Blog

    • Airbnb leads $160M Series B in debt and equity financing for Lyric, a hospitality platform offering short-term serviced apartments for business travelers (Deanna Ting/Skift)

    Deanna Ting / Skift: Airbnb leads $160M Series B in debt and equity financing for Lyric, a hospitality platform offering short-term serviced apartments for business travelers  —  Can you be both a marketplace and a supplier at the same time?  Airbnb certainly seems interested in testing that theory out. Airbnb leads 0M Series B in

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    • Newzoo data: the top 25 public game companies accounted for nearly 80% of the $134.9B global market in 2018; Tencent, Sony, Microsoft, and Apple topped the list (Dean Takahashi/VentureBeat)

    Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat: Newzoo data: the top 25 public game companies accounted for nearly 80% of the $134.9B global market in 2018; Tencent, Sony, Microsoft, and Apple topped the list  —  Market researcher Newzoo reported that the top 25 public game companies account for nearly 80 percent of the global market … Newzoo data:

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    • Terry Gou, the founder of Foxconn, has announced he will run for Taiwan's presidency (Chris Horton/New York Times)

    Chris Horton / New York Times: Terry Gou, the founder of Foxconn, has announced he will run for Taiwan’s presidency  —  TAIPEI, Taiwan — The billionaire Terry Gou, whose company is best known for manufacturing iPhones, announced Wednesday he would run for Taiwan’s presidency, saying his bid had received a divine blessing — from a

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    • Salesforce says it's buying MapAnything, which helps companies make location-based workflows on Salesforce's platform; MapAnything has raised more than $84M (Ron Miller/TechCrunch)

    Ron Miller / TechCrunch: Salesforce says it’s buying MapAnything, which helps companies make location-based workflows on Salesforce’s platform; MapAnything has raised more than $84M  —  Salesforce announced today it’s buying another company built on its platform.  This time it’s MapAnything, which as the name implies … Salesforce says it's buying MapAnything, which helps companies make

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    • Investigation finds six Android apps from DU Group, a major Chinese developer, that have been committing large-scale ad fraud and abusing user permissions (BuzzFeed News)

    BuzzFeed News: Investigation finds six Android apps from DU Group, a major Chinese developer, that have been committing large-scale ad fraud and abusing user permissions  —  A host of popular Android apps from a major Chinese developer, including a selfie app with more than 50 million downloads … Investigation finds six Android apps from DU

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    • Microsoft says it denied a California law enforcement request to use its facial recognition tech over bias concerns, but it has sold the tech to a US prison (James Vincent/The Verge)

    James Vincent / The Verge: Microsoft says it denied a California law enforcement request to use its facial recognition tech over bias concerns, but it has sold the tech to a US prison  —  The company has sold the technology to at least one US prison though  —  Microsoft has said it turned down a

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    • Sources: Amazon plans to close its marketplace in China by mid-July, after struggling to get a foothold in a competitive market; AWS and Kindle sales to remain (Reuters)

    Reuters: Sources: Amazon plans to close its marketplace in China by mid-July, after struggling to get a foothold in a competitive market; AWS and Kindle sales to remain  —  (Reuters) – Amazon.com Inc plans to close its domestic marketplace business in China by mid-July, people familiar … Sources: Amazon plans to close its marketplace in

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    • Profile of Playrix, founded by two Russian brothers, which creates smartphone games, played by 30M+ daily users, and has $1.2B in annual sales (Bloomberg)

    Bloomberg: Profile of Playrix, founded by two Russian brothers, which creates smartphone games, played by 30M+ daily users, and has $1.2B in annual sales  —  Almost two decades ago, in a remote Russian city best known for its butter and linen, two brothers shared a bedroom and a Pentium 100-powered computer they used to code

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    • Coinbase expands cryptocurrency trading services across 11 new markets

    Coinbase, one of the longest serving exchanges in the cryptocurrency ecosystem, is expanding its services across Latin America and Southeast Asia. As a result of the expansion, cryptocurrency enthusiasts in Argentina, Mexico, Peru, Colombia, Chile, India, Hong Kong, South Korea, Indonesia, the Philippines, and New Zealand will now be able to access the company’s crypto-to-crypto

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    • Sources: Uber is nearing a deal with SoftBank, Toyota, and Denso to invest $1B in its self-driving unit, valuing it at $7.25B, as Uber prepares for its IPO (Wall Street Journal)

    Wall Street Journal: Sources: Uber is nearing a deal with SoftBank, Toyota, and Denso to invest $1B in its self-driving unit, valuing it at $7.25B, as Uber prepares for its IPO  —  Ahead of its long-planned IPO, the ride-sharing company is nearing a deal with a group including SoftBank that would invest … Sources: Uber

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    • Several journalists have reported their Samsung Galaxy Fold review unit's screen breaking after a day or two of use (Dieter Bohn/The Verge)

    Dieter Bohn / The Verge: Several journalists have reported their Samsung Galaxy Fold review unit’s screen breaking after a day or two of use  —  Yikes  —  Look closely at the picture above, and you can see a small bulge right on the crease of my Galaxy Fold review unit.  It’s just enough to slightly

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    • FCC Chairman Ajit Pai says he opposes China Mobile's plan to enter the US market and will hold a vote on whether to deny its application in May (David Shepardson/Reuters)

    David Shepardson / Reuters: FCC Chairman Ajit Pai says he opposes China Mobile’s plan to enter the US market and will hold a vote on whether to deny its application in May  —  (Reuters) – Federal Communications Commission chairman Ajit Pai said on Wednesday he opposes China Mobile Ltd’s bid to provide U.S. telecommunications services

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