U.S. movie theaters brought in nearly $100 million in ticket sales over the four-day Memorial Day weekend. The top two titles were Paramount’s “A Quiet Place Part II,” which earned $48.4 million in three days (and $57 million over the full four days) and Disney’s “Cruella,” which made $27 million in four days, after an earlier Disney+ release. This performance has been the best box office since the advent of the global COVID-19 pandemic, although it was less than half of the $232 million earned in the same holiday period in 2019. Read more

Huawei Technologies debuted HarmonyOS, its self-developed operating system, for mobile phones after introducing it for other devices in 2019. The Chinese company is attempting to free itself of U.S. suppliers, in particular Google. Since the U.S. imposed sanctions, Huawei has not been able to access updates to Google’s Android operating system or its Google Mobile Services package of smartphone software. Currently, Samsung Electronics, Xiaomi and other top phone manufacturers (except Apple) use Android. Read more

After being deluged by 75,000+ individual arbitration demands filed by plaintiff’s attorneys on behalf of Echo users, Amazon changed its terms of service to allow customers to file lawsuits. It now faces at least three potential class action suits, one of them brought May 18 that alleges that its Alexa-enabled Echo devices record people without their permission. Arbitration requirements are often inserted in many consumer contracts and the U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly upheld and underlined the right to mandate arbitration. Read more

Nvidia and the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC) debuted Perlmutter, an AI supercomputer that features 6,144 Nvidia A100 Tensor Core GPUs. Named for astrophysicist Saul Perlmutter, the supercomputer has been dubbed by Nvidia as “the fastest on the planet,” at processing with the 16-bit and 32-bit mixed-precision math used in AI applications, said the company’s global HPC and AI product marketing lead Dion Harris. Its first job will be to create the largest-ever 3D map of the visible universe. Read more

LinkedIn added a “Boost” option that brands can use to maximize the reach of their posts. Any high-performing organic Page update can be turned into paid ads in this manner, explained LinkedIn, adding that if the brand sees “early traction” to an organic update, it can “capitalize on that, without having to create a new ad.” “With the click of a button and a few payment details, you can easily give your most engaging or time-sensitive content a little boost to quickly expand your audience reach,” the company added. Boost is touted as an ideal tool for content related to industry thought leadership, customer spotlights, and new product launches or special events. Read more