Technology
- Adding crypto to IndiaStack, a set of national APIs for payments and identity, could allow India to build an OSS stack for domestic and foreign transactions (Balaji S. Srinivasan)
- Austin has been a top destination for tech workers leaving CA during Covid, and residents are concerned about how the new wave is affecting city's culture (Lizette Chapman/Bloomberg)
- Erroneously unredacted court docs reveal Google ran a secret program called "Project Bernanke" that used past bid data to boost its win rate in ad auctions (Wall Street Journal)
- Database containing 1.3M Clubhouse profiles was posted to a hacker forum; Clubhouse says it hasn't been breached, and the data is public info from its app (CyberNews)
- Some SMB owners who advertise heavily online say Facebook is speaking the truth about how iOS privacy changes might disproportionately affect such businesses (Christopher Mims/Wall Street Journal)
- Sources: ISPs in the US are seeing delays as long as 60 weeks, more than double previous waits, when ordering internet routers, due to the global chip shortage (Bloomberg)
- Research: non-bank lenders have issued asset-backed bonds to help finance about $2B of loans to fast-growing but unprofitable software companies since November (Matt Wirz/Wall Street Journal)
- Sources: Byju's is raising about $1B from B Capital and others at a valuation of about $15B, with plans to raise a further $200M to $300M in the coming weeks (Saritha Rai/Bloomberg)
- Ernst & Young: venture funding in the US hit $64B in Q1, the highest amount ever for a single quarter and equal to 43% of all the venture money raised in 2020 (Ari Levy/CNBC)
- Current and ex-employees say inattention to data protection at Verkada is emblematic of a "bro culture" that tolerated sexual harassment, misleading customers (Bloomberg)
- Sources: Sony's PlayStation organization has shifted its development focus to prioritize AAA games at the expense of projects from its niche teams and studios (Jason Schreier/Bloomberg)
- Profile of Francis Suarez, the mayor of Miami, who tweets relentlessly about Miami's merits as a hub for the tech industry, but has a relatively powerless job (Bloomberg)
- A look at Tattle Life, a gossip forum where users dox celebrities and influencers, dissect their personal lives, and target them with vicious comments (Sarah Manavis/New Statesman)
- Platforms like Douyin in China have become live online labs where grassroots nationalists and state media collaborate to harass critics at home and abroad (Zeyi Yang/Protocol)
- Researchers say Facebook has known for years about exploits similar to the one that used its "contact importer", enabling the scraping of 533M users' data (Lily Hay Newman/Wired)
- Logitech to stop making its Harmony line of universal remotes effective immediately, says software and app support will be available for the foreseeable future (Ben Patterson/TechHive)
- Analysis finds that an OpenCV-based facial recognition model used by exam monitoring software Proctorio fails to recognize Black faces more than 50% of the time (Todd Feathers/VICE)
- 1,200+ Alphabet employees have signed a letter asking the company to stop protecting harassers, following a NYT op-ed by an ex-employee who alleged harassment (Zoe Schiffer/The Verge)
- The White House has asked Congress to approve $150M to fund two new manufacturing plans, including one targeting domestic semiconductor manufacturing (Sean Endicott/Windows Central)
- China says it is imposing a record $2.8B fine on Alibaba for monopolistic business practices; Alibaba says it will accept the penalty "sincerely" (Raymond Zhong/New York Times)
- The FBI arrested a far-right extremist who allegedly plotted to destroy AWS data centers in Virginia with C-4; FBI was tipped off by posts following Jan. 6 riot (Brian Barrett/Wired)
- At Pwn2Own, two Dutch researchers discovered a vulnerability in Zoom that could allow hackers to execute an RCE attack; Zoom says it is working on a fix (Pieter Arntz/Malwarebytes Labs)
- Sources: Didi Chuxing has filed confidentially with the SEC for an IPO that could value it at $70B-$100B, and is raising $1.5B in debt financing from banks (Bloomberg)
- White House will host a virtual semiconductor summit on Monday with execs from Intel, Samsung, HP, Alphabet, and more, as it begins a review of US supply chains (CNBC)
- Q Link Wireless, a Florida-based MVNO for low-income consumers, exposed the personal data of its 2M customers to anyone who knew a number from the carrier (Dan Goodin/Ars Technica)
- In a letter to Tim Cook, Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Mike Lee "strongly urge" Apple to reconsider refusal to provide a witness for upcoming hearing on app stores (Makena Kelly/The Verge)
- A judge has suspended the Australian Epic vs. Apple trial for three months while the US case advances; Apple had lobbied the judge for "a permanent stay" (Lauren Rouse/Gizmodo Australia)
- TipRanks, which uses NLP to measure the performance of and rank 7,000+ professional stock analysts, raises $77M led by Prytek and More Investment House (CTech)
- Report: March was Twitch's biggest month to date, with 2B+ hours watched, helped by "sleep streaming," where popular streamers film themselves while sleeping (Thomas Wilde/GeekWire)
- Source: Reddit is exploring a Clubhouse-like feature that would enable moderator-run voice chats (Jack Morse/Mashable)