Weekly#421

The a16z Marketplace 100: 2021
Suez Canal Traffic Snarl Is Making Shipping Costs Skyrocket…Cost to ship a standard container to Europe has quadrupled…Rerouting around Africa would cost $300,000 just for the fuel…Suez Canal blockage is delaying an estimated $400 million an hour in goods
Are Electric Cars Really Better for the Environment (WSJ)
Zoom said Monday that it would start selling its videoconferencing technology so other companies can embed it in their own products (WSJ)
Amazon-backed Deliveroo seeks valuation of up to $12 billion in its London IPO
The Next Great Disruption Is Hybrid Work—Are We Ready?
10 ways office work will never be the same
“…The biggest takeaway was that all the activities related to online dating ratcheted up during the pandemic. Conversations on average were 32 percent longer than they had been pre-pandemic and people matched — meaning both people found the other attractive — 42 percent more. There were about 20 percent more messages per day in February of this year than there had been in February of last year. The number of swipes on Tinder broke 3 billion in a single day for the first time in March of 2020, and then proceeded to surpass that benchmark 130 more times since…”
TSMC: How a Taiwanese chipmaker became a linchpin of the global economy
Exclusive: Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi to make EVs using Great Wall’s plant – sources
Xiaomi says to launch its own computer chip on March 29…flags rising costs of chips
Microsoft Is in Exclusive Talks to Acquire Discord…Deal valuing chat app at $10 billion or more could be completed next month (WSJ)
Some artists found a lifeline selling NFTs. Others worry it’s a trap.
Musicians Turn to NFTs to Make Up for Lost Revenue…Artists are connecting with fans and generating revenue by selling digital collectibles, even if they are hard to value (WSJ)
Private civilian astronaut training
Event Horizon Telescope captures new view of black hole in polarized light…Magnetic fields swirling around a black hole
Facebook is making a bracelet that lets you control computers with your brain…The device would let you interact with Facebook’s upcoming augmented-reality glasses just by thinking…It uses electromyography (EMG) to interpret electrical activity from motor nerves as they send information from the brain to the hand.
It’s been 20 years since the launch of Mac OS X
Fairphone suggests Qualcomm is the biggest barrier to long-term Android support
Global chip shortage worsens, forces production cuts at GM, Hyundai
“…Intel on Tuesday committed to a record $19 billion to $20 billion in capital expenditures this year, or about 45% above the company’s average annual capital expenditures over the past five years…” (WSJ)
Musk: Tesla accepts bitcoin as payment
Qualcomm is reportedly building a Nintendo Switch clone, powered by Android
New U.K. Currency Honors Alan Turing, Pioneering Computer Scientist And Code-Breaker
Researchers Found a Way to Send Tiny Robots Into Mouse Brains
Scientists discover how humans develop larger brains
A new study published in Nature Communications suggests lightning may have been a key component in making phosphorus available for organisms
Porsche adds the all-electric Taycan to its subscription program
Renewables met 97% of Scotland’s electricity demand in 2020
An Astronomer Just Laid Out a Navigation System For Interstellar Space Travel
Microsoft: Hydrogen fuel cells will enable data centers to completely rethink electrical systems
Gravitational lenses could allow a galaxy-wide internet
Tips for Managing Your Many Subscriptions…Audit your subscriptions. (WSJ)

Weekly#420

Five Things We Know About Google’s Ad Changes After Cookies (WSJ)
What’s Ahead in the Second Year of COVID-19?
Roku to Acquire Nielsen’s Addressable TV Advertising Business
NFT marketplace OpenSea raises $23 million from a16z
Pinduoduo 788M annual active users
WhatsApp hires Amazon Pay’s Mahatme to lead India payments – sources
A mouse embryo has been grown in an artificial womb—humans could be next
Among Us’ new Airship map launches on March 31st
What working from home looks like
How the pandemic fueled a new criminal business model
Twitter begins testing a way to watch YouTube videos from the home timeline on iOS
NFL finalizes a new 11-year media rights deal, Amazon gets exclusive Thursday Night rights. “…Advertisers, meanwhile, are buying more in streaming TV, especially on internet-connected sets, where U.S. ad spending will total nearly $13.41 billion this year, up from nearly $9.03 billion in 2020, according to research firm eMarketer…”
“…My gut says that, for us, it’s still very important to physically be in touch with one another because collaboration isn’t always a planned activity. Innovation isn’t always a planned activity,” Cook said. “It’s bumping into each other over the course of the day and advancing an idea that you just had. And you really need to be together to do that…”
Google to Invest $7 Billion in Bet on Post-Pandemic Office…The tech giant says ‘coming together is core to its culture in announcing U.S. investment (WSJ)
Study finds 3-ft distancing in schools is enough—but the debate is far from over/ article link
BMW’s big electric car push: Selling 2 million new EVs by 2025
Microsoft PowerPoint can now help you practice presentations almost anywhere — no humans required
Chrome now instantly captions audio and video on the web
World-Wide Streaming Subscriptions Pass One Billion During Pandemic…Mass movie theatre closures caused global box-office revenue to drop more than $30 billion in 2020, Motion Picture Association says (WSJ)
15 billion car locations. Nearly any country on Earth. ‘The Ulysses Group’ is pitching a powerful surveillance technology
Lenders are turning to coercive loan apps that shut down smartphones if customers fall behind on payments.
Covid: EU plans rollout of travel certificate before summer
From Remote Work to Hybrid Work: The Tech You’ll Need to Link Home and Office (WSJ)
Nvidia raises GeForce Now subscription plan to $10 per month
Morgan Stanley becomes the first big U.S. bank to offer its wealthy clients access to bitcoin funds
Visa Plans to Enable Bitcoin Payments at 70 Million Merchants

Weekly#419

The road to electric is filled with tiny cars
What’s Next for Ad Tech?
“…proverbial $2 electric motor which prevents completion of a $50,000 car…”
Study shows online school reviews reflect school demographics more than effectiveness
Chernobyl: The True Cost Of Technical Debt
Chernobyl DevOps: Software Engineering, Disaster Management, and Observability (source LinkedIn post by Levent Oner)
Netflix test stops you from using someone else’s password
Luminar, Volvo subsidiary partner to sell automated driving systems to automakers
“…What are the key challenges that will drive the longer-term change agenda? We would highlight three pivotal themes which will drive many others emanating from enterprises, business ecosystems and the natural ecosystem respectively…First, the pandemic has illuminated the need to build resilience. There will be more unexpected shocks in the future, and our research suggests that resilience is not only valuable during crises…Second, the shift to new distribution and working models has accelerated the digital transformation agenda and also raised the associated competitive stakes…Third, climate change will come into even greater focus.“
Cryptominers have already cracked Nvidia’s RTX 3060 hash rate limiter
Scientists developed a clever way to detect Deepfakes by analyzing light reflections in the eyes
Adobe Photoshop now runs natively on M1 Macs
Rocket Lab will directly challenge SpaceX with its proposed Neutron launcher
Beeple’s $69 million NFT sale marks a potentially transformative moment for the art world
Jack Dorsey’s first tweet may fetch $2.5 million, he’ll donate the NFT proceeds to charity
Disney+ only needed 16 months to crack 100 million subscribers
How Coupang is ‘out-Amazoning even Amazon,’ according to Goodwater Capital
Amazon Quietly Began Building a Grocery Chain During Pandemic
Understanding Coupang: Setting a New Bar for Global E-Commerce?
Apple to invest $1.2 billion in silicon design center in Germany
Professor Scott Galloway just raised $30 million for an online school that upskills managers fast
SpaceX plans Starlink broadband for trucks, ships, and planes
PayPal to acquire cryptocurrency security startup Curv
Does NFT Art Spell Trouble for Auction Houses and Dealers? (WSJ)
Covid-19 Rewrote the Rules of Shopping. What Is Next? (WSJ) “…A quarter of the nation’s malls will close by 2023…Roughly 40% of mall square footage in China is devoted to food and beverage, compared with 11% in the U.S., according to Ms. Weinswig…Stores morphed into Amazon-style fulfillment centers during the pandemic as retailers looked for places to pack online orders.One reason that won’t change once the economy reopens: It is cheaper. Target said it costs on average 40% less to ship orders that it fulfills from its stores, compared with the expense of shipping from its warehouses…“

Weekly#418

NFTs and a Thousand True Fans
McKinsey: The future of work after COVID-19 Report
McKinsey: Reskilling China: Transforming the world’s largest workforce into lifelong learners
Amazon launches its first cashierless store in Britain
Disney shuttering at least 20% of Disney Stores as it shifts focus to e-commerce
SpaceX Starship rocket prototype nails landing … then blows up
New Nintendo Switch production to begin in June, will be 4K when docked
Amazon’s new Alexa app for Xbox brings visual assistant features to your TV
WhatsApp’s desktop app now has video and voice calls…Available for everyone after a limited rollout in December
The Lonely Century with Noreena Hertz
Apple Launches Service for Transferring iCloud Photos and Videos to Google Photos
Luminar’s Austin Russell on the technology that will drive the future
Twitter tests new e-commerce features for tweets
Privacy-first browser Brave now has its own Google search rival
Volvo to go all electric by 2030
PayPal to Buy Crypto Custody Firm Curv: Sources
Version 2 of Google’s Flutter toolkit adds support for desktop and web apps
Postscript raises $35M to give Shopify stores SMS superpowers
A 3rd shot? A new booster? Vaccine makers race to trials to beat variants
Microsoft’s latest Garage app is for recording group transcriptions
Disney CEO Suggests There’s No ‘Going Back’ to Pre-COVID Film Releases
AI Index 2021 Report