Technology
- German startup Wingcopter, which develops fixed-wing drones capable of vertical take-off and landing, raises $22M Series A led by Xplorer Capital (Darrell Etherington/TechCrunch)
- Research shows that hundreds of SPACs are looking to acquire tech companies in the coming months, heating up competition for startups and inflating deal values (Wall Street Journal)
- Source: Kuaishou Technology, ByteDance's main rival in China, is seeking to raise as much as $5.4B through an IPO in Hong Kong and is slated to list on Feb. 5 (Bloomberg)
- Hacker leaks data of 2.28M+ users of dating site MeetMindful, including real names, Facebook user IDs, email addresses, and geolocation information (Catalin Cimpanu/ZDNet)
- In an interview, Waymo CEO dismissed Tesla as a competitor and argued that Tesla's current strategy, without lidar, wouldn't produce a fully self-driving system (Timothy B. Lee/Ars Technica)
- After Huawei spinoff, Honor confirms partnerships with key chip suppliers such as AMD, Intel, Qualcomm, and MediaTek, launches new smartphone and notebooks (Nikkei Asia)
- Clubhouse raises a new round of funding led by a16z, says it has 180+ investors, will test options for paying creators and soon begin work on an Android app (Clubhouse)
- Apple warns magnets in iPhone 12 models and MagSafe devices may affect pacemakers and should be kept at least 6" away from medical devices or 12" while charging (Joe Rossignol/MacRumors)
- As platforms race to purge harmful content after the Capitol attack, police race to gather evidence, showing the need for international data preservation laws (Foreign Policy)
- Research: GPT-3 frequently creates sentences associating Muslims with shooting, bombs, murder, and violence; OpenAI acknowledged the bias while announcing GPT-3 (Dave Gershgorn/OneZero )
- What's in store for Amazon during Biden admin: more unions, labor protection and oversight, antitrust actions, privacy and facial recognition regulations, more (Annie Palmer/CNBC)
- Custom parts manufacturer Protolabs buys 3D Hubs, an online on-demand service providing access to ~240 manufacturing partners, for up to $330M in cash and stock (Robin Wauters/Tech.eu)
- Microsoft confirms it halted all donations of its PAC while it decides by Feb. 15 whether to suspend donations to those who voted against election certification (Microsoft On the Issues)
- Philips acquired Capsule Technologies, a provider of data platforms to connect all medical devices and record systems within a hospital, for $635M in cash (Conor Hale/FierceBiotech)
- Uber laid off ~185 Postmates staff, about 15% of the division's workforce; sources: most Postmates execs including CEO Bastian Lehmann will leave the company (Mike Isaac/New York Times)
- Globality, whose AI-based sourcing software connects companies with service providers, raises $138M Series E from Sienna Capital and SoftBank's Vision Fund (Cromwell Schubarth/Silicon Valley ...)
- As Starlink builds out its satellite constellation, it is enjoying a very warm reception from the early adopters of its internet service in remote areas (Dana Hull/Bloomberg)
- Despite the influx of tech veterans into Biden's administration, the latest appointments and developments show Biden will be tougher on tech than predecessors (Will Oremus/OneZero )
- Italy tells TikTok to block all unverified user accounts after a 10-year-old girl dies while allegedly participating in the "blackout challenge" on the app (Crispian Balmer/Reuters)
- Sources: VCs have approached Clubhouse about investing in its next round at ~$1B valuation, a 10X increase from the previous round; a16z is expected to lead (The Information)
- Interview with Chase CIO Rohan Amin on managing Chase's $4B tech budget, API integrations, and this year's rise in digital mortgage applications and banking (Mary Ann Azevedo/FinLedger)
- A look at the Beijing Academy of Artificial Intelligence, a government-sponsored research lab, and its work on a new language model similar to GPT-3 (Will Knight/Wired)