• Apple’s latest security : Lockdown Mode, link2, link3
• Amazon.com Inc.  agreed to add Grubhub to its suite of Prime services in the U.S., in a deal aimed at expanding the food-ordering company’s reach by tapping Amazon’s membership program (WSJ)
• Europe wants a high-speed rail network to replace airplanes
• World’s first commercial sand battery begins energy storage in Finland
• Switzerland’s 20 million kWh ‘water battery’ is now operational
• “…As money leaves the market (see below), fundraises are likely to slow from 2021’s a company raising a new round every 6-9 months back to the historical norms of a company raising a round every 12-24 months. Companies with a valuation that far exceeds their product/market fit may not raise for 24-36 months, and many of them have the cash to last that long…”
• Vehicle safety in Europe takes a giant leap forward
• IDC: “All eyes will be on Apple” as Meta’s VR strategy “isn’t sustainable”
• FedEx to close data centers, retire all mainframes by 2024, saving $400m
• Your Corporate Purpose Changed. Has Your Strategy Kept Up?
• Gartner predicts 9.5% drop in PC shipments
• Disney could soon lose exclusive rights to Mickey Mouse…The beloved character was created in 1928 and will enter the public domain in 2024
• BioNTech, Pfizer to start testing universal vaccine for coronaviruses

• IBM has quietly announced its first-ever cloudy mainframes will go live on June 30…Z mainframe platform on the IBM Cloud, by offering virtual machines running z/OS as-a-service.
• The Next ‘iPhone Moment’ Will Eventually Arrive. Hurry Up Already
• Mercedes-Benz runs on 900 Kubernetes clusters
• The 30-year-old comic book that became a Silicon Valley bible (FT)
• Meta has reduced its target for hiring engineers in 2022 to around 6,000-7,000, down from an initial plan to hire about 10,000 new engineers, Zuckerberg said.
• The dollar’s share of total allocated reserves was 59% in the first quarter of 2022
• New algorithm can predict future crime a week in advance, with 90% accuracy, and within a range of about 1000 feet.
• “…We Asked GPT-3 to Write an Academic Paper about Itself—Then We Tried to Get It Published…”
• A group of MIT researchers is exploring a radical idea for reversing global warming: using a raft of “space bubbles” to reflect sunlight away from our planet.
• Venture capital’s reckoning
• Steve Jobs awarded posthumous Medal of Freedom by President Biden
• Klarna in Talks to Raise Fresh Cash at Slashed $6.5 Billion Valuation…The deal would be a huge comedown for the company, which investors valued at $45.6 billion in 2021 (WSJ)
• Microsoft Cloud Computing System Suffering From Global Shortage…Due to a confluence of crises, the second-largest cloud provider has been operating in the yellow zone, meaning its data centers have a less-than-normal level of servers available. (WSJ)

• GitHub’s AI code assistant Copilot takes flight. And that’ll be $10 a month
• Mars Express orbiter to get code update after 19 years
• Energy-hungry data centers are quietly moving into cities
• Amazon launches CodeWhisperer, a GitHub Copilot-like AI pair programming tool
• Spotify revamps in-app concert discovery with new Live Events Feed
• Wilco gamifies your path through your software engineering career
• DoorDash teams up with grocer Loblaw as ultrafast delivery rivalry heats up (FT)
• 7 Modern Microservice Design Patterns
• For the first time, a small rocket will launch a private spacecraft to the Moon
• As Bitcoin Busts, What’s the Future of Web3? And What Even Is Web3?
• Nasa starts shutting down Voyager after 50 years…Nasa must start limiting the craft processes in order to keep them operating until 2030
• “…Pinduoduo shares have more than doubled since then, while Meituan shares have climbed 80%, and JD shares are up more than 50% in Hong Kong. Kuaishou is up by nearly 47%…”
• Valve’s Steam Deck makes a brilliant case against walled gardens
• iOS 16 Will Let iPhone Users Bypass CAPTCHAs in Supported Apps and Websites

• How To Be A Great 21st Century CEO
• 1x Engineer
• Klarna faces valuation slash to $15bn as it seeks fresh round of funding
• Amazon CEO Andy Jassy’s First Year on the Job: Undoing Bezos-Led Overexpansion (WSJ)
• Welcome to the E-Commerce Winter (The Information)
• Solar Power for Rentals: It’s Easier Than You Think
• Apple scores deal for Major League Soccer streaming rights worth $2.5bn (FT)
• Roku Stock Jumps After Unveiling Walmart E-Commerce Partnership
• “…Unit economics is becoming an albatross around the necks of tech-adjacent businesses that listed on public markets in recent years…” (FT)

• Microplastics found in freshly fallen Antarctic snow for first time
• Today’s CEOs Don’t Just Lead Companies. They Lead Ecosystems
• Google releases Android 13 beta 3, reaches platform stability
• Spotify Targets One Billion Listeners by 2030 Amid Profitability Concerns (WSJ)“…Audible controls about 48% of U.S. audiobook unit sales, according to book-audience researcher Codex Group LLC…”
• Amazon gets into AR shopping with launch of ‘Virtual Try-On for Shoes’
• WWDC 2022 recap: iOS 16, new MacBook Air, iPadOS 16, watchOS 9 and more
  • Apple: new financing arm banks on credit (FT:Lex)
  • Apple’s “next generation” of CarPlay plans to take over every screen in your car
  • What WatchOS 9 May Reveal About the Next Apple Watch
  • iPadOS 16 has lots of updates, but new multitasking features require an M1 chip
  • Apple’s medication feature is a step in the right direction
• Meta Halts Development of Apple Watch Rival With Two Cameras
• Autonomous cargo ship completes first ever transoceanic voyage
• Apple is coming for Garmin but it has a battery problem. 18 hours still falls short of other multisport watches

• India’s open e-commerce plan
• WatchOS 9: Every New Apple Watch Feature to Expect at WWDC
• How Lyft Is Improving Their Experiments Beyond A/B Testing
• Facebook parent Meta COO Sheryl Sandberg is stepping down
• Metaverse Land: What Makes Digital Real Estate Valuable
• Tech Valuations Tumble, but Business Software Stocks Are Cushioned by the Cloud (WSJ)
• There is no such thing as ‘data’…”…What we have are innumerable different collections of information, each of them specific to a particular application…” (FT / Benedict Evans)
• Twitter’s reportedly shifting teams away from Spaces, newsletters, and communities…Twitter says its focus is ‘on the areas that will have the greatest positive impact to the public conversation’
• Slack adds audio name pronunciations to user profiles
• Volvo will use Epic’s Unreal Engine to create ‘photorealistic’ graphics in its electric cars
• Have an old iPad lying around? You might be able to make it run Linux soon
• Bukalapak races to bring Indonesian roadside kiosks online (FT)
• Thin Platforms
• Pinterest to Acquire The Yes…
• Missed Payments, Rising Interest Rates Put ‘Buy Now, Pay Later’ to the Test (WSJ)

Know the difference: Open Metaverses vs Virtual Worlds

Class Quiz: What is Facebook Meta going to be?

Chart from @a16z @smc90 @cdixon @eddylazzarin @timroughgarden @alive_eth pic.twitter.com/TXovY3ZRBZ

— Jeremiah Owyang jowyang.eth (@jowyang) June 2, 2022

• Microsoft brings support for Arm-based AI chips to Windows
• Pokemon Go Maker Niantic Is Building a Massive Social AR Gaming Network
• Travel & Tourism Development Index 2021: Rebuilding for a Sustainable and Resilient Future [PDF]
• a16z 2022 State of Crypto Report
• “…at the International Conference on Robotics and Automation in Philadelphia, Dyson revealed “secret robot prototypes” that are part of broader research it’s managed to keep a tight lid on thus far…”
• Netflix is adding four more games this month, including Exploding Kittens
• Google TV is finally launching personalized user profiles
• Microsoft starts testing new OneNote design overhaul
• Walmart is expanding its drone deliveries to reach 4 million households…will deliver up to 10 pounds by air in as little as 30 minutes using drones (WSJ)
• Broadcom in Talks to Pay About $60 Billion for VMware (WSJ)
• Is the ‘subscription economy’ going to feel the Netflix effect? (FT)
• Sequoia Capital plays Nostradamus (again)

Overwhelmed by the new technologies that are coming to replace cookies? Our graphical breakdown should help you wrap your head around all of them! pic.twitter.com/IqvVj380qG

— Paul Bannister (@pbannist) May 24, 2022

• Bionic Reading
• Apple previews new accessibility features combining the power of hardware, software, and machine learning
• “…Ads were supposed to be on their way out, replaced by subscription money. Now Netflix, Disney, and everyone else is learning to live with them…“
• Mastercard Rolls Out Biometric Payments
• “…Apple Inc. executives previewed its upcoming mixed-reality headset to the company’s board last week, indicating that development of the device has reached an advanced stage, according to people with knowledge of the matter…“
• For the first time since the pandemic, leisure and business flights surpass 2019 levels
• Klarna, Buy-now-pay-later startup, valued last year at $46 billion, could see its valuation fall by one-third in a tough environment for tech companies (WSJ)
• Netflix has updated its  culture memo
• Amazon Head of Devices: Company Focused on Real-World Tech, Not Metaverse (WSJ)
• Y Combinator, a Silicon Valley kingmaker, is advising its portfolio founders to “plan for the worst” as startups across the globe scramble to navigate a sharp reversal after a 13-year bull run.
• State of the Java Ecosystem Report from New Relic
• Uber, Grocery Outlet partner to pilot on-demand and scheduled grocery delivery
• Meta Unveils WhatsApp Cloud API at Its Conversations Event
• Scientists Grow Plants in Lunar Soil
• The banks collapsed in 2008 – and our food system is about to do the same
• TikTok plans big push into gaming, conducting tests in Vietnam
• TikTok shot past Facebook’s time-spent record in 2021, reaching 44 daily minutes per user.

Probably the best time in the history of the internet to be a founder.

Multiple mid/top of S-curve categories (mobile, social, cloud etc).

And lots of emerging / bottom of S-curve categories (web3, VR, AI).

— cdixon.eth (@cdixon) May 19, 2022

• Google IO Videos
• Google’s new Android Auto interface works with any screen size
• Google TV app to add casting as Android TV ecosystem grows to 110M monthly active devices
• The first image of the black hole at the center of our galaxy…“…If Sagittarius A* were the size of a doughnut, M87* would be the size of the Allianz Arena…”
• Fostering Effective Energy Transition [PDF]
• E Ink Launches E Ink Gallery 3 Color ePaper
• “…Instacart has filed confidential paperwork with the US Securities and Exchange Commission for an initial public offering, the company announced Wednesday…”
• Web3 Is Our Chance to Make a Better Internet
• Disney Plus added almost 8 million new subscribers as Netflix struggles
• A solar power plant in space? The UK wants to build one by 2035.
• Lunar Soil Can Be Used To Generate Oxygen and Fuel for Moon Astronauts
• Research Finds over 1.5 Million “Abandoned” Mobile Apps
• 15th Annual State Of Agile Report

Augmented reality can break down communication barriers – and help us better understand each other by making language visible. Watch what happens when we bring technologies like transcription and translation to your line of sight. #GoogleIO ↓ pic.twitter.com/ZLhd4BWPGh

— Google (@Google) May 11, 2022