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TECH

Sam Altman, then-CEO of OpenAI, attends the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation CEO summit in San Francisco on Thursday.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 20, 2023
The AI safety debate after OpenAI CEO's ouster
It's important to align technology with human interests as AI systems are more likely to lower than raise existential risks.
People use smartphones on the street in Tokyo in January 2019.
BUSINESS / Companies / FOCUS
Nov 20, 2023
The NTT Law — a guard against monopoly, or barrier to innovation?
Some say the law regulating the telecom giant stops it from competing against the likes of Google, but others say it contains vital market protections.
An Apple Store in Shanghai in September
BUSINESS / Tech / FOCUS
Nov 19, 2023
Asian regulators turn focus to Big Tech
Across the region, there are indications that Big Tech may soon have to comply with standards that could become international benchmarks.
Eom Dong-hwan, South Korea's minister for its defense acquisition program and administration, speaks at a ceremony marking Poland's receiving of its first delivery of South Korean K2 Black Panther tanks and K9 self-propelled howitzers in Gdynia, Poland, in December 2022.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 19, 2023
South Korea’s defense ambitions can be met by tech
Decades of facing down North Korea has forced Seoul to slowly build its own arms-producing capabilities instead of relying heavily on the U.S.
Sam Altman, then CEO of OpenAI, at the company’s headquarters in San Francisco in March
BUSINESS / Tech
Nov 19, 2023
OpenAI board pressed by some investors to reinstate Sam Altman
Altman is open to returning. In one scenario under consideration, members of the current OpenAI board would step down as soon as this weekend.
Sam Altman, then the chief executive of OpenAI, in Redmond, Washington, in February
BUSINESS / Tech
Nov 19, 2023
The perpetual rise of Sam Altman takes an unexpected turn
The former OpenAI CEO was the face of an AI-fueled future. He was the most Silicon Valley person alive. Then, on Friday, he was fired.
Sam Altman, CEO of ChatGPT maker OpenAI, arrives for a bipartisan Artificial Intelligence Insight Forum for all U.S. senators hosted by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer at the U.S. Capitol in Washington in September.
BUSINESS / Tech / FOCUS
Nov 18, 2023
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman's ouster followed debate with board
The CEO's firing came after disagreements with his board — in particular Ilya Sutskever, an OpenAI co-founder and the company’s chief scientist.
Overflowing trash next to a vending machine in the Asakusa district of Tokyo, which is popular with tourists, in March
JAPAN / Science & Health
Nov 18, 2023
Trash cans make techie comeback in Japan as tourists flood cities
This week, the tourist-heavy Dotonbori district in Osaka installed around 20 new technologically enabled garbage cans called SmaGO.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol pose for a photo while wearing Stanford baseball caps with former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during a discussion on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, at Stanford University on Friday.
JAPAN / Politics
Nov 18, 2023
Japan and South Korea float idea of stronger ties through startups
Both leaders stressed the need to cooperate on climate change solutions and quantum computing at a panel discussion Friday.
Sam Altman, the then-chief executive officer of OpenAI, speaks at Keio University in Tokyo in June.
BUSINESS / Tech
Nov 18, 2023
In shock move, ChatGPT maker OpenAI ousts CEO Sam Altman
The shock firing followed a review the company's board, which concluded that "he was not consistently candid in his communications."
Professional groups may lobby for regulations to control artificial intelligence and steer it toward labor-augmenting uses rather than labor-replacing ones.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 16, 2023
Managing the AI backlash: Lessons from the past
The history of professional guilds in Europe provides clues as to how workers may react to AI-caused disruptions.
Three of Shield AI’s V-Bat drones, which can fly both autonomously and as swarm with a program called hivemind, are seen during testing near Devils Lake, North Dakota, last June.
JAPAN / Politics
Nov 14, 2023
Japan joins U.S.-led effort to regulate military use of AI
Japan and 44 other countries have endorsed a U.S.-led initiative aimed at setting guardrails around the military use of this cutting-edge technology.
The Humane Ai Pin’s interface is projected onto the hand of company co-founder Bethany Bongiorno in San Francisco on Oct. 27. Humane, a company started by two former Apple employees, says its new artificial intelligence pin can stop all the scrolling.
BUSINESS / Tech
Nov 13, 2023
Silicon Valley’s bet on the device that comes after the smartphone
Humane's Ai Pin is being billed as the first artificially intelligent device.
The United States Air Force's B-21 Raider, the long-range stealth bomber that can be armed with nuclear weapons, rolls onto the runway at Northrop Grumman's site at Air Force Plant 42, during its first flight, in Palmdale, California, on Friday.
WORLD / Politics
Nov 11, 2023
New U.S. stealth nuclear bomber starts flight tests in milestone
The batwing-shaped B-21 Raider is on track for delivery to Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota in the mid-2020s.
SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher speaks as she is flanked by Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, SAG-AFTRA's executive director and chief negotiator, during a news conference following the end of the Screen Actors Guild strike in Los Angeles on Friday.
BUSINESS
Nov 11, 2023
Actors union explains AI guardrails in strike deal
The Screen Actors Guild (SAG-AFTRA) reached a deal with studios like Disney and Netflix this week to end its nearly four-month strike.
Japanese state-backed fund INCJ has sold all but a token portion of its stake in semiconductor manufacturer Renesas Electronics.
BUSINESS / Companies
Nov 10, 2023
Japan fund INCJ sells ¥279 billion of Renesas shares
The shares have primarily been sold to overseas institutional investors, INCJ said.
U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak speaks with entrepreneur Elon Musk during a chat session on the rewards and risks of artificial intelligence in London, earlier this month.
EDITORIALS
Nov 10, 2023
Can the world harness AI’s fire without getting burned?
Calls are increasing for governance of artificial intelligence, the world-changing tech that bears both major rewards and risks.
Sony Group has raised its full-year outlook after its media divisions outperformed.
BUSINESS / Companies
Nov 9, 2023
Sony raises sales and profit outlook as media helps offset mobile
The adjustments suggest resilient consumer spending and a weaker yen are stabilizing the business.
The construction site of a new Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. factory in Kikuyo, Kumamoto Prefecture
BUSINESS / Economy
Nov 9, 2023
Japan set to earmark ¥2 trillion for chips in extra budget
Japan is in the midst of a spending spree to revive its chip industry with an aim to triple the sales of domestically produced semiconductors by 2030.
Wei Hsin-hsi and his wife pose for a picture outside their family’s temple that is located inside the proposed expansion area of an industrial park in the Longtan district of Taoyuan, in Taoyuan, Taiwan September 22, 2023. REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins
ASIA PACIFIC
Nov 8, 2023
Taiwan's land squeeze pits advanced chips against ancestral temples
If TSMC shifts more production outside Taiwan, it could weaken the backbone of Taiwan's economy.

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Construction takes place on the Takanawa Gateway Convention Center in Tokyo, slated to open in 2025.
A boom for business tourism in Japan?