Wednesday, March 2, 2022

Ukraine's tech diaspora races to mobilize Silicon Valley in war with Russia

Ukrainians working at Western tech companies are banding together to help their besieged homeland, aiming to knock down disinformation websites, encourage Russians to turn against their government and speed delivery of medical supplies. https://ift.tt/CRB1h2b

Ukraine-Russia war: How Apple, Google, Facebook and other technology companies have ‘banned’ Russia

https://ift.tt/28m0l1H

Netflix acquires Finnish game developer Next Games for around $72M; the studio specializes in games based on entertainment franchises, such as Stranger Things (Vikas SN/Moneycontrol)

Vikas SN / Moneycontrol:
Netflix acquires Finnish game developer Next Games for around $72M; the studio specializes in games based on entertainment franchises, such as Stranger Things  —  Next Games had released ‘Stranger Things: Puzzle Tales’, a role-playing game based on the streaming giant's hit 80s horror drama series in October last year.



AMD unveils new Radeon mobile and desktop graphics cards designed for thin and light laptops and affordable gaming PCs

The lineup now includes AMD Radeon RX 6850M XT, Radeon RX 6650M XT, Radeon RX 6650M, Radeon RX 6500M and Radeon RX 6300M mobile graphics. The company also announced the AMD Radeon RX 6000S mobile graphics lineup – the AMD Radeon RX 6800S, Radeon RX 6700S and Radeon RX 6600S. https://ift.tt/HOVClwe

Google Cloud to use 3rd Gen AMD EPYC processors for high-performance computing workloads

AMD announced that the AMD EPYC processors will power the new C2D virtual machine offering from Google Cloud. The company claims that this integration will provide strong performance and compute power for high-performance computing (HPC) memory-bound workloads to the consumers. https://ift.tt/PLZ45tK

Tuesday, March 1, 2022

An Israeli judge lifts reporting restrictions on the arrest of former Celsius Network CFO Yaron Shalem in 2021 for suspected fraud, as Celsius raised $400M (Financial Times)

Financial Times:
An Israeli judge lifts reporting restrictions on the arrest of former Celsius Network CFO Yaron Shalem in 2021 for suspected fraud, as Celsius raised $400M  —  Yaron Shalem was one of 10 detained in connection with alleged fraud at other cryptocurrency ventures



The SEC says BitConnect founder Satish Kumbhani, recently charged with running a $2.4B Ponzi scheme, has disappeared from his native India (David Voreacos/Bloomberg)

David Voreacos / Bloomberg:
The SEC says BitConnect founder Satish Kumbhani, recently charged with running a $2.4B Ponzi scheme, has disappeared from his native India  —  BitConnect founder Satish Kumbhani, charged criminally in the U.S. last week with a $2.4 billion Ponzi scheme, has vanished from his native India, officials said.



African financing service M-KOPA, which helps people without bank accounts buy smartphones, TVs, and other items, raises $75M, bringing total funding to $190M (Tage Kene-Okafor/TechCrunch)

Tage Kene-Okafor / TechCrunch:
African financing service M-KOPA, which helps people without bank accounts buy smartphones, TVs, and other items, raises $75M, bringing total funding to $190M  —  A 2019 World Bank report says 85% of Africans live on less than $5.50 per day.  A large percentage of these adults are unbanked and underbanked …



Baidu reports Q4 revenue rose 9% YoY to ~$5.2B as net income drops to ~$269M, as the company transitions from online marketing to components supplier (Zheping Huang/Bloomberg)

Zheping Huang / Bloomberg:
Baidu reports Q4 revenue rose 9% YoY to ~$5.2B as net income drops to ~$269M, as the company transitions from online marketing to components supplier  —  Baidu Inc.'s revenue beat estimates after efforts to monetize artificial intelligence technology helped offset losses in ad sales triggered by China's economic slowdown.



YouTube will block Kremlin-backed RT and Sputnik in Europe, following similar bans by Meta and TikTok, citing the Ukraine invasion (Mark Scott/Politico)

Mark Scott / Politico:
YouTube will block Kremlin-backed RT and Sputnik in Europe, following similar bans by Meta and TikTok, citing the Ukraine invasion  —  Google's YouTube said Tuesday that it would block Kremlin-backed media outlets RT and Sputnik from Europe following similar bans by Facebook and TikTok.



Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella's 26-year-old son passes away

Tech giant Microsoft Corporation said that Zain Nadella, son of CEO Satya Nadella and his wife Anu Nadella, has died, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday. https://ift.tt/diIXrPl

David Boggs, who co-invented Ethernet along with Bob Metcalfe at Xerox PARC, died on February 19 at 71 (Cade Metz/New York Times)

Cade Metz / New York Times:
David Boggs, who co-invented Ethernet along with Bob Metcalfe at Xerox PARC, died on February 19 at 71  —  Thanks to the invention he helped create in the 1970s, people can send email over an office network or visit a website through a coffee shop hot spot.



Tesla offers free EV charging near Ukraine for people fleeing country

Electric vehicle company Tesla has started to offer free Supercharging in several countries around Ukraine for people fleeing the country following the Russian invasion. https://ift.tt/ZC1Kpgd

Constellation Energy plans to invest $1.6B to revive the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania and sell all the output to Microsoft data centers (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg : Constellation Energy plans to invest $1.6B to revive the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania and sell all the out...