IBM’s Red Hat names Matt Hicks, head of products and technologies, as president and chief executive officer, replacing Paul Cormier, who will serve as chairman (Brody Ford/Bloomberg)

Brody Ford / Bloomberg: IBM’s Red Hat names Matt Hicks, head of products and technologies, as president and chief executive officer, replacing Paul Cormier, who will serve as chairman  —  IBM’s Red Hat named Matt Hicks, head of products and technologies, as its new leader, solidifying a bet that hybrid-cloud offerings will fuel the company’s […]

Microsoft says a phishing campaign targeted 10K+ organizations since September 2021 by hijacking Office 365’s authentication process even on accounts with MFA (Dan Goodin/Ars Technica)

Dan Goodin / Ars Technica: Microsoft says a phishing campaign targeted 10K+ organizations since September 2021 by hijacking Office 365’s authentication process even on accounts with MFA  —  Campaign that steals email has targeted at least 10,000 organizations since October.  —  On Tuesday, Microsoft detailed …

A profile of Strider, which scours open-source data from China to identify technologies most at risk of being stolen and spot potential IP thieves (Jordan Robertson/Bloomberg)

Jordan Robertson / Bloomberg: A profile of Strider, which scours open-source data from China to identify technologies most at risk of being stolen and spot potential IP thieves  —  Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee has for decades been a hotbed of US nuclear experimentation.  It’s also a target for countries seeking to steal American […]

After scrutiny, TikTok will pause a privacy update in Europe, due for July 13, whereby it would stop asking users for consent to be tracked to receive ads (Natasha Lomas/TechCrunch)

Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch: After scrutiny, TikTok will pause a privacy update in Europe, due for July 13, whereby it would stop asking users for consent to be tracked to receive ads  —  TikTok has agreed to pause a controversial privacy policy update in Europe, which had been due to happen tomorrow …

XPeng Robotics, an affiliate of Chinese electric carmaker XPeng, raised $100M led by IDG, as it aims to commercialize household robotics in the next two years (Arjun Kharpal/CNBC)

Arjun Kharpal / CNBC: XPeng Robotics, an affiliate of Chinese electric carmaker XPeng, raised $100M led by IDG, as it aims to commercialize household robotics in the next two years  —  – Xpeng Robotics on Tuesday said it raised $100 million as the affiliate company of Chinese electric carmaker Xpeng aims …

Sources: China decided to rein in Tencent after two scandals, including a secret WeChat project to use data to predict new Politburo standing committee members (Lulu Yilun Chen/Bloomberg)

Lulu Yilun Chen / Bloomberg: Sources: China decided to rein in Tencent after two scandals, including a secret WeChat project to use data to predict new Politburo standing committee members  —  Imagine for a second life before smartphones.  Simple tasks—ordering takeout, staying in touch—become frustratingly difficult, never mind dealing with emergencies.

Thomas Krause, Broadcom’s software president, will leave on July 15 and become CEO of combined Citrix and Tibco; CEO Hock Tan will assume his responsibilities (Dean Seal/Wall Street Journal)

Dean Seal / Wall Street Journal: Thomas Krause, Broadcom’s software president, will leave on July 15 and become CEO of combined Citrix and Tibco; CEO Hock Tan will assume his responsibilities  —  Microchip company is in midst of acquiring software company VMware for $61 billion  —  The president of Broadcom Inc.’s AVGO -3.17%▼ …

SEC filing: Twitter’s lawyers call Elon Musk’s deal termination “invalid and wrongful” and say Twitter “breached none of its obligations under the agreement” (Kurt Wagner/Bloomberg)

Kurt Wagner / Bloomberg: SEC filing: Twitter’s lawyers call Elon Musk’s deal termination “invalid and wrongful” and say Twitter “breached none of its obligations under the agreement”  —  Twitter Inc.’s lawyers called Elon Musk’s termination of his $44 billion buyout agreement “invalid and wrongful” …

MIT Libraries staff honored with 2022 Infinite Mile Awards

The MIT Libraries celebrated the exceptional contributions of its employees in June with its 2022 Infinite Mile Awards ceremony. Cleverly orchestrated around a mystery theme, the virtual ceremony featured video skits, a riddle contest, and performances by the libraries’ band, The Dust Jackets.  Awards were presented to individuals and teams in the categories listed below; […]

A programming language for hardware accelerators

Moore’s Law needs a hug. The days of stuffing transistors on little silicon computer chips are numbered, and their life rafts — hardware accelerators — come with a price.  When programming an accelerator — a process where applications offload certain tasks to system hardware especially to accelerate that task — you have to build a whole […]

Germany-based Kadmos, a salary payments service for migrant workers, raises a €29M Series A led by Blossom Capital, after an €8.5M seed round in March (Paul Sawers/TechCrunch)

Paul Sawers / TechCrunch: Germany-based Kadmos, a salary payments service for migrant workers, raises a €29M Series A led by Blossom Capital, after an €8.5M seed round in March  —  Companies from across the industrial spectrum often rely on a migrant workforce, with data from the International Labour Organization indicating …

How North Korean spies infiltrate US crypto firms, posing as remote workers; UN says the country has stolen billions of dollars’ worth of crypto from exchanges (Sean Lyngaas/CNN)

Sean Lyngaas / CNN: How North Korean spies infiltrate US crypto firms, posing as remote workers; UN says the country has stolen billions of dollars’ worth of crypto from exchanges  —  Washington (CNN)Devin, the founder of a cryptocurrency startup based in San Francisco, woke up one day in February to the most bizarre phone call […]

Qiming Venture Partners, an early Xiaomi backer, raised $3.2B across two funds, bringing its total managed to $9.4B across 18 funds (Jane Zhang/Bloomberg)

Jane Zhang / Bloomberg: Qiming Venture Partners, an early Xiaomi backer, raised $3.2B across two funds, bringing its total managed to $9.4B across 18 funds  —  Qiming Venture Partners raised $3.2 billion across two new funds, joining Sequoia China and IDG in securing fresh capital as investors grow more sanguine about the country’s startup arena.

Sources: defense contractor L3Harris scuttled plans to buy NSO Group despite alleged US intel officials’ support, after the Biden admin’s outrage over the talks (New York Times)

New York Times: Sources: defense contractor L3Harris scuttled plans to buy NSO Group despite alleged US intel officials’ support, after the Biden admin’s outrage over the talks  —  The American contractor L3 Harris is said to have cited support from intelligence officials for its effort to acquire NSO …

VC funding in Latin America, which hit a record $14.8B in 2021 according to PitchBook, has slowed down in 2022 as investors without large portfolios pull back (Biz Carson/Protocol)

Biz Carson / Protocol: VC funding in Latin America, which hit a record $14.8B in 2021 according to PitchBook, has slowed down in 2022 as investors without large portfolios pull back  —  Shu Nyatta’s friends thought he was crazy when he said he was going to move to Miami and start investing in companies in […]

A trove of 124k+ internal Uber documents from 2013 to 2017 reveals management discussions and lobbying efforts during the company’s aggressive global expansion (The Guardian)

The Guardian: A trove of 124k+ internal Uber documents from 2013 to 2017 reveals management discussions and lobbying efforts during the company’s aggressive global expansion  —  – More than 124,000 confidential documents leaked to the Guardian  — Files expose attempts to lobby Joe Biden, Olaf Scholz and George Osborne

The war in Ukraine has prompted militaries to invest more money into AI; NATO has announced a ~$1B fund to invest in startups developing “priority” tech like AI (Melissa Heikkilä/MIT Technology Review)

Melissa Heikkilä / MIT Technology Review: The war in Ukraine has prompted militaries to invest more money into AI; NATO has announced a ~$1B fund to invest in startups developing “priority” tech like AI  —  The invasion of Ukraine has prompted militaries to update their arsenals—and Silicon Valley stands to capitalize.

As mobile ad targeting becomes less effective, the “super app” idea could become more appealing in the West with companies scrambling to keep people inside apps (Christopher Mims/Wall Street Journal)

Christopher Mims / Wall Street Journal: As mobile ad targeting becomes less effective, the “super app” idea could become more appealing in the West with companies scrambling to keep people inside apps  —  Super apps, immensely popular in Asia but not in the U.S., are the new hot thing for companies scrambling to capture ever […]

Despite many of CJEU’s rulings saying mass surveillance is banned in the EU, member states have been exploiting loopholes in them to collect and keep the data (Vincent Manancourt/Politico)

Vincent Manancourt / Politico: Despite many of CJEU’s rulings saying mass surveillance is banned in the EU, member states have been exploiting loopholes in them to collect and keep the data  —  Jack Murphy* was suspicious.  His ex-girlfriend, Eve Doherty, seemed to know a lot about who he was calling.  —  His suspicions were merited.

Elon Musk’s offer to buy Twitter likely was a joke, since he previously pretended he would take Tesla private, but he may not be able to get out of the deal (Matt Levine/Bloomberg)

Matt Levine / Bloomberg: Elon Musk’s offer to buy Twitter likely was a joke, since he previously pretended he would take Tesla private, but he may not be able to get out of the deal  —  Programming note: Ugh, here we are again, huh?  —  Oh Elon  —  I think it is helpful to start […]

A look at the quirky geography game GeoGuessr, in which the world’s best players can pinpoint in seconds where a Google Street View image has been taken (Kellen Browning/New York Times)

Kellen Browning / New York Times: A look at the quirky geography game GeoGuessr, in which the world’s best players can pinpoint in seconds where a Google Street View image has been taken  —  In a game called GeoGuessr, competitors try to pinpoint where in the world a Google Street View image has been taken.  […]