Thursday, July 29, 2021

Sources: SoftBank is preparing to sell about one-third of its stake in Uber, or 45M shares, to cover its Didi losses; SoftBank has lost ~$4B on Didi (CNBC)

CNBC:
Sources: SoftBank is preparing to sell about one-third of its stake in Uber, or 45M shares, to cover its Didi losses; SoftBank has lost ~$4B on Didi  —  - Investors have pushed down Didi shares on concerns that the Chinese government was planning to impose fines on the company.



Inmarsat, the UK's largest satellite company, says it plans to launch low-orbit spacecraft and establish a 5G wireless network, competing with SpaceX and OneWeb (Thomas Seal/Bloomberg)

Thomas Seal / Bloomberg:
Inmarsat, the UK's largest satellite company, says it plans to launch low-orbit spacecraft and establish a 5G wireless network, competing with SpaceX and OneWeb  —  - Operator reveals roadmap to add 5G and at least 150 satellites  — Joins wave of investment in 5G and low-earth orbit spacecraft



Russia fines Google 3 million Rubel for violating personal data law

Russia fined Google 3 million roubles ($41,017) for violating personal data legislation, Google's first fine for that offence, Moscow's Tagansky District Court said. Google confirmed the fine and offered no further comment. https://ift.tt/3iduCO1

Gboard Will Now Let You Paste Important Parts From Copied Text: Report

Gboard will now offer important bits such as links, dates, times, and numbers to paste from the copied text, as per a report. The update was rolled out to Pixel phones in June, and is in beta for... https://ift.tt/3zP1OkC

Black Widow Out in August on Disney+ Hotstar in Six Languages

Black Widow to release in August on Disney+ Hotstar in English, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, and Kannada. No word on a theatrical release date. https://ift.tt/3zQqNUC

Xiaomi Leads India Smartphone Shipments in Q2 Driven by Redmi Series: Report

Counterpoint has released its Q2 2021 smartphone shipment report and the company says that a total of 33 million units were shipped in the quarter, growing by 82 percent year-on-year (YoY). Xiaomi led... https://ift.tt/3zShdRt

Google Play Protect Failed to Provide Security Against Infected Apps: AV-Test

Google Play Protect has failed to provide a competitive level of security on Android devices against popular anti-malware solutions from companies such as Avast, AVG, Bitdefender, McAfee,... https://ift.tt/3zOWJZA

Google updates Play Store policies to ban apps offering "compensated sexual relationships", likely impacting sugar daddy dating apps, beginning September 1 (Ryne Hager/Android Police)

Ryne Hager / Android Police:
Google updates Play Store policies to ban apps offering “compensated sexual relationships”, likely impacting sugar daddy dating apps, beginning September 1  —  Today, Google published a handful of changes to its Play policies, and nestled among precise legalese refinements …



As China expands oversight, Tencent's value dropped 23% in July, erasing ~$170B; nine of the top 10 losers in shareholder value in July were Chinese companies (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg:
As China expands oversight, Tencent's value dropped 23% in July, erasing ~$170B; nine of the top 10 losers in shareholder value in July were Chinese companies  —  - Tech giant is set to see its worst month ever after selloff  — Nine of top 10 market value losers in July are Chinese firms



Homebase, which offers tools to manage teams and hourly workers at SMBs, raises $70M Series C led by GGV Capital, sources say at a $500M-$600M valuation (Ingrid Lunden/TechCrunch)

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Homebase, which offers tools to manage teams and hourly workers at SMBs, raises $70M Series C led by GGV Capital, sources say at a $500M-$600M valuation  —  Small and medium enterprises have become a big opportunity in the world of B2B technology in the last several years …



Filing: Korean game studio Krafton, which develops PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, is set to raise $3.8B during a Seoul IPO, valuing the company at ~$21.2B (Youkyung Lee/Bloomberg)

Youkyung Lee / Bloomberg:
Filing: Korean game studio Krafton, which develops PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, is set to raise $3.8B during a Seoul IPO, valuing the company at ~$21.2B  —  - Game developer sets share price at top of revised range  — IPO values Tencent-backed developer at $21.2 billion



Sources: Didi is considering going private in order to placate Chinese authorities and compensate investors for losses using money made during its IPO (Jing Yang/Wall Street Journal)

Jing Yang / Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Didi is considering going private in order to placate Chinese authorities and compensate investors for losses using money made during its IPO  —  Ride-hailing giant has been contemplating delisting plan as crackdown widens and has obtained support from cybersecurity watchdog



South Korean game developer Krafton IPO to raise $3.75 billion

South Korean game developer Krafton Inc said it has priced its initial public offering (IPO) at the top of its indicative range to raise 4.3 trillion won ($3.75 billion). https://ift.tt/3faCJZD

Panasonic's Q1 profit soars 27 times on robust demand for car batteries, appliances

Panasonic is launching a test line in Japan to make Tesla's so-called 4680 battery cells, which the automaker claims will halve battery costs and help it ramp up battery production 100-fold by 2030. https://ift.tt/3zQm59o

Mark Zuckerberg eyes deeper commerce integration across Facebook apps

Buoyed by the launch of WhatsApp payments in India and Brazil, Mark Zuckerberg has reiterated his commitment towards a deeper integration within the family of Facebook apps including Instagram and Messenger to provide a unified commerce experience to millions of users in the near future. https://ift.tt/3zKnjTK

Russia's finance minister says Russian companies have begun using bitcoin and other digital currencies in international payments to counter Western sanctions (Gleb Bryanski/Reuters)

Gleb Bryanski / Reuters : Russia's finance minister says Russian companies have begun using bitcoin and other digital currencies in i...