Deep dive on the DarkSide ransomware gang, which pressures victims into paying via phone calls by affiliates, DDoS attacks, and threats of tipping short sellers
The FBI confirmed this week that a relatively new ransomware group known as DarkSide is responsible for an attack …
Researcher discovers a series of vulnerabilities, known as Frag Attacks, impacting Wi-Fi devices from the past 24 years, even when WEP and WPA are activated
A Belgian security researcher has discovered a series of vulnerabilities that impact the WiFi standard, with some bugs dating …
US agrees to remove Xiaomi from blacklist that could have restricted American investment in the company, following Xiaomi's lawsuit earlier this year
- U.S. to vacate order designating company as military-linked — Xiaomi had sued U.S. government following the Trump order
Amazon updates the Echo Show 8 and 5 with better cameras, the ability to turn on Alexa's security mode, and adds a $95 Kids Edition of the Echo Show 5
Plus a price drop for the Echo Show 5 — Amazon is refreshing a handful of products in its Echo line: the Echo Show 8 and Echo Show 5 …
Researcher details an exploit for Apple's Find My network that allows packets of arbitrary data to be transmitted by simulating a Find My broadcast
The Find My network is used by Apple to report locations of items and devices via the data connection of any nearby iPhone, Mac, or other Apple device.
Apple says that ~1M new apps and ~1M app updates were rejected in 2020, 470,000+ developer accounts were terminated over fraud concerns, and more
- Apple said it rejected almost 1 million apps that were submitted to its App Store for the first time in 2020.
Instagram and Twitter apologize for deleting pro-Palestine posts, blaming technical errors, but critics say their “discriminatory” algorithms are to blame
Instagram and Twitter have blamed technical errors for deleting posts mentioning the possible eviction of Palestinians …
Instagram will let users list up to four pronouns on their profiles, viewable to friends or the public, available in a “few countries”
You can make this public or only viewable to friends — Instagram is making it easier to address people by their defined pronouns.
WhatsApp details the experience for those who don't agree to its new privacy policy, including losing access to calls, messages, and notifications
- WhatsApp will eventually stop users sending and receiving messages if they refuse a new privacy policy. — If users do not agree to the policy …
Epic v. Apple is shining a light on Apple's anti-steering rules, which prevent developers from pointing users to better deals on their website or elsewhere
Would ending anti-steering rules fix the App Store? — Last week, the judge in Epic v. Apple asked whether Epic really had an antitrust case …
Zigbee Alliance renames as Connectivity Standards Alliance and unveils Matter, an interoperable connectivity standard to ship in smart home devices this year
An industry alliance sponsored by Apple, Google, Amazon and other tech companies will begin certifying smart home devices later this year …
Amazon wins appeal over $300M EU tax bill, as EU court annuls a 2017 decision, saying regulators had failed to prove that the company got an illegal advantage
Ruling deals a setback to EU competition chief who is seeking to rein in U.S. tech giants — Amazon. com Inc. struck a new blow …
The US cable industry sees Biden's broadband plan as a grave threat because its language favors fiber and prioritizes funding for locally owned networks
The Biden administration's broadband plan read like a dream come true to Donnel Baird. The $2 trillion American Jobs Plan …
EA reports Q4 revenue of $1.35B, down from $1.39B YoY, and net income of $76M, down from $418M YoY, but says annual net bookings were up 15% YoY for FY 2021
Did you miss GamesBeat Summit 2021? Watch on-demand here! — Electronic Arts reported better-than-expected earnings today …
Investigation: an army of fake bots covertly amplify Chinese propaganda on Twitter by retweeting posts from diplomats and state media tens of thousands of times
BRUSSELS (AP) — China's ruling Communist Party has opened a new front in its long, ambitious war to shape global public opinion: Western social media.
Profile of Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, who is presiding over the Epic v. Apple trial and has previously handled several cases involving both companies
Wall Street Journal : Tweets: @saraheneedleman Tweets: Sarah E. Needleman / @saraheneedleman : Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers has gained a reputation as a jurist not to be trifled with. Now, the tech w...
Bird agrees to go public via a SPAC, at an implied value of around $2.3B; the deal includes a $160M investment led by Fidelity
The E-scooter company will ride its way to the New York Stock Exchange.
SoftBank reports Q4 Vision Fund profit of $37B and Group net profit of $45.88B, due to good stock performance of portfolio companies Coupang and Uber
SoftBank Group Corp (9984.T) on Wednesday reported a record 4.03 trillion yen ($37 billion) Vision Fund unit profit from a fourth-quarter gain on Coupang …
Vinted, an online marketplace for used clothes and home goods, raises €250M Series F led by EQT Growth at a €3.5B valuation
The circular economy — where consumers themselves are both the suppliers and buyers of goods and services — has come into its own in the last year …
Online mortgage service Better.com to go public via a SPAC merger with Aurora Acquisition Corp. at $7.7B valuation; deal includes $1.5B SoftBank-led investment
- Digital mortgage lender Better will make its market debut by merging with Aurora Acquisition Corp., valuing the company at $7.7 billion. Source: Business Wire .
Unity reports Q1 revenue of $234.8M, up 41% YoY, and raised full year guidance by $50M, but maintained that Apple's IDFA would reduce 2021 revenue by $30M
Unity Technologies reported today that revenues for the first quarter ended March 31 hit $234.8 million, up 41% from the same quarter a year ago.
Snap suspends anonymous Q&A apps Yolo and LMK after lawsuit over teen's death, allegedly due to bullying messages
Yolo and LMK, two Snapchat apps that allow users to send anonymous messages, are no longer available to users of the social media platform after parent company Snap suspended them Tuesday.
Cycode, which focuses on helping enterprises secure their DevOps pipelines, raises $20M Series A led by Insight Partners, bringing its total raised to $24.6M
Israeli security startup Cycode, which specializes in helping enterprises secure their DevOps pipelines and prevent code tampering …
GitHub adds security key support for SSH Git operations, as it continues its plan to remove password support for Git operations later this year
Support has been added to bolster defense against account compromise. — GitHub has announced support for security keys to prevent account compromise in SSH Git operations.
Coinbase reaches #1 on the US iOS App Store for first time since 2017, after reaching the #2 spot on April 14, the day of its IPO
Uber and Lyft will offer free rides to and from US vaccination sites until July 4, partnering with the Biden administration, which is providing site data
Location tracking tax apps like TaxBird, which aim to shield users from audit risks due to residency status, have become popular with the rise of remote work
With remote work more common now, tax apps that track your location have become relevant for professionals who want to work wherever they want to live.
Big Time Studios, started by ex-CEO of Decentraland, comes out of stealth with $21M to let game studios offer NFTs in their games
Did you miss GamesBeat Summit 2021? Watch on-demand here! — Big Time Studios is going big this week with a funding round of $21 million to bring nonfungible tokens …
Coinbase to ban pay negotiations in hiring and will offer the same pay to new hires in the same position and location; top performers to still get “multipliers”
The Coinbase Blog :
German regulator orders Facebook to stop collecting users' WhatsApp data citing legality; Facebook says the claim is wrong and won't stop rollout of new ToS
Research: Rumble, a video-sharing site popular with conservatives, is more likely than not to recommend videos with misinfo for “vaccine”, “election” searches
Research shows the emergent video platform can recommend conspiracy theories and other harmful content more often than not. Tweets: @alkapdc , @glichfield , and @alkapdc See also Mediagazer Tweets: Al...
YouTube plans to pay $100M to top creators on YouTube Shorts, its TikTok competitor, through 2022, starting in the next few months in the US and India
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch :
London-based Unmind, which lets employers offer digital mental health services to their staff, raises $47M Series B led by EQT Ventures
Mental health has been put into the spotlight in a big way in recent times. For many of us, our lives and lifestyles have changed massively in the last year …
UK unveils Online Safety Bill which would fine social media firms up to 10% of revenue or £18M if they fail to address online abuses such as racist hate crimes
Michael Holden / Reuters :
eBay says it will allow NFTs to be sold on its platform and will add new “capabilities” for blockchain-driven collectibles in the coming months
MK Manoylov / The Block : Source: Reuters .
Cloudflare, which is already doing all of its computing on the edge, is uniquely suited to a world where politics matter more than economics
Manage your Stratechery subscription. — Matthew Prince, at the end of his prepared remarks after Cloudflare's recent earnings report, related a story from the company's earliest days: Tweets: @strat...
Profile of Robinhood, whose goal of democratizing finance stems from the Occupy Wall Street movement, as critics fear the app will only reinforce the wealth gap
and a decent look at the morality of ‘payment-for-order-flow.’ (via @sheelahk) https://www.newyorker.com/... https://twitter.com/... Anupam Gupta / @b50 : In depth long read into Robinhood. Definitely...
Israel-based VisibleRisk, which helps enterprises assess how vulnerable they are to hacking campaigns, raises $25M Series A from Moody's Corp. and Team8 Labs
Maria Deutscher / SiliconANGLE :
Treasury Prime, which develops APIs to help banks automate routine business processes, raises $20M Series B co-led by Deciens Capital and QED Investors
This morning Treasury Prime, a banking-as-a-service startup that delivers its product via APIs, announced that it has closed …
UK-based Lyst, an e-commerce marketplace for high fashion brands and stores to sell directly to users, raises $85M, sources say at a $700M valuation
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch :
Handshake, a diversity-focused recruitment network aimed at college students, raises $80M Series E at a $1.5B+ valuation co-led by Lightspeed and Spark Capital
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch :
Jamf will acquire Wandera, a provider of cloud-based software for zero trust security, to bridge consumer and enterprise needs, in a $400M cash and debt deal
Acquco, a NY-based startup founded by former Amazon employees that buys and scales Amazon third party sellers, raises $160M Series A in debt and equity
Mary Ann Azevedo / TechCrunch :
A look at the fight over using differential privacy techniques in the US Census, which anonymizes datasets but some argue lowers the quality of the datasets
Todd Feathers / The Markup : Tweets: @juliaangwin and @toddfeathers Tweets: Julia Angwin / @juliaangwin : No one covers differential privacy like we do @themarkup! @ToddFeathers reports on the Census...
Q&A with law professor and Facebook moderation expert Kate Klonick on the Oversight Board Trump ruling, companies maintaining quasi legal systems, and more
Nilay Patel / The Verge : Tweets: @klonick Tweets: Kate Klonick / @klonick : This conversation with @reckless was one of the richest I had about the @OversightBoard, my only regret is they decided to...
Google says it plans to double the size of its team studying AI ethics in the coming years, as it looks to strengthen the group battered by recent controversies
Tripp Mickle / Wall Street Journal : Tweets: @_jack_poulson , @alexhanna , @carissaveliz , @zeerakw , @hughhewitt , @taliaringer , @timnitgebru , @_alialkhatib , @edroso , @zoeschiffer , @parismarx ,...
UK-based Huma, which uses AI and biomarkers to monitor patients at home and for medical research, raises $130M Series C that it can extend with a $70M debt line
and investors are taking note
Aetion, a healthcare data analytics company focused on validating real-world evidence for treatments, raises $110M Series C, bringing total raised to $212M
Laura Lovett / MobiHealthNews : Source: Aetion .
Arkose Labs, which is developing a service that detects and mitigates online fraud, raises $70M Series C led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2
Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat :
Panaseer, whose platform helps companies correlate data from all available security tools to check assets, control gaps, and more, raises $26M Series B
Mike Butcher / 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.