped a new trailer in honor of the week celebrating geeks.

Coming soon are Squid Game: Unleashed, Carmen Sandiego Chicken Run: Eggstraction, Lab Rat, Don’t Starve Together, Street Fighter IV CE, Tales of the Shire, Blood Line: A Rebel Moon Game, Monument Valley 3, Civilization VI: Platinum.

The titles can be played via mobile devices, including Android phones, tablets, iPhones, iPads, and the now-antiquated iPod touch. Users access the games through their Netflix profile and subscription type.

What is Geeked Week?

Geek Week is the annual celebration of the intellectual properties that Netflix works with to create shows and other media.

Previous updates during Geeked Week included Henry Cavill’s take on the much-loved Witcher, Geralt of Rivia, and the One Piece adaptation, which also came to live-action last year.

The news also broke that Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft will be released on October 10. In this personal adventure tale, the dungeon-dwelling English heroine must recover an artifact stolen from Croft Manor, and the explorer must travel the globe to get it back.

Creator and showrunner Tasha Huo said of the take on the gaming icon, “We’re trying to build Lara’s team. Over the course of the show, she goes from an isolated hero, a lone wolf, to someone who realizes, ‘Actually, I have this really cool team behind me.’ ”

Joe Manganiello, of True Blood and Dungeons and Dragons fame, hosted this 2024 show and told the world he would play Mr. O in One Piece Season Two.

Joe Manganiello's official coronation as Mr. 0 by One Piece showrunner Matt Owens at #GeekedWeek!

“To be trusted with one of the greatest characters ever… I’ve been waiting for this my entire career.” pic.twitter.com/K0Cxx4pzmU

— Netflix (@netflix) September 20, 2024

He said, “Thank you [Elichiro] Oda, thank you to the fans — to be trusted with one of the greatest characters ever in manga, fantasy, you name it — I’ve been waiting for this my entire career. And to do it in front of a fanbase like this? Let’s go!”

He announced the news alongside Cobra Kai TV show stars Jacob Bertrand and Xolo Maridueña.

Manganiello introduced Charlie Brooker, who announced to fans the next season of Black Mirror. He told fans: “We have evolved to a place where it’s kind of OG Black Mirror this season. It’s all sci-fi, it’s all techno dystopia — back to basics in a way.”

Image: Netflix.

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The United Kingdom’s armed forces are being urged to rethink the use of smart devices in the wake of the Hezbollah pager incident that rocked the Middle East.

This revisal of security concerns comes in the wake of the electronic pager attacks that resulted in 2,800 people being injured and a dozen killed as explosions rippled through Lebanon and parts of Syria.

Major General (Retired) Chip Chapman, a former head of the Ministry of Defence’s (MOD) Counter Terrorist Unit, spoke to military media outlet Forces News about the threats that electronic devices could pose in the age of technological warfare.

He has urged caution in an era of cyberattacks and elaborate methods that hackers can deploy, like our coverage of the network and banking collapse in Ukraine. This would be the most significant cyber-attack of the Russia-Ukraine War so far, at the hands of politically motivated cyber criminals.

UK armed forces urged to be cautious

The retired military commander spoke of the threats posed by explosive or compromised devices. He told the army news outlet, “In operational security terms, they [Hezbollah] took the view that going to a more analog system would preserve their op sec (operational security). The flaw was they didn’t look inside them because a pager can’t explode, of course. A pager is just a pager until you add something to it.”

British Defence Secretary John Healey backed existing armed forces measures: “Military communications are evolving all the time, with ultra-secure systems like Trinity coming online, which uses a series of deployable nodes to create a self-contained battlefield network.”

Cyberattacks have been a prominent topic in 2024, with Russian cybercriminals at the forefront. Several European elections were at risk of large-scale distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks.

The United Kingdom has also been a focal point for cyber attacks such as the takedown of the King’s College Hospital, Guy’s and St Thomas’, including the Royal Brompton and the Evelina London Children’s Hospital.

Image: Pexels.

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OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, speaking at T-Mobile Capital Markets Day 2024, earmarked an incoming steep curve of AI improvement due to the o1 model.

One of the people responsible for ChatGPT mentioned that the o1 model is at the GPT-2 stage of reasoning and has been vocal about the exponential difference between the o1 preview release and the upcoming final release.

Earlier this year, Altman stated that the current version of the company’s AI is the “dumbest” at a seminar at Stamford University and would be surpassed by future builds by OpenAI.

In a recent interview with T-Mobile, Sam Altman compared o1’s current state to the ‘GPT-2 stage’ of reasoning models

He also revealed that the development of o1 unlocks a much quicker path to fully capable AI agents

Hear it from the man himself:pic.twitter.com/XeXFDstbT2

— R…

— Jay • 24Yr Old Millionaire (@thejacobdean_) September 20, 2024

Sam Altman has high hopes for o1 to create a generational leap in AI models

The o1 is centered around advanced reasoning for problem-solving, which Altman references heavily in the interview. Altman says that the experience is one in which users will not want to go back but only forward when it comes to the new models, which will eventually lead to a GPT-4 equivalent and then outpace the existing models.

Altman outlined five levels of AI development, with o1 at level 2 (reasoners), and implied that level 3 (agents) could follow in a short space of time. As part of the event, Altman stated “in the coming months, you’ll see it get a lot better as we move from o1-preview to o1, which we shared some metrics for in our launch blog post.”

The o1 launch post breaks down the forecasting that OpenAI sees as the next big generational leap for learning models. The post also highlights the lighter version of the o1 preview, the OpenAI o1-mini, which is also 80% cheaper than the preview.

As part of a research process of o1, both the UK and U.S. AI security and safety regulators have been involved in developing the new model, and OpenAI has produced a security framework.

According to the company, the framework is a living document intended to “process to track, evaluate, forecast, and protect against catastrophic risks posed by increasingly powerful models.” Altman, as part of the T-Mobile event, reiterated that the model and the development of its capability are not trained on sensitive data at any point in time.

Altman is confident that the problem-solving AI will be adopted by users quickly, but did reflect on the struggles that people had getting to grips with using previous OpenAI products. He said, “ It took people a while to figure out how to use ChatGPT, and it took us a while to build. It’ll take users a while to figure out how to use it, which is quite different from the GPT models.”

Image: OpenAI.

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The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) report has found that social media and streaming services monitor user data to monetize personal information.

The report, published today (September 20), revealed that these companies “engaged in vast surveillance of consumers” to apply a price tag to their data. The information was acquired as a part of a swathe of 6(b) orders sent out by the FTC in December 2020.

These significant companies dominate social media and video-on-demand and have been making billions of dollars from users’ personal data. Not all of these users are adults, as the report showed approximately 95% of teenagers and 40% of children between the ages of eight and 12 years old use some form of social media.

An order of this kind falls under the FTC Act, which allows any company or entity to be subject to a 6 (b) order. The FTC thus conducts wide-ranging studies that do not have a specific law enforcement purpose but attempt to gather information.

At the time, the FTC sought information from Amazon.com, Inc., ByteDance Ltd., which operates the short video service TikTok, Discord Inc., Facebook, Inc., Reddit, Inc., Snap Inc., Twitter, Inc., WhatsApp Inc., and YouTube LLC.

The FTC sought information related to how social media and video streaming services collect, use, track, estimate, or derive personal and demographic information. In addition, the orders endeavored to determine how ads and other content affect consumers and how certain algorithms track content, especially for teens and minors.

FTC report findings

The report found that the business models of the companies investigated were keen on harvesting data at the risk of personal security. Their money-generating advertising campaigns came ahead of policy and privacy, with the report stating that this was conducted, “especially through targeted advertising, which accounts for most of their revenue.”

The report’s key takeaways also call for tighter restrictions on companies and their ability to harvest data. The FTC also calls for Congress to tighten the provisions of the data coalition ability at a federally regulated level, saying, “Congress should pass comprehensive federal privacy legislation to limit surveillance, address baseline protections, and grant consumers data rights.”

The report suggests that federal privacy legislation should be reviewed by Congress to protect minors and teens from viewing or interacting with sensitive content. This should, the report enthuses be carried out with enforceable “data minimization and retention policies, limit data sharing with third parties and affiliates, delete consumer data when it is no longer needed, and adopt consumer-friendly privacy policies that are clear, simple, and easily understood.”

Image: FTC.

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The United Kingdom’s Betting and Gaming Council (BGC) conducted a study that showed £4.3bn (around $5.72bn) staked on black market gambling.

The report found that these avenues to illegally placing bets in Britain were “high awareness, easy to find, and already commonly used.”

According to the publication, which considered six thousand individuals and some high-profile operators, £2.7bn ($3.59bn) is placed on black market sites in the UK, and £1.6bn ($2.13bn) is staked in illegal premises in the country.

UK betting regulator shocked by black market statistics

Frontier Economics delivered the review of black market staking on behalf of the BGC, and CEO Grainne Hurst was surprised by the details.

She said, “This shocking report exposes the unnerving true scale of the growing, unsafe, unregulated gambling black market. From online gaming, to betting on sports like horse racing, millions of customers are being driven into the arms of pernicious black market operators.”

Betting and gaming are heavily regulated in the United Kingdom, where there is vigorous cultural support for sports. Taxation brings in £4.2bn ($5.58bn) each year for His Majesties Revenue and Customs (HMRC),

Problem gambling affects 0.4%, according to the BGC, and the Gambling Commission of the UK donated £172.5m over four years to tackle problem gambling and gambling-related harm.

Hurst commented on the lack of regulation in these illegal options thriving. She continued, “Proposals by anti-gambling prohibitionists like advertising bans or intrusive, blanket, low-level affordability checks will not protect customers. In fact, they will give another leg up to unscrupulous black market operators, the last thing anyone wants.

“Every comparable market in the world tells us the same thing. The best defense against this growing illegal gambling black market is getting the balance of regulations right.”

As we reported, the UK’s Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) put forward further limitations and regulations on wagering. These limits will apply to gamblers 25 years and under, and anyone over this age is expected to have a £5 maximum staking limit.

Image: BGC.

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The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the sleep apnea detection feature for Watch Series 9 and Watch Ultra 2.

The Sleep Apnea Notification Feature (SANF) received official approval on the FDA website. Users who own either of the devices will be able to access the added detection from Monday (Sep, 16).

The “groundbreaking” health features from Apple were announced earlier this month. The company continues expanding into the healthcare tech market with sleep apnea notifications on the Apple Watch and hearing health functions for the AirPods Pro 2.

Apple sleep apnea feature cleared by the FDA

The condition known as sleep apnea affects individuals by hampering their ability to breathe during sleep. Due to the condition, breathing can be irregular, stopping and starting while they sleep. Risks linked to sleep apnea include high blood pressure, stroke, and diabetes.

“Empowering consumers everywhere to have the ability to reliably identify the presence of abnormal breathing patterns during sleep can help uncover a woefully underdiagnosed and serious medical condition such as sleep apnea,” said Sairam Parthasarathy, M.D., University of Arizona Health Sciences Center for Sleep, Circadian, and Neurosciences’s professor and director in Tucson, Arizona. “This is a major step forward in improving public health.”

Watch Series 9 and Watch Ultra 2 users can view the “Breathing Disturbances” metric in the Apple Health App and track their reports over a one-month, six-month, or one-year period.

Users can also export a PDF showing the sleep apnea record when consulting a specialist or a medical professional. The Health App also provides further reading to help users better understand how the condition can affect them.

Apple says the “advanced machine learning and an extensive data set of clinical-grade sleep apnea tests. The feature was then validated in a clinical study — unprecedented in size for sleep apnea technology.”

Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO posted about the Apple Watch Series 10 on X (formerly Twitter) earlier in September, announcing the incoming sleep features that have now been confirmed:

Apple Watch Series 10 is our most personal and intelligent model yet. With a sleek new design and faster charging, it also provides users with new health features like sleep apnea detection, putting your health firmly in your hands. And on your wrist. pic.twitter.com/CRDBnjFXFn

— Tim Cook (@tim_cook) September 9, 2024

Image: Apple.

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Playtech, the United Kingdom gambling giant, has seen its shares soar 14% after a saga with Mexican operator Cali Interactive ended.

The ongoing talks and disagreements between both parties resulted in a stalemate in the deal to settle the rights to a joint venture, Caliplay. Initially, Playtech sought legal support to challenge the Mexican operator’s non-payment of fees for software and gaming licenses in a London court.

In October 2023, Caliplay launched a reciprocal legal proceeding in the 46th Civil Court of Mexico City to annul its contract with Playtech. This has now concluded with a new set of terms, ending a year of litigation, arguments between both parties and a rocket in the Playtech share price on Monday.

Playtech and Cali Interactive agree on a path forward

Playtech will now own a 30% stake in Caliente Interactive, a new holding company of Caliplay incorporated in the United States. The UK gaming and sports betting titan can now appoint a director to Caliplay’s board.

Emilio Hank, Chairman of Caliplay, said: “We are delighted to finalize this renewed agreement, which shows the inherent strength of the strategic relationship between Caliplay and Playtech. We are focused on growing Caliplay, leveraging our core strengths and Playtech’s leading technology to broaden our geographical footprint as we continue our mission to provide the best gaming experiences to our customers in Mexico and beyond.

The revised terms set out by Playtech include an eight-year business-to-business contract for software and technology support. Cali Interactive has now paid $166m of the initial contract, covering almost eighty percent of the outstanding fees owed to Playtech that were a part of the legal battles between the pair.

Mor Weizer, Playtech’s chief executive officer, said, “The agreement with Caliente and Caliplay underlines the attractiveness of Playtech’s leading proprietary technology.

‘With a strong position in Mexico and exposure to other fast-growing markets in the Americas and Europe, we remain well-placed to deliver strong growth in our B2B business in the coming years.”

Image: Pexels.

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Tencent’s GameGen-O has raised the stakes for AI-generated video games, enabling the generation of limited open-world games from text.

This procedurally generated technology aims to dramatically reduce the time and cost of building open-world games and the content that players interact with. Tencent has worked with students in Hong Kong to develop this dataset of gaming content, which can independently generate environments, characters, and gaming assets.

The emergence of this technology could result in lower overheads for gaming studios, which have been slimming down the workforce in an attempt to save money over the past few years.

The research team on GameGen-o believes “It underscores the potential of generative models to serve as an alternative to rendering techniques, which can efficiently combine creative generation with interactive capabilities..”

Tencent’s new AI world builder

Tencent presents GameGen-O

Open-world Video Game Generation

We introduce GameGen-O, the first diffusion transformer model tailored for the generation of open-world video games. This model facilitates high-quality, open-domain generation by simulating a wide array of game engine… pic.twitter.com/DlBt9iiLYZ

— AK (@_akhaliq) September 13, 2024

Artists and developers spend months creating our favorite games’ characters, environments, actions, and events. Tencent, the Chinese giant behind this new AI software, has a diverse portfolio with stakes in global gaming companies. Valorant’s Riot Games, Ubisoft Entertainment, Baldur’s Gate 3’s Larian Studios and Remedy Entertainment.

The AI’s researchers have named the process for creating these environments the open-world Video Game Dataset (OGameData). This bank of gaming information reportedly includes 150 next-gen games and 4,000 hours of video clips, according to Geeky Gadgets.

The game software takes a two-stage process to develop the content, according to the developers of GameGen-O, are “foundation model pretraining and instruction tuning. In the first phase, the model is pre-trained on the OGameData via the text-to-video and video continuation, endowing GameGen-O with the capability for open-domain video game generation. In the second phase, the pre-trained model is frozen, and we fine-tuned using a trainable InstructNet, which enables the production of subsequent frames based on multimodal structural instructions.”

The process is still in early stages, but characters like The Witcher’s Geralt of Rivia, Red Dead Redemption’s John Marston and Ghost of Tsushima’s Jin Sakai have all been rendered in the OGameData according to the GitHub announcement page.

As we reported, other companies, such as Google, have made advancements in AI-generated content. The world’s largest search company released a paper that went into great detail about GameNGen and its process for creating Doom-like gameplay on a neural network.

Image: Midjourney

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Flutter Entertainment has expanded its presence in South America with a 56% share in NSX Group. The Brazilian company, which promotes the Betnacional brand, has agreed to let Flutter enter the market for $350m.

NSX is Brazil’s fourth-largest gambling operator, with an expected revenue of approximately $256m and Adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) of roughly $34m in 2024.

Flutter buys into Brazilian gambling operator

The cash consideration for the international gambling company is $350m, which will see the creation of the Flutter Brazil brand and a 56% stake in NSX. According to a release on Friday (Sep, 13) Flutter Brazil can expand its shareholding in the company “through reciprocal put/call arrangements in year five and year ten following the completion date.”

In the statement, Flutter explains the company’s decision to invest in the Brazilian market ahead of expected gambling reform in 2025. Brazil has a population of 200 million people, and sport is an integral part of the country’s national identity, with the Seleção (Brazil’s national soccer team) being the country’s number one sporting interest.

Flutter states that there is a strong demand in the nation, not just for soccer, but for gambling on sports and iGaming in general, “with compound annual gross gaming revenue (GGR) growth in the unregulated market of 38% since 2018, to almost $3bn in 2023.”

Flutter CEO Peter Jackson said of the deal, “We believe that combining the extensive local expertise of the NSX team, our existing Betfair business and the power of the Flutter Edge, will create a compelling opportunity to capitalize on the growth opportunity in Brazil which presents an exciting runway of future growth.”

Flutter has had a busy 2024 so far. The chief finance officer of the international sports brand stepped down amid the UK’s crackdown on gambling profits and regulation of safer gambling initiatives. The Dublin-based gambling institution has looked to U.S. gamblers after hitting the Wall Street floor in January of this year. The company also built bridges in France through a deal with operator Pari Mutuel Urbain (PMU), showing its international reach.

Image: Flutter.

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As part of a new update, Apple will allow EU iPad users to download apps from alternate marketplaces as of Monday (September 16).

The news honors Apple’s announcement in May: ” If you have entered into the Alternative Terms Addendum for Apps in the EU, iPadOS first annual installs will begin to accrue, and the lower App Store commission rate will apply.”

EU Apple users will get the opportunity as part of the iPadOS 18 update on September 16. The European Commission listed iPadOS as a gatekeeper platform under the Digital Markets Act, so developers can opt to have an alternative user agreement to make their creations accessible on multiple platforms.

Apple’s move comes alongside the Core Technology Fee (CTF), which is triggered when an app surpasses more than one million first annual installs per year in the EU.

The world’s most valuable company said: “We believe anyone with a good idea and the ingenuity to bring it to life should have the opportunity to offer their app to the world. Only developers who reach significant scale pay the CTF.”

Apple’s EU woes

Apple was recently fined 13 billion euros (around $14.4 billion) in back taxes by Ireland. The global device manufacturer allegedly took advantage of unfair loopholes in Ireland’s tax regulations.

Several major U.S. institutions have European bases of operations in the Emerald Isle. Companies like Google, Experian, Apple, and Seagate Technology Group all reside in Dublin.

The Irish Government released a statement (September 10) on the decision, saying: “The Irish position has always been that Ireland does not give preferential tax treatment to any companies or taxpayers. The CJEU has found that the tax paid was insufficient and that a greater amount of taxation was required to be recovered. Ireland will of course respect the findings of the Court regarding the tax due in this case.”

Image: Ideogram

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