Bookmarks (797)

Jonathan Greig / The Record: At Pwn2Own Vancouver 2022, several bugs were exploited in Microsoft, Ubuntu, and Tesla products; first day saw $800K+ awarded for exploiting 16 zero-day bugs  —  Several bugs in Microsoft, Ubuntu and Tesla products were found and exploited during the three-day Pwn2Own hacking conference in Vancouver this week.

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch: Heartex, an AI-focused data labeling and annotation service, raises a $25M Series A led by Redpoint Ventures, bringing its total funding to $30M  —  Heartex, a startup that bills itself as an “open source” platform for data labeling, today announced that it landed $25 million in a Series A funding round led by Redpoint Ventures.

Omar Faridi / Crowdfund Insider: UK-based Modulr, an API payments infrastructure provider that lets businesses automate and embed payments, raises a $108M Series C led by General Atlantic  —  Modulr, an embedded payments platform for digital businesses, recently announced that it has raised $108m (£83m) …

Anushree Dave / The Block: OpenSea launches Seaport, a new marketplace protocol which allows users to bundle different digital assets in exchange for an NFT, support for tipping, and more  —  Quick Take  — OpenSea, the popular NFT marketplace, has launched a marketplace protocol with a range of new features.

Ethan Gach / Kotaku: Report: Electronic Arts is looking to sell or merge; sources say EA pursued an NBCUniversal merger and held acquisition talks with Disney, Apple, and Amazon  —  The Madden and Apex Legends publisher is apparently looking for a way out  —  Alerts  —  The video game market is consolidating …

Loni Prinsloo / Bloomberg: Dutch e-commerce company Prosus plans to exit Russia and is looking to sell Avito, its classifieds ads business in the country that analysts have valued at ~$6B  —  Prosus NV is looking to sell its Russian classifieds ads business Avito, the latest international company to dispose of assets …

Reuters: Singapore-based online fashion marketplace Zilingo fires CEO Ankiti Bose after a probe found “serious financial irregularities”; Bose was suspended in April  —  Singapore-based Zilingo said on Friday it had fired Chief Executive Ankiti Bose after an independent investigation …

Juli Clover / MacRumors: Kuo: Apple is working on an updated version of the HomePod for release in Q4 2022 or Q1 2023, and there “may not be much innovation in hardware design”  —  Apple is working on an updated version of the HomePod that could come in the fourth quarter of 2022 or the first quarter of 2023 …

Washington Post: Court docs and a source: Larry Ellison participated in a November 14, 2020 call that focused on strategies for contesting the legitimacy of the 2020 US election  —  The billionaire GOP donor participated along with Fox's Sean Hannity and Sen. Lindsey Graham, according to court filings and a participant

Sophia Kunthara / Crunchbase News: Bravado, a networking service and jobs marketplace for sales professionals, raises a $26M Series B led by Tiger Global  —  Sales-oriented professional networking startup Bravado raised $26 million in a Tiger Global-led Series B round, the company said Thursday.  —  Search less.  Close more.

Murray Stassen / Music Business Worldwide: Google agrees to keep Bandcamp in the Play Store even if it doesn't adopt Google's in-app payment system; Epic will keep 10% of Bandcamp's IAP revenue in escrow  —  Bandcamp's had a rollercoaster couple of months.  —  In March, the online music store and direct-to-fan platform got …

Jay Bonggolto / Android Central: Google agrees to let Match Group offer alternative billing to Android users; the Tinder owner drops its request for a temporary restraining order against Google  —  Match Group apps will be able to offer alternative billing systems to users.  —  What you need to know

Aaron Tilley / Wall Street Journal: Report: Microsoft hid Bing autofill in the US for politically sensitive Chinese names, affecting Windows search; Microsoft blames a technical error  —  Bing's autofill feature failed to make suggestions for terms that could be deemed controversial in Beijing, according to a cybersecurity and surveillance group

FinSMEs: Noyo, which provides APIs to help companies offer health insurance and other employee benefits, raises a $45M Series B led by Norwest Venture Partners  —  Noyo, a San Francisco, CA-based API platform focused on the employee benefits industry, raised $45M in Series B financing.

TechCrunch: Seoul prosecutors open an investigation into Terraform Labs, creator of the UST stablecoin and the LUNA token, as its co-founder Do Kwon faces a $78M tax fine  —  Do Kwon, the creator of the stablecoin TerraUSD (UST) and its sister token Luna, is facing legal prosecution in South Korea …

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: Snapchat is testing Family Center, which lets parents see who their teens are friends with and whom they are texting; teens have the option to not participate  —  Snapchat is preparing to introduce a new parental control feature dubbed “Family Center,” which will allow parents to see who their teen …

Tonya Riley / CyberScoop: FTC warns edtech companies to not use children's data for ads and other commercial purposes without parental consent, saying it will “vigilantly enforce” COPPA  —  The Federal Trade Commission voted 5- on Thursday to issue a policy statement warning education tech companies …

Alex Heath / The Verge: A Meta executive told employees to stop discussing abortion on Workplace, citing “an increased risk” that the company is seen as a “hostile work environment”  —  Employees say the stance runs counter to Meta policies on discussing Black Lives Matter and trans rights

Lawrence Abrams / BleepingComputer: AdvIntel: the Conti ransomware group has taken its infrastructure offline and its leaders have partnered with other smaller ransomware groups to conduct attacks  —  The notorious Conti ransomware gang has officially shut down their operation, with infrastructure taken offline and team leaders told that the brand is no more.

Rich McHugh / Insider: Docs: SpaceX paid $250K to settle a flight attendant's allegation that Elon Musk exposed himself and offered a horse in exchange for an erotic massage in 2016  —  - A flight attendant for SpaceX said Elon Musk asked her to “do more” during a massage, documents show.

Wall Street Journal: Analysis: insurers significantly raised cyber coverage premiums in 2021, after high profile hacks; direct-written premiums by the largest insurers rose 92% YoY  —  Insurance market resets after a ransomware boom and the threat of spillover from Ukraine  —  Insurers significantly increased premiums …

MK Manoylov / The Block: Sacramento-based Azra Games, a blockchain gaming startup developing a sci-fi fantasy game with virtual collectibles, raises a $15M seed led by a16z  —  Azra Games, a blockchain gaming startup, raised $15 million in seed funding, according to a Thursday announcement.

Robert Gillies / Associated Press: Canada joins its intelligence allies in banning carriers from using Huawei and ZTE equipment for the country's 5G network, after a delay of over three years  —  TORONTO (AP) — Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government has decided to ban China's Huawei Technologies from Canada's next-generation mobile networks.

The Information: Sources: Coinbase is pausing new projects, freezing hiring, cutting costs, and giving staff more stock grants after its stock fell 75%+ in the past six months  —  Cryptocurrency trading firm Coinbase, whose revenue has shrunk amid a downturn in the sector, is pausing new business projects …

Canalys: North American smartphone shipments grew 3.7% YoY to 39M units in Q1 2022; Apple grew its market share to 51% with 19.9M units as Google grew 380% to 1.2M units  —  North American smartphone shipments reached 39.0 million units in Q1 2022, up 3.7% year on year.

Washington Post: Republicans, who opposed common carrier status for ISPs in the net neutrality debate, now want social media platforms to be treated like “public utilities”  —  Happy Thursday!  I know, I know, going to law school probably would've helped writing today's newsletter.

Bloomberg: Sources: at an all-hands, Twitter's top lawyer Vijaya Gadde said there is “no such thing as a deal being on hold” and execs said Musk's deal is moving forward  —  Twitter Inc. executives told employees on Thursday that the $44 billion deal to sell the company to billionaire Elon Musk …

Emily Nicolle / Bloomberg: Tether's accounting firm says Tether holds $20.1B in commercial paper, down 17% QoQ; Tether had $82.4B+ in total assets on March 31 and $82.2B in liabilities  —  Tether, the operator of the world's most used cryptocurrency, said it had reduced the amount of commercial paper in the reserve backing …

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: Meta launches its free WhatsApp Cloud API, aimed at SMBs, to all businesses worldwide, and announces paid features for its WhatsApp Business app coming later  —  WhatsApp is continuing its push into the business market with today's news it's launching the WhatsApp Cloud API to all businesses worldwide.

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg: Sources: Apple executives previewed the upcoming mixed reality headset to the company's board last week; Apple ramped up reality OS development in recent weeks  —  Apple Inc. executives previewed its upcoming mixed-reality headset to the company's board last week, indicating that development …

Tiffany Hsu / New York Times: Celebrities have been criticized for hyping crypto without highlighting the risks after this month's sell-off, as Crypto.com and FTX scale back on ad spending  —  Crypto boosters such as Matt Damon, Reese Witherspoon and Gwyneth Paltrow have been criticized for hyping virtual currency without highlighting the risks.

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg: Sources: Ian Goodfellow, Apple's former director of machine learning who left due to the company's return to work policy, is joining Alphabet's DeepMind  —  An Apple Inc. executive who left over the company's stringent return-to-office policy is joining Alphabet Inc.'s DeepMind unit, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch: Pipedream, an integration platform that lets developers build workflow automations and connect cloud services, raises a $20M Series A led by True Ventures  —  Software integrations can be challenging.  While serverless functions-as-a-service (FaaS) products like AWS Lambda, Google Cloud Functions …

Mike Wheatley / SiliconANGLE: Palo Alto-based Pangea, which offers embedded security APIs for cloud-native app builders, emerges from stealth with a $25M Series A led by Ballistic Ventures  —  Embedded security services provider Pangea Cyber Corp. is opening the doors to its business, emerging from stealth mode today armed …

Casey Newton / Platformer: Meta's Q1 2022 enforcement report: Facebook's automated content moderation systems improved YoY; the number of wrongly removed, and restored posts, also grew  —  What the company's latest enforcement report tells us about the free-speech debate  —  Today, let's talk about Facebook's latest effort …

Siddharth Venkataramakrishnan / Financial Times: Thought Machine, a cloud-based infrastructure provider for 35+ banks globally, raises a $160M Series D at a $2.7B valuation, up from $1B+ in November 2021  —  Unicorn brings Morgan Stanley on board as client and investor  —  London-based fintech Thought Machine has doubled its valuation …

Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch: Google Cloud launches new software supply chain and zero trust tools, including one that gives governments and enterprises access to vetted open-source packages  —  Google Cloud is holding its annual Security Summit this week and unsurprisingly, the company used the event to launch a few new security features.

Heather Somerville / Wall Street Journal: As startups face potential drops in valuation and VCs demand lower spending and higher margins, some companies turn to cutting staff, marketing, and projects  —  Funding is suddenly scarce as venture capital firms grow stingy, forcing young companies to get frugal and focus on breaking even

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch: Linz-based Storyblok, which offers a headless CMS, raises a $47M Series B led by Mubadala Capital and HV Capital, and says ~74K companies use its tools  —  The world of web development continues to become increasingly more democratized — and more creative — thanks to innovations in …

Mike Millard / The Block: Certora, a provider of security analysis tools for smart contract developers to detect mistakes before deploying code, raises a $36M Series B led by Jump Crypto  —  Quick Take  — Certora has raised $36 million in a Series B round led by Jump Crypto, with participation from Tiger Global and Galaxy Digital.

Joanna Glasner / Crunchbase News: Enjoy Technology, which runs mobile retail stores and went public via a SPAC merger in October 2021, says it lacks the cash to operate beyond early June 2022  —  Enjoy Technology, a venture-backed mobile retail upstart that went public via SPAC last fall, announced it has …

Bloomberg: Twitter loses more execs amid Musk's takeover bid: Twitter Service VP Katrina Lane, head of data science Max Schmeiser, and VP of product management Ilya Brown  —  Twitter Inc. is losing three more senior employees, including two vice presidents, a reflection of the uncertainty inside …

Jon Porter / The Verge: Robinhood is working on a second crypto wallet, which will give users sole custody of their private keys, coming in beta this summer and launching later in 2022  —  Its upcoming wallet will let users hold their own private keys  —  A little over a month after Robinhood publicly released …

Matt Levine / Bloomberg: Elon Musk, who wanted to “defeat the spam bots”, is lying when he says bots are why he's backing away from buying Twitter at $54.20/share, amid stocks' downturn  —  Oh Elon  —  Elon Musk is the richest person in the world, and an active Twitter user.

Bill Toulas / BleepingComputer: Researchers detail a BLE relay attack to unlock and operate a Tesla outside its BLE range; when told in April, Tesla said relay attacks are a “known limitation”  —  Security researchers at the NCC Group have developed a tool to carry out a Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) …

Hannah Miller / Bloomberg: Knock-on effects of the TerraUSD/Luna collapse will be felt across the crypto industry and may chill VCs' enthusiasm for investing in crypto startups  —  This week's undoing of the TerraUSD algorithmic stablecoin and its sister token Luna has ramifications for all of crypto.

New York Times: Live broadcasts and shared videos of mass shootings again raise questions about social networks' responsibilities in curbing violent and hateful content  —  Gunmen say they are influenced by online screeds and broadcasts of past shootings.  Do social media sites have a responsibility to rein in hateful and violent content?

Ron Miller / TechCrunch: Tel Aviv-based Komodor, which helps companies troubleshoot Kubernetes issues, raises a $42M Series B led by Tiger Global, bringing its total funding to $67M  —  For a time, Kubernetes, the open source container management platform, was as hot as it comes, but lately it has settled …

Michael Schroeder / MedCity News: San Diego-based Turquoise Health, a free search engine that lets patients compare hospital prices for US medical procedures, raises a $20M Series A led by a16z  —  Pulling back the curtain on healthcare pricing is easier said than done, acknowledged Chris Severn, the company's co-founder and CEO.

Caitlin Harrington / Wired: A look at the Apple Together solidarity movement that emerged from #AppleToo to provide support for Apple employees organizing in retail, AppleCare, and more  —  A solidarity movement called Apple Together has provided tools and support as the company's retail employees organize.