Sunday, August 29, 2021

Most of the internet privacy proposals on the table today are in absolute, direct conflict with most of the proposals to increase competition in the markets (Benedict Evans)

Benedict Evans:
Most of the internet privacy proposals on the table today are in absolute, direct conflict with most of the proposals to increase competition in the markets  —  The consumer internet industry spent two decades building a huge, complex, chaotic pile of tools and systems to track and analyse …



Chinese regulators to exercise more control over algorithms

Chinese regulators will exercise greater control over the algorithms used by Chinese technology firms to personalise and recommend content, the latest move in a regulation spree across the internet sector. https://ift.tt/3yrffX1

Sources: Apple Watch Series 7 will get an updated design, come in 41mm and 45mm sizes, featuring multiple new watch faces to take advantage of the bigger screen (Mark Gurman/Bloomberg)

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple Watch Series 7 will get an updated design, come in 41mm and 45mm sizes, featuring multiple new watch faces to take advantage of the bigger screen  —  This is the free version of Power On.  If you like it, consider subscribing to Bloomberg.com — you'll receive …



Jack Dorsey and Mike Brock say Square's TBD is building a Bitcoin-centric decentralized exchange for digital assets (Andrew Hayward/Decrypt)

Andrew Hayward / Decrypt:
Jack Dorsey and Mike Brock say Square's TBD is building a Bitcoin-centric decentralized exchange for digital assets  —  Square's Cash App is a popular way for people to buy and sell Bitcoin, but CEO Jack Dorsey's love for the leading cryptocurrency is immense—and the financial services firm plans to do a lot more in the space.



Kuo: iPhone 13 hardware could support LEO satellite communications; Apple may work with Globalstar to enable connectivity when not in 4G/5G range (Hartley Charlton/MacRumors)

Hartley Charlton / MacRumors:
Kuo: iPhone 13 hardware could support LEO satellite communications; Apple may work with Globalstar to enable connectivity when not in 4G/5G range  —  The iPhone 13 will feature low earth orbit (LEO) satellite communication connectivity to allow users to make calls and send messages …



China starts a two-month campaign to crack down on websites and social media accounts that post financial information that "maliciously bad-mouths" its economy (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg:
China starts a two-month campaign to crack down on websites and social media accounts that post financial information that “maliciously bad-mouths” its economy  —  China kicked off a two-month campaign to crack down on commercial platforms and social media accounts …



Saturday, August 28, 2021

Filing in AGs' lawsuit against Google: the Play Store hit revenues of $11.2B in 2019, with $8.5B in gross profit and an operating margin of over 62% (Paresh Dave/Reuters)

Paresh Dave / Reuters:
Filing in AGs' lawsuit against Google: the Play Store hit revenues of $11.2B in 2019, with $8.5B in gross profit and an operating margin of over 62%  —  Alphabet Inc's (GOOGL.O) Google generated $11.2 billion in revenue from its mobile app store in 2019, according to a court filing unsealed on Saturday …



CryptoSlam: CryptoPunks, an NFT platform with 10K pixel portraits, crossed $1B in transaction volume, with the cheapest artwork available for sale costing $450K (Lucas Matney/TechCrunch)

Lucas Matney / TechCrunch:
CryptoSlam: CryptoPunks, an NFT platform with 10K pixel portraits, crossed $1B in transaction volume, with the cheapest artwork available for sale costing $450K  —  Hello friends, and welcome back to Week in Review!  Last week we dove into Bezos's Blue Origin suing NASA.



Bike price cut, rising costs to hit Peloton's profitability

Peloton Interactive Inc said its near-term profitability would suffer due to a decision to slash the price of its exercise bike and higher commodity and marketing costs. https://ift.tt/3zpQ9Jp

Apple's "clarifications" as part of its settlement will not make much of a difference in the long run for developers or to how the App Store actually works (Chaim Gartenberg/The Verge)

Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge:
Apple's “clarifications” as part of its settlement will not make much of a difference in the long run for developers or to how the App Store actually works  —  Apple isn't changing how the App Store works because Apple doesn't want it to change  —  Apple made waves this week …



Analysis: a record 19 fintech startups in Europe have become unicorns in 2021 so far, bringing the total number of fintech unicorns on the continent to 39 (Gené Teare/Crunchbase News)

Gené Teare / Crunchbase News:
Analysis: a record 19 fintech startups in Europe have become unicorns in 2021 so far, bringing the total number of fintech unicorns on the continent to 39  —  At the start of 2021, Europe had just one decacorn—a startup valued at $10 billion or more—in the fintech sector to speak of …



When Buying Bitcoins, Are We Investing or Merely Speculating?

Cryptocurrency prices are subject to major volatility. But is buying virtual currencies like Bitcoin a good investment or mere speculation? Read on to find out. https://ift.tt/2UXujOs

How to Spot Red Flags in Cryptocurrency Trading and Avoid Them

D-core, a firm of blockchain analysts and researchers has shared their recommendations about investing in cryptocurrencies. Here are some of the red flags and ways to spot them. https://ift.tt/3DB1dWG

EU's data protection supervisor recommends that personal data such as search queries and browsing history should not be used for the assessment of credit scores (Catalin Cimpanu/The Record)

Catalin Cimpanu / The Record:
EU's data protection supervisor recommends that personal data such as search queries and browsing history should not be used for the assessment of credit scores  —  The European Union's lead data protection supervisor has recommended on Thursday that personal data such as search queries …



IATA backs European digital Covid certificate as global standard

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has commended the European Commission for its leadership and speed in delivering the EU Digital Covid Certificate (DCC) and urged states to make it their global standard for digital vaccine certificates. https://ift.tt/3gIIsXl

Belgium-based Vertical Compute, a memory chip firm spun out of European VC firm Imec.xpand, raised a €20M seed led by Imec.xpand (Dean Takahashi/VentureBeat)

Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat : Belgium-based Vertical Compute, a memory chip firm spun out of European VC firm Imec.xpand, raised a €20M ...