Singapore-based Merkle Science, a predictive crypto intelligence service with threat detection, risk mitigation, and compliance tools, raised a $24M+ Series A (Brandy Betz/CoinDesk)

Brandy Betz / CoinDesk: Singapore-based Merkle Science, a predictive crypto intelligence service with threat detection, risk mitigation, and compliance tools, raised a $24M+ Series A  —  The threat detection company added funding to its Series A round, which now totals more than $24 million.

Huawei reports H1 revenue dropped 5.9% YoY to ~$44.73B and net profit dropped to ~$2.2B, down from ~$4.7B in H1 2021, as smartphone and laptop sales weaken (David Kirton/Reuters)

David Kirton / Reuters: Huawei reports H1 revenue dropped 5.9% YoY to ~$44.73B and net profit dropped to ~$2.2B, down from ~$4.7B in H1 2021, as smartphone and laptop sales weaken  —  Huawei Technologies (HWT.UL) said on Friday its first-half net profit more than halved as a difficult economy curtailed demand from customers …

Sources: Apple tells its assemblers to make 90M of the newest iPhones, on par with 2021, despite deteriorating projections for the smartphone market (Debby Wu/Bloomberg)

Debby Wu / Bloomberg: Sources: Apple tells its assemblers to make 90M of the newest iPhones, on par with 2021, despite deteriorating projections for the smartphone market  —  Apple Inc. has asked suppliers to build at least as many of its next-generation iPhones this year as in 2021, counting on an affluent clientele …

LinkedIn rolls out new features to court creators, including a clickable link on images, templates for posts, and the ability to mix images and videos (Aisha Malik/TechCrunch)

Aisha Malik / TechCrunch: LinkedIn rolls out new features to court creators, including a clickable link on images, templates for posts, and the ability to mix images and videos  —  LinkedIn announced today that it’s rolling out new features for creators that are designed to make it easier to share visual content on the social […]

Frankfurt-based AAA games studio Gunzilla Games has raised $46M led by Republic Capital and plans to include in-game item trading with NFTs in an upcoming title (Megha Paul/Tech.eu)

Megha Paul / Tech.eu: Frankfurt-based AAA games studio Gunzilla Games has raised $46M led by Republic Capital and plans to include in-game item trading with NFTs in an upcoming title  —  The German startup will use the new funding to build their new platform, GunZ, to enable players to own their in-game possessions

Chinese chipmaker SMIC reports Q2 revenue rose 41.6% YoY to $1.9B vs. $1.89B est., but net profit fell 25% YoY to $514M, amid lockdowns and harsher US sanctions (South China Morning Post)

South China Morning Post: Chinese chipmaker SMIC reports Q2 revenue rose 41.6% YoY to $1.9B vs. $1.89B est., but net profit fell 25% YoY to $514M, amid lockdowns and harsher US sanctions  —  Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC) reported better-than-expected earnings for the June quarter …

A detailed look at how Facebook and Instagram opening links in a custom in-app browser on iOS lets Meta track every interaction, including entering passwords (Felix Krause)

Felix Krause: A detailed look at how Facebook and Instagram opening links in a custom in-app browser on iOS lets Meta track every interaction, including entering passwords  —  The iOS Instagram and Facebook app render all third party links and ads within their app using a custom in-app browser.

As Nigerian payments startup Flutterwave prepares for an IPO, it faces allegations of financial impropriety, a culture of harassment and bullying, and more (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg: As Nigerian payments startup Flutterwave prepares for an IPO, it faces allegations of financial impropriety, a culture of harassment and bullying, and more  —  Africa’s largest startup Flutterwave Inc. is battling allegations of financial impropriety and personnel harassment from Lagos to Nairobi …

Sources: the FTC plans to begin writing online privacy rules, which could take years to enact, and is considering various paths, such as focusing on children (John D. McKinnon/Wall Street Journal)

John D. McKinnon / Wall Street Journal: Sources: the FTC plans to begin writing online privacy rules, which could take years to enact, and is considering various paths, such as focusing on children  —  Lack of a broad federal law has become a growing concern as online platforms and others amass troves of consumers’ search […]

Thinking like a cyber-attacker to protect user data

A component of computer processors that connects different parts of the chip can be exploited by malicious agents who seek to steal secret information from programs running on the computer, MIT researchers have found. Modern computer processors contain many computing units, called cores, which share the same hardware resources. The on-chip interconnect is the component […]

Elliptic: cross-chain bridge RenBridge has been used to launder $540M in crime-related crypto cash since 2020; Conti ransomware group used it to launder $53M+ (MacKenzie Sigalos/CNBC)

MacKenzie Sigalos / CNBC: Elliptic: cross-chain bridge RenBridge has been used to launder $540M in crime-related crypto cash since 2020; Conti ransomware group used it to launder $53M+  —  – RenBridge has been used to launder at least $540 million in crime-related crypto cash since 2020, according to new research from blockchain analytics firm Elliptic.

Bumble reports Q2 revenue up 18% YoY to $220.5M, vs. $219.4 est., a net loss of $6.4M, vs. $2.6M est., and a Q3 guidance below estimates; shares fall 10%+ (Denny Jacob/Wall Street Journal)

Denny Jacob / Wall Street Journal: Bumble reports Q2 revenue up 18% YoY to $220.5M, vs. $219.4 est., a net loss of $6.4M, vs. $2.6M est., and a Q3 guidance below estimates; shares fall 10%+  —  Online dating company trims 2022 revenue guidance; shares slide 11%  —  Bumble Inc. BMBL -1.68%▼ sales climbed in the […]

Disney hits 221.1M global streaming subscribers in Q3, surpassing Netflix’s 220.7M; Disney+ had 152.1M subscribers, Hulu had 46.2M, and ESPN+ had 22.8M (Aisha Malik/TechCrunch)

Aisha Malik / TechCrunch: Disney hits 221.1M global streaming subscribers in Q3, surpassing Netflix’s 220.7M; Disney+ had 152.1M subscribers, Hulu had 46.2M, and ESPN+ had 22.8M  —  The Walt Disney Company reported on Wednesday that total Disney+ subscriptions rose to 152.1 million during the company’s third-quarter, posting better-than-expected results.

Reif, Zuber attend signing of CHIPS and Science bill

            President L. Rafael Reif and Vice President for Research Maria Zuber were among those on hand Tuesday when President Biden signed the “CHIPS and Science” bill into law in an upbeat ceremony on the South Lawn of the White House. The act provides $52 billion in federal funding to advance the U.S. semiconductor industry […]

New programmable materials can sense their own movements

MIT researchers have developed a method for 3D printing materials with tunable mechanical properties, that sense how they are moving and interacting with the environment. The researchers create these sensing structures using just one material and a single run on a 3D printer. To accomplish this, the researchers began with 3D-printed lattice materials and incorporated […]

Caspar Hare, Georgia Perakis named associate deans of Social and Ethical Responsibilities of Computing

Caspar Hare and Georgia Perakis have been appointed the new associate deans of the Social and Ethical Responsibilities of Computing (SERC), a cross-cutting initiative in the MIT Stephen A. Schwarzman College of Computing. Their new roles will take effect on Sept. 1. “Infusing social and ethical aspects of computing in academic research and education is […]

After suffering huge losses, SoftBank plans to reduce its Alibaba stake from 23.7% as of June 30 to 14.6%, raising around $34B in the current quarter (Kosaku Narioka/Wall Street Journal)

Kosaku Narioka / Wall Street Journal: After suffering huge losses, SoftBank plans to reduce its Alibaba stake from 23.7% as of June 30 to 14.6%, raising around $34B in the current quarter  —  Japanese tech investor has been reducing its ties to the Chinese e-commerce company and using holdings to raise cash

Snap launches Snapchat+ in India for ~$0.62 per month, offering exclusive, experimental, and pre-release features; the service costs $3.99/month in the US (Vikas SN/Moneycontrol)

Vikas SN / Moneycontrol: Snap launches Snapchat+ in India for ~$0.62 per month, offering exclusive, experimental, and pre-release features; the service costs $3.99/month in the US  —  Snapchat+, which unlocks a collection of exclusive, experimental, and pre-release features, will be available for a monthly fee of Rs 49

Indonesian digital wallet maker Dana raised $250M from local conglomerate Sinar Mas and Alibaba’s Lazada Group and says it processes 10M transactions/day (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg: Indonesian digital wallet maker Dana raised $250M from local conglomerate Sinar Mas and Alibaba’s Lazada Group and says it processes 10M transactions/day  —  Dana, one of Indonesia’s biggest digital wallet providers, has raised $250 million from local conglomerate Sinar Mas …

Source: BeReal had 7.9M DAUs in July, up from 2M in January 2022; this spring, BeReal raised a Series B led by DST Global at a pre-money valuation of $600M (The Information)

The Information: Source: BeReal had 7.9M DAUs in July, up from 2M in January 2022; this spring, BeReal raised a Series B led by DST Global at a pre-money valuation of $600M  —  The siren song of a fast-growing social media network still holds investors spellbound.  —  Take BeReal.

Court and financial docs show a complex relationship between Voyager and Sam Bankman-Fried’s Alameda, including a possible $1.6B crypto asset loan from Voyager (CNBC)

CNBC: Court and financial docs show a complex relationship between Voyager and Sam Bankman-Fried’s Alameda, including a possible $1.6B crypto asset loan from Voyager  —  – Voyager Digital bankruptcy court proceedings and financial documents show a complex relationship between the company and Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto firms.

Nvidia unveils its Omniverse Avatar Cloud Engine, a suite of cloud-native AI models and services for developers building 3D models of lifelike chatbot avatars (Stephen Shankland/CNET)

Stephen Shankland / CNET: Nvidia unveils its Omniverse Avatar Cloud Engine, a suite of cloud-native AI models and services for developers building 3D models of lifelike chatbot avatars  —  Stephen Shankland  —  What’s happening Why it matters  —  You’re probably used to interacting by voice with digital assistants like Alexa and Siri.

Solving a longstanding conundrum in heat transfer

It is a problem that has beguiled scientists for a century. But, buoyed by a $625,000 Distinguished Early Career Award from the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE), Matteo Bucci, an associate professor in the Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering (NSE), hopes to be close to an answer. Tackling the boiling crisis Whether you’re heating a […]