| 11:10 PM • | Mars W. Mosqueda Jr / DealStreetAsia: Netstars, a payments aggregator and fintech company, raises $60.6M led by KKR; Netstars' StarPay is used by 280K+ merchants in Japan |
| 10:48 PM • | Naaman Zhou / The Guardian: Australian Federal Court rules Google misled Android users into thinking it would not collect their location data when they turned location history off |
| 10:00 PM • | FinSMEs: Cart.com, which provides end-to-end software and services to scale e-commerce businesses, raises $25M Series A led by Mercury Fund and Arsenal Growth |
| 9:40 PM • | Sean Hollister / The Verge: Apple's App Store hosted kids' games that became crypto-based casinos if launched from some non-US locations |
| 8:40 PM • | Manish Singh / TechCrunch: Walmart-owned Flipkart says it will acquire India-based online travel and hotel ticketing company Cleartrip; source says the deal values Cleartrip at about $40M |
| 7:35 PM • | Anton Shilov / AnandTech: Chip fab equipment sales hit $71.19B in 2020, up 19% YoY, with Chinese firms spending $18.72B, up 39% YoY, according to semiconductor industry association SEMI |
| 7:15 PM • | Karen Freifeld / Reuters: GOP lawmakers Rep. McCaul and Sen. Cotton ask Commerce Secretary to require licenses to sell chip-making tools to any Chinese firm making chips at 14nm or below |
| 6:40 PM • | Patrick Howell O'Neill / MIT Technology Review: A look at Positive Technologies, a Russian cybersecurity firm sanctioned by the US, which sources say provides hacking tools and ops support for Russian spies |
| 5:45 PM • | Catalin Cimpanu / The Record: Google's Project Zero updates its vulnerability disclosure policy to include a 30-day cushion before publishing bug details to give users time to apply patches |
| 4:55 PM • | Aparna Narayanan / Investor's Business Daily: TuSimple, which is developing autonomous trucks, closes flat in its trading debut, after raising $1.35B in its IPO, giving it a market cap of ~$8.5B |
| 4:50 PM • | Megan Graham / CNBC: KKR-backed mobile gaming company AppLovin closes down 18.5% on its first day of trading, after raising $2B in its IPO at a valuation of $28.6B |
| 4:10 PM • | Reuters: Massachusetts seeks revocation of Robinhood's broker-dealer license, charging that it encourages inexperienced investors to place risky trades without limits |
| 3:25 PM • | Ashley Carman / The Verge: Facebook's own ads that display the number of Facebook Dating users in a specific region show the service may have far fewer users than competitors like Tinder |
| 2:30 PM • | Cameron Faulkner / The Verge: Oculus says developers can now sell recurring subscriptions to their Quest apps, and each subscription will have a free trial period |
| 1:35 PM • | Marcella McCarthy / TechCrunch: C2i Genomics, which claims its software can accurately detect residual cancers by analysing genome sequences, raises $100M Series B led by Casdin Capital |
| 1:05 PM • | Tom Warren / The Verge: Microsoft launches a Kids Mode for Edge, with two age range options of between 5 to 8 years or 9 to 12 years |
| 12:50 PM • | Aria Alamalhodaei / TechCrunch: Xwing, which is developing software to enable pilotless flight of small passenger aircraft, raises $40M at a $400M post-money valuation |
| 12:35 PM • | Wall Street Journal: FBI Director Wray says social media companies play a key role in disseminating the messaging of domestic violent extremists, similar to foreign disinformation |
| 12:30 PM • | Mike Butcher / TechCrunch: Chili Piper, which makes appointment scheduling software for sales teams, raises $33M Series B led by Tiger Global, bringing its total raised to $54M |
| 12:25 PM • | Diane Bartz / Reuters: House Judiciary Committee formally approves a 450-page report accusing Big Tech of buying and crushing smaller rivals, a potential blueprint for legislation |
| 12:15 PM • | Ryan Browne / CNBC: In its first update as a public company, Deliveroo says orders rose 100%+ YoY to £71M in Q1 and total transactions rose 130% YoY to £1.65B |
| 12:05 PM • | Matthew Boyle / Bloomberg: Walmart says it is investing in GM's self-driving unit Cruise, bringing its latest round to $2.75B, up from $2B in January when Microsoft invested |
| 12:00 PM • | 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 |
| 11:50 AM • | Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch: UserZoom, which is used by companies like Google and Microsoft to evaluate and improve their UX and design elements, raises $100M led by Owl Rock |
| 11:45 AM • | 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 |
| 11:25 AM • | Manish Singh / TechCrunch: Amazon launches a $250M fund in India to invest in startups that focus on helping SMBs automate and digitize their operations |
| 11:20 AM • | 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 |
| 11:00 AM • | 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 |
| 10:35 AM • | 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 |
| 10:20 AM • | Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat: TetraScience, which helps life sciences companies analyze data, raises $80M Series B bringing its total raised to $88M+ |
| 10:15 AM • | Benjamin Mayo / 9to5Mac: Apple announces $200M investment fund for forest restoration projects that will develop financially viable initiatives to restore woodland areas |
| 10:05 AM • | 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 |
| 9:55 AM • | 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 |
| 9:50 AM • | 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 |
| 9:45 AM • | NBC News: US sanctions Russia for 2020 election interference and SolarWinds hack, blacklisting six tech companies that provide support to Russian intelligence services |
| 9:40 AM • | 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 |
| 9:35 AM • | 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 |
| 9:30 AM • | 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 |
| 9:25 AM • | Annie Palmer / CNBC: In his final letter to shareholders as CEO, Bezos says Amazon needs a better vision for its employees' success and he will focus on making its warehouses safer |
| 8:55 AM • | Engadget: Facebook says it has reached its target of powering its global operations entirely on renewable energy, after investing $8B in green energy projects |
| 8:15 AM • | Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch: Lingoda, an on-demand online language school with live instructors and Zoom classrooms, raises $68M led by Summit Partners |
| 7:25 AM • | Crystal Tse / Bloomberg: TuSimple, which is developing autonomous trucks, raises $1.35B in its IPO, giving it a market capitalization of ~$8.5B |
| 6:55 AM • | Terry Nguyen / Vox: Some Instagram accounts, such as NextShark, increasingly document incidents of anti-Asian violence that some say spurs a relentless cycle of aggregated trauma |
| 4:30 AM • | 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 |
| 2:50 AM • | 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 |
| 11:25 PM • | 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 |
| 9:30 PM • | Taylor Soper / GeekWire: Seeq, a data analytics startup focused on the manufacturing industry, raises $50M Series C led by Insight Partners, bringing its total raise to ~$115M |
| 8:50 PM • | Amy Feldman / Forbes: Benchling, which provides cloud-based software to manage biotech R&D, raises $200M led by Sequoia Capital Global Equities at $4B valuation, 5x its value in May |
| 8:10 PM • | Michael Sheetz / CNBC: Astranis, which is developing small, low-cost satellites to provide broadband internet, raises $250M Series C at a $1.4B valuation led by BlackRock |
| 7:05 PM • | Kirsten Han / Rest of World: A man was fined ~$100,000 in Singapore last month for sharing a Facebook link ruled as defamation against the Prime Minister, setting a dangerous precedent |
| 5:05 PM • | 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%+ |
| 4:10 PM • | Andrew J. Hawkins / The Verge: Ford unveils BlueCruise, its “hands-free” advanced driver assist system, limited for use on 100,000 miles of highways, coming to 2021 F-150 and Mach-E in 2021 |
| 3:55 PM • | Bloomberg: Profile of 23-year-old Nick Lim, who founded Vancouver-based VanwaTech, a hosting provider for white supremacist websites like Daily Stormer and 8kun |
| 3:05 PM • | 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 |
| 2:45 PM • | Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: TrillerNet, parent of TikTok competitor Triller, acquires customer engagement platform Amplify.AI and combat sports streaming and events service FITE TV |
| 2:25 PM • | Richa Naidu / Reuters: How Walmart's Marketplace, which grew from six third-party sellers in 2014 to ~70K in 2020, is competing with Amazon, as some worry Walmart's system is stressed |
| 1:55 PM • | Manish Singh / TechCrunch: Sources: Indian startup Zeta, which helps banks launch fintech products, is in talks to raise ~$250M Series D led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2 |
| 1:50 PM • | Wall Street Journal: Federal regulators say hospitals and health insurers can't use code that hides healthcare pricing data from web searches |
| 1:34 PM • | Ari Levy / CNBC: Coinbase shares close at $328.28, valuing the company at $85.78B, down from its open of $381; Nasdaq listed shares at $250 before Wednesday's open |
| 1:20 PM • | David Sali / Ottawa Business Journal: Internal memo: three high-ranking Shopify executives, the chief technology officer, chief talent officer, and chief legal officer, are leaving in June |
| 1:15 PM • | Kollen Post / The Block: US Senate confirms Gary Gensler as chairman of the SEC; Gensler oversaw the CFTC under Obama and taught classes at MIT on digital assets and blockchain |
| 12:45 PM • | Nick Statt / The Verge: Customers describe unhappiness with Apple contractor Phobio's handling of trade-ins, with quotes for devices slashed for alleged “defects” after being sent in |
| 12:25 PM • | Abner Li / 9to5Google: Google announces Assistant updates, including helping find misplaced iPhones, even those in silent mode, and improvements to online food ordering checkout |
| 12:05 PM • | Chance Miller / 9to5Mac: Parallels releases Desktop 16.5 with native Apple Silicon support, letting users run Windows 10 ARM Insider Preview on M1 Macs, and touts improved performance |
| 11:55 AM • | Jeremy Kahn / Fortune: Scale AI, which helps companies manage data for AI applications, raises $325M at a $7.3B valuation, up from a $3.5B valuation in December 2020 |
| 11:50 AM • | Saritha Rai / Bloomberg: Over 500,000 small Indian businesses are planning to protest Amazon and other foreign retailers, coinciding with Amazon's annual four-day sales event |
| 11:40 AM • | Romain Dillet / TechCrunch: Sunday, which helps restaurants improve their checkout flow, raises $24M seed at a $140M post-money valuation led by Coatue |
| 11:30 AM • | Wall Street Journal: Sources detail how Amazon uses its power across markets to compel vendors in one market to accept its terms in others, including threatening punitive action |
| 11:20 AM • | Bloomberg: Draft White House plan to shore up the security of the power grid, especially against cyberattacks, includes incentives for electric companies and more |
| 11:15 AM • | Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: Instagram says it is running a small global test to let users toggle Like counts on or off on their own or others' posts; Facebook will run a similar test |
| 10:55 AM • | Charlie Warzel / Galaxy Brain: Twitter's Trending Topics, designed to surface significant news, invariably leads to context collapse, where disparate audiences are lecturing past each other |
| 10:35 AM • | Juro Osawa / The Information: Sources: Indonesia's Gojek and Tokopedia are finalizing an $18B merger, creating a combined company called Goto, in a deal expected to close as early as April |
| 10:30 AM • | Stephanie Yang / Wall Street Journal: China's antitrust watchdog publishes strikingly similar statements from 12 companies, including ByteDance and JD.com, pledging compliance with antimonopoly laws |
| 10:27 AM • | Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch: Ireland's Data Protection Commission says it is investigating Facebook's data leak that recently resulted in personal info of 533M accounts being posted online |
| 10:20 AM • | Miriam Gottfried / Wall Street Journal: Abu Dhabi's Group 42, which offers AI and cloud computing products aimed at digitizing enterprises, raises ~$800M from Silver Lake for a minority stake |
| 10:15 AM • | Amy Feldman / Forbes: Groq, which makes chips for data centers and autonomous vehicles, raises $300M Series C, led by Tiger Global and D1 Capital, at a $1B+ valuation |
| 10:10 AM • | New York Times: Hundreds of executives and companies, including Alphabet, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon, sign a statement opposing “any discriminatory legislation” around voting |
| 10:05 AM • | William Gallagher / AppleInsider: University of Washington researchers partner with Apple to study how Apple Watch may be used to predict respiratory illnesses such as COVID-19 or flu |
| 9:55 AM • | Romain Dillet / TechCrunch: Wire, an enterprise-focused end-to-end encrypted messaging app raises $21M Series B led by UVC Partners |
| 9:50 AM • | Ian Hamilton / UploadVR: Oculus says v28 software update to Quest 2 will add an Air Link mode to play PC VR games wirelessly, a 120Hz refresh rate, and improvements to Infinite Office |
| 9:45 AM • | Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch: Upstack, which helps businesses choose better cloud and other digital services, raises $50M, bringing its total raised to ~$85M |
| 9:35 AM • | Mishaal Rahman / XDA Developers: Leaked Android 12 build gives a look at upcoming features, including quick settings, volume panel UI, location permissions, and clipboard access notification |
| 9:30 AM • | Todd Spangler / Variety: Plex raises $50M+ Series C from existing investor Intercap, bringing its total raised to $60M, and says it has more than 25M registered users globally |
| 9:25 AM • | Chris Welch / The Verge: Amazon unveils second-gen Echo Buds with a 20% smaller design and enhanced noise cancellation for $120 or $140 with a wireless charging case |
| 9:00 AM • | James Vincent / The Verge: Google's decision to fire two of its top AI ethics researchers has triggered waves of protest from academics, as some say its research can't be trusted any more |
| 8:35 AM • | Washington Post: Sources: Australian company Azimuth unlocked San Bernardino shooter's iPhone for FBI, using a flaw in Mozilla's open source code used for lightning accessories |
| 8:15 AM • | Michael Vizard / VentureBeat: Atrium, which uses AI to surface opportunities for sales managers and closely track actual levels of customer engagement, raises $13.5M in seed funding |
| 7:45 AM • | Sami Fathi / MacRumors: Kuo: 2023 iPhones will feature an under-display Face ID system alongside a new periscope telephoto lens |
| 7:20 AM • | Tamsin Shaw / The New York Review of Books: A look at Nick Clegg's role in leading Facebook's PR effort to persuade us that liberal democracy is safe with Facebook |
| 6:55 AM • | Paul Resnikoff / Digital Music News: Spotify has now removed 42 episodes of The Joe Rogan Experience podcast, offering no explanations for the removals |
| 6:40 AM • | Dieter Bohn / The Verge: Sony unveils 6.5" Xperia 1 III and 6.1" Xperia 5 III flagships with variable telephoto lenses, Snapdragon 888, three 12MP rear cameras, and 4,500mAH battery |
| 6:10 AM • | Anshuman Daga / Reuters: Sale doc: Indonesian e-commerce company Bukalapak raises $234M round led by Microsoft, Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC, and local media conglomerate Emtek |
| 5:25 AM • | Juli Clover / MacRumors: Kuo: 2022 iPhone lineup will feature two 6.1" and two 6.7" devices, no mini-sized 5.4"; high end models will have 48MP camera and 8K video capability |
| 4:40 AM • | Kate Conger / New York Times: The debate over retiring engineering terms like “slave” and “blacklist” has led to nearly a year of back and forth discussion at Internet Engineering Task Force |
| 2:50 AM • | Man Zhou / GamesIndustry.biz: A marketing manager at Tencent details the company's localization strategy for making Chinese games popular in Japan, where customer acquisition costs are high |
| 1:10 AM • | Karen Hao / MIT Technology Review: A glossary to help decode the language used by Google and Facebook to reassure the public about AI responsibility without inviting deeper scrutiny |
| 12:10 AM • | Benjamin Wallace-Wells / New Yorker: A look at IBM's Project Debater, an AI system that struggled to persuade a human audience in its first public debate despite excelling in analysis of evidence |
| 11:35 PM • | Andrew Hutchinson / Social Media Today: Report: in pitch decks submitted to US advertisers about new ad formats, TikTok says it has 732M MAUs globally, 100M+ in the US, 59% of its users are under 24 |
| 10:55 PM • | Jake Offenhartz / Gothamist: Since October, the NYPD has deployed a quadruped robot called Spot to a handful of crime scenes and hostage situations, raising fears of unwanted surveillance |
| 9:30 PM • | Kimberly Chin / Wall Street Journal: Stitch Fix says founder Katrina Lake will step down as CEO and become executive chairwoman starting August 1, names President Elizabeth Spaulding as next CEO |
| 8:55 PM • | Bloomberg: Degreed, a software company that helps businesses upskill their employees, raises $153M Series D at a $1.4B valuation, up from $710M last year |
| 8:07 PM • | Joseph Cox / VICE: The DOJ says the FBI performed a court-approved operation to “copy and remove malicious web shells” on hundreds of hacked Exchange servers across the US |
| 7:20 PM • | Shara Tibken / CNET: Samsung announces its next Galaxy Unpacked event will be held on April 28, as rumors point to Galaxy Book laptops, teasing “the most powerful Galaxy is coming” |
| 7:05 PM • | Paul Sawers / VentureBeat: 1Password acquires secrets management service SecretHub and launches Secrets Automation, a tool for companies to safeguard enterprise credentials |
| 6:05 PM • | Mike Dano / Light Reading: Comments from Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile suggest they have killed their joint Cross Carrier Messaging Initiative, which aimed to establish RCS interoperability |
| 5:10 PM • | Ari Levy / CNBC: Nasdaq sets Coinbase's reference price at $250 per share for its direct listing, which would value the cryptocurrency exchange at $65.3B |
| 4:24 PM • | Mengqi Sun / Wall Street Journal: Alphabet shareholder Trillium Asset Management pushes Google for better whistleblower protections, referencing the firing of Timnit Gebru and a 2020 NLRB report |
| 4:10 PM • | Katie Robertson / New York Times: Over 650 tech workers at the NYT announce they have formed a union to be represented by the NewsGuild of New York and are seeking union recognition from the NYT |
| 2:45 PM • | Lawrence Abrams / BleepingComputer: In its April batch of patches, Microsoft fixes 108 flaws, including 19 “critical” flaws, five 0-days, and four NSA-discovered critical Exchange flaws |
| 1:59 PM • | Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai / VICE: Researcher told Valve about a bug in its graphics engine in 2019 that could let hackers take over players' PCs via Steam invite; bug remains in some Valve games |
| 1:15 PM • | Josh Ye / South China Morning Post: Filings by Chinese customs authorities show the country imported 155.6B semiconductor units in Q1, worth $93.6B, up 33.6% YoY |
| 1:00 PM • | Ifeoma Ozoma / New York Times: Ex-Pinterest employee Ifeoma Ozoma describes why she helped draft the Silenced No More Act, a CA bill aiming to let discriminated-against employees bypass NDAs |
| 12:50 PM • | Everett Randle / The Valley of Dunning-Kruger: Tiger Global is playing a different venture game by paying far more than competitors, speeding up diligence, and adopting a lightweight post-investment approach |
| 12:35 PM • | Natasha Singer / New York Times: Disney, Viacom, and 10 ad tech companies agree to remove or disable software from children's apps that could target children with ads, resolving three lawsuits |
| 12:29 PM • | Peter Rudegeair / Wall Street Journal: Sources: Stripe's revenue rose nearly 70% last year to about $7.4B as the pandemic boosted e-commerce |
| 12:20 PM • | The Guardian: Facebook VP of Integrity Guy Rosen called the return of the Honduran president's disinformation campaign a “bummer” in 2019, but it continued for 11 months |
| 12:07 PM • | Juli Clover / MacRumors: Apple announces an online event on April 20 at 10am PT, entitled “Spring Loaded”, where new iPad Pro devices and more are expected |
| 12:00 PM • | Mary Ann Azevedo / TechCrunch: HomeX, which pairs service workers with homeowners and uses AI to diagnose home-related issues, raises $90M, says number of contractors on HomeX rose 5x in 2020 |
| 11:30 AM • | Reuters: Clearcover, which uses AI to find affordable auto insurance, raises $200M Series D, source says at a $1B+ valuation, aims to expand to ~25 states by end of year |
| 11:05 AM • | Dror Poleg: From BitClout to income share agreements at Lambda School, the future of work feels like a pyramid scheme where you can package and sell others' potential |
| 10:42 AM • | JP Mangalindan / TechCrunch: Tempo, which sells smart fitness workout devices starting at $2,495, raises $220M Series C led by SoftBank, says users have worked out 5M times on Tempo devices |
| 10:20 AM • | Sahil Patel / Wall Street Journal: Contextual adtech company GumGum raises $75M, sources say at a ~$700M valuation, almost tripling from last funding round, as Google and Apple limit targeted ads |
| 10:05 AM • | Ashley Carman / The Verge: Spotify announces Car Thing, a Spotify-only, voice-controlled device for the car, launching today for free for select US users |
| 10:00 AM • | Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat: SambaNova Systems, which is developing chips for AI training and inference workloads, raises $676M Series D led by SoftBank, at a $5B+ post-money valuation |
| 9:55 AM • | Mariella Moon / Engadget: Roku starts rolling out Roku OS 10, adding AirPlay 2 and HomeKit support for HD devices and introducing Instant Resume for faster reload times |
| 9:50 AM • | Todd Spangler / Variety: Epic Games raises $1B at a $28.7B equity valuation, including an additional $200M from Sony |
| 9:45 AM • | Ashley Carman / The Verge: Facebook is testing a free video speed dating app called Sparked, which requires a Facebook profile to create an account |
| 9:40 AM • | Mike Butcher / TechCrunch: ConsenSys raises $65M from JP Morgan, Mastercard, UBS AG, and others to build the infrastructure for DeFi apps |
| 9:25 AM • | Tom Warren / The Verge: Microsoft debuts a $70 webcam and $100 USB-C speaker, available in June, new USB and wireless headsets, and Surface Headphones 2 Plus |
| 9:19 AM • | Jeff Dunn / Ars Technica: Roku announces a trio of new devices: $40 Express 4K Plus streaming device, a $30 rechargeable Voice Remote Pro, and $180 Streambar Pro |
| 9:17 AM • | Tom Warren / The Verge: Microsoft unveils Surface Laptop 4 with 13.5" and 15" displays, starting at $999 for AMD model and $1,299 for Intel, shipping April 15 in US, Canada, and Japan |
| 8:50 AM • | Oversight Board: Facebook Oversight Board will now accept appeals to remove content from Facebook and Instagram; previously, users were only able to appeal to restore content |
| 8:40 AM • | Zheping Huang / Bloomberg: China orders 34 internet companies to rectify their anti-competitive practices in the next month, signaling that its internet crackdown didn't end with Alibaba |
| 8:20 AM • | Dan Seifert / The Verge: OnePlus Watch review: long battery life, nice finish, and low price, but no voice assistant, no always-on display, few notification options, only one big size |
| 8:00 AM • | Bloomberg: Bitcoin rises to an all-time high of $63,246, exceeding the previous peak in March |
| 7:40 AM • | Catalin Cimpanu / The Record: Researchers find new vulnerabilities called NAME:WRECK in the TCP/IP stack that impact hundreds of millions of servers, smart devices, and industrial equipment |
| 7:20 AM • | Yoolim Lee / Bloomberg: Grab is going public on Nasdaq via SPAC, raising $4B+ at a ~$39.6B valuation; deal would make it the first Southeast Asian tech unicorn to go public via SPAC |
| 6:50 AM • | Ben Thompson / Stratechery: Through her version of Fearless, Taylor Swift is showing artists how to use the power of the internet to ascribe value to work they own and devalue the rest |
| 5:50 AM • | Ionut Ilascu / BleepingComputer: Researchers: 538K Huawei Android devices have Joker malware, via ten apps in Huawei's AppGallery, after Play Store's similar issues with Joker-infected apps |
| 4:35 AM • | Sami Fathi / MacRumors: Siri Reveals Apple Event Planned for Tuesday, April 20 |
| 2:50 AM • | Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch: Berlin-based Grover, which runs a subscription business where people rent out consumer electronics, raises €45M Series B in equity and €15M debt |
| 12:50 AM • | Julia Fioretti / Bloomberg: Sources: travel booking site Trip.com, formerly called Ctrip, plans to raise ~$1.09B in its Hong Kong secondary listing; its US shares have risen ~4% this year |
| 10:55 PM • | Will Sattelberg / Android Police: Google expands Lens beyond mobile by rolling it out inside Google Photos for the web, allowing desktop users to copy text from images using OCR |
| 10:20 PM • | Rita Kozlov / The Cloudflare Blog: Cloudflare says Cloudflare Pages, a tool it announced in December 2020 for easily developing and deploying websites, is now available for everyone |
| 9:15 PM • | Axios: Senator Josh Hawley unveils a proposal aimed at Big Tech that would bolster antitrust laws and ban acquisitions by companies with a market cap of over $100B |
| 8:55 PM • | Brian Krebs / Krebs on Security: Data of 21M ParkMobile customers, including emails and license plate numbers, is up for sale; ParkMobile had disclosed a cybersecurity incident on March 26 |
| 8:15 PM • | Ben Schoon / 9to5Google: Google to shut down Play Movies and TV app for Roku, Samsung, LG, and Vizio on June 15, will push users to use YouTube instead |
| 8:05 PM • | Brave Browser: Brave is disabling Google's FLoC tracking method from all of its releases, saying it materially harms user privacy under the guise of being privacy-friendly |
| 7:55 PM • | Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica: Court orders Charter to pay $19.2M to Windstream for lying to customers that Windstream was going out of business in order to trick them into switching ISPs |
| 7:30 PM • | The Information: Sources: Anduril Industries is raising a new round that could value the military drone and surveillance startup between $4B-$5B, over double its value in July |
| 7:15 PM • | Zak Doffman / Forbes: Researchers have discovered a flaw where any user can deactivate another user's WhatsApp via multiple 2FA requests and emailing support to deactivate account |
| 6:40 PM • | Ian Hamilton / UploadVR: Facebook to host Oculus Gaming Showcase, a virtual event focused exclusively on VR games, on April 21, with streams on Facebook, YouTube, and Twitch |
| 6:15 PM • | Osato Avan-Nomayo / Cointelegraph: HSBC bans its InvestDirect clients from buying shares of MicroStrategy over cryptocurrency exposure concerns, after other anti-crypto moves by Europe's top bank |
| 4:55 PM • | Manish Singh / TechCrunch: Sources: DealShare, an Indian social commerce startup initially focused on WhatsApp, raises $100M Series D led by Tiger Global, after its $21M Series C in Dec. |
| 4:35 PM • | Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols / ZDNet: Despite the backlash, Free Software Foundation doubles down on restoring Richard M. Stallman to its board after he issued a defensive non-apology apology |
| 4:20 PM • | Jamie Crawley / CoinDesk: Binance launches Stock Tokens, a zero-commission tokenized stock trading service that lets users buy fractions of companies' shares, starting with Tesla |
| 3:55 PM • | Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat: Nvidia unveils eight new RTX GPUs for laptops, desktops, and datacenter workstations, with over 2x performance improvements touted for many workflows |
| 3:35 PM • | Stephen Nellis / Reuters: Following WH roundtable, Intel says it wants to help manufacture chips for car makers in the next 6-9 months to alleviate the US auto industry's chip shortage |
| 3:15 PM • | Alex Sherman / CNBC: Nuance is Microsoft's fourth $5B+ acquisition since 2016; other than Microsoft, only Amazon among the Big Five has spent $5B+ on an acquisition in that span |
| 2:30 PM • | Makena Kelly / The Verge: The FCC releases a speed test app on Android and iOS to help measure internet speeds in the US, and will use the data to inform its broadband deployment efforts |
| 2:20 PM • | Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat: Nvidia will let customers rent its DGX A100 SuperPod mini supercomputers instead of buying them and introduces a subscription offering |
| 2:00 PM • | Jordan Novet / CNBC: Salesforce to reopen its San Francisco tower in May, initially for people who are fully vaccinated, but employees can work from home through 2021 |
| 1:54 PM • | Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat: Nvidia debuts Drive Atlan SoC for autonomous vehicles that is 4x to 33x as powerful as its other autonomous driving-focused chips, Drive Xavier and Drive Orin |
| 1:30 PM • | Bloomberg: Twitter says it plans to hire its first product and engineering teams in Africa, based in Ghana, calling the country a “champion of democracy” |
| 1:26 PM • | Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat: Nvidia debuts TAO, an enterprise workflow for AI development incorporating Nvidia TensorRT and Nvidia's Transfer Learning Toolkit, now available in early access |
| 1:17 PM • | Mike Wheatley / SiliconANGLE: Nvidia announces Omniverse Enterprise suite for real-time remote, collaborative, photorealistic graphics design in a shared virtual space |
| 1:05 PM • | Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat: Nvidia launches Jarvis conversational AI framework in general availability, after garnering 45K+ downloads since launching in preview in May of last year |
| 1:02 PM • | Andrew J. Hawkins / The Verge: Intel's Mobileye says it will launch a fully driverless delivery service in 2023 and is working with Udelv to make 35,000 autonomous delivery vehicles by 2028 |
| 12:45 PM • | Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat: Nvidia announces Morpheus, an AI-powered cloud-native app framework to help cybersecurity providers detect and prevent breaches in real-time, now in preview |
| 12:35 PM • | Ryan Smith / AnandTech: Nvidia unveils Grace, a high-performance Arm-based server CPU for large-scale neural network workloads, expected to become available in Nvidia products in 2023 |
| 12:25 PM • | Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge: MLB announces that venerable trading card company Topps will begin selling new NFT baseball cards via the WAX blockchain starting on April 20 |
| 11:35 AM • | Hartley Charlton / MacRumors: Apple Support docs show that unusual mid-production hardware changes were made to its A12, A13, and S5 chips last fall, to update the Secure Storage Component |
| 10:30 AM • | Bruce Rogers / Forbes: Estonia-based identity verification startup Veriff raises $69M Series B led by IVP and Accel, bringing its total raised to $92.8M |
| 9:35 AM • | Ryan Browne / CNBC: Filing: Uber says its mobility unit passed $30B in annualized gross bookings in March and its delivery unit passed a $52B annualized run rate, up 150% YoY |
| 8:50 AM • | Bloomberg: Sources: White House chip shortage meeting with Alphabet, Intel, TSMC, GM, and others is to air grievances and isn't expected to produce substantive outcomes |
| 8:45 AM • | Christine Hall / Crunchbase News: Austin-based insurance comparison service The Zebra raises $150M Series D at a $1B+ valuation, bringing its total raised to $251.5M |
| 8:36 AM • | Microsoft: Microsoft says it has acquired speech tech company Nuance for $19.7B in cash, a 23% premium on its Friday closing price, as it boosts its healthcare offerings |
| 8:30 AM • | Bloomberg: Huawei says it will invest $1B in researching self-driving and EV tech this year, following Xiaomi's similar $10B investment over a decade |
| 8:25 AM • | Rachel Nuwer / New York Times: A look at eLocust3m, an app that uses AI and GPS to combat locust swarms in East Africa, replacing an antiquated tablet-based program |
| 8:15 AM • | Coco Liu / Bloomberg: After a $2.8B fine, Alibaba says it is unaware of other investigations under China's anti-monopoly law, besides inquiries into M&A that span the entire industry |
| 8:05 AM • | Liam Tung / ZDNet: Google urges Biden admin to join a US-EU technology council to prevent further barriers to trade and data flows, citing an “explosion in national policies” |
| 7:35 AM • | Lulu Yilun Chen / Bloomberg: Under intense pressure from China, Ant Group will become a financial holding company that is regulated more like a bank, among other changes |
| 7:30 AM • | Manish Singh / TechCrunch: India has had 10 new unicorns this year vs. 11 in all of 2020; Tiger Global has invested in over 20 Indian unicorns |
| 7:25 AM • | Pranob Mehrotra / XDA Developers: Google is rolling out “Heads Up”, a Digital Wellbeing feature that tells users to raise their head when walking while on Pixel devices |
| 7:20 AM • | Bloomberg: British cybersecurity company Darktrace announces plans for a London IPO; one source says it could value the company at around $3B to $4B |
| 7:15 AM • | Leo Kelion / BBC: Apple and Google block an update to NHS COVID-19 app that uploads logs of venue check-ins, citing API terms on collecting location data |
| 6:40 AM • | Mark Gurman / Bloomberg: Sources: Apple is in early stages of developing a product that combines an Apple TV with a HomePod speaker and has a FaceTime camera and smart home functions |
| 6:25 AM • | Julia Carrie Wong / The Guardian: Sources detail how Facebook allowed state-backed political manipulation in small countries, prioritizing abuses considered PR risks in countries like the US |
| 5:10 AM • | Paul Vigna / Wall Street Journal: How startups like Blockchain.com, banks, exchanges, and states like Wyoming are expanding crypto trading infrastructure to traditional capital markets |
| 4:05 AM • | Max Seddon / Financial Times: Russian e-commerce company Ozon says it will apply for a banking license to expand its fintech services, and plans to offer loans to merchants |
| 1:10 AM • | Bloomberg: Sources: Apple faces supply constraints due to issues with MiniLED display production, but still plans to debut two iPad Pros later this month |
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