| Annie Palmer / CNBC: |
Filing: Elon Musk has secured $46.5B to acquire Twitter, including $25.5B in debt financing via Morgan Stanley and other firms, and is exploring a tender offer — - Elon Musk is exploring whether to commence a tender offer for Twitter, according to a new securities filing.| Bloomberg: |
Elon Musk's free speech promise for Twitter follows years of silencing or punishing criticism at Tesla and SpaceX, including attacking staff trying to unionize — If Elon Musk is able to take over Twitter Inc., his biggest promise is to transform it into a platform for free speech with few restrictions … | Wall Street Journal: |
Sources: Meta is reviewing whether COO Sheryl Sandberg pressured the Daily Mail in 2016 and 2019 into killing stories about her then-boyfriend Bobby Kotick — Social-media executive, who dated the Activision Blizzard CEO, was part of campaign to persuade the U.K. tabloid to shelve a potential article| New York Times: |
Warner Bros. Discovery will shut down CNN+ on April 30, after its March 29 debut; sources: CNN+ had ~150K subscribers and was on pace to hit first-year goals — The new corporate owners of CNN are moving to end the new streaming service after a splashy debut. — In the end, CNN+ lasted less than a month.| Lauren Feiner / CNBC: |
In a speech on disinformation, Obama said social media firms' design choices contribute to polarization, and called for more transparency and Section 230 reform — - Former President Barack Obama criticized social media companies for contributing to polarization through design choices on their platforms.| Frank Chaparro / The Block: |
Andreessen Horowitz launches a16z Crypto Research, a lab focused on Web3 breakthroughs that can contribute to deployable code, led by academic Tim Roughgarden — Venture capital giant Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) is diving deeper into the crypto market with the launch of a new academic lab dedicated … | Taylor Soper / GeekWire: |
Amazon announces a $1B Industrial Innovation Fund to back companies of all stages developing customer fulfillment, logistics, and supply chain technologies — Amazon on Thursday announced a new $1 billion venture fund that the tech giant will use to back companies of all stages developing … | Jon Porter / The Verge: |
Spotify now lets all creators in the US, the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand upload video podcasts via Anchor, which Spotify acquired in February 2019 — After over a year of more limited tests — All creators in the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand can now upload video podcasts … | Ryan Weeks / The Block: |
Binance begins enforcing tougher KYC checks, including proof of address, on Russian users with crypto holdings exceeding €10,000, following further EU sanctions — Crypto exchange Binance is enforcing tougher Know Your Customer (KYC) checks for Russian users after the latest wave of European Union sanctions.| Kif Leswing / CNBC: |
Snap reports Q1 revenue of $1.06B, up 38% YoY, vs. $1.07B est., global DAUs up 18% YoY to 332M vs. 330M est., and net loss up 25% YoY to $360M — - Snap missed Wall Street expectations for profit and sales when it reported first-quarter results on Thursday after the bell.| Stephanie Bodoni / Bloomberg: |
After years of regulatory pressure, Google unveils “a full redesign” of its cookie consent banner in Europe, including a “reject all” button, starting in France — Alphabet Inc.'s Google said it's rolling out a new European-wide policy allowing users to more easily avoid … | Oliver Knight / CoinDesk: |
Research: blockchain game companies raised $2.5B in Q1 2022, up 150% YoY; blockchain gaming accounted for 52% of all blockchain activity in March, up 2,000% YoY — Usage and investments across the blockchain-gaming sector increased in the first quarter to make up 52% of all blockchain activity.| Cobie: |
Crypto staking evolved from rewards for collateralized coins validating blocks into a Ponzi scheme; Yuga Labs is effectively paying ApeCoin to hold ApeCoin — Recently, I was contacted by a member of the board of ApeCoin, which is the BAYC token's equivalent of a board of directors I guess.| MIT Technology Review: |
How AI data-labeling companies like Appen use cheap labor in crisis-ridden countries like Venezuela to manually tag videos, sort photos, and transcribe audio — It was meant to be a temporary side job—a way to earn some extra money. Oskarina Fuentes Anaya signed up for Appen … | Catarina Moura / The Block: |
Crusoe Energy Systems, which uses excess natural gas from oil extraction to mine crypto in 86 data centers, raises a $505M Series C led by G2 Venture Partners — Bitcoin miner Crusoe Energy Systems raised $505 million in a Series C round to accelerate the growth of its mining operations powered … | Javier Espinoza / Financial Times: |
Sources: on Friday, the EU will unveil the Digital Services Act, which bans targeting users based on religion, gender, or sexual preferences, among other rules — Digital Services Act lays out rules for technology groups to keep users safe online — The EU is poised to unveil a law … | Canalys: |
India's smartphone shipments hit 38M in Q1 2022, growing just 2% YoY; top vendor Xiaomi fell 24% to 8M, Samsung fell 2% to 6.9M, while Realme grew 40% to 6M — Shanghai (China), Bengaluru (India), Singapore, Reading (UK) and Portland (US) - Thursday, 21 April 2022| Josh Ye / Reuters: |
Chinese social media and e-commerce app Xiaohongshu has laid off 9% of its staff amid crackdowns; Xiaohongshu raised $500M in November at a $20B valuation — Chinese social e-commerce app Xiaohongshu, known as China's answer to Instagram, said it had cut about 9% of its staff as the company joined other internet firms in retrenching.| Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: |
Twitter tests suggesting third-party apps in its Twitter Toolbox, including Block Party, Bodyguard, and Moderate, when select users block or mute in its web app — Company will third-party apps directly on Twitter itself — Twitter has a novel idea as to how to win back developer trust … | Laurie Clarke / MIT Technology Review: |
How crypto investors are pushing for semi-autonomous crypto zones in Central America, as they risk repeating the region's long history of corporate colonialism — A new class of crypto investors have bold plans to rebuild society from scratch. But their pet projects risk repeating the region's long history of corporate colonialism.| Megha Mandavia / Wall Street Journal: |
Indian government data: Google Pay and Walmart-backed PhonePe have a combined 80%+ share in India's mobile payments market, WhatsApp has a 0.02% share — India will be a crucial market for Meta's global e-commerce ambitions, but multiple missteps there are holding it back
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Zoho RPA named a Leader in the 2026 RPA Technology Value Matrix by Nucleus Research — Zoho RPA has been named a Leader in the 2026 RPA Technology Value Matrix, published by Nucleus Research …
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data — Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Salesforce data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.
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| Annie Palmer / CNBC: |
| Apoorva Mittal / The Economic Times: |