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Showing posts from February, 2023

Daily Crunch: Remote workspace platform Gable raises $12M Series A

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via https://ift.tt/JKp0kEh To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PST, subscribe here . TikTok just can’t dodge the watchful eyes of the watchmen: Earlier this year, Taylor reported that a string of universities banned TikTok from devices . Last week, Paul reported that the European Commission threw the kibosh on having TikTok on work devices , and today, Amanda reported that Canada followed suit for its government devices . The bans are coming down over concerns that China-based TikTok can be used to spy on its users. — Christine and Haje The TechCrunch Top 3 Raise the roof : Continuing to work remotely in 2023 remains a hotly contested issue in today’s workplaces. What if we told you that Gable can give your company better remote working options? Still with us? Okay, Haje writes about how Gable raised $12 million to not only show your remote employees a nearby workplace, but also show them if any of ...

Mozilla leads Mastodon app Mammoth’s pre-seed funding

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via https://ift.tt/FZl3MH2 Mammoth, a recently launched Mastodon app that’s trying to make it easier on users who want to join the decentralized social web, has a notable financial backer. The company confirmed that its leading pre-seed investor is Mozilla, a proponent of the open web, who invested in the company’s first general round alongside others, including Long Journey Ventures and Salesforce’s Marc Benioff. The company has a unique founding story as well. The app was originally built by iOS developer Shihab Mehboob, the creator behind a number of apps including the whimsical music app Vinyls and the Twitter client Aviary 2 . The latter was impacted by Elon Musk’s Twitter API changes which put an end to third-party Twitter clients , prompting Mehboob to turn his attention to the decentralized and open source Twitter alternative Mastodon. Mammoth was the result of those efforts, but it has since been acquired by the company that’s now running the project, led by principal de...

Oppo, Vivo, and Xiaomi are bringing satellite communication to their devices through Qualcomm

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via https://ift.tt/ZljpVFK Qualcomm announced at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) that multiple phone makers including Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo, Motorola, Nothing and Honor are bringing satellite communication capabilities to their phones. However, manufacturers didn’t provide details about what devices will first have these features and when the companies would launch them. Qualcomm unveiled its Snapdragon Satellite tech in partnership with satellite service provider Iridium at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) last month. Using this solution, smartphones can have capabilities of two-way texting and other messaging applications using satellites in emergency situations. The chipmaker said that Snapdragon Satellite will be available across upcoming RF modems and multiple models of 8 and 4 series processors for smartphones. “ By incorporating Snapdragon Satellite into next – generation devices, our partners will be able to offer satellite messaging capabilities thanks to a mature ...

Microsoft Azure expands its telco solutions

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via https://ift.tt/EPf3hOc New smartphones may get most of the headlines at MWC, but at its core, the annual trade show is still a telco event. It’s maybe no surprise then that the large cloud providers, who are all vying for the lucrative telco market, also made a few announcements ahead of the event. AWS jumped ahead of its competitors by announcing its news a week early and today, it’s Microsoft’s turn. The new features the company today announced for telco’s using its Azure cloud services focus on four areas: network transformation, automation and AI, network-aware applications and what Microsoft calls “ubiquitous computing from cloud to edge.” “The future hyperscale cloud is going to look a lot different than the cloud we have today,” Jason Zander, Microsoft’s EVP for Strategic Missions and Tech, told me. “Our expectation is that it’s going to expand; it will be a highly distributed fabric; it’s going to span from 5G to space. That future — this intelligent cloud, this intellig...

More layoffs at Twitter, and loyalist Esther Crawford isn’t spared

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via https://ift.tt/d7BEyGl Twitter has laid off at least another 50 employees, according to a report from The Information and posts on social media from former workers. And apparently not even Elon Musk loyalist Esther Crawford, the chief executive of Twitter payments who oversaw the company’s Twitter Blue verification subscription, was spared, according to Platformer’s Zoë Schiffer . Alex Heath of The Verge also confirmed that Crawford and most of the remaining product team were laid off this weekend, leading many to speculate that Musk is cleaning house to redecorate with a new regime. Recall that Crawford had been swept up by Musk’s hardcore takeover of Twitter last year, even boasting on the platform about sleeping at the office to handle round-the-clock demands from her new boss. When your team is pushing round the clock to make deadlines sometimes you #SleepWhereYouWork https://t.co/UBGKYPilbD — Esther Crawford (@esthercrawford) November 2, 2022   The lay...

Xiaomi launches its 13 Pro flagship with a 1-inch sensor at MWC

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via https://ift.tt/0V6bDQc The Xiaomi 13 Pro flagship made a global debut today at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) being held in Barcelona. With this device — which was launched in China in December — the company is banking on a 1-inch main sensor, Leica lenses, and 120W fast charging to make it a Samsung Galaxy series competitor. With Android devices cutting close to each other in performance and display sections, the camera has been a major differentiating factor in today’s flagships. Xiaomi is using a massive 1-inch Sony IMX989 50-megapixel sensor with f/1.9 aperture to get the best and brightest photos in all lighting conditions. A couple of phone manufacturers including Xiaomi, Vivo, and Sharp have included this sensor in a few devices. The camera is capable of video recording in 8K resolution — 4K resolution at 60 fps if recording in Dolby Vision. There is also a 50-megapixel telephoto camera with a “floating lens” element, which results in a 3.2x lossless zoom. Plus, the devi...

Sequoia and Andreessen Horowitz invested more in fintech than any other sector in 2022

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via https://ift.tt/NXCz7bQ 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 Storied venture firms Sequoia Capital and Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) invested more in fintech than any other category in 2022, according to research from CB Insights. I’m not going to lie — upon learning this, my fintech-loving ears perked up. Sequoia apparently was fairly active overall last year despite the global downturn, with over 100 investment...

AI’s hype isn’t going to be simply star-studded 

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via https://ift.tt/VsyBQLx Welcome to Startups Weekly, a nuanced take on this week’s startup news and trends by Senior Reporter and Equity co-host Natasha Mascarenhas. To get this in your inbox, subscribe  here . First off, hello to all the new Startups Weekly subscribers who joined us after last week’s newsletter. I’m glad we all still resonate with a comeback story. Second, here are some basics on what to expect.  I start off most of these newsletters with a mini-essay on what is top of mind to me, sometimes pointing toward one of my longer-form pieces from the week or just to share some extra thoughts at the end of the news cycle. Then I jump into three themes that stand out from the week, with extra reading for those that want to dig in more. I end with notes to know from around the tech blogosphere, TC events and, if you look closely enough, personal anecdotes that often have to do with coffee and food. Ok, now onto the aforementioned essay!  It all started w...

Daily Crunch: Falling short of analysts’ estimates, Warner Bros. Discovery posts $2.1B net loss for Q4 2022

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via https://ift.tt/oUvPW3c To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PST, subscribe here . Folks, we’ve got some really sad news for you. The weekend is here, which means that you have to stop working for a couple days. We know, it’s a tragedy. But don’t worry, Monday is only two short weekend days away, and then you can get back to the grindstone. Black History Month continues! Originally published in 1975, For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow Is Enuf is a magnificent, passionate, and fearless story of what it meant to be a woman of color in the 20th century.  Well worth a read — or seek it out onstage! Much love and hugs and such, Christine and Haje ​​ The TechCrunch Top 3 Money, money, money…must be funny : Warner Bros. Discovery revealed that it lost another $2.1 billion in the fourth quarter. This is despite the success of shows like “The Last of Us” on HBO and games like ...