News: Business/Economy

Latest News

Apple is temporarily closing more stores due to COVID-19
Apple is temporarily closing more stores due to COVID-19

Apple will temporarily close more than 20 of its retail locations in Georgia, North Carolina and Texas as coronavirus cases continue to climb in those states...

National Rifle Association Files Bankruptcy, Citing New York Politics
National Rifle Association Files Bankruptcy, Citing New York Politics

(Bloomberg) -- The National Rifle Association of America, the gun-rights group feared for its lobbying clout but now threatened with dissolution by the state...

Facebook blocks events around D.C. and state capitals ahead of inauguration
Facebook blocks events around D.C. and state capitals ahead of inauguration

Facebook is cracking down on events in an effort to prevent its users from organizing violence ahead of Joe Biden's inauguration.

Daily Crunch: WhatsApp responds to privacy backlash
Daily Crunch: WhatsApp responds to privacy backlash

WhatsApp delays enforcement of a controversial privacy change, Apple may get rid of the Touch Bar in future MacBooks and Bumble files to go public. Earlier this month, WhatsApp sent users a notification asking them to consent to sharing some of their personal data - such as phone number and location - with Facebook (which owns WhatsApp).

Twitter
Twitter's decentralized future

This week, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey finally responded publicly to the company's decision to ban President Trump from its platform, writing that Twitter had "faced an extraordinary and untenable circumstance" and that he did not "feel pride" about the decision. In the same thread, he took time to call out a nascent Twitter-sponsored initiative called "bluesky," which is aiming to build up an "open decentralized standard for social media" that Twitter is just one part of. Researchers involved with bluesky reveal to TechCrunch an initiative still in its earliest stages that could fundamentally shift the power dynamics of the social web.

The next iPhone might have an in-screen fingerprint scanner
The next iPhone might have an in-screen fingerprint scanner

According to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, the company's engineers see this as an "S" kind of year after they built so many improvements into the iPhone 12.

Marc Lore leaves Walmart a little over four years after selling Jet.com for $3B
Marc Lore leaves Walmart a little over four years after selling Jet.com for $3B

Marc Lore, the executive vice president, president and CEO of U.S. e-commerce for Walmart, is stepping down a little over four years after selling his e-commerce company Jet.com to the country's largest retailer for $3 billion. Walmart instituted several new technology initiatives under Lore's tenure, but the Jet.com service was shuttered last May and other initiatives from Lore, like an option to have customers order items via text, was also a money-loser for the Bentonville, AK-based company. "After Mr. Lore retires on January 31, 2021, the U.S. business, including all the aspects of US retail eCommerce, will continue to report to John Furner, Executive Vice President, President and...

Apple is once again extending TV+ free trials
Apple is once again extending TV+ free trials

Apple will once again give some of its customers a few extra months of TV+.

Medium will expand into books with its latest acquisition
Medium will expand into books with its latest acquisition

Medium announced that it's acquiring Glose, a social reading platform.

Saudi Arabia Is Building an Entire City in a Straight Line, for Some Reason
Saudi Arabia Is Building an Entire City in a Straight Line, for Some Reason

No cars. No roads. No problem?

Here
Here's how a Biden stimulus plan could impact wages, stimulus payments and unemployment checks

If Joe Biden's economic relief package is approved by Congress, unemployment benefits could get a significant boost and more schools may reopen.

WhatsApp postpones new privacy policy amid
WhatsApp postpones new privacy policy amid 'confusion'

WhatsApp says it will give users more time to agree to its controversial new privacy policy, citing mass "confusion" and "misinformation" about the update.

Group Nine
Group Nine's SPAC goes public

Group Nine Media revealed last month that it was forming a SPAC (short for special purpose acquisition corporation) in order to raise money for acquisitions. The company has now moved forward with those plans, announcing last night that it had priced the SPAC's IPO at $10 per unit, to raise a total of $200 million.

Apple is extending Apple TV+ trials again
Apple is extending Apple TV+ trials again

If you've got an Apple TV+ trial that's set to expire sometime between now and June, good news: you're getting some free bonus time. Apple TV+ first launched in November of 2019, alongside a one-year free trial for anyone buying a new iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Apple TV or Mac. As those initial trials approached their end, Apple voluntarily extended them out to February of 2021.

'Hitman 3' players on Stadia can share playable custom setups

Anyone who clicks the URL can try a mission from the same starting point as you.

Desktop Metal buys fellow 3D printing company EnvisionTEC for $300M
Desktop Metal buys fellow 3D printing company EnvisionTEC for $300M

Desktop Metal this morning announced its intention to purchase fellow 3D printing company EnvisionTEC. Founded in Germany in 2002, EnvisionTEC specializes in photopolymer additive manufacturing, putting its technology in more direct competition with the likes of 3D printing darling Carbon than Desktop Metal's own existing portfolio. The deal follows Desktop Metal's push to go public last August as part of a growing trend of SPAC mergers.

WhatsApp delays enforcement of privacy terms by 3 months, following backlash
WhatsApp delays enforcement of privacy terms by 3 months, following backlash

WhatsApp said on Friday that it won't enforce the planned update to its data-sharing policy until May 15, weeks after news about the new terms created confusion among its users, exposed the Facebook app to a potential lawsuit, triggered a nationwide investigation and drove tens of millions of its loyal fans to explore alternative messaging apps. The messaging app, which serves more than two billion users, said it was delaying the enforcement of the new terms, which it first unveiled last year, over confusion it has created worldwide.

Tracy Chou launches Block Party to combat online harassment and abuse
Tracy Chou launches Block Party to combat online harassment and abuse

Block Party, an anti-harassment startup that aims to help folks feel safer on social media founded by Tracy Chou, launched today. Currently only available for Twitter, Block Party helps people filter out the content they don't want to see and into what Block Party calls the Lockout Folder. "We think it's important to still acknowledge that these people exist," Chou told me.

Apple is reportedly considering a podcast subscription service
Apple is reportedly considering a podcast subscription service

Spotify and SiriusXM have invested heavily into podcasts, and Amazon's getting into the action.

OneWeb secures funding to launch more than 500 internet satellites
OneWeb secures funding to launch more than 500 internet satellites

OneWeb has secured a $400 million investment from SoftBank and Hughes Network Systems.

Bumble files to go public
Bumble files to go public

Bumble CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd was on the founding team at Tinder before starting Bumble. In 2019, Wolfe Herd took the helm of MagicLab, renamed to Bumble Group, in a $3 billion deal with Blackstone, replacing Badoo founder and CEO Andrey Andreev following a harassment scandal at the firm. Previously privately held companies like Airbnb, Affirm, and others have seen their fortunes soar on the back of prices that public investors are willing to pay, perhaps inducing more IPO filings than the market might have otherwise seen.

Corporate credit card platform Moss raises $25.5 million
Corporate credit card platform Moss raises $25.5 million

German startup Moss has raised a $25.5 million (€21 million) funding round led by Valar Ventures. Existing investors Cherry Ventures and Global Founders Capital are also participating. Moss provides credit cards and a spending platform to small and medium businesses in Germany.

Facebook and NYU trained an AI to estimate COVID outcomes
Facebook and NYU trained an AI to estimate COVID outcomes

Complicating the public health response is the fact that we still know so little about how the virus operates -- such as why some patients remain asymptomatic while it ravages others. When the outbreak first reached New York City, "we started trying to figure out what to do, how we could actually help manage the patients," Moore continued.

How Twitter will transition presidential accounts after Inauguration Day
How Twitter will transition presidential accounts after Inauguration Day

Kamala Harris' husband, Douglas Emhoff, will become the first @SecondGentleman.

The best deals we found this week: $30 off Apple
The best deals we found this week: $30 off Apple's iPad and more

Here are the best tech deals we found this week, including $30 off Apple's iPad, $10 off the Xbox Series X wireless controller and $10 off Nintendo's Ring Fit Adventure.

Dating app Bumble reveals steady revenue growth, losses in IPO filing
Dating app Bumble reveals steady revenue growth, losses in IPO filing

Bumble Inc's plans to go public come at a time when companies are seeking to capitalize on what has been the strongest IPO market in two decades. Companies ...

Everlywell raises $75M from HealthQuest Capital following its recent $175M Series D round
Everlywell raises $75M from HealthQuest Capital following its recent $175M Series D round

At-home health testing kit startup Everlywell has raised $75 million, following the close of the $175 million Series D it announced in December. The new funding comes from HealthQuest Capital, and sees the fund's founder and managing partners Dr. Garheng Kong join the company's board of directors. HealthQuest Capital's investment portfolio has a heavy focus on commercialization of diagnostics businesses, and the company's parent obviously has a board network of partners including hospitals, and healthcare payers, both of which are going to be very strategically useful to Everlywell as it looks to scale its business on the enterprise side.

Crossbeam raises $25M to back startups built on
Crossbeam raises $25M to back startups built on 'platform economies'

While many venture capitalists might hope to fund the next Amazon or Shopify, Crossbeam is a new firm focused on backing the startups built on top of these platforms. Noting that third-party sales on Amazon reached $200 billion in 2019, Hamed said, "There's going to be 100 winners in this space."

Wells Fargo
Wells Fargo's $1.1 Billion in Charges Slows Cost Cutting

(Bloomberg) -- Wells Fargo & Co. posted worse-than-expected expenses in the fourth quarter and took charges of more than $1 billion for restructuring and...

Apple will produce Ridley Scott
Apple will produce Ridley Scott's upcoming Napoleon biopic

Apple will produce 'Kitbag,' a Ridley Scott movie starring Joaquin Phoenix as French emperor Napoleon.

Apple said to be planning new 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pros with MagSafe and Apple processors
Apple said to be planning new 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pros with MagSafe and Apple processors

Apple has planned new upgraded MacBook Pros for launch "later this year" according to a new report from Bloomberg. Bloomberg's report suggests that these MacBook Pro models will have processors with more cores and better graphics capabilities than the existing M1 chips that power Apple's current notebooks with in-house silicon, and that they'll also have displays with brighter panels that offer higher contrast.

Want a job in tech? Flockjay pitches its sales training service as an on-ramp to tech careers
Want a job in tech? Flockjay pitches its sales training service as an on-ramp to tech careers

"Most people don't even know that a job in tech sales is even a possibility," says Shaan Hathiramani, the founder and chief executive of Flockjay, a company offering a tech sales training curriculum to the masses. Hathiramani sees his startup as an onramp to the tech industry for legions of workers who have the skillsets to work in tech, but lack the network to see themselves in the business. Just like coding bootcamps have enabled thousands to get jobs as programmers in the tech business, Flockjay can get talented people who had never considered a job in tech into the industry.

Google
Google's Android and TV leads chat Samsung, RCS and CES

Android chief Hiroshi Lockheimer made an appearance at Unpacked today, for example while Sony and TCL unveiled their first Google TV sets. Lockheimer and VP for Google TV Shalini Govil-Pai joined us today to discuss the news this week as well as the future of Android and Google TV.

Twitter Will Transfer White House Accounts From Trump to Biden
Twitter Will Transfer White House Accounts From Trump to Biden 'in Real Time'

Twitter said the official White House accounts, including @POTUS, will change hands in "real time" on Inauguration Day next week when Joe Biden and Kamala...

Bumble disabled its politics filter after it was used to out Capitol rioters
Bumble disabled its politics filter after it was used to out Capitol rioters

The dating app Bumble has disabled its politics filter after it was supposedly used to reveal the identities of Capitol rioters.

Day Four of Bionano
Day Four of Bionano's Next-Generation Cytogenomics Symposium: Saphyr Solves Genetic Mysteries, Enables Study of Complex Genetic Diseases, Simplifies Muscular Dystrophy Testing

1. Saphyr can measure large expansions of disease-causing genomic repeats, impossible with other modern techniques, enabling study of a broad range of...

NASA abandons InSight mission to crack the surface of Mars
NASA abandons InSight mission to crack the surface of Mars

Martian soil does not behave in the way NASA engineers expected.

Blue Origin
Blue Origin's upgraded New Shepard vehicle completes its first flight

It's New Shepard's 14th mission overall, but it's the first for both the redesigned crew capsule and its booster.

A security researcher commandeered a country
A security researcher commandeered a country's expired top-level domain to save it from hackers

In mid-October, a little-known but critically important domain name for one country's internet space began to expire. The domain - scpt-network.com - was one of two nameservers for the .cd country code top-level domain, assigned to the Democratic Republic of Congo. Clearly, a domain of such importance wasn't supposed to expire; someone in the Congolese government probably forgot to pay for its renewal.

JPMorgan Chase Reports Fourth-Quarter and Full-Year 2020 Financial Results
JPMorgan Chase Reports Fourth-Quarter and Full-Year 2020 Financial Results

JPMorgan Chase & Co. has released its fourth-quarter and full-year 2020 financial results. Results can be found at the Firm's Investor Relations website at...

Disney will release
Disney will release 'Nomadland' simultaneously in theaters and on Hulu

It's no surprise that Disney has chosen Hulu over Disney+ for Nomadland's streaming release.

How Twitter is handling the 2021 US presidential transition
How Twitter is handling the 2021 US presidential transition

Twitter has set out its plans for US Inauguration Day 2021, next Wednesday, January 20, when president-elect Joe Biden will be sworn into office as the 46th US president and vice president-elect Kamala Harris will become VP. "This year, multiple challenging circumstances will require that most people experience this historic ceremony virtually," the social media firm writes in a blog post detailing how it will handle the transition of power on its platform as the Trump administration departs office. "As Twitter will serve as both a venue for people to watch and talk about this political event, and play a key role in facilitating the transfer of official government communication...

Using Elon Musk
Using Elon Musk's Name, Bitcoin Scammers Make Away With $580,000 In A Week

As Bitcoin (BTC) trades near record highs in recent weeks, more people are falling prey to cryptocurrency scams running in the name of Elon Musk on Twitter...

Canon made a site that lets you
Canon made a site that lets you 'take photos' from a real satellite

Rather than releasing any new cameras for CES 2021, Canon is doing something different: Letting you take pictures from space.

OneWeb has now raised $1.4B, with $400M from SoftBank and Hughes, to help fund its first satellite fleet
OneWeb has now raised $1.4B, with $400M from SoftBank and Hughes, to help fund its first satellite fleet

After a troubled year that saw broadband satellite operator OneWeb file for bankruptcy, get rescue finance from the UK government and Bharti, and then emerge out of that with a launch of part of its fleet last month, the London-based company today announced that it's closed $1.4 billion in funding -- money that it says will be enough to (finally) get the rest of its first-generation fleet of 648 satellites off the ground. The 36 new satellites OneWeb launched in December brought the total number in orbit to 110 satellites. The company is continuing to whittle down its ambitions.

The next MacBook Pro may bring back the MagSafe connector
The next MacBook Pro may bring back the MagSafe connector

Apple is planning a new design for the MacBook Pro that will mark the return of the the MagSafe charger.

US adds Xiaomi to list of alleged Chinese military companies
US adds Xiaomi to list of alleged Chinese military companies

The Trump administration has added Xiaomi to the US military list under the National Defense Authorization Act of 1999. "The Department is determined to highlight and counter the People's Republic of China's (PRC) Military-Civil Fusion development strategy, which supports the modernization goals of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) by ensuring its access to advanced technologies and expertise acquired and developed by even those PRC companies, universities, and research programs that appear to be civilian entities." Xiaomi, however, denies its connection to the Chinese military and said that it will take steps to protect the company and its shareholders.

Samsung is expanding S Pen support to more devices
Samsung is expanding S Pen support to more devices

Samsung's S Pen is mostly associated with its Galaxy Note series, but that'll most likely change in the coming years. The newly unveiled Galaxy S21 Ultra will come with S Pen support - Samsung will even make standalone S Pens for the device, including a Pro model that enables Bluetooth connection for Air Actions gestures. Based on the company's statement to SamMobile, Samsung may be manufacturing those S Pens for other devices, as well.

U.S. Stock Futures Decline After Biden
U.S. Stock Futures Decline After Biden's Spending-Bill Proposal

(Bloomberg) -- U.S. stock futures fell, erasing early gains, as investors assessed the details of President-elect Joe Biden's $1.9 trillion spending-bill proposal that includes $350 billion in aid to states.Contracts on the S&P 500 Index were down 0.5% as of 6:30 a.m. in London, after rising as much as 0.2% earlier. The underlying index lost 0.4% in the cash session, with investors growing concerned about the path for Federal Reserve policy now that signs of faster inflation are emerging.The Fed's largesse and prior federal spending packages worth almost $3 trillion have powered a 70% gain in U.S. stocks from the pandemic lows in March. Biden's plan -- long telegraphed since his election...

Lenovo Japan president weighs in on how weird concepts make it to market
Lenovo Japan president weighs in on how weird concepts make it to market

We've previously established that the NEC Lavie Mini -- that 8-inch laptop that doubles as a gaming machine -- is a charmingly weird concept that stands a solid shot making it production.

Top News: Economy

© Copyright Daily Magazine