Category: Uncategorized

Dan Goodin / Ars Technica: Oracle patches a critical bug in Java 15 and above, which lets attackers forge TLS certificates and signatures, two-factor authentication messages, and more  —  A failure to sanity check signatures for division-by-zero flaws makes forgeries easy.  —  Organizations using newer versions …

Manish Singh / TechCrunch: Reliance Industries calls off its $3.4B acquisition of core parts of Indian retail chain Future Group, following Amazon’s legal fight against the deal  —  Reliance Industries “cannot implement” its $3.4 billion deal to acquire core parts of retail chain Future Group after the latter’s secured …

Shruti Shekar / Android Central: Leaked images seem to show a Google Pixel Watch testing model left at a restaurant in the US, with a minimalist design in black and a proprietary Google band  —  If this is the final design of the Google Pixel Watch, then many of the rumors have come true.  —  […]

Emma Roth / The Verge: Apple warns it will remove apps from the App Store that haven’t been “updated in a significant amount of time” and is giving developers 30 days to update them  —  Wiping apps that haven’t been updated in a ‘significant amount of time’  —  Apple may be cracking down on apps […]

Kyle Chayka / New Yorker: Elon Musk’s bid for Twitter appears to be about preserving Twitter as a means for himself and others to continue influencing vast audiences without interference  —  The world’s richest man seems intent on preserving Twitter as a means for himself and others to continue influencing vast audiences without interference.

Joy Press / Vanity Fair: Streamers are acting like network TV, as they pull back on edgy content and seek “elevated broadcasts”, like sitcoms, under financial pressure and competition  —  Desperate for subscriber eyeballs, streamers are pulling back on edgy content—and acting more like the networks they trounced in the revolution.

Bill Curry / Globe and Mail: Documents show wide-ranging opposition from Twitter and others to Canada’s online harms proposals, which the government recently said it will delay implementing  —  Newly released documents reveal Twitter Canada told government officials that a federal plan to create a new internet regulator …

Mimi Billing / Sifted: Stockholm-based Planhat, which provides customer relationship management software to companies, raises a $50M Series A after seven years of bootstrapping  —  Previously bootstrapped Planhat raises one of the Nordics’ largest Series A rounds of 2022  —  Planhat ends bootstrapped journey with $50m Series A

Reuters: China-based Q&A service Zhihu closed down 23.6% in its Hong Kong trading debut, after raising $106M in a secondary listing; Zhihu faces a potential US delisting  —  Question and answer website Zhihu Inc’s (2390.HK) shares ended down 23.6% on Friday in Hong Kong, making it one of the worst ever secondary listing debuts in […]

Debby Wu / Bloomberg: Despite lockdowns and tech crackdowns, China remains the best option for electronic manufacturers due to a comprehensive supply chain ecosystem and lower costs  —  Stringent tech regulations and Covid Zero lockdowns are challenging tech’s ties to China.  But first…

Dave Lee / Financial Times: Interview with Dave Limp, Amazon’s head of devices and services, on why he thinks ambient computing will enhance the real world, Fire phone’s failure, and Astro  —  When Amazon launched Alexa — its voice-activated virtual assistant — in 2014, it was met with scepticism.

Kif Leswing / CNBC: As of Friday’s close, Netflix had a $99.2B market cap, down from $300B+ in November 2021; Meta had a $532.6B market cap after passing $1T in June 2021  —  – The tech market has plunged since its peak in November, and Netflix and Facebook have been hit particularly hard.

Ash Parrish / The Verge: The NLRB rules that 21 QA employees at Activision Blizzard’s Raven Software unit are allowed to have a union election; they have until May 20 to submit ballots  —  The employees have until May 20th to submit their ballots  —  Twenty-one Raven Software QA employees have until May 20th …

Bloomberg: Sources detail how Elon Musk convinced Morgan Stanley and 11 other banks to back his Twitter bid, including ideas on how to run the business and boost revenue  —  Publicly, Elon Musk has said he doesn’t care about the economics of owning Twitter Inc.  —  But during a hectic …

Reuters: Investigation details Binance’s efforts to build ties with the Russian government, including handing over data on opposition leader Alexei Navalny in April 2021  —  In April 2021, Russia’s financial intelligence unit met in Moscow with the regional head of Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange.

BBC: The UK’s Department for Transport outlines rules for self-driving vehicles, including letting drivers watch TV on the go, ahead of a full framework in 2025  —  People using self-driving cars will be allowed to watch television on built-in screens under proposed updates to the Highway Code.

Researchers hoping to identify bacteria capable of consuming radioactive waste at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant fear their work has been destroyed by Russian troops

Cecilia Kang / New York Times: As the EU prepares its third landmark tech law in the last few years, the US has enacted just two narrow federal tech laws in the past 25 years  —  Federal privacy bills, security legislation and antitrust laws to address the power of the tech giants have all failed […]

Lauren Feiner / CNBC: In a speech on disinformation, Obama said social media firms’ design choices contribute to polarization, and called for more transparency and Section 230 reform  —  – Former President Barack Obama criticized social media companies for contributing to polarization through design choices on their platforms.

Megha Mandavia / Wall Street Journal: Indian government data: Google Pay and Walmart-backed PhonePe have a combined 80%+ share in India’s mobile payments market, WhatsApp has a 0.02% share  —  India will be a crucial market for Meta’s global e-commerce ambitions, but multiple missteps there are holding it back

Laurie Clarke / MIT Technology Review: How crypto investors are pushing for semi-autonomous crypto zones in Central America, as they risk repeating the region’s long history of corporate colonialism  —  A new class of crypto investors have bold plans to rebuild society from scratch.  But their pet projects risk repeating the region’s long history of […]

Researchers have designed proteins that self-assemble into tiny machine parts for use in molecular engines

Breaking the News, a new exhibition at the British Library, explores how our consumption of world affairs has transformed over five centuries of publication in Britain

Robotic limbs that are controlled by electrostatic brakes rather than many motors could lead to a new generation of lightweight robots

Nimah Quadri / Fortune: Oyster, an HR service aimed at distributed workforces, raises a $150M Series C led by Georgian at a $1B+ valuation, up from $475M in June 2021  —  Never miss a story: Follow your favorite topics and authors to get a personalized email with the journalism that matters most to you.

Wall Street Journal: A look at Russia’s efforts to promote homegrown social media like Rutube and VKontakte, even as local content creators choose to stick with Western services  —  Kremlin cracks down on Western social media, but Russia’s homemade alternatives are a tough sell

Bloomberg: Filings: Apple spent $2.5M on US lobbying in Q1 2022, up 34% from $1.86M in Q4 2021; Google spent $2.96M in Q1, up 34% QoQ but flat YoY; Microsoft spent $2.5M  —  Apple Inc. spent a record quarterly high of $2.5 million on lobbying in the first three months of 2022 amid increased pressure […]

Joseph Menn / Washington Post: A look at the downfall of Russian tech companies amid Putin’s crackdowns; Yandex looks to sell its news unit, Group-IB’s founder was arrested for treason, more  —  Yandex, VKontakte and Kaspersky all ran afoul of the Kremlin’s need to control Internet access, despite the efforts of their founders

Existing 3D printers work by building up an object one layer at a time, making it difficult to produce some intricate shapes, but a new technique involving lasers could change that

Bloomberg: Sources: Barack and Michelle Obama’s production company Higher Ground will not be signing a new deal with Spotify, and is in talks with others like Audible  —  Barack and Michelle Obama’s time with Spotify Technology SA is coming to an end.  —  The former first family’s production company …

Maria Deutscher / SiliconANGLE: Statsig, which offers a cloud-based tool for companies to streamline A/B testing, raises a $43M Series B led by Sequoia Capital  —  Sequoia Capital has led a $43 million funding round for Statsig Inc., a startup that helps companies find ways to improve their applications and websites.

A prototype surveillance drone can save power and stay on task for longer by sticking to walls and powering down its rotors, but only by making a crash landing

Nikkei Asia: Analysis: half of Apple’s top 200 suppliers have facilities in and around Shanghai, where China’s COVID-19 lockdowns are disrupting activity  —  slong COVID lockdown in Shanghai is creating chaos for Apple suppliers based in and around the city.  (Source photos by Getty Images and Reuters) …

Nicole Carpenter / Polygon: Microsoft’s Chris Novak, currently head of Xbox R&D, is leaving after nearly 20 years; Novak has previously worked on Xbox Game Pass and Live  —  From Xbox design director, to architect, to leading Xbox research and design  —  If you’ve subscribed to Game Pass or obsessed over Xbox achievements …

Bloomberg: Google and Meta restrict the accounts of Hong Kong’s sole chief executive candidate, John Lee, citing US sanctions from 2020 on Lee for crushing protests  —  Google and Meta Platforms Inc. moved on Wednesday to curtail the social media presence of Hong Kong’s sole chief executive candidate …

Manish Singh / TechCrunch: Reed Hastings says Netflix plans to offer a cheaper, ad-supported plan to consumers “over the next year or two”  —  Netflix plans to offer cheaper, ad-supported tiers to consumers over the next year or two, the world’s largest on-demand video streaming service said Tuesday …

Alex Weprin / The Hollywood Reporter: Reed Hastings says Netflix plans to offer cheaper, ad-supported plans and that Netflix will examine what those plans will look like “over the next year or two”  —  Co-CEO Reed Hastings revealed the move on an earnings call after the streaming giant disclosed it lost 200,000 subscribers during its […]

Researchers claim to have uncovered cyberattacks using Pegasus software against 10 Downing Street and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch: Demostack, which offers a “demo experience” service for SaaS sales teams, raises a $34M Series B led by Tiger Global, bringing its total funding to $51.5M  —  Demostack, a San Francisco, California-based startup creating a “demo experience” platform for software-as-a-service …

Umar Shakir / The Verge: DuckDuckGo CEO Gabriel Weinberg says reports of the service removing piracy websites are “made up” and blames an issue with its site:operator search function  —  Blank site search results for The Pirate Bay gave users reason to believe otherwise

Scott Carpenter / Bloomberg: A look at Xsolla, a video game payments company founded in 2005 by Aleksandr Agapitov with nearly $100M in 2021 revenue from Epic, Valve, Roblox, and more  —  Aleksandr Agapitov is little known inside video gaming circles, let alone the business world.  —  Yet his company is one of the leading […]

Jacquelyn Melinek / TechCrunch: BlockApps, which is building the enterprise-focused Strato blockchain, raises $41M led by Liberty City Ventures, bringing its total funding to $50M  —  While the digital asset industry has brought in some skeptics over the past couple years, investors are hoping that crypto startups …

Annie Palmer / CNBC: Amazon discloses that it will conduct a racial equity audit led by former US Attorney General Loretta Lynch, in response to a shareholder proposal  —  – Amazon said it will conduct a racial-equity audit, led by former U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch.  — The company disclosed the audit …

Careful observation of the power consumption of a circuit board can reveal telltale signs that an attacker has tampered with it and installed a malicious device designed to steal sensitive information or cause crashes, say researchers.

Natasha Mascarenhas / TechCrunch: a16z unveils Start, an accelerator that offers early-stage founders up to $1M in capital from its seed fund, after quietly piloting the program for over a year  —  For more than a year, Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) has quietly piloted its own take on an accelerator for early-stage entrepreneurs …

Kif Leswing / CNBC: Apple employees unionizing at Grand Central Terminal store want a $30/hour minimum pay, tuition reimbursement, more vacation time, and better retirement options  —  – Workers organizing a union at Apple’s Grand Central Terminal store are seeking minimum pay of $30 per hour.

Ignacio Olivera Doll / Bloomberg: Fan tokens issued by Manchester City and other soccer clubs have proven to be a disappointment for hopeful fans, with prices quickly losing steam within days  —  As soon as rumors started buzzing that soccer star Lionel Messi would transfer from FC Barcelona to Paris Saint-Germain in August …

Matt Wirz / Wall Street Journal: A profile of Eva Shang, whose investment firm Legalist uses AI to fund lawsuits with a stronger chance of winning and has raised $400M in the past six months  —  Fund manager, startup founder, blogger: Eva Shang is cracking the private debt market.  The $400 million she raised in […]

Bloomberg: China’s National Bureau of Statistics: quarterly chip production dropped 4.2% QoQ in March, the first time since early 2019, amid weaker demand and lockdowns  —  China’s quarterly production of semiconductors shrunk for the first time since early 2019 as consumer electronics demand softened …

Kate Kaye / Protocol: Virtual classroom startup Class is testing Intel’s “emotion AI” tech that claims to detect bored, distracted, or confused students, raising privacy questions  —  When college instructor Angela Dancey wants to decipher whether her first-year English students comprehend what she’s trying …