In an abrupt reversal, OnlyFans suspends its October 1 policy change banning porn after securing “assurances” and aims to provide “a home for all creators”
- OnlyFans is reversing its recent decision to ban porn. — It had planned to prohibit sexually explicit … Source: @onlyfans .
OnlyFans founder Tim Stokely blames banks, including BNY Mellon, Metro Bank, JPMorgan, for its porn ban, but says Mastercard's rules had no bearing on the ban
Tim Stokely says Bank of New York Mellon ‘flagged and rejected’ all interbank wires linked to website
Microsoft says that Xbox Cloud Gaming will expand beyond PC and mobile to its Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, and Xbox One consoles this holiday season
- Microsoft said its Xbox Cloud Gaming service will arrive on console this holiday. — Cloud gaming lets people stream games over the internet rather than install them locally. Source: Xbox Wire .
Fitbit announces Charge 5 with a rounded design, a larger and brighter color AMOLED display, GPS, and more, arriving in the fall for $179.95
It costs $179.95 and will be out this fall — Following a couple of big leaks, Fitbit is officially announcing the Charge 5 … Source: The Keyword .
Facebook's David Marcus says Novi digital wallet is “ready now”, but will wait for the Diem currency, and it is “definitely looking at” building NFT features
Social network is ‘definitely looking’ at digital assets as part of push into financial products, executive says Source: Bloomberg .
Facebook adds features to Messenger on its 10-year anniversary, including word effects, contact sharing, and birthday gifting via Facebook Pay
To celebrate its ten year anniversary, Messenger today announced a handful of new features: poll games, word effects, contact sharing, and birthday gifting via Facebook Pay. Source: About Facebook .
California expands lawsuit against Activision Blizzard to include temp workers and says the game maker interfered with investigation by shredding pertinent docs
California has expanded its anti-discrimination lawsuit against Activision Blizzard, adding temporary workers to the female full …
A look at Vaccine Talk, a tightly moderated Facebook group for vaccine skeptics with ~70K members that aims to change their minds with evidence-based info
As social media giants struggle to crack down on false claims about covid, ordinary users are finding ways to reach vaccine skeptics — and win them over. Tweets: @cwarzel , @ethanz , @aetiology , @lau...
Interview with CISA Director Jen Easterly on attack prevention, hiring new staff, improving CISA's ability to scan federal networks for malicious code, and more
U.S. cybersecurity officials have scrambled to respond to one major hacking incident after another over the past nine months …
Study details how people use hashtags, video effects, and music on TikTok to promote hate against Asians, women, Muslims, Jews, and Black and LGBTQ people
Despite pledges to crack down on hatred, TikTok is still trafficking in short-form videos that promote white supremacy and anti-Black racism … Source: ISD .
Xiaomi reports Q2 revenue rose 64% YoY to $13.56B, as net income rose 80% YoY to $1.28B, and says it will buy autonomous driving startup Deepmotion for ~$77.3M
Xiaomi reported a second-quarter net income of $1.28 billion on revenue of $13.56 billion following the Chinese technology giant's strong surge …
UK's FCA says it is “not capable” of overseeing Binance despite “significant risk” posed by its products, after Binance “refused” to answer basic questions
Company's UK affiliate ‘refused’ to respond to basic questions, says British regulator
Facebook's most-viewed story in Q1, from Chicago Tribune linking a doctor's death to COVID vaccines, shows why publishers should consider how content is shared
On Friday, The New York Times had a scoop. Facebook — that known vector for the spread of kid photos, neighborhood goings-on … Tweets: @jbenton , @wexler , @parkermolloy , @niemanlab , @parkermolloy ...
Brian Chesky says Airbnb will provide free housing for 20,000 Afghan refugees without specifying for how long
will Big Tech answer? Reuters : U.S. companies including Airbnb, Walmart pitch in on Afghanistan aid Harold Maass / The Week : The daily business briefing: August 25, 2021 Jennifer Hassan / Washington...
FBI says a man phished thousands of iCloud accounts via an email scam where he impersonated customer support, stealing 620K photos and 9K videos until mid-2018
and he wasn't even using a VPN. And Apple didn't catch on. Matthew Green / @matthew_d_green : Imagine if instead of stealing photos he'd inserted CSAM images into these accounts. 306 lives would now b...
Balance, which offers a B2B checkout service for merchants and marketplaces, raises $25M Series A led by Ribbit Capital
Balance, a payments platform aimed at B2B merchants and marketplaces, has raised $25 million in a Series A funding round led by Ribbit Capital.
Testing of carriers across the US shows T-Mobile with a commanding lead in 5G, winning speed tests in 24 cities and rural regions to AT&T's eight, Verizon's two
South Korea will abolish a decade-old law that stops kids under 16 from playing online games between 12AM and 6AM, after heavy criticism
The government has decided to abolish the game curfew for children, 10 years after the controversial rule was established, as the outdated law is not having …
A deep look at why expanding into gaming is so important to Netflix, the competition it faces from games like Fortnite, and what its current strategy looks like
In 2018, I released the third entry in my “Netflix Misunderstandings” series: “Netflix Isn't Being Reckless, It's Just Playing a Game No One Else Dares.” Tweets: @modestproposal1 , @ballmatthew , @joa...
Investigation details ForcedEntry, an iMessage “zero-click” attack used by NSO Group that circumvents iOS 14's BlastDoor, likely used by the Bahraini government
How Fannie and Freddie requiring mortgage lenders use its credit scoring algorithm leads to a disproportionately high number of Black applicants being rejected
These two people applied for loans in Chicago, Ill., in 2019. — They both earned $350K-$400K — and their debt level was healthy.
TikTok partners with Shopify to launch a pilot program letting merchants add a shopping tab to their profiles and link to products in their posts
Erin Woo / New York Times : Source: TikTok .
Cribl, which helps companies monitor and analyze data created by their infrastructure, raises $200M Series C, source says at a $1.5B valuation
At a time when remote work, cybersecurity attacks and increased privacy and compliance requirements threaten a company's data …
Researchers: Trump tweets with fact-check labels spread further on Twitter than those without; tweets blocked by Twitter remained popular on Facebook and Reddit
We analyze the spread of Donald Trump's tweets … NYU : Despite Warning Labels, Trump's Election Misinformation Tweets Spread Widely Across Social Media Platforms, New Study Finds Justin Hendrix / Tech...
Knoetic, which builds software for HR departments, comes out of stealth with $18M Series A led by Accel
Knoetic, a startup that has built a software analytics platform for chief people officers, emerged from stealth today with $18 million in Series A funding.
Spotify says all US-based podcasters using Anchor can sell subscriptions to episodes available on RSS and Spotify, expanding internationally later
with exciting new updates! 🚀 Now you can create bonus content and grow your show like never before. You can pick from 20 new pricing tiers, email your subscribers directly, and more. This is your sign...
Apple and Google call on the White House to oppose a South Korean bill, set to face a vote this week, that would mandate multiple payment systems for IAPs
Hunters, a cybersecurity startup that builds tech known as extended threat detection and response (XDR), raises $30M Series B led by Bessemer Venture Partners
With the growing volume of ransomware and supply chain security attacks, there is a need for organizations to more rapidly detect threats. Source: Hunters .
As studios lean into simultaneous theater and streaming releases, high-quality pirated versions of movies are hitting piracy sites within hours of their release
Bootlegging and sharing high-quality digital copies of movies is easier than ever, as studios leaned harder into streaming during pandemic Tweets: @willicaroline and @techdeals_16 See also Mediagazer ...
Groovy Bot, which lets Discord users play music from YouTube videos and other services, is shutting down Aug. 30 after YouTube sent a cease-and-desist notice
Tom Warren / The Verge :
Cerebras Systems claims its hardware can now run a neural network with 120 trillion parameters, targeting a nascent market for massive NLP AI algorithms
Will Knight / Wired :
Klarna says losses in Q2 soared to $111M, up from $10M in Q2 2020, as credit defaults doubled, driven by an expansion in new markets
Swedish ‘buy now, pay later’ start-up continues rapid expansion in new markets — Klarna's losses increased significantly in the second quarter … Source: Klarna .
Indian e-commerce logistics company Delhivery acquires Bengaluru-based Spoton Logistics, sources say for $300M in cash, ahead of a planned IPO
The Economic Times :
Kuaishou reports $3B in Q2 revenue, up 48.8% YoY and beating estimates, as net loss reached $1B; Kuaishou's value has declined by $180B since its Feb. debut
Zheping Huang / Bloomberg :
Profile of Cathie Wood, the CEO of Ark Invest, which manages $85B, whose aggressive bets on Tesla and others have earned her admiration from Reddit traders
UK ICO's Age Appropriate Design Code, aimed at protecting data and limiting ads for kids, comes into effect next Thursday, with large fines for non-compliance
This code came into force on 2 September 2020, with a 12 month transition period. Tweets: Madhumita Murgia / @madhumita29 : The UK's pioneering new law on children's online safety comes into force nex...
Walmart announces GoLocal, a logistics service for third-party US merchants with a variety of delivery types, including same-day
Following Open AI's GPT-3, startups in China, South Korea, Israel, and Germany are building general purpose AI language tools for non-English languages
Will Knight / Wired : Tweets: @willknight and @ilparone Tweets: Will Knight / @willknight : My latest story for @WIRED is about the global rush to build powerful GPT3-type language models. The progra...
Shield AI, which develops AI and self-driving tech for military and commercial aircraft, raises $210M as part of its Series D at a valuation of about $1.25B
Joshua Brustein / Bloomberg :
A look at the Belarusian Cyber Partisans, a hacking group that has released a huge data trove, including from the government and police, to undermine Lukashenko
After being fired as co-head of Google's Ethical AI group, Margaret Mitchell will join Hugging Face, an AI startup that aims to make algorithms fair
Dina Bass / Bloomberg : Tweets: @dinabass , @mmitchell_ai , and @timnitgebru Tweets: Dina Bass / @dinabass : Former Google Co-head of Ethical AI Research Margaret Mitchell will join @huggingface to w...
Some are raising concerns about harmful uses of “netflow data”, which helps map traffic flow across networks and that some ISPs allow to be sold to 3rd parties
Joseph Cox / VICE :
Last-mile delivery robot startup Coco raises $36M Series A led by Sam Altman, Silicon Valley Bank, and Founders Fund, bringing total funding to $43M
Brian Heater / TechCrunch :
NoRedInk, which aims to improve students' writing through a curriculum that pairs adaptive learning with Mad Libs-style prompts, raises $50M Series B
Interview with Discord CEO Jason Citron, who says user numbers doubled and revenue tripled to $130M in 2020, and Discord is developing its own in-house games
Hannah Murphy / Financial Times : Tweets: @chrisrsword and @davidtallon Tweets: Christopher Sword / @chrisrsword : I wouldn't consider myself a Gamer these days. Despite this, I use Discord on a dail...
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.