Thursday, May 20, 2021

Sunbit, which helps physical and e-commerce stores offer customers the option to pay in installments, raises $130M Series D at $1.1B after money valuation (Meir Orbach/CTech)

Meir Orbach / CTech:
Sunbit, which helps physical and e-commerce stores offer customers the option to pay in installments, raises $130M Series D at $1.1B after money valuation  —  Sunbit focuses on the American credit market and develops a payment method that allows stores to offer their customers the option to pay in installments



Mobile World Congress in June to go ahead as planned: GSMA

The organizers of the Mobile World Congress (MWC), the telecoms industry's biggest annual gathering, said that the conference would go ahead as planned as Spanish authorities approved its health and safety plan. https://ift.tt/3oBRybl

Regional government of Inner Mongolia sets up hotline to report suspected crypto mining as China moves to curb energy emissions and fortify its central bank (Financial Times)

Financial Times:
Regional government of Inner Mongolia sets up hotline to report suspected crypto mining as China moves to curb energy emissions and fortify its central bank  —  Move comes as Beijing's crackdown prompts volatility in global bitcoin trading  —  A Chinese province has asked residents to blow …



Federal Reserve Chair Powell discusses the risks of cryptocurrencies and sets a timeline for a Fed discussion paper on a possible central bank digital currency (Reuters)

Reuters:
Federal Reserve Chair Powell discusses the risks of cryptocurrencies and sets a timeline for a Fed discussion paper on a possible central bank digital currency  —  Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell flagged the risks of cryptocurrencies in an unusual video message on Thursday that also laid …



Wednesday, May 19, 2021

Zoom Events Is a New Virtual Platform That Mimics In-Person Events

Zoom Events has been announced that will provide businesses with the ability to create a "hub" where all of their multi-day events will be listed with corresponding information about each... https://ift.tt/3bENBxb

Twitter Finds Its AI Tool Tends to Crop Out Black People, Men From Photos

Twitter's image-cropping algorithm has a problematic bias toward excluding Black people and men, the company said in new research, adding that "how to crop an image is a decision best made by... https://ift.tt/3ypMCe1

Paris-based app-only car rental startup Virtuo raises $60M Series C led by AXA Venture Partners and an additional $36M in asset financing (Ingrid Lunden/TechCrunch)

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Paris-based app-only car rental startup Virtuo raises $60M Series C led by AXA Venture Partners and an additional $36M in asset financing  —  Car ownership has become pricey and untenable in many towns and cities in Europe: between congestion charges to reduce emissions, parking fees …



Wheel, which provides tools enabling health providers or employers to offer telehealth services, raises $50M Series B led by Lightspeed Venture Partners (Katie Jennings/Forbes)

Katie Jennings / Forbes:
Wheel, which provides tools enabling health providers or employers to offer telehealth services, raises $50M Series B led by Lightspeed Venture Partners  —  I am a staff writer covering healthcare.  Email me at kjennings@forbes.com.  —  Wheel is healthcare's answer to the gig economy.



Poco M3 Pro 5G with MediaTek Dimensity 700 SoC, 5000mAh battery launched in Europe

Poco, the former sub-brand of Xiaomi, has launched a new smartphone — called Poco M3 Pro 5G — in Europe. The handset shares some of its specs with the Poco M3 as it is a more powerful variant of the device. https://ift.tt/3f39AQA

ByteDance co-founder Zhang Yiming to step down as CEO

Zhang Yiming, founder of TikTok owner ByteDance, told employees of the Chinese technology giant in a memo that he will step down as chief executive and be succeeded by human resource chief Liang Rubo, the company disclosed. Zhang's decision to step down comes less than a month after ByteDance named its chief financial officer Shouzi Chew as CEO of TikTok. https://ift.tt/3va6UGw

Twitter finds its AI tends to crop out Black people, men from photos

The study by three of its machine learning researchers was conducted after user criticism last year about image previews in posts excluding Black people's faces https://ift.tt/2QxSb91

Apple made more than $100 million in commissions from 'Fortnite', says executive at trial

Apple Inc made more than $100 million in commissions from Epic Games' "Fortnite" during the two years the online game was on the App Store, an Apple executive testified on Wednesday. https://ift.tt/3v9aD72

Cisco forecasts profit below estimates, cites supply chain issues

Cisco forecast fourth-quarter profit of 81 cents to 83 cents per share, compared with estimates of 85 cents per share, and said it expected 6% to 8% revenue growth. https://ift.tt/3f2BSuv

Amazon.com faces five new racial, gender bias lawsuits

The women, ages 23 to 64, accused Amazon of favoring men over women in career growth, allowing supervisors to denigrate them, and retaliating after they complained. Two plaintiffs are Black, one is Latina, one is Asian-American and one is white. They filed their lawsuits in federal courts in Arizona, California, Delaware and Amazon's hometown of Seattle. https://ift.tt/3yyv93h

China Mars Rover Zhurong Beams Back First Photos From the Red Planet

Solar panels against an alien landscape, ramps and rods pointing at the Martian horizon - China's first probe on the Red Planet has beamed back its first "selfies" after its history-making landing... https://ift.tt/3bGl36u

How Schneider Electric is using AI in call centers and manufacturing to complement employees' work and boost productivity, rather than to replace them (Patricia Cohen/New York Times)

Patricia Cohen / New York Times : How Schneider Electric is using AI in call centers and manufacturing to complement employees' work ...