Network Support Blog

Yueqi Yang / Bloomberg: CoinFlex postpones resuming withdrawals; CEO says they will return “as soon as possible, upon a successful raise” but won't share how much its token has raised  —  Cryptocurrency exchange CoinFlex won't resume withdrawals Thursday as it had planned as it continues to raise funds … https://bit.ly/3uCikEL

Bloomberg: Filing: ex-Apple retail chief Ron Johnson's at-home tech setup company Enjoy files for bankruptcy, less than a year after its SPAC merger, and sells to Asurion  —  Enjoy Technology Inc., a retail startup founded by former Apple Inc. executive Ron Johnson, filed for bankruptcy on Thursday … https://bit.ly/3OVDNzQ

Taylor Hatmaker / TechCrunch: YouTube says channels can't hide subscriber counts starting on June 29 to fight fake accounts, and rolls out an “increase strictness” comment moderation setting  —  Spam isn't a new problem for social media, but everyone seems to agree that it's gotten a lot worse lately. https://bit.ly/3udhVbi

Bloomberg: Interviews detail Didi's fall due to China's crackdown, losing $60B+ in market cap in one year and blindsiding executives, after its $4.4B US IPO in June 2021  —  It was an unusually frigid December weekend when Cheng Wei summoned his inner circle to his Beijing office. https://bit.ly/3OxwbUw

Stephen Nellis / Reuters: Apple's CarPlay update, demoed at WWDC 2022, will let users tap an app to navigate to a pump and buy gas from its dashboard as early as this fall  —  Apple Inc (AAPL.O) wants you to start buying gas directly from your car dashboard as early as this fall, when the newest version … https://bit.ly/3PbcXEn

Stephen Alpher / CoinDesk: MicroStrategy purchased 480 bitcoins at a $20,817 average price from May 3 to June 28, bringing its holdings to 129,699, acquired for ~$3.98B or $30,664 each  —  The company disclosed the acquisition of another 480 bitcoins, bringing total holdings to 129,699 coins. https://bit.ly/3bCvdrI

Christine Hall / TechCrunch: New York-based Nautical Commerce, which offers multivendor marketplace tools, raised a $30M Series A led by Drive Capital, bringing its total funding to ~$33.2M  —  E-commerce marketplaces are big businesses.  It was estimated that some $3.2 trillion was spent globally on the top marketplaces in 2021 … https://bit.ly/3OvjObF

Alex Heath / The Verge: Snap launches Snapchat+, offering exclusive, experimental, and pre-release Snapchat features for $3.99 per month, starting in nine countries  —  No, it doesn't let you turn off ads  —  Starting this week, Snap will begin offering an optional subscription called Snapchat Plus that unlocks exclusive and early access features. https://bit.ly/3y7CA1X

Raymond Wong / Input: Carl Pei says Nothing phone (1) will use the mid-range Snapdragon 778G+, not the high-end 8 Gen 1, citing a balance of cost, performance, and power consumption  —  By the time Nothing's July 12 launch event for the Phone (1) comes around, there won't be much (if anything) left to announce for the transparent Android smartphone. https://bit.ly/3OuMstm

David Yaffe-Bellany / New York Times: Forbes estimates the 16 richest crypto billionaires lost $59B+ between March and June, led by Binance's Changpeng Zhao, as retail investors suffer heavy losses  —  No cryptocurrency investor has been spared the pain of plunging prices.  But the fallout from more than $700 billion in losses is far from even. https://bit.ly/3npyAEK

Joey D'Urso / @josephmdurso: [Thread] A look at the English Premier League soccer clubs' crypto sponsorships and fan tokens, most of which have tanked in value, exposing fans to big losses  —  🚨📉 Months of reporting in one place here. Almost every Premier League club has promoted unregulated cryptocurrencies to fans which have completely tanked in value, exposing fans to big losses. A club-by-club run down. https://theathletic.com/... https://bit.ly/3A6MtiV

Charlie Warzel / The Atlantic: a16z's Marc Andreessen and Packy McCormick failing to coherently explain Web3 use cases demonstrates the hollowness of the space, often obscured by boosterism  —  I cannot stop watching crypto profiteers get owned. … I cannot stop watching videos of Web3 boosters failing to explain the usefulness of the technology. https://bit.ly/3OswT5n

Bloomberg: After freezing withdrawals, crypto exchange CoinFlex plans to issue up to 47M Recovery Value USD tokens, offering a 20% annual return, to repay a $47M debt  —  Cryptocurrency exchange CoinFlex plans to raise funds by issuing a new token that will offer a 20% annual return … https://bit.ly/3A9wNeI

Reuters: A Moscow court fines Twitch, Pinterest, and Airbnb ~$38K and UPS ~$19K for allegedly refusing to store Russian citizens' personal data in Russia  —  A Moscow court said it had fined video streaming service Twitch, social network Pinterestand United Parcel Service in three of several cases expected … https://bit.ly/3nlOmAE

Katie Roof / Bloomberg: FrontApp, which offers the Front customer communications tool, raised $65M led by Salesforce and Battery at a $1.7B post-money valuation, up from $859M in 2020  —  Customer communication software maker FrontApp Inc. is now valued at $1.7 billion after receiving $65 million in financing led by Salesforce Ventures and Battery Ventures. https://bit.ly/3nlwgyT

Drew FitzGerald / Wall Street Journal: AT&T and Verizon raise the prices of some monthly and older mobile plans, testing consumer budgets; T-Mobile has kept most of its rates flat  —  Wireless companies are boosting monthly fees and increasing the cost of mostly older cellphone plans  —  This summer will test whether Americans … https://bit.ly/3nlYgT2

Chainalysis: A distribution analysis of 10 major DAO governance tokens finds that, on average, less than 1% of all holders have 90% of voting power  —  This blog is a preview of our State of Web3 Report.  Sign up here to reserve your copy and we'll email you the full report when it comes out in June! https://bit.ly/3HTDjYS

Thomas Ricker / The Verge: Starlink RV review: works in remote locations and power consumption beats expectations, but can't be used on a moving vehicle and storms degrade performance  —  Stay connected while disconnecting  —  The problem with going off-grid is the lack of connection. https://bit.ly/3nrx3hr

Bloomberg: Filing: South Korea's largest car sharing startup Socar files for an IPO in Seoul on August 18, seeking to raise at least ~$119M and pricing shares at ~$26-$35  —  SoftBank Group Corp.-backed car-sharing startup Socar Inc. filed for an initial public offering of at least 154.7 billion won … https://bit.ly/3ymNKAX

Vicky Ge Huang / Wall Street Journal: As crypto markets melt down, hedge funds are increasingly shorting tether, as a bet against either the broader economy or the quality of the assets backing USDT  —  Professional investors got interested in shorting tether after the collapse of another stablecoin, TerraUSD https://bit.ly/39S9ED2

Shubham Sharma / VentureBeat: New York-based Castor, which offers enterprise tools to help catalog data, raises a $23.5M Series A led by Blossom  —  New York-headquartered Castor, a data catalog provider for enterprises, today announced it has raised $23.5 million in a series A round of funding led by Blossom. https://bit.ly/3GYvAs4

Ryan Smith / AnandTech: An in-depth look at Apple's M2 chip: 20B transistors, up from 16B in M1 and 15B in A15, alongside a 10-core GPU, up from an 8-core in M1, and 8K video decoding  —  Though primarily a software-focused event, Apple's WWDC keynotes are often stage for an interesting hardware announcement or two as well … https://bit.ly/3GVNewu

Anshuman Daga / Reuters: Envision Digital, which develops AI-powered software for IoT devices, raises a $210M Series A led by Sequoia China and says its OS manages 200M+ smart devices  —  Singapore-headquartered Envision Digital, a provider of artificial intelligence and internet technologies software … https://bit.ly/3mia2x8

Jay Peters / The Verge: Apple unveils a revamped Mail app for iOS 16, iPadOS 16, and macOS 13, letting users schedule email, undo sending, set reminders for inbox messages, and more  —  Mail is getting features like undo send and scheduled send  —  Apple announced some major new features for Mail that finally bring … https://bit.ly/3MnEkcj

The Verge: Hands-on with Apple's M2 MacBook Air: blue and gold colors in addition to silver and gray, thin bezels, a 500-nit display, a full-size Touch ID button, and more  —  What Apple's new laptop looks like in person  —  The MacBook Air has been an iconic laptop design since Steve Jobs slid it out of a manila envelope in 2008. https://bit.ly/3GVkmo5

Joanna Glasner / Crunchbase News: Brisbane-based Go1, which provides curated online learning materials and tools to businesses, raises $100M+ from AirTree and others at a $2B+ valuation  —  Australia-based Go1, an online hub for workforce training, announced it raised over $100 million in its latest funding round. https://bit.ly/3Nqz4pw

Wall Street Journal: A profile of billionaire crypto investor Mike Novogratz, who got a Luna tattoo before its collapse and whose publicly traded Galaxy Digital is down 69% YTD  —  The Wall Street star became so enamored with cryptocurrencies he had one of them tattooed to his arm.  Then the market crashed. https://bit.ly/3mgFI5W

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch: Google Colaboratory, a web service popular with AI researchers for running Python code, quietly bans deepfake-related projects, though some remain  —  Google has banned the training of AI systems that can be used to generate deepfakes on its Google Colaboratory platform. https://bit.ly/3NnFFBg

Andrea Park / Fierce Biotech: France-based Diabeloop, whose AI-based diabetes management tech automatically adjusts insulin delivery as needed, raises a €70M Series C led by LBO France  —  After decades of having to juggle multiple devices and fingerprick systems to take their own blood sugar readings and use … https://bit.ly/3xhc2ff

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch: Reco, which monitors organizations' internal and external data sharing for security issues, raises a $30M Series A led by Insight Partners and Zeev Ventures  —  Reco (also known as RecoLabs), a company using AI to map a company's data sharing, today announced that it raised $30 million … https://bit.ly/3mhfEYp

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg: Apple is working on VR versions of FaceTime and Maps, SwiftUI for AR and VR apps, and a way for its headset to extend a Mac's display, bringing it into 3D  —  Apple is set to hold its WWDC event on Monday, ushering in iOS 16, iPadOS 16, tvOS 16, watchOS 9 and macOS 13. https://bit.ly/3GPjly2

Emily Birnbaum / Politico: In an email chain mistakenly forwarded to Politico, an Amazon spokesperson asked a consultant to push a narrative that the AICO Act would harm people of color  —  It's the latest instance of a tech company arguing that regulation would harm communities of color. https://bit.ly/3avbM3v

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch: Hourly, an app that lets businesses track working hours, generate payroll, and assign compensation insurance to hourly wage workers, raises a $27M Series A  —  We've seen a boom in the last several years around tech built for front-line, service, manual, and other workforces typically paid on an hourly wage. https://bit.ly/3Nl1d1v

Reuters: Yandex CEO and co-founder Arkady Volozh resigns after being included in the latest European Union's sanctions list; the company itself has not been sanctioned  —  Russian internet giant Yandex (YNDX.O) said on Friday that Arkady Volozh had stepped down as CEO and left the board of directors … https://bit.ly/3mgKFLX

Maxwell Strachan / VICE: The pivot to Web3, driven by ideology rather than utility, is akin to a “collective Theranos” that's warping the economy to benefit professional investors  —  It can feel as if the entire world is bolting on crypto tokens and NFTs.  Many in the industry worry the gold rush is akin to a … https://bit.ly/3xjd7mR

New York Times: Sources: Apple enlisted Hollywood directors like Jon Favreau to make video content for its mixed reality headset that resembles ski goggles and may ship in 2023  —  The company has enlisted Hollywood directors like Jon Favreau to help its effort to create products that blend the physical and virtual worlds. https://bit.ly/3NdK7Cx

Betsy Joles / Rest of World: A look at “migrant TikTok”, content by and for migrants journeying to Europe, as platforms struggle to moderate videos referring to illegal smuggling  —  Videos on the harrowing journey between Africa and Europe offer valuable information — and tease a brighter future for migrants https://bit.ly/3MmXpeG

Josh Eidelson / Bloomberg: In an NLRB complaint, the CWA alleges Activision Blizzard illegally terminated a dozen workers and reorganized operations at Raven Software amid union efforts  —  Activision Blizzard Inc. was accused of illegally retaliating against employees for their unionization efforts … https://bit.ly/3alNo4a

Ashley Carman / Bloomberg: Clubhouse eliminated “a handful of roles” as part of a broader restructuring; leaving staff include the heads of news partnerships, community, and international  —  Clubhouse, the social audio app that became a big hit during the early days of the pandemic, laid off multiple employees this week … https://bit.ly/3zmtalr

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch: Amazon says Dave Clark, CEO of its Worldwide Consumer division, will step down after 23 years with the company; his last day in the office will be July 1, 2022  —  Amazon today announced that Dave Clark, CEO of the company's worldwide consumer division, will step down after 23 years in the position. https://bit.ly/3Ni5HG9

Dean Seal / Dow Jones Newswires: Twitter says the 30-day waiting period for federal antitrust regulators to block Elon Musk's proposed $44B acquisition has ended  —  Twitter Inc. said Friday the window has closed for federal antitrust regulators to block Elon Musk's proposed $44 billion acquisition of the social media company. https://bit.ly/3NogZJ2

Edward Ongweso Jr / VICE: Masayoshi Son used SoftBank's Vision Fund to build a society mediated by AI, but failed as he invested in firms with exploitative technology, not explorative  —  Masayoshi Son used SoftBank and its $100 billion Vision Fund to remake the world in its image.  It's not a pleasant picture. https://bit.ly/3PX6pKC

Wall Street Journal: Sources: Sandberg left Meta feeling burned out and amid an internal probe into her activities, including using corporate resources to plan her wedding  —  One of the world's most powerful executives became increasingly burned out and disconnected from the mega-business she was instrumental in building. https://bit.ly/3xe73fk

Mary Ann Azevedo / TechCrunch: Sources: online insurance marketplace Policygenius has laid off ~170 employees, or ~25% of its staff, less than three months after raising a $125M Series E  —  Policygenius, an insurtech that raised $125 million in a Series E round less than three months ago, has reportedly laid off 25% of its staff. https://bit.ly/3NQ1WY9

Ina Fried / Axios: Meta announces a broad AI reorganization: VP of AI Jerome Pesenti will leave later in June, the Responsible AI team will join the Social Impact team, and more  —  Facebook parent Meta announced a broad reorganization of its AI efforts Thursday, a move that will embed more work within product teams … https://bit.ly/3xbSHvQ

Arun Padmanabhan / The Economic Times: ExpressVPN says it is pulling its servers out of India, citing the impossibility of complying with an upcoming mandate to record users' names and activities  —  New Delhi: Virtual private network (VPN) operator ExpressVPN is pulling its servers out of India, citing the impossibility of complying … https://bit.ly/3MbRWqY

Bloomberg: After building Meta's massive ad business, Sheryl Sandberg's legacy is complicated by blind spots on data, misinformation, and more  —  Sheryl Sandberg once remarked that she felt she was put on earth to scale organizations — and during her career as one of the most powerful executives in Silicon Valley … https://bit.ly/3wVJTZG

Jordan Novet / CNBC: A profile of Meta's next COO Javier Olivan, a Facebook veteran credited for its global expansion, who may not have the same public-facing role as Sandberg  —  - Javier Olivan has a low profile relative to Sheryl Sandberg, who he is replacing as Meta's chief operating officer. https://bit.ly/3NdutXE

Bill Toulas / BleepingComputer: The Shadowserver Foundation analysts scanned MySQL server instances and found 2.3M exposed servers connected over IPv4 and 1.3M devices connected over IPv6  —  Over 3.6 million MySQL servers are publicly exposed on the Internet and responding to queries, making them an attractive target to hackers and extortionists. https://bit.ly/38ENh38

Bloomberg: Sources: Twitter is restructuring to focus on user growth and personalization, not Spaces, newsletters, and communities; source: edit button may come in 2022  —  Twitter Inc. employees are enduring the whiplash of public commentary from the social network's future owner, a changeover in leadership and a hiring freeze. https://bit.ly/3O6g4Nl

Zoe Kleinman / BBC: Ofcom survey of 6,600+ UK adults: women are more likely than men to face abuse or harmful content online; 42% of women felt comfortable speaking freely online  —  The head of media regulator Ofcom says tech firms must do more to protect women online, after its report revealed they were more likely to be victims. https://bit.ly/3m1K7cP

Financial Times: An investigation details NSO's severe financial troubles, after human rights groups documented Pegasus abuses, as executives weigh selling to risky clients  —  The inside story of the Pegasus spyware maker's perilous financial situation and its way ahead following US blacklisting https://bit.ly/3m0F9Nu

Bloomberg: Filings and holdings data at the end of April show Fidelity Investments cut the valuation of Instacart by 50%, Reddit by 33%, ByteDance by 13% and Stripe by 13%  —  Fidelity Investments cut valuations for several closely held technology companies, including social media platform Reddit and payment software provider Stripe. https://bit.ly/3GKko27