Facebook launches Voting Information Center for accurate election information and tools for voter registration, aiming to help register 4M people via its apps
The 2020 election is going to be unlike any other. It was already going to be a heated campaign, and that was before the pandemic …
Shortly after Basecamp debuted its email service, HEY, it says its next iOS app update was rejected because Apple wasn't getting its cut of subscription revenue
Right around the time the team at Basecamp was launching their Hey email service to the public on Monday, Zach Waugh …
The distinction of business vs. consumer as a justification for Apple's rejection of HEY from the App Store for not using in-app purchases is flimsy
This statement is paraphrased by Pierce, not a direct quote, but on its surface this business/consumer distinction seems untenable.
Trump administration official says DOJ will propose limiting Section 230 legal protections for online platforms like Facebook and Twitter
The action follows President Trump's executive order seeking to weaken broad immunity enjoyed by Facebook, Twitter and other platforms
Facebook and Instagram will allow some US users to turn off political ads starting Wednesday; the feature will roll out to all US users over the next few weeks
- Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Tuesday announced the social network will allow its users to turn off seeing political ads.
Google cracks down on The Federalist and ZeroHedge for violating policies on race-related content and may permanently suspend their access to Google Ads revenue
- Google is cracking down on two right-wing outlets, ZeroHedge and The Federalist, for violating its policies on race-related content.
Apple says its head of diversity and inclusion Christie Smith, who joined in 2017, is leaving
- Apple VP of Diversity and Inclusion Smith had joined in 2017 — Company planning $100 million initiative to promote equality — Apple Inc.'s head of diversity and inclusion Christie Smith is leav...
Microsoft details efforts to increase Azure durability amid pandemic by expanding submarine cable bandwidth, server scaling changes, and capacity forecasting
Microsoft has been making lots of under-the-covers changes to how it runs its cloud services, including Azure-based Teams, to meet demand during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Graphika report details a Russia-based influence campaign, known as Secondary Infektion, that ran over 6 years and 300 sites, but failed to win a large audience
Group known as Secondary Infektion used multiple languages, burner accounts to circumvent attempts to detect it
Uber to sell the software that powers its ride-hailing business, starting with public transit agencies; California Marin county is first to buy Uber's software
- Ride-hailing giant partners with California county officials — Program is Uber's first software sale with a third party
Sen. Josh Hawley announces a bill targeting Section 230, letting consumers sue platforms with 30M+ US MAUs over alleged censorship of political speech and more
stop the spread of liberal + progressive ideas. What they did to the “news” they will do to the Internet. https://twitter.com/... Matthew Yglesias / @mattyglesias : Josh Hawley, the ultimate Politics ...
Boston Dynamics says Spot, its quadruped robot, is now available to businesses in the US as part of a developer kit for $74,500
Boston Dynamics today opened commercial sales of Spot, its quadruped robot that can climb stairs and traverse rough terrain. Businesses can purchase …
Barcelona and New York-based Onna, which offers a service that integrates workplace tools, raises $27M Series B led by Atomico
Onna, the “knowledge integration platform” (KIP) that counts Dropbox and Slack as backers, has raised $27 million in Series B funding.
Investigation into a “supply chain” of people who scrape OnlyFans content en masse before reposting it for free, often on other adult websites or Discord
In late February, rumors of a massive database of adult content stolen from OnlyFans subscription-only accounts spread through social media. Tweets: @josephfcox , @motherboard , @bigblackjacobin , @jo...
Sources: TikTok expects its US revenue to hit $500M this year; in 2019, TikTok brought in about $200M to $300M in worldwide revenue
TikTok has taken off like a rocket ship in the U.S. and around the world, creating a new mobile video experience that has left YouTube and Facebook scrambling to keep up. Tweets: @digitalshields See a...
High school students are using social media and anonymous Google Docs to call out fellow students for racist behavior, sometimes with unintended consequences
Learning has been online and remote this semester. So too, now, are call-outs of questionable behavior. Tweets: @taylorlorenz and @taylorlorenz Tweets: Taylor Lorenz / @taylorlorenz : Black students ...
Civil rights groups, including the Anti-Defamation League and the NAACP, are encouraging big advertisers to pull spending from Facebook
Anti-Defamation League, NAACP and others seek protest of what they say is company's failure to make its platform a less-hostile place Tweets: @dseetharaman , @scottnover , and @jason_kint Tweets: Deep...
iFixit, which has posted repair manuals for ventilators during the pandemic, says Steris Corporation is claiming copyright infringement; iFixit cites fair use
A popular website with a comprehensive database of repair manuals for ventilators and other medical devices has received a letter … Tweets: @eff , @motherboard , and @vice Tweets: @eff : The right to ...
Upgrade, a digital bank focusing on personal loans and credit cards, raises $40M Series D led by Santander InnoVentures at a $1B valuation
This morning Upgrade, a credit-focused fintech startup, announced that it has raised a $40 million Series D round that the company says gives it a $1 billion valuation.
Sources: TikTok's owner ByteDance had revenue of ~$5.64B in the January-March quarter, up 130% YoY
Reuters : Tweets: @turnernovak and @alex Tweets: Turner Novak / @turnernovak : ByteDance reported Q1 revenue of $5.6b, up 130% YoY (was up 127% in Q4 '19) “In January, six of the 10 most popular apps...
Profile of Public Good Projects, a nonprofit that tracks public health misinformation, as it launches a volunteer-led program to tackle vaccine disinformation
Anti-vaccine messages on social media have tripled since the pandemic began. One public health group wants to teach pro-vaccine Americans to fight fire with fire. Tweets: @wiredscience and @ugagrady ...
San Francisco's district attorney sues DoorDash for allegedly misclassifying workers as contractors instead of employees despite California's AB5 law
Andrew J. Hawkins / The Verge :
A look at OATV's Indie.vc, a VC firm that invests modest amounts between $100K to $1M to power more sustainable tech startups and fund more diverse founders
Why a new approach to venture capital is powering more sustainable startups — and funding more diverse founders Tweets: @casey__allen , @joshuaogundu , @harryalford3 , @sirjrg , @jamieogrady , @sether...
Unbounce, which builds optimized landing pages for SMBs using automation, raises ~$38.4M led by Crest Rock Partners
Landing page optimization company Unbounce is announcing that it has raised $52 million Canadian (approximately $38.4 million in US dollars).
Uptycs, a SQL-based security analytics startup, raises $30M Series B led by Sapphire Ventures, bringing its total raised to $43M
Structured Query Language-based security analytics firm Uptycs Inc. said today it has raised a new round of $30 million. — The Series B round of funding brings …
Oracle reports Q4 revenue of $10.44B, down 6% YoY, missing expectations of $10.65B, cloud and on-premises license revenue fell 22% to $1.96B
Jordan Novet / CNBC :
ConsenSys launches a pilot “staking-as-a-service” tool, with customers including Binance, ahead of proof-of-stake tech being rolled out with Ethereum 2.0
Ian Allison / CoinDesk :
Facebook's purchase of a 10% stake in Reliance Jio is being reviewed by the Competition Commission of India, the country's antitrust regulator
Shruti Srivastava / Bloomberg :
Norwegian financial services company AksjeBloggen: the number of Bitcoin ATMs worldwide has surged by 150% in the past two years, reaching over 8,000
Adriana Hamacher / Decrypt :
Headless CMS company Contentful raises $80M Series E led by Sapphire Ventures, bringing its total raised to $158.3M
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch :
Amazon says it is deploying AI-powered software called Distance Assistant in warehouses that tells workers if they are too close to colleagues
Matt Day / Bloomberg :
Bose is shutting down its AR program, saying its technology couldn't be commercialized as planned, with current AR apps ceasing to function within 30 days
& still do. I suspect that one day this type of platform will go gangbusters. Maybe that'll be at Bose, maybe somewhere else. https://twitter.com/... Tim Grieve / @timgrieve : And now @bose pulls the ...
Chipper Cash, which offers mobile-based, no fee, P2P payments services in seven African countries, raises $13.8M Series A led by Deciens Capital
Jake Bright / TechCrunch :
Robert Farkas, co-founder of Centra Tech, a celebrity-backed crypto startup, pled guilty to securities and wire fraud after raising $25M+ in a fraudulent ICO
Andrew Hayward / Decrypt :
Pagaya, which uses AI and big-data analytics to manage institutional money, raises $102M Series D, bringing its total raised to $221.9M
Duncan Riley / SiliconANGLE :
China's largest gay dating app Blued, which has more than 6M users on its network, files for Nasdaq IPO, aiming to raise at least $50M
Nikkei Asian Review :
Helsinki-based Swappie, an iPhone-only refurb marketplace with its own refurbishment factory, has raised $40M to expand across Europe
Chris O'Brien / VentureBeat :
LinkedIn outlines steps to address racial inequality within the company and on its site, following CEO's apology for employees' Black Lives Matter comments
David Cohen / Adweek :
The EU has agreed on a set of technical specifications for interoperability of contract tracing apps across European nations
Christine Fisher / Engadget :
Nearly a week after its removal from Google's Play Store, Chinese TikTok clone Zynn has been removed from Apple's App Store following claims of stolen videos
James Vincent / The Verge :
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.