The Olympic champion put up knitted swimming trunks on eBay.

Tom Daley auctioned off a pair of his swimming trunks on Sunday for £10,000 after announcing his retirement from diving. The Olympic medallist, 30, put his hand-crocheted trunks on eBay and and fans immediately flooded to the site.

His passion project received a total of 112 bids and managed to raise a staggering amount of money for charity. The crochet swimming trunks were made in partnership with drinks brand Malibu and the Royal Life Saving Society UK.

The tiny pair of swimming briefs feature the phrase: 'Don't drink and dive' in white writing and include a Malibu branded label.

While sellers are successfully selling products for fans of "tapania" on Amazon, the listing of Hamster Kombat will begin on September 26. The date was announced by the official channel of cryptohomyak. At the same time, the first AirDrop will be held.

🌍 The Role of Marketplaces in International Trade: China and India Strengthen Their Positions

In recent years, marketplaces from China and India have become increasingly significant in international e-commerce. National holidays like India’s Independence Day lead to a sharp increase in sales on these platforms. These days see a significant surge in consumer activity, highlighting the importance of localized marketing strategies and promotions to attract global customers.

💡 Why Is This Important?

Chinese and Indian platforms, such as Alibaba, JD.com, and Flipkart, continue to expand their influence beyond their national borders, offering consumers worldwide access to a wide range of products. Events like Independence Day serve as a catalyst for drawing attention to these marketplaces and help them solidify their positions in international trade.

🔗 The Future of Marketplaces in the Global Economy

With the development of technology and the intensification of international competition, marketplaces are continually adapting, offering increasingly convenient and faster ways to shop. It is expected that their influence on the global economy will only grow, with consumers around the world increasingly turning to these platforms, especially during national holidays and sales events.

Meta develops ultra-light mixed reality glasses.

А new gadget may appear on marketplaces? The shape of the gadget, called Puffin, will resemble regular glasses. The weight of the device will be only 110 grams - this is slightly more than Ray smart glasses -Ban, but significantly less than the Quest 3 headset.

Puffin will also supply pancake lenses with a thin profile. The new product will be able to track eye and hand movements, and will also support end-to-end video transmission (that is, users will be able to see surrounding objects beyond the display).

It is planned to add an external unit with a processor and battery similar to the Apple Vision Pro to the glasses. The device will hit the market no earlier than 2027.

Amazon is hiring Pieter Abbeel, Peter Chen, and Rocky Duan and licensing Covariant’s robotic foundation models to advance the state-of-the-art in intelligent and safe robots.

With decades of experience pioneering the use of machine learning models and developing and deploying the world’s largest fleet of industrial robotics, Amazon has a long history of driving innovation in supply chain, logistics, and warehouse automation. AI technology and AWS infrastructure powers the hundreds of thousands of mobile robots, robotics arms, and other automation systems in our operations, assisting our employees as we deliver billions of customers’ orders every year. Amazon systems like Robin, Proteus, and Sequoia all make use of AI to understand the physical world and go about tasks safely and reliably as they work alongside our operations teams.

"Our robotic fleet touches many of the orders we deliver today, moving inventory, sorting goods, and identifying customer orders. They take on the heavy lifting and repetitive tasks so that our operations are safer and more efficient for our employees. Over the years and through all this activity, we’ve been deeply focused on continuously learning and improving the movement of our inventory at our sites and how our robotics systems interact with them. We’ve been busy undertaking fundamental research in how to use these insights to build AI models that help our systems become even safer and more adaptable at scale. This research is helping design new ways for robots to be useful for our employees and better serve our customers", - said in Amazon.

Amazon was accused of spying on users.

Media giant Cox Media Group spoke about “active listening” technology, which involves recording user conversations through the device’s microphone. According to the company, this is one of the ways to make contextual advertising more accurate and relevant to the audience.

CMG's presentation also highlights long-term collaborations with Amazon, Google and Meta. Companies, in turn, deny the use of technology in their advertising campaigns.

Photo // 404 MEDIA

Clothes, furniture, souvenirs - for all this, the Moscow company wants to register the FreeDurov brand.

The founder of Telegram was given bail of €5 million. He was released during the investigation on an obligation not to leave the country and to report to the gendarmerie twice a week.

Amazon Says 'Error' Caused Alexa to Give Reasons to Vote for Harris — But Not for Trump.

Amazon Alexa provided an answer to the question of why someone should vote for Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 U.S. presidential election but declined to answer the same question about former President Donald Trump.

In early September 2024 — just weeks away from the November U.S. presidential election — social media users discussed a discrepancy involving Amazon Alexa's responses when asking the digital assistant why someone might want to vote for former President Donald Trump versus asking the same about Vice President Kamala Harris.

In the videos, Alexa declined to provide an answer for Trump, citing the reason as not wishing to espouse "political views." Seconds later, after being asked the question about Harris, Alexa listed several reasons why someone might want to vote for her.

By email, an Amazon spokesperson acknowledged the issue, saying, "This was an error that was quickly fixed." They also said Alexa does not have political opinions and that the company continually audits and improves the systems it has in place for detecting and blocking content that violates its policies, and has teams dedicated to preventing similar situations in the future.

The spokesperson did not answer a question about whether this error previously affected questions one way or the other about voting for President Joe Biden, before he dropped his reelection bid in July 2024.

Image of Getty Images

In Telegram, you can now turn "stars" into TON.

Channel administrators can now output Telegram Stars to TON. A new feature is already available in the channel settings.

You can withdraw at least 1 thousand "stars". The rate is still 1 "star" = $0.013 per TON. New "stars" are available for withdrawal 21 days after receipt.

Have you already given a "star" to this post?

The demand for used goods is growing on marketplaces.

Sales of used goods on Amazon increased by 15% in 2023, while eBay expects a 50% growth in used goods sales on its platform by 2025.

On second-hand marketplaces like Depop and Vinted, sales grew by 51% and 8% respectively over the past year.

Telegram has reached 10 million paid subscribers. 10 million people are now enjoying Telegram Premium.

While 99.999% of Telegram users have nothing to do with crime, the 0.001% involved in illicit activities create a bad image for the entire platform, putting the interests of our almost billion users at risk.

"That’s why this year we are committed to turn moderation on Telegram from an area of criticism into one of praise", - said Pavel Durov.

OpenAI's Subscription Cost Could Increase 100-Fold

Currently, it is only $20, but the price might increase to $2,000.

This is due to high expenses: this year, the company might incur a loss of $5 billion. Most of the funds are spent on training and launching AI programs. According to The Information, OpenAI plans to spend around $7 billion on new projects in 2024.

Increasing the subscription cost could become one of the ways to "survive" in the market. However, there is a chance that the high price will only affect new projects, Strawberry and Orion.

U.S. authorities have asked Amazon to provide discounts on VPN services.

A meeting was held in Washington, where the White House discussed with representatives of major U.S. tech companies, including Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Cloudflare, the possibility of providing additional resources to develop tools for circumventing internet censorship in various countries. This was reported by Reuters.

These tools, supported by the Open Technology Fund (OTF), are widely used in countries with restricted internet access, such as Russia, Iran, and Myanmar, according to the agency. Laura Cunningham, President of OTF, stated that in recent years, demand for virtual private network (VPN) applications has significantly increased, particularly among users in Russia and Iran.

During the meeting, the possibility of providing discounts or subsidies on server bandwidth to meet the demand for VPNs in the mentioned countries was discussed. Representatives of the tech companies, including Amazon, have not yet commented on this initiative.

The implemented AI tools have increased conversion rates on Amazon.

At the end of 2023, Amazon implemented an AI tool that places items from product listings into generated landscapes (e.g., a sofa in a room instead of on a white background).

This solution increased the click-through rate by 40%.

When can we expect the new James Bond movie?

The creators of the Bond franchise are planning its development for years ahead, as the rights were acquired by the wealthy company Amazon, which means there are no longer any financial problems.

For the next James Bond film, there is currently no finalized script, director, or lead actor, even though three years have passed since the last movie was released. This is due to funding issues with the franchise, according to The Times, citing industry insiders.

Barbara Broccoli, who, along with her half-brother Michael G. Wilson, has creative control over the franchise, announced that they currently have no script, director, or actor who could succeed Daniel Craig. The Times notes that even if all these problems were resolved, it would still take another two years to release a new film.

According to Ajay Chowdhury, former president of the International James Bond Fan Club and an entertainment lawyer, the delay is not due to inaction by the creators but rather a series of business restructurings, as Amazon acquired the film studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, which owns the rights to Bond, in 2021. This acquisition ended decades of financial difficulties for the studio, and the franchise's producers, Michael Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, are now relieved of many financial problems.

Photo: Leon Neal / Getty Images

How much will the new iPhone cost in Europe?

The base iPhone 16 with 128 GB will cost around €949 in Germany, while the most advanced model, the iPhone 16 Pro Max with 1 TB, will be priced at €1949. The difference is significant, so only citizens with suitable incomes can afford a European iPhone.

For comparison, prices in Spain are 10 to 20 euros higher, and in France, they are 30 to 40 euros higher depending on the model and memory configuration.

Last year, one of the most expensive European iPhones was found in Poland, with the top 15th Pro Max 1 TB model costing €2073, but this year it unexpectedly dropped to €1940, cheaper than in Germany.

A ceramic mug with the Toncoin logo is being sold on eBay for nearly $19.

Drink and feel like a crypto millionaire.

Foreign Services Suspend Operations in Russia Due to U.S. Sanctions.

A new package of restrictions comes into effect today, September 12. From now on, foreign companies are prohibited from providing consulting and project services in the IT field to Russian citizens. Additionally, it is forbidden to offer support for enterprise management software and production software.

The following companies have already announced their exit from Russia:

🔡 Website builder Wix;
🔡 Collaboration platforms Miro and Coda;
🔡 Note-taking and list-making service Notion;
🔡 Project management service ClickUp;
🔡 AI design service Recraft.

Internet users fear that these sanctions could also affect larger companies, such as Figma, Zoom, and Google. However, these organizations have not yet responded to the imposed ban.

OpenAI's valuation could rise to $150 billion.

The company is in talks to raise funds, reports Bloomberg. OpenAI aims to raise $6.5 billion in equity from investors, with an additional $5 billion in bank loans.

This would strengthen the company's position as one of the most valuable startups in the world, notes the publication.

Earlier this year, OpenAI was valued at $86 billion.