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Financial Times : SIA expects global semiconductor sales to recover and grow 13% in 2024 to $588B thanks to high-priced AI chips, but some analysts question the speed of recovery   —  Analysts see a ‘turning point’ this year for the $600bn market but question the speed of recovery

The Pentagon confirmed Saturday that Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin remains hospitalized, nearly two weeks after he was admitted due to complications from surgery for prostate cancer. Providing an update on the health of Austin, who has been hospitalized at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center since Jan. 1, Pentagon press secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said the defense secretary is "in good condition" and that it's still unknown when he will be released. "He's in contact with his senior staff and has full access to required secure communications capabilities and continues to monitor DOD's day-to-day operations worldwide," Ryder said of Austin. "We do not have a specific date for Secretary Austin's release from the hospital at this time but will continue to provide daily updates until then." The Pentagon publicly revealed Jan. 5 that Austin had been in the hospital since Jan. 1 due to complications from elective surgery. LLOY...

FIRST ON FOX : Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is hailing law enforcement efforts and promising to "hunt down" fentanyl traffickers after the successful seizure of a massive 15,000 pills disguised as OxyContin by Florida authorities on Thursday. "Fentanyl flowing over our southern border is a direct result of the Biden Border Crisis and in Florida, we will not allow it to take the lives of innocent people," DeSantis said in a statement to Fox News Digital.  "In Florida, we will hunt down anyone who brings fentanyl into our communities and puts lives at risk," DeSantis, who is also running for the 2024 Republican White House nomination, said. "I am thankful to the officers who continue to put the safety of their communities first and apprehend these criminals." His comments came after the Florida Highway Patrol Criminal Interdiction Unit arrested a suspect on Thursday and seized the haul of drugs in Osceola County.  SENATE REPORT SOUNDS ALARM ON SU...

Emma Roth / The Verge : Interoperability across ecosystems was one of CES 2024's main themes, with widespread support for Qi2 wireless charging perhaps being the most significant shift   —  Last year, you couldn't mention CES without bringing up Matter.  It was a pivotal year for the smart home standard …

A far-left climate protest organization that was recently granted a private White House meeting said Friday that it had surrounded Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., in New Hampshire in an effort to confront him over energy and climate policy. Climate Defiance — a Washington, D.C.-based group known for its high-profile disruptive protests targeting politicians — said its members had cornered Manchin, forcing him to hide in an "old" building in Goffstown, New Hampshire. The group's actions came shortly after the Democratic senator addressed the New Hampshire Institute of Politics’ "Politics & Eggs" forum which is often attended by presidential candidates. "We are *swarming* Joe Manchin’s presidential forum in New Hampshire," Climate Defiance said in an X post Friday morning. "This man is a murderer. The blood of thousands is encrusted on his hands. As we write he cowers behind lines of armed cops, afraid and humiliated." "As we write, Jo...

Sarah E. Needleman / Wall Street Journal : A look at CD Projekt's three-year journey to turn around Cyberpunk 2077, which has now sold over 25M units and won a major award, after a disastrous 2020 launch   —  Roughly three years after a disastrous launch, ‘Cyberpunk 2077,’ a videogame featuring Keanu Reeves, has now sold 25 million units and won a major award

Jason Koebler / 404 Media : Google formally endorses right to repair and will testify in favor of a law in Oregon, says regulators should ban “parts pairing”, a tactic used by Apple   —  Google says repair should be easy and “parts pairing” should be illegal.  —  Google formally endorsed the concept of right …

Sandali Handagama / CoinDesk : Some crypto advocates welcome bitcoin ETFs as an inevitable part of going mainstream, while others worry they threaten the original promise of decentralization   —  They make the asset class “less of a scary concept” to mainstream audiences, bitcoin advocate Jameson Lopp said.  —  Register Now

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp told a business group on Wednesday that he'll propose $1.8 billion in additional spending on infrastructure, as well as expand health care training for dentists and physicians, showing how the state's $11 billion in surplus cash is giving the Republican the power to spend big even as state revenues slow. Kemp also told the Georgia Chamber of Commerce, meeting at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, that he'll need more than a year to follow through on a pledge to limit lawsuits, and that he wants to make it harder for workers to unionize at the big developments Georgia is subsidizing. "If we want to maintain this incredible position we’re in today for another generation, we need to make smart moves right now to secure that future," Kemp said, arguing his plans would keep Georgia's economy humming. GEORGIA GOV. KEMP APPOINTS LAUREN CURRY AS FIRST WOMAN CHIEF OF STAFF Wednesday's speech by the second-term incumbent was a meaty previe...

Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch : X has quietly removed the ability for paying subscribers to set an NFT as a profile picture, a feature Twitter launched in early 2022   —  On Tuesday, Elon Musk's X wrote about a grand vision for the company in 2024, which includes launching peer-to-peer payments and more AI-powered tools.

Nelson Aguilar / CNET : Google and Samsung merge their respective Nearby Share and Quick Share features under the Quick Share name, for a more unified cross-Android sharing option   —  Apple has AirDrop.  Android now has Quick Share.  —  At CES 2024 today, Google announced Quick Share, a collaboration with Samsung …

Fox News Channel is set to host a live town hall with Republican presidential candidate Gov. Ron DeSantis on Tuesday, January 9. The hour-long event will air at 6 p.m. ET in front of a live audience in Iowa — where GOP candidates are competing for voter attention ahead of the state's Jan. 15 caucuses that kick off the 2024 presidential nominating calendar. Fox News' Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum, who co-moderated the first presidential primary debate of the 2024 cycle in Milwaukee, will lead the questioning during Monday's town hall. TUNE INTO FOX NEWS TO WATCH GOP HOPEFUL RON DESANTIS IN AN EXCLUSIVE TOWN HALL DeSantis is a must-watch GOP candidate ahead of the Iowa caucuses set for early next week. The presidential hopeful has been a vocal frontrunner on the campaign trail thus far. Baier and MacCallum are expected to discuss numerous issues with DeSantis, on a broad range of topics important to American voters. The town hall event featuring DeSantis will be tele...

Carly Page / TechCrunch : In a first, the US FTC bans the data broker X-Mode Social, now known as Outlogic, from selling phone location data and orders it to delete collected data   —  The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has banned the data broker X-Mode Social from sharing or selling users' sensitive location data, the federal regulator said Tuesday.

Stephanie Palazzolo / The Information : Source: Perplexity, a generative AI search engine with a Pro tier for file upload, choice of model, and unlimited queries, has doubled ARR since October to ~$6M   —  It's not often that a young startup takes on a 25-year-old, $1.8 trillion tech behemoth.  But for Aravind Srinivas …

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., accused Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas of "intentionally" enacting policies that led to the border crisis on Sunday. Johnson made the statement in a lengthy interview on CBS' "Face the Nation," telling host Margaret Brennan that there must be "accountability." Johnson led a delegation of GOP lawmakers to visit the U.S.-Mexico border in Texas last week. He and his fellow Republicans have vowed to pursue impeachment against Mayorkas in the coming weeks. Johnson listed the crises going on at the southern border, from massive crossings of single adult males to the sex trafficking of women and children. "Anyone with a conscience who came down to see this would demand that it stop," Johnson said. BIDEN ADMIN EYES MORE DEPORTATION FLIGHTS TO VENEZUELA AS MIGRANT NUMBERS SHATTER RECORDS "But these are very, very real and immediate issues, what you're talking about," Brennan said. ...

Ben Schoon / 9to5Google : Acer announces Intel Core Ultra-based Swift laptops, including the Swift X 14 with Nvidia RTX 4070 and 120Hz OLED display, starting at $1,399   —  Acer is rolling out new laptops based on Intel Core Ultra including the Acer Swift X 14, a powerhouse PC with Intel Core Ultra, RTX 4070, a 120Hz OLED display, and more.