Weekly#447

  • Delivery Hero Said to Invest in Gorillas at $3 Billion Value
  • “…To meet global demand, agriculture will need to produce almost 50 per cent more food by 2050. But yields could decline by 30 per cent in the absence of dramatic emissions reductions…”
  • Inside Amazon’s Department Store Plans: High-Tech Dressing Rooms, Its Own Apparel Brands (WSJ)
  • Amazon announces new Kindle Paperwhite lineup with 6.8-inch screens, USB-C
  • Uber on course to post first profitable quarter (FT)
  • The pandemic destroyed Uber’s core business. Here’s how it pivoted its ad strategy and saved itself with its delivery business.
  • FedEx uses autonomous trucks for first time on delivery route
  • Apple releases iOS 15 with Focus mode and more
  • Netflix’s $1B Roald Dahl Deal May Be the Biggest Investment in Kids Programming Yet
  • PayPal launches its ‘super app’ combining payments, savings, bill pay, crypto, shopping and more
  • NASA Reorganizing Human Spaceflight Division as Private Space Industry Expands (WSJ)
  • The Nigerian fintech boom, by the numbers
  • UK appeals court rules AI cannot be listed as a patent inventor
  • Livestream video shopping app NTWRK raises $50M from Goldman Sachs, Kering
  • Tim Cook says employees who leak memos do not belong at Apple, according to leaked memo
  • Secondhand furniture is set to become a $16 billion market. Vintage furniture startup Vinterior used to raise $11 million from investors.
  • Amazon plan to bring Alexa’s home-security system to your car
  • This Microchip With Wings Is The Smallest Flying Structure Humans Have Ever Built
  • TikTokers Are Trading Stocks By Copying What Members Of Congress Do

Weekly#446

  • SpaceX has launched a billionaire-funded crew of space tourists into orbit — the first civilian mission of its kind
  • Amazon and Deliveroo offer free delivery to Prime subscribers (FT)
  • Apple’s September 14, 2021 Live blog
  • Ransomware encrypts South Africa’s entire Dept of Justice network
  • The next Big Tech battle: Amazon’s bet on healthcare begins to take shape (FT)
  • Liveblocks is an API that lets you add real-time collaboration to your product
  • Why an Electric Car Battery Is So Expensive, For Now
  • Whatnot raises another $150M for its livestream shopping platform, evolves into a unicorn
  • Why TV Antennas Are Making a Comeback in the Streaming Age (WSJ)
  • Tencent Opens WeChat to Rivals’ Links as App Walls Crumble
  • SoftBank Sells $1.69 Billion of Coupang as Son Unloads Assets
  • ‘Moneyball’ Analytics Help Fight Wildfires. This Year’s Blazes Are Testing Their Limits. (WSJ)
  • Facebook / Instagram acquisition strategy
  • ‘Dark Stores’: How Groceries Are Being Delivered in Minutes (WSJ)
  • Consumers and small businesses will be able to buy Office 2021 as a one-time purchase this fall
  • Apple product placement (WSJ)

Weekly#445

  • What to expect from Apple’s September 14 “California Streaming” event
  • 21st-century storms are overwhelming 20th-century cities
  • Driverless cars to arrive on European streets next year
  • On-demand grocery delivery: A regularly updated list of market expansions
  • Smart Toilets (WSJ)
  • Altos Labs, Silicon Valley’s latest wild bet on living forever
  • Apple Car Chief’s Departure Puts Its Next Big Thing in Doubt…Doug Field is coming aboard as chief advanced technology and embedded systems officer, Ford said in a statement
  • Five Ways to Train Your Brain for Another Covid Season (WSJ)
  • Amazon is working on a new point-of-sale system to lure merchants from Shopify, Square, and PayPal
  • 5G will advance payments and mobile commerce
  • World’s Largest Direct Air Carbon Capture System Goes Online
  • PayPal acquires Japan’s Paidy for $2.7B …buy now, pay later market in Asia
  • Microsoft joins Open Infrastructure Foundation
  • PSD2 and global payment regulation map
  • Mastercard acquires CipherTrace to boost crypto security and compliance
  • New lamp generates light for 45 days with half-liter of salt water

Weekly#444

  • Amazon is close to launching its own TV in the US
  • NPM package with 3 million weekly downloads had a severe vulnerability
  • Apple Watch Series 7 reportedly facing production delays due to complex redesign
  • Kuo: iPhone 13 to support LEO satellite communication, allowing users to make phone calls and send texts without cell signal
  • Philips Hue partners with Spotify to turn all your lights into a music visualizer
  • Yandex to buy out Uber from Russian joint ventures in $1bn deal (FT)
  • Google Delays Mandatory Office Return to 2022 on Covid Surge
  • YouTube music services hit 50m subscribers in race to catch Spotify (FT)
  • Amazon now running 164 flights a day to deliver stock in US (FT)
  • Uber hired a top Amazon adtech exec as it steps up plans to grab a bigger slice of the $240 billion mobile ad market
  • Apple to Allow Media Apps to Link to Own Websites for Payment Options (WSJ)
  • Spotify, Netflix and Match Group shares rise after Apple relaxes App Store rules
  • Apple to Add Driver’s Licenses to Apple Wallet…Capability will first be offered to people in Arizona and Georgia (WSJ)
  • Fitness studios are combining virtual and in-person classes, so people can mix and match based on their needs (WSJ)
  • Cox Automotive acquires battery health company Spiers as ‘EVs take center stage
  • Insurify, a ‘virtual insurance agent,’ raises $100M Series B
  • Rocket Lab boosts its space systems division in quest to become an ‘end-to-end space company
  • Bright Cellars lands more funding to personalize its subscription-based wines
  • ‘Autonomous accounting’ platform Vic.ai raises $50M round led by ICONIQ Growth
  • Apple will ask before it targets you with its ads in iOS 15
  • Intuit in Talks to Buy Mailchimp for More Than $10 Billion
  • Amazon CEO unveils 55,000 tech jobs in his first hiring push…That’s equal to more than a third of Google’s headcount as of June 30, and close to all of Facebook’s.
  • Stanford researchers make rechargeable batteries that store six times more charge
  • First Autonomous Cargo Ship Faces Test With 236-Mile Voyage
  • NVIDIA’s latest tech makes AI voices more expressive and realistic
  • China may use an existing rocket to speed up plans for a human Moon mission
  • Motional and Hyundai reveal the first images of their forthcoming autonomous vehicle

Weekly#443

  • PayPal launches its cryptocurrency service in the UK
  • Xiaomi acquires autonomous driving firm as it looks to boost nascent electric vehicle business
  • Visa Hails Its $150,000 USD Cryptopunk Acquisition as a ‘New Chapter for Digital Commerce
  • Apple’s Rising Class of Leaders Will Shape a Post-Tim Cook Era
  • A Verge investigation shows how going exclusive stunted Rogan’s power
  • Popular outrage, not economics, will determine the fate of Big Tech
  • World’s first crewless, zero emissions cargo ship will set sail in Norway
  • New lithium metal battery has energy density of 560 Wh/kg (most EV’s are at 250 Wh/kg) and retains 90% of its capacity after 1000 cycles.
  • Mastercard is phasing out magnetic stripes on its cards starting in 2024
  • Apple’s Secret Weapons For Growing Revenue: Advertising and Search
  • Scammers and Hackers See New Frontier in NFT Art (WSJ)
  • Amazon’s New World MMO is getting an open beta on September 9th
  • Facebook Said to Consider Forming an Election Commission
  • Facebook’s Novi digital wallet could be used to hold NFTs, an exec said
  • Alphabet’s drone delivery service Wing hits 100,000 deliveries milestone…The company has found success in the Australian suburbs
  • Jolla hits profitability ahead of turning ten, eyes growth beyond mobile
  • U.S. plans COVID-19 booster shots at six months instead of eight
  • Anti-cheat services in video games are now a selling point
  • Xiaomi reports record 64% revenue growth, acquires Deepmotion for $77.3 million
  • Older Tesla vehicles to get UI performance boost thanks to famed video game engineer
  • Turns Out The Hardest Part of Making a Game Is…Everything
  • The Farmers market is moving online
  • Global electric power demand surges above pre-pandemic levels
  • Microsoft to launch cloud gaming service on Xbox consoles

 

Weekly#442

  • Musk: The Tesla Bot is coming…Tesla will build a humanoid robot prototype by next year
  • Stablecoins find a use case in Africa’s most volatile markets
  • China’s Tiangong vs. International Space Station: Tech, Design Unpacked (WSJ)
  • Google is shutting down its Android Auto mobile app in favor of Google Assistant
  • Companies betting on data must value people as much as AI
  • Adobe is acquiring collaborative video software maker Frame.io for $1.275 billion
  • Amazon is reportedly planning to open department stores, its latest experiment in physical retail
  • Nvidia beats earnings expectations, but cryptocurrency chip sales falter
  • Old Steve Jobs email finally confirms Apple was working on an “iPhone nano
  • DigiSure, the mobility insurance platform with high-tech screening, comes out of stealth with $13.1M raise
  • Spatial audio is coming to Netflix on iPhone and iPad
  • Google secretly had a giant gaming vision that includes bringing games to Mac
  • Apple’s new Foundation trailer
  • Cardiomatics bags $3.2M for its ECG-reading AI
  • Apple launches a new iOS app, ‘Siri Speech Study,’ to gather feedback for Siri improvements
  • Apple Postpones Return to Office Until January (WSJ)
  • How NFTs Are Reinventing the Digital World

Weekly#441

  • The slow collapse of Amazon’s drone delivery dream
  • EBay’s Active Buyers Declined 2% (WSJ)
  • Transforming the Driver Experience
  • Zoom announces new ‘Focus’ mode to keep students from getting distracted
  • Apple releases new developer tool to test iOS 15 feature that prioritizes 5G over Wi-Fi
  • Three more high-profile Blizzard employees are no longer at the company, including Diablo 4’s director
  • Google is adding an interactive periodic table to search
  • China Smart-Car Makers Required to Store Key Data Locally
  • WhatsApp to allow chat history transfers between iOS and Android
  • Space manufacturing startup Varda inks deal with Rocket Lab for three spacecraft…”…potential market for bioprinted organs, specialized semiconductors, fiber-optic cables or pharmaceuticals — products that you can’t make in Earthbound-conditions — is high enough to make the costs of building a spacecraft and launching to space more than worth it…
  • Google launches Android 12 beta 4, hitting the platform stability milestone
  • Hyzon Motors has begun shipping hydrogen fuel cell trucks to customers
  • “…Amazon’s $1.5 billion air cargo hub in Northern Kentucky opened Wednesday, the latest effort by the e-commerce giant to connect a network of 40 sites and control all aspects of delivery as demand for speed and convenience accelerates
  • Sicily hits nearly 48.8°C (119.8°F) , may have set Europe’s all-time heat record
  • Pay cut: Google employees who work from home could lose money
  • NASA to Study a $700 Quintillion ‘Goldmine’ Asteroid
  • Where and how will we get the metals to feed our future technology needs?
  • TikTok overtakes Facebook as world’s most downloaded app
  • How Turkey became a star of European tech (FT)
  • NASA has a new challenge to reaching the moon by 2024: Its $1 billion spacesuit program

Weekly#440

  • More Than 4.27 Billion Shots
  • Training self-driving cars for $1 an hour
  • Disney’s Star Wars hotel is just like Westworld
  • iOS 15 may give the iPhone’s camera an upgrade: fewer green flares
  • Home-Working Kills Innovation and Creativity
  • Japanese startup ispace raises $46M to support planned moon missions
  • Miami Launches ‘MiamiCoin
  • Netflix announces Space X documentary on civilian mission into orbit
  • Square to buy Australia’s Afterpay in $29 billion deal as ‘buy now, pay later’ trend takes off
  • Amazon expands deliveries to serve unlikely clients: its rivals (FT)
  • DoorDash in talks to invest in German grocery app Gorillas (FT)
  • Germany after Merkel will face three key challenges, Goldman says
  • Amazon’s office workers now won’t return until early 2022
  • SpaceX stacks the full Starship launch system for the first time, standing nearly 400 feet tall
  • Duolingo is working on a math app for kids
  • “…On any given weekday some 50m meetings are held in American workplaces alone. The average executive now spends 23 hours in them each week…”

Weekly#439

  • MS Flight Simulator on consoles: Finally, a next-gen game for Xbox Series X/S
  • Apple reports a 50% year-over-year jump in iPhone sales, link2
  • Japan’s virtual YouTubers have millions of real subscribers
  • Blue Origin has a secret project named “Jarvis” to compete with SpaceX
  • Lucasfilm hires deepfake YouTuber who fixed Luke Skywalker in The Mandalorian
  • How to turn yourself into a cartoon for your next Zoom call
  • Google Cloud offers a model for fixing Google’s product-killing reputation
  • Groceries in 10 Minutes: Delivery Start-Ups Crowd City Streets Across Globe
  • Same-day delivery apps need more than speed to survive post-pandemic
  • Shopify allows merchants to sell NFTs directly through their storefronts
  • Google Cloud reported revenue of $4.6 billion, up 54% year over year
  • Google sets all-time records as search and YouTube profits soar
  • Red planet has a big core, complex crust
  • The Tokyo Olympics could be a COVID-19 “super evolutionary event
  • Starbucks Is the New Talent Factory Powering Corporate America
  • Google postpones return-to-work until October, will require vaccinations
  • The global chip shortage is starting to hit the smartphone industry
  • First detection of light from behind a black hole
  • How Artificial Intelligence Is Fighting Wildfires

Weekly#438

  • Delta COVID variant now dominant strain worldwide, U.S. deaths surge –officials…”This is becoming a pandemic of the unvaccinated,” Walensky said, adding that 97% of people entering hospitals in the United States with COVID-19 are unvaccinated.
  • Visa Rebrands for the Digital Economy
  • 4 Best Practices to Ensure Your Product Stands Out on the Digital Shelf…Ecommerce success isn’t just about the buy button
  • Corning’s new Gorilla Glass protects smartphone camera lenses and lets in more light
  • Intel CEO Says Chip Shortage Could Stretch Into 2023 (WSJ)
  • How to Motivate Your Teen to Be a Safer Driver (WSJ)
  • A DNS outage just took down a large chunk of the internet
  • China Plans to Build the World’s First Waterless Nuclear Reactor
  • How to mend your broken pandemic brain
  • Gallium, once an industrial-waste product, is transforming our increasingly electrified world (WSJ)
  • Apple Delays Office Return as Covid-19 Delta Variant Spreads
  • DeepMind says it will release the structure of every protein known to science…AlphaFold program’s prediction of nearly 20,000 human protein structures now free for researchers
  • Mercedes-Benz to build eight battery factories in push to become electric-only automaker by 2030
  • Twitter’s revenue jumps as ad revamp pays off (FT)
  • Robotaxis: have Google and Amazon backed the wrong technology? (FT)
  • Google is starting to tell you how it found Search results
  • Why vertical farms could be the next big microgrid market