A team of advisers has located "only a fraction" of FTX's digital assets that it hopes to recover, according to the official overseeing the crypto exchange's bankruptcy proceedings. In a court filing, new CEO John J. Ray III said he has never seen "such a complete failure of corporate controls" and a "complete absence of trustworthy financial information." More: - On Friday, FTX filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the U.S. Its founder and then-CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried, resigned and was replaced by Ray, a turnaround expert who oversaw the liquidation of Enron and other large bankruptcies during his 40-year career.
- In the new filing, Ray said his team has secured only about $740M in cryptocurrencies held by FTX and other related companies.
- He detailed a dire picture of the company, describing a "concentration of control" within a small group of "inexperienced, unsophisticated, and potentially compromised" leaders.
The findings: - FTX's unaudited quarterly balance sheets and other financial details produced by Bankman-Fried cannot be trusted, Ray wrote.
- Even audited statements provided to investors show "substantial concerns."
- The total amount of liabilities remains unclear. FTX did not maintain accurate lists of bank accounts and account signatories and did not pay attention to the creditworthiness of its banking partners, the filing said.
- In the Bahamas, some corporate funds were used to buy homes for FTX employees and advisers without documentation, according to Ray.
BLOOMBERG 
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Blizzard Entertainment said it will suspend most video game sales in China after it failed to extend its agreement with NetEase. China's second-largest gaming company has partnered with Blizzard since 2008, publishing the latter's popular games and franchises including Overwatch 2 and World of Warcraft. More: - According to Bloomberg, the partners disagreed on financial terms and IP and player data ownership.
- The licensing agreements will now expire in January, ending access to Blizzard games such as World of Warcraft, Hearthstone, Starcraft, Heroes of the Storm, and Diablo III.
- The publishing of Diablo Immortal won't be affected as it's covered by a separate development agreement.
- NetEase says the end of the deal won't have any "material impact" on its financial results. Last year, its licensed Blizzard games had net revenues and net income contribution in the "low single digits” as a portion of its overall profits and sales.
- Blizzard said it remains open to forging deals with other publishing partners in China.
CNBC
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A group of Apple Store employees in St. Louis, Missouri became the latest to file for a union election. The move comes after Apple retail workers in Maryland and Oklahoma successfully voted to organize, forcing Apple to negotiate with them about pay and working conditions. More: - The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) hopes to represent the workers.
- On Wednesday, IAM filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board to hold the unionization vote, saying it aims to represent 82 Apple employees in St. Louis.
- The group also filed a charge against Apple for allegedly requiring the St. Louis employees to attend mandatory anti-union meetings and threatening to penalize the workers.
- Unions have made similar allegations about Apple's conduct in Oklahoma, Maryland, and Atlanta.
Zoom-out: - In response, Apple said it has increased pay and offered more benefits to employees in recent years.
- IAM also organized the unionization of Apple Store employees in Towson, Maryland.
- If successful, St. Louis would become the third Apple Store to unionize in the U.S. Apple has 272 stores in the country.
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
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Italian utility Enel plans to build a solar cell manufacturing facility in the U.S. starting in 2023. A North American affiliate is now searching for locations to build the 3-gigawatt facility and support the North-American solar PV supply chain. More: - The proposed facility would be one of the first of its kind to produce solar cells in the U.S.
- It would initially have an annual production capacity of at least 3 gigawatts, eventually scaling up to 6 gigawatts, making it one of the largest in the U.S.
- The plant could start manufacturing cells and panels by the end of 2024.
Zoom-out: - It would be Enel's second PV manufacturing facility worldwide, after its gigafactory in Catania, Sicily.
- The recently passed U.S. Inflation Reduction Act served as a "catalyst" for Enel's solar manufacturing plans in the U.S., according to executive Enrico Viale.
- The law, which was signed by President Joe Biden in August, offers incentives to solar panel and other clean energy producers.
- Viale predicted it will usher in "a new era of made-in-America energy."
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
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While all of Apple's iPhone 15 models are expected to have USB-C ports instead of Lightning ports, only the iPhone 15 Pro models will support faster transfer speeds, according to Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. His latest survey indicates that the higher-end Pro models will have a different USB-C connector that supports high-speed, wired data transfers. More: - Meanwhile, the standard iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus will have connectors that support USB 2.0 speeds, which are capped at 480 Mbps - the same speed as the Lightning port.
- Kuo says the iPhone 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max will support a minimum of USB 3.2 or Thunderbolt 3, boosting data transfer speeds as high as 20 Gbps or 40 Gbps, respectively.
- Last month, an Apple executive confirmed that Apple will comply with a new EU mandate requiring all mobile phones to have USB-C charging ports by the end of 2024.
- The iPhone 15 is due out next September.
THE VERGE
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Nvidia and Microsoft have partnered to build a high-performance supercomputer hosted in the cloud. Under the terms of the multiyear deal, Microsoft's Azure will become the "first public cloud" to incorporate Nvidia's graphics processing units, networking, and artificial intelligence software. More: - The resulting supercomputer will be among the world's most powerful to handle AI computing and more in the cloud.
- Researchers and companies will be able to use the AI infrastructure and software to train, scale, and deploy AI models and systems.
- Nvidia said it will sell the chips to Microsoft, as well as co-develop AI models and be a customer of the supercomputer.
- As part of the partnership, Nvidia and Microsoft plan to make their AI development tools more accessible in Azure.
- Nvidia will use Azure to develop advanced generative AI for creating code, images, text, and videos.
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- Elon Musk has identified a possible successor who may eventually replace him as Tesla CEO, according to a company board member, who did not name the person.
- Workspace platform Notion AI is now testing AI software that generates blog posts, press releases, sales emails, poems, and other written content based on prompts.
- In a letter to Ticketmaster's CEO, U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) expressed "serious concerns" about the company's operations after many users were unable to purchase tickets for a Taylor Swift tour. Klobuchar said Ticketmaster's market power insulates it from competition, resulting in a lack of innovation and "the types of dramatic service failures we saw this week."
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 |  | Beth is a writer and editor at Inside.com covering artificial intelligence and daily technology news. You can reach her at Beth.Duckett@inside.com. |   | | Editor | Eduardo Garcia is a writer and editor based in New York. He is the author of "Things You Can Do," an illustrated book about climate action. Bylines in The New York Times, The Guardian, Slate, Scientific American, and others. In one of his previous lives, Eduardo worked as a Reuters correspondent in Latin America for nearly a decade. | |
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