Grand Theft Auto 6's original score, composed by French electronic duo Justice, will be released on December 11, Rockstar Games has announced. The album will feature 30 tracks and will be available on all major music streaming platforms. It's also available to pre-order in CD and vinyl formats. Rockstar also revealed a new track from the original score.

Apple launched the iPhone Air as its first ultra-slim smartphone last year. The handset debuted a really slim profile, but at the cost of camera performance and battery life. A new leak, however, suggests that the Cupertino-based tech giant could address both of these concerns with its successor. Widely referred to as the iPhone Air 2, the purported handset’s specif...

Asia-focused investment firm PAG will acquire a 51 percent stake in Evergrande Property Services Group, a unit of debt-laden developer China Evergrande Group, for HK$4.03 billion, the two said in a joint announcement on Friday. The acquisition marks a major step in liquidators' efforts to sell assets and recover funds for creditors of China Evergrande, which received a combined US$46 billion in creditor claims. The sale follows a competitive auction run by the liquidators, according to the filed announcement. PAG said in the filing that Evergrande Property's business generated stable, recurring revenue from a diversified portfolio of managed properties across China. PAG said taking control of the listed services unit would remove uncertainty tied to the liquidation of China Evergrande and CEG Holdings, and could strengthen market confidence. PAG will fund the acquisition and the offer, if fully accepted, with acquisition financing and equity committed by PAG Fund IV, the filing said. The offer values the 5.52 billion shares at HK$0.8359 each, a 29 percent discount to Evergrande Property's last closing price on Wednesday. The stock was suspended on Thursday pending the announcement and dropped 13.5 percent after trading resumed on Friday. The offer values Evergrande Property Services at about HK$9.04 billion, compared to a market capitalisation of roughly HK$11.08 billion after the shares dropped to HK$1.025. PAG will also pay 500 million yuan at completion for certain taxes, transaction fees and other liabilities of CEG Holdings, according to the filing. Following completion of the deal, PAG will be required to make an unconditional offer for the remaining 5.3 billion shares in the company. Goldman Sachs is advising PAG on the acquisition and potential mandatory offer, while UBS and Citic Securities are joint financial advisers to China Evergrande and CEG Holdings. The deal remains subject to Chinese antitrust approval, among other conditions. The parties can terminate the agreement if these conditions are not met or waived by February 12, 2027, according to the filing. China Evergrande, once China's premier property developer, defaulted on most of its US$300 billion in liabilities following Beijing's sweeping crackdown on the property sector six years ago. The liquidators of China Evergrande and CEG Holdings informed Evergrande Property a year ago that they were seeking to sell the 51.016 percent stake, according to the filing. PAG intends to keep Evergrande Property listed in Hong Kong and does not plan major changes to its operations or workforce, apart from nominating new directors at the earliest time permitted under takeover. Edited by Tony Sabine

Motorola Signature 27 will be launched globally next month, the company announced on Thursday. The flagship handset was first unveiled at the Snapdragon Summit 2026 as the second model in the brand's Signature series, while the brand also showcased it at the Indian Mobile Congress (IMC) 2026. While pricing remains under wraps, several of its features have already been...

Tech shares slumped in Asia on Friday, the yen rose and bonds surged towards their biggest monthly gain in nearly three years as investors scurried to safety against worries that huge and rising AI spending may not deliver sufficient returns. In Hong Kong, the benchmark Hang Seng Index opened up 52 points, or 0.23 percent, at 23,011. The China enterprises index rose 23 points, or 0.31 percent, to 7,779 while the tech index fell 23 points, or 0.63 percent, to 3,720. Up north, the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index opened down 45 points, or 1.25 percent, at 3,605. The blue-chip CSI300 headed for its largest monthly fall in a decade, after nearly four months of AI stocks tanking on fears that a slowdown in demand for chips and other data centre equipment could crush revenues. The Shenzhen Component Index fell 267 points, or 2.4 percent, to 10,871 while the ChiNext Index plunged 3.29 percent to 2,434. In Tokyo, the Nikkei opened 315 points, or 0.49 percent, down at 64,344 and was 1,742 points lower at one stage before noon as the tech-heavy 225 benchmark tracked overnight losses on Wall Street and was given additional impetus by late earnings from Amazon.com and Intel that showed massive cash burns. In Seoul, the Kospi dived 177 points, or 2.99 percent, to open at 5,760 before continuing its downward spiral to be 313 points down at one stage before noon, triggering at one point a sidecar trading curb and halting algorithmic trading for five minutes. The weakness in Asian markets came as shares in Google parent Alphabet fell 12.6 percent on Wall Street and slid a little further after hours, to wipe out a withering US$500 billion in market value, as massive AI spending turned the company's cash flow negative. An aftermarket plunge of 23 percent in Intel shares and a drop of seven percent in Amazon stocks, as they too burn through cash, drove Nasdaq 100 futures down 1.4 percent and sent stocks of chipmakers around Asia into a tailspin. "The market isn't necessarily questioning whether the AI buildout can be financed," said Pepperstone analyst Chris Weston. "It's increasingly questioning whether shareholders will earn an adequate return on the enormous capital being deployed." Nerves were also frayed by a potentially record-breaking hack at Binance, the world's biggest cryptocurrency exchange, which drove down bitcoin, other cryptocurrency prices and stocks including rival exchange Coinbase. Investors' rush into bonds was further spurred further by the Federal Reserve's Wednesday decision to keep US interest rates on hold, with no firm projection of when it might need to hike next. Benchmark 10-year US Treasury yields fell by more than seven basis points in Tokyo trade on Friday to 4.91 percent for a fall of some 37 bps through October – the largest one-month drop since December 2023. The risk-averse mood strengthened haven currencies such as the yen, pushing the currency up about 0.2 percent to 157.47 per US dollar. (Reuters/Xinhua) Edited by Tony Sabine

David Durman, a University of Kentucky administrator, recently earned a religious exemption from using AI in the workplace.

Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, on Thursday said it had frozen US$3 billion in crypto assets as it investigated a potential security breach, with stablecoin issuers Circle and Tether freezing related assets. "Binance will cover all hacking losses," Binance co-founder Yi He said, without providing more details about the incident. The market impact of the possible hacking, which could be the largest-ever crypto heist according to analytics firm Chainalysis, was felt immediately in early Asian trading on Friday. Bitcoin dropped about two percent to a six-week low of US$77,646 and ether fell around two percent to a two-month low of US$2,238.76. BNB, a token originally launched as Binance Coin that can be used to pay Binance fees, was down more than eight percent over the past 24 hours at US$694, according to market aggregator CoinGecko. Crypto exchange Coinbase Global slid 4.8 percent while those of bitcoin buyer Strategy fell nearly six percent in extended US trading. Binance said the amount frozen could increase as it worked with law enforcement agencies, token issuers, blockchain intelligence firms and other industry partners to trace and freeze additional assets. Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao, who no longer runs the company, said in a post on X that the incident "looked like a hack." Binance, which allows users to buy, sell and trade digital assets, has more than 335 million registered users globally and had about US$160 billion in assets under custody as of the exchange's 2024 annual report. Binance runs a secure asset fund for users, according to its website, which is a reserve held entirely in bitcoin that is intended to protect user assets in cases of security breaches. "It's becoming very hard to counter hacks as AI can find vulnerabilities faster than you can fix them, said Bernardo Brites, CEO of Trace Finance, a payments and stablecoin infrastructure company. "My view is that users will move away from smaller and medium-sized exchanges, (it is) becoming too risky to park your money somewhere that couldn't cover a hack of meaningful size." Tether said it had frozen nearly US$1.57 billion in assets linked to the incident, while Circle froze more than US$800 million. Binance said it was conducting security checks and would resume withdrawals once the issue was fully resolved. It added user funds remained safe and that teams were reviewing the incident. The exchange also temporarily suspended trading on its Binance Alpha platform as a precaution. World Liberty Financial, a crypto company linked to US President Donald Trump and his family, said on Thursday it had worked with cryptocurrency custodian BitGo to freeze funds stolen in what it described as a Binance hack. Binance's Yi said US$27 million in stablecoins and about US$2 million worth of World Liberty tokens had been frozen. Crypto firm Ripple also froze roughly US$200 million in funds, Yi said. Jack McDonald, senior vice president of stablecoins at Ripple, said the company was closely monitoring reports of a potential exploit involving Binance and was freezing affected funds and coordinating with relevant parties. Miguel Morel, CEO of blockchain intelligence firm Arkham, said data indicated that billions of dollars appeared to have been hacked from Binance by an unknown actor, though the exact cause had not been confirmed. Morel said the incident began around 4.30 pm EDT and appeared to be ongoing. The incident adds to a string of crypto thefts. Last year, attackers stole US$2.9 billion worth of cryptocurrency across nearly 150 attacks, according to researchers at TRM Labs. In September, cryptocurrency exchange Bitget said roughly US$350 million in crypto had been stolen from its platform, underscoring the industry's vulnerability to hackers. (Reuters) _____________________________ Last updated: 2026-10-30 HKT 09:55 Edited by Cecil Wong

The success of blockbuster hits like Project Hail Mary and Verity is only part of the story, Amazon's CEO says.

Amazon wants to be the king of AI cloud computing and become the first $1 trillion revenue business. But to do that it will have to continue on its capex spending spree, its CEO said Thursday.

Some estimates say hackers stole billions in crypto from Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, during a cyberattack on Thursday.

Putin said that he and Musk are in "close contact" about Rassvet, Russia's Starlink-like satellite connectivity project.

Wall Street stocks retreated on Thursday, led by the tech-focused Nasdaq after disappointing results from Google parent Alphabet exacerbated concerns over whether the global technology boom can be sustained. Shares of Alphabet finished down more than 12 percent, resulting in around a US$480 billion hit to the tech giant's market value in a bruising session. European bourses had advanced earlier in the day, with the European Central Bank leaving interest rates unchanged after the Federal Reserve maintained US borrowing costs on Wednesday. The euro dipped after Christine Lagarde announced she would step down as the ECB's president in February, but then rose after her press conference. The drop in Alphabet weighed on all three major US equity indices, led by the tech-focused Nasdaq, which lost 1.4 percent. The Alphabet slump came after it reported disappointing growth in both advertising revenue and revenue from its search business. The company also said it would continue to increase capex spending significantly in 2027 after estimating the 2026 level as between US$195 billion to US$205 billion. "I would broadly think of all of this as a long-range planning process, not a short-term allocation exercise," Google CEO Sundar Pichai told analysts of the company's investment splurge. But markets were unnerved by the plan. The Alphabet report "is renewing concerns about AI investment returns, helping push the Nasdaq sharply lower," said a note from Briefing.com. Shareholders "want clear evidence that all of this investment will eventually translate into stronger profits," Angelo Kourkafas of Edward Jones said. But Kourkafas noted that the weakness in equities was not broad-based, with Eli Lilly and MasterCard among the companies that gained after earnings reports. "Money is not exiting equities. It's just moving around and rotating," Kourkafas said. Government data showed US economic growth in third quarter came in at a better than expected 3.4 percent, with authorities citing solid consumer spending as a factor. The US Federal Reserve's preferred gauge for inflation – the Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) price index – rose by 3.6 percent year-on-year in September, an increase from the previous month. The reports came a day after the Fed kept interest rates flat despite elevated inflation. As expected by economists, the ECB meanwhile left its benchmark rate unchanged at 2.5 percent, after having already lifted it twice this year. The decision came just hours after Lagarde announced she would step down early, in February 2027. Lagarde gave little away about her next moves at Thursday's press conference, saying only she wanted to be able to speak more freely on matters outside of monetary policy. This will stoke expectations that the former French finance minister, who served in centre-right governments, could campaign in the presidential elections, although she has previously ruled out running for the presidency herself. Eurozone inflation rose to a three-year high of 3.8 percent in September, driven by surging energy costs amid the Middle East conflict, but the ECB stressed core inflation – excluding food and energy costs – was under control. "While the full effects of the energy shock are still unfolding, underlying inflation has remained broadly stable so far," Lagarde said. The tech-heavy Nasdaq fell 1.4 percent, to 26,185, the S&P 500 fell 0.3 percent, to 7,720, and the Dow also fell 0.3 percent, to 52,343. (AFP) Edited by Robert Kemp

The biggest ouch of the report was its negative free cash flow of $2.4 billion.

As part of the settlement, GM must get drivers’ express consent before it collects or shares their driving and location data.

The site has such a passionate user base that, within two hours of the announcement, its status page's posts had garnered millions of views (and much panicked commentary) across social media.

As AI transforms how people find information online, Reddit is rethinking its open-web roots to protect its audience and business.

Rivian doesn't disclose if the value of its $5.8 billion joint venture will expand as a result.

Rivian is seeing strong enough sales of the new EV that it improved its guidance to Wall Street for the second time this year.

OpenAI-backed Thrive Holdings is buying ADT in a $15.3 billion deal, with plans to bring AI to the home security business.

Airbnb’s nonprofit held its inaugural gala on Wednesday in Los Angeles, and the internet had one reaction — the *what* gala?

The app connects to Instagram to build a virtual closet from photos you’ve already shared, or lets you add items manually by snapping a photo, recording a quick video, or uploading images from your camera roll.

Uno reverse! After Wispr added meeting notes to its dictation app, Granola is adding dictation to its meeting notetaker. The voice AI wars are getting interesting.

Mistral says its new model can afford organizations a kind of control over its cyber defenses that closed models can't.

A top executive of a Singapore AI cloud company that was accused of illegally selling Nvidia chips to China could also have been a Chinese spy, sources have told the New York Times.

Dream is grounded in real physics and construction standards. Just as LLMs learn from text, Dream's world model is trained on more than 100 million square feet of building data gathered from permit archives across the United States.

SuperMe is a network of AI profiles built from the knowledge of real-life experts. When you ask a question, the platform determines which experts are best suited to answer and creates a group chat with their AI profiles.

Mintive was founded by two engineers who have been working on AI for decades through Google Brain and Coursera. It's platform promises to help IT easily control enterprise agents.

The US economy grew at a healthy 3.4 percent annual pace from July through September, accelerating from the second quarter on strong consumer spending and investment in artificial intelligence. The expansion in third-quarter gross domestic product – the nation’s output of goods and services – was faster than the 2.2 percent growth registered from April through June, the US Commerce Department said on Thursday. Consumer spending rose at a brisk 3.8 percent clip in the third quarter, and business investment was up sharply, reflecting the AI boom. The American economy – by far, the world’s biggest – has proven resilient in the face of higher energy prices caused by the fighting with Iran. Economists had expected GDP to grow 3 percent in the third quarter, according to a survey of forecasters by the data firm FactSet. US growth has been lifted by an AI investment boom. Business investment, excluding housing, was up 12.7 percent in the third quarter. Investment in information processing equipment surged 37.4 percent, in software 9.6 percent and in research and development 7.5 percent. However, housing investment, hurt by high mortgage rates, dropped 3.3 percent and has now fallen six of the last seven quarters. Thursday’s report was the first of three Commerce Department estimates of third-quarter GDP growth. (AP) Edited by Edmond Fong

Noise Buds R1 (Gaana Edition) wireless earbuds are available in India for Rs. 1,399 through Noise and Gaana's online platforms. The co-branded earbuds include a one-year Gaana Plus subscription worth Rs. 799, along with 11mm dynamic drivers, quad microphones with Environmental Noise Cancellation and InstaCharge fast charging. Noise claims the earbuds offer up to 40 ho...

Zomato could soon launch a Mehmaan Mode. The proposed Mehmaan Mode will allow the food delivery platform to hide menu prices while guests browse the available dishes and place their selections. This would allow them to choose food without being influenced by the cost of individual items. The idea was shared by a user in a LinkedIn post tagging Goyal. Responding to the...