Trump announces the Trump Media & Technology Group and TRUTH Social, a social network coming in Nov. to “stand up” to Big Tech, in the App Store for preorder
The former president has been banned from several platforms. — Silenced by many major platforms …
Sources: Mark Zuckerberg has not settled on a new name for Facebook, which could be announced as early as Monday
See you Monday! — Facebook is changing its name. Perhaps you heard. The news was broken by Alex Heath of The Verge on Tuesday night, and I've since confirmed it with sources of my own.
A first look at Android app support on Windows 11: the apps are nicely integrated, run well, and installing them is simple, only requiring Amazon's Appstore app
Android apps can now run on Windows 11 — Microsoft has released the first preview version of its Android apps support in Windows 11.
Microsoft begins letting Windows 11 beta testers try Android apps from the Amazon Appstore, starting with 50 apps including Kindle, Apple Music, and Signal
here's how Shawn Knight / TechSpot : Windows 11 Android app support rolls out to Windows Insiders Brad Linder / Liliputing : How Android apps work on Windows 11 PCs Rafia Shaikh / Wccftech : How to Ru...
Facebook's Oversight Board releases a report demanding more transparency, including for its “cross-check” system, and says 524K appeals have been submitted
Over the last several weeks, media reporting has drawn renewed attention to the seemingly inconsistent …
PleasrDAO, a group of digital asset collectors, says it created an NFT that will stand as an ownership deed for Wu-Tang Clan's one-of-a-kind physical album
The government sold “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin” to satisfy a judgment against its first owner, Martin Shkreli.
Nvidia's GeForce Now cloud gaming service adds a $100/month tier with RTX 3080 GPU, hosted inside a bespoke SuperPod server, offering 1440p games at 120fps
Thanks to new custom servers equipped with RTX 3080 GPUs, GeForce Now will support game streaming at up to 1440p at 120fps—but it'll cost you. Source: Nvidia .
Sources: PayPal has approached Pinterest about an acquisition, potentially valuing it at $39B; Pinterest stock had dropped 16% this year but is up 10%+ today
PayPal Holdings Inc. is exploring an acquisition of social media company Pinterest Inc., people with knowledge of the matter said, Bloomberg News reports.
Apple's product design has improved since Jony Ive left, as it seems to be putting the emphasis back on function over form and is less obsessed with thinness
At one time, even broaching the idea would have been sacrilegious. But here goes: might Apple Inc.'s product design have improved since the departure of Jony Ive?
Apple product orders, including iPad mini, MacBook Pro, and $19 cleaning cloth, are delayed into November and December due to chip shortages and other issues
- Store employees say supply situation is the bleakest in years — Latest iPhones, iPads, Macs and watches all see long delays
Mastodon founder says Trump's TRUTH Social seems to be using a Mastodon fork, based on a screenshot of an error message featuring Mastodon's elephant mascot
Joseph Cox / VICE :
Microsoft Surface Duo 2 review: futuristic design, excellent multitasking, and useful pen support, but buggy, lousy camera, expensive, and awkward form factor
Microsoft's second attempt at a folding phone rights a lot of the original's wrongs, but doesn't fix everything
Bahamas-based crypto exchange FTX raises a $420.69M Series B-1 at a $25B valuation from 69 investors, including BlackRock and Tiger Global
It's a nice Series B-1 for Sam Bankman-Fried's crypto exchange following a $900 million mega-round earlier this year. — FTX has memed itself into another massive funding round.
Internal email: Apple will test unvaccinated corporate staff each time they enter offices starting Nov. 1, and asks US staff to report vaccine status by Oct. 24
- The company is still stopping short of requiring the shots — Unvaccinated retail staff will be asked to test twice a week
Over 2,000 hourly Amazon workers at its Staten Island facilities sign union cards and plan to file with the NLRB by October 25; Amazon opposes the move
An effort said to involve more than 2,000 workers across four Amazon facilities in Staten Island faces obstacles
Google lowers Play Store subscription fees to 15% and fees for ebooks and on-demand music streaming services to “as low as 10%”
Subscription fees are lowered to 15 percent, and music streaming services ‘as low as 10%’ — As regulatory pressure on the Play Store for Android increases …
US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announces a broad investigation into consumer data practices at Amazon, Facebook, Apple, Google, and others
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is expected to seek information on how those firms and others use consumers' financial information Source: Consumer Financial … .
Twitter acquires London-based Sphere, which develops a group chat app and has raised $30M to date
Twitter has acquired London-based Sphere, which operates an eponymous groups chat app, the latest in a series of recent moves from the social network as it looks to aggressively broaden and improve it...
Sports NFT service Candy Digital, owned by sports e-commerce company Fanatics, raises a $100M Series A at a $1.5B valuation from Vision Fund 2 and others
- Fanatics said it raised $100 million for its NFT company Candy Digital as it looks to pivot outside of sports merchandising.
Analysis: Chinese livestream salesman Li Jiaqi, known for trying on makeup on his show, sold $1.9B in goods on Alibaba's Taobao during its Singles' Day festival
- Record on first day of Alibaba's Singles' Day shopping binge — Signals China's consumer strength despite economic slowdown
The Associated Press partners with crypto company Chainlink to authenticate data about elections, sports, and more via its blockchain
The Associated Press, a collective of more than 1,300 newspapers and broadcasters, is moving further into decentralized news and publishing.
Plaid partners with Square, Stripe, and others to help consumers and businesses make payments funded by their bank accounts after its acquisition by Visa failed
The fintech is teaming up with Square, Stripe and dozens of others on a digital pay-by-bank offering
Rippling, an employee data management company led by Parker Conrad, raises $250M at a valuation of $6.5B, bringing its total raised to $450M
Founded by entrepreneur Parker Conrad in 2013, the HR company Zenefits was quickly anointed one of the fast-growing companies in Silicon Valley … Tweets: @ktbenner Tweets: Katie Benner / @ktbenner : ....
Sources: Indonesia's GoTo is raising $1.5B at a $28.5B valuation, including $400M from the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, ahead of an IPO next year
Abu Dhabi Investment Authority-led round lifts super app's value by about 60% ahead of listing — The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority …
Source: Pierre Omidyar's philanthropic organization Luminate handles Frances Haugen's PR in Europe; Omidyar donated $150K to Whistleblower Aid in 2020
Emily Birnbaum / Politico :
Sam Altman's Worldcoin launches its cryptocurrency that it gives in exchange for users' eye scans, says it has 100K users globally and is valued at $1B
- Tech millionaire Sam Altman's new start-up Worldcoin uses orb-shaped devices to scan people's eyes in exchange for free cryptocurrency.
Since May, Google says it has blocked 1.6M messages and restored ~4,000 YouTube influencer accounts affected by a phishing campaign offering fake collaborations
Aisha Counts / Protocol : Source: The Keyword .
IBM reports Q3 revenue of $17.62B, vs. $17.77B est., Global Technology Services revenue of $6.15B, down ~5% YoY, vs $6.25B est.; stock drops 4%+
YouTube Music's free tier will transition to audio-only with background listening next month, with videos reserved for Premium subscribers
Abner Li / 9to5Google :
Spotify partners with Shopify to let artists list merch on profiles for $29/month to $299/month, starting in the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand
Sources: Susquehanna, which owns ~15% of ByteDance, is looking to sell a stake worth ~$500M; source says a shareholder recently sold at a $360B-$370B valuation
- Susquehanna had sought a valuation of more than $400 billion — China's crackdown brings uncertainty to TikTok owner's IPO
Report: Yahoo Finance's mobile app disappeared from the App Store in China, days after republishing a Bloomberg story critical of China's tech crackdown
Mikey Campbell / AppleInsider : Source: Telegraph .
Sources: China suggested Didi, Full Truck Alliance, and online recruitment service Kanzhun explore Hong Kong listings, as Beijing wraps up its investigations
Wall Street Journal :
Paris-based collaborative learning service 360learning raises $200M from Sumeru Equity, Vision Fund 2, and others to fund a US expansion
Benoit Berthelot / Bloomberg :
French labor union-commissioned report: Amazon shipped 258M packages in France in 2020, up from 229M in 2019 but below 419M target, following warehouse closures
Benoit Berthelot / Bloomberg :
Facebook will start demoting all Groups content from users who have violated policies elsewhere on the site, and will let admins review flagged content
Adi Robertson / The Verge :
Hex, which simplifies storing and sharing large data sets with integrations for Snowflake, BigQuery, and others, raises a $16M Series A led by Redpoint Ventures
Ron Miller / TechCrunch :
Chinese chipmaker Clounix, which focuses on network chips, raises $63M across angel and seed, the latter led by China Internet Investment Fund
Liya Su / DealStreetAsia :
Venezuelan delivery app Yummy raises an $18M Series A led by Anthos Capital and says it has over 200,000 registered users
Christine Hall / TechCrunch :
Analysis: Andreessen Horowitz's investment team has grown to 70 in the past four years, up by 170%, outpacing Sequoia, Accel, Lightspeed, and others
SAP's Qualtrics reports Q3 revenue of $271.6M, up 41% YoY, subscription revenue of $220.3M, up 49% YoY, Q4 projected sales of $297M, vs $264M est.; stock up 5%+
Stephen Nellis / Reuters :
Internal memo: Facebook has quietly killed the “Hey Facebook” wake word for Portal, as customers were confused by the phrase and it was affecting usage
Sylvia Varnham O'Regan / The Information : Tweets: @grahamstarr and @amir Tweets: Graham Starr / @grahamstarr : “Hey Facebook” is causing confusion. Portal will only respond if everyone says “Howdy, ...
Honeycomb, which develops a software observability tool used by companies including Stripe and Slack, raises a $50M Series C led by Insight Partners
now it raised a $50 million Series C. Read the pitch deck that made it click. Christine Yen / Honeycomb : How Honeycomb Is Using $50M in New Funding to Bring Observability to All
SkyHive, which develops workforce planning software that lets customers benchmark against competitors by analyzing labor market data, raises a $40M Series B
Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat :
Superplastic, which owns an animated collab house of “synthetic superstars” on social media, raises a $20M Series A, bringing its total funding to $38M
Batch, a company founded by the team behind AppGratis to let companies manage push notifications at scale, raises $23M led by Expedition Capital
Romain Dillet / TechCrunch :
Sommelier Finance, which offers an automated DeFi portfolio manager, raises a $23M Series A led by Polychain Capital
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.