- January 25th, 2021
- 08:42 PM
- Investment firm Carlyle Group confirmed it acquired UK-based game publisher Jagex, which develops RuneScape, reportedly for at least $530M (Dean Takahashi/VentureBeat)
- 08:42 PM
- Facebook says it will give researchers targeting data on 1.3M social issue, electoral, and political ads from August 3 through November 3 2020 (Issie Lapowsky/Protocol)
- 08:16 PM
- a16z plans to launch a "new and separate media property" later this year focused on "the future" and names ex-CNN editor Maggie Leung executive editor (Margit Wennmachers/Andreessen Horowitz)
- 07:50 PM
- Twitter debuts Birdwatch, in testing since last year, which lets select users flag and add notes about tweets they think are misleading or false (NBC News)
- 06:58 PM
- French startup Alma, which offers Klarna-like payment installment tools for retailers, raises €49M Series B (Romain Dillet/TechCrunch)
- 05:14 PM
- A look at r/WallStreetBets, a 2M-member subreddit that helped push GameStop's stock to record highs and is now facing allegations of harassment (Cecilia D'Anastasio/Wired)
- 05:14 PM
- Source: Clubhouse raised around $100M from a16z at a $1B post-money valuation (Dan Primack/Axios)
- 04:48 PM
- Google details its work on a privacy-conscious substitute for cookies, called Federated Learning of Cohorts, with ~95% of conversions/dollar of cookie-based ads (Sara Fischer/Axios)
- 04:48 PM
- Apple launches Time to Walk for Apple Watch and Fitness+, offering 25 to 40 minute episodes of original audio from influential people, available today (Chance Miller/9to5Mac)
- 04:48 PM
- Melio, a B2B payments startup focused on small businesses, raises $110M Series C2, following an $80M Series C in Sept. 2020, at a $1.3B valuation (Christine Hall/Crunchbase News)
- 03:56 PM
- Smart lock maker Latch says it will go public by merging with a SPAC at a $1.56B valuation, expecting to raise ~$450M in cash (Wall Street Journal)
- 03:30 PM
- Autonomous driving startup Uisee raises $150M from investors including Chinese state-backed National Manufacturing Transformation and Upgrade Fund (Rita Liao/TechCrunch)
- 03:30 PM
- NBCUniversal and Twitter announce a multi-year global content partnership to bring live, trending content, like sports highlights, to Twitter (Jessica Bursztynsky/CNBC)
- 03:04 PM
- Google pledges $150M in grants to promote COVID-19 vaccine distribution and converts some of its facilities into vaccination sites (Steve Dent/Engadget)
- 03:04 PM
- Sources: Huawei is in early stage talks to sell its premium smartphone brands P and Mate to a Chinese consortium led by state-backed investment firms (Reuters)
- 02:12 PM
- Wolt, a Helsinki-based online ordering and delivery company, raises $530M led by Iconiq Growth (Steve O'Hear/TechCrunch)
- 02:12 PM
- Content recommendation company Taboola says it has agreed to go public via a SPAC, valuing the company at $2.6B and raising $545M (Sara Fischer/Axios)
- 01:20 PM
- Google workers across the world announce Alpha Global, an international union alliance comprising 13 unions representing workers in 10 countries (Zoe Schiffer/The Verge)
- 01:20 PM
- Brigit, a personal finance app offering overdraft coverage, emergency loans, and budgeting tools, says it raised $35M Series A in early 2020 led by Lightspeed (Eliza Haverstock/Forbes)
- 08:34 AM
- German startup Wingcopter, which develops fixed-wing drones capable of vertical take-off and landing, raises $22M Series A led by Xplorer Capital (Darrell Etherington/TechCrunch)
- 05:32 AM
- Research shows that hundreds of SPACs are looking to acquire tech companies in the coming months, heating up competition for startups and inflating deal values (Wall Street Journal)
- 02:05 AM
- Source: Kuaishou Technology, ByteDance's main rival in China, is seeking to raise as much as $5.4B through an IPO in Hong Kong and is slated to list on Feb. 5 (Julia Fioretti/Bloomberg)
- 12:47 AM
- Hacker leaks data of 2.28M+ users of dating site MeetMindful, including real names, Facebook account tokens, email addresses, and geo-location information (Catalin Cimpanu/ZDNet)
- January 24th, 2021
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- 10:38 PM
- In an interview, Waymo CEO dismissed Tesla as a competitor and argued that Tesla's current strategy, without lidar, wouldn't produce a fully self-driving system (Timothy B. Lee/Ars Technica)
- 09:46 PM
- After Huawei spinoff, Honor confirms partnerships with key chip suppliers such as AMD, Intel, Qualcomm, and MediaTek, launches new smartphone and notebooks (Nikkei Asia)
- 07:36 PM
- Clubhouse has secured a new round of funding led by Andreessen Horowitz, says it now has over 180 investors in the company (joinclubhouse.com)
- 06:44 PM
- Apple says magnets in iPhone 12 models and MagSafe accessories may affect devices like pacemakers and defibrillators, warning users to keep them 6" to 12" apart (Joe Rossignol/MacRumors)
- 03:16 PM
- As platforms race to purge harmful content after the Capitol riots, police race to gather evidence, showing the need for international data preservation laws (Foreign Policy)
- 11:48 AM
- Research: GPT-3 frequently creates sentences associating Muslims with shooting, bombs, murder, and violence, a bias OpenAI acknowledged upon its public release (Dave Gershgorn/OneZero )
- 08:46 AM
- A look at the current state of industrial and service robotics, a century after the Czech play "R.U.R." introduced the word "robot" to the English language (Christopher Mims/Wall Street Journal)
- 07:54 AM
- What's in store for Amazon during Biden admin: more unions, labor protection and oversight, antitrust actions, privacy and facial recognition regulations, more (Annie Palmer/CNBC)
- 07:02 AM
- Custom parts manufacturer Protolabs buys 3D Hubs, an online on-demand service providing access to ~240 manufacturing partners, for up to $330M in cash and stock (Robin Wauters/Tech.eu)
- 06:36 AM
- Microsoft confirms it halted all donations of its PAC while it decides by Feb. 15 whether to suspend donations to those who voted against election certification (Microsoft On the Issues)
- 05:44 AM
- Philips acquired Capsule Technologies, a provider of data platforms to connect all medical devices and record systems within a hospital, for $635M in cash (Conor Hale/FierceBiotech)
- 02:43 AM
- Uber laid off ~185 Postmates staff, about 15% of the division's workforce; sources say layoffs impacted most of the exec team, including CEO Bastian Lehmann (Mike Isaac/New York Times)
- 01:25 AM
- Globality, whose AI-based sourcing software connects companies with service providers, raises $138M Series E from Sienna Capital and SoftBank's Vision Fund (Cromwell Schubarth/Silicon Valley ...)
- January 23rd, 2021
- 10:50 PM
- As Starlink builds out its satellite constellation, it is enjoying a very warm reception from the early adopters of its internet service in remote areas (Dana Hull/Bloomberg)
- 09:06 PM
- Despite an apparent industry's influence during transition, latest appointments and developments hint Biden admin will be tougher on tech than its predecessors (Will Oremus/OneZero )
- 06:56 PM
- Italy tells TikTok to block all unverified user accounts after a 10-year-old girl dies while allegedly participating in the "blackout challenge" on the app (Crispian Balmer/Reuters)
- 05:12 PM
- Sources: VCs have approached Clubhouse about investing in its next round at ~$1B valuation, a 10X increase from the previous round; a16z is expected to lead (The Information)
- 02:36 PM
- Interview with Chase CIO Rohan Amin on managing Chase's $4B tech budget, API integrations, and this year's rise in digital mortgage applications and banking (Mary Ann Azevedo/FinLedger)
- 11:34 AM
- A look at the Beijing Academy of Artificial Intelligence, a government-sponsored research lab, and its work on a new language model similar to GPT-3 (Will Knight/Wired)
- 08:32 AM
- Facebook says a configuration change has caused some users to be logged out of their apps and is working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible (USA Today)
- 08:32 AM
- How Volkswagen's ID.3, the automaker's long-awaited answer to Tesla, was beset by faulty in-car software, prompting a reboot of the company's software business (William Boston/Wall Street Journal)
- 08:06 AM
- Analysis of US-based venture-backed companies that went public in roughly the past two years shows that top 40 companies are now valued at around $1.1T (Joanna Glasner/Crunchbase News)
- 07:14 AM
- Microsoft backtracks on price hike for Xbox Live Gold subscriptions announced Friday and says free-to-play games will also no longer require a Gold subscription (Sam Byford/The Verge)
- 07:14 AM
- 4Paradigm, a Beijing-based AI software startup focused on enterprise clients, raises $700M Series D led by Boyu Capital, Primavera Capital, and Hopu Fund (Song Jingli/KrASIA)
- 04:12 AM
- MoffettNathanson survey: 62% of Apple TV+ subscribers were on free offers in Q4 2020, only 30% said they plan to renew at the regular $4.99/month price (Todd Spangler/Variety)
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- 02:55 AM
- Activision Blizzard says that it is merging its Vicarious Visions studio, which Activision acquired in 2005, and its ~200 staff into Blizzard Entertainment (Brendan Sinclair/GamesIndustry.biz)
- 02:29 AM
- Intel says an internal error caused a leak of an infographic related to its Q4 earnings report, which prompted its release ahead of stock market close on Thurs. (Associated Press)
- 01:37 AM
- Sources: Biden is looking to hire cybersecurity veterans for top roles, but some observers worry too much value is being placed on public sector experience (Reuters)
- 12:45 AM
- Sources: Microsoft president Brad Smith defended the company's political contributions in a meeting with employees after some questioned donations from its PAC (Jordan Novet/CNBC)
- 12:45 AM
- Sources: data analytics service Databricks is in talks to raise a private funding round, potentially valuing it at ~$27B; Databricks was valued at $6.2B in 2019 (Eric Newcomer/Newcomer)
- January 22nd, 2021
- 11:53 PM
- Huawei hires former Brazilian president Michel Temer as its legal adviser for the impending 5G auction bid in the country (Angelica Mari/ZDNet)
- 11:53 PM
- Ex-ADT technician pled guilty to computer fraud and invasive visual recording for viewing home security camera feeds he installed in ~200 homes over 9,000 times (Dan Goodin/Ars Technica)
- 10:09 PM
- FTC fines three bot-powered ticket scalping operations a total of $3.7M, the first time the agency applied a 2016 anti-bot law called the BOTS Act (Adi Robertson/The Verge)
- 09:43 PM
- Unclassified memo: Defense Intelligence Agency analysts have used commercial databases of location data from smartphone apps to track Americans without warrants (Charlie Savage/New York Times)
- 09:43 PM
- VSPN, the organizer and broadcaster for many top esports competitions in China, raises $60M Series B+, three months after raising $100M Series B (Mike Butcher/TechCrunch)
- 08:51 PM
- Lyft is testing a "priority mode" offering drivers more rides in exchange for a 10% pay cut; some drivers call it "poverty mode", saying their earnings dropped (Dara Kerr/CNET)
- 08:51 PM
- Facebook spent $19.7M on federal lobbying in 2020, up 17.8% YoY, Google spent $7.5M, down 36.2%; Big Five tech companies together spent $61.1M, down 1.8% (Lauren Feiner/CNBC)
- 07:59 PM
- Microsoft is increasing the prices of Xbox Live Gold subscriptions, up $1 to $10.99 per month and up $5 to $29.99 for a three-month membership (Tom Warren/The Verge)
- 07:59 PM
- European Parliament invites CEOs of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Alphabet to a Feb. 1 hearing in Brussels on EU Commission's tech regulation proposals (Foo Yun Chee/Reuters)
- 07:07 PM
- Despite the pandemic, Amazon wants Alabama warehouse workers to vote in person on a proposal to form a union, objecting to NLRB's decision to allow vote by mail (Matt Day/Bloomberg)
- 06:41 PM
- Marques Brownlee, aka MKBHD, on starting and scaling one of the biggest YouTube tech channels to 13.5M subscribers, day-to-day work, and future of his business (Nilay Patel/The Verge)
- 05:49 PM
- FOSS Patents' Florian Mueller files a complaint with US and EU antitrust authorities after Google and Apple reject his COVID-19-related game (Foo Yun Chee/Reuters)
- 04:57 PM
- Nick Clegg says it'll be really interesting to hear Oversight Board's recommendations for future Trump ban-like situations, but doesn't commit to following them (Sara Fischer/Axios)
- 04:05 PM
- Dating Group, which says it has 73M registered users, acquires Once, a Swiss-based app which leverages AI to provide one match per day to each user, for €14.9M (Charlotte Tucker/EU-Startups)
- 03:13 PM
- Sources: Samsung is considering building a $10B chipmaking plant in Texas, a major investment it hopes will help it catch up with industry leader TSMC (Bloomberg)
- 02:47 PM
- Six MEPs file complaint alleging European parliament's COVID-19 testing site transferred personal data to the US without valid legal basis (Natasha Lomas/TechCrunch)
- 01:29 PM
- Sources: Apple is working on a thinner and lighter 13-inch high-end MacBook Air with MagSafe charging and next-gen processors to launch as soon as this year (Mark Gurman/Bloomberg)
- 11:45 AM
- NASA has discovered dozens of fresh craters on Mars by using an AI to analyze orbital image data, a promising new method to study planets in our solar system (Daniel Oberhaus/Wired)
- 05:15 AM
- AWS will maintain an open source fork of Elasticsearch and Kibana, after criticism from Elastic which changed its licensing terms to monetize cloud-service use (Tom Krazit/Protocol)
- 04:23 AM
- Tastytrade, a Chicago-based online brokerage and financial media company, to be acquired by UK's IG Group in a deal worth over $1B in cash and stock (Bloomberg)
- 03:57 AM
- Intel says it's investigating the leak of an infographic related to its Q4 earnings report, which prompted its release ahead of stock market close on Thu. (Richard Waters/Financial Times)
- 03:31 AM
- Report: 70% of Americans now have access to a broadband plan costing $60 or less, up from 52% at the end of 2019 (Joanna Nelius/Gizmodo)