Bitcoin hits high of $69,202, Apple iPhone sales in China fall 24%
The value of the best-known cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, has reached a new high. For the first time ever one Bitcoin bought $69,202 (£54,404) on Tuesday afternoon, surpassing the previous high just below $69,000 (£54,242) recorded in November 2021. It comes, as the previous high did, as a ‘halving’ event approaches, whereby Bitcoin production is cut by 50%. A recent boost for the digital asset also came in January as a new product was launched that allows people to track the value of Bitcoin without owning it, something known as an exchange-traded fund (ETF). Sky News
OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, has released private emails from Elon Musk showing the billionaire proposed merging the company with Tesla. Executives including OpenAI chief Sam Altman have published emails sent between 2015 and 2018 as part of an ongoing row with Mr Musk over the direction of the company. The emails come as OpenAI seeks to reject a lawsuit from Mr Musk claiming it has broken its promise to be a non-profit. Telegraph
iPhone users have just received a big update as Apple launches iOS 17.4. The update brings major changes to security for iMessage, upgrades for the Podcast app, and 118 new emoji. Among them are a lime, a phoenix, a brown mushroom, a broken metal chain, two shaking heads and four gender-neutral families. There’s also more than 100 people facing sideways in a range of skin colours and genders, including some holding canes and others in wheelchairs. Daily Mail
Sales in China of Apple’s iPhone fell by 24% in the first six weeks of 2024 compared to a year earlier, according to research firm Counterpoint. It comes as the US technology giant is facing fierce competition in the country from local rivals. During the same period China’s Huawei saw its sales jump by 64% in its home market, the report says. Aside from a resurgence of Huawei sales at the more expensive end of the Chinese phone market, Apple was also “squeezed in the middle on aggressive pricing from the likes of Oppo, Vivo and Xiaomi,” Counterpoint Research’s Mengmeng Zhang wrote. BBC
Facebook and Instagram experienced severe issues around the world on Tuesday, with the services refusing login attempts and feeds stalling. The White House said it was monitoring the outage, which coincided with Super Tuesday when millions of Americans vote in presidential primary elections. “We are aware of the incident and at this time we are not aware of any specific election nexus or any specific malicious cyber activity,” said a US cybersecurity and infrastructure official. The Guardian
Tidal seems to have decided that there just aren’t enough people willing to pay upward of $20 per month for the highest-possible audio fidelity. So starting April 10th in the US, the company will combine its existing HiFi and HiFi Plus plans into a single subscription tier that will simply be called “Tidal.” And it’ll cost the same $10.99 per month that the less expensive HiFi plan did. At a high level, it sounds like this new, much simpler subscription model will still include all the perks — high-res FLACs, Dolby Atmos mixes, etc. — that were previously only available on the Plus tier. The Verge
