Bookmarks (7125)

Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat: Autonomous drone startup Skydio raises $100M Series C and announces X2, a new commercial drone lineup coming in Q4 with optional aftermarket software upgrades  —  Take the latest VB Survey to share how your company is implementing AI today.  —  Redwood City-based drone startup Skydio today announced …

Lucinda Shen / Fortune: Robinhood says it has raised $320M in new funding that values it at $8.6B, following its $280M Series F in May, which valued it at $8.3B  —  Investors are adding hundreds of millions more to Robinhood's coffers as the pandemic ushers in new customers.  —  On Monday, the stock-trading app announced …

Natalie Gagliordi / ZDNet: HPE announces it plans to buy Silver Peak, which makes SD-WAN tools for securely connecting edge networks to any cloud, for $925M  —  Silver Peak will be combined with HPE's Aruba business unit to bolster its position in the software-defined wide area network market.

Issie Lapowsky / Protocol: Sources detail issues faced by Black and brown tech employees when reporting incidents to HR departments, which often work only to protect company interests  —  Vanessa Williams was coming off of a big professional win in August 2018.  The former marketing staffer on YouTube's music team …

New York Times: As US COVID-19 cases surge, public health officials are battling broken, fragmented data systems, some relying on fax, that are seriously impeding progress  —  Before public health officials can manage the pandemic, they must deal with a broken data system that sends incomplete results in formats they can't easily use.

Gerrit De Vynck / Bloomberg: Sources, publishers, and advertisers say Google's 2015 decision to add a fourth ad atop Search negatively impacted results, decreasing organic website traffic  —  A push for quicker answers and more ad revenue has made it more expensive for online businesses to reach consumers.

David McCabe / New York Times: In a May filing to Australia's antitrust regulator, Google said it doesn't control enough of the digital ad market to overcharge customers or block competitors  —  A document sent by the search giant to Australian regulators argues that the company doesn't control enough of the digital ad industry …

Hannah Murphy / Financial Times: Inside Facebook's clubby network of invitation-only advertiser groups, called client councils, which use a mix of perks and pressure to keep brands close  —  Social media company uses a mixture of perks and pressure to keep brands close  —  Facebook likes to roll out the red carpet …

Rita Liao / TechCrunch: Microsoft says it is spinning out five-year-old Chinese social chatbot Xiaoice into an independent entity; Microsoft will retain its stakes in the new company  —  Microsoft is shedding its empathetic chatbot Xiaoice into an independent entity, the U.S. software behemoth said (in Chinese) …

Todd Spangler / Variety: SiriusXM will buy E.W. Scripps' podcast network and producer unit Stitcher for $325M; Scripps says Stitcher had $72.5M in 2019 revenue  —  According to E.W. Scripps, the $325 million price tag represents a return of more than 100% in its investment in podcasting over the last five years.

Apple: Apple allocates $400M+ for affordable housing projects and homeowner assistance programs in California, as part of its $2.5B commitment for CA's housing crisis  —  Apple is allocating more than $400 million toward affordable housing projects and homeowner assistance programs in California this year …

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch: Paige, a computational pathology startup targeting cancer, raises an additional $20M to close its Series B at $70M, bringing its total raised to $95M+  —  Paige, the startup that spun out of the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and launched in 2018 to help advance cancer research …

Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat: UiPath, which makes software to automate repetitive tasks, raises $225M Series E led by Alkeon Capital Management at a $10.2B valuation  —  Take the latest VB Survey to share how your company is implementing AI today.  —  Robotic process automation startup UiPath today announced it has closed …

Donie O'Sullivan / CNN: Both the DNC and RNC have asked campaign staff to refrain from using TikTok on personal devices  —  (CNN)The Democratic and Republican national committees warned their staffs about using the Chinese-owned app TikTok.  —  The Democratic National Committee warned Democratic campaigns …

Sundar Pichai / The Keyword: Google unveils the Google for India Digitization Fund, through which it will invest ~$10B over the next five to seven years in the country  —  Editor's note: Today at Google for India, Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced a $10 billion Google for India Digitization Fund to help accelerate India's digital economy.

Nellie Bowles / New York Times: Chris Larsen, a co-founder of Ripple, is paying for the installation of a private network of over 1,000 security cameras across San Francisco to fight crime  —  Chris Larsen knows that a crypto mogul spending his own money for a city's camera surveillance system might sound creepy.

Yogita Khatri / The Block: Public records show that the US Secret Service awarded a four-year contract in May to Coinbase to use its blockchain analytics software, worth $183,750 in total  —  Crypto exchange Coinbase is providing its blockchain analytics software to the U.S. Secret Service, according to a public record obtained by The Block.

Christopher Mims / Wall Street Journal: An overview of how data-driven tech and analytics are reshaping Hollywood's creative development process and market research during the pandemic  —  Coronavirus and the era of stay-at-home binge-watching is accelerating the entertainment industry's reliance on analytics and data to target …

Jake Slobe / Clay and Milk: Iowa-based Growers Edge, which provides a range of data-driven fintech and analytics tools for the agricultural industry, has closed $40M Series B  —  Growers Edge has announced the close of a $40 million Series B round of financing to accelerate the development of its financial technology products …

Aroon Deep / MediaNama: Zomato says its FY 2020 revenue was $394M, up 105% YoY, and EBITDA loss reached $293M vs. $277M in FY 2019, as Zomato Gold/Pro had 1.7M subscribers as of March  —  “While FY19 saw hyper-competition between four well-funded food delivery players, FY20 ended with a two player market structure …

Elise Reuter / MedCity News: Evidation Health, whose tech helps aggregate health data from wearables and other sources for virtual clinical trials, raises $45M Series D led by B Capital  —  Evidation Health, a startup that provides technology for virtual clinical trials, raised $45 million in series D funding.

Arjun Kharpal / CNBC: China's biggest chipmaker SMIC, a key player in the country's semiconductor ambitions, kicked off a $6.6B share sale on Tuesday in Shanghai  —  - SMIC, China's biggest chipmaker, kicked off a major 46.28 billion yuan ($6.6 billion) share sale on Tuesday.  — The contract semiconductor manufacturer …

Ian Walker / Kotaku: Ubisoft announces multiple senior executive departures, including its chief creative officer and Canadian studios head, amid company-wide misconduct allegations  —  Serge Hascoët has resigned as Ubisoft's chief creative officer after weeks of damning accounts of sexual misconduct throughout …

Leah Rosenbaum / Forbes: Telemedicine service Doctor on Demand raises $75M Series D led by General Atlantic, bringing the total raised to $240M  —  Although many industries have suffered during the Covid-19 pandemic, telemedicine is one sector that isn't slowing down.  The demand for virtual doctor's appointments …

Jason Koebler / VICE: A look at the gray market around repairing ventilators, where technicians use homemade dongles and software secretly shared within the community  —  As COVID-19 surges, hospitals and independent biomedical technicians have turned to a global grey-market for hardware and software …

Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet: Mozilla suspends Firefox Send file-sharing service after reports malware operators use it to host and send links with malicious payloads to potential victims  —  Mozilla has temporarily suspended the Firefox Send file-sharing service while it adds a Report Abuse mechanism.

Christopher Dring / GamesIndustry.biz: Microsoft's Phil Spencer claims asking studios to make games for Xbox Series X that will also work on Xbox One at launch won't hinder the potential of Series X  —  “Held back is a meme that gets created by people who are too caught up in device competition”

Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet: Linux team approves new terminology to replace terms like “master/slave” and “blacklist/whitelist” for new Linux kernel source code and associated documentation  —  Linux creator Linus Torvalds puts stamp on proposal to use neutral language in kernel code and documentation.

Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai / VICE: Signal's new feature that allows users to store certain data on their servers for recovery purposes has some security experts threatening to stop using the app  —  The popular encrypted app is now going to store your contacts in the cloud.  Experts are worried this compromises users' privacy.

Sarah Emerson / OneZero : Pinterest's moderation approach, which blocks content at the search query level, rather than removing it entirely, lets some objectionable content remain  —  The moderation oversight is a result of hiding rather than deleting illicit content  —  Pinterest, a website best known for inspiration boards …

Song Jingli / KrASIA: China-based Kuaidian, a storytelling app that lets users read novels in text message format and watch visual dramas, raises ~$100M Series C led by Sequoia China  —  The novel community Kuaidian has attracted 5 million daily active users since its founding in 2017.  —  3d ago

Casey Newton / The Verge: Clubhouse is the latest social network to neglect moderation until it becomes a crisis and why its creators shouldn't treat trust and safety as an afterthought  —  The $100 million startup is learning the hard way that content moderation needs to come first  —  I.

Tom Simonite / Wired: Pupils and teachers question the new grading algorithm used by the IB Diploma Programme to predict student scores after it canceled in-person tests this spring  —  The International Baccalaureate program canceled its high-stakes exam because of Covid-19.  The formula it used to “predict” scores puzzles students and teachers.

Paul Thurrott / Thurrott: Microsoft details how it is collaborating with Google to help developers get their Progressive Web Apps into the Play Store  —  Microsoft has been collaborating with Google to ensure that their tools interoperate and can help developers get their Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) into the Play Store.

Joel Rosenblatt / Bloomberg: Yevgeniy Nikulin, a Russian indicted for allegedly hacking LinkedIn, Dropbox in 2012 resulting in ~117M stolen credentials, is found guilty by SF federal jury  —  - Trial was the first in Northern California since the pandemic  — Nikulin was of interest to U.S. for 2016 election meddling

Abhimanyu Sharma / Times Now: India's Supreme Court rules in favor of allowing summons and legal notices to be served via messaging apps, such as WhatsApp and Telegram, as well as by email  —  This order marks as a huge step towards digitisation of Indian legal proceedings, where notices and summons used to be sent either by mail or delivered in person.

Zack Whittaker / TechCrunch: CBP says there is no practical way for Americans to avoid its license plate reader tracking, will use commercial database to pull private and public plate data  —  U.S. Customs and Border Protection has admitted that there is no practical way for Americans to avoid having their movements tracked …

The Information: Wells Fargo tells employees to remove TikTok from corporate-owned devices due to privacy and security concerns, says devices are only for company business use  —  It was a head-spinning day for TikTok, the hit video-sharing app.  Hours after Amazon told employees to delete TikTok from their phones …

John Gruber / Daring Fireball: The App Store's primary purpose should be to steer third-party apps toward excellence; split screen multitasking in Gmail for iPad should't have taken 5 years  —  Feel free to file Google's release this week of an update to their iPad Gmail app with support for split-screen multitasking under …

Makena Kelly / The Verge: Amazon says it will not ask employees to remove TikTok from their mobile devices, and an internal email asking them to delete the app was sent in error  —  The company confirms that an email was sent out in error earlier today  —  Amazon says that it will not ask employees to remove …

Taylor Lorenz / New York Times: Young people, who found an outlet for creative expression in TikTok amid lockdown, say a US ban would be devastating, as some flock to YouTube and Byte  —  Gen Z and millennial users have found community on the app, particularly during the last few isolating months.  And for some of them, it's their livelihood.

Bloomberg: Sources: Facebook is considering imposing a ban on political ads on its network in the days leading up to the US election in November  —  Facebook Inc. is considering imposing a ban on political ads on its social network in the days leading up to the U.S. election in November …

Joseph Marks / Washington Post: Biden campaign hires Chris DeRusha, who was a WH senior cybersecurity adviser and held a series of top cybersecurity jobs at DHS and at Ford, as its first CISO  —  Joe Biden, with four months until Election Day, is hiring a top cybersecurity official to secure his campaign against an array of digital threats.

Julia Alexander / The Verge: YouTube is finally letting creators know exactly how they're making money on YouTube, using a metric called RPM that shows total revenue, after YouTube's cut  —  A new metric called RPM pulls in multiple revenue sources  —  YouTube creators in the company's Partner Program can earn money …

David Shepardson / Reuters: US is finalizing a federal contract ban for any company that uses products from Chinese companies Huawei, Hikvision, Hytera, Dahua, and ZTE  —  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Trump administration plans to finalize regulations this week that will bar the U.S. government from buying goods or services …

Politico: France to introduce a controversial nationwide age verification system for pornography websites  —  Macron made the protection of children against adult content online a high-profile issue.  —  PARIS — The French Parliament unanimously agreed on Thursday to introduce a nationwide age verification system …

James Vincent / The Verge: TikTok, Spotify, Tinder, Pinterest, and many other iOS apps are crashing due to an issue with the Facebook SDK, which apps use to manage user logins  —  Widespread outages are affecting dozens of iOS apps  —  A number of popular apps and services including Spotify, Pinterest …

Tim Hardwick / MacRumors: Kuo: Apple Silicon Macs to include 13-inch MacBook Pro this year, MacBook Air this year or Q1 2021, and 14.1-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models in 2021  —  At last month's WWDC, Apple officially announced that its Mac computers will be transitioned from Intel x86 to homegrown Apple Silicon chips.

Gideon Lewis-Kraus / New Yorker: A deep look at the rift between some prominent Silicon Valley figures and increasingly critical media, based on the case of Slate Star Codex vs. The NYT  —  How a controversial rationalist blogger became a mascot and martyr in a struggle against the New York Times.

Bloomberg: A state appeals court ruled that Bitfinex must face lawsuit claims by New York state that it hid the loss of $800M commingled client and corporate funds  —  - Crypto exchange argued state had no authority to pursue case  — Court said stablecoin Tether is a security or a commodity