Meta focusing on Europe makes sense for three reasons: raising ARPU in the region to US levels, facing off regulatory headwinds, and attracting cheaper talent (Alex Webb/Bloomberg)

Alex Webb / Bloomberg: Meta focusing on Europe makes sense for three reasons: raising ARPU in the region to US levels, facing off regulatory headwinds, and attracting cheaper talent  —  A sizable chunk of the executive team at Meta Platforms Inc.—Facebook, to you and me—is decamping to London.

A “jailbreak” for John Deere tractors, helping farmers modify and repair them, highlights issues with securing farm equipment and the right-to-repair debate (Lily Hay Newman/Wired)

Lily Hay Newman / Wired: A “jailbreak” for John Deere tractors, helping farmers modify and repair them, highlights issues with securing farm equipment and the right-to-repair debate  —  A hacker has formulated an exploit that provides root access to two popular models of the company’s farm equipment.

Galaxy Digital terminates its $1.2B acquisition of crypto custodian BitGo, announced in May 2021, after the service failed to provide audited statements (Lucy Harley-McKeown/The Block)

Lucy Harley-McKeown / The Block: Galaxy Digital terminates its $1.2B acquisition of crypto custodian BitGo, announced in May 2021, after the service failed to provide audited statements  —  – Galaxy Digital announced on Monday that it would terminate its deal with crypto custodian BitGo, which had been announced in May 2021.

Sources: Apple ads team lead Todd Teresi is now reporting directly to Eddy Cue and wants to increase the group’s ad revenues from $4B a year to double digits (Mark Gurman/Bloomberg)

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg: Sources: Apple ads team lead Todd Teresi is now reporting directly to Eddy Cue and wants to increase the group’s ad revenues from $4B a year to double digits  —  Apple is set to expand ads to new areas of your iPhone and iPad in search of its next big revenue […]

A look at the growing bipartisan scrutiny of TikTok in the US; email: House officials told staff they did not recommend using the app, citing security concerns (David McCabe/New York Times)

David McCabe / New York Times: A look at the growing bipartisan scrutiny of TikTok in the US; email: House officials told staff they did not recommend using the app, citing security concerns  —  National security concerns over the Chinese-owned viral video app remain unresolved.  Lawmakers and regulators are increasingly pushing for action.

New York City-based Kumospace, which offers video chat and remote work tools with a “virtual office” feel, has raised a $21M Series A led by Lightspeed (Kyle Wiggers/TechCrunch)

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch: New York City-based Kumospace, which offers video chat and remote work tools with a “virtual office” feel, has raised a $21M Series A led by Lightspeed  —  After more than two years of remote work, many employees have no interest in returning to the office — at least not without good […]

Source: China has blocked Tencent-backed health platform DXY from posting on Weibo, WeChat, and Douyin amid its criticism of China’s efforts to fight COVID-19 (Cissy Zhou/Nikkei Asia)

Cissy Zhou / Nikkei Asia: Source: China has blocked Tencent-backed health platform DXY from posting on Weibo, WeChat, and Douyin amid its criticism of China’s efforts to fight COVID-19  —  Dingxiang Yuan posted articles debunking use of traditional medicine for virus  —  HONG KONG — China has suspended …

A profile of COO Javier Olivan, who has become Meta’s “unofficial fixer” and has had a hand in all of the company’s major competitive battles and acquisitions (Kurt Wagner/Bloomberg)

Kurt Wagner / Bloomberg: A profile of COO Javier Olivan, who has become Meta’s “unofficial fixer” and has had a hand in all of the company’s major competitive battles and acquisitions  —  In 2008, Facebook was offered only in English—and struggling to expand internationally.

D-Wave completed its planned SPAC merger last week, the third quantum computing startup, after Rigetti and IonQ, to go public via SPAC within the last year (Mark Sullivan/Fast Company)

Mark Sullivan / Fast Company: D-Wave completed its planned SPAC merger last week, the third quantum computing startup, after Rigetti and IonQ, to go public via SPAC within the last year  —  Yet another quantum computing company has gone public via SPAC.  —  D-Wave completed a planned merger on Monday with DPCM Capital …

Power, laws, and planning

Think about almost any locale where people live: Why does it have its current built form? Why do people reside where they do? No doubt there are quirks of geography or history involved. But places are also shaped by money, politics, and the law — in short, by power. Studying those issues is the work […]

China’s internet watchdog publishes a list of 30 algorithms used in popular apps, including Wechat, Taobao, and Douyin, with brief descriptions of their use (Reuters)

Reuters: China’s internet watchdog publishes a list of 30 algorithms used in popular apps, including Wechat, Taobao, and Douyin, with brief descriptions of their use  —  China’s top internet watchdog said on Friday tech giants such as Tencent Holdings and Alibaba Group have submitted details …

Overtime, which distributes original sports content on social media channels, raised a $100M Series D at a $500M valuation, bringing its total funding to $250M (Chris Metinko/Crunchbase News)

Chris Metinko / Crunchbase News: Overtime, which distributes original sports content on social media channels, raised a $100M Series D at a $500M valuation, bringing its total funding to $250M  —  Sports league startup Overtime closed a $100 million Series D valuing the company at $500 million.

Amazon’s new reality show Ring Nation featuring footage from its Ring home security cameras is the company’s latest effort to normalize its surveillance network (Edward Ongweso Jr/VICE)

Edward Ongweso Jr / VICE: Amazon’s new reality show Ring Nation featuring footage from its Ring home security cameras is the company’s latest effort to normalize its surveillance network  —  Amazon’s newest effort to normalize its surveillance network will feature footage from Ring surveillance cameras and commentary from comedian Wanda Sykes.

Dutch authorities arrest a Tornado Cash developer suspected of involvement in concealing money laundering, two days after the US sanctioned the crypto mixer (Yogita Khatri/The Block)

Yogita Khatri / The Block: Dutch authorities arrest a Tornado Cash developer suspected of involvement in concealing money laundering, two days after the US sanctioned the crypto mixer  —  – The Tornado Cash developer arrested by Dutch authorities on Wednesday is Alexey Pertsev, his wife has confirmed to The Block.

Sources: YouTube plans to launch a “channel store” for streaming services as early as this fall and is talking with partners about subscription revenue splits (Wall Street Journal)

Wall Street Journal: Sources: YouTube plans to launch a “channel store” for streaming services as early as this fall and is talking with partners about subscription revenue splits  —  Ultracompetitive U.S. market is prompting streaming services to seek new ways to find subscribers

Hands-on with iOS 16’s Lockdown Mode, which aims to protect against highly targeted attacks by disabling link previews in messages, limiting FaceTime, and more (Zack Whittaker/TechCrunch)

Zack Whittaker / TechCrunch: Hands-on with iOS 16’s Lockdown Mode, which aims to protect against highly targeted attacks by disabling link previews in messages, limiting FaceTime, and more  —  Here’s what the new spyware-busting security feature does, and why it might just work  —  Lockdown Mode is a new Apple feature you should hope you’ll […]

Meta is testing having DoorDash deliver Facebook Marketplace purchases; sources: the service delivers items that fit in a car trunk and are up to 15 miles away (Wall Street Journal)

Wall Street Journal: Meta is testing having DoorDash deliver Facebook Marketplace purchases; sources: the service delivers items that fit in a car trunk and are up to 15 miles away  —  The service will pick up and deliver items that fit in a car trunk to destinations up to 15 miles away

U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren visits MIT to celebrate passage of CHIPS and Science Act

To celebrate the passage of the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022 — which authorizes major funding increases for scientific research and provides about $52 billion for U.S. semiconductor research, development, and manufacturing — Sen. Elizabeth Warren paid a visit to MIT’s state-of-the-art facility for nanoscale science and engineering on Wednesday. She arrived at MIT.nano, […]

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 …