TOI-GN Awards: Vote for your favourite gadget

https://ift.tt/3qqM0l9

Berlin-based Pliant, which offers digital corporate credit card management and accounting software, raises a €18M seed led by Alstin Capital (Dan Taylor/Tech.eu)

Dan Taylor / Tech.eu:
Berlin-based Pliant, which offers digital corporate credit card management and accounting software, raises a €18M seed led by Alstin Capital  —  Berlin-based startup pliant has raised €18 million in a seed funding round.  The fintech offers a corporate credit card solution …

Chinese app stores had 2.78M total apps by October, down from 4.52M at the end of 2018, a 38.5% drop amid the government's new data laws and clean-up campaigns (Jane Zhang/South China Morning Post)

Jane Zhang / South China Morning Post:
Chinese app stores had 2.78M total apps by October, down from 4.52M at the end of 2018, a 38.5% drop amid the government's new data laws and clean-up campaigns  —  Chinese app stores had just 2.78 million apps in October, down from 4.52 million in December 2018 The biggest declines came this year …

Q&A with Clubhouse CEO Paul Davison: copycat features from big rivals have not impacted the company "in any real way" and making money is not a pressing concern (Financial Times)

Financial Times:
Q&A with Clubhouse CEO Paul Davison: copycat features from big rivals have not impacted the company “in any real way” and making money is not a pressing concern  —  The app was pegged as the future of social media.  After a lukewarm end to 2021, it faces an uphill battle to turn a profit

[Thread] For media and advertising, Web3's focus on decentralization and tokenization solves few, if any, problems and is the last thing ad tech needs (Ari Paparo Dot Eth/@aripap)

Ari Paparo Dot Eth / @aripap:
[Thread] For media and advertising, Web3's focus on decentralization and tokenization solves few, if any, problems and is the last thing ad tech needs  —  This web3 shit is starting to annoy me, so here's a thread with my opinions on the relevance to media and advertising. 1/21 🧵

Bitcoin climbs to $51,000, hits highest in more than two weeks

The largest cryptocurrency has advanced some 4% over the past two days and at one point reached $51,524 on Friday in Asian trading. Ether, the second-largest token, was near $4,100. https://ift.tt/3HeVsyD

Delhi: Fake call centre busted, 4 held for duping on pretext of sanctioning loans

Delhi Police has arrested four persons for allegedly duping people on the pretext of sanctioning loans. https://ift.tt/3sDSIqR

Boosted by localisation, Indian electronics manufacturing sector to touch Rs 7 lakh cr next fiscal

The Meity has proposed a PLI scheme of about Rs 22,000 crore to promote wearables as well as enhance incentives for IT hardware manufacturers in the next financial year as it aims to increase electronics exports from India by 50 per cent. https://ift.tt/3epA3qo

TikTok dethrones Google to become most popular website: Report

The rankings show that TikTok knocked Google off the top spot in February, March and June this year, and has held the number one position since August. https://ift.tt/32xODtg

Leaked screenshots of Android 13 "Tiramisu" show features like per-app language selection, runtime permissions for notifications, and lock screen clock layouts (Aamir Siddiqui/XDA Developers)

Aamir Siddiqui / XDA Developers:
Leaked screenshots of Android 13 “Tiramisu” show features like per-app language selection, runtime permissions for notifications, and lock screen clock layouts  —  Android 12 is the current flavor of the season as OEMs go on to update their skins with this new release as their base.

Privoro, which makes security devices for smartphones, including a case with intelligent audio masking and camera blocking, raises a $30M Series B (FinSMEs)

FinSMEs:
Privoro, which makes security devices for smartphones, including a case with intelligent audio masking and camera blocking, raises a $30M Series B  —  Privoro, a Chandler, AZ-based mobile security hardware company, raised £40M in Series B funding.  —  The round was led by Tracker Capital Management.

The White House invites major software companies and developers to discuss improving open-source security, starting with a one-day event in January (Andrew Martin/Bloomberg)

Andrew Martin / Bloomberg:
The White House invites major software companies and developers to discuss improving open-source security, starting with a one-day event in January  —  White House officials are asking major software companies and developers to work with them to improve the security of open-source software, according to an administration official.

Russian court fines Google ~$98M for repeated failure to delete content Russia deems illegal, the first revenue-based fine of its kind in the country (Reuters)

Reuters:
Russian court fines Google ~$98M for repeated failure to delete content Russia deems illegal, the first revenue-based fine of its kind in the country  —  A Moscow court on Friday said it was fining Alphabet's Google (GOOGL.O) 7.2 billion roubles ($98 million) for what it said was a repeated failure …

How to hide name on WhatsApp from random users

Meta-owned instant messaging platform WhatsApp has rolled out several new features to improve the app’s experience for users. Some of these features include ability to listen to voice messages before sending, automatically hide last seen status, multi-device support and more. https://ift.tt/3yYad6o

Ahead of the holidays, the biggest game releases from EA, Take-Two, and Activision have received poor reviews, capping a difficult year for the industry (Dan Gallagher/Wall Street Journal)

Dan Gallagher / Wall Street Journal:
Ahead of the holidays, the biggest game releases from EA, Take-Two, and Activision have received poor reviews, capping a difficult year for the industry  —  Problems with latest ‘Call of Duty,’ ‘Battlefield’ and ‘Grand Theft Auto’ releases follow tough year for videogame stocks