Europe’s rapid delivery market has consolidated down to three companies: Getir, the largest player that operates in seven European countries, Flink, and Gopuff (Morgan Meaker/Wired)

Morgan Meaker / Wired: Europe’s rapid delivery market has consolidated down to three companies: Getir, the largest player that operates in seven European countries, Flink, and Gopuff  —  Rapid grocery delivery apps are leaving the continent, putting the Turkish startup on top.  But, its reign is anything but stable.

A look at VR support groups and communities helping members process cancer diagnoses and death, question their marriages, turn over childhood traumas, and more (Hana Kiros/MIT Technology Review)

Hana Kiros / MIT Technology Review: A look at VR support groups and communities helping members process cancer diagnoses and death, question their marriages, turn over childhood traumas, and more  —  Welcome to “Death Q&A,” a space with a unique combination of anonymity and togetherness, where avatars discuss what weighs on them most heavily.

Touchscreen Macs will help Apple further unify its software and services, keep up with a touch-first generation, and pick up a bigger piece of the PC market (Mark Gurman/Bloomberg)

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg: Touchscreen Macs will help Apple further unify its software and services, keep up with a touch-first generation, and pick up a bigger piece of the PC market  —  Apple’s upcoming move to Macs with touch screens is about the future of its user base.  Also: The company kicks its in-house technology […]

TikTok, Instagram, and other social media platforms expect age verification measures in the UK’s Online Safety Bill to reduce user numbers, hitting ad revenue (Financial Times)

Financial Times: TikTok, Instagram, and other social media platforms expect age verification measures in the UK’s Online Safety Bill to reduce user numbers, hitting ad revenue  —  UK’s Online Safety Bill requires stronger age verification measures for platforms including TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat

China’s central bank says Ant Group and 13 other firms “have basically completed business rectification” under financial regulators’ guidance and supervision (Coco Feng/South China Morning Post)

Coco Feng / South China Morning Post: China’s central bank says Ant Group and 13 other firms “have basically completed business rectification” under financial regulators’ guidance and supervision  —  Chinese financial technology giant Ant Group and 13 other platform companies “have basically completed business rectification” …

Internal messages: Twitter intentionally suspended access to third-party clients last Thursday; staff questioned when an explanation will be provided publicly (Erin Woo/The Information)

Erin Woo / The Information: Internal messages: Twitter intentionally suspended access to third-party clients last Thursday; staff questioned when an explanation will be provided publicly  —  The mysterious outage of Tweetbot and other third-party Twitter clients that began Thursday night was an intentional suspension …

SIA says chip companies proposed 40+ projects across the US worth ~$200B since 2020, as the US realizes that chips are now as central to modern economies as oil (Wall Street Journal)

Wall Street Journal: SIA says chip companies proposed 40+ projects across the US worth ~$200B since 2020, as the US realizes that chips are now as central to modern economies as oil  —  Recent shortages and fears of China’s ambitions to dominate the industry have led to a frenetic effort to rev up U.S. production

How Elon Musk’s Twitter moderation cuts boosted hate speech outside the US and Canada, where 75%+ of the service’s 280M DAUs live, including in Japan and India (Washington Post)

Washington Post: How Elon Musk’s Twitter moderation cuts boosted hate speech outside the US and Canada, where 75%+ of the service’s 280M DAUs live, including in Japan and India  —  With 75 percent of its audience outside the U.S. and Canada, the impact of Elon Musk’s moderation cuts has been great elsewhere

A look at Congo’s Virunga National Park, which is running a Bitcoin mine that uses power from a hydro plant to pay salaries and build infrastructure projects (Adam Popescu/MIT Technology Review)

Adam Popescu / MIT Technology Review: A look at Congo’s Virunga National Park, which is running a Bitcoin mine that uses power from a hydro plant to pay salaries and build infrastructure projects  —  In an attempt to protect its forests and famous wildlife, Virunga has become the first national park to run a Bitcoin […]

How All-In, a podcast moderated by Jason Calacanis and his billionaire pals that often tops tech-podcast charts, gives an insight into Twitter under Elon Musk (Nitish Pahwa/Slate)

Nitish Pahwa / Slate: How All-In, a podcast moderated by Jason Calacanis and his billionaire pals that often tops tech-podcast charts, gives an insight into Twitter under Elon Musk  —  On Nov. 7, about a week after Elon Musk took over Twitter and laid off half the staff, a company vice president offered a group […]

Hackers are exploiting a critical remote code execution vulnerability in unpatched versions of the Control Web Panel, a widely used interface for web hosting (Dan Goodin/Ars Technica)

Dan Goodin / Ars Technica: Hackers are exploiting a critical remote code execution vulnerability in unpatched versions of the Control Web Panel, a widely used interface for web hosting  —  A patch was released in October, but not all servers have installed it.  —  Malicious hackers have begun exploiting …

Sources: DOJ cleared its antitrust chief Jonathan Kanter to oversee probes involving Google; Google had sought his recusal, citing his work with Yelp and others (Wall Street Journal)

Wall Street Journal: Sources: DOJ cleared its antitrust chief Jonathan Kanter to oversee probes involving Google; Google had sought his recusal, citing his work with Yelp and others  —  Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter’s involvement had been paused and the Alphabet unit sought his recusal

Strava users say the rollout of its first price hike in over a decade has been unnecessarily convoluted and confusing (Victoria Song/The Verge)

Victoria Song / The Verge: Strava users say the rollout of its first price hike in over a decade has been unnecessarily convoluted and confusing  —  No one likes price hikes, but Strava’s messy rollout has left many customers wondering what’s happening to their subscription.  Here’s what’s actually happening …

With the value of next-gen Bitcoin mining rigs down an estimated 85%, some crypto lenders flooded with repossessed rigs are keeping them running for the income (David Pan/Bloomberg)

David Pan / Bloomberg: With the value of next-gen Bitcoin mining rigs down an estimated 85%, some crypto lenders flooded with repossessed rigs are keeping them running for the income  —  Crypto lenders have repossessed so many Bitcoin mining rigs they’re resorting to plugging them in and extracting tokens themselves.

3 Questions: What to expect from respiratory illnesses, including Covid-19, this winter

Levels of respiratory illness are rising in the Boston area and elsewhere. Here, MIT Medical Director Cecilia Stuopis provides recommendations for keeping yourself and others healthy during the winter months. Q: Rates of Covid-19 and other respiratory illnesses are back on the rise. Should I be concerned? A: While everyone should take additional precautions, people […]

A look at Tencent’s short-video service WeChat Channels, called “the hope of the company” by founder Pony Ma, as the tech giant tries to build its own TikTok (Josh Ye/Reuters)

Josh Ye / Reuters: A look at Tencent’s short-video service WeChat Channels, called “the hope of the company” by founder Pony Ma, as the tech giant tries to build its own TikTok  —  On a hot summer’s day last year, the 90’s boy band Backstreet Boys clambered on to a stage in Pennsylvania and belted […]

Twitter users say Tweetbot, Twitterrific, and other third-party apps are broken, possibly due to Twitter’s API being down; Twitter has offered no explanation (Ben Schoon/9to5Google)

Ben Schoon / 9to5Google: Twitter users say Tweetbot, Twitterrific, and other third-party apps are broken, possibly due to Twitter’s API being down; Twitter has offered no explanation  —  The past several weeks since Elon Musk’s takeover have seen Twitter in turmoil as rapid changes hit the platform …

Sources: Chinese authorities plan to allow Didi’s ride-hailing and other apps back on app stores as soon as next week, another sign of the loosening crackdown (Reuters)

Reuters: Sources: Chinese authorities plan to allow Didi’s ride-hailing and other apps back on app stores as soon as next week, another sign of the loosening crackdown  —  Chinese authorities are set to allow Didi Global’s ride-hailing and other apps back on domestic app stores as soon as next week …

Meta sues to ban Voyager Labs from using Facebook and Instagram, alleging the investigative software firm created 38K+ fake accounts to scrape 600K+ users’ data (The Guardian)

The Guardian: Meta sues to ban Voyager Labs from using Facebook and Instagram, alleging the investigative software firm created 38K+ fake accounts to scrape 600K+ users’ data  —  The social media giant launched an investigation into Voyager’s use of fake accounts after a Guardian investigation

The SEC charges Genesis and Gemini with the unregistered offering and sale of securities to retail investors through a Gemini crypto lending program (Sarah Wynn/The Block)

Sarah Wynn / The Block: The SEC charges Genesis and Gemini with the unregistered offering and sale of securities to retail investors through a Gemini crypto lending program  —  – The SEC charged both Gemini and Genesis with unregistered offering and sale of securities to retail investors, some of who were in the U.S.

Sources: Google and Nvidia told the FTC that the Activision Blizzard deal could give Microsoft an unfair advantage in cloud, subscription, and mobile gaming (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg: Sources: Google and Nvidia told the FTC that the Activision Blizzard deal could give Microsoft an unfair advantage in cloud, subscription, and mobile gaming  —  Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Nvidia Corp. have expressed concerns to the Federal Trade Commission about Microsoft Corp.’s acquisition …

2022-23 Takeda Fellows: Leveraging AI to positively impact human health

The MIT-Takeda Program, a collaboration between MIT’s School of Engineering and Takeda Pharmaceuticals Company, fuels the development and application of artificial intelligence capabilities to benefit human health and drug development. Part of the Abdul Latif Jameel Clinic for Machine Learning in Health, the program coalesces disparate disciplines, merges theory and practical implementation, combines algorithm and […]