Twitter's plan to let users restrict tweet replies may curb some harassment, but will allow some users to shut down criticism and will reduce random engagement — This could make the platform less toxic — and less magical — The Twitter “reply guy” — a user, usually male …
Deel, a payroll service for remote workers, raises $14M Series A led by Andreessen Horowitz — - Deel, a payroll platform for remote workers, has secured a $14 million series A round led by Andreessen Horowitz, sources told CNBC exclusively. As part of the investment …
KKR to invest $1.5B in Reliance Jio for a 2.32% stake; this is Reliance Jio's fifth major raise in just as many weeks — Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Jio Platforms has agreed to sell 2.32% stake to U.S. equity firm KKR in what is the fifth major investment in the top Indian telecom firm in just as many weeks.
Gen Z TikTok stars have embraced the rise of “collab houses” in Los Angeles, where young social media personalities chasing influence live and work together — Gen Z influencers are settling into life in a shuttered Los Angeles. — When Gianluca Conte, 20 …
John David Washington and Robert Pattinson star in Christopher Nolan's forthcoming new film, Tenet.
With cinemas shut down all over the world for months, all eyes have turned to July, when two major studio releases are set to debut: Disney's Mulan (bumped from its original March release), and director Christopher Nolan's highly anticipated sci-fi thriller, Tenet. It looks like Warner Bros. is boldly sticking with the latter film's planned July 17 release date, despite all the pandemic-fueled uncertainty. The studio just dropped a new trailer, which made its debut in an unusual medium: playing every top of the hour in the popular battle royale game Fortnite.
We know very little about the film, not even the usual carefully crafted official premise, although the film's title is a palindrome, meaning it reads the same backward and forward—a subtle clue. Nolan has kept any additional details (including character names) tightly under wrap. It stars John David Washington (Ballers, Black KkKlansmen) and Robert Pattinson (Twilight franchise, The Lighthouse). The film also features Kenneth Branagh (Murder on the Orient Express), Michael Caine (Inception, Interstellar), Clémence Poésy (Fleur Delacour in the Harry Potter films), Himesh Patel (Yesterday), Elizabeth Debicki (The Man from U.N.C.L.E.), Martin Donovan (Ant-Man), Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Kick-ass), and Indian film stars Dimple Kapadia and Denzil Smith.
The first trailer dropped last December. As I wrote at the time, "Fresh off his Oscar-nominated World War II drama, Dunkirk, Nolan seems to be returning to his high-concept sci-fi roots with Tenet." That trailer opened with a shot of two men rappelling up a building, in seeming defiance of the laws of physics. "We all believe we'd run into the burning building," a voiceover tells us. "But until we feel that heat, we can never know."
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Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Jio Platforms has agreed to sell 2.32% stake to U.S. equity firm KKR in what is the fifth major investment the top Indian telecom operator has secured in just as many weeks.
On Friday, KKR announced it will invest $1.5 billion in the top Indian telecom operator, a subsidiary of India’s most valued firm (Reliance Industries), joining fellow American investors Facebook, Silver Lake, Vista Equity Partners, and General Atlantic that have made similar bets on the Indian firm that has amassed over 388 million subscribers.
The investment from KKR, which has written checks to about 20 tech companies including ByteDance and GoJek to date, values Reliance Jio Platforms at $65 billion.
The announcement today further shows the growing appeal of Jio Platforms, which has raised $10.35 billion in the past month by selling about 17% of its stake, to foreign investors that are looking for a slice of the world’s second-largest internet market.
Ambani, the chairman and managing director of oil-to-telecoms giant Reliance Industries that has poured more than $30 billion to build Jio Platforms, said the company was looking forward to leverage “KKR’s global platform, industry knowledge and operational expertise to further grow Jio.”
Reliance Jio, which launched in the second half of 2016, upended India’s telecommunications industry with cut-rate data plans and free voice calls. Jio Platforms, a subsidiary of Reliance Industries, operates the telecom venture, called Jio Infocomm, that has become the top telecom operator in India.
Reliance Jio Platforms also owns a bevy of digital apps and services including music streaming service JioSaavn (which it says it will take public), on-demand live television service and payments service, as well as smartphones, and broadband business.
“Few companies have the potential to transform a country’s digital ecosystem in the way that Jio Platforms is doing in India, and potentially worldwide. Jio Platforms is a true homegrown next generation technology leader in India that is unmatched in its ability to deliver technology solutions and services to a country that is experiencing a digital revolution,” Henry Kravis, co-founder and co-chief executive of KKR, said in a statement.
“We are investing behind Jio Platforms’ impressive momentum, world-class innovation and strong leadership team, and we view this landmark investment as a strong indicator of KKR’s commitment to supporting leading technology companies in India and Asia Pacific,” he added.
The new capital should also help Ambani, India’s richest man, further solidify his last year’s commitment to investors when he pledged to cut Reliance’s net debt of about $21 billion to zero by early 2021 — in part because of the investments it has made to build Jio Platforms. Its core business — oil refining and petrochemicals — has been hard hit by the coronavirus outbreak. Its net profit in the quarter that ended on March 31 fell by 37%.
In the company’s earnings call last month, Ambani said several firms had expressed interest in buying stakes in Jio Platforms in the wake of the deal with Facebook. Recent investments also pave the way for an initial public offering of Jio, which could happen within five years.
More to follow…
Report: Chinese investors in US tech companies closed 11 deals worth $400M in Q1, down from 18 deals worth $1.8B in Q1 2019, as China looks to EU for investment — There were 11 deals for Chinese investments into US tech companies in the first quarter, compared to 18 in the same period …
A look at the accuracy of commercial fitness trackers, as studies show factors like having darker skin or shuffling when walking can throw off sensors — In a 2019 study, 18 senior citizens took a stroll on some treadmills while armed to the hilt with fitness trackers.
After its debut last year, the Oculus Quest has quickly overcome many of its initial compromises, with an expanded library and better PC VR integration — If you can actually find one in stock, of course — One year ago today, Facebook released the Oculus Quest, its first headset to deliver …
Charlize Theron stars in the film adaptation of The Old Guard, coming soon to Netflix.
Charlize Theron is one of those actresses whose beauty seems to defy the passage of time, and in The Old Guard, a new blockbuster action movie coming to Netflix, she plays a literal immortal. Just think more mercenary-for-hire than Highlander, although there are likely to be thematic similarities with the latter. The streaming giant seems to be leaning hard into action movies with big-name stars, given this film and last month's megahit, Extraction, starring Chris Hemsworth.
(Mild spoilers for the comics below.)
Directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood (Love and Basketball), the film is an adaptation of the comic of the same name by Eisner-award winning author Greg Rucka (Lazarus, Wonder Woman), with art by Leandro Fernández (Deadpool, Punisher: MAX). The main protagonist is Andromache of Scythia, aka Andy, who is trapped in an immortal life for centuries, for some mysterious reason.
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Amrith Ramkumar / Wall Street Journal : OpenAI unveils policy proposals for a world with superintelligence: higher capital gains taxes, a...
