| Annie Palmer / CNBC: |
Amazon says it will acquire MGM Studios for $8.45B, its second-largest acquisition since it paid $13.7B for Whole Foods in 2017 — - Amazon is buying MGM Studios, the companies announced, marking Amazon's most ambitious move yet into the entertainment business.| Peter Kafka / Vox: |
With its MGM acquisition, Amazon doesn't want to compete with streamers like Netflix but reduce Prime subscriber churn by providing enough blockbuster content — Amazon isn't competing with Netflix, but it is spending billions trying to figure out Hollywood. Maybe 007 can help.| Joseph Menn / Reuters: |
WhatsApp has filed a lawsuit in Delhi against the Indian government for its new social media regulations, saying they would break privacy protections — WhatsApp has filed a lawsuit in Delhi against the Indian government seeking to block regulations coming into force on Wednesday that experts … | Stephen Shankland / CNET: |
USB standards body unveils its USB-C 2.1 revision, which supports power up to 240W, up from 100W currently, aimed at devices like 4K displays and gaming laptops — An upgrade to the USB-C standard will accommodate levels of up to 240 watts, an improvement that could let you plug power-hungry devices … | Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: |
Facebook and Instagram now give users options to hide Like counts across all posts and to hide their own public Like counts from others — Facebook this week will begin to publicly roll out the option to hide Likes on posts across both Facebook and Instagram, following earlier tests beginning in 2019.| Sam Machkovech / Ars Technica: |
Sources say Valve is making a Switch-like portable gaming PC that could launch by year's end — We can confirm some, but not all, of what's in store for the codenamed “SteamPal.” — Video game and hardware studio Valve has been secretly building a Switch-like portable PC … | Melanie Evans / Wall Street Journal: |
Google partners with US hospital chain HCA Healthcare to develop algorithms to improve operating efficiency, monitor patients, and guide doctors' decisions — Tech giant expands health-sector presence in latest deal to develop tools to improve medical care, as privacy concerns arise| Javier Espinoza / Financial Times: |
Sources: European Commission will open a formal antitrust probe into Facebook to investigate if it's undermining competition in the online classifieds market — European Commission will investigate if Facebook is undermining competition in the online classifieds market| Lauren Hepler / San Francisco Chronicle: |
San Jose approves Google's plans for a downtown campus with 4K new homes, 7M+ square feet of office space, 15 acres of parks, and 500K of retail and other space — After more than three years of negotiations, San Jose officials voted late Tuesday to approve Google's plan for a sprawling downtown campus … | Elizabeth Dwoskin / Washington Post: |
Facebook says Russia is still the largest producer of disinformation, in a report that details 150 operations that the company has disrupted since 2017 — Report explores how issue has evolved in recent years — A Facebook report released Wednesday says that Russia is still the largest producer … | New York Times: |
An overview of Russia's increasingly aggressive attempts to control Google, Facebook, and Twitter, ordering them to store data in Russia and imposing fines — Its campaign is part of a global wave of actions by governments that are testing how far they can go to control online speech.| Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch: |
Rewatch, which builds tools to index, transcribe, and store enterprise video content, raises $20M Series A led by Andreessen Horowitz — We don't hear as much these days about “Zoom fatigue” as we did in the first months after the Covid-19 pandemic kicked off last year … | Fadeke Adegbuyi / Cybernaut - Every: |
Gen Z students are studying together online across YouTube, TikTok, Discord, and Twitter, seeking inspiration, finding focus, and sharing academic anxieties — In late 2020, a 10-hour loop of a song from Mario Kart titled “Coconut Mall” started blowing up on Youtube.| Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch: |
Salt Security, which develops AI-based software to protect API libraries from malicious use, raises $70M led by Advent International — APIs make the world go round in tech, but that also makes them a very key target for bad actors: as doorways into huge data troves and services … | South China Morning Post: |
Xiaomi beats with Q1 profit of $1.2B, up 260.6% YoY, on revenue of $12B, up 54.7% YoY, and says it shipped 49.4M smartphones globally for a 14.1% market share — Smartphone giant Xiaomi's first-quarter profit beat market estimates to reach US$1.2 billion Revenue in the March quarter hit US$12 billion … | Bloomberg: |
Sources: Uber plans to recognize a trade union for its 70K drivers in the UK giving them more power to collectively bargain, while preserving its worker model — - The GMB labor group will represent Uber's 70,000 U.K. drivers — Drivers will retain ability to choose where and when they work| Manish Singh / TechCrunch: |
Bangalore-based Koo, a microblogging service that allows users to post in English and Indian languages, raises $30M at over $100M valuation led by Tiger Global — Investors are backing Koo, an Indian alternative to Twitter, with large size checks at a time when tension is brewing between the American social network and New Delhi.| Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat: |
Austin-based Virtuix, which is developing a VR treadmill for the home, raises $19M Series A-2 from 6,500+ investors — Elevate your enterprise data technology and strategy at Transform 2021. — Virtuix has raised over $19 million from more than 6,500 investors in its latest round of funding … | Madhumita Murgia / Financial Times: |
In a first, England's NHS says it will scrape medical histories of 55M patients, including info on mental and sexual health, to be shared with third-parties — 55m patients have until June 23 to opt out of having their health data scraped into a new database| Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat: |
DataDome, which helps secure e-commerce marketplaces against web scraping, account takeover, and payment fraud, raises $35M Series B led by Elephant — Elevate your enterprise data technology and strategy at Transform 2021. — Bot defense startup DataDome today announced that it raised $35 million … | Cade Metz / New York Times: |
After predicting autonomous vehicles would be commonplace by 2021, the industry is resetting expectations and committing to years of further R&D — Many in Silicon Valley promised that self-driving cars would be a common sight by 2021. Now the industry is resetting expectations and settling in for years of more work.| Trefor Moss / Wall Street Journal: |
Tesla says it will store all data generated from cars in China in a new data center there, after facing scrutiny in the country for handling vehicle data — U.S. electric-car maker has faced scrutiny in China of its handling of potentially sensitive vehicle data| Mary Ann Azevedo / TechCrunch: |
SpotOn, a payments startup focused on SMBs, raises $125M Series D led by a16z, tripling its valuation from last September to $1.875B — Certain industries were hit harder by the COVID-19 pandemic than others, especially in its early days. — Small businesses, including retailers and restaurants … | Tim Glaze / HousingWire: |
Snapdocs, a service that digitizes the mortgage process, raises $150M Series D led by Tiger Global at a $1.5B valuation, bringing its total raised to $260M — Total company valuation eclipses $1.5 billion — San Francisco-based Snapdocs, a digital closing platform for the mortgage industry … | Bloomberg: |
NYSE sets ZipRecruiter's reference price at $18 per share for its direct listing on Wednesday, which would give it a fully diluted valuation of about $2.4B — - Job search, recruiting company set for trading debut Wednesday — Year's 4th direct listing after Squarespace, Coinbase, Roblox| DFRLab: |
Analysis of 40M pieces of QAnon content from 1/20 to 4/21: Facebook, Twitter, and others have successfully expelled most of the content after it peaked in 6/20 — The conspiracy's followers on alternative platforms have failed to out-post their counterparts on mainstream ones
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