Valve announces Steam Deck, its long-rumored Switch-like handheld gaming device with a 7" touchscreen display, available in December from $399
It starts at $399 — Valve just announced the Steam Deck, its long-rumored Switch-like handheld gaming device. It will begin shipping in December.
The maker of a new documentary about Anthony Bourdain says he used AI to re-create Bourdain's voice and synthesized the audio of three quotes from the TV host
‘We can have a documentary-ethics panel about it later’ — In a new documentary, Roadrunner, about the life and tragic death …
Sources: Intel is exploring a deal to buy GlobalFoundries, valuing the company at about $30B; GlobalFoundries itself says it isn't aware of any talks
GlobalFoundries, owned by an investment arm of the Abu Dhabi government, has been planning an IPO — Intel Corp. is exploring a deal …
Global smartphone shipments grew 12% YoY in Q2, with Xiaomi up 83% to take a 17% share and pushing past Apple to reach the second place for the first time ever
In Q2 2021, global smartphone shipments increased 12%, as vaccines rolled out around the world, and the new normal for economies and citizens started to take shape.
Dorsey says Square is creating a new business line with the aim of helping devs build decentralized financial services products, primarily focused on Bitcoin
Square Inc. is creating a new business line to help developers build financial services products focused on Bitcoin …
White House says it is alerting Facebook about posts that spread COVID-19 misinfo; US surgeon general calls on social media companies to tackle health misinfo
As the rate of Covid-19 vaccination slows and cases rise again, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy called on tech platforms …
Microsoft and Citizen Lab say government hackers from several countries have used spyware from Israeli vendor Candiru that uses two 0-day exploits in Windows
Microsoft and Citizen Lab found a new kind of spyware made by the mysterious Israeli vendor Candiru, and targeting someone in Europe based on their political beliefs.
Twitter rolls out auto-captions for voice tweets in 11 languages including English, Japanese, and Hindi, more than a year after launching voice tweets on iOS
Twitter was criticized for launching voice tweets without captions — Twitter is now rolling out captions for voice tweets, the company announced Thursday.
Facebook publishes its first quarterly Oversight Board update, noting it fully or partially implemented 14 of 18 board recommendations across 6 cases in Q1 2021
When we launched the Oversight Board, we committed to consider and transparently respond to all of the board's recommendations.
Automattic, owner of Tumblr, buys podcast app Pocket Casts from a public radio collective that includes NPR, which reportedly lost $800K on it last year
A new home for the popular podcast app — Pocket Casts has a new owner. Automattic, which runs WordPress.com and recently purchased Tumblr …
US announces anti-ransomware measures, including rewards of up to $10M for information about foreign state-sanctioned hackers targeting critical infrastructure
BOSTON (AP) — The State Department will offer rewards up to $10 million for information leading to the identification …
Facebook says it is running a test to assess the impact of letting users know when their post was removed as a result of automation
Karissa Bell / Engadget :
Paytm files for an IPO in India, looking to raise $2.2B
Digital payments giant Paytm, one of India's most valuable startups, plans to raise up to $2.2 billion in an initial public offering, it said in draft papers submitted to the country's market regulato...
Binance is halting operations for its stock tokens offering, which launched in April and let users buy and sell tokenized stocks of popular stocks like Tesla
Editor's note: This article has been updated to include an announcement from Hong Kong's financial regulator.
Facebook Messenger adds Soundmojis, which add audible expressions to emoji, accessible through a loudspeaker icon
Messenger chats are about to get louder. … Facebook on Thursday launched “Soundmojis” for its Messenger app. The new feature adds the audible expressions to emoji …
Source: Biden officials meeting with Facebook about vaccine misinfo concluded Facebook is either not taking their concerns seriously, or is hiding something
CNN : Tweets: @donie , @donie , @donie , and @thomasbyrnetd Tweets: Donie O'Sullivan / @donie : NEW w/@kaitlancollins: White House officials are growing increasingly frustrated with Facebook's respon...
Google Cloud VP Amr Awadallah leaves the company, after staff complain about his manifesto called We Are One that he posted online about his past antisemitism
- Google Cloud has abruptly parted with developer relations vice president Amr Awadallah, according to an internal email seen by CNBC.
A US District Court judge ruled in favor of Ripple to allow deposition of former SEC official William Hinman, who in 2018 said Ethereum is not a security
Ripple can ask Hinman about how he came up with “sufficiently decentralized” test for ETH Also puts Hinman in an awkward spot over the $1.6M he was getting from his old law firm while at SEC — a firm ...
Companies are taking supply-chain risks due to the global chip shortage, with some falling victim to fraudsters and sellers hawking counterfeit chips
Global semiconductor shortage attracts fraudsters, counterfeits; 'Of course, a bunch of them didn't work,' a buyer says Tweets: @ajitpai , @stephanieayang , @wsj , and @jchengwsj Tweets: Ajit Pai / @a...
Facebook says BlenderBot 2.0, its updated AI chatbot, can recall past conversations that span months and search the internet to update itself about chat topics
Last April, Facebook's AI research lab (FAIR) announced and released as — open source its BlenderBot social chat app.
China's central bank says its digital yuan trial reached $5.3B in transaction value by end of June, but won't set a timetable for official rollout
Bloomberg :
Reliance Retail says it has acquired a controlling stake in Indian search and discovery company Just Dial for $469M
Reliance Retail said on Friday it has acquired a controlling stake in 25-year-old Indian search and discovery firm Just Dial for $469 million.
In a 2020 diversity report, Twitter says women make up 43% of its staff and have equal salary to men in equivalent jobs, but only earn ~37% of its total payroll
Issie Lapowsky / Protocol :
Facebook says it stopped a campaign by Iranian hackers, targeting about 200 defense and aerospace personnel, primarily from the US, using fake online personas
Hannah Murphy / Financial Times :
Google rolls out a shortcut to delete last 15 minutes of Search history on its iOS app, coming later to its Android app
Abner Li / 9to5Google :
Report: iPhone 12 line accounted for 63% of US iPhone sales in Q3; the iPhone 12 Pro Max had a 23% share while the iPhone 12 mini had a 5% share
José Adorno / 9to5Mac :
PayPal increases weekly cryptocurrency purchase limit fivefold to $100,000 and scraps its annual purchase limit of $50,000
Kate Rooney / CNBC :
Lyft says it will restart its shared rides option starting July 19 in Chicago, Denver, and Philadelphia, after pausing the service last year due to the pandemic
Sara Ashley O'Brien / CNN :
Some tech workers who quit the Bay Area during the pandemic are trickling back, as Twitter reopens its SF HQ and, along with Google, plans to expand in the area
Kellen Browning / New York Times :
Netflix hires ex-Facebook and EA exec Mike Verdu as VP of game development; source: Netflix plans to offer games as a new programming genre within the next year
Bloomberg :
AWS announces general availability of Amazon HealthLake, a HIPAA-eligible service that allows health organizations to store and work with health data in cloud
Stephanie Condon / ZDNet :
Genvid raises $113M Series C to build out its interactive live gaming events
LightShed Ventures is excited to help you build the future https://www.prnewswire.com/... https://twitter.com/... @lux_capital : Congrats to Lux co @Genvid on their Series C. Excited to be a part of y...
iOS 15 and watchOS 8 beta 3 allow users to install system updates even when less than 500 MB of storage is available
Shopmonkey, which provides cloud-based software for auto repair shop management, raises $75M Series C led by Bessemer Venture Partners and Index Ventures
Aria Alamalhodaei / TechCrunch :
Sources: Scribd is in talks to go public as soon as this year, via an IPO in Q4 or through a merger with a SPAC, and could be valued at about $1B
Bloomberg :
Auvik Networks, which develops cloud-based network management software, raises CAD $312M from Great Hill Partners, bringing its total raised to CAD $362M
Meagan Simpson / BetaKit :
China's share of Bitcoin hashrate fell from 75.5% in September 2019 to 46% in April 2021, even before a crackdown; United States' share rose from 4.1% to 16.8%
Clubhouse debuts Backchannel, a DM feature supporting group messages and audio chat, on iOS and Android; the ability to send images or video will be added later
Ashley Carman / The Verge : Tweets: @clubhouse and @sub8u Tweets: @clubhouse : My hat? Tipped My mic? Flashed My messaging? Direct. After we unintentionally leaked their feature 5 times, here's our b...
Aurora Innovation, the autonomous vehicle startup that acquired Uber's self-driving unit in December, to go public via a SPAC merger at a $13B valuation
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.