Horizon Blockchain Games, which develops the Sequence developer platform, Niftyswap marketplace, and Skyweaver trading card game, raised a $40M Series A (Hannah Miller/Bloomberg)

Hannah Miller / Bloomberg: Horizon Blockchain Games, which develops the Sequence developer platform, Niftyswap marketplace, and Skyweaver trading card game, raised a $40M Series A  —  Crypto winter has helped chill demand for nonfungible tokens, but that hasn’t stopped startups that use them from raising money.

Securiti, which helps companies manage data privacy, security, governance, and compliance, raised a $75M Series C, bringing its total funding to $155M (Ron Miller/TechCrunch)

Ron Miller / TechCrunch: Securiti, which helps companies manage data privacy, security, governance, and compliance, raised a $75M Series C, bringing its total funding to $155M  —  The combination of rapid data growth and expanding data regulations like GDPR and CCPA is putting a lot of pressure on companies to figure …

Learning on the edge

Microcontrollers, miniature computers that can run simple commands, are the basis for billions of connected devices, from internet-of-things (IoT) devices to sensors in automobiles. But cheap, low-power microcontrollers have extremely limited memory and no operating system, making it challenging to train artificial intelligence models on “edge devices” that work independently from central computing resources. Training […]

South Korean company Naver agrees to acquire Poshmark for $17.90 per share, representing an enterprise value of ~$1.2B; Poshmark stock rose 14%+ after hours (Kathryn Hardison/Wall Street Journal)

Kathryn Hardison / Wall Street Journal: South Korean company Naver agrees to acquire Poshmark for $17.90 per share, representing an enterprise value of ~$1.2B; Poshmark stock rose 14%+ after hours  —  The boards of both companies approved the transaction  —  Naver Corp. 035420 -1.53%▼ plans to acquire Poshmark Inc. …

US Treasury-led regulators release a report on digital assets calling on Congress to provide more resources to police crypto, regulate stablecoins, and more (Ephrat Livni/New York Times)

Ephrat Livni / New York Times: US Treasury-led regulators release a report on digital assets calling on Congress to provide more resources to police crypto, regulate stablecoins, and more  —  The Financial Stability Oversight Council said that the growing crypto market could pose risks to the broader financial system.

Some YouTube users say the service is asking them to purchase a Premium subscription to watch videos in 4K, a feature that is currently free for all users (Ivan Mehta/TechCrunch)

Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch: Some YouTube users say the service is asking them to purchase a Premium subscription to watch videos in 4K, a feature that is currently free for all users  —  YouTube’s Premium paid subscription includes benefits like ad-free viewing, video and song downloads for offline consumption, and background plays.

Innovation in the classroom

The 2022–23 school year is underway, and MIT’s instructors and teaching assistants are back in the classroom and laboratories. Each time they supplement their in-class lecture with a video, organize a new learning exercise, or even post their syllabi on Canvas, Sheryl Barnes hopes MIT Open Learning’s Residential Education group made their jobs easier. “Faculty […]

MIT events illuminate critical need for menstruation science

More than 70 MIT students, faculty, staff, and alumni gathered in MIT’s Killian Court recently to “Stand Up and Be Counted (for Women’s Health),” with a strong representation of individuals concerned about gynecology disorders such as endometriosis and adenomyosis. An estimated 20-25 percent of MIT women — about 2,000-2,500 total — are affected by one or more menstrual disorders in ways […]

Does mask-wearing affect behavior?

Since 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic has led to a global increase in the number of people wearing masks to limit the spread of illness. Now, new research co-authored by MIT scholars suggests that, in China at least, wearing masks also influences how people act. The research, conducted across 10 studies focused on deviant behavior — […]

A profile of Checkout.com founder and CEO Guillaume Pousaz, who owns 60% of the $40B London-based payments company and has begun investing in fintech startups (Ivan Levingston/Bloomberg)

Ivan Levingston / Bloomberg: A profile of Checkout.com founder and CEO Guillaume Pousaz, who owns 60% of the $40B London-based payments company and has begun investing in fintech startups  —  A college dropout from Switzerland has amassed a $14 billion fortune to become one of the country’s richest people by creating a rising star in […]

Immerok, which is building an Apache Flink-based cloud service for data streaming, raised a $17M seed led by CUSP Capital, 468 Capital, and others (Kyle Wiggers/TechCrunch)

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch: Immerok, which is building an Apache Flink-based cloud service for data streaming, raised a $17M seed led by CUSP Capital, 468 Capital, and others  —  In 2011, the Apache Software Foundation released Flink, a high-throughput, low-latency engine for streaming various data types.

Kim Kardashian settles with the SEC for $1.26M after not reporting a $250K payment to promote EthereumMax on Instagram and won’t promote crypto for three years (Mike Calia/CNBC)

Mike Calia / CNBC: Kim Kardashian settles with the SEC for $1.26M after not reporting a $250K payment to promote EthereumMax on Instagram and won’t promote crypto for three years  —  – Kim Kardashian agreed to pay more than $1 million to settle SEC charges for failing to disclose a payment she received for touting […]

From shutting down services only in Texas to letting users opt out of hateful content, tech companies are gaming out responses to the state’s social media law (Elizabeth Dwoskin/Washington Post)

Elizabeth Dwoskin / Washington Post: From shutting down services only in Texas to letting users opt out of hateful content, tech companies are gaming out responses to the state’s social media law  —  Experts said the measure, which bars companies from moderating content, could prove challenging for platforms to deal with

Sources: Celsius founder Alex Mashinsky withdrew $10M from the crypto lender weeks before the company froze user accounts; a source says ~$8M was used for taxes (Kadhim Shubber/Financial Times)

Kadhim Shubber / Financial Times: Sources: Celsius founder Alex Mashinsky withdrew $10M from the crypto lender weeks before the company froze user accounts; a source says ~$8M was used for taxes  —  Scrutiny of Alex Mashinsky grows after crypto lender was left with hole in balance sheet  —  Celsius Network founder Alex …

A look at the AI chatbots designed to improve mental health, like Wysa and Woebot, which have millions of users despite scant research to support their efficacy (Grace Browne/Wired)

Grace Browne / Wired: A look at the AI chatbots designed to improve mental health, like Wysa and Woebot, which have millions of users despite scant research to support their efficacy  —  With human therapists in short supply, AI chatbots are trying to plug the gap—but it’s not clear how well they work.  —  Bots […]

Tencent is no longer China’s most valuable company after its shares dropped 64% since Jan. 2021, wiping $623B in market value, more than any other firm globally (Jeanny Yu/Bloomberg)

Jeanny Yu / Bloomberg: Tencent is no longer China’s most valuable company after its shares dropped 64% since Jan. 2021, wiping $623B in market value, more than any other firm globally  —  Tencent Holdings Ltd. has lost its title as China’s biggest company to liquor giant Kweichow Moutai Co., the latest sign …

JD.com founder Richard Liu agreed to settle a US lawsuit filed by a former University of Minnesota student who alleged he raped her in 2018 (Amy Forliti/Associated Press)

Amy Forliti / Associated Press: JD.com founder Richard Liu agreed to settle a US lawsuit filed by a former University of Minnesota student who alleged he raped her in 2018  —  Chinese billionaire and JD.com founder Richard Liu agreed to settle a lawsuit filed by a former University of Minnesota student who alleged he raped […]

The UN Food Programme and the WHO say a nearly two-year internet and phone shutdown in Ethiopia’s Tigray region is hampering aid delivery and health monitoring (Zecharias Zelalem/Context)

Zecharias Zelalem / Context: The UN Food Programme and the WHO say a nearly two-year internet and phone shutdown in Ethiopia’s Tigray region is hampering aid delivery and health monitoring  —  As fighting rages on in Ethiopia’s war-torn Tigray region, one of the world’s longest telecommunications shutdowns is hampering aid deliveries …

Wiggling toward bio-inspired machine intelligence

Juncal Arbelaiz Mugica is a native of Spain, where octopus is a common menu item. However, Arbelaiz appreciates octopus and similar creatures in a different way, with her research into soft-robotics theory.  More than half of an octopus’ nerves are distributed through its eight arms, each of which has some degree of autonomy. This distributed […]

Bruce Willis refutes a report that he sold his digital likeness rights to Deepcake, which confirms and says the company created his “digital twin” for 2021 ads (Ryan Gajewski/The Hollywood Reporter)

Ryan Gajewski / The Hollywood Reporter: Bruce Willis refutes a report that he sold his digital likeness rights to Deepcake, which confirms and says the company created his “digital twin” for 2021 ads  —  Recent reports claimed that the star had become the first Hollywood figure to sell his rights to a company …

Symantec details an ongoing campaign by the Witchetty hacking group, potentially tied to a China-backed threat actor, that hides malware in a Windows logo image (Bill Toulas/BleepingComputer)

Bill Toulas / BleepingComputer: Symantec details an ongoing campaign by the Witchetty hacking group, potentially tied to a China-backed threat actor, that hides malware in a Windows logo image  —  Security researchers have discovered a malicious campaign by the ‘Witchetty’ hacking group, which uses steganography to hide a backdoor malware in a Windows logo.

Stadia was doomed from the start because Google knows next to nothing about gaming and no one wants to invest in services they don’t trust Google to keep around (Devin Coldewey/TechCrunch)

Devin Coldewey / TechCrunch: Stadia was doomed from the start because Google knows next to nothing about gaming and no one wants to invest in services they don’t trust Google to keep around  —  There’s a lot of chatter right now about the “surprise” shutdown of Stadia, Google’s game-streaming service.

Surveys of ~16,000 US adults per brand shows that 86% Gen Z adults have a “somewhat” or “very” favorable opinion of YouTube, 73% of Instagram, and 69% of TikTok (Jennifer A. Kingson/Axios)

Jennifer A. Kingson / Axios: Surveys of ~16,000 US adults per brand shows that 86% Gen Z adults have a “somewhat” or “very” favorable opinion of YouTube, 73% of Instagram, and 69% of TikTok  —  The youngest generation of adults is so crazy for tech companies that YouTube, Google …

A look at the research project tracking people at risk for suicide using data from smartphones and wearables to identify periods of high danger and intervene (Ellen Barry/New York Times)

Ellen Barry / New York Times: A look at the research project tracking people at risk for suicide using data from smartphones and wearables to identify periods of high danger and intervene  —  A unique research project is tracking hundreds of people at risk for suicide, using data from smartphones and wearable biosensors …

Singapore will not permit crypto ads at the track and in local areas at this weekend’s F1 Singapore GP, underscoring a changing regulatory stance toward crypto (Emily Nicolle/Bloomberg)

Emily Nicolle / Bloomberg: Singapore will not permit crypto ads at the track and in local areas at this weekend’s F1 Singapore GP, underscoring a changing regulatory stance toward crypto  —  At Formula One’s Miami Grand Prix in May, the dizzying displays of crypto companies sponsoring the sport were inescapable …