Techmeme: Google announces a partnership with India's third-largest telecom operator Airtel to offer G Suite to SMBs (Manish Singh/TechCrunch)

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Google CEO Sundar Pichai says AI is too important not to be regulated and there are real concerns about the potential negative consequences of AI — The writer is chief executive of Alphabet and Google — Growing up in India, I was fascinated by technology. Each new invention changed my family's life in meaningful ways.

Sohee Kim / Bloomberg:

Samsung appoints Taemoon Roh to head its smartphone division, taking over from Koh Dong-Jin to run the world's largest mobile devices business — - Taemoon Roh will now steer the world's biggest mobile name — Samsung seeks to take the lead in 5G and foldables this year

More: Reuters, Business Insider, The Verge, Android Police, 9to5Google, Thurrott, Engadget, ZDNet, Android Authority, BGR, Seeking Alpha, and Pocketnow. Tweets: @dez_blanchfield

Scott Stein / CNET:

AR startup Mojo Vision shows off the first prototype of Mojo Lens, its contact lenses that display text, have an eye-controlled interface, and work in the dark — Mojo Vision's smart contacts put text in my eye and let me see in the dark. They're aiming for even more than that.

More: The Upside Newsletter, HackRead, and UploadVR

Tweets: @lexysavvides, @madoublex, @eliblumenthal, @jetscott, @jamesco, @rh_brown, @jetscott, and @falconejp. Thanks:@jasonhiner

Hindenburg Research:

Research: Opera, known for its web browser, allegedly issues predatory loans in Kenya, Nigeria, and India via Android apps, likely violating Play Store policies — GET OUR LATEST REPORTS DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX — Summary (NASDAQ: OPRA) — Opera went public in mid-2018 based largely on prospects for its core browser business.

More: Engadget, Android Police, gHacks Technology News, TechSpot, and SlashGear

Tweets: @mengxilu, @laceysnr, @aardrian, and @corbindavenport

Zheping Huang / Bloomberg:

Sources: ByteDance plans a foray into games, building a team of 1,000+ and buying game studios and title distribution rights; first big games coming this spring — - The TikTok proprietor shows ambition beyond short-form video — Hiring spree includes industry veterans and local game studios

Tweets: @pingroma, @damianburns, and @pingroma

Steve O'Hear / TechCrunch:

Sweden-based Tink, which offers open banking APIs, raises €90M co-led by Dawn Capital, HMI Capital, and Insight Partners at a post-money valuation of €415M — Tink, the European open banking platform, is disclosing €90 million in new funding, just 11 months …

More: FinSMEs, EU-Startups, PYMNTS.com, and Silicon Canals. Tweets: @danprimack

Manish Singh / TechCrunch:

Google announces a partnership with India's third-largest telecom operator Airtel to offer G Suite to SMBs — Google has inked a deal with India's third-largest telecom operator as the American giant looks to grow its cloud customer base in the key overseas market that is increasingly emerging …

More: Inc42 Media and CIO.com

Liza Lin / Wall Street Journal:

An unsecured facial-recognition database with info on thousands of children from 20 schools in China, half in areas with large Tibetan populations, found online — Information leak from facial-recognition database raises questions about school surveillance and cybersecurity in China

Tweets: @liz_in_shanghai, @evacide, and @pdshinkman

Bart Meijer / Reuters:

TomTom says it has reached a deal with Huawei “some time ago” for the use of its maps, traffic information, and navigation software in Huawei phones — AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Dutch navigation and digital mapping company TomTom on Friday said it has closed a deal …

Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat:

Scoutbee, which develops and sells access to an AI-driven supplier discovery platform, raises $60M Series B, less than 9 months after raising a $12M Series A — Supplier discovery often isn't a walk in the park. According to a survey by Thomasnet, nearly 50% of buyers have worked …

Manish Singh / TechCrunch:

Amazon says it now partners with 20,000+ neighborhood stores across Tier 1, 2, and 3 cities in India to store and deliver goods under its “I have Space” program — Neighborhood stores dot tens of thousands of cities, towns and villages in India.

More: MENAbytes, Quartz, The Latest, and Inc42 Media

Tweets: @jeffbezos, @amitagarwal, @adityakalra, @sadhavi, and @prachimukhija

David Z. Morris / Fortune:

Experts say Yandex, Russia's most-used search engine, is lagging behind Google and Bing in implementing controls to cut down on images of child sexual abuse — Experts say the spread of images of child sexual exploitation online has reached unprecedented levels, calling the situation a major social crisis.

Tweets: @gicariana

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