Hollywood tried and failed to crack the microdrama code first. In 2020, Jeffrey Katzenberg launched Quibi with $1.75 billion in funding, A-list talent including Steven Spielberg and Guillermo del Toro, and episodes under 10 minutes designed for mobile viewing. Six months later, it shut down, having burned through over $1 billion. The service reached fewer than 1 million subscribers against a target of 7 million, with its content library sold to Roku for under $100 million.
Given the current circumstances, if I do not suspend this edition of the film festival, anyone involved in the festival whether directors, forum participants, associated staff, volunteers, or even audience members could potentially face threats or harassment, he said in a statement. This situation places me in a difficult ethical position. As both an organiser and an individual, I have no intention of putting anyone in danger, whether such danger is real or fabricated as a means of intimidation.
OPINION - Space has gone from frontier to front line. But despite this increased urgency and to remain first in flight, the Trump administration recently the Office of Space Commerce's budget. Additionally, NASA remains without a permanent leader and is struggling to select a new lunar lander for its Artemis missions. It's a dangerous place to be as America's adversaries are investing heavily in everything from spy satellites to landing on the Moon. Now is the time for the United States to prioritize investment in innovation and security.
TV footage showed Ren Junfei and Xing Jianing sitting with a large toy in the shape of a missile labelled DF-61 as they were waiting for their scores in the kiss and cry area at the Cup of China on Saturday. The toy was briefly held up by Ren, Xing and a coach, then placed across Xing's lap. The DF-61 is a new Chinese-made, land-based intercontinental ballistic missile capable of carrying nuclear weapons which was unveiled at a military parade last month.
Russian attack helicopters (such as the Mi‑28N) are now reportedly being equipped with the Igla‑S MANPADS via the Strelets system launcher modules in order to intercept Ukrainian long-range drones. While traditional guns and rockets on helicopters have been used in this role, the addition of MANPADS shows Russian awareness of the threat posed by smaller, faster aerial targets. How effective MANPADS are against low-heat small UAVs remains to be seen.
Dobot calls its version the Sinosauropteryx, named after the feathered, bipedal carnivore first uncovered by Chinese farmers in 1996. The robotic version, according to the South China Morning Post, features bipedal locomotion, optical sensors, and pre-programmed motion-controls. A highlight video which made the rounds on Douyin, the Chinese varietal of TikTok, pokes fun at the concept, showing the near-lifelike Sinosauropteryx stalking around a museum at night.
The US government is reportedly considering new export controls that could block a wide range of products made with US software from being shipped to China, in what could become one of Washington's most sweeping trade measures to date. If implemented, the move could disrupt global technology supply chains and heighten uncertainty for multinational manufacturers that rely on US-developed software across their operations.
Companies in China claim they can now recover 99.6% of the nickel, manganese, and cobalt from an end-of-life EV battery. They don't make it clear if these are pilot program numbers or if that's what they're achieving at scale. China is the world's leading EV battery recycling power and it's unlikely the West will catch up anytime soon. The world needs to get electric vehicle battery recycling right.
The low-paid Chinese worker is at the mercy of an entirely unrestrained market. The jobs Hu does demand unpaid trial periods and have no base pay, and he works mainly for commission or a handling fee, which his employers can reduce on a whim. Disgruntled employees pick on each other, because going after the powerful will only cost us in the end. Experienced hands refuse to help newbies, on the grounds that teaching the disciple might starve the master.
On Friday morning, the S&P 500 was less than a couple of points from another all-time high. Then, after a single social media post from President Donald Trump, $2 trillion in market value was wiped out. The unraveling shows the sway the president's one-man trade policy still has over the fate of the global economy. Trump at 10:57 a.m. ET wrote on his Truth Social platform that China was "becoming very hostile" with the rest of the world, especially when it comes to its control of rare earth metals. He accused China of holding the world "captive" because of its "monopoly" on these crucial resources.
US export controls have had mixed results in stemming the flow of chipmaking equipment into China, according to a congressional investigation, which found US and allied companies sold $38 billion worth of semiconductor tools in 2024 alone. Those sales, it should be noted, were mostly older equipment that's either exempt from US export rules or was sold to unregulated parties in China. In other words, these equipment vendors did nothing wrong and were acting in compliance with US export control rules.
In its most recent threat report [PDF] published today, the GenAI giant said that these users usually asked ChatGPT to help design tools for large-scale monitoring and analysis - but stopped short of asking the model to perform the surveillance activities. "What we saw and banned in those cases was typically threat actors asking ChatGPT to help put together plans or documentation for AI-powered tools, but not then to implement them," Ben Nimmo, principal investigator on OpenAI's Intelligence and Investigations team, told reporters.
According to data collected by Helgi Library in 2021, China accounted for over 25% of the world's potato consumption. In total, the population ate around 66,437 kilotons of potatoes that year. To put that in perspective, there are 1000 tons in a kiloton - we're talking about a heck of a lot of potatoes. The World Population Review has even higher figures for the following year: 69,109 kilotons, or 47.4 kilograms per person.
When former lawyer Zhang Zhan posted hundreds of videos from Wuhan during the chaotic early months of the COVID-19 outbreak, she became one of China's most prominent citizen journalists. Jailed in 2020 for "picking quarrels and provoking trouble" a charge Chinese authorities often use against journalists and activists she was sentenced recently to another four years for the same offense.
There has long been a contest between East and West, whether its competing militaries, economies, and ideologies. The ascendance of China in the last few decades has been at record pace and gives credence to its economic and military power. While Western countries, mostly NATO nations, have been at the forefront of economic and military might as a result of their alliances (EU and NATO), it is still interesting to draw a comparison between these two massive powers on the world stage.
The University of Arizona is quietly shutting down its four microcampuses in China at the end of this semester, in response to a government report released earlier this month that criticizes branch campuses of U.S. institutions in China.