Bihar Police has released PET Date postponed notice for the post of Constable (Advt No. 02/2019).
Tuesday, June 30, 2020
Bihar Police Admit Card 2020 – Constable (Mobile Squad, Driver) PET Date Postponed
Bihar Police has released PET Date postponed notice for the post of Constable (Mobile Squad, Driver) (Advt No. 04 & 03/2019).
Xiaomi Redmi Note 9 Pro Max with Snapdragon 720G to go on sale today via Amazon
Xiaomi Redmi Note 9 Pro Max comes in three colour options- Aurora Blue, Glacier White and Interstellar Black. It comes with a starting price of Rs 16,999. https://ift.tt/2ZoO6oa
Realme Buds Q to go on sale today at 12pm via Amazon
Realme Buds Q come in three colour options- Quite Yellow, Quite Black and Quite White. The headphones are priced at Rs 1,999. https://ift.tt/2NI73MW
Club Factory sellers, users worry about dues, refunds
Amid government scrutiny over its various trade practices, the firm has been able to hold on to a set of consumers looking for cheaper goods https://ift.tt/3dLwhof https://ift.tt/eA8V8J
Top-level government panel to probe data practices of Chinese apps
The committee, which is likely to meet on Wednesday, will conduct a detailed inquiry into the data-sharing practices of these apps, including top social media platforms TikTok, Helo and WeChat. https://ift.tt/3f03HRq https://ift.tt/eA8V8J
DoT orders telcos, ISPs to block 59 Chinese apps with immediate effect
DoT is preparing a separate list of sites that could be barred in the future, according to people familiar with the developments. https://ift.tt/3dHzsgU https://ift.tt/eA8V8J
The 👁👄👁 stunt, a hyped beta of a fake app, exploited Silicon Valley's fixation on shiny new things, but raised $200K for charities (Arielle Pardes/Wired)
The 👁👄👁 stunt, a hyped beta of a fake app, exploited Silicon Valley's fixation on shiny new things, but raised $200K for charities — Last weekend, the stunt aimed to use Silicon Valley's love of shiny new things for charity. The result left people wondering about the memeification of movements.
Elementary Robotics, which develops tools to automate industrial tasks, announces $12.7M Series A funding to deploy its automation products at scale (Kyle Wiggers/VentureBeat)
Elementary Robotics, which develops tools to automate industrial tasks, announces $12.7M Series A funding to deploy its automation products at scale — Elementary Robotics, a robotics company developing tools to automate industrial tasks, today announced it has raised a $12.7 million round.
Chinese app ban opens the field for Vokal, Trell and other local tech ventures
Govt app ban offers a unique opportunity for Indian technology entrepreneurs to build and own lucrative internet products in the ecommerce, social media and gaming sectors https://ift.tt/3eOJCNT https://ift.tt/eA8V8J
India's app ban a setback to global ambitions of Chinese tech giants
A key worry for Chinese tech giants is that India's move could set a global precedent, said experts tracking the digital economy. https://ift.tt/38hOBEy https://ift.tt/eA8V8J
Tesla driver blames Autopilot for crash, faces negligent driving charge
Enlarge / Tesla Model S driving on the freeway in Silicon Valley. (credit: Andrei Stanescu / Getty Images)
A Massachusetts man is facing a negligent-driving charge after his Tesla slammed into a police car that was parked by the side of the road. According to a state trooper, the man had Tesla's Autopilot technology turned on and said that he "must not have been paying attention." The crash occurred in December, but the defendant, Nicholas Ciarlone, was only recently charged in the incident.
NBC Channel 10 in Boston reports that the police car was parked on the left-hand side of Route 24, a divided highway in West Bridgewater, a town about an hour south of Boston. The state trooper had just pulled over college student Maria Smith and was asking for her registration paperwork when the Tesla slammed into his SUV.
This caused a pileup, with the police car crashing into the student's vehicle. The trooper was knocked back against the concrete barrier at the side of the road but was not seriously injured. Smith said she got glass in her hair when the back window shattered. And Smith told NBC 10 that the officer easily could have sustained more serious injuries.
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NexHealth, which provides an automated online appointment system for small medical and dental practices, raises $15M Series A (Alex Knapp/Forbes)
NexHealth, which provides an automated online appointment system for small medical and dental practices, raises $15M Series A — I write about the future of science, technology, and culture. — I am a staff writer covering health care. Email me at kjennings@forbes.com.
TikTok ban will force advertisers to re-allocate funds to platforms like Instagram, YouTube
Advertisers expect budgets and campaigns to move to platforms like YouTube and Facebook’s Instagram from Tiktok https://ift.tt/3gdE1kz https://ift.tt/eA8V8J
Personal details of 1.29M Limeroad customers up for sale on darkweb: Report
E-commerce websites have been seeing an increased number of attacks over the past few months https://ift.tt/3ijP8uk https://ift.tt/eA8V8J
The Australian government announces AU$1.35B will be used over the next decade to boost cyberdefense capabilities against a surge in state-backed cyberattacks (Jade Macmillan/ABC)
The Australian government announces AU$1.35B will be used over the next decade to boost cyberdefense capabilities against a surge in state-backed cyberattacks — The Federal Government wants to create more than 500 new jobs in its highly secretive cyber intelligence agency as part …
US Cybercom warns foreign state-backed hackers will likely abuse a recently discovered SAML vulnerability that allows unauthorized network admin logins (Dan Goodin/Ars Technica)
US Cybercom warns foreign state-backed hackers will likely abuse a recently discovered SAML vulnerability that allows unauthorized network admin logins — The window of opportunity to fix critical security bug is rapidly closing. — Foreign hackers backed by a well-resourced government …
AliExpress escapes the axe
AliExpress, which ships individual packages, had managed to keep a low profile despite allegedly using similar tactics as its peers Shein and Club Factory https://ift.tt/3g96urG https://ift.tt/eA8V8J
Cendana Capital, which has been backing seed funds for a decade, has $278 million more to invest
When in 2010, former VC Michael Kim set out to raise a fund that he would invest in a spate of micro VC managers, the investors to which he turned didn’t get it. Why pay Kim and his firm, Cendana Capital, a management fee on top of the management fees that the VC managers themselves charge?
Fast forward to today, and Kim has apparently proven to his backers that he’s worth the extra cost. Three years after raising $260 million across a handful of vehicles whose capital he plugged into up-and-coming venture firms, Kim is now revealing a fresh $278 million in capital commitments, including $218 million for its fourth flagship fund, and $60 million that Cendana will be managing expressly for the University of Texas endowment.
We talked with Kim last week about how he plans to invest the money, which differs slightly from how he has invested in the past.
Rather than stick solely with U.S.-based seed-stage managers who are raising vehicles of $100 million or less, he will split Cendana into three focus areas. One of these will remain seed-stage managers. A smaller area of focus — but one of growing importance, he said — is pre-seed managers who are managing $50 million or less and mostly funding ideas (and getting roughly 15% of each startup in exchange for the risk).
A third area of growing interest is in international managers. In fact, Kim says Cendana has already backed small venture firms in Australia (Blackbird Ventures), China (Cherubic Ventures, which is a cross-border investor that is also focused on the U.S.), Israel (Entree Capital), and India (Saama Capital), among other spots.
Altogether, Cendana is now managing around $1.2 billion. For its services, it charges its backers a 1% management fee and 10% of its profits atop the 2.5% management fee and 20% “carried interest” that his fund managers collect.
“To be extremely clear about it and transparent,” said Kim, “that’s a stacked fee that’s on top of what our [VC] fund managers charge. So Cendana LPs are paying 3.5% and 30%.” One “might think that seems pretty egregious,” he continued. “But a number of our LPs are either not staffed to go address this market or are too large to actually write smaller checks to these seed funds. And we provide a pretty interesting value proposition to them.”
That’s particularly true, Kim argues, when contrasting Cendana with other, bigger fund managers.
“A lot of these well-known fund of funds are asset gatherers,” he says. “They’re not charging carried interest. They’re in it for the management fee. They have shiny offices around the world, they have hundreds of people working at them, they’re raising billion-dollar-plus kind of funds, and they’re putting 30 to 50 names into each one, so in a way they become index funds. [But[ I don’t think venture is really an asset class. Unlike an ETF that’s focused on the S&P 500, venture capital is where a handful of fund managers capture most of the alpha. Our differentiation is that we’re taking we’re creating very concentrated portfolios.”
Specifically, Cendana typically holds positions in up to 12 funds, plus makes $1 million bets on another handful of more nascent managers that it will fund further if they prove out their theses.
Some of the managers it has backed has outgrown Cendana from an assets standpoint. It caps its investments in funds that are $100 million or less in size.
But over time, it has backed 22 managers over the years. Among them: 11.2 Capital, Accelerator Ventures, Angular Ventures, Bowery Capital, Collaborative Fund, Forerunner Ventures, Founder Collective, Freestyle Capital, IA Ventures, L2 Ventures, Lerer Hippeau, MHS Capital, Montage Ventures, Moxxie Ventures, Neo, NextView Ventures, Silicon Valley Data Capital, Spider Capital, Susa Ventures, Uncork VC (when it was still SoftTech VC), Wave Capital and XYZ Ventures.
As for its pre-seed fund managers, Cendana is now the anchor investors in 10 funds, including Better Tomorrow Ventures, Bolt VC, Engineering Capital, K9 Ventures, Mucker Capital, Notation Capital, PivotNorth Capital, Rhapsody Venture Partners, Root Ventures, and Wonder Ventures.
As for its returns, Kim says that Cendana’s very first fund, a $28.5 million vehicle, is “marked at north of 3x” and “that’s net of everything.”
He’s optimistic that the firm’s numbers will look even better over time. According to Kim, Cendana currently has 38 so-called unicorns in its broader portfolio. It separately hold stakes in 160 companies that are valued at more than $100 million.
Facebook shuts down Hobbi, its experimental app for documenting personal projects
Facebook’s recently launched app, Hobbi, an experiment in short-form content creation around personal projects, hobbies, and other Pinterest-y content, is already shutting down. The app first arrived on iOS in February as one of now several launches from Facebook’s internal R&D group, the NPE Team.
Hobbi users have now been notified by way of push notification that the app is shutting down on July 10, 2020. The app allows users to export their data from its settings.
In the few months it’s been live on the U.S. App Store, Hobbi only gained 7,000 downloads, according to estimates from Sensor Tower. Apptopia also reported the app had under 10K downloads and saw minimal gains during May and June.
Though Hobbi clearly took cues from Pinterest, it was not designed to be a pinboard of inspirational ideas. Instead, Hobbi users would organize photos of their projects — like gardening, cooking, arts & crafts, décor, and more — in a visual diary of sorts. The goal was to photograph the project’s progress over time, adding text to describe the steps, as needed.
The end result would be a highlight reel of all those steps that could be published externally when the project was completed.
But Hobbi was a fairly bare bones app. There was nothing else to do but document your own projects. You couldn’t browse and watch projects other users had created, beyond a few samples, nor could you follow top users across the service. And even the tools for documentation were underdeveloped. Beyond a special “Notes” field for writing down a project’s steps, the app experience felt like a watered-down version of Stories.
Image Credits: Hobbi
Facebook wasn’t alone in pursuing the potential of short-form creative content. Google’s internal R&D group, Area 120, also published its own experiment in this area with the video app Tangi. And Pinterest was recently spotted testing a new version of Story Pins, that would allow users to showcase DIY and creative content in a similar way.
It’s not surprising to see Hobbi wind down so quickly, given its lack of traction. Facebook already said its NPE Team experiments would involve apps that changed very rapidly and would shut down if consumers didn’t find them useful.
In addition to Hobbi, the NPE Team has launched a number of apps since last summer, including meme creator Whale, conversational app Bump, music app Aux, couples app Tuned, Apple Watch app Kit, audio calling app CatchUp, collaborative music app Collab, live event companion Venue, and predictions app Forecast. Before Hobbi, the only one to have shut down was Bump. (Some are not live in the U.S., either.)
Of course, Facebook may not intend to use these experiments to create a set of entirely new social apps built from the ground-up. Instead, it’s likely looking to collect data about what features resonate with users and how different creation tools are used. This is data that can inform Facebook’s development of features for its main set of apps, like Facebook, Messenger, WhatsApp and Instagram.
We’ve reached out to Facebook for comment but one had not been provided at the time of publication.
Lyft’s self-driving test vehicles are back on public roads in California
Lyft’s self-driving vehicle division has restarted testing on public roads in California, several months after pausing operations amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Lyft’s Level 5 program said Tuesday some of its autonomous vehicles are back on the road in Palo Alto and at its closed test track. The company has not resumed a pilot program that provided rides to Lyft employees in Palo Alto.
The company said it is following CDC guidelines for personal protective equipment and surface cleaning. It has also enacted several additional safety steps to prevent the spread of COVID. Each autonomous test vehicle is equipped with partitions to separate the two safety operators inside, the company said. The operators must wear face shields and submit to temperature checks. They’re also paired together for two weeks at a time.
Lyft’s Level 5 program — a nod to the SAE automated driving level that means the vehicle handles all driving in all conditions — launched in July 2017 but didn’t starting testing on California’s public roads until November 2018. Lyft then ramped up the testing program and its fleet. By late 2019, Lyft was driving four times more autonomous miles per quarter than it was six months prior.
Lyft had 19 autonomous vehicles testing on public roads in California in 2019, according to the California Department of Motor Vehicles, the primary agency that regulates AVs in the state. Those 19 vehicles, which operated during the reporting period of December 2018 to November 2019, drove nearly 43,000 miles in autonomous mode, according to Lyft’s annual report released in February. While that’s a tiny figure when compared to other companies such as Argo AI, Cruise and Waymo, it does represent progress within the program.
Lyft has supplemented its on-road testing with simulation, a strategy that it relied on more heavily during COVID-related shutdowns. And it will likely continue to lean on simulation even as local governments lift restrictions and the economy reopens.
Simulation is a cost-effective way to create additional control, repeatability and safety, according to a blog post released Tuesday by Robert Morgan, director of engineering, and Sameer Qureshi, director of product management at Level 5. The pair said simulation has also allowed the Level 5 unit to test its work without vehicles, without employees leaving their desks and, for the last few months, without leaving their homes. Level 5 employs more than 400 people in London, Munich and the United States.
Using simulation in the development of autonomous vehicle technology is a well-established tool in the industry. Lyft’s approach to data — which it uses to improve its simulations — is what differentiates the company from competitors. Lyft is using data collected from drivers on its ride-hailing app to improve simulation tests as well as build 3D maps and understand human driving patterns.
The Level 5 program is taking data from select vehicles in Lyft’s Express Drive program, which provides rental cars and SUVs to drivers on its platform as an alternative to options like long-term leasing.
Sources: Apple has shifted the strategy of its Arcade gaming service, canceling contracts for some titles in development and seeking games with more engagement (Bloomberg)
Sources: Apple has shifted the strategy of its Arcade gaming service, canceling contracts for some titles in development and seeking games with more engagement — - Company ends contracts for multiple future Arcade titles — Apple seeks games with stronger engagement to hook users
Monday, June 29, 2020
Google Removes Misleading Ads in Voting-Related Searches
Google said on Monday that it had removed search ads that charged users searching for voting information large fees for voter registration or harvested their personal data. https://ift.tt/3gbG5cZ
Reddit Bans r/The_Donald Group Amid Broad Social Media Crackdown
Reddit on Monday shut down r/The_Donald, a forum which long served as a popular online home base for fans of President Donald Trump, saying it violated the site's hate speech rules. https://ift.tt/2VrAV4A
Xiaomi Redmi Note 9 Pro with 48MP quad camera to go on sale today via Amazon
Xiaomi Redmi Note 9 Pro comes with a starting price of Rs 13,999. It can be purchased at 12pm on Amazon and Mi.com. https://ift.tt/3eLNBuH
Tiktok Was Banned by the Government and Can't be Downloaded Anymore
Tiktok and 58 other apps were banned by the government on Monday, and overnight, Tiktok has been removed from Google and Apple's app stores. Other apps are still to be removed. https://ift.tt/2VwwvJN
After losing Grubhub, Uber reportedly hails Postmates
Uber has reportedly made an offer to buy food delivery service Postmates, according to The New York Times.
According to the Times, the talks are still ongoing and the deal could fall through.
For those that have been paying attention to Uber, this appetite is not new, albeit consistent. A little over a month ago, the ride-hailing company was reportedly pursuing an acquisition of Grubhub, another food delivery company. Grubhub was ultimately acquired by Just Eat Takeaway in a $7.3 billion deal, but only after the deal with Uber fell through over a variety of concerns.
Food delivery market has set to benefit largely from the COVID-19 pandemic, as stores remain shuttered or switch operations to takeout only. Latest earnings from the public ride-hailing company show that its ride-hailing business is slowing while its food delivery service is growing like hell. Gross bookings for Uber Eats last quarter were $4.68 billion.
So even though Uber still loses a ton of money ($2.94 billion including all costs), its Uber Eats growth is staggering. And the green shoots might be fueling some of this interest in other competitors.
If regulatory concerns were an issue, Postmates may make a better fit.
With a valuation of $2.4 billion, Postmates is significantly smaller than Grubhub. And while the company filed to go public nearly 16 months ago, it held off eventually citing “choppy market” conditions.
So if Uber Eats and Postmates combined, the result would still be smaller than Doordash’s market hold, but would be competitive nonetheless. DoorDash, last valued at $13 billion, confidentially filed for an IPO nearly four months ago.
Also, Postmates delivers more than just food.
If the merger goes through, the food delivery race would get refueled in an interesting way: Uber Eats and Postmates versus Grubhub and Takeaway versus DoorDash .
Postmates declined to comment on rumors or speculation. Uber did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
TikTok says it's moving privacy oversight of its European users from its US entity to its entities in the UK and Ireland starting July 29 (Ciara O'Brien/The Irish Times)
TikTok says it's moving privacy oversight of its European users from its US entity to its entities in the UK and Ireland starting July 29 — Company is to provide details of the type of information it collects, how the data is used and with whom it is shared
TikTok, SHAREit and 57 Chinese apps banned: Here are the other options you can use
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Twitch, Reddit hate crackdown targets Trump, supporters
Twitch, the gaming platform owned by Amazon, said Trump's channel was suspended over rules violations and that the offending content was removed. https://ift.tt/3idd6Y0 https://ift.tt/eA8V8J
No purchase of China items on GeM: Ram Vilas Paswan
Minister for consumer affairs, food and public distribution, Ram Vilas Paswan, has directed officials to ensure that any item made in China is not purchased through the Government e Marketplace (GeM) or other sources. https://ift.tt/2BPKBPy https://ift.tt/eA8V8J
Redmi Note 9 Pro to Go on Sale in India Today at 12 Noon
Redmi Note 9 Pro will be up for sale once again in India today at 12pm (noon). The phone since its launch in March has been put on multiple flash sales via Amazon and Xiaomi India store. https://ift.tt/2BNgoka
Realme X3, Realme X3 SuperZoom to Go on Sale Today at 12 Noon in India
Realme X3 and Realme X3 SuperZoom are set to go on sale in India today. Both new Realme phones were launched in India last week. https://ift.tt/3dMMvh3
U.S. suspends export of sensitive tech to Hong Kong as China passes new national security law
The United States government began measures today to end its special status with Hong Kong, one month after Secretary of State Michael Pompeo told Congress that Hong Kong should no longer be considered autonomous from China. These include suspending export license exceptions for sensitive U.S. technology and ending the export of defense equipment to Hong Kong. Both the Commerce and State Departments also said further restrictions are being evaluated.
The U.S. government’s announcements were made a few hours before news broke that China had passed a new national security law that will give it greater control over Hong Kong. It is expected to take effect on July 1, according to the South China Morning Post.
The term “special status” refers to arrangements that recognized the difference between Hong Kong and mainland China under the “one country, two systems” policy put into place when the United Kingdom handed control of Hong Kong back to Beijing in 1997. These included different export controls, immigration policies and lower tariffs. But that preferential treatment was put into jeopardy after China proposed the new national security law, which many Hong Kong residents fear will end the region’s judicial independence from Beijing.
The U.S Commerce Department and State Department issued separate statements today detailing the new restrictions on Hong Kong. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross said the Commerce Department will suspend export license exceptions for sensitive U.S. technology, and that “further actions to eliminate differential treatment are also being evaluated.”
The State Department said that it will end exports of U.S. defense equipment and also “take steps toward imposing the same restrictions on U.S. defense and dual-use technologies to Hong Kong as it does for China.”
In a statement to Reuters, Kurt Tong, a former U.S. consul general in Hong Kong, said that the U.S. government’s decisions today would not impact a large amount of trade between the U.S. and Hong Kong because the territory is not a major manufacturing center and its economy is mostly services.
According to figures from the Office of the United States Trade Representative, Hong Kong accounted for 2.2% of overall U.S. exports in 2018, totaling $37.3 billion, with the top export categories being electrical machinery, precious metal and stones, art and antiques, and beef. But the new restrictions could make more difficult for U.S. semiconductor and other technology companies to do business with Hong Kong clients.
Other restrictions proposed by the United States including ending its extradition treaty with Hong Kong.
Both the State and Commerce departments said that the restrictions were put into place for national security reasons. “We can no longer distinguish between the export of controlled items to Hong Kong or to mainland China,” Pompeo wrote. “We cannot risk these items falling into the hands of the People’s Liberation Army, whose primary purpose is to uphold the dictatorship of the CCP by any means necessary.”
In his statement, Ross said, “With the Chinese Communist Party’s imposition of new security measures on Hong Kong, the risk that sensitive U.S. technology will be diverted to the People’s Liberation Army or Ministry of State Security has increased, all while undermining the territory’s autonomy.”
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Garry's Mod is removing "all Nintendo related stuff" from its Steam Workshop, covering "20 years of uploads", after receiving a takedown request from Nintendo (Andy Chalk/PC Gamer)
Andy Chalk / PC Gamer : Garry's Mod is removing “all Nintendo related stuff” from its Steam Workshop, covering “20 years of uploads”,...
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Jake Offenhartz / Gothamist : Since October, the NYPD has deployed a quadruped robot called Spot to a handful of crime scenes and hostage...
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Andrew Tarantola / Engadget : An adapted excerpt from the book “Your Computer Is on Fire”, on how voice assistants like Siri and Alexa al...
