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April 15, 2021, 12:00 PM
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| NBC News: |
US sanctions Russia for 2020 election interference and SolarWinds hack, blacklisting six tech companies that provide support to Russian intelligence services — The United States is hitting Russia with fresh sanctions for interference in the 2020 presidential election … | David Priest / CNET: |
Jeff Bezos says Amazon Prime now has 200M+ subscribers, up 50M from the beginning of 2020, and Amazon's net profit in 2020 was $21.3B — A new letter to shareholders from Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos revealed that the tech giant's Prime service now has over 200 million subscribers.
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About Amazon, Insider, The Verge, Hollywood Reporter, GeekWire, Observer, and Variety. Tweets: @krishnapermi
| Annie Palmer / CNBC: |
In his final letter to shareholders, Bezos says Amazon needs a better vision for its “employees' success” and he will focus on making its warehouses safer — KEY POINTS — Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos on Thursday issued his final letter to shareholders before turning the helm over to AWS CEO Andy Jassy.
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ZDNet, Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal, Insider, and Insider
Tweets: @amazonnews, @shiraovide, @shiraovide, @andrewrsorkin, @bradstone, @slingshotcap, @b_fung, @shiraovide, and @shiraovide
| Jay Peters / The Verge: |
Google updates Earth with historical 3D time lapses that show the devastating effects of climate change, using satellite photos from the last 37 years — The new feature will be available Thursday — Google Earth is getting a new 3D time-lapse feature that lets you observe how Earth …
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The Keyword, TechCrunch, CNN, 9to5Google, Associated Press, USA Today, Gizmodo, Bloomberg, CNET, BBC, Engadget, and Wired
| Mary Ann Azevedo / TechCrunch: |
Routable, which enables B2B payments by automating bill payment and invoicing processes, raises $30M Series B led by Sam Altman, and Lattice CEO Jack Altman — Several prominent tech founders also put money in the round — We all know the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated digital adoption …
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FinSMEs, Finextra, and Business Wire
| Ryan Mac / @rmac18: |
[Thread] A Facebook moderator at Accenture who just quit decries inadequate mental health support and says the current system is bad for Facebook itself — A Facebook content moderator contracted through Accenture in Austin quit this morning with a blistering internal note. I've typed it out in full so people can read it for themselves. https://twitter.com/...
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Insider. Tweets: @rmac18, @rmac18, @blackamazon, @thayer, @demanrisu, @can, @cherylrofer, @zeroutopia, @jilliancyork, @david_ingram, @edbott, @allisontrebacz, @lnakamur, @mortenbay, @libshipwreck, @vectorpoem, @clearing_fog, @danieljkelley, @rmac18, @jilliancyork, @jenniferbeckett, @lolkat, @someday_deane, @alexhanna, @allisontrebacz, @podehaye, @jilliancyork, @bostonjoan, @ubiquity75, @ubiquity75, @ubiquity75, @slpng_giants, @shiraovide, @mikesbarnes, @davidbix, @_jack_poulson, and @rmac18
| Vjeran Pavic / The Verge: |
Review of DJI's new $999 Mavic Air 2S: great for beginners with a big one-inch camera sensor but is expensive and there's a significant crop in 4K 60fps — The Mavic Air 2S's camera sensor is the same size as what you get in the higher-end Mavic 2 Pro. It's much larger than the half-inch sensor used in last year's Air 2.
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TechCrunch, Engadget, ZDNet, AppleInsider, Android Authority, Gizmodo, CNET, ExtremeTech, Digital Trends, TechRadar, DroneDJ, and PetaPixel. Tweets: @dcseifert
| Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: |
Facebook says it is testing a News Feed feature in the US to let users tap on topics underneath posts and ads to explore content from related businesses — Facebook announced this morning it will begin testing a new experience for discovering businesses in its News Feed in the U.S. When live … | Bloomberg: |
Federal judge overturns $506M+ in damages that Apple was ordered to pay PanOptis and related companies for willfully infringing patents covering 4G LTE tech — - Apple should be able to argue whether royalty demand was fair — U.S. judge refuses to overturn liability finding against Apple
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9to5Mac, AppleInsider, MacDailyNews, and Law360
| Natasha Singer / New York Times: |
International coalition of 35 children's and consumer groups calls on Mark Zuckerberg to scrap plans for an Instagram for children — An international coalition of 35 children's and consumer groups called on Instagram on Thursday to scrap its plans to develop a version of the popular photo-sharing app for users under age 13.
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Reuters, BBC, NBC News, Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, Detroit Free Press, and 9to5Mac
Tweets: @cathcam, @nytimes, @clodaghmcginley, @vallmeister, @cliffordlevy, and @hypervisible
| Benjamin Mayo / 9to5Mac: |
Apple announces $200M investment fund for forest restoration projects that will develop financially viable initiatives to restore woodland areas — As part of Apple's continued environmental commitments, the company today announced a new $200 million ‘Restore Fund’ that will develop …
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Apple, The Verge, Engadget, AppleInsider, MacRumors, CNET, Philip Elmer‑DeWitt, Yahoo News, Reuters, and The Hindu
| Natalie Gagliordi / ZDNet: |
Dell to spin off its stake in VMware and use the proceeds of $9.3B-$9.7B to pay down Dell's debt, expecting to close the deal in Q4; Dell stock up 8%+ — Dell sees the spin-off as a way to give each company more strategic flexibility and improve capital structure efficiencies …
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Dell Technologies, CRN, Silicon Republic, The Economic Times, Insider, Telecoms.com, The Register, CNBC, VentureBeat, and Silicon Valley Business …
Tweets: @michaeldell, @antoinegara, @danielnewmanuv, @jaycuthrell, @quinnypig, and @patrickmoorhead
| Politico: |
Leaked doc: EU considers a ban on using AI for social credit scores, surveillance, and more; non-compliant companies could be fined up to €20M or 4% of turnover — Non-compliant companies could face a fine of up to €20 million or 4 percent of turnover.
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CNBC
| Manish Singh / TechCrunch: |
Amazon launches a $250M fund in India to invest in startups that focus on helping SMBs automate and digitize their operations — Amazon on Thursday announced a $250 million venture fund to invest in Indian startups and entrepreneurs focusing on digitization of small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) in the key overseas market.| Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch: |
UserZoom, which lets companies like Google and Microsoft evaluate and improve their UX and design elements, raises $100M led by Owl Rock — Graphic designer Paul Rand once famously said that the public was more familiar with bad design than good design. While he was referring to most of the design …
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VentureBeat
| Sam Machkovech / Ars Technica: |
Executives from Intel, Nvidia, and TSMC say the global chip shortage will likely continue at least into 2022 and maybe into 2023 — Companies reeling from natural disasters and massive demand from OEMs, consumers. — How many years will the ongoing chip shortage affect technology firms across the world?
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Bloomberg, HotHardware.com News, Windows Central, MacRumors, Financial Times, 9to5Mac, and Nikkei Asia
| Lauren Feiner / CNBC: |
Tech industry group funded by Amazon, Facebook, Google, and others says it supports a corporate tax hike like the one Biden proposed in his $2T plan — - Chamber of Progress, a new tech industry group funded by giants like Amazon, Facebook and Google is announcing its support …
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Chamber of Progress
| Ashley Carman / The Verge: |
Some Clubhouse power users discuss the app's problems with scammers, moderation issues, stolen jokes, copied room concepts, celebrity imposters, and more — Fake laughs, imposters, and scams — behind the invite-only audio app's most obsessive users — For the first time since the pandemic started … | Financial Times: |
KKR-backed mobile gaming company AppLovin, which operates more than 200 games, raises $1.8B in its IPO, giving it a market capitalization of $28.6B — KKR-backed company to make Nasdaq debut on Thursday — AppLovin, the mobile games company that owns hits such as a Matchington Mansion and Wordscapes …
More:
GamesIndustry.biz, The Economic Times, CNBC, and Business Wire
| Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch: |
Lingoda, an on-demand online language school with live instructors and Zoom classrooms, raises $68M led by Summit Partners — A startup out of Berlin that's built and grown a successful online language learning platform based around live teachers and virtual classrooms is announcing …
More:
Tech.eu, EU-Startups, Silicon Canals, and PR Newswire
| Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat: |
TetraScience, which helps life sciences companies analyze data, raises $80M Series B bringing its total raised to $88M+ — Join Transform 2021 this July 12-16. Register fo r the AI event of the year. — TetraScience, an R&D cloud data management company focused on life sciences and drug discovery …
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Crunchbase News and PR Newswire
| Karissa Bell / Engadget: |
Twitter says it will study any “unintentional harms” caused by its algorithms and will make the findings public as part of its Responsible ML Initiative — new plan to study the fairness of its algorithms. As part of the effort, which the company has dubbed the …
More:
Twitter, ZDNet, Input, KnowTechie, and The Overspill
Tweets: @bigtechalert, @twittereng, @willoremus, @grady_booch, @twittersupport, @russellbrandom, and @willoremus
| Manish Singh / TechCrunch: |
Sources: SoftBank's Vision Fund 2 is in talks to invest up to $500M in Indian food delivery service Swiggy, at a ~$5.5B valuation — SoftBank Vision Fund 2 is in advanced stages of talks to invest up to half a billion dollars into food delivery startup Swiggy, two sources familiar with the matter told TechCrunch.
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Bloomberg, South China Morning Post, and the-captable.com
| Engadget: |
Facebook says it has reached its target of powering its global operations entirely on renewable energy, after investing $8B in green energy projects — target to power its global operations entirely on renewable energy, though it fell shy of its end of 2020 deadline.| Crystal Tse / Bloomberg: |
TuSimple, which is developing autonomous trucks, raises $1.35B in its IPO, giving it a market capitalization of ~$8.5B — TuSimple Holdings Inc., which is developing autonomous trucks now on the road in Texas and Arizona, priced its initial public offering above a marketed range to raise $1.35 billion.
More:
PR Newswire and Reuters
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