Apple AirPods Pro (second-gen) review: improved ANC, sound quality, and clarity, but same old design, a Lightning connector, and no major new software features
Redesigned inside but not out, the new AirPods Pro are destined to be another hit — even if the magic is waning
Nick Clegg says Meta could lift its ban on Donald Trump's Facebook and Instagram accounts in January 2023, when his suspension expires, after consulting experts
Semafor launches this fall, but we wanted to get this news right out to you. Sign up for Semafor Technology for regular coverage …
UK media regulator Ofcom plans to investigate the cloud computing, personal messaging, and smart device markets over the next year due to competition concerns
- Ofcom, the U.K. media watchdog, is set to launch a study examining the role of Amazon, Microsoft and Google in the cloud services market.
Instagram is working on a feature to protect users from receiving unsolicited nude photos in their DMs; Meta says the tech won't let the company view the photos
Instagram is working on a way to protect users from receiving unsolicited nude photos in their DMs.
Google unveils Chromecast with Google TV (HD), featuring a remote control and supporting only 1080p content with HDR, for $30; the 4K version costs $50
Confirming rumors, Google has unveiled the Chromecast with Google TV (HD) device that offers features from the $50 4K model at a significantly cheaper $30 price.
Sources: to cut costs by 10%+ in a few months, Meta is nudging out staff by reorganizing departments and giving them a limited window to apply for other roles
Facebook parent is looking to reduce costs by at least 10%, people familiar with the plans said, while Google has required some employees to apply for new jobs
Twitter informs some users that due to a bug it didn't close all of their active logged-in sessions on Android and iOS after password resets
Weeks after Twitter's ex-security chief accused the company of cybersecurity mismanagement, Twitter has now informed its users of a bug that didn't close …
An investigation based on nearly 160K Roskomnadzor documents details Russia's expansive surveillance and censorship apparatus, which helps Putin maintain power
Four days into the war in Ukraine, Russia's expansive surveillance and censorship apparatus was already hard at work. Tweets: @paulmozur , @bbhorne , @bbhorne , @fcdservicea_llc , @fcdservicea_llc , @...
Swiss company Proton VPN becomes the latest to leave India over invasive new rules requiring customer data collection, following Surfshark, Nord, and others
Swiss service is latest to pull servers over requirement that companies must save user data and disclose to authorities on demand
A look at the quiet success of AirPods, of which Apple sold an estimated ~120M pairs in 2021, showing how big a business its upcoming niche VR headset could be
Sometime next year, Tim Cook will appear before the Apple Inc. faithful and unveil the company's next major computing platform …
Take-Two Interactive's 2K, the publisher of Bioshock, Xcom, and popular sports games, says a hacker accessed its help desk and sent customers links to malware
American video game publisher 2K has confirmed that its help desk platform was hacked and used to target customers …
A Python directory traversal vulnerability disclosed in August 2007, but never patched, likely affects 350K+ open-source projects and can lead to code execution
A vulnerability in the Python programming language that has been overlooked for 15 years is now back in the spotlight …
Meta-commissioned report from BSR details censorship and allegations of “unintentional bias” against Palestinians during violence by Israeli forces in May 2021
Facebook and Instagram's speech policies harmed fundamental human rights of Palestinian users during a conflagration …
Disney, P&G, LVMH, and other large companies have hired chief metaverse officers to capitalize on Web3 trends, but it's unclear how long they will be needed
Advertising giant Publicis Groupe SA introduced the newest member of its C-suite at a technology conference in Paris this year. Tweets: @bizboyle , @bizboyle , @armstrongdrew , @eliotwb , @alexweprin ...
The FTC says Jeff Bezos and Andy Jassy cannot avoid testifying in an ongoing investigation into Prime membership, after Amazon pushed back against the probe
Commissioners deny company's request to quash subpoenas and pare back investigation — Amazon vs. Walmart: How the Giants Look to Each Other to Best Each Other
Sources: seeking to increase profits, Coinbase hired Wall Street traders and explored using its own cash to trade crypto in 2021, including a $100M transaction
The company completed a $100 million transaction before ending the effort. It says that it hasn't engaged in proprietary trading.
ByteDance unveils Pico 4 VR headset with dual 2,160x2,160 displays, Snapdragon XR2, 128GB for €429 or 256GB for €499, shipping in Europe and Asia on October 18
Pico, the Chinese startup acquired last year by TikTok parent company ByteDance, has a new virtual reality headset on the way.
India proposes a legal framework to regulate over-the-top communications services, such as WhatsApp and Signal, including seeking access to data
Logitech announces the $350 G Cloud Gaming Handheld with Android, a 7" display, Snapdragon 720G, and Xbox and GeForce Now cloud gaming, arriving on October 17
Amid protests, Iran restricts access to WhatsApp and Instagram across major ISPs; Instagram had been one of the few remaining social networks in Iran
NetBlocks :
Instagram, and now TikTok, have fallen afoul of the “Bootleg Ratio”, as clout-chasing accounts overtake content created by users specifically for each platform
TikTok is changing. … That stuff is still on the platform, but it's largely fallen off my For You page … Tweets: @taylorlorenz , @russellbrandom , @joshelman , @jeffhorwitz , @kylebrussell , @katienot...
Immunefi, which helps crypto services create bug bounty programs, raised a $24M Series A led by Framework Ventures
- Immunefi has raised $24 million in Series A funding led by Framework Ventures. — The startup hosts bug bounty programs by crypto projects and earns a 10% commission on bounty payouts.
Kraken CEO Jesse Powell plans to step down and Chief Operating Officer Dave Ripley will succeed him in the coming months; Powell will stay on as chairman
Jeff John Roberts / Fortune :
Nielsen says Amazon Prime's first Thursday NFL game averaged 13.03M viewers while Amazon says it had 15.3M viewers; Amazon guaranteed advertisers 12.5M
Nielsen says 13 million viewers watched the Sept. 15 contest on Prime Video and local over-the-air affiliates.
Twitter expands membership in its Moderation Research Consortium for studying platform governance issues from select partners to all researchers
Earlier this year, Twitter launched the Twitter Moderation Research Consortium (TMRC), a group of experts from across academia, civil society …
Alphabet's DeepMind unveils Sparrow, an AI chatbot that learns from human feedback and searches Google for information to support its claims
The lab trained a chatbot to learn from human feedback and search the internet for information to support its claims.
Florida's attorney general asks the Supreme Court whether the First Amendment prohibits states from regulating how social media companies moderate content
Framework and Google launch the user-upgradeable Framework Laptop Chromebook Edition, shipping for $999+ to the US and Canada in early December; preorders open
Satya Nadella says he's confident that Microsoft can gain approval for its $69B Activision Blizzard purchase, citing several recent acquisitions by Sony
Microsoft Corp. Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella said he's confident the company can gain regulatory approval for its $69 billion purchase …
Larry Page's flying car startup Kittyhawk says it will “wind down” and is “working on the details of what's next”; Kittyhawk was founded as Zee.Aero in 2010
Larry Page's air taxi startup — is shutting down Umar Shakir / The Verge : Larry Page's flying car startup Kitty Hawk is shutting down Kyle Barr / Gizmodo : Air Taxi Company Kittyhawk Calls It Quits K...
WhatsApp confirms Manesh Mahatme, who led its Indian payments business, has stepped down after 18 months; a source says Mahatme plans to rejoin Amazon
Mahatme's resignation comes at a time when WhatsApp's mobile payments business has failed to take off in a significant fashion in India
Governor Jared Polis announces Colorado residents can pay state taxes with cryptocurrencies; Polis is selling NFTs for $52.80 to fund his reelection campaign
the State's coffers will be empty, yet State bills, for services that benefit the public will still need to be paid. What are they going to do then, go into debt on the bet they made? Just nuts. https...
Washington, DC-based GiveCampus, which offers fundraising tools to education-related nonprofits, raised $50M led by Silversmith Capital Partners
and just secured $50M of its own
Spain fines food delivery app Glovo €79M for allegedly denying 10,600+ riders a labor contract since the country's “riders' law” came into effect in August 2021
South Korea details more “abnormal” foreign exchange transactions, most related to crypto, bringing the total to $7.2B since June; 72% went to Hong Kong
Kyungji Cho / Bloomberg :
PolicyLink study: California rideshare drivers make a net median of $6.20/hour after costs and could make an additional ~$10.50/hour if classified as employees
Aarian Marshall / Wired : Source: National Equity Atlas . Tweets: @b____j_____ , @greenhousenyt , and @gbdonart Source: National Equity Atlas : Prop 22 Depresses Wages and Deepens Inequities for Cali...
OpenStore, an e-commerce roll-up company for Shopify merchants, raised $32M led by Lux at a $970M valuation, up 25% from November 2021 when it raised $75M
Many of the e-commerce roll-up companies, also known as aggregators, slowed down this year after a record 2021. Tweets: @christinemhall Tweets: Christine Hall / @christinemhall : While aggregators thi...
OpenAI open sources Whisper, an automatic speech recognition system trained on 680K hours of “multilingual and multitask supervised data” from the web
Microsoft President Brad Smith says the company can't “use what others might consider censorship as a tactic” regarding labeling content that seems to be false
> https://www.bloomberg.com/... See also Mediagazer
Salt Lake City-based Zartico, which offers analytics and visualizations to government-affiliated tourism boards, raised a $20M Series A led by Arthur Ventures
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch :
Delaware Chancery judge rules that Elon Musk can amend his counterclaims and use Twitter's $7.8M severance payment to Peiter Zatko to justify ending the deal
Elon Musk can use a $7.8 million severance payment to a Twitter Inc. whistle-blower to argue he was justified in walking away …
Dubai's crypto regulator grants Binance a license to offer domestic bank accounts, an asset exchange, payments and custody services, and more
Camomile Shumba / CoinDesk : Source: Binance Blog .
India's central bank launches UPI Lite with eight banks to make sub $2.50 transactions faster and simpler on the country's most popular digital payments network
Manish Singh / TechCrunch :
A Texas jury says Meta must pay walkie-talkie app maker Voxer a royalty and $174.5M+ in damages for violating two patents with Facebook Live and Instagram Live
Switzerland-based GRNGrid, a Layer 1 DeFi blockchain that lets users transact on nodes running exclusively on renewable energy, raised $50M from GEM Digital
Brandy Betz / CoinDesk : Tweets: @crypto_dep Tweets: @crypto_dep : ⚡️ @GRNGRID has closed its $50M funding round secured by #GEMDigital The funds will be used to connect with new #crypto exchanges, p...
A leaked presentation shows that Google is working on royalty-free media formats for HDR video and 3D audio, in an effort internally known as Project Caviar
Janko Roettgers / Protocol :
Sensor Tower: TikTok Now, the BeReal clone debuted on September 18, is in the top 10 social networking apps in 39 countries and the top 100 apps in 24 countries
New York City-based Knoetic, which offers analytics tools to HR departments, has raised a $36M Series B led by EQT Ventures, bringing its total funding to $54M
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch :
Munich-based DataGuard, which offers data privacy, information security, and compliance tools, raised a €61M Series B led by Morgan Stanley and One Peak
Megha Paul / Tech.eu :
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.