VC money is fueling a global boom in worker surveillance tech

3 June 2025 at 05:00

Technologies that promise to track, manage, and supervise workers, increasingly using artificial intelligence, are getting entrenched in the developing world, according to a new report by Coworker.org, a labor rights...

China is gaining ground in the global race to develop AI agents

Rest of World

By: Kinling Lo

2 June 2025 at 05:00

Chinese companies are gaining ground in the global race to develop the next generation of artificial intelligence — not just chatbots, but autonomous agents designed to handle complex tasks with...

In a world first, Brazilians will soon be able to sell their digital data

Rest of World

By: Gabriel Daros

30 May 2025 at 05:00

Last month, Brazil announced it is rolling out a data ownership pilot that will allow its citizens to manage, own, and profit from their digital footprint — the first such...

In Dubai’s AI job market, your passport matters

Rest of World

By: Amar Diwakar

29 May 2025 at 05:00

Ameca, a humanoid robot, smiled and blinked at the crowd at Dubai AI Week 2025, a celebration of all things artificial intelligence. Landmark announcements marked the event, including a $545...

Style Guide

Rest of World

By: Joanne Lee and Jody Mak

27 May 2025 at 08:30

It is intended for use by designers, editors, developers, and partners working across our digital platforms, products, and branded materials. It outlines how to use our typography, color palette, logos,...

Taiwan’s chip plants run on migrant workers. Job brokers run their lives

Rest of World

By: Michael Beltran and Hsiuwen Liu

28 May 2025 at 05:00

(This is the first of a two-part series on migrant workers in Taiwan’s semiconductor industry. Read the second story here.) A group of migrant tech workers from the Philippines sat...

The math tutor and the missing $533 million

Rest of World

By: Yudhijit Bhattacharjee

27 May 2025 at 05:00

One morning in January, Byju Raveendran sat in the back seat of his shiny black Cadillac as it sped through Dubai. Just three years prior, the schoolteachers’ son had appeared...

The real cost of AI is being paid in deserts far from Silicon Valley

Rest of World

By: Karen Hao

26 May 2025 at 05:00

When Sonia Ramos was a child, she witnessed an accident that would shape the rest of her life. She was born into a mining family in Chile. Her father worked...

Lithium is mined in the salt flats in the Atacama Desert.

Creation Date:

India’s richest man can’t crack e-commerce, even with Shein

Rest of World

By: Kunal Purohit and Ananya Bhattacharya

23 May 2025 at 05:00

Online retail continues to elude India’s richest man. The Shein India app, launched by Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Retail in partnership with the Chinese fast-fashion giant, has struggled to gain traction...

India’s richest man can’t crack e-commerce, even with Shein

Rest of World

By: Kunal Purohit and Ananya Bhattacharya

23 May 2025 at 05:00

Online retail continues to elude India’s richest man. The Shein India app, launched by Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Retail in partnership with the Chinese fast-fashion giant, has struggled to gain traction...

DJI drones are everywhere. The U.S. may still ban them

Rest of World

By: Nicole Fan

22 May 2025 at 05:00

Drones from Chinese giant DJI are deeply embedded in American life. With a potential ban looming, the company has until the end of the year to convince U.S. lawmakers it...

The small robot company with big global ambitions

Rest of World

By: Juliana Bedoya

21 May 2025 at 05:00

Earlier this year, a boxy, knee-high robot rolled past a handful of students at the University of California, Berkeley, campus, loaded with plush toy doughnuts and Yeti mugs. Moving at...

The Kiwibot operating at Curry College in Massachusetts, US.

The world’s top EV battery maker pulled off 2025’s biggest IPO. Here’s what to know

Rest of World

By: Viola Zhou

20 May 2025 at 05:00

China’s CATL, the world’s biggest electric battery maker, starts trading in Hong Kong this week, after a $4.6 billion IPO, the biggest so far this year. CATL has about 38%...

A launch event for the CATL Bedrock chassis in Shanghai, China, Dec. 24, 2024.

AI scam factories force trafficked workers to defraud global victims

Rest of World

By: Linda Yulisman

20 May 2025 at 05:00

Young Indonesians are increasingly falling for fraudulent job ads on Telegram, Facebook, and other social media and getting trafficked to scam farms in Southeast Asia, former scammers and cybersecurity experts...

Homegrown digital road maps turn into lifelines for West Bank’s Palestinians

Rest of World

By: Reem Abd ulhamid

19 May 2025 at 05:00

For Palestinians living in the West Bank, stepping onto the roads of the territory occupied by Israel is a daily journey of resilience. With movement shackled by a complex web...

NORTHERN WEST BANK, PALESTINE - 2023/03/27: Heavy traffic congestion at an Israeli military checkpoint in the occupied West Bank. The Israeli army forces set many roadblocks in the northern West Bank to search cars and check the identities of tourists in search of Palestinian gunmen who opened fire at Israeli soldiers. (Photo by Nasser Ishtayeh/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Why AI advancement doesn’t have to come at the expense of marginalized workers

Rest of World

By: Michelle Kim

19 May 2025 at 05:00

In her new book, Empire of AI: Dreams and nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI, Karen Hao writes about the Silicon Valley firms competing to be the first to reach artificial...

AUSTIN, TX - MARCH 5: Content moderators work at a Facebook office in Austin, Texas. (Photo by Ilana Panich-Linsman for The Washington Post via Getty Images)

How Trump’s Gulf trip turned oil kingdoms into tech superpowers

Rest of World

By: Indranil Ghosh

15 May 2025 at 12:31

U.S. President Donald Trump wrapped up the first major overseas trip of his second term with a four-day blitz through Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates that delivered...

Chinese startups once downplayed their origin. Now some celebrate it.

Rest of World

By: Kinling Lo

15 May 2025 at 05:00

As Jessy Wu prepared to launch her Beijing-based artificial intelligence startup overseas last year, she grappled with a question familiar to many Chinese tech founders: Should her company hide its...

Robot chefs take over at South Korea’s highway restaurants, to mixed reviews

Rest of World

By: Michelle Kim

14 May 2025 at 05:00

On sweltering summer days, chef Park Jeong-eun would cook makguksu, an earthy Korean dish made with buckwheat noodles steeped in a tangy, ice-cold broth, topped with spicy gochujang paste. Truck...

Why Apple can’t just quit China

Rest of World

By: Viola Zhou

13 May 2025 at 05:00

Patrick McGee’s new book, Apple in China: The Capture of the World’s Greatest Company, is out this week, just as the U.S. and China agreed to lower tariff levels for...

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