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The Escalating Tension Between the US and China: Microsoft’s $1.5B Payment to G42

G42
As the Gulf region gains growing strategic importance for the tech war between the U.S. and China, Microsoft makes a big move into one of its richest oil countries. The minority stake will give Brad Smith, Microsoft’s vice chair and president, a seat on G42’s board of directors. The funding comes amid U.S. politicians’ escalating concerns over G42’s ties with China. Given the two countries’ increasing economic ties, it’s no surprise that G42, the AI poster child of the UAE, has also forged ties with Chinese firms. Under the agreement, the Emirati company’s data platform and other key technology infrastructure will migrate to Microsoft Azure, which will power G42’s AI product development.

“Embracing the Fediverse: Flipboard Expands its Connections with the Open Source Social Web”

Flipboard Mastodon Android
On Thursday, the company announced it’s expanding its fediverse integrations to 400 more Flipboard creators and introducing fediverse notifications in the Flipboard app itself. In total, Flipboard says there are now over 11,000 curated Flipboard magazines available to federated social networking users. In addition to the newly federated magazines, Flipboard is also bringing a more integrated fediverse experience to its own app. 4.3.25), Flipboard users will be able to see their new followers from the fediverse in their Flipboard Following tab, while their Flipboard notifications will now include fediverse reactions and conversations. The company had already begun curating content for fediverse users across a handful of “news desks” (dedicated fediverse accounts) that directed users to interesting articles and links across topics.