Amazon says it will acquire MGM Studios for $8.45B, its second-largest acquisition since it paid $13.7B for Whole Foods in 2017
- Amazon is buying MGM Studios, the companies announced, marking Amazon's most ambitious move yet into the entertainment business.
Sources say Valve is making a Switch-like portable gaming PC that could launch by year's end
We can confirm some, but not all, of what's in store for the codenamed “SteamPal.” — Video game and hardware studio Valve has been secretly building a Switch-like portable PC …
WhatsApp has filed a lawsuit in Delhi against the Indian government for its new social media regulations, saying they would break privacy protections
WhatsApp has filed a lawsuit in Delhi against the Indian government seeking to block regulations coming into force on Wednesday that experts …
USB standards body unveils its USB-C 2.1 revision, which supports power up to 240W, up from 100W currently, aimed at devices like 4K displays and gaming laptops
An upgrade to the USB-C standard will accommodate levels of up to 240 watts, an improvement that could let you plug power-hungry devices …
With its MGM acquisition, Amazon doesn't want to compete with streamers like Netflix but reduce Prime subscriber churn by providing enough blockbuster content
Amazon isn't competing with Netflix, but it is spending billions trying to figure out Hollywood. Maybe 007 can help.
Facebook and Instagram now give users options to hide Like counts across all posts and to hide their own public Like counts from others
Facebook this week will begin to publicly roll out the option to hide Likes on posts across both Facebook and Instagram, following earlier tests beginning in 2019.
A breakdown of the different arguments pertaining to the App Store and how they were presented and discussed in the Epic vs Apple trial
Arguments in Epic Games, Inc. v. Apple Inc. wrapped up yesterday; Judge Yvonne Gonzales Rogers noted she had thousands of documents to pore over …
Satya Nadella teases a “next generation of Windows” announcement “very soon”; the revamped Windows will likely have big UI changes, a new store, and more
Windows is getting big UI changes, a new store, and more — Microsoft isn't talking about its big Windows plans …
Microsoft debuts Microsoft 365 updates, including tools for developers to integrate deeper into Teams, Graph updates, and Outlook message extensions on the web
Microsoft today announced a number of improvements across Microsoft 365, its line of subscription services offered as a part of Microsoft Office.
Facebook says Russia is still the largest producer of disinformation, in a report that details 150 operations that the company has disrupted since 2017
Report explores how issue has evolved in recent years — A Facebook report released Wednesday says that Russia is still the largest producer …
Sources: European Commission will open a formal antitrust probe into Facebook to investigate if it's undermining competition in the online classifieds market
European Commission will investigate if Facebook is undermining competition in the online classifieds market
Google partners with US hospital chain HCA Healthcare to develop algorithms to improve operating efficiency, monitor patients, and guide doctors' decisions
Tech giant expands health-sector presence in latest deal to develop tools to improve medical care, as privacy concerns arise
San Jose approves Google's plans for a downtown campus with 4K new homes, 7M+ square feet of office space, 15 acres of parks, and 500K of retail and other space
After more than three years of negotiations, San Jose officials voted late Tuesday to approve Google's plan for a sprawling downtown campus …
An overview of Russia's increasingly aggressive attempts to control Google, Facebook, and Twitter, ordering them to store data in Russia and imposing fines
Its campaign is part of a global wave of actions by governments that are testing how far they can go to control online speech.
Bangalore-based Koo, a microblogging service that allows users to post in English and Indian languages, raises $30M at over $100M valuation led by Tiger Global
Investors are backing Koo, an Indian alternative to Twitter, with large size checks at a time when tension is brewing between the American social network and New Delhi.
DC attorney general sues Amazon on antitrust grounds, claiming the company's practices have unfairly raised prices for consumers and suppressed innovation
starting around 11 min in — from our Land of the Giants podcast about Amazon in 2019. In it, Amazon seller @Molson_Hart lays out the “price-parity” issue 2 years ahead of time: https://podcasts.google...
Microsoft, an investor in OpenAI, says it's now using the GPT-3 model in its low-code Power Apps service to translate natural language text into code
Salt Security, which develops AI-based software to protect API libraries from malicious use, raises $70M led by Advent International
APIs make the world go round in tech, but that also makes them a very key target for bad actors: as doorways into huge data troves and services …
Tesla says deliveries of Model 3 and Y vehicles in North America will no longer be equipped with radar for Autopilot and instead rely on a camera-based system
Sean O'Kane / The Verge :
Gen Z students are studying together online across YouTube, TikTok, Discord, and Twitter, seeking inspiration, finding focus, and sharing academic anxieties
In late 2020, a 10-hour loop of a song from Mario Kart titled “Coconut Mall” started blowing up on Youtube. Tweets: @lkherman , @dianelyssa , @heatherfro , @annehelen , and @dianelyssa Tweets: Lily He...
NYSE sets ZipRecruiter's reference price at $18 per share for its direct listing on Wednesday, which would give it a fully diluted valuation of about $2.4B
- Job search, recruiting company set for trading debut Wednesday — Year's 4th direct listing after Squarespace, Coinbase, Roblox
Xiaomi beats with Q1 profit of $1.2B, up 260.6% YoY, on revenue of $12B, up 54.7% YoY, and says it shipped 49.4M smartphones globally for a 14.1% market share
Smartphone giant Xiaomi's first-quarter profit beat market estimates to reach US$1.2 billion Revenue in the March quarter hit US$12 billion …
OneOf, a music-focused NFT marketplace built on Tezos and backed by Quincy Jones, raises $63M in seed, claims it uses less energy to mint NFTs than others
The firm says that, by building on Tezos, it can provide a more environmentally sustainable marketplace.
Tesla says it will store all data generated from cars in China in a new data center there, after facing scrutiny in the country for handling vehicle data
U.S. electric-car maker has faced scrutiny in China of its handling of potentially sensitive vehicle data
Snapdocs, a service that digitizes the mortgage process, raises $150M Series D led by Tiger Global at a $1.5B valuation, bringing its total raised to $260M
Total company valuation eclipses $1.5 billion — San Francisco-based Snapdocs, a digital closing platform for the mortgage industry …
After predicting autonomous vehicles would be commonplace by 2021, the industry is resetting expectations and committing to years of further R&D
Many in Silicon Valley promised that self-driving cars would be a common sight by 2021. Now the industry is resetting expectations and settling in for years of more work.
In a first, DHS will issue mandatory rules regulating cybersecurity for pipelines, initially to require incident reporting, after Colonial's ransomware attack
Sources: Uber plans to recognize a trade union for its 70K drivers in the UK giving them more power to collectively bargain, while preserving its worker model
- The GMB labor group will represent Uber's 70,000 U.K. drivers — Drivers will retain ability to choose where and when they work
SpotOn, a payments startup focused on SMBs, raises $125M Series D led by a16z, tripling its valuation from last September to $1.875B
Certain industries were hit harder by the COVID-19 pandemic than others, especially in its early days. — Small businesses, including retailers and restaurants …
Rewatch, which builds tools to index, transcribe, and store enterprise video content, raises $20M Series A led by Andreessen Horowitz
We don't hear as much these days about “Zoom fatigue” as we did in the first months after the Covid-19 pandemic kicked off last year …
VMware patches a new bug in vCenter Server, a virtualization management product used by an estimated 43K organizations, that could allow remote code execution
Patch Now! Antonia Din / Heimdal Security Blog : Critical Flaw Is Impacting All vCenter Server Deployments, VMware Alerts Simon Sharwood / The Register : VMware reveals critical vCenter hole it says ‘...
In a first, England's NHS says it will scrape medical histories of 55M patients, including info on mental and sexual health, to be shared with third-parties
55m patients have until June 23 to opt out of having their health data scraped into a new database Tweets: @financialtimes , @foxglovelegal , @foxglovelegal , @we_ownit , and @foxglovelegal Tweets: @f...
Analysis of 40M pieces of QAnon content from 1/20 to 4/21: Facebook, Twitter, and others have successfully expelled most of the content after it peaked in 6/20
The conspiracy's followers on alternative platforms have failed to out-post their counterparts on mainstream ones
Weeks after announcing plans to shut down Azure Blockchain, Microsoft debuts Azure Confidential Ledger, adding a layer of security and scalability to blockchain
Arm unveils Cortex-X2 CPU, which it says offers 30% more performance than current high-end Android phones, and Mali-G710 for Chromebooks and high-end phones
Jon Fingas / Engadget :
Inner Mongolia issues a draft plan to crack down on crypto mining after China's February ban that cited environmental concerns and State Council's recent notice
DataDome, which helps secure e-commerce marketplaces against web scraping, account takeover, and payment fraud, raises $35M Series B led by Elephant
Elevate your enterprise data technology and strategy at Transform 2021. — Bot defense startup DataDome today announced that it raised $35 million …
Austin-based Virtuix, which is developing a VR treadmill for the home, raises $19M Series A-2 from 6,500+ investors
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat :
Toronto-based Xanadu, which wants to build commercial-grade quantum computers that use photons as qubits, raises $100M Series B led by Bessemer Venture Partners
Sara Castellanos / Wall Street Journal :
Microsoft, Accenture, GitHub, ThoughtWorks, and Linux Foundation launch the Green Software Foundation, aiming to make software engineering more sustainable
Vimeo stock fell 12.85% on Tuesday, its first day of trading as a public company after spinning off from IAC, closing at $45.39/share, with a ~$7.2B market cap
UK's Paysend, which offers international money transfers, global accounts, and business banking for SMBs, raises $125M Series B led by One Peak
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch :
Survey finds startling disinterest in ethical use of AI among business execs, with only 35% saying their org tries to use AI in a transparent, accountable way
A look at Oracle's effort to sell Endeca software to Chinese authorities beginning in 2012, and how Oracle touted its use in Chicago for predictive policing
Lightrun, which helps developers debug their live production code from within their IDEs, raises $23M Series A led by Insight Partners
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch :
Aurora Solar, whose software helps solar companies determine how many solar panels fit on a property and an installation's output, raises $250M at $2B valuation
Bloomberg :
Ivi.ru, Russia's most popular video streaming service, raises $250M from VTB Group, Roman Abramovich, and others, after pausing IPO plans earlier this year
Jake Rudnitsky / Bloomberg :
Qualio, whose software helps biopharma companies manage supply chain quality control, raises $50M Series B led by Tiger Global, bringing total raised to $63M+
Boston-based cloud security analytics service Uptycs raises $50M Series C led by Norwest Venture Partners
Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat :
Chinese gaming company NetEase's music streaming arm files for an IPO in Hong Kong, that source says could raise ~$1B; filing shows it had 180M+ MAUs in 2020
Bloomberg :
RaidForums is blocked in Indonesia after a threat actor leaked personal data of 1M citizens after claiming to have personal data of 279M Indonesians in a post
Catalin Cimpanu / The Record : Tweets: @hightechs3c Tweets: @hightechs3c : Got nothing to comment, already feel tired with all of the goverment response in every Cyber Security related Incident. http...
Hundreds of emoji in Android 12 are being revamped with flatter designs and, in some cases, returning to designs from Android 10
Ben Schoon / 9to5Google :
An overview of how AI has contributed to tackling the pandemic, from clinical and epidemiological applications to providing qualitative and relevant information
Maxime Nauwynck / The Gradient :
Contentsquare, which operates a customer experience analytics service, raises $500M Series E led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2, bringing its valuation to $2.8B
Smart Eye, which develops AI-based eye-tracking monitoring systems for automakers, acquires emotion-detection software startup Affectiva for $73.5M
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.