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CNA
18 minutes ago
- CNA
Messi's Miami in Leagues Cup quarters as new format fuels goals, ratings surge
The Leagues Cup 2025 has reached its quarter-final stage, with four enticing MLS-Liga MX matchups set for Wednesday, showcasing the tournament's revamped format that has seen more goals and boosted commercial interest and fan engagement. Lionel Messi's Inter Miami headline the quarter-final contenders, while Mexican powerhouse Tigres UANL and MLS outfit Seattle Sounders are also among the favourites heading into the last eight. Through Phase One of the tournament, average match viewership reached 1.43 million, up 62 per cent from 2024, across MLS Season Pass, Apple TV+, linear broadcasters in North America, and third-party platforms, organisers told Reuters on Wednesday. Corporate sponsor revenue is up 13 per cent year-on-year, with Walmart and Ocean Spray added as new partners. Digital and social media consumption has also risen sharply, organisers said. On the pitch, the absence of draws and penalty shootouts following 90 minutes has led to an average of 3.37 goals per game. This figure surpasses regular-season scoring rates in MLS, Liga MX and several leading European leagues, according to organisers. "It really starts with the competition and this new format," Leagues Cup executive director Thomas Mayo told Reuters. "The level of play is very high. They're all arm in arm at the penalty shootouts and there's some real emotion. It means a lot to them. It's a tough competition." This year's tournament features all 18 Liga MX teams and 18 qualifying MLS teams and the four quarter-finals will pit MLS clubs against Liga MX opponents, reinforcing the cross-border rivalry at the heart of the competition's redesign. Matches between the two leagues have been closely contested, with points shared evenly between MLS and Liga MX sides. Attendance figures are tracking closely with the 2024 edition, and organisers anticipate good crowds for Wednesday's games. The tournament's stakes are high, with automatic qualification for the Concacaf Champions Cup guaranteed for the winner of the third-place match and both finalists. The champion will secure direct entry into the Champions Cup Round of 16.
CNA
an hour ago
- CNA
Masimo sues US Customs over approval of Apple Watch imports
WASHINGTON :Medical monitoring technology company Masimo sued U.S. Customs and Border Protection on Wednesday over a decision by the agency that allowed Apple to import Apple Watches with blood-oxygen reading technology during a patent dispute between the companies. Masimo said in the lawsuit in Washington, D.C., federal court that Customs improperly determined that Apple can import watches with pulse oximetry technology, reversing its own decision from last year without notifying Masimo. Masimo told the court that it learned of the agency's August 1 decision only after Apple announced it would reintroduce blood-oxygen reading to its watches last week. Irvine, California-based Masimo has accused Apple of hiring away its employees and stealing its pulse oximetry technology to use in its Apple Watches. Masimo has separately sued Apple for patent infringement and trade secret theft in ongoing federal court cases. Masimo convinced the U.S. International Trade Commission to block imports of Apple's Series 9 and Ultra 2 smartwatches in 2023 based on a determination that Apple's technology for reading blood oxygen levels infringed Masimo's patents. Apple has continued to sell Customs-approved redesigned watches without pulse oximetry since the ITC's decision. Apple said on Aug. 14 that it would reintroduce its smartwatches' blood-oxygen reading capabilities with approval from Customs. Masimo said the agency's decision to approve the watches without input from Masimo or any "meaningful justification" deprived the company of its rights. "CBP's function is to enforce ITC exclusion orders, not to create loopholes that render them ineffective," Masimo said.
CNA
2 hours ago
- CNA
Commentary: Nvidia's icy reception in China is buying time for Huawei
TOKYO: Don't be fooled by China's icy response to America's policy reversal that will allow a key Nvidia artificial intelligence chip back on the mainland. The country's AI ambitions currently rely on Nvidia's hardware, and authorities know that – even if they won't admit it. But by fanning fears of alleged security or environmental concerns, they're buying time for Huawei to catch up while keeping trade talks pressure on the US. CEO Jensen Huang was greeted with fanfare by industry leaders in Beijing last month after news broke that the Trump administration will allow the sale of H20 chips to resume. It seemed like China got what it wanted: Loosening export controls designed to hold back its AI sector has been a key sticking point during tariff negotiations. Yet in the weeks since the announcement, cyber authorities have summoned Nvidia to discuss alleged security risks related to the H20s, state media warned of potential backdoors that could cause a 'nightmare', and the government urged local companies to avoid using the much sought-after processers for AI development. When asked about Beijing's unexpected reaction, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Bloomberg TV that it 'tells me that they are worried about the Nvidia chips becoming the standard in China'. This is an optimistic and simplistic take. It's too soon for Washington to be celebrating over this feigned angst. CHINESE COMPANIES UNLIKELY TO STOP BUYING H20S Nvidia's tech stack is already, overwhelmingly, the standard in the nation's AI sector. There's a reason that giants from Bytedance to Alibaba stockpiled billions of dollars' worth of orders ahead of the now-reversed ban. Similarly, it seems a deliberate move that, despite all the talk of lurking threats, China hasn't issued an outright ban itself. While these warnings have drawn a lot of attention, they likely won't be enough to deter companies eager to power their AI ambitions to stop buying H20s. While a Communist Party mouthpiece did appear to blast alleged 'backdoors' in these chips, and many Western news outlets ran with that headline, the reality is more nuanced. The made-to-go viral editorial in a People's Daily WeChat account was far from an official rebuke, according to an analysis from the China Media Project. Instead, it was meant to make Nvidia 'squirm'. It worked. The Santa Clara-based chipmaker responded with a public denial of breaches and argued that adding any in the future would be 'an open invitation for disaster'. It's true, as I've written before, that Beijing would very much prefer its AI industry to use offerings from Huawei instead of Nvidia. But the domestic alternatives aren't ready for primetime – both in terms of performance and the quantity that can be produced. Domestic AI champion DeepSeek was forced to delay the release of its new model because it was trying to train it on Huawei's hardware instead of Nvidia's, the Financial Times reported last week. But even with a team of Huawei engineers on-site, they couldn't get it to work. In an apparent compromise, DeepSeek is using Nvidia for training the model and Huawei for inference (the phase that involves running and deploying AI). It would be foolish for regulators to arrest DeepSeek's momentum by not allowing it to use any US computing power at all. TRUMP'S TRANSACTIONAL APPROACH The most unusual aspect of this is still President Donald Trump's announcement that Nvidia will pay the US 15 per cent of its revenue for AI chip sales on the mainland. It's not hard to imagine the global backlash if such a pay-for-play deal had been set up by the other side. But it also reiterates Trump's transactional approach to these national security concerns. This isn't lost in Beijing, especially at a time when the tariff truce has been further extended. Beijing may be putting on a show that it doesn't want America's chips, but it's really just building a bridge now until the domestic alternatives are ready. There are signs that this moment is approaching: Companies like buzzy startup iFlytek claim to have trained their models entirely with Huawei processers. Still, most Chinese businesses much prefer Nvidia's, in large part because of its supporting software system. Encouraging developers to build on top of Huawei's rival platform over time is what will help improve it enough to eventually force a broader ecosystem shift.
