Thursday, February 25, 2021

Google debuts Sleep API which uses a phone's light and motion sensors and on-device AI to generate data which developers can use to build wellness apps (Abner Li/9to5Google)

Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Google debuts Sleep API which uses a phone's light and motion sensors and on-device AI to generate data which developers can use to build wellness apps  —  Android has long offered an Activity Recognition API that processes device sensor data with machine learning models in a battery-efficient manner.



Newsela, a SaaS platform for K-12 educational content, raises $100M Series D at a $1B valuation led by Franklin Templeton and TCV (Natasha Mascarenhas/TechCrunch)

Natasha Mascarenhas / TechCrunch:
Newsela, a SaaS platform for K-12 educational content, raises $100M Series D at a $1B valuation led by Franklin Templeton and TCV  —  Newsela, a SaaS platform for K-12 instructional material backed by the likes of TCV, Kleiner Perkins, Reach Capital, and Owl Ventures, announced today that it has raised $100 million in a Series D round.



Autodesk says it will acquire Innovyze, which makes a SaaS product for the design, construction, operation, and maintenance of water infrastructure, for $1B (Natalie Gagliordi/ZDNet)

Natalie Gagliordi / ZDNet:
Autodesk says it will acquire Innovyze, which makes a SaaS product for the design, construction, operation, and maintenance of water infrastructure, for $1B  —  The acquisition is the largest in Autodesk's history and is meant to position Autodesk as a provider of end-to-end software for the operations of water infrastructure.



Microsoft says it is investigating a major Xbox Live service outage that is preventing some users from signing in or making purchases (Ry Crist/CNET)

Ry Crist / CNET:
Microsoft says it is investigating a major Xbox Live service outage that is preventing some users from signing in or making purchases  —  It's not just you — Xbox Live players worldwide are reporting troubles logging in. … Xbox Live's online platform for console gamers suffered a major outage Thursday …



Facebook is rolling out an opt-in feature, allowing "Hey Facebook" to be used as a wake word for its Portal displays and Oculus Quest platform (Cameron Faulkner/The Verge)

Cameron Faulkner / The Verge:
Facebook is rolling out an opt-in feature, allowing “Hey Facebook” to be used as a wake word for its Portal displays and Oculus Quest platform  —  Available on Portal smart displays and rolling out on Oculus Quest headsets  —  Facebook has introduced a new “Hey Facebook” …



Robinhood says it has added 6M new crypto customers so far in 2021; Robinhood averaged ~200K new crypto customers a month in 2020 (Robinhood)

Robinhood:
Robinhood says it has added 6M new crypto customers so far in 2021; Robinhood averaged ~200K new crypto customers a month in 2020  —  Since we launched nearly three years ago, Robinhood Crypto has been central to our efforts to expand access to financial services and democratize finance for all.



Wednesday, February 24, 2021

India Plans New Social Media Regulations After Twitter Face-Off

Chafing from a dispute with Twitter, India plans to oblige social media companies to erase contentious content fast and assist investigations, according to a draft regulation. https://ift.tt/37LBcWi

Facebook Bans All Myanmar Military-Linked Accounts and Advertisements

Facebook announced it was banning all accounts linked to Myanmar's military as well as ads from military-controlled companies in the wake of the army's seizure of power on February 1. https://ift.tt/3dGtDE9

Facebook Pledges $1 Billion for News, Defends Australia Blackout

Facebook pledged to invest at least $1 billion (roughly Rs. 7,230 crore) to support journalism over the next three years as the social media giant defended its handling of a dispute with Australia... https://ift.tt/2PdIPyt

Australia Passes Landmark Law on Content Payment as Facebook Restores News

Australia's parliament passed a landmark legislation requiring global digital giants to pay for local news content, in a move closely watched around the world. https://ift.tt/3dJjXsp

Facebook says it banning all Myanmar military and military-controlled entities from Facebook and Instagram, and ads from military-linked commercial entities (Rafael Frankel/About Facebook)

Rafael Frankel / About Facebook:
Facebook says it banning all Myanmar military and military-controlled entities from Facebook and Instagram, and ads from military-linked commercial entities  —  Myanmar military banned from Facebook and Instagram with immediate effect.  —  Today, we are banning the remaining Myanmar military …



YouTube brings new feature to help parents 'supervise' what their kids watch

In its latest announcement, YouTube has said that in the coming months, it will launch a new support for parents to allow their children to access YouTube through a supervised Google Account. their children to access YouTube through a supervised Google Account. https://ift.tt/3kmQmpX

Be careful when you search these 8 things on Google

https://ift.tt/3bE5M5m

Nvidia sales surge as it struggles to keep gaming chips in stock

https://ift.tt/3uwWYqo

Amazon app quiz February 25, 2021: Get answers to these five questions to win Sony DSLR camera for free

Name of the winner of today’s quiz will be announced later in the day. https://ift.tt/3dJzhFB

SpaceX launches Starlink in Indonesia to improve internet access in remote parts of the country, starting with three local health centers (Stefanno Sulaiman/Reuters)

Stefanno Sulaiman / Reuters : SpaceX launches Starlink in Indonesia to improve internet access in remote parts of the country, starting w...