Bloomberg:
Southeast Asia is drawing more investment from Big Tech than ever, as the CEOs of Apple, Microsoft, and Nvidia commit billions of dollars in the region  —  – Long-ignored region is attracting data center, AI investments  — Amazon, Microsoft among firms pledging billions of dollars

Jagmeet Singh / TechCrunch:
About 48 government websites associated with different Indian states have allowed scammers to plant ads that can redirect visitors to online betting websites  —  Some Indian government websites have allowed scammers to plant advertisements capable of redirecting visitors to online betting platforms.

Daniel Thomas / Financial Times:
Email: criminals target WPP CEO Mark Read in a deepfake scam by using a voice clone and public YouTube footage to set up a video meeting with his executives  —  Mark Read says criminals set up Microsoft Teams call with senior executives in unsuccessful attack

Zachary Small / New York Times:
Christie’s experienced a “technology security issue” that took its website down and affected some systems, ahead of auctions that are expected to generate $840M  —  The auctioneer’s website was taken offline on Thursday evening and remained down on Friday, days before its spring auctions were set to begin.

Gregory Zuckerman / Wall Street Journal:
Jim Simons, a mathematician and founder of hedge fund firm Renaissance Technologies who pioneered computer-based approaches to quantitative trading, dies at 86  —  A mathematician, he helped usher in a revolution in trading, embracing a computer-oriented, quantitative style in the 1980s

Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple is finalizing a deal with OpenAI to use ChatGPT features in iOS 18; talks with Google to license Gemini are ongoing, but no deal has been reached  —  – Move is part of push to add AI features to Apple devices  — Company also held talks with Google about using Gemini

Bloomberg:
Epic v. Apple: Apple says it received just 38 applications to use its outside payments option for the App Store, out of ~65K app devs that offer in-app payments  —  – Judge rips company for ‘lots of decisions’ made ‘without data’  — iPhone maker says it provided antitrust remedy ordered in 2021

Rebecca Bellan / TechCrunch:
Filings and sources: autonomous vehicle company Motional cut ~550 employees in a restructuring that included delaying a robotaxi service from 2024 to 2026  —  Around 550 employees across autonomous vehicle company Motional have been laid off, according to information taken from WARN notice filings and sources at the company.

Christopher Yasiejko / Bloomberg Law:
A US jury says Microsoft must pay IPA Technologies $242M after finding that Cortana infringed a patent that expired in Jan. 2019; Microsoft plans to appeal  —  Microsoft Corp. must pay IPA Technologies Inc. $242 million after a federal jury in Delaware found its Cortana digital assistant infringed a patent that expired in January 2019.

Stephanie Palazzolo / The Information:
Sources: OpenAI is preparing to demonstrate an AI voice assistant that recognizes objects and images and has better logical reasoning than its current products  —  In the race to develop artificial intelligence that communicates the way humans do, OpenAI is preparing to demonstrate technology …