Even the World’s Most-Vaccinated Economy Faces a Tough Reopening DLD Conference Videos Toyota begins building smart city near Mount Fuji Amazon acquires Selz, a Shopify competitor that helps small businesses build online stores How NASA Designed a Helicopter That Could Fly Autonomously on Mars Google Mobile-First Indexing Deadline Is Around March 2021 MIT Technology Review: 10 Breakthrough Technologies Firefox 86 brings multiple Picture-in-Picture, “Total Cookie Protection ” Chip shortage may threaten PlayStation 5 supplies at Christmas Starlink broadband speeds will double to 300Mbps “later this year Nickelodeon creates Avatar Studios to create new Avatar, Legend of Korra content Mission: Impossible 7 will stream on Paramount Plus just 45 days after it hits theaters Nvidia made $5 billion during a GPU shortage and expects to do it again in Q1 Why Discord is switching from Go to Rust Pfizer seeks to store vaccine at higher temperatures, easing logistics…that would allow vials to be stored at -25 to -15 degrees Celsius (-13°F to 5°F) for a total of two weeks . Square purchased approximately 3,318 bitcoins at an aggregate purchase price of $170 million Microsoft Word is getting text predictions next month YouTube to launch parental control features for families with tweens and teens Airbnb is introducing Flexible Search, which will allow users to forgo putting in exact dates when they look to book lodging on the platform Spotify to Add 85 New Markets With 1 Billion People Coinbase S-1 Document Twitter announces paid Super Follows to let you charge for tweets Twitter CFO says company is confident about strategy to double revenues in two years Digital vaccination passports likely available before summer, Merkel says Covid-19 has persuaded some parents that home-schooling is better China’s economy could double in size by 2035 — and surpass the U.S. along the way VIDEO
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Perseverance Rover has landed on Mars “…When the Perseverance rover sets down on Mars on Thursday, another NASA spacecraft already there will be listening for the thump-thump that will result when the newcomer arrives …” Why Google’s Internet Balloon Project Loon Failed Elon Musk’s SpaceX raised $850 million, jumping valuation to about $74 billion Russia, China to sign agreement on international lunar research station Google closes Stadia’s dedicated game studios after less than 2 years Glassdoor now lets you filter company ratings by demographics YouTube TV to Launch Option for 4K and Unlimited Streams, TikTok-Like YouTube Shorts Coming to U.S. in March Ford says it will go all-electric in Europe by 2030 Jaguar to become all-electric brand from 2025 Apple will proxy Safe Browsing traffic on iOS 14.5 to hide user IPs from Google Coca-Cola company trials first paper bottle Bitcoin Jumps to $50,000 Bitcoin market cap hits $1 trillion No 2. cryptocurrency ethereum soars to record high as bitcoin rally continues “…China dominates battery production today, with 93 “gigafactories” that manufacture lithium-ion battery cells, vs. only four in the United States, according to Benchmark Mineral Intelligence …” Sequoia-Backed Grocery App Dingdong Maicai Mulls U.S. IPO Coupang, South Korean E-Commerce Giant, Unveils U.S. IPO Plan (paywall: WSJ)…Coupang S-1 Document Shopify Q4 Presentation 3 ways that the U.S. population will change over the next decade Apple reportedly negotiating to build iPads in India Nvidia is purposefully making its new RTX 3060 graphics cards less efficient to mine Ethereum cryptocurrency . How to audit Core Web Vitals Microsoft announces Office 2021, available for Windows and macOS later this year “…Apple has posted multiple job listings indicating that it is hiring engineers to work on 6G technology internally so it does not have to rely on partners like Qualcomm …” Google announces the Android 12 Developer Preview Math learning app Photomath raises $23 million as it reaches 220 million downloads Google has appointed Dr. Marian Croak to lead its responsible artificial intelligence division within Google Research AI creates psychedelic visual interpretations of famous poems IBM Explores Sale of IBM Watson Health (paywall: WSJ) China May Ban Rare Earth Technology Exports on Security Concerns VIDEO
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Preparing for the Next Macroeconomic Cycle — and Its Risks When Will Life Return to Normal? In 7 Years at Today’s Vaccine Rates Disney says it now has 94.9 million Disney+ subscribers United Airlines orders 200 vertical-takeoff electric airplanes What, Exactly, Is Amazon Web Services ? Qualcomm objects to Nvidia’s $40 billion Arm acquisition Spotify will let employees work from anywhere after the pandemic Breached water plant employees used the same TeamViewer password and no firewall Bitcoin Hits Record as Mastercard, BNY Mellon Embrace Crypto Google is testing a dark mode for desktop search Microsoft approached Pinterest about a takeover (Paywall: FT) Top 100 subscription apps grew 34% to $13B in 2020, share of total spend remained the same Monzo, nearing 5 million customers, has recruited a new US CEO Android 12 leak appears to show major redesign with color-changing UI The Apple car, briefly explained Facebook Is Said to Be Building a Product to Compete With Clubhouse The price of solar electricity has dropped 89% in 10 years All the Coronavirus in the World Could Fit Inside a Coke Can, With Plenty of Room to Spare The future of “smart” cities is in street lights Germany to let citizens store ID cards on smartphone The cinemas now hiring out their screens to gamers Earth to Voyager 2: After a Year in the Darkness, We Can Talk to You Again In a major new pandemic trend, people are turning to carbon dioxide monitoring devices to help assess ventilation quality How Car Makers Collided With a Global Chip Shortage (Paywall: WSJ)
Why Big Companies Keep Failing: The Stack Fallacy Jeff Bezos to step down as Amazon CEO…Andy Jassy, head of Amazon Web Services, will take the reins as CEO beginning in the third quarter Amazon reports first $100 billion quarter following holiday and pandemic shopping surge Fire TV now reaches more than 50 million monthly active users around the world . eBay’s sneaker category exploded with triple-digit growth last quarter Amazon timeline Alphabet revenue up 23% as core advertising business shows strong growth Airstream’s New Trailer Comes With Beds That Transform Into an Office “…in uncertain economic times there is often nostalgia for decor from former decades associated with comfort and stability …” Facebook makes the case for activity tracking to iOS 14 users in new pop-ups Sony says semiconductor shortage makes increased PS5 production difficult …Sony shipped more than 4.5 million PlayStation 5s Spotify: 155 million premium subscribers, 345 million monthly active users Apple will invest $3.6 billion in Kia Motors to build an Apple Car, report says South Korea Leads World in Innovation as U.S. Exits Top Ten Google Cloud lost $5.61 billion on $13.06 billion revenue last year When the Electric Car Is King, Less Energy Is More iOS 14.5 will support PS5 DualSense and Xbox Series X controllers Neuralink has wired up a monkey to play video games using its mind Pixel phones will be able to read your heart rate with their cameras SpaceX Starlink public beta begins: It’s $99 a month plus $500 up front VW Group will handle self-driving car development in-house, report says Apple’s mixed reality headset could cost $3,000 and include 8K displays We’re Teaching Robots to Evolve Autonomously—So They Can Adapt to Life Alone on Distant Planets Diablo IV and Overwatch 2 aren’t launching this year How the search for a ‘death ray’ led to radar YouTube Expands Its CTV and Sports Offerings Ahead of Upfront Season