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Showing posts from July, 2022

Hackers using malicious Gmail, Microsoft Edge extension to spy on emails

A group of hackers from North Korea is using a malicious Google Chrome or Chromium-based Microsoft Edge extension to spy or user email accounts. from Gadgets Now https://ift.tt/KFVTh8i

Chatbots to become primary customer service channel by 2027

Chatbots will become the primary customer service channel for roughly a quarter of organisations in the next five years, according to a Gartner report. from Gadgets Now https://ift.tt/BtwlHk0

Indonesia blocks Yahoo!, Paypal, gaming websites over licence breaches

The country released rules in November 2020 making registration of companies mandatory. from Gadgets Now https://ift.tt/BnoGjWb

Ban on BGMI: Latest update, 'Chinese connection', can you still play and more

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Arca’s David Nage on how regulatory scrutiny is impacting venture investment in web3

The regulatory environment surrounding crypto is shifting stateside as the SEC takes aim at major players in the web3 world, promising to shake up business as usual with aggressive action. This week on Chain Reaction, we sat down with David Nage. Nage is a Principal at Arca overseeing their early stage fund with a primary focus on blockchain and digital assets. On the podcast this week, we dug into a multitude of crypto topics impacting the web3 venture capital world, including struggles with the blockchain gaming sector and a renewed regulatory fervor from the SEC following this week’s report of an investigation into Coinbase. You can listen to the full interview below. In our conversation, Nage noted that the recent downturn has already provided plenty of learnings for players in the space, but notes that some of the biggest blowups have disproportionally impacted retail investors. “I wish that we as a society didn’t have to learn through failure, but it appears that we really le

Bolt Mobility has vanished, leaving e-bikes, unanswered calls behind in several US cities

Bolt Mobility, the Miami-based micromobility startup co-founded by Olympic gold medalist Usain Bolt, appears to have vanished without a trace from several of its U.S. markets.  In some cases, the departure has been abrupt, leaving cities with abandoned equipment, unanswered calls and emails and lots of questions. Bolt has stopped operating in at least five U.S. cities, including Portland, Oregon, Burlington, South Burlington and Winooski in Vermont and Richmond, California, according to city officials. City representatives also said they were unable to reach anyone at Bolt, including its CEO Ignacio Tzoumas. TechCrunch has made multiple attempts to reach Bolt and those who have backed the company. Emails to Bolt’s communications department, several employees and investors went unanswered. Even the customer service line doesn’t appear to be staffed.  The PR agency that was representing Bolt in March of this year told TechCrunch it is no longer working with the company.  Bolt halte

A tale of two surveys: Fintech VCs change tune on investment landscape

Welcome to The Interchange! If you received this in your inbox, thank you for signing up and your vote of confidence. If you’re reading this as a post on our site, sign up here so you can receive it directly in the future. Every week, I’ll take a look at the hottest fintech news of the previous week. This will include everything from funding rounds to trends to an analysis of a particular space to hot takes on a particular company or phenomenon. There’s a lot of fintech news out there and it’s my job to stay on top of it — and make sense of it — so you can stay in the know. — Mary Ann What a difference a few months makes. In mid-February, we published a survey of 10 fintech investors with questions on topics such as what areas they are excited about and their outlook for the future. Here we are, not even six months later, and the vibe from the responses of our latest survey — this time of eight fintech investors — is a very different one. A few examples… When asked in February

How to collaborate on a Word document on a desktop, phone, or online

The ability to collaborate on work documents enables people chosen by you to give feedback on your presentation or to make quick changes to it. from Gadgets Now https://ift.tt/V2Lqpkh

Income Tax Returns (ITR) filing last day today: How to file online, a step-by-step guide

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Income Tax Returns (ITR) filing last day today: How to file online, a step-by-step guide

If you haven’t filed your income tax returns as of now, here’s how you can do it while staying at home. Simply follow our step-by-step instructions. from Gadgets Now https://ift.tt/cMseU25

Apple‘s India revenue nearly doubled, BGMI banned, Google brings Street View back and other top tech news of the week

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Gmail gets a new look, Instagram trips while trying to be TikTok and India blocks Battleground Mobile

Hello hello! Welcome back to Week in Review , the newsletter where we do a quick rundown of the most-read TechCrunch stories from the past week. The idea: When you’ve had a busy few days, you should be able to skim Week in Review and still have a good idea of what’s up lately in tech. Want it in your inbox? Sign up here . The most read story this week was about Battlegrounds Mobile India, a popular battle royale title that has found an audience of tens of millions in India. Players woke up to find the game suddenly blocked from both Google Play and Apple’s App Store by order of the Indian government. Why? That’s…not exactly clear yet, but Manish has the breakdown of everything we know so far . other stuff New Gmail for all : Use Gmail? Don’t be surprised if it looks different soon. The company announced this week that the “Material You” interface overhaul it has been testing will roll out to all users in the coming weeks. Don’t like the new styling? For now, at least, you can find

Can VCs game crypto out of this downturn?

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Welcome back to Chain Reaction. Last week, we looked at Musk holding onto doge. This week, we’re talking about where all of this crypto VC money is possibly gonna go. To get this in your inbox every Thursday, you can subscribe on TechCrunch’s newsletter page. maybe, it’s all a game? A weekly dispatch from the desk of TechCrunch crypto editor Lucas Matney : The reality is that the dreams of web3 investors and founders are facing a bit of a jam — a crypto downturn generally means less hype, fewer conversations between friends and generally less organic consumer onboarding to consumer experiences. This is far from ideal for VCs who saw a consumer web dream within grasp, but fortunately they’ve got some deep pockets thanks to recently raised mega funds with crypto bets as their sole focus. Still, it’s a rough time for consumer crypto’s core audience though, with recently minted acolytes down bad and many likely discouraged from sinking more time, money or effort into new web3 proje

What do Big Tech earnings tell us about the health of consumer demand?

How healthy is the market for technology products today? The question is too broad. Large markets can have varying internal results that contrast with top-line numbers. An example of this from recent history is disparate results in venture capital activity we’ve noted around the world. While the aggregate venture market is slowing , we’ve also seen pockets of strength in certain regions.  Are tech sales similar? Some secular trends are powering technology growth. The movement off of on-prem solutions to public cloud providers, for example, among enterprise customers. As we learned when COVID-19 was driving lockdowns around the world a few years back, economic downturns don’t necessarily impact most of the tech world as much as they do other parts of the global economy. (This is perhaps why software valuations have stopped losing ground, despite a worsening global macroeconomic profile.)   The Exchange explores startups, markets and money. Read it every morning on TechCrunch+ or

FTX wins full approval to operate crypto exchange in Dubai

Cryptocurrency exchange FTX said on Friday it was fully approved to operate its exchange and clearing house in Dubai, as the Gulf emirate pushes forward with plans to develop its digital asset sector. from Gadgets Now https://ift.tt/mVk0tz3

Equal Ventures has a new pair of funds, filings show

Equal Ventures , a venture firm that debuted in 2020 with a $56 million first fund, has raised a pair of new investment vehicles, SEC filings show. The New York City-based firm has closed a $94.8 million second fund and its first opportunity fund, worth $75 million. The investment firm is led by two investors, Richard Kerby and Rick Zullo, equal partners in the firm. Kerby declined to comment about the funds over email. Equal Ventures looks to be the first institutional investor in a startup, a level of conviction that means that it is more focused on a concentrated portfolio than small checks in a widespread group of startups. The firm’s portfolio includes Ghost, a marketplace that connects brands with extra inventory to retailers, Block Renovation, a platform that productizes the home renovation experience for consumers, and Smarthop, which helps truckers optimize their work. Zullo formerly invested on behalf of Lightbank, a Chicago-based venture operation, while Kerby spent year

How to check if your MacBook’s battery has still some ‘life’ left

If you have been facing poor battery life from your MacBook laptops, then there’s a possibility that the battery capacity has decreased and it is time to get a new one or get it replaced if it is under warranty. from Gadgets Now https://ift.tt/hNBc0qG

Build a solid deck for your quarterly board meetings

Yousuf Khan Contributor Share on Twitter Yousuf Khan is a partner at Ridge Ventures . Prior to joining Ridge, he was the first CIO of Automation Anywhere, CIO and vice president of Customer Success at cloud-based AI platform Moveworks, as well as CIO of Pure Storage, Qualys and Hult International Business School. More posts by this contributor 10 tips for running effective board meetings To achieve enterprise sales success, tailor your approach to CIOs A few weeks ago,  I wrote a piece on TechCrunch about how to run a successful board meeting. Since then, I’ve been asked one question over and over: What does a good board update actually look like? It’s a perfectly reasonable question. In the early days of a startup, most founders have very little data to work with. It can be quite difficult to structure a productive and actionable board deck if you don’t have any customer or product information to anchor the update. It’s important to balance two key areas: provid

Asus Zenfone 9 with Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 SoC, audio jack, gimbal-like camera launched

Asus has announced its new flagship smartphone – the Zenfone 9. Asus’ Zenfone 9 is smaller than its predecessor but comes with a much faster processor. from Gadgets Now https://ift.tt/5pNTfVz

TikTok begins pilot testing HTML5 mini-games with a handful of partners

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TikTok wants to determine its users’ appetite for mobile gaming with the launch of “mini-games” that can be played inside the social video app and discovered through creators’ videos. TechCrunch learned and has now confirmed TikTok’s new gaming pilot quietly launched just weeks ago with a variety of new partners, including game developers Vodoo , Nitro Games , FRVR , Aim Lab  and Lotem . The launch follows reports earlier this year that the social video app maker was looking to expand into HTML5 gaming after first testing the waters with gaming giant Zynga last November. The two companies had then teamed up to launch a TikTok exclusive title, Disco Loco 3D, which was similar to Zynga’s successful game (by way of  acquisition ) High Heels. At the time, TikTok said it was engaged in discussions with other game makers for similar deals, telegraphing a larger gaming expansion still to come. The move, if successful, could one day position TikTok as a home for casual mobile gaming that r

Chip crunch easing could weigh on pricing power, says Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares

In a media call presenting the automaker's results in the first half of the year, Tavares said the industry was in a "very specific sweet spot right now." from Gadgets Now https://ift.tt/GXQHaMR

Let’s get practical

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The devs tell me there were so many of you tuning in to the beginning of our robotics event that we knocked the site offline for a bit. I’m extremely grateful for that — not for getting knocked off our axis for a bit, but rather for the interest that got us there. TechCrunch’s social team did a terrific job talking the show up in the home stretch, and frankly, there’s never been a more crucial time for an event like this. Robotics itself is at a vital crossroads, and the way we discuss it now will help to define the category in the future. We need to strike the right balance between the romantic and the pragmatic. Tasked with reflecting on the pivotal year of 2020 , I wrote that, as a broad category, robotics can be defined as “cool technology employed for uncool tasks.” That’s one of the things that makes this such a strange — and fascinating — subject to cover this closely. Boston Dynamics’ work has become shorthand for this. Decades of viral videos and regurgitated headlines abou