This weekend, Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping agreed to something of a détente around American tariffs on Chinese goods. Stocks across Asia swooned, for reasons that make no sense to me. Plus, Bloomberg’s spy story redux and Berlin airport fun. We are experimenting with new content forms at TechCrunch. This is a rough draft […]
View More Investors still don’t understand the fundamentals of US/China relationsCategory: Bloomberg
In letter to Congress, Apple sends strongest denial over ‘spy chip’ story
Apple has doubled down on its repudiation of Bloomberg’s report last week that claimed its systems had been compromised by Chinese spies. The blockbuster story cited more than a dozen sources claiming that China installed tiny chips on motherboards built by Supermicro, which companies across the U.S. tech industry — including Amazon and Apple — have […]
View More In letter to Congress, Apple sends strongest denial over ‘spy chip’ storyAmazon, Apple deny Bloomberg’s well-sourced report of a massive Chinese hardware hack
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If you’re two of the world’s most popular and profitable companies — or, say, the United States government — a major intelligence attack by a foreign power is news worth denying, vehemently.
On Thursday, Bloomberg Businessweek published a highly-sourced cover story detailing a stunning attack by the Chinese government capable of infiltrating companies including Apple and Amazon, as well as US intelligence agencies, the mormon church, and the porn industry.
According to the report, Chinese spies placed microchips the size of a sharpened pencil tip in the Chinese-manufactured servers of one of the most prolific server-providers in the world, Supermicro. The disguised microchips allowed the government to “alter the operating system’s core so it could accept modifications,” and “contact computers controlled by the attackers in search of further instructions and code.” Essentially, the microchips provided Chinese spies a secret passageway into the networks of almost 30 companies. Read more…
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Bloomberg Media Group’s chief product officer sees big opportunities in audio
Julia Beizer joined Bloomberg Media Group as its first chief product officer in January — and since then, she said, “Audio has been a big part of my world.” Specifically, Beizer’s team has been releasing products for different smart speakers including Apple’s HomePod, Amazon’s Echo Show and most recently Google Home, with the launch of […]
View More Bloomberg Media Group’s chief product officer sees big opportunities in audioSubscription hell
Another week, another paywall. This time, it’s Bloomberg, which announced that it would be adding a comprehensive paywall to its news service and television channel (except TicToc, its media partnership with Twitter). A paywall was hardly a surprise, but what was surprising was the price: the standard subscription is $35 a month (up from $0 […]
View More Subscription hellApple to launch a premium news subscription service, report says
More details are out this morning about Apple’s plans for Texture, the digital newsstand business it acquired last month. According to a new report from Bloomberg, Apple is planning to launch its own premium news subscription service in an upgraded version of the Apple News app, arriving sometime in the next year. The service will […]
View More Apple to launch a premium news subscription service, report says