China issues regulations for food delivery platforms, mandating minimum wage, respect for worker rights, and more, leading to Meituan shares dropping by 14%+
- It extended losses after Beijing issued food platform curbs — Meituan is grappling with a broader antitrust investigation
Analysts and US officials say the disinformation-for-hire industry is booming, as influencers get approached by back-alley firms to spread falsehoods
Back-alley firms meddle in elections and promote falsehoods on behalf of clients who can claim deniability, escalating our era of unreality.
FTX and Binance will curb highly leveraged cryptocurrency trading, a practice that can vastly multiply losses; FTX offered 101x leverage, now down to 20x
The moves would reduce the size of the bets that investors can make by drastically cutting the maximum leverage offered.
In a blow to the edtech sector, China orders tutoring companies teaching the school curriculum to go non-profit, bans them from IPOs and raising foreign capital
Bloomberg :
China's tech crackdown has focused on consumer-facing internet companies, perhaps because Xi believes hard tech like chipmaking is more geopolitically important
Noah Smith / Noahpinion :
As part of its expanded outreach to US churches, Facebook is offering subscription tools for exclusive content and donation tools during live streams
The company is intensifying formal partnerships with faith groups across the United States and shaping the future of religious experience.
China's edtech overhaul could eliminate foreign investors from the sector and wipe out billions invested by Sequoia, Tiger, Tencent, and SoftBank's Vision Fund
Financial Times :
Spotify adds a What's New feed on iOS and Android, showing continually updating new releases from followed artists, rolling out over the coming weeks
Spotify is introducing a feature to notify people when their favorite artists and podcast producers have a new release to check out.
Mark Gurman: Face ID on the Mac is likely coming within a couple of years, and all iPhones and iPads will transition to Face ID within that timeframe, too
but there's a catch Oliver Haslam / iMore : Gurman: Face ID could be on Macs, all iPhones and iPads soon Vanshika Malhotra / BGR India : Face ID to reach Macs, all iPhones and iPads in a couple of yea...
Ex-Google employee recounts how Google abandoned a redesign attempt of Chrome on Android, which was similar to iOS 15's Safari, with the URL bar at the bottom
Apple's mobile web browser is the main lightning rod of this year's iOS 15 beta period and it remains to be seen whether it will actually launch in the fall. Source: Chris Lee .
As China cracks down, SoftBank's Vision Fund has lost $4B on its Didi investment, as its 20.1% stake bought for $11.8B in 2019 is now worth $7.8B
Financial Times : Tweets: @therealjoshye , @therealjoshye , @therealjoshye , @therealjoshye , and @alex Tweets: @therealjoshye : Safe to say: Softbank is not happy. “The Vision Fund's 20.1 per cent s...
Sources: DOJ is probing whether Tether execs committed bank fraud in its early stages; Tethers in circulation are worth ~$62B, underpin >50% of bitcoin trades
- Tether says it's committed to cooperating with law enforcement — A U.S. probe into Tether is homing in on whether executives behind …
Now-deleted job listings suggest Citizen is paying people in NYC and LA up to $250 per a ten-hour shift to livestream crime scenes and other emergencies
Want to make $200 a day in New York City? Rush to the scene of a murder, a three-alarm fire or a traffic accident — then pull out your phone and start shooting.
Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft, YouTube, and others will now add content from white supremacist and far-right militias to a key counterterrorism database
A counterterrorism organization formed by some of the biggest U.S. tech companies including Facebook (FB.O) and Microsoft (MSFT.O) …
A look at some of the metrics that FTC can use to define Facebook's alleged monopoly in its refiled antitrust suit, including time on-site and “active users”
Despite some compelling allegations, a federal judge dismissed the FTC's antitrust complaint against Facebook due …
WhatsApp CEO says they had recorded an attack against 1,400 users over a two-week period in 2019, casting doubts on NSO's defense against Pegasus project claims
FTC asks a federal judge for an extension until August 19 to file an updated antitrust suit against Facebook and says Facebook has agreed to the proposal
Cecilia Kang / New York Times :
As QR codes proliferate among hospitality and retail businesses due to the pandemic, privacy experts warn of businesses tracking customers and spending patterns
Fueled by a desire for touchless transactions, QR codes popped up everywhere in the pandemic. Businesses don't want to give them up. Tweets: @nytimesbusiness , @foxcahn , @martinsfp , and @tonyromm T...
A look at the Intel World Open esports competition at the Tokyo Olympics, which took place entirely online, outside of the official games, and was laggy
Shannon Liao / Washington Post :
Q&A with Erin Saltman of Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism, backed by Facebook and others, on redefining extremism, working with members, and more
Issie Lapowsky / Protocol : Tweets: @protocol , @issielapowsky , and @issielapowsky Tweets: @protocol : Soon after the Jan. 6 riot, the tech industry's leading anti-terrorism alliance decided to expa...
Box rolls out Box Sign, which lets users electronically sign contracts and request signatures, following its $55M acquisition of SignRequest earlier this year
Box Inc. is building out its content cloud with the addition of an important new capability. — The company said today it's rolling …
EU gives Google two months to improve the way it presents search results for flights and hotels, and explain how it ranks such results, or face sanctions
Alphabet unit Google (GOOGL.O) has two months to improve the way it presents internet search results for flights and hotels and explain …
Byju's says it will acquire Singapore-based professional training and higher education service Great Learning for $600M in cash and stock
A week after it bought digital reading platform Epic … Balakumar K / TechRadar : Six acquisitions for Byju's in 2021 so far - Great Learning and Toppr in its kitty now Madhurima Nandy / DealStreetAsia...
Kenyan tech founders say there is a funding bias toward North American and European expats in the country; analysis: only one Kenyan founder raised $1M+ in 2019
but their founders are rarely Kenyan https://restofworld.org/... @restofworld : In 2019, only one of the Kenyan startups that raised more than $1 million had a local founder. Four startups had a mix o...
Sources: Indonesia's GoTo, created by the Gojek and PT Tokopedia merger, is in talks to raise $1B-$2B at a $25B-$30B valuation, as it plans an IPO
Bloomberg :
As China ramps up testing of its digital yuan, its call for help from Ant and Tencent has led to an awkward dynamic, as Alipay and WeChat Pay are rivals
Jing Yang / Wall Street Journal :
Solarisbank raises $224M at a $1.65B valuation to acquire rival banking-as-a-service company Contis and expand its API-based embedded banking tech in Europe
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch :
Biden has to play hardball with platforms like Facebook that amplify disinformation in order to prioritize Americans' wellbeing over Big Tech's whims
government or corporate—to take meaningful action that actually protects consumers.” - @Moonalice https://www.wired.com/... Jason Kint / @jason_kint : 100% agree with importance of Justice Departmen...
Parking apps in the US have seen a new wave of customers amid a surge in car ownership spurred by people avoiding mass transit and ride sharing due to COVID-19
Priya Anand / Bloomberg : Tweets: @bw Tweets: @bw : Drivers are back, and so is hunting for a parking spot. These apps are cashing in. https://www.bloomberg.com/...
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.