Twitter May Drop Clickable Hashtags, AstraZeneca's Nasal COVID-19 Vaccine Fails Trial, Coinbase Gets Singapore Nod: Top Stories Tuesday, Oct. 11

Reuters

US-China Chip War: KLA Relaxes Chip Supply To China

U.S. chipmaker KLA Corp's KLAC legal department emailed China informing that it shall stop sales and service to "advanced fabs" in China for the technology of NAND chips with 128 layers or more, DRAM chips 18nm and below, and advanced logic chips.
The Biden administration launched a sweeping set of export controls to restrict China's progress in advanced chip manufacturing.

Contemporary Amperex Technology Co Ltd (CATL), a battery supplier to Tesla Inc TSLA and Nio Inc NIO, has estimated its net profit during the July-September quarter to nearly triple from a year earlier, supported by significant expansion in production.
The world's biggest battery maker, which accounts for more than a third of global EV sales, said it expects third-quarter net income to rise to between 8.8 billion yuan ($1.23 billion) and 9.9 billion yuan, up from 3.3 billion yuan last year.
The company expects net profit for the first nine months of 2022 to more than double from a year-ago period.

Volkswagen AG VWAGY has received €9.1 billion ($8.8 billion) through the sale of preferred shares in sportscar maker Porsche automobile Holding SE POAHY.
The amount collected was less than the maximum due to the partial execution of a greenshoe option.
In the case of a fully drawn greenshoe option, Volkswagen would have received €9.4 billion in total.

India's government will push Apple Inc, Samsung Electronics Co, Ltd SSNLF, and other mobile phone manufacturers to prioritize rolling out software upgrades to support 5G in the country.
Apple's iPhone models, including the latest iPhone 14, and many of Samsung's premier phones do not have software compatible with supporting 5G in India.

Bloomberg

Tesla Inc CEO Elon Musk reportedly accused Twitter Inc of asking whistleblower Peiter "Mudge" Zatko to destroy evidence just before he reinstated his offer to purchase the social media platform.
Zatko, a former head of security at Twitter, said he burned 10 handwritten notebooks and deleted 100 computer files at the urging of managers as a part of his separation deal, court filings reveal.

Exxon Mobil Corp (NYSE: XOM0 has expressed preliminary interest in Denbury Inc (NYSE: DEN). No final decision has been made, and Exxon could opt against proceeding with a potential deal.
If it goes through, it would be the biggest carbon-management investment since the Inflation Reduction Act was passed in August, providing significant tax incentives for burying carbon dioxide.

Wall Street Journal

Delta Air Lines, Inc DALforged a multi-year, multi-market commercial and operational partnership with Joby Aviation, Inc JOBY, to deliver transformational, sustainable home-to-airport transportation service to Delta customers, beginning in New York and Los Angeles.
Delta has made an upfront equity investment of $60 million in Joby for a 2% stake in Joby, with the opportunity to expand the total investment up to $200 million.
United Airlines Holdings, Inc UAL expects pricing for its electric flying-taxi service to be comparable to a ride in an Uber Technologies, Inc UBER Black car.

Bio-Rad Laboratories Inc BIO is reportedly in talks to merge with Qiagen NV QGEN, but any agreement isn't likely for another few weeks or more, or it may not happen at all.
A deal between Qiagen and Bio-Rad would be the latest tie-up in the medical-diagnostic market. The sector has grown as the pandemic helped increase demand for testing.

Benzinga

Coinbase Inc COIN obtained "in-principle approval" to provide cryptocurrency services in Singapore from the Monetary Authority of Singapore. "This license will allow us to offer regulated Digital Payment Token products and services in the island state," Coinbase said.
The exchange said it has been "quietly increasing" its presence in the country, after announcing Singapore as a tech hub for Coinbase in 2021. "We have since continued to hire and train product managers and engineers on Web3 technologies," it said.

Twitter Inc TWTR is working on an experiment to limit the usage of clickable hashtags — that lets users discover trends and find tweets related to specific topics.
Security researcher Jane Manchun Wong tweeted that the social media app was "working on an experiment where #hashtags are no longer clickable links" and added, "Unless the Tweet contains Branded Hashtags like #OneTeam and #Periscope that brands pay to add an icon next to hashtags for a while to promote stuff."

Chip-related stocks, including Apple Inc AAPL-supplier Taiwan Semiconductor Mfg. Co. Ltd TSM and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd SSNLF tanked on Tuesday morning as traders and investors returning from holiday digested the Biden administration's new curbs on China's access to U.S. semiconductor technology.
In addition to restricting U.S. sales of semiconductor technology to China, the new rules also require foreign companies to license American tools used to produce high-end chips sold to China.

SpaceX's Starlink announced that it had launched its services in Japan, making it the first Asian nation to get Elon Musk's high-speed internet service.
Tesla CEO Musk's Starlink, which became a 'crucial support' system for Ukraine after Russia invaded the country, is now expanding its reach in Asia. Starlink, on its Twitter, posted that the services are now available in Japan too.

AstraZeneca Plc AZN and Oxford University scientists said that the initial testing of its nasal COVID-19 vaccine did not yield the desired protection.
In a statement, the University of Oxford said that an antibody response in the respiratory mucous membranes was seen in only a minority of participants in the trial.

Nissan Motor Co Ltd's NSANY Russia assets would be transferred to state ownership. The sale will transfer all Nissan operations in Russia under the Nissan Manufacturing Russia LLC legal entity to NAMI for future passenger vehicle projects.
The transfer covers Nissan's manufacturing and R&D facilities in St. Petersburg and Sales & Marketing center in Moscow, which will operate under a new name.

Alibaba Group Holding Limited BABA cloud computing unit opened a new campus covering an area of 198,200 square meters (2.1 million sq ft) in its home city of Hangzhou.
Alibaba Cloud's new 10-building campus has a total floor area of 450,000 square meters.

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