| 11:15 PM • | Brian Krebs / Krebs on Security: US and Bulgarian authorities seize a dark web site used to publish data stolen from victims of NetWalker, which has among the most rapacious ransomware strains |
| 11:00 PM • | Danny Palmer / ZDNet: Europol, the FBI, and other law enforcement agencies worldwide have seized control of malware botnet Emotet's infrastructure and disrupted it from the inside |
| 10:15 PM • | Ron Miller / TechCrunch: SAP to acquire Signavio, a Berlin-based business process automation company, reportedly for $1.2B |
| 9:15 PM • | Kif Leswing / CNBC: IDC says Apple has shipped 90.1M iPhones in Q1, the largest number of shipments in a single quarter since IDC started tracking smartphones |
| 9:10 PM • | Emma Lee / TechNode: Tencent-backed Chinese online education startup Huohua Siwei, which offers K-12 math and science courses, closes its $400M Series E at a $1.5B valuation |
| 8:15 PM • | Reuters: Samsung reports Q4 earnings with total revenue of ~$55.2B, up 3% YoY, and operating profit of ~$8.2B, up 26% YoY, but sees mobile sales drop 11% YoY to $19.3B |
| 7:03 PM • | Jay Peters / The Verge: r/WallStreetBets was made private by moderators for about an hour, but is back online; Discord banned r/WallStreetBets' server, claiming hate speech violations |
| 7:00 PM • | Megan Graham / CNBC: Zuckerberg says Apple is one of Facebook's “biggest competitors” and uses its dominant position to preference apps like iMessage against WhatsApp and Messenger |
| 5:55 PM • | Salvador Rodriguez / CNBC: Zuckerberg says Facebook will stop recommending civic and political groups to users permanently and is considering reducing political content in News Feeds |
| 5:45 PM • | Stephen Nellis / Reuters: In an interview, Tim Cook says Apple has an active installed base of 1.65B devices, up from 1.5B a year ago, including an installed base of over 1B iPhones |
| 4:57 PM • | Chance Miller / 9to5Mac: Apple's Q1 net income was $28.8B, up from $22.2B YoY; revenue for iPhone was $65.6B, up from $56B YoY, Mac was $8.7B, up from $7.2B, and Services grew to $15.8B |
| 4:33 PM • | Apple: Apple reports Q1 revenue of $111.4B, up 21% YoY, with international sales making up 64% of Q1 revenue; iPhone, Wearables, and Services set new revenue records |
| 4:30 PM • | Bloomberg: Squarespace says it filed confidentially for an IPO in the US; the company was valued at $1.7B in December 2017 |
| 4:27 PM • | Salvador Rodriguez / CNBC: Facebook says it has authorized an additional $25B share buyback, ARPU was $10.14, and reiterates that Apple's iOS 14 privacy changes could impact ad targeting |
| 4:07 PM • | Facebook: Facebook reports Q4: $28.1B revenue, up 33% YoY, 1.84B DAUs, up 11% YoY, 2.6B people used a Facebook service daily, up 15% YoY; headcount up 30% YoY to 58,604 |
| 2:50 PM • | Sarah Jaffe / Wired: Behind the rise of Game Workers Unite, one of the first video game workers unions aimed at remedying grueling working conditions across the industry |
| 2:00 PM • | Ashley Carman / The Verge: Instagram updates its interface for Stories on desktop, adding a carousel that shows upcoming previews and what just played |
| 1:25 PM • | Cory Weinberg / The Information: Sources: Bird is finalizing a deal to raise $100M in convertible debt, led by Sequoia Capital and Valor Equity, amid discussions about going public via SPAC |
| 1:15 PM • | Will Oremus / OneZero : How the social network Nextdoor is replacing local newspapers as a news and opinion hub, letting governments bypass the media and present a one-sided picture |
| 12:55 PM • | Pippa Stevens / CNBC: As Reddit's r/WallStreetBets pushes GameStop's stock to record levels, other stocks mentioned in the subreddit surge, like AMC, which closed up 300%+ |
| 12:50 PM • | Nikkei Asia: Source: Apple is expanding production of iPhones, iPads, Macs, and other products in Vietnam and India, as the company increasingly shifts away from China |
| 12:20 PM • | Tony Romm / Washington Post: Pressure is rising on Biden's administration to revive net neutrality, which may be difficult while the FCC is deadlocked with two Democrats and two Republicans |
| 12:00 PM • | Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch: Tel Aviv-based Classiq, which is building tools to develop quantum algorithms and apps, raises $10.5M Series A led by Team8 Capital and Wing Capital |
| 11:55 AM • | Bloomberg: A wide range of online brokerage services, including Robinhood, E*Trade, and Fidelity, experienced service outages on Wednesday during GameStop trading frenzy |
| 11:50 AM • | Stef W. Kight / Axios: Survey of 852 US college students shows 51% say the government should do more to regulate major tech companies and 77% think social media has “too much” power |
| 11:30 AM • | Ron Miller / TechCrunch: Pinecone, which is developing a vector database to help build machine learning apps faster, raises $10M seed led by Wing Venture Capital |
| 11:25 AM • | Paul Sawers / VentureBeat: Maryland-based SparkPost, an email delivery, optimization, and analytics service, raises $180M from LLR Partners and others |
| 11:10 AM • | John Gruber / Daring Fireball: After saying on Jan. 5 that it would add Apple's privacy labels to its apps “this week or the next week”, Google's flagship apps still do not have the labels |
| 11:00 AM • | Swetha Gopinath / Bloomberg: Polish postal locker service InPost raised €2.8B in its IPO, Europe's biggest since 2018, selling shares at €16 and valuing the company at over €8B |
| 10:50 AM • | Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat: Google details the impact of Apple's upcoming IDFA ad privacy changes, including reducing visibility into app install metrics and affecting bidding on some ads |
| 10:30 AM • | David Z. Morris / Fortune: Check, a startup building software tools for digitizing business payrolls, raises $35M led by Stripe, bringing its total raised to $44M |
| 10:25 AM • | Ryan Browne / CNBC: As r/WallStreetBets causes GameStop, BlackBerry, and others to surge, online trading platforms like Robinhood and WeBull have rapidly climbed US app store ranks |
| 10:15 AM • | Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch: TCV closes a $4B fund, its largest to date, with a focus on e-commerce, education, and cloud tools; over its 25-year history, TCV has invested $14B |
| 10:10 AM • | Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge: Amazon's Ring announces $60 Video Doorbell Wired, its cheapest and smallest doorbell, arriving on February 24 |
| 10:00 AM • | Catherine Shu / TechCrunch: Lynk, which uses AI to connect clients, like governments, with 840K+ experts in a variety of fields, raises $24M, bringing its total raised to $30M |
| 9:45 AM • | Tom Warren / The Verge: Reddit's r/WallStreetBets, which pushed GameStop stock to record levels, is now turning its attention to AMC stock, up 200%, Nokia, BlackBerry, and others |
| 9:35 AM • | Ryan Gallagher / Bloomberg: Profile of PE firm Francisco Partners, whose portfolio includes companies like Sandvine and NSO Group, which have both pursued deals with authoritarian regimes |
| 9:05 AM • | Ron Miller / TechCrunch: Playvox, which makes software to monitor quality of customer service, raises $25M Series A from Five Elms, and acquires Agyle Time, a workforce monitoring tool |
| 8:35 AM • | Paul Sawers / VentureBeat: Splashtop, a remote access and support service for businesses, raises $50M led by Sapphire Ventures at a $1B valuation |
| 8:20 AM • | Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch: DriveNets, which provides software-based routing tools to service providers, raises $208M Series B at a $1B+ valuation |
| 8:00 AM • | Paul Sawers / VentureBeat: Sitetracker, a multi-site project management suite designed to manage critical infrastructure projects, raises $42M Series C |
| 7:45 AM • | Mike Butcher / TechCrunch: Booksy, a salon appointment app that also runs a marketplace for beauty products, raises $70M Series C led by Cat Rock, bringing its total raised to $119M |
| 7:30 AM • | Jai Vardhan / Entrackr: Sources: ByteDance has decided to wrap up its India operations and is laying off 90%, or over 1,800 employees, following India's permanent ban on TikTok |
| 7:15 AM • | Maziar Motamedi / Al Jazeera: Iran blocks Signal after Iranians flocked to the messaging service due to privacy concerns about WhatsApp |
| 6:25 AM • | Alex C. Engler / Fast Company: Algorithmic audits alone won't provide the accountability needed for AI systems because they lack the necessary market incentives and real government oversight |
| 5:30 AM • | Zheping Huang / Bloomberg: Profile of XD Inc., which runs a Steam-like service for games that bypasses dominant app stores in China, and whose stock is up 480% since listing in HK in 2019 |
| 2:25 AM • | Joe Williams / Protocol: Oracle and SAP target startups with cloud offerings and favorable contract terms; Oracle's startup business grew 400% YoY while SAP added 773 startups in 2020 |
| 1:20 AM • | Michael Schwirtz / New York Times: Telegram, which helped fuel democracy movements in Iran and Belarus, faces scrutiny as far-right extremists flock to it amid crackdowns by Facebook and Twitter |
| 12:35 AM • | Anna Kramer / Protocol: Profile of Tracy Chou, diversity activist and founder of Block Party, which lets users filter out trolling and harassing Tweets so they can be reviewed later |
| 11:50 PM • | Natasha Mascarenhas / TechCrunch: ClassDojo, a school communications app for teachers, students and families, raises $30M, says it became profitable in 2019, and tripled its revenue in 2020 |
| 11:25 PM • | Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge: New docs from Epic vs. Apple lawsuit reveal internal Apple discussions on fees to charge paid TV and streaming channels and how that may affect the App Store |
| 11:15 PM • | Manish Singh / TechCrunch: Counterpoint and CyberMedia say that Apple has shipped 1.5M iPhone units in India last quarter, doubling its market share in the country to 4% |
| 10:50 PM • | Jay Bonggolto / Neowin: Sony announces Xperia Pro 5G, which has an HDMI input that lets content creators turn the smartphone into an external monitor, shipping now for $2,500 |
| 10:00 PM • | Wall Street Journal: Sources reveal that sidelining of Mustafa Suleyman, co-founder of DeepMind, from management responsibilities in 2019 was because he bullied staff |
| 9:15 PM • | PYMNTS.com: Albert, which helps people automate their finances and connect subscribers to financial advisers, raises $100M Series C led by General Atlantic |
| 9:05 PM • | PYMNTS.com: Pilot, an automated accounting service for SMBs and startups, raises $60M Series C led by Sequoia, bringing its total funding to $120M |
| 8:55 PM • | Rebecca Klar / The Hill: House Energy and Commerce Committee head details the GOP Big Tech Accountability Platform to address issues like Section 230, deplatforming, app stores, more |
| 8:05 PM • | Mitchell Clark / The Verge: Plex is launching game subscription service Plex Arcade, starting at $3 per month, which features classic Atari games and requires users run a Plex media server |
| 7:25 PM • | Financial Times: Sources: Ant Group plans to sell its Missouri-based biometric security firm EyeVerify ahead of potential fines and restructuring costs following its aborted IPO |
| 7:00 PM • | Penelope Blackwell / Protocol: At the World Economic Forum, 13 tech companies, including Facebook, Google, and Microsoft, join coalition to improve racial and ethnic justice in the workplace |
| 6:35 PM • | Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet: In today's iOS 14.4 update, Apple fixes three 0-days, tipped by an anonymous researcher, and acknowledges a report that they may have been exploited in the wild |
| 6:25 PM • | Thomas Wilde / GeekWire: Microsoft reports Xbox content and service revenue increased to $3.5B, up 40% YoY, as Xbox Game Pass subscribers hit 18M, up from 15M in September |
| 5:55 PM • | Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet: Firefox 85 launches with network partitioning, a new feature to block supercookies by partitioning Firefox's browser cache on a per-website basis |
| 5:45 PM • | Tom Warren / The Verge: Intel launches its first Iris Xe desktop graphics cards targeting SMBs and mainstream PCs, after debuting its Iris Xe Max laptop cards in October |
| 5:10 PM • | Richard Nieva / CNET: YouTube says it is extending its suspension of Trump from posting videos to his channel, but did not say how long the extension would last |
| 4:36 PM • | Tiernan Ray / ZDNet: AMD reports Q4 revenue of $3.24B, up 53% YoY, with its Enterprise, Embedded, and Semi-Custom segment revenue up 176% YoY to $1.28B |
| 4:24 PM • | Jordan Novet / CNBC: Microsoft reports Q2 revenue of $43B, up 17% YoY, vs. $40.18B est., and Azure revenue growth of 50% YoY, vs. 42% est.; stock up 4%+ after hours |
| 4:09 PM • | Microsoft: Microsoft reports Q2 net income of $15.5B, up 33% YoY, Intelligent Cloud revenue of $14.6B, up 23% YoY, More Personal Computing revenue of $15.1B, up 14% YoY |
| 3:30 PM • | Ellen Huet / Bloomberg: A look at content moderation on Clubhouse, where discussions have included homophobia, anti-Semitism, harassment, and the like, as media increases its scrutiny |
| 2:45 PM • | Nick Statt / The Verge: Twitter announces it is opening up its full tweet archive to academic researchers for free and ups the monthly tweet volume cap for approved applicants to 10M |
| 2:30 PM • | Lucas Matney / TechCrunch: Google announces it is shutting down internal development of Tilt Brush VR and is open sourcing it, a month after shutting down Poly, a 3D object library |
| 2:10 PM • | Sean Lyngaas / CyberScoop: Chris DeRusha, an ex-Obama staffer and Biden campaign's CISO, announces he has been appointed as the US CISO, responsible for coordinating cybersecurity policy |
| 1:10 PM • | Dan Berthiaume / Chain Store Age: Amazon says it reviewed ~10K product listings each day in 2020 and removed 2M+ in total for violating its policies and guidelines, 1.5M+ via automated tools |
| 12:25 PM • | Mariella Moon / Engadget: Samsung says its latest OLED screen tech, launching in the Galaxy S21 Ultra, reduces the display's power consumption by up to 16% |
| 12:20 PM • | Ron Miller / TechCrunch: Vectorized launches Redpanda, an open source tool to help developers build streaming data applications, and announces $3M seed and $12.5M Series A |
| 12:15 PM • | Swetha Gopinath / Bloomberg: UK-based online greetings card retailer Moonpig plans to raise £384M in its London IPO, pricing shares at £3.10 to £3.50 and valuing the company at £1B-£1.2B |
| 12:05 PM • | Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch: Calendly, a popular meeting scheduling service, raises $350M from OpenView Venture Partners and Iconiq at a $3B+ valuation |
| 11:25 AM • | Pranav Dixit / BuzzFeed News: As farmers protested reforms in India, on Twitter, supporters of Modi encouraged police brutality against them, with “Shoot” trending for hours |
| 11:17 AM • | Taylor Lorenz / New York Times: Clash acquires Byte and announces plans to release the companies' short-form video apps together as one product, alongside monetization tools for creators |
| 10:55 AM • | Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat: Tealbook, a supplier intelligence startup that crawls and aggregates procurement data from across the web, raises $14.4M Series A led by RTP Global |
| 10:30 AM • | Rita Liao / TechCrunch: SoftBank-backed travel booking service Klook raises $200M led by Aspex Management, says bookings have reached near pre-COVID levels in Singapore, HK, and Taiwan |
| 10:00 AM • | The Information: Sources: ByteDance revenue more than doubled last year to $37B, of which $7B was operating profit, up from $4B in 2019, despite India's TikTok ban |
| 9:55 AM • | Ron Miller / TechCrunch: Bloomreach, which helps e-commerce customers with search and website creation, raises $150M led by Sixth Street Growth at a $900M valuation |
| 9:50 AM • | Coco Liu / Bloomberg: Source: Didi Chuxing's on-demand trucking unit Didi Freight is close to raising $1.5B from Temasek, Jack Ma's Yunfeng Capital, IDG Capital, and others |
| 9:45 AM • | Julia Alexander / The Verge: In letter to creators, CEO Susan Wojcicki says YouTube has paid more than $30B to creators, artists, and media organizations over the last three years |
| 9:40 AM • | Sergiu Gatlan / BleepingComputer: TikTok has fixed a vulnerability that would have allowed hackers to access users' private information, including phone numbers, avatar pictures, and user IDs |
| 9:30 AM • | Kate Rooney / CNBC: Fast, which enables one-click checkouts across numerous e-commerce sites for logged-in users, raises $102M Series B led by Stripe and Addition Capital |
| 9:16 AM • | Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch: Run:AI, which helps businesses orchestrate and optimize their AI compute infrastructure, raises $30M Series B led by Insight Partners |
| 9:00 AM • | Paul Sawers / VentureBeat: Ringover, a SaaS-based cloud service for voice, video, messaging, and SMS customer communication, raises €10M Series A led by Expedition Growth Capital |
| 8:20 AM • | Cat Zakrzewski / Washington Post: Survey of 73 tech experts shows 93% approve of tech platforms' decision to suspend Trump's accounts following Capitol violence |
| 7:30 AM • | Sara Fischer / Axios: Twitter acquires newsletter publishing company Revue; the five-year-old Dutch company has six employees and has raised ~$318K |
| 5:30 AM • | Laurens Cerulus / Politico: Deutsche Telekom, Telefónica, Vodafone, and Orange pledge to prioritize the development of Open RAN tech to help smaller equipment makers enter the 5G market |
| 2:25 AM • | Matthew Keys / The Desk: Survey: the average American household spent $47 a month on streaming in 2020, up from $34 a month in 2019; 81% of US households used Netflix at the end of 2020 |
| 12:00 AM • | Alaphia Zoyab / Rest of World: Twitter and Facebook have done little to stop the spread of anti-Muslim messages from Indian politicians, amplifying incendiary voices in pursuit of profit |
| 11:15 PM • | Filipe Espósito / 9to5Mac: Twitter unveils a new “standalone, flexible” open source text editor API for iOS developers, similar to what's used in tweet and Fleet composers on its iOS app |
| 10:40 PM • | Devindra Hardawar / Engadget: Sundance Film Festival is going virtual in 2021, and is building an extensive VR platform for all attendees which can be accessed with or without a VR headset |
| 10:10 PM • | Crystal Tse / Bloomberg: Qualtrics says, in an amended filing, that it plans to price its IPO at $27-$29/share, raising $1.5B and valuing the company at $14.6B at the top of the range |
| 9:45 PM • | Ashley Gold / Axios: Google says it will not make any donations via its PAC this cycle to members of Congress who voted against certifying results of presidential election |
| 9:20 PM • | Casey Newton / The Verge: Sources: Signal's rapid growth following WhatsApp privacy changes has raised concerns from Signal staff who worry the service's new features will be misused |
| 8:35 PM • | Karissa Bell / Engadget: Instagram adds a new “professional dashboard” for creator and business accounts, a dedicated space for analytics, business tools, monetization features, more |
| 7:55 PM • | Adam Weidemann / The Keyword: Google Threat Analysis Group details a suspected North Korean specialized campaign targeting infosec researchers with fake profiles, blogs and backdoor software |
| 7:35 PM • | Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch: Facebook News launches in the UK, partners with Axel Springer and Samsung-owned Upday for curation, and announces partnerships and payments for some publishers |
| 7:05 PM • | Ian Carlos Campbell / The Verge: Amazon launches a feature for allowing Alexa to proactively complete smart home tasks, an energy dashboard, and a $4.99/month ADT-like service, Alexa Guard Plus |
| 6:30 PM • | New York Times: Norwegian Data Protection Authority fines Grindr ~$11.7M for disclosing user location data to advertisers and effectively tagging users as LGBTQ without consent |
| 5:30 PM • | Brody Ford / Bloomberg: Vimeo raises $300M at a valuation of $6B, nearly doubling in value in less than three months, ahead of the unit's scheduled spinoff from IAC in Q2 |
| 5:10 PM • | Apple: Apple says John Ternus will now lead its Hardware Engineering org as a member of the executive team; Dan Riccio to move to a role focusing on a “new project” |
| 3:55 PM • | Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet: W3C, Google, Microsoft, Mozilla, and others launch Open Web Docs, a new project for Web API documentation that will support MDN Docs following Mozilla's layoffs |
| 2:00 PM • | Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat: Investment firm Carlyle Group confirmed it acquired UK-based game publisher Jagex, which develops RuneScape, reportedly for at least $530M |
| 1:55 PM • | Issie Lapowsky / Protocol: Facebook says it will give researchers targeting data on 1.3M social issue, electoral, and political ads from August 3 through November 3, 2020 |
| 1:40 PM • | Margit Wennmachers / Andreessen Horowitz: a16z plans to launch a “new and separate media property” later this year focused on “the future” and names ex-CNN editor Maggie Leung executive editor |
| 1:16 PM • | NBC News: Twitter debuts Birdwatch, in testing since last year, which lets select users flag and add notes about tweets they think are misleading or false |
| 12:15 PM • | Romain Dillet / TechCrunch: French startup Alma, which offers Klarna-like payment installment tools for retailers, raises €49M Series B |
| 11:00 AM • | Cecilia D'Anastasio / Wired: A look at r/WallStreetBets, a 2M-member subreddit that helped push GameStop's stock to record highs and is now facing allegations of harassment |
| 10:50 AM • | Dan Primack / Axios: Source: Clubhouse raised around $100M from a16z at a $1B post-money valuation |
| 10:35 AM • | Sara Fischer / Axios: Google details its work on a privacy-conscious cookie substitute, called Federated Learning of Cohorts, claims ~95% effectiveness compared to cookie-based ads |
| 10:05 AM • | Chance Miller / 9to5Mac: Apple launches Time to Walk for Apple Watch and Fitness+, offering 25- to 40-minute episodes of original audio from influential people, available today |
| 10:00 AM • | Christine Hall / Crunchbase News: Melio, a B2B payments startup focused on small businesses, raises $110M Series C2 at a $1.3B valuation, following an $80M Series C in Sept. 2020 |
| 9:50 AM • | Wall Street Journal: Smart lock maker Latch says it will go public by merging with a SPAC at a $1.56B valuation, expecting to raise ~$450M in cash |
| 9:25 AM • | Rita Liao / TechCrunch: Autonomous driving startup Uisee raises $150M from investors including Chinese state-backed National Manufacturing Transformation and Upgrade Fund |
| 9:15 AM • | Jessica Bursztynsky / CNBC: NBCUniversal and Twitter announce a multi-year global content partnership to bring live, trending content, like sports highlights, to Twitter |
| 8:50 AM • | Steve Dent / Engadget: Google pledges $150M in grants to promote COVID-19 vaccine distribution and converts some of its facilities into vaccination sites |
| 8:15 AM • | Reuters: Sources: Huawei is in early stage talks to sell its premium smartphone brands P and Mate to a Chinese consortium led by state-backed investment firms |
| 7:50 AM • | Steve O'Hear / TechCrunch: Wolt, a Helsinki-based online ordering and delivery company, raises $530M led by Iconiq Growth |
| 7:25 AM • | Sara Fischer / Axios: Content recommendation company Taboola says it has agreed to go public via a SPAC, valuing the company at $2.6B and raising $545M |
| 7:05 AM • | Zoe Schiffer / The Verge: Google workers across the world announce Alpha Global, an international alliance of 13 unions representing workers in 10 countries |
| 6:50 AM • | Eliza Haverstock / Forbes: Brigit, a personal finance app offering overdraft coverage, emergency loans, and budgeting tools, says it raised $35M Series A in early 2020 led by Lightspeed |
| 2:15 AM • | Darrell Etherington / TechCrunch: German startup Wingcopter, which develops fixed-wing drones capable of vertical take-off and landing, raises $22M Series A led by Xplorer Capital |
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