Behind the rise of Kuaishou’s short-form video app Kwai in Brazil, where it has amassed 45M+ monthly active users by appealing to people with blue collar jobs (Rest of World)

Rest of World: Behind the rise of Kuaishou’s short-form video app Kwai in Brazil, where it has amassed 45M+ monthly active users by appealing to people with blue collar jobs  —  Kuaishou is chasing novela creators and working-class users in Latin America to keep up with the competition.

A look at growing online meth communities on Zoom, Reddit, and others as they attract little attention from content moderators, worsening the addiction problem (Benjamin Goggin/NBC News)

Benjamin Goggin / NBC News: A look at growing online meth communities on Zoom, Reddit, and others as they attract little attention from content moderators, worsening the addiction problem  —  In December, Paul went home for the holidays.  Like many people, he hadn’t seen his family for almost a year.

Stilt, a provider of financial services to immigrants, raises a $14M Series A and $100M in debt and launches an API to help fintechs offer credit building tools (Mary Ann Azevedo/TechCrunch)

Mary Ann Azevedo / TechCrunch: Stilt, a provider of financial services to immigrants, raises a $14M Series A and $100M in debt and launches an API to help fintechs offer credit building tools  —  Stilt, which started its life as a provider of financial services for immigrants, has raised $14 million in Series A funding […]

Interview with CrowdTangle co-founder Brandon Silverman on social networks’ responsibility to open up, including by doing and sharing their own research (Casey Newton/Platformer)

Casey Newton / Platformer: Interview with CrowdTangle co-founder Brandon Silverman on social networks’ responsibility to open up, including by doing and sharing their own research  —  CrowdTangle co-founder Brandon Silverman on social networks’ responsibility to open up  —  Brandon Silverman knows more about how stories spread on Facebook than almost anyone.

Twitter updated its iOS app to let users swipe between the algorithmic Home and reverse chronological Latest timelines but users can’t make Latest the default (Jay Peters/The Verge)

Jay Peters / The Verge: Twitter updated its iOS app to let users swipe between the algorithmic Home and reverse chronological Latest timelines but users can’t make Latest the default  —  You won’t be able to default to the chronological timeline  —  Twitter is rolling out a change that, frustratingly …

People are sending news about Ukraine to Russians using a website that randomly selects from a list of ~20M phone numbers and ~140M email addresses in Russia (Bojan Pancevski/Wall Street Journal)

Bojan Pancevski / Wall Street Journal: People are sending news about Ukraine to Russians using a website that randomly selects from a list of ~20M phone numbers and ~140M email addresses in Russia  —  Website developed by hackers is new initiative in West’s battle to counter Russia’s propaganda campaign

Sources: Chinese brands have cut their smartphone shipments to Russia in half since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine because of the ruble’s collapse and sanctions (Financial Times)

Financial Times: Sources: Chinese brands have cut their smartphone shipments to Russia in half since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine because of the ruble’s collapse and sanctions  —  Currency and sanctions stop China’s companies from taking advantage of exodus of western brands

An investigation into OnlyFans owner Leo Radvinsky, who has attracted law enforcement scrutiny amid reports of wage theft and potential underage sexual activity (Scott Stedman/Forensic News)

Scott Stedman / Forensic News: An investigation into OnlyFans owner Leo Radvinsky, who has attracted law enforcement scrutiny amid reports of wage theft and potential underage sexual activity  —  The first digital trace of Leo Radvinsky dates back to 1997 when Radvinsky, then just 15-years-old, acted as a webmaster …

Sources: India’s market regulator has tightened scrutiny of IPO-bound firms after Paytm’s IPO debacle, worrying startups which fear delays in listing plans (Reuters)

Reuters: Sources: India’s market regulator has tightened scrutiny of IPO-bound firms after Paytm’s IPO debacle, worrying startups which fear delays in listing plans  —  India has tightened scrutiny of IPO-bound firms by questioning how key internal business metrics are used to arrive at valuations …

Mark Bernstein, a prominent Russian Wikipedia editor, is detained in Belarus for “distributing fake anti-Russian information” after being doxxed on Telegram (Victoria Song/The Verge)

Victoria Song / The Verge: Mark Bernstein, a prominent Russian Wikipedia editor, is detained in Belarus for “distributing fake anti-Russian information” after being doxxed on Telegram  —  The editor was doxxed on Telegram prior to the arrest  —  The Main Directorate for Combating Organized Crime and Corruption of Belarus …

Yuga Labs, the creator of Bored Ape Yacht Club, acquires NFT collections CryptoPunks and Meebits from Larva Labs, along with 400+ CryptoPunks and 1.7K+ Meebits (Jacob Kastrenakes/The Verge)

Jacob Kastrenakes / The Verge: Yuga Labs, the creator of Bored Ape Yacht Club, acquires NFT collections CryptoPunks and Meebits from Larva Labs, along with 400+ CryptoPunks and 1.7K+ Meebits  —  Yuga Labs now controls three of the most valuable NFT collections on the market  —  Yuga Labs, the creator of Bored Ape Yacht Club […]

Uber will add a temporary $.45-$.55 surcharge per trip for US and Canada riders, and $.35-$.45 for Uber Eats due to higher gas prices; fees will go to drivers (Kif Leswing/CNBC)

Kif Leswing / CNBC: Uber will add a temporary $.45-$.55 surcharge per trip for US and Canada riders, and $.35-$.45 for Uber Eats due to higher gas prices; fees will go to drivers  —  – Uber is adding a surcharge on fares and deliveries in the U.S. and Canada in response to surging gas prices, […]

How to clean solar panels without water

Solar power is expected to reach 10 percent of global power generation by the year 2030, and much of that is likely to be located in desert areas, where sunlight is abundant. But the accumulation of dust on solar panels or mirrors is already a significant issue — it can reduce the output of photovoltaic […]

HBS Professor Linda Hill Says Leaders Must Engage with Emotions as Never Before

Skills leaders need today from the professor who wrote the book on leadership.

A look at Loli Police Department, a police roleplay group in VRChat allowing nearly 11,000 of its members move through the ranks based on their activity level (Jessica Lucas/Input)

Jessica Lucas / Input: A look at Loli Police Department, a police roleplay group in VRChat allowing nearly 11,000 of its members move through the ranks based on their activity level  —  Early last year, Jura was at the spa, chilling in a communal bath and having a casual chat with friends, when the Loli […]

EU and the UK open an antitrust probe into Google and Meta’s Jedi Blue deal on online ads; EU is also probing whether Google acted without Meta’s knowledge (Financial Times)

Financial Times: EU and the UK open an antitrust probe into Google and Meta’s Jedi Blue deal on online ads; EU is also probing whether Google acted without Meta’s knowledge  —  Europe’s competition chief Margrethe Vestager tells FT that ‘Jedi Blue’ deal represents ‘giant problem’ in industry

India-based 100ms, which lets developers add video conferencing to their apps, raises a $20M Series A, bringing its total funding to $24.5M (Annie Njanja/TechCrunch)

Annie Njanja / TechCrunch: India-based 100ms, which lets developers add video conferencing to their apps, raises a $20M Series A, bringing its total funding to $24.5M  —  100ms, the live video conferencing infrastructure startup based in India, has raised $20 million in Series A funding to power the next generation of live video apps …

Computational modeling guides development of new materials

Metal-organic frameworks, a class of materials with porous molecular structures, have a variety of possible applications, such as capturing harmful gases and catalyzing chemical reactions. Made of metal atoms linked by organic molecules, they can be configured in hundreds of thousands of different ways. To help researchers sift through all of the possible metal-organic framework […]

Historic entrepreneurship course shows no signs of slowing down

In a process that has taken place for more than 60 years at MIT, this week a group of students gathered to practice entrepreneurship at a whirlwind pace designed to mimic the steep learning curve required to start a company. MIT’s course 15.390 (New Enterprises) has been held every year since 1961 — a time […]

Yen-Jie Lee probes particle collision data for clues to the universe’s origins

When Yen-Jie Lee came to MIT as a graduate student in 2006, it was a bit of a culture shock. The aspiring particle physicist had studied physics at National Taiwan University before his career took a hiatus in the forested mountains of Taiwan. There, he worked as a marine corps lieutenant to fulfill the nation’s […]

Twitter removes tweets by Russia’s embassy in London that claimed images from the Mariupol hospital bombing in Ukraine were fake, citing hateful conduct policy (Ilena Peng/Bloomberg)

Ilena Peng / Bloomberg: Twitter removes tweets by Russia’s embassy in London that claimed images from the Mariupol hospital bombing in Ukraine were fake, citing hateful conduct policy  —  Twitter Inc. has removed false tweets from the Russian embassy account in London that claimed images from the bombing of a children’s …

NonFungible: Axie Infinity had $3.5B in NFT transactions in 2021, almost two thirds of the blockchain gaming industry; NBA Top Shot had $827M and Loot $242M (Zhiyuan Sun/Cointelegraph)

Zhiyuan Sun / Cointelegraph: NonFungible: Axie Infinity had $3.5B in NFT transactions in 2021, almost two thirds of the blockchain gaming industry; NBA Top Shot had $827M and Loot $242M  —  In second and third place were sports highlights marketplace NBA Top Shot with $827 million and community gaming platform Loot with $242 million, respectively.

Oracle reports Q3 revenue of $10.51B, up 4% YoY, cloud services and license support revenue of $7.6B, up 5% YoY, but misses with EPS of $1.13 vs est. of $1.18 (Jordan Novet/CNBC)

Jordan Novet / CNBC: Oracle reports Q3 revenue of $10.51B, up 4% YoY, cloud services and license support revenue of $7.6B, up 5% YoY, but misses with EPS of $1.13 vs est. of $1.18  —  – Oracle met expectations for revenue but fell short on earnings for the fiscal third quarter.

A look at the Islamic world’s debate over cryptocurrencies, seen as gambling by some, as millions of people in Indonesia and the Middle East invest in crypto (Gerrit De Vynck/Washington Post)

Gerrit De Vynck / Washington Post: A look at the Islamic world’s debate over cryptocurrencies, seen as gambling by some, as millions of people in Indonesia and the Middle East invest in crypto  —  Mu’aawiyah Tucker is a religious man.  Because the Koran forbids the practice of earning interest on loans, Tucker has for years […]

London-based Lendable, which connects global institutional investors with borrowers, raises £210M led by Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan at a £3.5B valuation (Harriet Agnew/Financial Times)

Harriet Agnew / Financial Times: London-based Lendable, which connects global institutional investors with borrowers, raises £210M led by Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan at a £3.5B valuation  —  Ontario Teachers’ investment in fintech group part of broader shift into private assets