Techmeme
July 7, 2021, 11:00 AM

Top News

Bloomberg:
Sources: China plans rule changes requiring Chinese companies to seek approval to list overseas, even if the unit selling shares is incorporated outside China  —  - Securities regulator working to change overseas listing rules  — Change would require VIE firms to get nod to list offshore
Bloomberg:
China's crackdown on its tech giants wiped a combined $823B off their market value since a Feb. peak, with Tencent, Alibaba, and Kuaishou as the biggest losers  —  - Selling in technology sector seen continuing this quarter  — Hang Seng Tech Index has lost 31% from February high
Tom McKay / Gizmodo:
In an attempt to keep ahead of China's regulations, Tencent says it'll use a facial recognition system to prevent minors from playing games late into the night  —  Shenzhen, China-based gaming giant Tencent has announced it will use a face recognition system to prevent minors in its home country …
Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:
Mozilla's crowdsourced study about YouTube over a 10-month period finds 71%+ videos flagged as objectionable by participants were recommended by YouTube itself  —  For years YouTube's video-recommending algorithm has stood accused of fuelling a grab-bag of societal ills by feeding users …
Sara Fischer / Axios:
Sources: Donald Trump plans to announce class action lawsuits against Mark Zuckerberg Jack Dorsey at an 11AM press conference today  —  Former President Donald Trump, who has complained about censorship by social media giants, plans to announce class action lawsuits today …
Will Oremus / Washington Post:
Facebook waiving Bulletin's fees at launch is a classic Silicon Valley tactic used to quash competitors, exemplifying a strategy critics think should be illegal  —  Facebook's latest product, a newsletter platform called Bulletin, exemplifies a strategy that some critics think should be illegal
Jason Schreier / Bloomberg:
Ubisoft confirms it's developing Assassin's Creed Infinity, an online service with evolving gameplay that expands over time, seeking to emulate Fortnite and GTA  —  Assassin's Creed, a video game franchise set in huge worlds where each one can take hundreds of hours to complete, is getting even bigger.
Michael P. Regan / Bloomberg:
A look at synthetic shares of Apple, Amazon, and others, which track the prices of real stocks and are being traded on blockchain projects like Mirror Protocol  —  - A DeFi ‘Trojan Horse’ finds its way to the stock market  — Sounds like ‘investor-protection issue,’ says Themis's Saluzzi
Alfred Ng / The Markup:
Public records and a 2019 version of its user guide show just how invasive AnyVision's facial recognition software can be; AnyVision's customers include schools  —  One school using the software saw that a student's face was captured more than 1,000 times during the week
Sarah McBride / Bloomberg:
Evernote founder's Mmhmm, a video service that works with Zoom, Teams, and Webex and can add effects to calls, raises $100M led by SoftBank's Vision Fund  —  When Phil Libin created note-taking app Evernote in 2007, he was making a bet that smartphones would be the next big thing.
Justin Sink / Bloomberg:
Source: Biden will direct the FTC to draft new right-to-repair rules, with an explicit mention of mobile phone manufacturers expected in the directive  —  - Order may loosen rules on who can undertake phone repairs  — Pentagon contractors, farm equipment also under scrutiny
Bloomberg:
Sources: state-backed Russian hacking group APT29 breached the RNC last week, possibly via IT provider Synnex; RNC says there's is no indication it was hacked  —  - Hackers part of ‘Cozy Bear,’ people familiar with matter say  — RNC official says ‘no indication’ computer systems hacked
CNBC:
The Pentagon has canceled the $10B JEDI cloud contract that was awarded to Microsoft but faced legal challenges from Amazon, announced new multivendor contract  —  - The Department of Defense said it's calling off the $10 billion cloud contract that was the subject of a legal battle involving Amazon and Microsoft.
Manish Singh / TechCrunch:
Report: Indian startups raised a record $10.46B in H1 2021, vs. $4B in H1 2020 and $11.6B in all of 2020; India produced 16 unicorns this year  —  Indian startups have raised a record $10.46 billion in the first half of 2021, up from $4 billion in H1 2020.  —  A startup founder …
Financial Times:
Binance says it will temporarily suspend euro bank deposits from the EU's Single Euro Payments Area network due to “events beyond our control”  —  Latest block comes after flurry of regulatory pushbacks against crypto exchange  —  Binance said it will suspend euro bank deposits …
Romain Dillet / TechCrunch:
Outbrain, which filed for an IPO last week, raises $200M from Boston-based hedge fund Baupost Group  —  Outbrain, an adtech company that provides clickbait ads below news articles, has raised $200 million in funding — Outbrain didn't disclose the valuation of the company for this deal.
Rebecca Chowdhury / MIT Technology Review:
Hands-on with New York's Excelsior Pass vaccine passport: low adoption, privacy concerns, persistent technical glitches, and limited use at top leisure venues  —  When we tested New York's Excelsior Pass, we found privacy concerns, technical glitches, and questions over who it's really for.

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