Zoom gives updates on its progress with privacy and security: appointing a CISO Council and Advisory Board and bringing on Alex Stamos as an outside advisor
As I mentioned in my message on April 1, Zoom has seen tremendous growth and new use cases emerge over the past few weeks …
Dorsey says he's moving $1B of his Square equity, ~28% of his wealth, to Start Small LLC to fund COVID-19 relief, to later focus on girls' health and education
I'm moving $1B of my Square equity (~28% of my wealth) to #startsmall LLC to fund global COVID-19 relief. After we disarm this pandemic, the focus will shift to girl's health and education, and UBI. I...
Taiwan bars all government agencies from using Zoom for official work due to security concerns, becoming the first national government to impose a ban on Zoom
Bloomberg :
Sources: Airbnb is paying 10%+ interest on the $1B funding it raised on Monday; investors were offered free stock warrants based on an $18B valuation
Airbnb's new investors get free warrants based on company valuation of $18 billion — Airbnb Inc. agreed to pay its new investors interest …
Valve releases data showing rise in games making $10K during first two weeks after release but analysis suggests ~80% of games earn under $5K during same period
Valve offers a peek behind the sales curtain, telling an incomplete and mixed story. — It has been roughly two years …
Study of 225 pieces of COVID-19-related content rated false or misleading: 59% remain up with no warning label on Twitter, 27% on YouTube, and 24% on Facebook
Facebook and YouTube do better, but still leave some misinformation up — More than half of the misinformation …
Google says Meet, its teleconferencing tool, is adding 2M new users a day and logged 2B minutes of video calls in March with daily usage up 25x from January
As people around the world hunker down in their homes to slow the spread of COVID-19, one technology has emerged as a lifeline to the outside world: video chat.
Microsoft says it will make all of its events digital until July 2021, due to the COVID-19 pandemic
Build 2021 will likely be a digital event — Microsoft is planning to make all of its internal and external events digital-only until July 2021 due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
Google says G Suite now has over 6M paying businesses, up from 5M in February 2019
I got my wife to start watching True Blood on HBO. Annalise Knudson / Staten Island Advance : NYC schools can no longer use Zoom for remote learning Paayal Zaveri / Business Insider : Google's G Suite...
Netflix now lets parents remove specific titles and filter shows out based on their ratings, in both the designated kids portal and the general section
Making profile accounts for kids even more specific — Netflix is rolling out a series of new tools that parents can use to filter …
SimilarWeb and Apptopia: amid quarantines, Americans increasingly use online platforms on computers, not smartphones; Nextdoor.com traffic is up 73% from Jan.
Stuck at home during the coronavirus pandemic, with movie theaters closed and no restaurants to dine in, Americans have been spending more of their lives online.
Google will require a Virtual A/B partition setup on new Android 11 devices, paving way for simpler and seamless background updates, similar to Chrome OS
With Android 7.0 Nougat, Google introduced a partition scheme designed to speed up software updates.
Sources: Airbnb has held talks about raising an additional $500M to $1B in debt, after announcing a $1B debt and equity deal on Monday, to weather the pandemic
Bloomberg :
FireEye details how zero-days were exploited worldwide from 2012 to 2019, says it was able to link the use of 55 zero-day exploits to state-sponsored operations
The collection of countries using those secret hacking techniques has expanded far beyond the usual suspects.
UK's NCSC and US DHS publish a list of 2,500 COVID-19-related threats they are tracking, including malicious websites and email addresses linked to scams
If you weren't already taking the rise of coronavirus-based cybercrime seriously, take note. A rare joint alert has gone out from U.S …
WhatsApp now limits forwarding of viral messages, forwarded five or more times, to one group at a time, to fight the spread of misinformation
but I'll take it https://twitter.com/... Chris Moran / @chrismoranuk : ‘If a user receives a frequently forwarded message - one forwarded more than five times - under the new curbs, they will only be ...
Investigation details facial recognition company Clearview AI's ties to the alt-right, including hiring employees with deep links to far-right extremists
Clearview AI, which has alarmed privacy experts, hired several far-right employees, a HuffPost investigation found.
Sources: White House team led by Jared Kushner has reached out to health tech companies about creating a real-time surveillance system for tracking COVID-19
White House senior adviser Jared Kushner's task force has reached out to a range of health technology companies about creating …
Sila, which is developing a payments and banking API on top of the Ethereum blockchain, raises $7.7M seed led by Madrona Venture Group and Oregon Venture Fund
Fintech is white hot these days, with major acquisitions and funding rounds galore. It's also a relatively new space …
Amazon to suspend Amazon Shipping, its delivery service for Amazon Marketplace sellers that was being beta-tested in some US cities, with last pickups on June 5
- Amazon told sellers on Tuesday that in June it would pause its in-house shipping service that was being beta tested in a few US cities. Source: Wall Street Journal .
Tech giants like Apple, Facebook, and Google are scrambling to create digital internships for this summer, as offices remain shuttered during the pandemic
Go deeper — By Sara Fischer, Stef W. Kight — Campaigns turn to texting as coronavirus spreads
Intel, Mozilla, and Creative Commons join the Open COVID Pledge, an effort to temporarily make IP freely available to anyone developing tech to fight COVID-19
A consortium of organizations including Intel, Mozilla, and Creative Commons have joined the Open COVID Pledge …
Facebook's experimental product unit debuts Tuned, an iOS app creating a “private space” for couples, letting them keep a photo diary, exchange notes, and more
a messaging tool for couples — is another example of how the tech industry has slowly privatized communication that once took place on open, unsiloed protocols. https://www.theverge.com/... David Pier...
Microsoft says it is pausing new hires except in some “strategic areas”, citing uncertainty due to the pandemic; sources: the company is still hiring for Azure
- Microsoft is “temporarily pausing recruitment” for some roles amid uncertainty caused by the coronavirus crisis, the company confirmed Tuesday.
Swedish logistics tech startup Instabox, which lets e-commerce retailers offer same-day delivery through its delivery lockers, raises €36M at a €100M valuation
Swedish logistics tech company Instabox has closed a €36 million financing round, boosting the business' valuation to €100 million.
Uber for Business expands its corporate Eats delivery feature to more than 20 countries, starting with Brazil, Canada, France, and the UK
Uber for Business, a platform designed for corporate customers, is expanding its food delivery Eats product to more than 20 countries this year …
Analysis of GoDaddy data shows how small-scale digital entrepreneurs, part-time or full, generate significant economic spillover benefits across US communities
A new study examines the millions of small digital businesses. They could help many communities weather the economic blow from the coronavirus outbreak. Tweets: @nytimesbusiness , @asu_ctds , and @st...
Overview of how apps from Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent, and others are helping users in China check their exposure, get care, and more during the COVID-19 outbreak
Summary: China's apps played a pivotal role in supporting some of the most effective tactics the country used in fighting Covid-19 … Tweets: @xuhulk , @theosint , @scholars_stage , @herlifeinpixels , ...
Bitcoin Cash reduces its block rewards by half, causing many miners to see gross margins drop to near zero, after reaching block height of 630,000 on Wednesday
in Real Time
How scientists are using AI and machine learning to analyze vast data on oceans, including tracking migrations and Google helping to identify whale song
Tatiana Schlossberg / New York Times : Tweets: @nytscience and @tatertatiana Tweets: @nytscience : Need to track a whale song or study a larvacean in its snot bubble? Artificial intelligence is lendi...
In a small experiment, Facebook approved seven scheduled ads with content that violated company rules about COVID-19, indicating flaws in automated ad screening
Kaveh Waddell / Consumer Reports :
EU pushes for a coordinated approach for COVID-19 apps to be drawn up by April 15, with an eye on all 27 nations potentially creating a single app
Bloomberg :
An in-depth look at the impact of Uber on Argentina's taxi drivers and the violence that has ensued since the company's 2016 venture into the country
taxi drivers who harass & sometimes beat Uber drivers. We all understand Uber's aggressive tactics-but what happens when those tactics clash w/ desperate, crisis-struck workers? https://story.californ...
Gig workers say unemployment benefits included in the $2T COVID-19 relief bill are hard to access, won't arrive for a while, and the system is overloaded
Aarian Marshall / Wired :
Tonkean, which is developing a no-code automation service for companies, raises $24M led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, bringing its total raised to $31.2M
Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat :
Report accuses Baidu's streaming site iQiyi of fraud “well before its 2018 IPO”, says it inflated 2019 revenue by ~$1.13B to $1.98B by overstating user numbers
Patrick Frater / Variety : Source: Wolf Pack Research .
Toast, a cloud-based restaurant management software provider, cuts ~50% of its staff after raising $400M at a $4.9B valuation in February
Natasha Mascarenhas / TechCrunch :
Tyto Care, a NYC-based telehealth startup that sells an in-home kit to help doctors remotely diagnose patients, raises $50M in round led by Insight Partners
Paul Sawers / VentureBeat :
Australia-based SafetyCulture, maker of iAuditor app for workplace safety checks, raises $35.5M at an $800M valuation, bringing total raised to over $100M
Jonathan Shieber / TechCrunch :
CEO of gay dating app Scruff talks about avoiding partnerships with location data brokers due to privacy concerns and building an in-house analytics operation
Charles Levinson / Protocol :
After Lyft quietly changed its paid leave policy for drivers, some say the process for getting sick pay is confusing and arduous
Dara Kerr / CNET : Thanks: @rogerwcheng
Hong Kong-based Neat, which helps startups and small businesses do cross-border banking online and apply for corporate credit cards, raises $11M Series A
Catherine Shu / TechCrunch :
Shopify's new AI commerce stack
Their VP of Product digs into just-launched products to help entrepreneurs and developers build with the latest AI and tech.
Email fatigue is real: Here's how smart email tools help you regain control
Picture this: It's Monday morning. You walk into the office feeling energized and ready to take on the week.
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data
Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.