Monday, March 22, 2021

Niantic announces a new partnership with Nintendo to develop mobile games built on Niantic's AR tech, starting with a game based on Nintendo's Pikmin franchise (Jay Peters/The Verge)

Jay Peters / The Verge:
Niantic announces a new partnership with Nintendo to develop mobile games built on Niantic's AR tech, starting with a game based on Nintendo's Pikmin franchise  —  Niantic and Nintendo announced a new partnership  —  Niantic, developer of the smash hit Pokémon Go, has announced a new partnership with Nintendo.



Microsoft to reopen headquarters from March 29

Microsoft on Monday announced to slowly reopen its Redmond, Washington-based headquarters and nearby campuses from March 29 with a six-stage hybrid workplace strategy. https://ift.tt/3sej4wu

SimilarWeb: in 2020, ~65% of Google searches ended without a click, up from ~50% in June '19; mobile searches are far more likely to end without a click through (Rand Fishkin/SparkToro)

Rand Fishkin / SparkToro:
SimilarWeb: in 2020, ~65% of Google searches ended without a click, up from ~50% in June '19; mobile searches are far more likely to end without a click through  —  In August of 2019, I published research from now-defunct clickstream data provider, Jumpshot, showing that 50.33% …



Fab Phones Fest on Amazon: Get up to Rs 5,000 discount on Oppo Reno 5 Pro, Vivo V20 Pro, OnePlus Nord and other smartphones

Fab Phones Fest is now live on Amazon. As part of the ongoing smartphone sale, the e-tailer is giving up to 40% off on handsets like Samsung Galaxy Note 10 Lite, OnePlus 8 Pro 5G, Redmi Note 9 Pro Max and more. https://ift.tt/3951nYx

WhatsApp Reportedly Working on Voice Messages Playback Speed Feature

WABetaInfo has shared screenshots of two features that are reported to be under development in WhatsApp iOS beta version 2.21.60.11 - voice messages playback speed and WhatsApp Web Beta. The company... https://ift.tt/2Pf0MMS

Twitter to Appoint Turkey Representative to Comply With New Regulations

Twitter has agreed to appoint a local representative in Turkey to comply with a contentious social media law that allows authorities to remove content from platforms, a government official has said. https://ift.tt/3vMEL8R

Sunday, March 21, 2021

Long time Google VP Caesar Sengupta, who was in charge of Next Billion Users, Google Pay, and oversaw Chrome OS, is leaving the company after 15 years (Abner Li/9to5Google)

Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Long time Google VP Caesar Sengupta, who was in charge of Next Billion Users, Google Pay, and oversaw Chrome OS, is leaving the company after 15 years  —  One big focus for Google today is making products for what it dubs the Next Billion Users in countries just coming online.



Spark Capital decides to "sever all ties" with David Dobrik's photo sharing Dispo after claims of sexual assault emerged from past Vlog Squad videos (Natasha Mascarenhas/TechCrunch)

Natasha Mascarenhas / TechCrunch:
Spark Capital decides to “sever all ties” with David Dobrik's photo sharing Dispo after claims of sexual assault emerged from past Vlog Squad videos  —  Dobrik departs from Dispo board and leaves company  —  Venture capital firm Spark Capital has decided to ‘sever all ties’ with Dispo …



OnePlus 9 Series Specifications Leaked Ahead of March 23 Launch

OnePlus 9 series specifications have surfaced online via a now removed listing on T-Mobile's support page. The OnePlus 9R will have attachable gaming triggers and the OnePlus 9 series will launch... https://ift.tt/2PddprZ

Reliance Jio May Launch 5G Smartphone, JioBook at AGM 2021: Report

Reliance Jio may launch a 5G smartphone and a low-cost laptop called JioBook at this year's Annual General Meeting, which may take place in September, as per a report. The 5G phone may run on... https://ift.tt/3tJlrHO

The Last of Us Season 1 to Cover the First Game's Events: Neil Druckmann

The Last of Us season 1 will cover the events of the original game of the same name, Neil Druckmann has revealed. Druckmann is the writer and director on The Last of Us and The Last of Us 2. https://ift.tt/3rdq2Ah

How Amazon Is Fighting Door to Door to Beat Mukesh Ambani's Reliance

The Supreme Court will soon decide on its bid to scuttle the $3.4 billion (roughly Rs. 24,630 crore) sale of debt-laden retailer Future Group's assets to Amazon's archrival Reliance. But the... https://ift.tt/3c7xyIQ

Poco X3 Pro, Poco F3 May Launch at Global Event Today: How to Watch Livestream

The Poco X3 Pro is expected to come with Qualcomm Snapdragon 860 SoC. The Poco F3 meanwhile, is rumoured to be a rebadged Redmi K40, which Xiaomi launched in China last month. This, the Poco F3 is... https://ift.tt/3cWLfcU

US House antitrust chairman plans multiple bills to go after big tech companies

The subcommittee, under Cicilline's leadership, released a 449-page report in October last year, which detailed abuses of market power by Apple, Amazon, Alphabet's Google and Facebook. https://ift.tt/3lKxnGI

Bank of England governor wants UK bill to make Google tackle online scams: Report

The report said governor Bailey had been lobbying Home Secretary Priti Patel, the interior minister, about the issue, asking for the measure to be added to an Online Harms Bill expected to be put before parliament this year. https://ift.tt/3f28Jjf

UK publisher Bloomsbury says it is among the beneficiaries of the $1.5B Anthropic settlement; 14,087 of its titles are covered, with ~$3K in compensation each (Anushka Chourasia/Reuters)

Anushka Chourasia / Reuters : UK publisher Bloomsbury says it is among the beneficiaries of the $1.5B Anthropic settlement; 14,087 of its...