The Ronin Network, which supports Sky Mavis' Axie Infinity game, says it was hacked, and 173,600 ETH and 25.5M USDC was stolen, worth $600M+; RON is down ~20%
It may be the largest exploit in DeFi history. — The latest crypto hack may be the largest yet.
Meta paid Republican consulting firm Targeted Victory to orchestrate a campaign against TikTok in the US, including placing op-eds in regional news outlets
Facebook parent company Meta is paying one of the biggest Republican consulting firms in the country to orchestrate a nationwide campaign seeking …
Google adds expanded Markdown support to Docs on the web, off by default, as part of its autocorrect feature
## An alternative to keyboard shortcuts — Google is adding Markdown support to Google Docs on the web, letting you format your document using text shortcuts rather than keyboard ones.
Google adds a “booking page” to Calendar, letting users present available periods for a meeting
Calendar can now generate a webpage of available time slots for a user to pick from. — Google Calendar's latest update promises to take a lot of the back-and-forth out of booking appointments.
A look at the ECASH Act, which would direct the US Treasury to pilot digital dollars that would be stored on hardware and not on a distributed blockchain ledger
If you want the privacy of paper money, you need something that leaves no paper trail. — When you hear the phrase “digital cash,” what comes to mind?
Sources: China is planning expanded restrictions on its huge live-streaming industry, including capping daily tipping and tighter content censorship
Regulators are planning rules limiting virtual tipping of live-streaming hosts and time spent by young people on the apps
Sources: Arm plans to transfer shares from its China joint venture, which it has struggled to control and audit, to SoftBank to speed up a New York listing
Shifting stake in chip designer's joint venture to a SoftBank special purpose vehicle would ease New York flotation
Sky Mavis COO Aleksander Larsen says the company is “committed to reimbursing” Axie Infinity players and is “working on a solution”
The company behind the popular Axie Infinity crypto game said it will reimburse online participants who lost funds after hackers stole …
The UK's FCA extends a key deadline, set for Thursday, for approving crypto companies; the FCA has so far approved 33 companies
The U.K.'s financial regulator is extending a Thursday deadline for its approval of crypto operations, giving a dozen firms more time to get their applications or affairs in order.
Meta updates Messenger with Slack-like shortcuts, /silent to reply without a notification and @everyone to notify all, and plans to add more, like /pay and /gif
There's also one that pings everyone, so please use it responsibly — Meta, the parent company of Facebook …
Waymo plans to offer fully autonomous rides in San Francisco, without a human safety driver, as part of a growing test, and expands in Arizona
The company is also expanding its service area in Phoenix — Waymo plans to start offering rides in its fully autonomous vehicles …
A brief overview of Y Combinator's Demo Day for the Winter 2022 batch, with 414 companies in total and the first batch to receive YC's new standard deal
The TechCrunch team spent today covering the first day of Y Combinator's Winter 2022 Demo Day, which featured half of the 394 companies that plan to virtually present.
As Netflix cracks down on password sharing, a survey of 4,400 US consumers shows 33% of subscribers share their password
About one-third of U.S. subscribers to Netflix share their login credentials with others, according to new data from Leichtman Research Group.
FedEx partners with Elroy Air to trial the Chaparral C1 autonomous drone, which can carry up to 500 pounds of packages, in Texas next year
FedEx plans to test a different method of moving goods between depots starting next year, which could speed up the delivery process.
DeepMind says it made changes to its policies after a female former staff member accused the Google-owned company of mishandling sexual misconduct allegations
Former employee at artificial intelligence group raises concerns about grievance procedure following assault and harassment by senior researcher
Q&A with 2021 Turing Award winner Jack Dongarra, an expert in linear algebra algorithms at the University of Tennessee, on hyperscale cloud computing and more
Even Jack Dongarra has a hard time wrapping his head around the number used to represent “exascale” computing: 1018.
Counterpoint: Motorola was the third largest smartphone OEM in the US in 2021, with a 10% market share, up 131% YoY, filling the void left by LG's exit
LG officially shut down its mobile division last April which left a sizeable hole in the US smartphone market and based …
Sources: Stripe-backed one-click checkout service Fast generated just ~$600K in 2021 revenue; source says Fast tried raising a $100M Series C in late 2021
Several startups have been racing to sell software known as one-click checkout to retailers such as The Honest Company and Forever 21 …
Sources detail internal confusion from Meta moderators and employees over how to enforce content rules during Russia's invasion of Ukraine
The rules over what war content is permitted on Facebook and Instagram keep changing, causing internal confusion. — Meta, which owns Facebook … Tweets: @satariano , @rmac18 , @shiraovide , @rmac18 ,...
A judge approves an $18M settlement between Activision Blizzard and the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, ending the federal sexual harassment lawsuit
Shannon Liao / Washington Post :
WhatsApp says its users send an average of 7B voice messages daily and announces features, including a waveform visualization and out of chat playback
Like most smartphone users in India, I use WhatsApp a lot. But I have never sent anyone a voice message — ever. Turns out, others do.
Spotify expands Blend, which lets two friends merge their tastes in a playlist, to up to 10 users and selected artists, including BTS and Charli XCX
Spotify's popular playlist creation tool, Blend, is getting its biggest update since its offiical launch last year.
Ofcom: around 16% of UK three and four-year-olds view TikTok content, rising to around 33% of children aged five to seven
Three-year-olds are on the video-sharing platform and it may be affecting their attention span — British toddlers are increasingly likely to be users of TikTok …
Verizon blames “bad actors” and engages US law enforcement after its customers and users of its MVNO Visible receive spam texts from their own phone numbers
Sources: the DOJ is investigating whether Google bundling Maps with its other software illegally stifles competition
The U.S. Justice Department has breathed new life into an investigation of Google Maps to determine if bundling the service together with other Google software illegally … Tweets: @leah_nylen Tweets: ...
Hackers are compromising police and government email accounts to send Emergency Data Requests to ISPs, telecoms, social networks, and others, who quickly comply
Intel unveils i9-12900KS, an unlocked i9-12900K meant to be overclocked, with a 30MB L3 cache, 150W base power, a 5.5 GHz max frequency, coming April 5 for $739
Liam Tung / ZDNet :
Scammers are advertising access to Facebook's Media Partner Portal, used by media and PR agencies to resolve issues, to allegedly get users verified
Alleged “ghost agencies” advertise their privileged access to the “Facebook Media Partner Portal” for sale to scammers. — Joseph Cox Tweets: @unspecific , @kimcrayton1 , and @josephfcox Tweets: @uns...
Sources: Yandex, which operates a search engine, ride-hailing services, and more, could run out of semiconductors for servers in 12-18 months due to sanctions
Russia's omnipresent tech company, which created products ranging from the country's dominant search engine to its biggest ride-hail service … Tweets: @tonyhalpin Tweets: Tony Halpin / @tonyhalpin : R...
Microsoft updates Windows 11 to let users change their default browser with a single click, after criticism over Windows 11 making the process more complicated
Meta halts plans to build a large data center in the Netherlands, amid rising opposition from the government over environmental concerns
Nielsen agrees to be acquired by a group of private equity firms, led by Brookfield and Elliott, in a deal valuing it at $16B, or $28 per share, including debt
Anzu, which offers in-game ad services, raises $20M led by NBCUniversal and HTC, bringing its total funding to $37M
Erron Kelly / VentureBeat :
Robinhood says it will add four hours to its trading day, which will stretch from 7am to 8pm ET, in a push to eventually offer 24/7 trading; stock jumps 25%+
Yami, a marketplace for Asian food, skincare products, and household goods in the US, raises a $50M Series B led by Altos and Balsam Bay
When Alex Zhou, founder and CEO of Yami, moved to the Midwest for college in 2007, he had limited access to Asian groceries and products.
Mumbai-based Games24x7, which makes popular mobile games such as RummyCircle, raises $75M led by Malabar Investment at a $2.5B valuation
Manish Singh / TechCrunch :
Source: Philadelphia-based delivery startup Gopuff to lay off ~3% of its staff to cut $40M in costs; layoffs follow the resignations of several key executives
Berber Jin / The Information :
Qure.ai, which uses AI to read and interpret X-rays, CT scans, and ultrasounds for medical image diagnosis, raises $40M led by Novo Holdings and HealthQuad
The Economic Times :
Chinese AR glasses maker Nreal raises a $60M Series C extension led by Alibaba, bringing its total funding to $200M in the past 12 months
Rita Liao / TechCrunch :
ConcertAI, an AI and data startup for healthcare and life sciences, raises a $150M Series C at a $1.9B valuation led by Sixth Street
Mike Wheatley / SiliconANGLE :
London-based Builder.ai, which offers low-code tools to build apps, raises a $100M Series C led by Insight Partners, bringing its total funding to $195M
Mike Butcher / TechCrunch :
Pinecone, which offers a serverless vector database designed specifically for the needs of data scientists, raises a $28M Series A led by Menlo Ventures
Cyberpion, which helps companies secure outside-facing assets and infrastructure, raises a $27M Series A led by U.S. Venture Partners
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch :
Kuaishou reports Q4 revenue of $3.8B, up 35% YoY, with a ~$1B net loss, and MAUs up 21.5% YoY to 578M, as daily time spent per user rose 32% to 118.9 minutes
Zheping Huang / Bloomberg :
Brightline, a provider of virtual behavioral health services to children and their families, raises a $105M Series C at a $705M valuation led by KKR
Gillian Tan / Bloomberg :
New Jersey-based Cross River Bank, a digital bank that offers payment and lending APIs to others, raises $620M at a $3B valuation led by Eldridge and a16z
Mary Ann Azevedo / TechCrunch : Tweets: @bayareawriter Tweets: Mary Ann Azevedo / @bayareawriter : .@crossriverbank's customers include Affirm, Coinbase and Stripe, among others https://twitter.com/....
Israel-based Kooply, still in stealth mode, raises an $18M seed led by Microsoft's M12, TPY Capital, and Playtika to build a mobile games development platform
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch : Tweets: @jofoloco2 Tweets: @jofoloco2 : Wow! Mobile Gaming generated $93.2 billion in revenues in 2021, more than console ($50.4 billion) and PC ($36.7 billion) combined....
Latitud, which helps Latin American startups with incorporation via its Latitud Go service and more, raises a $11.5M seed led by a16z and NFX
BoostUp.ai, whose AI-based revenue operations and intelligence platform is used by companies like Cloudflare and Udemy, raises a $28.5M Series B led by NGP
Shubham Sharma / VentureBeat :
Boston-based Cloaked, which allows users to generate unique email addresses and phone numbers while creating online accounts, raises a $25M Series A
Carly Page / TechCrunch :
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.