Bookmarks (11855)

Daphne Leprince-Ringuet / ZDNet: IBM unveils the Quantum System One, its first quantum computer physically built outside of the US, in Germany in partnership with research institute Fraunhofer  —  Big Blue has, for the first time, built a quantum computer that is not physically located in its US data centers.

Ashley Lampard / Rest of World: A look at the rise and fall of Phan Huynh Anh Khoa, aka “The King of Squirrels”, who used Facebook to become one of Vietnam's most notorious wildlife traders  —  Phan Huynh Anh Khoa capitalized on Vietnam's digital development — and Facebook's negligence — to build a wildlife trading empire.

Wall Street Journal: Alibaba's Taobao was clandestinely scraped by a web crawler for 8 months, leading to a leak of 1.1B pieces of user data, including user IDs and phone numbers  —  Software developer scrapes 1.1 billion pieces of user data, including IDs and phone numbers, over eight months

Bloomberg: Japan Display, which sold its smartphone screen factory last year, is pivoting to VR; LCDs are projected to dominate the VR headset market over the next 5 years  —  - Superseded on mobile, LCDs can better compete with OLED in VR  — JDI believes headset business could grow into a linchpin

Jimin Kang / Reuters: Payments company dLocal and Amazon announce an agreement that enables international vendors to sell products on Amazon's Brazil marketplace for the first time  —  Uruguayan payment startup dLocal Ltd (DLO.O) said on Tuesday that it had struck a partnership with Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) …

David Cohen / Adweek: The Oversight Board accepts its first policy advisory opinion request from Facebook, on the sharing of private residential info, issues call for public comments  —  It involves how it should handle private residential information

Manish Singh / TechCrunch: India-based Apna, whose Android app lets blue collar workers connect with others, upskill, and find jobs, raises $70M Series B led by Insight and Tiger Global  —  Indian cities are home to hundreds of millions of low-skilled workers who hail from villages in search of work.

Manish Singh / TechCrunch: Bangalore-based payments app FamPay, which is aimed at teens, raises $38M Series A led by Elevation Capital; Sequoia Capital India and others participated  —  How big is the market in India for a neobank aimed at teenagers?  Scores of high-profile investors are backing a startup to find out.

Sohee Kim / Bloomberg: Krafton, the company behind popular game PUBG and backed by Tencent, files for an IPO in South Korea, seeking to raise as much as $5B  —  - Krafton is selling shares between 458,000 won and 557,000 won  — Company will have to prove it's more than a one-hit wonder

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch: London-based 10x Future Technologies, which helps established banks add or retool their existing tech offerings via its SaaS platform, raised $187M Series C  —  As so-called neobanks continue to gain more traction in the market with their more modern takes on banking and other financial services …

New York Times: Biden names Lina Khan, an antitrust expert who wrote the “Amazon Antitrust Paradox”, as FTC chair, after the Senate voted 69-28 to confirm her as commissioner  —  Ms. Khan, who first attracted notice as a critic of Amazon, was confirmed by the Senate as a commissioner on the agency on Tuesday.

Mitchell Clark / The Verge: Mark Zuckerberg says the original Oculus Quest will receive Air Link support in a post about the upcoming v30 update for Quest  —  He also showed off multitasking in VR  —  Owners of the original Oculus Quest will get the ability to stream from their PCs to their headsets wirelessly …

Carolina Mandl / Reuters: Brazilian payments company Ebanx receives a $430M investment from Advent International ahead of Ebanx's planned US IPO in the beginning of 2022  —  SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Funds managed by Advent International are investing $430 million in the Brazilian payments company Ebanx …

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch: Uberall, a location-based marketing startup that provides services to brick and mortar retailers, raises $115M, acquires MomentFeed, sources say for $50M+  —  Location-based services may have had their day as a salient category for hot apps or innovative tech leveraging the arrival of smartphones …

Jordan Novet / CNBC: Oracle reports Q4 revenue of $11.23B, up 8% YoY, vs $11.04B est., with revenue from its Fusion ERP up 46% and NetSuite ERP up 26%  —  - Oracle called for less earnings guidance than analysts had expected as the company plans investments in cloud computing.  — For the quarter, though, Oracle beat on the top and bottom lines.

Lucas Shaw / Bloomberg: Netflix is hiring execs to lead consumer products, podcasts, and video games, as it seeks Disney-like franchises that stay relevant in between new seasons  —  Netflix Inc. has sold more than 200 million people a subscription to its streaming service.  We're about to find out if it can sell them anything else.

Washington Post: Ahead of the Biden-Putin summit, where Russian ransomware gangs are expected to be a point of tension, a look at how Russia became a “greenhouse” for hackers  —  MOSCOW — The ransomware hackers suspected of targeting Colonial Pipeline and other businesses around the world have a strict set of rules.

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: Automattic acquires Day One, a popular journaling app for Apple devices with 15M+ downloads on the Mac and iOS App Store; terms of the deal were not disclosed  —  Automattic is expanding its lineup of online writing platforms with its acquisition of Day One, a popular journaling app for Mac and Apple mobile devices.

Catherine Shu / TechCrunch: Singapore-based automotive marketplace Carro, which uses AI-powered pricing models, raises $360M Series C led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2 at a $1B+ valuation  —  Carro, one of the largest automotive marketplaces in Southeast Asia, announced it has hit unicorn valuation after raising a $360 million Series C led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2.

Monica Chin / The Verge: Razer unveils Blade 14 laptop, with AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX CPU, RTX 3080 GPU, and a QHD 165Hz display, starting at $1,799, says it's the smallest 14" gaming laptop  —  AMD in RGB  —  After months of rumors and speculation, many gamers' dreams have finally come true.

Natasha Mascarenhas / TechCrunch: The Pill Club, an online birth control prescription and delivery service, raises $41.9M as an extension to its $51M Series B from Jan. 2019, led by Base 10  —  In January, former Uber executive Liz Meyerdirk announced that she took over as chief executive of The Pill Club.

NBC News: Sources: in 2019, major labor union Teamsters refused a ransomware demand of $2.5M, against the FBI's advice, and instead rebuilt its systems from scratch  —  WASHINGTON — When the Teamsters were hit by a ransomware attack over Labor Day weekend in 2019, the hackers asked for a seven-figure payment.

Peter Rudegeair / Wall Street Journal: Sources: Shopify, Sequoia, and others recently bought ~$1B of Stripe stock from existing shareholders before Stripe's expected IPO; bids exceeded $4B  —  Shopify, Sequoia Capital and others recently bought about $1 billion of shares in fintech Stripe, which could go public late this year or next

Wall Street Journal: US government is ratcheting up pressure on China's overseas 5G ambitions, offering financial incentives and more to countries willing to shun Huawei and ZTE  —  Washington is organizing workshops and offering a handbook to help governments avoid using Huawei, ZTE gear

Jonathan Ponciano / Forbes: MicroStrategy raises another ~$500M in bonds to buy more bitcoin, and bitcoin's price surged to $40K+ after Elon Musk hinted Tesla may again accept BTC payments  —  Less than a week after announcing the offering, business analytics firm MicroStrategy, which owns more bitcoin than any other corporation …

Andrew Chung / Reuters: SCOTUS throws out a lower court ruling that had allowed 3rd-party scraping of LinkedIn users' public profiles, sending the dispute back to federal appeals court  —  The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday gave Microsoft Corp's (MSFT.O) LinkedIn Corp another chance to try to stop rival hiQ Labs Inc …

Sara Fischer / Axios: YouTube will stop accepting ads for its masthead ad unit from certain verticals, including election and political ads, alcohol, gambling, and prescription drugs  —  The masthead is often the platform's most expensive and sought-after ad unit.

Sergiu Gatlan / BleepingComputer: In a week-long operation, Interpol took down ~113K web links to fake pharmacies, and in another recent operation it recovered ~$83M for victims of online crime  —  The Interpol (International Criminal Police Organisation) has taken down thousands of online marketplaces that posed as pharmacies …

Chris Welch / The Verge: Review of the new $150 Beats Studio Buds: comfortable design and good sound quality but poor ANC, and some AirPods features are missing like audio sharing  —  Beats tried to do a lot at once — probably too much — with its new earbuds  —  The new Studio Buds are Beats' second pair …

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch: Stripe announces Stripe Identity, a self-serve tool for companies that can be used to verify identities using AI, launching in 30 countries in beta  —  A number of startups (eg, here, here, here and here) have fashioned themselves as the “Stripe for identity verification” …

Mike Butcher / TechCrunch: UK-based Motorway, which allows professional car dealers to bid for privately-owned cars for sale, raises £48m Series B led by Index Ventures  —  Motorway, is a UK startup that allows professional car dealers to bid in an auction for privately-owned cars for sale.

Brad Smith / Washington Post: Secret gag orders imposed by the US government on tech companies must stop, as they abuse citizens' fundamental freedoms and are no longer even used sparingly  —  Brad Smith is the president of Microsoft.  —  The past seven days marked another bad week for the collision between technology and democracy.

Sage Lazzaro / VentureBeat: UNESCO: AI and robotics have “dominated scientific output” in recent years; ~150K research articles were published on those subjects in 2019, up 44% from 2015  —  Elevate your enterprise data technology and strategy at Transform 2021.  —  The United Nations Educational …

MacKenzie Sigalos / CNBC: Profile of DigitalMint, a final-mile crypto broker that helps ransomware victims pay ransoms in cryptocurrency, within 30-60 minutes of contact from the hacker  —  - A business will fall victim to a ransomware attack every 11 seconds this year, according to research firm Cybersecurity Ventures.

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg: Sources: many Apple US stores will drop mask requirement for vaccinated customers as soon as Tuesday; mask requirement to be dropped at some Cupertino offices  —  Apple Inc. plans to drop its mask requirement for vaccinated customers at many U.S. stores beginning next week …

Dan Rose / @danrose999: [Thread] Former Facebook employee, now Coatue Management Chairman, shares his experiences working with Mark Zuckerberg during Facebook's early days  —  In my experience the best founders develop a fighter mentality. Mark Zuckerberg was a fighter, and without that mentality Facebook would never have achieved its full potential. Here's what I saw over 13 years working for Zuck:

Alex González Ormerod / Rest of World: After El Salvador's president, many Latin American politicians are expressing interest in adopting cryptocurrencies, as a PR exercise to elevate their profiles  —  El Salvador's president Nayib Bukele set off a movement for political opportunists and crypto-enthusiasts alike.  —  • MEXICO CITY, MEXICO

Katie Jennings / Forbes: CB Insights: VCs invested $1.5B into mental health startups in 2020, a record high, and 5.5x the funding invested in the space in 2016  —  I am a staff writer covering healthcare.  Email me at kjennings@forbes.com.  —  Investors poured $1.5 billion into the market in 2020 …

Yuan Yang / Financial Times: A new generation of young workers at China's technology giants is demanding an end to forced rankings, harsh working conditions, and the “996” work culture  —  By the time he arrived at Alibaba, Tim had been working to get there for years.  Raised in a small town in Zhejiang province …

Robert N. Charette / IEEE Spectrum: As carmakers integrate 100-150+ chip-based electronic control units in each car, a look at the challenges of an auto industry that is more dependent on software  —  The trend toward self-driving and electric vehicles will add hundreds of millions of lines of code to cars.  Can the auto industry cope?

MacKenzie Sigalos / CNBC: Taproot, a significant Bitcoin upgrade promising better transaction privacy and smart contracts, got approved by miners globally, due to take effect in November  —  - The first bitcoin upgrade in four years has just been approved by miners around the world.  It's called Taproot, and it's due to take effect in November.

Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat: Q&A with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang about its Omniverse, dubbed a “metaverse for engineers”, discouraging miners from buying its GPUs, chip shortages, and more  —  Elevate your enterprise data technology and strategy at Transform 2021.  —  Conversations with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang …

Sophie Zhang / Rest of World: Many Latin American Facebook users are self-compromising their accounts to fuel fake engagement through “autoliker” websites and unwittingly joining bot farms  —  Global South users often share their accounts with shady middlemen.  The practice is corrupting civil discourse around the world.

Matthew Panzarino / TechCrunch: Interview with two Apple executives about changes to multitasking in iPadOS 15, SharePlay, Universal Control, Quick Note, and more  —  Apple executives talk about the new iPad software's mental models and multitasking enhancements  —  The announcement of new iPad software at this year's WWDC conference …

Lingling Wei / Wall Street Journal: China pushes to subject data-related activities to government oversight, as it worries tech giants could use collected data to build alternative power centers  —  Beijing is calling on tech giants to share their information—and asserting its authority over data held by U.S. companies in China as well

Caroline Lester / New Yorker: A look at the rise of BitClout, a burgeoning crypto service monetizing social influence, valued at more than $1B in April, but operating in a legal gray zone  —  BitClout collapses everything—art, humor, personhood—into money, laying bare just who, and what, we are willing to pay for.

Robert Stevens / Decrypt: Thai SEC orders exchanges to delist NFTs and meme coins, defined as those with “no objective or underlying value” whose price relies on social media trends  —  Pisscoin, CumRocket, Dogecoin—none were funny enough to stop Thailand's Securities and Exchange Commission from banning meme coins.

Nilesh Christopher / Rest of World: Profile of Praveen Khandelwal, leader of a network of ~80M SMBs in India with deep ties to Modi, who evokes British colonial looting in his fight against Amazon  —  Praveen Khandelwal has built a name fighting against e-commerce.  Now, he's launching his own online marketplace.  —  • BANGALORE, INDIA

Financial Times: Disclosures from Tether show it has $30B in commercial paper, a short-dated investment similar to cash, making it one of the largest investors in the US market  —  JPMorgan estimates stablecoin operator would be one of the largest investors in the US market

FinSMEs: Aura, which offers device and identity theft protection including financial fraud monitoring for consumers, raises $150M Series E led by Warburg Pincus  —  Aura, a Burlington MA-based company which specializes in digital security for consumers, raised $150M in Series E funding.