It said it was implementing workarounds for certain offline operations in order to continue servicing its customers and had engaged third-party cybersecurity experts to support its investigation and recovery efforts.

The company said it was also coordinating with law enforcement to address the issue that had affected some of its information technology systems.

(Reporting by Ananya Mariam Rajesh in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli)

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(Reuters) – President Joe Biden's administration urged the U.S. Supreme Court to take up a dispute over Republican-backed laws in Texas and Florida that would undercut efforts by social media companies to curb content deemed objectionable on their platforms.

The states call the actions impermissible censorship.

The justices are considering taking up two cases involving challenges to the state laws brought by technology industry groups including NetChoice, whose members include Meta Platforms Inc Alphabet Inc, and X, formerly known as Twitter.

Supporters of the laws, passed in 2021, have argued that social media platforms have silenced conservative voices, while advocates of content moderation have argued for the need to stop misinformation and advocacy for extremist causes.

Florida is seeking to revive its law after a lower court ruled largely against it, while the industry groups are appealing a separate lower court decision upholding the Texas law, which the Supreme Court blocked at an earlier stage of the case.

Invited to weigh in on the dispute, the Justice Department on Monday said the cases merit review because the laws burden the platforms' rights under the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment, which protects freedom of speech.

“When a social-media platform selects, edits, and arranges third-party speech for presentation to the public, it engages in activity protected by the First Amendment,” the Justice Department said in a written brief.

The cases would test the argument made by the industry groups that the First Amendment protects platforms' editorial discretion and prohibits governments from forcing them to publish content against their will.

The companies have said that without editorial discretion their websites would be overrun with spam, bullying, extremism and hate speech.

Florida's law requires large platforms to “host some speech that they might otherwise prefer not to host” by disclosing censorship rules and prohibiting the banning of any political candidates. Texas' law forbids censoring users based on “viewpoint.”

(Reporting by Andrew Chung in New York; Editing by Sonali Paul)

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SHANGHAI (Reuters) – Only a few months after beginning her career as a livestream sales host in January, Zhang Jinyu, 28, a former model and blogger with a master's degree in fashion management, had clocked hundreds of hours of broadcasting time working with brands such as YSL Beauty.

A day in the life of a livestreaming host like Zhang can include more than six hours of talking almost non-stop to camera, time spent on hair, make-up, and on post-broadcast debriefs.

Despite the demanding schedule, Zhang is one of millions of young Chinese people, who are facing record youth unemployment of more than 21%, attempting to forge livestream sales success stories on platforms such as Alibaba's Tmall and Taobao and Bytedance's Douyin – TikTok's Chinese sister site.

“For livestreaming, the threshold to enter the industry is very low. I can pick up my phone and I'm livestreaming,” Zhang said.

“How to stand out is difficult. This industry is highly competitive, but if you can persevere, you can get better and better. I think whether I can stand out is only a matter of my mentality and my ability.”

Zhang is not alone in her determination to make livestream hosting a career.

A survey of more than 10,000 young people on social media platform Sina Weibo last month found that more than 60% of them said they would be interested in working as internet influencers or livestreaming hosts.

The livestreaming industry employed 1.23 million hosts as of 2020, according to iResearch, and a pandemic era boom in livestream sales helped the industry to generate $480 billion in business in China last year.

To facilitate an increasingly professional and competitive livestreaming landscape, agencies have sprung up to train stables of young hosts and connect suitable anchors with brands.

Zhang works with Shanghai-based agency Romomo, an arm of brand partner Buy Quickly, which helps link companies such as Lancome and Under Armor with its 150 full-time hosts.

“Today, livestreaming is one of the most important methods of communication for the international brands we work with,” said Romomo Vice President Shining Li. “It doesn't just increase sales, but also helps brands to promote their brand values and products in a very efficient way.”

Indeed, the way brands approach livestreaming in China has also quickly evolved. From an initial focus on massive sales via deep discounts, story-telling and longer-term consumer engagement has increasingly become the goal.

For livestream host Shi Jianing, 28, building a relationship with the consumers she communicates with during broadcast sessions for brands such as Hugo Boss is key to sales success.

“We're like friends with the consumers,” she said. “If you can communicate with some personal affinity, that builds a kind of trust, and that relationship makes the consumer want to carry out the sale.”

(Reporting by Casey Hall; editing by Robert Birsel)

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After completion of the deal, NWTN, a mobility technology company, will hold about a 27.5% stake in NEV.

($1 = 7.8205 Hong Kong dollars)

(Reporting by Clare Jim; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)

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(Reuters) – Sony Music Entertainment has dropped a lawsuit against Triller over allegations the short-form video platform used the label's music without permission, according to a filing in Manhattan federal court.

Sony Music and Triller told the court on Friday they would end the copyright case with prejudice, which means it cannot be refiled.

Representatives for the companies did not immediately respond on Monday to requests for more information, including whether the companies had reached a settlement.

Triller had resolved part of the lawsuit in April, agreeing to pay more than $4.5 million for allegedly breaching a contract with the label.

Sony Music sued Los Angeles-based Triller last year. It accused the TikTok rival of failing to make payments under a licensing agreement and committing “massive” copyright infringement by streaming its music without a license since breaking the contract.

The lawsuit cited more than 50 songs that Triller allegedly misused by artists including Britney Spears, Harry Styles and Janis Joplin.

A Triller spokesperson said at the time that it had removed Sony Music's catalog from the platform, and the complaint “grossly mischaracterizes” their relationship. Triller later denied Sony Music's allegations in court.

(Reporting by Blake Brittain in Washington; Editing by Chris Reese)

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The company is rolling out a limited beta test to a small group of members in Canada and the United Kingdom on select TVs starting Monday, and on PCs and Macs through Netflix.com on supported browsers in the next few weeks.

The streaming platform had begun its push into the gaming experience by launching Netflix games on mobiles in November 2021. So far, the company's titles have only been available on Apple's iOS and Alphabet's Android.

“Oxenfree” from Night School Studio, a Netflix Game Studio, and “Molehew's Mining Adventure”, a gem-mining arcade game, will be part of the initial testing.

Users can play the games on TV using their phones and those on PCs and Macs can play on Netflix.com with a keyboard and mouse.

“By making games available on more devices, we hope to make games even easier to play for our members around the world,” Verdu said.

Netflix said games on TV will operate on select devices from initial partners Amazon Fire TV Streaming Media Players, Chromecast with Google TV and Roku devices, among others.

In March, the company had said it had a content slate of 40 more games scheduled for later this year and 70 in development with its partners, which would be in addition to the 16 games currently being developed by its in-house game studios.

(Reporting by Samrhitha Arunasalam in Bengaluru; Editing by Krishna Chandra Eluri)

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NEW YORK (Reuters) – Several investment managers whose performance was pummeled when technology stocks skidded lower last year put fresh money into the handful of companies that are pulling the stock market higher this year, new regulatory filings show.

Glen Kacher's Light Street Capital, one of a handful of hedge funds that posted double-digit losses last year, reported a new position in retailer Amazon.com in the second quarter and said it boosted its stake in technology company Meta Platforms by 27%, according to a new regulatory filing.

Amazon's share price has gained 63% since January while Meta's has climbed 144.5%.

Coatue Management, founded by Philippe Laffont, increased its position in Amazon by 125% and raised its holdings of Microsoft stock by 67%, a filing showed.

Tiger Global Management increased its holding of Nvidia, whose semiconductors back artificial-intelligence systems and whose market value topped $1 trillion in June, by 1,332%, the filing showed.

Investment managers must disclose what they hold in U.S. stocks at the end of each quarter and report that information to the Securities and Exchange Commission 45 days after the end of the quarter. The deadline for so-called 13-F filings for the second quarter is on Monday.

2023 has been a better year for investors, with the S&P 500 stock market index up 16% in the first half after a 20% drop in full-year 2022. But only a small number of companies – the so-called magnificent seven – fueled the rally.

IPhone maker Apple, retailer Amazon, electric vehicle maker Tesla, chip maker Nvidia and technology company Meta are among the group that accounted for 73% of the market's gains.

13-F filings are backward-looking but are closely watched by investors for trends. Second-quarter filings suggest many hedge funds ramped up their bets on technology stocks that suffered last year.

But not all investors were of one mind on these technology names. Light Street, for example, cut its Nvidia holding by 22% while Coatue cut it by 6%.

(Reporting by Svea Herbst-Bayliss in New York; Editing by Matthew Lewis)

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NEW YORK (Reuters) – Crypto lender Celsius Network on Monday received a U.S. bankruptcy judge's permission to seek creditor approval for its bankruptcy plan, advancing a proposal to exit Chapter 11 as a new entity owned by its creditors.

Judge Martin Glenn signed off on Celsius's disclosure statement and solicitation materials at a U.S. Bankruptcy Court hearing in Manhattan, saying Celsius had given creditors sufficient information to vote on the proposed restructuring.

Some creditors oppose the plan, but the official committee appointed to represent junior creditors supports it and will recommend that Celsius customers vote in favor.

New Jersey-based Celsius filed for Chapter 11 protection in July 2022, one of several crypto lenders to go bankrupt following the rapid growth of the industry during the COVID-19 pandemic. Celsius had 600,000 customers who held about $4.4 billion in interest-bearing Celsius accounts when it filed for bankruptcy, according to court documents.

Celsius's bankruptcy plan would return some crypto deposits to retail customers and hand control of remaining business lines – including bitcoin mining and staking – to the Fahrenheit Group, a consortium that includes blockchain-based venture capital firm Arrington Capital.

Celsius estimates that most of its customers, who had interest-bearing Earn accounts, will receive a 67% recovery, through return of liquid crypto assets like Bitcoin and Ether, equity shares in the new company, and proceeds of post-bankruptcy litigation against company founder Alex Mashinsky and others. Customers will generally receive a higher recovery on other, non-interest-bearing accounts.

Fahrenheit will buy a minority stake in the new business for $50 million and will publicly list the new company's stock on Nasdaq. This will allow Celsius customers to sell equity shares that they will receive as part of their bankruptcy recovery, according to court documents.

The reorganized company will pursue litigation against Mashinsky, who already faces U.S. criminal charges and a New York civil lawsuit for allegedly misleading customers and artificially inflating the value of his company's propriety crypto token. Mashinsky has pleaded not guilty.

Celsius creditors have a Sept. 20 deadline to submit votes on the proposal, and Celsius intends to seek final court approval of its restructuring plan on Oct. 2, according to court documents.

(Reporting by Dietrich Knauth, Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi and David Gregorio)

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(Reuters) – Chip design tools maker Synopsys has signed a deal to bring its technical building blocks to the advanced contract manufacturing Intel offers, the companies said on Monday.

The deal includes intellectual property owned by Synopsys that is used as off-the-shelf components for chip designers aiming to speed the process. The two companies said Synopsys would offer a portfolio of designs that will work with Intel's advanced manufacturing capabilities Intel 3, and Intel 18A.

Intel and Synopsys said that there was a framework in place for making the intellectual property available on future manufacturing processes.

The companies did not disclose financial terms of the agreement.

Intel's 18A process is notable because the company plans to introduce a new generation of transistor design that will further boost chip performance.

The partnership between Intel and Synopsys important step for Intel Foundry Services (IFS), its contract manufacturing business, to become a viable alternative to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd or Samsung Electronics Co Ltd.

“It's a brick in the foundation for IFS to gain credibility as a top line, leading edge semiconductor vendor,” Steve Leibson, an analysts at Tirias Research said. “If you don't have Synopsys in your court, you're really not going to be taken seriously.”

Intel launched IFS in 2021, and it reported revenue of $232 million in the second quarter of this year.

(Reporting by Max A. Cherney in San Francisco; Editing by Marguerita Choy)

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JI YUE 01, the flagship model under the new brand will be produced by Geely and is expected to debut in the last quarter of this year, the company said.

Baidu will provide its know-how in smart cockpits, autonomous driving and artificial intelligence technologies, which will be applied in JI YUE cars, Geely added.

“Beyond overseeing sales, services, and marketing for the 01, JI YUE will also build and develop its own charging network in China to meet consumer demand for smart intelligent electric vehicles,” according to the statement.

Also on Monday, China's industry ministry website showed three electric vehicles under the JI YUE brand were seeking regulatory approvals.

Geely had co-funded an electric vehicle venture Jidu with Baidu. The brand in June launched a “robot” concept car, marking the first vehicle co-developed by the automaker and Baidu,as global tech companies scramble to develop smart cars.

(Reporting by Zhang Yan, Ella Cao in Beijing, Meg Shen in Hong Kong; Editing by Tomasz Janowski)

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