Category: Uncategorized

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch: AppOmni, which helps find and secure vulnerabilities in SaaS app stacks, raises a $70M Series C led by Thoma Bravo, bringing its total funding to $123M  —  As more enterprises migrate apps and workloads into the cloud, so grows the need for more sophisticated tech to secure that activity.

Wall Street Journal: A profile of billionaire crypto investor Mike Novogratz, who got a Luna tattoo before its collapse and whose publicly traded Galaxy Digital is down 69% YTD  —  The Wall Street star became so enamored with cryptocurrencies he had one of them tattooed to his arm.  Then the market crashed.

Shopping for a new phone can be an ordeal. Let us take some of the pain out of it with these WIRED-tested picks and tips.

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch: Reco, which monitors organizations’ internal and external data sharing for security issues, raises a $30M Series A led by Insight Partners and Zeev Ventures  —  Reco (also known as RecoLabs), a company using AI to map a company’s data sharing, today announced that it raised $30 million …

Polar’s newest fitness watch is aimed at runners, but the software is hard to use, and it lacks some basic features.

More than 30 years ago, Andreas Floer changed geometry. Now, two mathematicians have finally figured out how to extend his revolutionary perspective.

Juli Clover / MacRumors: What to expect at WWDC22: overhauled iOS 16 lock screen with widgets, more laptop-like iPadOS 16 multitasking, redesigned MacBook Air, and more, but no headset  —  Apple’s 33rd annual Worldwide Developers Conference is set to kick off on Monday, June 6 at 10:00 a.m. Like the 2020 and 2021 events …

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg: Sources: Apple is working on VR versions of FaceTime and Maps, SwiftUI for AR and VR apps, and extending a Mac’s display to its headset, bringing it into 3D  —  Apple is set to hold its WWDC event on Monday, ushering in iOS 16, iPadOS 16, tvOS 16, watchOS 9 and […]

Emily Birnbaum / Politico: In an email chain mistakenly forwarded to Politico, an Amazon spokesperson asked a consultant to push a narrative that the AICO Act would harm people of color  —  It’s the latest instance of a tech company arguing that regulation would harm communities of color.

Lauren Feiner / CNBC: A look at Democrats’ efforts to pass the AICO Act, which bans Big Tech companies from favoring their products, before the November midterms or end of the year  —  – A major piece of legislation that could reshape the tech industry is just a few steps away from becoming law.

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch: Hourly, an app that lets businesses track working hours, generate payroll, and assign compensation insurance to hourly wage workers, raises a $27M Series A  —  We’ve seen a boom in the last several years around tech built for front-line, service, manual, and other workforces typically paid on an hourly wage.

Although originally published in 1965, Frank Herbert’s classic science fiction novel is still relevant.

Jena McGregor / Forbes: Guild Education, a marketplace for lower-skilled workers to find higher education programs, raises a $175M Series F at a $4.4B valuation, up from $3.75B in 2021  —  New!  Click on the conversation bubble to join the conversation Got it!  —  Guild Education cofounder and CEO Rachel Romer Carlson …

Moneycontrol: Filings: ByteDance, which is reportedly planning to re-enter India, has fully exited its investment in VerSe, parent of Josh and DailyHunt, at a 56% discount  —  ByteDance received $102.67 million for its entire investment.  Considering VerSe Innovation’s $805-million primary fundraise in April …

Reuters: Yandex CEO and co-founder Arkady Volozh resigns after being included in the latest European Union’s sanctions list; the company itself has not been sanctioned  —  Russian internet giant Yandex (YNDX.O) said on Friday that Arkady Volozh had stepped down as CEO and left the board of directors …

Cancel your evening plans, because these titles will keep you engaged for hours on end.

Plus: A new Microsoft Surface laptop, sharable holograms, and Google cleans up its messaging mess.

OK, we’re 50 years late, but WIRED (finally) caught up with one of only six people to ever ride in the Lunar Roving Vehicle on the moon’s surface.

The Canada-based company illegally collected “vast amounts of location data,” such as every time a person entered or left their home, workplace, or another coffee shop.

Betsy Joles / Rest of World: A look at “migrant TikTok”, content by and for migrants journeying to Europe, as platforms struggle to moderate videos referring to illegal smuggling  —  Videos on the harrowing journey between Africa and Europe offer valuable information — and tease a brighter future for migrants

Geoffrey A. Fowler / Washington Post: Rather than expecting users to read and consent to overwhelming privacy policies, laws and tech can help give them real privacy choices  —  Let’s abolish reading privacy policies.  Here’s how we can use the law and technology to give us real privacy choices.

Dairy groups have argued that using the name for plant-based drinks confuses people. Critics say their real motivation is declining sales.

Nikhil Patwardhan / Moneycontrol: Customer engagement service MoEngage raises a $77M Series E led by Goldman Sachs and B Capital; MoEngage has raised close to $140M over the past 12 months  —  MoEngage says it has grown its annualised recurring revenue by more than 105 percent In the last 12 months, and has added 500 […]

Love, Death + Robots director David S. F. Wilson wants to make an atmospheric animated feature film.

The company continues to downplay the severity of the Follina vulnerability, which remains present in all supported versions of Windows.

Fadeke Adegbuyi / every.to: Q&A with Don Caldwell, EIC of Know Your Meme, a 15-year old online encyclopedia of memes with 10 full-time editorial staff, on uncovering meme origins and more  —  Think of any meme.  It could be the scribbled image of party goers and one man—off alone to the side …

Curls and waves are beautiful. But when you want to smooth them out, these hot tools—irons, brushes, and combs—work wonders.

Melia Russell / Insider: Tiger Global-backed email service Superhuman lays off 23 employees, about 22% of its workforce; Superhuman was last valued at $825M in August 2021  —  – Email app Superhuman laid off 22% of its workforce on Friday, the CEO said in a tweet.  — Superhuman makes a premium email app for power […]

Mike Millard / The Block: 2TM, the parent company of Brazil’s largest crypto exchange Mercado Bitcoin, dismisses over 80 employees, or ~12% of its staff; 2TM was valued at $2.1B in 2021  —  Brazil’s 2TM, a holding company for Mercado Bitcoin, the country’s biggest crypto exchange by market valuation, dismissed more than 80 employees this […]

“Refugees can change the world with access to education,” says Alnarjes Harba, a refugee from Syria who recently shared her story at the 2022 Migration Summit — a first-of-its-kind, global convening to address the challenges that displaced communities face in accessing education and employment. At the age of 13, Harba was displaced to Lebanon, where […]

Dairy farmers around the world have an information problem. To get the most accurate measurements of cow health and milk quality, many have to ship milk samples to labs or wait for a technician to come to the farm to collect milk samples from each cow. Now Labby, a startup founded by two MIT alumni, […]

Since he was young, Chih-Wei Joshua Liu ’22 always knew he wanted to be a “physician-scientist,” pursuing research at the intersection of basic science and medicine.  “Growing up, I wanted to do work that concretely helps people,” says Liu. “I also wanted to further our understanding of the universe. Physics describes how nature behaves. From equations, […]

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Focus less on what your company can do and reimagine what it could do.

Few companies report the impact of operations they don’t fully control — but scrutiny on these investments is growing.

With the MOM Network, Alaska and Willam are giving fans a new window into the drag community.

Honor’s first post-Huawei flagship draws on the latter’s past successes with a glorious display and great photos. But it’s no longer on par with the best.

CoinDesk: NY state senate passes bill that would ban crypto-mining operations powered by carbon-based sources for two years; governor now needs to sign bill or veto it  —  The state Assembly already passed the bill, which would bar new mining operations powered by carbon-based energy sources for two years.

Searching clerks’ phones to find out who leaked the Dobbs opinion sets a dangerous precedent of exploiting digital rights.

Taylor Lorenz / Washington Post: Influencers who focused on the Johnny Depp vs. Amber Heard trial made thousands of dollars through platform incentives, shaping public opinion in the process  —  Influencers discovered there’s money and clout to be made in covering breaking news  —  When the verdict came …

Edward Ongweso Jr / VICE: Masayoshi Son used SoftBank’s Vision Fund to build a society mediated by AI, but failed as he invested in firms with exploitative technology, not explorative  —  Masayoshi Son used SoftBank and its $100 billion Vision Fund to remake the world in its image.  It’s not a pleasant picture.

A recent survey found that only 34% of consumers trust the brands they use.

It’s not the weekend yet, but that doesn’t mean you can’t start planning a backyard bash with these discounted projectors, grills, and speakers.

Kate Park / TechCrunch: South Korea-based Rebellions, which builds chips designed for AI applications, raises a $50M Series A from Pavilion Capital and others at a ~$283M valuation  —  Global venture capital firms are pouring money into the semiconductor startups developing the next generation of chips.

Adnan Bhat / Rest of World: Indian edtech firms are struggling post-pandemic; Byju’s-owned WhiteHat Jr. reportedly had ~800 educators quit, Lido shuttered and let go of 1,200 staff  —  The pandemic drove a boom in online education startups.  Now they’re laying off employees by the hundreds.  —  • NEW DELHI, INDIA

Most people wouldn’t put the words “MIT” and “lawyer” in the same sentence. In fact, only 1,393 alumni — about 1 percent — are lawyers, according to the MIT Alumni Association. But a contingent of MIT undergraduates is steadily earning a reputation for its prowess in “fake lawyering.” That’s how head coach Brian Pilchik describes […]

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg: Sources: Apple plans to improve working hours for retail staff, including more hours between shifts, no work for more than five days in a row, and more  —  Apple Inc. has agreed to make work schedules at its retail stores more flexible, according to employees with knowledge of the plans …

Data visualizations on the web are largely inaccessible for blind and low-vision individuals who use screen readers, an assistive technology that reads on-screen elements as text-to-speech. This excludes millions of people from the opportunity to probe and interpret insights that are often presented through charts, such as election results, health statistics, and economic indicators.  When […]

Short-term pivots are unavoidable. But if they don’t align with your big-picture plan, they’ll likely fail.

As the old adage has it, all politics is local. That might seem a quaint idea in an age of social media and global connectivity. And yet, as a study co-led by an MIT political scientist finds, it may describe Middle East politics more accurately than many people realize. More specifically, sectarian identity in the […]