 Intel Performance Hit 5x Harder Than AMD After Spectre, Meltdown Patches
Phoronix has conducted a series of tests to show just how much the Spectre and Meltdown patches have impacted the raw performance of Intel and AMD CPUs. While the patches have resulted in performance decreases across the board, ranging from virtually nothing to significant depending on the application, it appears that Intel received the short end of the stick as its CPUs have been hit five times harder than AMD, according to ExtremeTech. From the report: The collective impact of enabling all pat
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Ecuador Hands Over Julian Assange's Belongings To US
Slashdot reader Joce640k shares a report from the BBC: Ecuador has begun giving the U.S. some of WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange's possessions left behind following his stay in its London embassy. The material includes manuscripts, legal papers, medical records and electronic equipment. Mr Assange's lawyer said the move was "completely unprecedented in the history of asylum." "Ecuador is committing a flagrant violation of the most basic norms of the institution of asylum by handing over all
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Ask Slashdot: Would Rationing Air Travel Work To Cut Emissions?
united_notions writes: Last year, The Guardian ran an opinion article arguing that everyone should be allocated "an air mile allowance -- say enough for one long-haul return flight a year, or three short-haul flights. [...] If you don't want to use your allowance, you could sell it off in a government-regulated online marketplace. If you're keen to do a holiday a month, you'll have to buy your allowance from someone else." But despite continuing concerns over the environmental harm caused by air
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3D-Printed Guns Are Back, and This Time They Are Unstoppable
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: A new network of 3D-printed gun advocates is growing in America -- and this time things are different. Unlike previous attempts to popularize 3D-printed guns, this operation is entirely decentralized. There's no headquarters, no trademarks, and no real leader. The people behind it reckon that this means they can't be stopped by governments. Known only by his online moniker, Ivan the Troll is the de facto spokesman of an underground wave of 3D-print
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Chicago Becomes First City To Collect 'Netflix Tax'
Four years after announcing a 9% tax on streaming entertainment services, the city has collected $2 million in sales tax from Sony and two online ticketing services, making it the first major city to collect such a tax successfully. CBS News reports: The city collected $1.2 million from Sony in January, on services including PlayStation Video live events and purchases of music and video, according to Bloomberg. It also collected nearly $800,000 from Eventbrite and $70,000 from Fandango, the outl
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Microsoft Launches First Edge Preview Builds For Mac Users
Microsoft today announced the launch of a preview or canary build of its Microsoft Edge browser designed for the macOS operating system. Microsoft Edge for macOS can be installed from the Microsoft Edge Insider site on compatible Macs. MacRumors reports: Microsoft says that the initial build available today includes several interface changes to meld the Microsoft design language with the design language of macOS: "Examples of this include a number of tweaks to match macOS conventions for fonts,
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UN Chief Warns Nuclear Waste Could Be Leaking Into the Pacific
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Engadget: A UN chief is concerned that a Cold War-era nuclear 'coffin' could be leaking radioactive material into the Pacific. According to Phys.org, the structure in question is on Enewetak atoll in the Marshall Islands -- where the U.S. conducted 67 nuclear weapons tests between 1946 and 1958. The tests included the Castle Bravo hydrogen bomb, which was reportedly about 1,000 times bigger than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. In the late 70s, waste
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Microsoft Wants To Apply AI 'To the Entire Application Developer Lifecycle'
An anonymous reader writes: At its Build 2018 developer conference a year ago, Microsoft previewed Visual Studio IntelliCode, which uses AI to offer intelligent suggestions that improve code quality and productivity. In April, Microsoft launched Visual Studio 2019 for Windows and Mac. At that point, IntelliCode was still an optional extension that Microsoft was openly offering as a preview. But at Build 2019 earlier this month, Microsoft shared that IntelliCode's capabilities are now generally a
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 Snap appoints new execs as it aims to keep 2019 momentum
Snap has another appointment in the apt saga of its ephemeral CFOs. Four months after losing its CFO Tim Stone following a reported “personality clash” between Stone and CEO Evan Spiegel, Snap has promoted its VP of Finance Derek Andersen to the role, the company said Monday. Andersen is the company’s third CFO since March […]
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Quadric.io raises $15M to build a plug-and-play supercomputer for autonomous systems
Quadric.io, a startup founded by some of the folks behind the once-secretive bitcoin mining operation "21E6,” has raised $15 million in a Series A round that will fund the development of a supercomputer designed for autonomous systems. The round was led by automotive Tier 1 supplier DENSO and its semiconductor products arm NSITEXE, which will also […]
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Sony Reportedly Launches Marvel-Inspired Studio To Turn Games Into Movies, Shows
Taking a page from the Marvel playbook, Sony Interactive Entertainment is reportedly launching its own studio to take its video games to the movie and TV screen. From a report: PlayStation Productions is a new division of Sony Interactive Entertainment with the task of adapting PlayStation games into films and TV shows, The Hollywood Reporter reported Monday. Heading up the new studio will be Asad Qizilbash, who was vice president of marketing for Sony Interactive Entertainment of America, accor
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Millennials and Gen Z Are Increasingly Pessimistic About Their Lives, Survey Finds
Uneasiness and pessimism abound among the majority of the world's population. From a report: Deloitte has released its Global Millennial Survey of 13,416 Millennials (born between 1983 and 1994) spread across 42 countries and 3,009 Gen Z respondents (born between 1995 and 2002) from 10 countries. The firm has conducted the survey for the past eight years. The percentage of respondents who think that businesses are making a positive impact dropped six points from 61% in 2018 to 55%. "I would say
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Talk key takeaways from KubeCon 2019 with TechCrunch writers
The Linux Foundation’s annual KubeCon conference is going down at the Fira Gran Via exhibition center in Barcelona, Spain this week and TechCrunch is on the scene covering all the latest announcements. The KubeCon/CloudNativeCon conference is the world’s largest gathering for the topics of Kubernetes, DevOps and cloud-native applications. TechCrunch's Frederic Lardinois and Ron Miller will be on […]
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Linux Distros Without Systemd (2019)
New submitter Nico Schottelius writes: It's 2019 -- who has switched to systemd, who hasn't and what can I use if I don't like systemd? Here's the answer in short.From the blog post: If you are reading this post you're very much likely not a fan of systemd already. So we won't preach on why systemd is bad, but today we'll focus more on what are the alternatives out there. Our approach is obviously not for settling for less but for changing things for the better. We have started the world after s
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Millions of Instagram Influencers Had Their Private Contact Data Scraped and Exposed
A massive database containing contact information of millions of Instagram influencers, celebrities and brand accounts has been found online. From a report: The database, hosted by Amazon Web Services, was left exposed and without a password allowing anyone to look inside. At the time of writing, the database had over 49 million records -- but was growing by the hour. From a brief review of the data, each record contained public data scraped from influencer Instagram accounts, including their bi
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Thanks To Facebook, Your Cellphone Company Is Watching You More Closely Than Ever
A confidential Facebook document reviewed by The Intercept shows that Facebook courts carriers, along with phone makers -- some 100 different companies in 50 countries -- by offering the use of even more surveillance data, pulled straight from your smartphone by Facebook itself. From the report: Offered to select Facebook partners, the data includes not just technical information about Facebook members' devices and use of Wi-Fi and cellular networks, but also their past locations, interests, and
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The Definition of a Kilogram Just Changed Worldwide
For over a century, the kilogram was defined by a metal cylinder in a French vault. Now, this key unit of mass is defined using the Planck constant, a fundamental figure in physics. From a report: On Monday -- World Metrology Day -- Le Grand K lost its special status as the international prototype kilogram (IPK) and it will no longer represent this base unit of mass to the world. From now on, the kilogram -- along with the ampere, kelvin, mole, and candela -- will be defined by fundamental physi
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This clever transforming robot flies and rolls on its rotating arms
There's great potential in using both drones and ground-based robots for situations like disaster response, but generally these platforms either fly or creep along the ground. Not the "Flying STAR," which does both quite well, and through a mechanism so clever and simple you'll wish you'd thought of it.
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Google Glass Gets a Surprise Upgrade and New Frames
Google just unveiled its newest version of Glass. It's not made to be a widespread consumer product, but there are business users who will care. And the latest Glass Enterprise Edition 2, with key upgraded specs, shows where most smartglasses are at. From a report: You might remember Glass as a strange 2013 footnote, but Glass has stuck around: it became an enterprise-targeted device in 2017, and has been used in a variety of other assistive ways. Plenty of other AR headsets have been moving int
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Instagram's IGTV copies TikTok's AI, Snapchat's design
Instagram conquered Stories, but it’s losing the battle for the next video formats. TikTok is blowing up with an algorithmically suggested vertical one-at-a-time feed featuring videos of users remixing each other’s clips. Snapchat Discover’s 2 x infinity grid has grown into a canvas for multi-media magazines, themed video collections and premium mobile TV shows. Instagram’s […]
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Sony's Deal With Microsoft Blindsided Its Own PlayStation Team
When Sony unveiled a cloud gaming pact with archrival Microsoft, it surprised the industry. From a report: Perhaps no one was more shocked than employees of Sony's PlayStation division, who have spent almost two decades fighting the U.S. software giant in the $38 billion video game console market. Last week, the companies announced a strategic partnership to co-develop game streaming technology and host some of PlayStation's online services on the Redmond-based company's Azure cloud platform. It
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Ford Will Cut 7,000 White-Collar Jobs
Ford is cutting 7,000 white-collar jobs, or about 10% of its salaried staff worldwide, as part of a cost-cutting effort it says will save the company about $600 million a year. From a report: Ford says workers will begin to be notified of cuts starting Tuesday, and the terminations will be completed by the end of August. About 2,400 of the jobs cuts are in North America, and 1,500 of the positions will be eliminated through a voluntary buyout offer. The move is an effort to cut bureaucracy withi
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Daily Crunch: Huawei faces Android ban
The Daily Crunch is TechCrunch’s roundup of our biggest and most important stories. If you’d like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at around 9am Pacific, you can subscribe here. 1. Huawei responds to Android ban with service and security guarantees, but its future is unclear Google is complying with a federal […]
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FCC Chairman Backs T-Mobile, Sprint Merger With New Conditions
T-Mobile and Sprint submitted a new plan for their proposed $26 billion merger to the FCC -- including enhanced 5G buildout commitments and an agreement to spin off Sprint's Boost Mobile -- which got the nod from Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai. From a report: T-Mobile and Sprint first announced their plans to merge in April 2018, looking to combine forces to take on the two industry leaders -- AT&T and Verizon. To clear regulatory hurdles, the companies have been forced
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How I Podcast: Criminal/This Is Love's Lauren Spohrer
The beauty of podcasting is that anyone can do it. It's a rare medium that's nearly as easy to make as it is to consume. And as such, no two people do it exactly the same way. There are a wealth of hardware and software solutions open to potential podcasters, so setups run the gamut […]
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Huawei Responds To Android Ban With Service and Security Guarantees, But Its Future Remains Unclear
Huawei has finally gone on the record about a ban on its use of Android, but the company's long-term strategy on mobile still remains unclear. From a report: In an effort to appease its worried customer base, the embattled Chinese company said today that it will continue to provide security updates and after-sales support to its existing lineup of smartphones, but it's what the company didn't say that will spark concerns. Huawei was unable to make guarantees about whether existing customers will
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Glass graduates from Google X as it scores new hardware update
Google’s head-worn smart display, Google Glass, in finally ready to move the tassel. After defining the company’s far-flung connected dreams when it was first announced in 2013, the enterprise-refocused headset is graduating from the X moonshot factory with a new hardware update that aims to make it more approachable for companies. After a soft consumer […]
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Robin picks up $20 million Series B to optimize the office
Robin Powered, a startup looking to help offices run better, has today announced the close of a $20 million Series B funding. The round was led by Tola Capital, with existing investors Accomplice and FirstMark participating in the round, along with a new strategic Allegion Ventures. Robin started as part of an agency called One […]
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Facebook releases a trio of maps to aid with fighting disease outbreaks
Facebook this morning announced a new initiative focused on using its data and technologies to help nonprofit organizations and universities working in public health better map the spread of infectious diseases around the world. Specifically, the company is introducing three new maps: population density maps with demographic estimates, movement maps and network coverage maps. These, […]
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Stanford's Doggo is a petite robotic quadruped you can (maybe) build yourself
Got a few thousand bucks and a good deal of engineering expertise? You're in luck: Stanford students have created a quadrupedal robot platform called Doggo that you can build with off-the-shelf parts and a considerable amount of elbow grease. That's better than the alternatives, which generally require a hundred grand and a government-sponsored lab.
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Pitch your startup at TechCrunch Berlin Office Hours, with Mike Butcher
Berlin! TechCrunch Disrupt Berlin will be in December. Disrupt Berlin is where you'll find the renowned Startup Battlefield competition, hundreds of startups in Startup Alley, Workshops and legendary networking at our After Parties. As part of our tour to promote Disrupt, you can come and pitch your tech startup to TechCrunch Editor-at-large Mike Butcher at […]
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MIT and US Air Force team up to launch AI accelerator
The Pentagon is one of the largest technology customers in the world, purchasing everything from F-35 planes (roughly $90 million each) to cloud services (the JEDI contract was $10 billion). Despite outlaying hundreds of billions of dollars for acquisitions though, the Defense Department has struggled to push nascent technologies from startups through its punishing procurement […]
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When will customers start buying all those AI chips?
It's the best and worst time to be in semiconductors right now. Silicon Valley investors are once again owning up to their namesakes and taking a deep interest in next-generation silicon, with leading lights like Graphcore in the United Kingdom hitting unicorn status while weirdly named and stealthy startups like Groq in the Bay Area […]
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GM's car-sharing service Maven to exit eight cities
GM is scaling back its Maven car-sharing company and will stop service in nearly half of the 17 North American cities in which it operates. A spokesperson who confirmed Maven was shutting down in some cities, without identifying the locations or number that will remain, said the company plans to focus on markets that have […]
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Pandora launches a new native Mac app
Pandora is rolling out new desktop apps for its streaming music listeners, starting with Mac. This morning, the company announced the launch of a native desktop app for Mac, with a Windows version to soon follow. The app supports keyboard controls, on-screen notifications for the music currently playing, and a way to control Pandora’s new […]
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Why is Facebook doing robotics research?
It's a bit strange to hear that the world's leading social network is pursuing research in robotics rather than, say, making search useful, but Facebook is a big organization with many competing priorities. And while these robots aren't directly going to affect your Facebook experience, what the company learns from them could be impactful in surprising ways.
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'I Oversaw America's Nuclear Power Industry. Now I Think It Should Be Banned.'
Friday the Washington Post published an essay by Gregory Jaczko, who served on America's Nuclear Regulatory Commission from 2005 to 2009 and was its chairman from 2009 to 2012. He says he'd believed nuclear power was worth the reduction they produced in greenhouse emissions -- until Japan's 2011 nuclear meltdown at the Fukushima power plant.
"Despite working in the industry for more than a decade, I now believe that nuclear power's benefits are no longer enough to risk the welfare of people
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With foldable phones in limbo, foldable display laptops are on the horizon
With the Galaxy Fold and Huawei Mate X currently in limbo for very different reasons, PC makers are apparently jumping at the chance to make their own foldable display ambitions known. It's been clear, of course, for as long as flexible screens have been a viable technology, that hardware manufacturers would be experimenting with any […]
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In-car commerce startup Cargo extends Uber partnership to Brazil
Cargo, the startup that brings the convenience store into ride-hailing vehicles, is making its first international expansion through an exclusive partnership with Uber in Brazil. Uber drivers in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro will now be able to sign up for Cargo and potentially earn additional income by selling products to passengers during their […]
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Ford will slash 7,000 salaried jobs by August
Ford Motor is laying off 7,000 salaried employees as part of CEO Jim Hackett’s restructuring plan to reduce bureaucracy, cut costs and turn the automaker into a more agile company prepared for a future that extends beyond its traditional business of producing and selling cars and trucks. The cuts represent about 10% of the automaker’s […]
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Tesla's Stock Falls After News About Autopilot Crashes and Battery Fires
CNBC reports:
Tesla shares fell almost 8% on Friday to their lowest close since December 2016, after the National Transportation Safety Board said the company's Autopilot driver assistance system was engaged during a fatal crash in March... The accident was at least the third of its kind in the U.S. and raises concerns about Tesla's Autopilot technology.
Thursday Elon Musk also told Tesla's employees that he and their CFO will now personally review all expenses going forward in a new "hardc
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Trump's Huawei ban also causing tech shocks in Europe
The escalating US-China trade war that’s seen Chinese tech giant Huawei slapped on a US trade blacklist is causing ripples of shock across Europe too, as restrictions imposed on US companies hit regional suppliers concerned they could face US restrictions if they don’t ditch Huawei. Reuters reports shares fell sharply today in three European chipmakers, […]
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Why startups need to be careful about export licenses and the Huawei ban
America is the land of free trade … precisely until it is not. Through a thicket of laws and regulations, the U.S. government has broad control over what can get exported to whom, particularly in areas with sensitive technology or national security concerns. In general, those restrictions are loose, which is why startups mostly haven't […]
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US mitigates Huawei ban by offering temporary reprieve
Two steps forward, one step back. The Trump administration has seemingly been trying to calibrate its strategy around its intensifying trade dispute with China. Last week, it effectively banned Huawei from importing U.S. technology, a decision that forced several American companies, including Google, to partly sever their relationships with the Chinese handset and telecom provider. […]
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On the Internet of Women with Moira Weigel
"Feminism," the writer and editor Marie Shear famously said in an often-misattributed quote, "is the radical notion that women are people." The genius of this line, of course, is that it appears to be entirely non-controversial, which reminds us all the more effectively of the past century of fierce debates surrounding women's equality. And what […]
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Identity platform Auth0 raises $103M, pushing its valuation over $1B
Auth0, a 2013-founded identity and authentication platform, has pushed into unicorn territory with a $1 billion valuation after raising $103 million in its latest Series E round. The round was led by Sapphire Ventures, with participation from K9 Ventures, Telstra Ventures and several others. In all, Auth0 total funding tops $210 million to date. Auth0 […]
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Y Combinator promotes Geoff Ralston to president, while Sam Altman shifts to advisor role
Two months ago, when Sam Altman surprised the industry by stepping away from his post as the president of Y Combinator to become the CEO of OpenAI, an artificial intelligence-focused company, TechCrunch was told there was no plans to replace Altman. Apparently, there were no immediate plans. This morning, the popular accelerator program and investment […]
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Ford CTO Ken Washington at TC Sessions: Mobility on July 10
A conference dedicated to transportation and mobility wouldn’t be complete without hearing from Ford, the U.S. automaker with a storied 116-year history. We're excited to announce that Ford CTO Ken Washington will participate in TechCrunch's inaugural TC Sessions: Mobility, a one-day event on July 10, 2019 in San Jose, Calif., that’s bringing the best and brightest […]
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Email Addresses and Passwords Leaked For 113,000 Users Of Account Hijacking Forum
"Ogusers.com -- a forum popular among people involved in hijacking online accounts and conducting SIM swapping attacks to seize control over victims' phone numbers -- has itself been hacked," reports security researcher Brian Krebs, "exposing the email addresses, hashed passwords, IP addresses and private messages for nearly 113,000 forum users."
On May 12, the administrator of OGusers explained an outage to forum members by saying a hard drive failure had erased several months' worth of priv
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Select FCC leaders announce support for T-Mobile, Sprint merger
It's been more than a year since T-Mobile and Sprint formally announced a merger agreement. This morning, members of FCC leadership have issued statements voicing their support for the $26 billion proposal. Ajit Pai was first out with a statement, suggesting that the pricey consolidation of two of the Unites States' largest carriers would help […]
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Smart TVs add fuel to Xiaomi's Q1 earnings
Chinese smartphone company Xiaomi just released its first quarterly results since announcing its $1.48 billion pledge to focus on smartphones and “AIoT,” an acronym for Internet of Things powered by artificial intelligence. Xiaomi’s adjusted net profit for the first quarter increased 22.4% year-over-year to 2.1 billion yuan ($300 million), while total revenue climbed 27.2% to […]
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