Alphabet reports Q4 revenue rose 32% YoY to $75.3B and net income grew from $15.2B to $20.6B YoY; Cloud revenue rose from $3.8B to $5.5B YoY; stock rises 5%+
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times for Alphabet in 2021. Bloomberg : Alphabet Seeks More Investors in 20-for-1 Stock Split Leah Montebello / City A.M. : Google parent Alphabet beats r...
Elon Musk announces $500/month Starlink Premium, claiming 150Mbps-500Mbps download speeds, up from 50Mbps-250Mbps, and doubling upload speeds to 20Mbps-40Mbps
The new antenna carries an upfront cost of $2500 — SpaceX's satellite internet service Starlink is getting a pricey new high-performance tier called Starlink Premium.
Google's Q4 ad revenue came in at $61.24B, up 33% YoY; YouTube's ad revenue rose to $8.63B, up 25.4% YoY
Jennifer Elias / CNBC :
Sony reports Q3 gaming revenue fell 8% YoY to ~$7.09B, operating profit rose 12.1% YoY to ~$810M; Sony shipped 3.9M PS5 consoles, bringing the total to 17.3M
The PS4 had sold more at this point — Sony shipped just 3.9 million PlayStation 5 consoles in its all-important holiday quarter …
Sundar Pichai says Pixel “set an all-time quarterly sales record” in Q4 despite supply issues; Alphabet lumps Pixel into its Other category, which grew 22% YoY
Nathan Ingraham / Engadget :
Alphabet says its board has approved a 20-for-1 stock split, slated for July 15 with shareholder approval on July 1; Google last split its stock in April 2014
- Before the Alphabet rebrand in 2015, Google effectively split its stock with the introduction of a third class of shares.
Sources: Bungie's leadership assured employees there will be “no layoffs” or “major” restructuring under Sony, but some staff expressed concern over the deal
Nathan Grayson / Washington Post :
Google brings its One VPN service, which has been available to Android users since October 2020, to iOS for users on the 2TB $9.99/month plan or higher
The VPN service that's included with a Google One Premium subscription is finally available on iPhones after Google's promise in October 2020 that it would come to iOS.
Belgium's data watchdog fines IAB Europe €250K after finding its ad-targeting tool violates GDPR, and orders a “series of remedies” within two months
IAB Europe, an association for online advertising companies, was fined 250,000 euros ($282,690) and handed an ultimatum …
The FBI warns athletes attending the 2022 Winter Olympics and Paralympics in China to take burner phones and says the official MY2022 app poses a security risk
Athletes on their way to the 2022 Winter Olympics have a new item to add to their packing list: a burner phone. Source: CISA .
Cruise raises $1.35B more from SoftBank Vision Fund and launches a waitlist for a driverless robotaxi service in San Francisco that will run from 11pm to 5am
Cruise is opening up its driverless robotaxi service to the public in San Francisco as the GM subsidiary creeps toward commercialization …
AMD Q4: revenue of $4.83B, up 49% YoY, Computing and Graphics revenue of $2.6B, up 32% YoY, Enterprise, Embedded and Semi-Custom revenue of $2.2B, up 75% YoY
- AMD reported fourth quarter earnings after the bell on Tuesday. — AMD said it expected $21.5 billion in sales in 2022, higher than analyst expectations.
How the acquisitions of Zynga by Take-Two, Activision Blizzard by Microsoft, and Bungie by Sony reveal an industry evolution that extends far beyond gaming
Another week, another gaming acquisition. First Take-Two acquired Zynga, then Microsoft acquired Activision-Blizzard …
DeepMind details AlphaCode, a new AI coding engine that it says “writes computer programs at a competitive level”
AlphaCode is good, but not great — not yet — DeepMind has created an AI system named AlphaCode that it says “writes computer programs at a competitive level.”
Sources: Indian officials have held tense and heated discussions with Meta, Google, Twitter, ShareChat, and Koo over proactively removing “fake news”
Indian officials have held heated discussions with Google, Twitter and Facebook for not proactively removing what they described …
EA CEO Andrew Wilson says NFTs are not something the company is “driving on”, just three months after calling NFTs and blockchain “the future of our industry”
Sources: Meta is quietly explaining its metaverse vision to conservative think tanks and nonprofits, seeking to blunt expected criticism from lawmakers in DC
Mark Zuckerberg has a problem money can't fix: convincing Capitol Hill that the metaverse — whatever that is — isn't evil.
Dune Analytics, which makes crypto data charts and dashboards, raises a $69.420M Series B at a $1B valuation led by Coatue, bringing its total funding to $80M
Quick Take — Dune Analytics has hit a valuation of $1 billion with its Series B round. — Dune has big plans in place …
NHTSA: Tesla will issue an OTA update for 53,822 cars and SUVs to remove an FSD feature that let vehicles roll through stop signs without coming to a halt
and who is not a lobbyist — had to protect his tweets due to bullying, which I guess has sufficiently filled the role of Tesla's disbanded PR department https://apnews.com/... Aaron Weiss / @aweiss : ...
YouTube rolls out a new interface for its full-screen player on Android and iOS, making it easier to like or dislike a video, view comments, and share
Mitchell Clark / The Verge :
Investigation shows Chinese drone maker DJI, a leading US law enforcement supplier, obscured investment from four Chinese state-backed groups in recent years
The Chinese firm received funding from several state-backed investors, despite repeated claims that it hasn't taken money from Beijing
The New York Times acquires Wordle, the simple word game that has amassed “millions of daily players”, for “an undisclosed price in the low-seven figures”
Thoughts for the day — I'm not a Wordle guy. It's not that I don't like puzzles, I just missed it. Tweets: Josh Wardle / @powerlanguish : An update on Wordle https://twitter.com/... @caissie : I'm ...
Montreal-based Wrk, which automates common enterprise workflows using bots, APIs, and robotic process automation, raises ~$43M across seed, Series A, and debt
An enduring feature of the pandemic will be the increased deployment of automation in the enterprise.
Nonprofit suicide chat service Crisis Text Line ends its data sharing relationship with for-profit spinoff Loris.ai and asks the company to delete existing data
and it's striking to be offered so much inside info about the CTL/Loris debacle — but it also doesn't fully connect the dots. A few thoughts/questions: https://www.zephoria.org/... @thomasfuchs : “My ...
iOS 15.4 and iPadOS 15.4 beta code shows that push notifications, WebXR, and better PWA support may be coming to Safari
EA reports Q3 revenue of $1.79B, up from $1.67B YoY, net income of $66M, down from $211M YoY, and net bookings of $2.6B, down from $2.4B YoY
it's time to move on Eddie Makuch / GameSpot : EA CEO Shares New Statement On NFTs Electronic Arts Inc. : Battlefield Briefing - The Journey to Season One Marie Dealessandri / GamesIndustry.biz : EA C...
Startups have begun selling and renting out AR spaces tied to real-world addresses, raising questions about who should have the rights to a property's AR layer
It's the stuff of nightmares: The other day, I found my property occupied by a stranger, who was renting it out, Airbnb style. Tweets: @ldrogen , @pierce , @amywebb , @jank0 , @dlberes , @timgrieve , ...
A whistleblower working with the DOJ says NSO Group offered staffers from US mobile security firm Mobileum “bags of cash” for access to global cellular networks
Product management software startup Productboard raises a $125M Series D led by Dragoneer and Tiger Global at a $1.7B valuation, up from $772M in April 2021
Productboard Inc., a product-management software business, has raised $125 million in financing giving it a $1.7 billion valuation.
SEC filing: JD.com CEO Richard Liu will give shares worth ~$2.34B to a charity; Liu is the latest Chinese executive to make a donation amid China's crackdown
CEO Richard Liu is the latest Chinese billionaire to make a sizable donation to charity during Beijing's regulatory crackdown on the country's tech sector
The European Commission publishes a plan to bolster its influence in creating global tech standards, seeking to challenge China and its companies
Laurens Cerulus / Politico :
Black game developers say the video game industry continues to struggle with diversity, as a report shows 4% of devs were Black in 2021, up from 2% in 2005
Jamal Michel / Washington Post :
Despite a brutal 12 months, less than 10% of investors in Cathie Wood's ARK funds have withdrawn their capital, suggesting many will stick with her long-term
By the time the mania surrounding ARK Investment Management peaked last year, investors had pumped a staggering $42 billion into its exchange-traded funds. Tweets: @greenbackd , @jessefelder , and @an...
Chatbot developer Gupshup acquires cloud telephony startup Knowlarity, source says for around $100M; Gupshup works with Amazon, Meta, HSBC, and others
Chatbot developer Gupshup Inc. said it is acquiring cloud communications startup Knowlarity Communications Pvt. to bolster its voice messaging and video solutions capabilities.
PayPal reports Q4 revenue of $6.92B, up 13% YoY, net income of $801M, down from $1.57B YoY; stock down 15%+ on weak Q1 guidance
Lauren Feiner / CNBC :
Finnish open-source database startup MariaDB raises a $104M Series D and plans for an IPO on the NYSE via a SPAC merger seeking a valuation of ~$672M
Internal messages from the Trickbot ransomware gang during 2020 detail its structure, target choices, plans to open St. Petersburg offices, and more
Superpedestrian, which makes e-scooters that detect and correct unsafe riding behavior in real-time, raises a $125M Series C after a $60M round in December 2020
Rebecca Bellan / TechCrunch :
Jellyfish, which provides software to help manage engineering teams, raises a $71M Series C led by Accel, Insight Partners, and Tiger Global
Christine Hall / TechCrunch :
Research: blockchain-based virtual real estate sales hit $501M in 2021 across Sandbox, Decentraland, Cryptovoxels, and Somnium; sales in January 2022 were $85M
PlexTrac, which aims to automate mundane cybersecurity tasks, raises a $70M Series B led by Insight Partners, bringing its total funding to $82M
Kyle Alspach / VentureBeat :
Paris-based Padoa, which offers tools for occupational health professionals, raises €80M led by Five Arrows Growth Capital, bringing its total funding to ~€105M
Dan Taylor / Tech.eu :
The US Commerce Department is finalizing rules for apps deemed to be national security risks, like TikTok, including mandatory third-party audits and monitoring
Some Say Too Slowly—to Address TikTok Security Risk https://www.wsj.com/...
Amid tech stocks' poor performance, especially IPOs, some venture firms are cutting back investments and startup valuations, as they renegotiate funding deals
As everyone with a brokerage account braces for emotional trauma they've rarely … Tweets: Eliot Brown / @eliotwb : Several large startup investors rapidly pulling back -prices for private shares dropp...
League, which makes a health care platform on which payers, providers, and others build their apps, raises a $95M Series C, bringing its total funding to $205M
Michael Schroeder / MedCity News :
Match Group reports Q4 revenue of $806.1M, up 24% YoY, vs. est. $818.6M, with 16.2M paying users, up 15% YoY, forecasts weaker Q1 growth due to Omicron effects
Fourth Quarter 2021 Financial Highlights » Total Revenue grew 24% … Kimberly Chin / Dow Jones Newswires : Match Group 4Q Loss/Shr 60c >MTCH Bill Alpert / Barron's Online : Match Posts Big Sales Jump, ...
SiriusXM rolls out AudioID to track its audience across its apps Pandora and Stitcher and its satellite radio service, offering first-party ad targeting
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.
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.