Consumers worldwide spent $407.6M across the App Store and Google Play on Christmas, up 34.5% YoY; mobile games rose 27% YoY to $295.6M, led by Honor of Kings
2020 has been a record-setting year for worldwide spending on mobile apps and games, which passed $100 billion in a single year for the first time ever in November.
Coinbase says it will suspend trading of XRP on January 19, 2021, following the SEC's suit against Ripple
Coinbase said it will suspend trading of XRP, the cryptocurrency the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission claimed last week is really a security. Source: The Coinbase Blog .
Analysis of internal data at Coinbase through 2018 highlights pay inequity for women and Black employees; Coinbase says it implemented a new compensation plan
An analysis of internal pay data at the San Francisco company Coinbase shows disparities that were much larger than those in the tech industry.
Federal judge dismisses Apple's claims that mobile device virtualization company Corellium violated copyright law with its software to run iOS on PCs
Corellium helps customers find bugs in Apple's mobile operating system. Apple aimed to shut it down. — Corellium, a security research firm sued …
Survey: US smartphone activations on Christmas Day fell 23% YoY as iPhones dominated the top 10 activated smartphones and budget devices, like LG K30, surged
Christmas day in the United States is the single greatest day for new smartphone activations. And despite supply chain delays caused …
Google is testing an expansion of its “Short Videos” feature at the top of mobile search that will surface TikTok and Instagram videos in a dedicated carousel
Google is testing a new feature that will surface Instagram and TikTok videos in their own dedicated carousel …
Over Christmas holiday, Apptopia says HBO Max had ~554K app signups; Sensor Tower says Disney+ had ~2.3M global app installations, up 28% from prior weekend
Christopher Palmeri / Bloomberg :
New York regulators have authorized a subsidiary of Japan's GMO Internet to issue the world's first publicly available stablecoin backed by the Japanese yen
The New York State Department of Financial Services, the Bitlicense regulator, has authorized GMO to issue U.S. dollar and Japanese yen-pegged stablecoins.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is tying the fate of $2,000 stimulus checks to the repeal of Section 230
in a Bill That Would Also Eliminate Section 230 Dell Cameron / Gizmodo : McConnell Doesn't Care About Section 230 or the Election—Just Keeping Your Relief Check Small Ted Johnson / Deadline : Mitch Mc...
eMarketer: US e-commerce sales, up 12%-16% in recent years, will have grown by 30%+ in 2020 and Amazon's US retail business grew an estimated 39% YoY in 2020
When we look back at 2020 in the business world, we'll remember it as the year online shopping stopped being the future of retail and became the present.
FAA issues rules requiring some drones, like those flying over people, to be remotely identifiable and night flying drones to have anti-collision lights
https://twitter.com/... @reuterstech : The FAA says it will allow small drones to fly over people and at night across America — a significant step toward their use for widespread commercial deliveries...
Leaked docs: Lens, a supplier for Apple, Tesla, Amazon, used alleged forced Uighur labor; Apple says it has confirmed its suppliers have not used forced labor
Reed Albergotti / Washington Post :
The head scientist for Alexa argues that Turing Test, designed as a thought experiment, is no longer relevant for building AIs that are designed to help humans
This year marks 70 years since Alan Turing published his paper introducing the concept of the Turing Test in response to the question, “Can machines think?” Tweets: @gavinsbaker , @edbott , and @carna...
In a letter, an activist hedge fund pushes Intel to explore strategic alternatives, like whether it should remain an integrated device manufacturer; stock up 5%
Svea Herbst-Bayliss / Reuters :
VMware sues its former COO Rajiv Ramaswami, claiming that his taking a job as CEO of Nutanix was a breach of contract
Ron Miller / TechCrunch :
Lawsuit claims a New Jersey man was jailed for 10 days based on an erroneous facial recognition match, and prosecutors kept pursuing him for nearly a year
Sources: SimilarWeb is planning a Nasdaq IPO in Q2 2021, aiming for a $2B+ valuation; the company has raised $240M in total, including $120M in October
The market intelligence company joins list of Israeli firms set to embark on a U.S. IPO in the coming months which already includes eToro …
Association of American Publishers: audiobooks revenue is up 17%+ YoY, e-book sales are up 16%+; NPD BookScan says US print book sales are up ~8% in 2020
With people stuck at home and so many other activities shut down, a lot of reading — or at least a lot of book buying — happened this year. Tweets: @nytimesbooks , @nytimesbooks , @pamelapaulnyt , @fi...
Researcher: Get Schooled, an education charity setup by Bill Gates and Viacom, left personal details of hundreds of thousands of US students exposed
Database at charity set up by Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation was ‘open and accessible’ during website revamp
Source: Ant Group is planning to fold its financial operations into a holding company that could be regulated more like a bank
Bloomberg :
Apple and Amazon stock has risen 87% and 79% respectively in 2020, far outpacing the S&P 500's 16%, as Apple rises 16% in December amid strong iPhone 12 demand
FactSet: Amazon's “other” business unit, which is made up almost entirely of its ads business, will make $21B in revenue in 2020, up 47% YoY
Dave Lee / Financial Times :
Some US supermarkets say they aren't making money through Instacart due to the service's 10% commission on each order
Jaewon Kang / Wall Street Journal : Tweets: @layon_overwhale , @eyevariety , @chancekelch , @anthony , @sub8u , @silvermanjacob , and @benpershing Tweets: Leon Overweel / @layon_overwhale : Albert He...
France says it has resumed collecting its digital services tax, as the UK and Italy prepare to collect their own; France's 3% levy brought in €400M in 2019
Wall Street Journal : Tweets: @samschech Tweets: Sam Schechner / @samschech : Detente is ending for tech taxes. France is collecting its DST. India and Austria, too. Italy, Spain and the U.K. plan to...
Google Maps' moat is vanishing after a ~1,400% price hike for API usage in 2018, as OpenStreetMap improves with support from Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft
Joe Morrison / A Closer Look with Joe Morrison : Tweets: @randfish and @samgoeta Tweets: Rand Fishkin / @randfish : How can anyone ever compete with Google? In search, I don't have an answer. But in ...
Unredacted draft version of the lawsuit filed by 10 states earlier this month details a Google-Facebook ad deal that allegedly constituted illegal price fixing
NY Post source for Hunter Biden laptop stories sues Twitter for defamation, alleging Twitter falsely labeled him a hacker after blocking NY Post content in Oct.
A loophole in Spotify's copyright infringement detection tactics is allowing unauthorized remixes and bootlegs of songs to be uploaded as podcasts
Fujitsu eyes 20 potential M&A targets as part of a five-year $5.8B plan aiming to strengthen its digital services and capitalize on US-China trade disputes
Kana Inagaki / Financial Times :
CommonGround, a stealth startup aiming to debut a product in 2021 that rethinks online communication with “4D collaboration”, raises $19M led by Matrix Partners
Sources detail Reliance Industries' plans for 2021 after raising $27B this year: support for 5G, integration of WhatsApp payments into its services, and more
Bloomberg :
DNA testing company 23andMe raises ~$82.5M Series F led by Sequoia Capital and NewView Capital; the company laid off 14% of its workforce earlier this year
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.