Silicon Valley is cultivating its own talent: VC firm a16z invests $35 million to launch a "college alternative".

Fitch Ratings’ latest report has raised its 2027 Brent crude oil price forecast to $70 per barrel. The agency also increased its natural gas price assumption for the Netherlands’ Title Transfer Facility (TTF) amid disruptions to liquefied natural gas (LNG) shipments through the Strait of Hormuz. The report noted that Brent oil prices are projected to decline once the capacity of Saudi Arabia’s East-West oil pipeline is restored.

According to market sources, Apple Inc. has been developing a screenless device for several months. The tech giant is working on a new fitness tracker designed to compete with products from Whoop and Oura. However, Apple has not yet finalized a decision on whether to release the screenless tracker.

Viking Therapeutics Inc. shares rose sharply after the company announced positive results from a small exploratory study of its dual-target injectable obesity drug, which helped patients achieve weight loss and maintain the effect even when dosing frequency was reduced. The company drew conclusions based on data from the study’s extended patient cohort. The research was originally designed to determine the optimal dose of the drug, which regulates weight through two distinct pathways. The results are a major boost for Viking, which had faced setbacks in prior trials. The company said patients on a moderate weekly dose in the main trial phase saw the best outcomes, shedding up to 19% of their body weight over roughly five months. A 13-patient "exploratory" group continued on a slightly lower dose for an additional three months, achieving 22% weight loss with no plateau observed. Viking noted that when patients switched to a less frequent dosing regimen (once or twice monthly), some were able to maintain 90% to 97% of their weight loss. Side effects were mostly mild and eased over time, with only one patient discontinuing treatment due to adverse events. During low-frequency maintenance dosing, gastrointestinal side effects were comparable to those in the placebo group. Viking’s stock jumped as much as 36.6% during New York trading, marking its largest intraday gain since July 2024, before paring some of those gains.

According to market data from BIT (bit.com), the declines of major US bank stocks have widened: JPMorgan Chase fell 4.1%, Bank of America dropped 3.1%, Wells Fargo declined 4.2%, Citigroup fell 3.2%, Goldman Sachs dropped 1.9%, and Morgan Stanley declined 3.6%.

According to official news, PayPal plans to partner with Meta to use the Muse proxy for shopping and checkout.

Beating AI News and LatePost report that Alibaba Cloud’s无影 team is developing QwenBook, a native agent-focused computer for office use, designed in a form factor similar to a tablet paired with a keyboard. The product’s definition and hardware are developed in-house by the team, leveraging无影’s existing systems and end-cloud capabilities, and currently integrates Qwen3.8-Max and Qwen3.8-Flash models. IT Home also witnessed a live demo of the device at today’s Yunqi Conference. Simply put, Alibaba aims to embed Qwen directly into the system, enabling agents to access context such as files and meeting notes, then call tools to complete tasks—rather than functioning solely as a chat app. QwenBook already includes built-in applications like audio transcription, Wiki, smart folders, email, MyNote (knowledge base), and MyZone (memory management), and is collaborating with Kingsoft to integrate WPS. This approach differs from that of Doubao Phone, which primarily operates existing apps on the device via screen reading and simulated clicks; QwenBook, by contrast, starts with office applications it controls natively. Doubao has already faced limitations with third-party apps along this path. The newly launched nubia NaviX Ultra still cannot automatically execute tasks within apps including WeChat, Taobao, Meituan, and Xiaohongshu. QwenBook remains an early trial project. LatePost notes the team has around 150 members, launched the project around April this year, and the full product is expected to launch by the end of 2024 or early 2025. Alibaba’s current strategy is to first build an office environment where agents can actually perform tasks, before gradually integrating third-party software.