Google plans to bring Privacy Sandbox to Android, preserving its Ad ID system for two years, and says it'll be less disruptive than ATT for advertisers and devs
It says it will give other companies plenty of time to adapt to changes to its Android software. Similar changes made by Apple affected big internet companies.
Mark Zuckerberg outlines changes to Meta's corporate values, including “Move Fast Together”, “Live in the Future”, and “Meta, Metamates, Me”
Meta. Metamates. Me. — At a virtual all-hands meeting on Tuesday, Facebook escalated its attempts …
Google search quality is declining because of too many ads, SEO, and “smart” AI, prompting people to append “reddit” to queries to get more authentic results
Reddit is currently the most popular search engine. The only people who don't know that are the team at Reddit …
Senators Blumenthal (D) and Blackburn (R) unveil the Kids Online Safety Act, requiring platforms offer extra safety and privacy tools for users under 16
A bipartisan pair of senators on Wednesday unveiled a sweeping bill that aims to give parents more control over their children's time online …
Facebook rebrands News Feed to just Feed after more than 15 years
The ‘News Feed’ is now just the ‘Feed’ — Meta is changing the name of Facebook's News Feed, the primary part of the service that users scroll through to see what their friends and family have shared...
Blind patients with Second Sight's electronic retinal implants are in danger of losing their artificial vision as the tech becomes obsolete and unsupported
Second Sight left users of its retinal implants in the dark — Barbara Campbell was walking through a New York City subway station during rush hour … Tweets: @carnage4life , @stephencass , @earthheir...
Ericsson CEO says the company might have made payments to ISIS to gain access to transport routes in Iraq in 2018, causing shares to drop by over 8.5%
Ericsson may have made payments to the ISIS terror organization to gain access to certain transport routes in Iraq, in a shock admission following years of regulatory investigations.
Uber will let riders see a breakdown of their average ratings starting today and publishes data on US cities with the highest and lowest ratings
Also available: five-star ratings — For the first time, Uber is allowing its customers to see how many five-star ratings they've received from drivers …
Twitter says CEO Parag Agrawal will take “a few weeks” of parental leave, less than three months after taking the job, a rare move for a Silicon Valley CEO
Parag Agrawal, 37, is just getting started in one of the technology industry's highest-profile jobs …
Twitter expands a beta test of Safety Mode, which temporarily blocks accounts using harmful language in replies, to 50% of users in the US and 5 other markets
Twitter is broadening access to a feature called Safety Mode, designed to give users a set of tools to defend themselves …
A coalition of crypto companies, including Coinbase, Circle, and Robinhood, announce TRUST, an anti-money laundering platform for securely sharing customer data
Quick Take — A coalition of US crypto firms has created a centralized solution to the information sharing requirements of the travel rule.
Nigerian payments startup Flutterwave raises a $250M Series D at a $3B valuation, making it Africa's most valuable startup, led by B Capital
Payments company becomes the most valuable start-up in Africa as investors bet on continent's scene — Nigerian payments company Flutterwave has raised $250mn …
Shopify beats with Q4 revenue up 41% YoY to $1.38B, as GMV rose 32% YoY to $54.1B, but says FY 2022 revenue growth will be below FY 2021; shares drop 15%+
Shopify Inc. said it expects revenue growth to be lower in 2022 than it was last year as online spending resets after the Covid-19 induced boom …
Microsoft details changes to AltspaceVR to improve safety and moderation, including removing social spaces and making users to sign in with a Microsoft account
You'll also need a Microsoft Account for AltspaceVR soon — Microsoft is removing all social hubs hosted in AltspaceVR …
Uniphore, which uses AI to improve customer support in call centers, raises a $400M Series E at a $2.5B valuation led by NEA
When Umesh Sachdev was pitching at a 2017 MIT event in New Delhi, he stood out to an important visitor: John Chambers. After retiring from his decades-long stint …
Sony's $180 wireless LinkBuds review: comfortable, novel open-style earbud design, superb voice call performance, but so-so battery life for an all-day design
$179.99 — Connect your online and offline worlds digg.com : Are Sony New Earbuds With A Hole Any Good? Here's What The Review Say Mat Smith / Engadget : The Morning After: Sony's weirdest wireless ea...
California lawmakers plan to introduce a bill, with bipartisan support, protecting the online data of children, similar to the UK's age appropriate design code
Financial Times :
Google announces early access to Chrome OS Flex, a version of Chrome OS for businesses and schools that is designed to run on old PCs and Macs
that's not as weird as it sounds Tweets: @kdrag0n : And here's Windows 11 as a VM on Pixel 6 https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/... Sundar Pichai / @sundarpichai : Excited about Chrome OS Fle...
Sources: the UK Home Office is seeking changes to the Online Safety Bill to require platforms monitor “legal but harmful” content, worrying the tech industry
Radical powers in online bill would increase liability of global internet groups beyond current global regulation Tweets: @tim , @matthewlesh , @martinsfp , @jimkillock , @webdevlaw , @sjhmorris , @ut...
Next-day package delivery startup Veho raises a $170M Series B led by Tiger Global at a $1.5B valuation, two months after raising a $125M Series A
Two months after taking on a monster $125 million Series A that propelled the company into unicorn territory, package delivery company Veho …
Genesis, which develops low-code tools for the financial industry, raises a $200M Series B led by Tiger Global, after raising $45M in March 2021
Genesis, which has built a low-code/no-code application platform specifically for the financial markets, announced today it has landed …
Canadian startup Paper, which offers educational tools to K-12 schools in the US and Canada, raises a $270M Series D, bringing its total funding to ~$391M
Paper doubled the number of students on its platform to two million since last year. — On a mission to “democratize access” …
Seattle-based Temporal, an open source service for writing and running cloud apps, raises a $103M Series B at a $1.5B valuation, bringing total funding to $120M
The news: Temporal, a Seattle startup that helps companies write and run cloud applications, has reached unicorn status.
Sources: the SEC is probing if Binance properly disclosed to consumers the relationship between its US arm and two market makers with ties to Binance's founder
Sigma Chain and Merit Peak. Former execs say, as of last year, CZ controlled both firms. https://www.wsj.com/... Joshua Benton / @jbenton : New part-owner of @Forbes —> https://www.wsj.com/... Joe Sal...
Akamai says it will acquire cloud hosting company Linode, which positions itself as an AWS alternative for SMBs and independent developers, for $900M
Kyle Alspach / VentureBeat :
Microsoft rolls out the Amazon Appstore Preview, offering over 1,000 Android apps, in the Microsoft Store, alongside other tweaks to Windows 11
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch :
Alan Davidson, the new NTIA head overseeing federal spending on broadband, says his agency will soon launch a review of competition in the mobile app ecosystem
but he's also talking about helping set administration policy around app stores and privacy. https://www.axios.com/...
Roblox misses with Q4 revenue of $568.8M vs. $604M est., up 83% YoY, average DAUs of 49.5M, up 33% YoY, and average bookings per DAU of $15.57; stock drops 20%+
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat :
Chinese online streaming service Bilibili plans to hire 1,000 censors after the death of a 25-year-old worker; Bilibili had 2,413 censors at the end of 2020
Content monitoring team to be increased 40% amid debate on overwork — Chinese online video streaming service Bilibili plans …
UK-based mobile-only bank Atom Bank raises £75M+ at a £435M valuation, after raising £40M in April 2021, as the startup plans its IPO
Oliver Smith / AltFi :
The European Commission approves plans for a €6B satellite internet system to rival SpaceX and others, despite previous objections from its internal watchdog
Andy Bounds / Financial Times :
Coinbase partners with Remitly on a pilot to let people in Mexico receive and convert crypto transfers into pesos at 37K+ stores, for free until April
After an animal rights group described Neuralink's tests as “invasive and deadly” for 23 monkeys, Neuralink defends testing on animals
The Semiconductor Industry Association says global chip sales grew 26.2% YoY to a record $555.9B in 2021 and forecasts 8.8% growth during 2022
Jane Lanhee Lee / Reuters : Tweets: @siaamerica Tweets: @siaamerica : In 2021, amid the ongoing global chip shortage, semi companies substantially ramped up production to unprecedented levels to addr...
Digital security company Elm, owned by Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund, jumps 30% to $44.30 in its Riyadh trading debut after raising $820M in its IPO
Farah Elbahrawy / Bloomberg :
Australian HR service Employment Hero raises A$181M at a A$1.25B valuation led by Seek Investments and says it is used by 80K SMBs, after raising A$140M in July
Catherine Shu / TechCrunch :
Funding Societies, a digital financing platform for SMBs in Southeast Asia, raises a $144M Series C+ led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2 and $150M in debt
Catherine Shu / TechCrunch :
Airbnb Q4: revenue of $1.53B, vs $1.46 est., and 73.4M nights and experiences booked, down 8% QoQ, vs 75M est., but expects Q1'22 bookings to far exceed Q1'19
Terray Therapeutics, which specializes in AI-enabled drug discovery, emerges from stealth with a $60M Series A led by Madrona Venture Group
Keerthi Vedantam / dot.LA :
WSC Sports, whose AI software cuts video clips of live sports and distributes them in real-time, raises a $100M Series D; clients include Tencent, NBA, and ESPN
Israeli startup Sharegain raises a $64M Series B led by WestCap for its securities lending service that helps financial institutions lend stocks, ETFs, and more
Meir Orbach / CTech :
Cloudinary, which helps companies automate delivering videos and images at scale, raises $100M in a secondary sale from Blackstone Growth at a $2B valuation
Google rolls out Docs updates, including a pageless format announced in May 2021, AI-powered summaries, and Maps embedded previews
Abner Li / 9to5Google :
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.