Category: Uncategorized

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 …

Daniel Van Boom / CNET: Meta’s plan to take up to a 47.5% cut of each virtual transaction on Horizon Worlds draws criticism from NFT proponents; OpenSea takes a 2.5% cut  —  Meta, previously known as Facebook, is figuring out how to monetize the metaverse. … It’s been nearly six months since the company formerly […]

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch: Salsify, which helps e-commerce brands manage inventory, raises a $200M Series F led by TPG at a $2B valuation and says it has 1,200 customers  —  E-commerce is booming, but it’s become increasingly apparent over the years that the businesses that are able to capitalize on that trend …

New York Times: Many tech companies, eager to please employees returning to offices, are providing perks like concerts with pop stars, food trucks, and “appreciation events”  —  Tech companies really want their employees to be happy — or at least less annoyed — about returning.

Cheyenne Ligon / CoinDesk: Former Ethereum developer Virgil Griffith is sentenced to 5+ years in prison and fined $100K for helping North Koreans use cryptocurrencies to evade sanctions  —  Griffith previously pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to violate international sanctions for giving a talk at a crypto conference in Pyongyang in 2019.

Jonathan Greig / The Record: Ukrainian officials say they stopped an attack on an energy facility with help from ESET and Microsoft, and identified a new variant of the Industroyer malware  —  Ukrainian officials said they stopped an attack on an energy facility with the help of researchers from ESET and Microsoft.

Plant-based alternatives to sausages can sometimes lack the textures of meat products, and testing the mechanical properties of the foods explains why

Akshat Rathi / Bloomberg: A look at Stripe’s $925M Frontier initiative, which funds carbon-removal startups and has received funding from Alphabet, Shopify, Meta, and others  —  Some of the world’s largest companies will spend $925 million buying offsets from startups that remove carbon dioxide from the air.

Megan Graham / Wall Street Journal: IAB: US digital ad spend rose 35% YoY to $189B in 2021, the largest gain since 2006; 10 publishers and platforms took 78.6% of the total, up from 78.1% in 2020  —  Advertising has followed shopping online during the pandemic at a breathless rate.  The ad spend was concentrated—78.6% […]

Alex Konrad / Forbes: A profile of a16z’s Chris Dixon, whose early bets on crypto startups, including Coinbase, Uniswap, and Dapper Labs, have made him Forbes’ top VC in the space  —  The Andreessen Horowitz partner is the new no. 1 on Forbes’ 21st annual Midas List of top venture investors, thanks to savvy bets […]

Coco Feng / South China Morning Post: Sources: Meituan plans to lay off ~10%-20% of staff from its core business units after announcing that it added a net 17K jobs from July 2021 to mid-March 2022  —  Up to 20 per cent of Meituan’s staff in core business units, including food and grocery deliveries have […]

The Verge: Meta rolls out a test for a handful of creators to sell virtual items and effects in Horizon Worlds, with Meta taking a 25% cut after a platform fee in Horizon  —  Horizon Worlds will take a 25 percent cut of any sale after app store fees  —  Meta is testing new features […]

Maria Chutchian / Reuters: Cloud services provider Sungard files for bankruptcy with $424M in secured debt, its second bankruptcy filing in three years  —  (Reuters) – Technology company Sungard Availability Services returned to bankruptcy on Monday about three years after wrapping up its prior Chapter 11 case.

A 3D-printed robotic fingertip contains structures that allow it to touch and feel surfaces using the same principles seen in human skin

Zheping Huang / Bloomberg: Sources: China has approved the first batch of video game licenses since its freeze in July; it is unclear if games from Tencent and NetEase were approved  —  China has approved the first batch of new video game licenses since July, people familiar with the matter said …

A robot with thin magnetic plates at each end can be steered and compressed using external magnetic fields so it releases an accurate dose of medicine

Reuters: Sources and leaked docs: senior EU officials were targeted last year with Israeli spyware, including Belgian statesman Didier Reynders; NSO denies involvement  —  Senior officials at the European Commission were targeted last year with spy software designed by an Israeli surveillance firm …

Foo Yun Chee / Reuters: Source: Apple will face an additional EU antitrust charge in the coming weeks, in an investigation into music streaming triggered by a complaint from Spotify  —  Apple (AAPL.O) faces an additional EU antitrust charge in the coming weeks in an investigation triggered by a complaint from Spotify …

Mobile phones ping signals to nearby communications towers, allowing both Ukrainian and Russian soldiers to track the movement of opposition forces

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg: Sources: beta versions of iOS 16, codenamed Sydney, are “chock-full” of references to Apple’s mixed-reality headset and its interactions with the iPhone  —  Apple is set to hold its developers conference virtually for the third year in a row.  Expect major iOS and watchOS upgrades, and perhaps some new Macs.

Jackie Snow / Wall Street Journal: A look at the regulations cities like New York, Barcelona, Amsterdam, Helsinki, and others are adopting as they increasingly use AI to provide public services  —  A look at what New York, London, Barcelona and other places are doing to establish regulations that other cities—and countries—may want to copy

Apoorva Mittal / The Economic Times: Coinbase “temporarily” disables the option to buy cryptocurrencies with the Unified Payments Interface in India; source: the issue is crypto is not legal tender  —  US Co reached out to NPCI following regulator’s clarification on no UPI for cryptocurrencies in India …

Madhumita Murgia / Financial Times: A profile of Father Paolo Benanti, an engineer and ethicist who advises theologians and priests, including Pope Francis, on moral and ethical issues in AI  —  On February 26, two days after war broke out in Europe for the first time in decades, Father Paolo Benanti walked briskly through the […]

Lawrence Abrams / BleepingComputer: A hacking group called NB65 claims it is using modified versions of Conti’s leaked ransomware to attack Russian entities, including the space agency Roscosmos  —  A hacking group used the Conti’s leaked ransomware source code to create their own ransomware to use in cyberattacks against Russian organizations.

Axios: Elon Musk tweets that all Twitter Blue subscribers “should get an authentication checkmark” and suggests the service should be ad-free with a lower price  —  Elon Musk suggested in a series of tweets Saturday night changes to the premium Twitter Blue service …

Emma Roth / The Verge: Twitter reverts a change that left blank spaces in place of deleted embedded tweets and says it is exploring “different options”  —  Twitter says it’s exploring ‘different options’  —  Twitter has confirmed it reversed a change that altered the appearance of deleted tweets embedded …

Issie Lapowsky / Protocol: Meta’s civil rights team made progress in its first year, including removing sensitive ad targeting categories, but experts say it needs to be empowered to act  —  Like everyone, Roy Austin Jr. saw President Trump’s Facebook post that went up in the summer of 2020 — the one where he threatened […]

The Information: Sources: Meta chose a Qualcomm chip for the second version of its Ray-Ban smartglasses, after struggling to develop its own custom chip codenamed Brasilia  —  In late 2021, a team of Meta Platforms employees building a key chip for the second version of Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses was notified …

Ryan Broderick / Fast Company: Inside the Bitcoin 2022 conference in Miami, which felt confusing and disjointed, as the cultural spotlight on Ethereum left Bitcoin feeling a little stale  —  What happens when you’re no longer the hot young cryptocurrency?  That’s the question hanging over the Bitcoin 2022 conference in Miami this week.

Marília Marasciulo / Rest of World: How Brazilian singer Anitta’s fans gamed Spotify’s algorithm to make her song top the charts by switching accounts after 20 streams, creating playlists, more  —  Fans skirted terms and conditions, but a strategy from the singer’s team came close to the streaming platform’s limit.

Byungwook Kim / Reuters: Samsung’s reputation has taken a hit in South Korea, where three major carriers have halved the price of Galaxy S22, amid reports of hobbled device performance  —  Samsung Electronics’ (005930.KS) flagship Galaxy S22 smartphone has taken a battering from reports of hobbled performance …

Clarence Leong / Wall Street Journal: FactSet: revenue growth for China’s tech giants is slowing; the average target for Meituan’s shares fell 20%+ in March, while Tencent and JD’s shares fell 10%+  —  Beijing’s anti-Covid measures are likely to exacerbate a slowdown in revenue growth for companies including Alibaba and Meituan

New York Times: A view of the chip-making process at Intel’s campuses in Hillsboro, OR, and Chandler, AZ, and the infrastructure behind its two planned $10B Arizona fabs  —  As the global chip shortage continues, we take an inside look at how semiconductors are fabricated.

Zheping Huang / Bloomberg: Despite China’s private sector crackdown in 2021, two unidentified Tencent executives still earned ~$200M each; Tencent’s shares dropped 19% in 2021  —  Tencent Holdings Ltd. doled out more than $200 million apiece to two unidentified executives in 2021, even as it cut founder Pony Ma’s compensation …

Fully homomorphic encryption allows us to run analysis on data without ever seeing the contents. It could help us reap the full benefits of big data, from fighting financial fraud to catching diseases early

High radiation levels seen as Russian forces captured the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in February were put down to contaminated topsoil being disturbed, but experts now believe they could have been due to interference with wireless sensors

Betty Hou / Bloomberg: TSMC reports a record ~$17B in Q1 revenue, up 36% YoY and above estimates, boosted by increased demand for chips as the prolonged shortage helped raise prices  —  Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. revenue rose to a record in the first quarter on demand for chips used in smartphones …

Mike Wheatley / SiliconANGLE: Gartner: total global tech spending will rise 4% YoY to $4.4T in 2022, device spending will reach $824.6B, and software spending will rise 9.8% YoY to $674.9B  —  The respected analyst firm Gartner Inc. said today in its latest forecast that worldwide information technology is expected …

Tonya Riley / CyberScoop: US judge sentences Denys Iarmak, a Ukrainian and member of the FIN7 hacking group, to five years in prison; FIN7 has stolen 20M+ credit card numbers since 2015  —  Denys Iarmak, a high-level member of the criminal hacking group FIN7, was sentenced to five years in prison today by a U.S. […]

Kim Lyons / The Verge: Twitter says its ALT badge for images with text descriptions and an expanded description window is now available globally, after testing the features in March  —  The platform said earlier this year it was making improvements to the process  —  Twitter said Thursday that its ALT badge …

Sergiu Gatlan / BleepingComputer: Microsoft says it obtained a court order to take control of seven domains used by Russia-linked hacking group Strontium, disrupting its attacks on Ukraine  —  Microsoft has successfully disrupted attacks against Ukrainian targets coordinated by the Russian APT28 hacking group after taking …

Xinmei Shen / South China Morning Post: Sensor Tower: Tencent’s Honor of Kings and PUBG Mobile are the world’s most lucrative mobile games, respectively earning $735.4M and $643M in revenue in Q1 2022  —  Honour of Kings, PUBG Mobile and Genshin Impact remained the most lucrative mobile games in the world in the first quarter […]

Paul Vigna / Wall Street Journal: One-click checkout service Bolt acquires crypto payments startup Wyre, sources say for around $1.5B  —  Deal extends crypto’s hot M&A market following record deal activity in 2021  —  Bolt Financial Inc., a payments-focused financial technology company, is acquiring crypto-services startup …

Zheping Huang / Bloomberg: Tencent will shutter its game streaming service Penguin Esports on June 7, after China blocked a Tencent-led merger between Huya and DouYu  —  Tencent Holdings Ltd. announced it will shut down its game streaming service, more than a year after Beijing blocked its effort to create China’s equivalent …

An inability to access face-to-face therapy has led to the rise of tech alternatives, but do they really improve mental health, asks Eleanor Morgan

Nitasha Tiku / Washington Post: How Gwyneth Paltrow, Mila Kunis, and others are pushing women to invest in NFTs, which critics see as a form of self-serving feminism centered on white women  —  Gwyneth Paltrow and Mila Kunis joined a Zoom in January to encourage 5,000 women in the audience to break into the male-dominated […]

Wall Street Journal: Sources: banks including JPMorgan, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo are considering whether to use Zelle as a payment option to compete with Visa and Mastercard  —  The money-transfer service boomed amid pandemic.  Some banks want to expand it to retail payments.

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch: Nord Security, the Lithuania-based startup behind NordVPN, raises $100M, its first ever funding, at a $1.6B valuation led by Novator Ventures  —  VPN usage has surged in the last several years, with growing concerns over data privacy and security — and sometimes completely different motivations …

Maria Deutscher / SiliconANGLE: Ascend.io, which develops data automation tools for enterprise customers, raises a $31M Series B led by Tiger Global  —  Data automation startup Ascend.io today announced that it has secured a $31 million funding round led by prominent technology investment firm Tiger Global.

The black-and-white images provided by night-vision cameras can be colourised using AI, but it must always be trained on similar images and is unlikely to ever work on unfamiliar general scenes