Category: Uncategorized

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 …

Michael McSweeney / The Block: Beanstalk, a credit-focused stablecoin protocol using Ethereum, was exploited for ~$182M in various crypto assets by someone who had amassed governance tokens  —  Beanstalk, a credit-focused stablecoin protocol built on Ethereum, was exploited Sunday morning.

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg: The iPad needs a “pro” mode when the device is connected to a keyboard and a trackpad, with Mac-like multitasking, a proper desktop, and more for advanced users  —  Ahead of Apple’s developers conference, here’s how I suggest fixing its iPad software conundrum: a “pro mode” …

Reuters: Didi announces a shareholder meeting on May 23 to vote on delisting of its shares from the NYSE and reports Q4 2021 revenue of $6.4B, down about 12.6% YoY  —  Didi Global Inc (DIDI.N) will hold an extraordinary general meeting (EGM) on May 23 to vote on its delisting plans in the United States […]

Nathan Baschez / Every: Twitter should not only open source its algorithm but also create a marketplace where anyone can build their own algorithms, and use the ones created by others  —  You don’t have to be IN real estate to invest in it.  Fundrise is an easy-to-use platform that lets you build …

Jonathan Haidt / The Atlantic: Social media platforms have weakened major forces that bind democracies together, especially after 2009 when the virality of social media started to intensify  —  What would it have been like to live in Babel in the days after its destruction?  In the Book of Genesis, we are told …

Reed Albergotti / Washington Post: Workers at Apple’s flagship Grand Central Terminal store in Manhattan have begun to formally collect signatures to form a union  —  If successful, the effort would be the first time an Apple retail location has unionized  —  Workers at Apple’s flagship Grand Central Terminal retail location …

Mike Masnick / Techdirt: Musk’s free speech definition is utter nonsense and his suggestions for Twitter completely ignore decades of content moderation iteration on social platforms  —  from the not-how-any-of-this-works dept  —  Lots of talk yesterday as Elon Musk made a hostile takeover bid for all of Twitter.

Rebecca Szkutak / Forbes: A profile of Anna Fang, CEO of China-based ZhenFund, who has backed 30+ seed-stage startups that became unicorns and 90+ startups that had a successful exit  —  When ZhenFund CEO Anna Fang was new to venture investing, her mentor told her that the right entrepreneurs to back are the ones …

Sergiu Gatlan / BleepingComputer: GitHub says an attacker used stolen OAuth user tokens issued to Heroku and Travis-CI to download data from private repositories belonging to npm and other orgs  —  GitHub revealed today that an attacker is using stolen user tokens (issued to Heroku and Travis-CI OAuth) to download data from private repositories.

Bloomberg: At least seven crypto firms have suspended rupee deposits; CoinGecko: daily trading volumes on Indian crypto exchanges have fallen 88%-96% since peaking in 2021  —  When Surojit Chatterjee walked on stage at a Coinbase Global Inc. conference in Bengaluru, India, on April 7 …

Zack Whittaker / TechCrunch: An interview with a former Xinjiang prisoner, who details how China extensively uses tech like Hikvision surveillance cameras to facilitate human rights abuses  —  The rare firsthand account will help investigate human rights abuses  —  For 10 months in 2018, Ovalbek Turdakun was a prisoner …

Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat: Coda Payments, which offers cross-border payments for games, alternative app stores, and other digital products, raises $690M at a $2.5B valuation  —  Coda Payments has raised $690 million in funding to enable cross-border payments for games and other digital products, as well as alternative app stores.

Aliya Chaudhry / TechCrunch: Opera launches its Crypto Browser app on iOS, with a built-in crypto wallet, direct access to cryptocurrency and NFT exchanges, dApps, and more  —  Opera has launched the iOS version of their Crypto Browser, designed for accessing web3, with a non-custodial crypto wallet built-in.

Josh Kosman / New York Post: Sources: Elon Musk is speaking to investors, including Silver Lake, to partner with him on a bid for Twitter; a partnership could be announced within days  —  Elon Musk is speaking to investors who could partner with him on a bid for Twitter, sources close to the matter told […]

MIT students Bhav Jain and Liberty Ladd have been selected as 2022 Truman Scholars. Truman Scholars demonstrate outstanding leadership potential, a commitment to a career in government or the nonprofit sector, and academic excellence. Jain and Ladd join 56 other scholars who were selected from 705 candidates nominated by 275 colleges and universities. President L. […]

Reuters: China bans livestreaming of unauthorized video games, particularly of overseas games or competitions that have not been approved  —  China said on Friday the livestreaming of unauthorised video games was banned, signalling stricter enforcement of rules as part of its broad crackdown …

Joanna Ossinger / Bloomberg: Fasset, which lets users in emerging markets to buy and sell digital assets easily and conveniently, raises a $22M Series A led by Liberty City and Fatima Gobi  —  Fasset, a digital-asset gateway, is planning a major expansion in some areas of the Islamic world, as it seeks to boost the […]

Aiming lasers at the cameras used in driverless cars caused them to incorrectly interpret red traffic lights as green 30 per cent of the time

Manish Singh / TechCrunch: Rapido, whose bike taxi service is available in about 100 Indian cities, raises a $180M Series D led by Swiggy, at a $800M valuation  —  Swiggy has led a $180 million financing round into bike taxi startup Rapido as the Indian food delivery giant looks to broaden its fleet network across […]

Sam Kessler / CoinDesk: A lawsuit filed against OlympusDAO’s co-founders over $20M+ in the DAO’s native tokens could unmask their identities, testing the limits of pseudonymity in DAOs  —  An early Olympus investor alleges he was cheated out of millions of OHM tokens when key smart contracts were rendered inoperable.

Jay Fitzgerald / CRN: California-based Twingate, which offers zero-trust security tools for enterprise, raises a $42M Series B led by Bond Capital  —  ‘We think there’s a huge opportunity to work with channel members to help them solve the security problems of their clients,’ says CEO Tony Huie.

Bloomberg: Sources: Twitter’s board is considering a poison pill after Elon Musk’s bid; a source says another plan under consideration is saying that the offer is too low  —  Twitter Inc.’s board is considering adopting a measure that would protect the company from hostile acquisition bids …

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch: Filevine, which offers tools to help with legal workflows such as document management and billing, raises a $108M Series D, bringing its total funding to $155M  —  Filevine, a startup offering a software-as-a-service product for legal case management, today announced that it closed …

Jasmine Hicks / The Verge: Reddit updates its search to index comments, available globally on the web but not its apps, and improves natural language searches  —  The new rollout also comes with a refined search experience for desktop users on the platform  —  Today, Reddit is updating its search feature to index comments.

Swetha Gopinath / Bloomberg: PitchBook: VCs invested $148B globally in Q1, down 25% from $191B in Q4 2021, as rising inflation and the war in Ukraine dampen investor appetites  —  Private companies globally are pulling back sharply on raising new funds, as pressure on public markets begins to weigh on the lofty valuations sought by […]

Saritha Rai / Bloomberg: India’s ban on Chinese apps, including TikTok, has allowed homegrown short-video apps like Josh to thrive; Josh has 150M+ MAUs and a $5B valuation as of April  —  Jiya Kiran Valambhia’s success story as a social media influencer is a familiar one in the age of TikTok.

Nicolle Liu / Wall Street Journal: After the pandemic forced employees to work from home, some neurodivergent people are thriving at remote cybersecurity jobs  —  The Covid-19 pandemic forced many employees to work from home, leveling the playing field for people with conditions such as autism, who might not fare as well in office settings

Callan Quinn / The Block: Context, an app that lets users follow and track other people’s crypto wallets and transactions, raises a $19.5M seed led by Variant Fund and Sam Altman  —  Quick Take  — The round was led by Variant Fund and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.  — The firm’s app lets users track on-chain […]

The sounds of cities can make it hard to discern the underground signals that indicate an earthquake is happening, but deep learning algorithms could filter out this noise

JD Shadel / Them: Analysis of Google search results for 50+ trans celebrities shows transphobic suggestions, such as “before surgery” or “as a guy”; Google says it fixed an issue  —  When the world has a question, we Google it.  Processing more than three billion searches a day …