Tech Soha

Twitter has removed 130 accounts that appeared to originate from Iran and were attempting to disrupt public conversation around the 2020 US Presidential debate. The social network’s Support account has revealed the deletion on the platform. It also posted sample tweets that show support for Trump and question whether moderator Chris Wallace truly is nonpartisan. from Yahoo Tech https://ift.tt/30ihSMD

As people spend less time out and about and more time daydreaming about when a vaccine will arrive, lifestyle shoes are only gaining traction. One obvious beneficiary is Allbirds, the San Francisco-based maker of comfortable, sustainable kicks that launched in 2016 and quickly became a favorite in Silicon Valley circles before taking off elsewhere. Allbirds just closed on $100 million in Series E funding at roughly the same $1.6 billion valuation it was assigned after closing on $27 million in Series D funding earlier this year, and blank-check companies have been calling, says cofounder and CEO Joey Zwillinger. from Yahoo Tech https://ift.tt/36koNIO

Google's new Assistant feature will roll out first on the new Pixel phones, and it listens to the hold music while you do something else, then alerts you once a real human being picks up. from Yahoo Tech https://ift.tt/3l33csw

Twitter on Wednesday said it had removed 130 foreign accounts that tried to “disrupt the public conversation” during the first 2020 presidential election debate. The social media giant trashed the accounts — which appeared to originate in Iran — “based on intel” from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, it said in a tweet. “We identified... from Technology News & Reviews | New York Post https://ift.tt/30mjSTT

Google, which reaches more internet users than any other firm in India and commands 99% of the nation’s smartphone market, has stumbled upon an odd challenge in the world’s second largest internet market: Scores of top local entrepreneurs. Dozens of top startups and firms in India are working to form an alliance and toying with the idea of launching an app store to cut their reliance on Google, five people familiar with the matter told TechCrunch. The list of entrepreneurs include high-profile names such as Vijay Shekhar Sharma, co-founder and chief executive of Paytm (India’s most valuable startup), Deep Kalra of travel ticketing firm MakeMyTrip, and executives from PolicyBazaar, Sharechat and many other firms. from Yahoo Tech https://ift.tt/33hW59N

Forget Tesla. Shares of Elon Musk’s rocket company are soaring to new heights on growing excitement over its burgeoning satellite business, The Post has learned. Demand for privately held shares of SpaceX has jumped 25 percent in recent weeks, driven by fresh headlines about plans to launch a network of 12,000 pint-size satellites that can... from Technology News & Reviews | New York Post https://ift.tt/30mdTOV

Facebook has removed more than 6,500 pages and groups associated with “militarized social movements." from Yahoo Tech https://ift.tt/3jk2Hd4

Our review of iOS 14 is in, and there's also a shoot-out of high-tech hearing aids from Yahoo Tech https://ift.tt/3l189lO

Seattle’s city council has unanimously approved a minimum wage for Uber and Lyft drivers, becoming the second major US city to do so along with New York. from Yahoo Tech https://ift.tt/3ig29Uy

Earlier this month, Microsoft announced that Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscribers would be able to access EA Play for no additional cost. Console players will be able to activate their complimentary EA Play subscription on November 10th. Microsoft is also launching the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S on November 10th. from Yahoo Tech https://ift.tt/2SdFkpG

By BY DAVEY ALBA from NYT Technology https://ift.tt/2ScRGhS

It looks like Apple is scouring its Chinese App Store for any remaining services that may not sit well with Chinese censors. Two RSS reader apps, Reeder and Fiery Feeds, said this week that their iOS apps have been removed in China over content that is considered "illegal" in the country. Feed readers of RSS, or Real Simple Syndication, are particularly troubling to the authority because they fetch content from third-party websites, allowing users to bypass China's Great Firewall and reach otherwise forbidden information. from Yahoo Tech https://ift.tt/30k3XW9

When Twitter launched voice tweets earlier this summer as a way to send more personalized messages, it caught a lot of flack for not including accessibility features. Now, the company said it plans to introduce transcriptions for voice tweets as part of an initiative to promote accessibility within its products. from Yahoo Tech https://ift.tt/3jhyv2s

Inshorts, which operates a popular news aggregator app in India, has raised $35 million in a new financing round led by Lee Fixel’s Addition as the Indian startup looks to scale its adjacent, social network platform. For Fixel, who wrote several high-profile checks to Indian firms while running Tiger Global, InShorts is the first Indian startup he is backing from his new VC firm. from Yahoo Tech https://ift.tt/34a8mfE

Barcelona-based Emjoy, an audio app for women that sells a narrative of sexual self-care and empowerment, has picked up $3 million in seed funding led by JME Ventures, with existing investor Nauta Capital participating. The femtech startup believes it has lit on a major opportunity to target women with sex-positive subscription audio content that's focused on sexual empowerment, intimate education and sensuous entertainment -- all wrapped in unapologetically direct digital marketing. from Yahoo Tech https://ift.tt/2GqYfL1

You can get up to $3,000 off the price of the Mustang Mach-E. from Yahoo Tech https://ift.tt/344fdac

French fintech startup October has raised some fresh capital to invest in small and medium companies on its lending platform. This is not a traditional startup funding round as today’s new investment is specifically designed to finance new loans on its platform. For small and medium companies, you can apply for a loan and get an answer just a few days later. from Yahoo Tech https://ift.tt/3kW9aLV

Baidu, China's dominant search service and a leader in artificial intelligence research, is further diversifying into the smart voice space as its smart living group is poised to raise an independent round on a 20 billion yuan ($2.94 billion) post-money valuation. The fundraising move signals a potential spinoff of the smart living group down the road. The unit is best known for its voice assistant DuerOS, the search giant's Alexa equivalent, which was active on 200 million devices including both Baidu's own branded speaker and a variety of third-party gadgets as of early 2019. from Yahoo Tech https://ift.tt/3n4bUsA

Back in March, the FCC ordered all carriers and phone companies to adopt the STIR/SHAKEN protocol by June 30th, 2021 as an effort to combat robocalls. Now, the commission has announced new rules to clarify carriers’ obligations regarding the technology’s implementation. One of those new rules, for instance, protects consumers from surprise charges. from Yahoo Tech https://ift.tt/3l5bNLz

Business travel SaaS startup, TravelPerk, has launched an open API-based platform -- letting its customers and partners build custom integration and apps. The initial APIs covers HR and expense management use-cases but more are set to be added as usage and demand grows. "Applications we’ve seen being built on the platform already include HR functionality (think BambooHR), expense management systems, company payment cards, financial reporting, and ERP," says co-founder and CEO Avi Meir, discussing the launch. from Yahoo Tech https://ift.tt/3cH0Yfw

Workforces are getting more global, and people who work day in, day out for organizations don't always sit day in, day out in a single office, in a single country, to get a job done. Today, one of the startups building HR to help companies provision services for and manage those global workers better is announcing a funding round to capitalise on a surge in business that it has seen in the last year -- spurred in no small part by the global health pandemic, the impact it's had on travel and the way it has focused the minds of companies to get their cloud services and workforce management in order. Papaya Global, an Israeli startup that provides cloud-based payroll, as well as hiring, onboarding and compliance services for organizations that employ full-time, part-time, or contractors outside of their home country, has raised $40 million in a Series B round of funding led by Scale Venture Partners. from Yahoo Tech https://ift.tt/30jFm3I

In what began as a kind of funny, savvy marketing stunt that has since gained traction, a nearly three-year-old, Santa Monica-based startup that sells water from the Austrian Alps under the brand Liquid Death, has raised $23 million in Series B funding. Backers in the round include an unnamed family office; Convivialité Ventures, which is Pernod Ricard Group’s venture arm; the musician known as Fat Mike; and earlier backer Velvet Sea Ventures. from Yahoo Tech https://ift.tt/3cKsBo3

Google expanded Meet’s availability earlier this year to give more people access to the video chat service in the midst of coronavirus-related lockdowns. The tech giant didn’t just make it available to everyone with a Gmail account, though, it also made its premium features accessible at no cost until September 30th. In a post announcing the extension, Meet Group Product Manager Samir Pradhan said Google wants to “continue helping those who rely on Meet to stay in touch” over the holiday season, especially since not everyone can travel to be with their families and friends. from Yahoo Tech https://ift.tt/2Sa33Y7

Neuron Mobility, a Singapore-based e-scooter rental startup, announced today that it has added $12 million to its Series A. Led by Square Peg, an Australian venture capital firm and GSR Ventures, this increases the round’s new total to $30.5 million. The company, which operates in Australia and New Zealand in addition to Southeast Asian markets, first announced its Series A in December 2019. Part of Neuron Mobility’s growth plans hinges on the increased adoption of electric scooters and bikes during the COVID-19 pandemic. from Yahoo Tech https://ift.tt/349A38h

This week the new 'Star Wars' game arrives, as well as AMC+ and a new 'The Walking Dead' show. On streaming, there are season finales for 'Raised by Wolves' and 'Ted Lasso.' from Yahoo Tech https://ift.tt/3cJdOKc

By BY MAGGIE ASTOR from NYT Technology https://ift.tt/33gwQES

If you’re getting error messages instead of media across your Apple devices and services then you’re not alone. The company’s status page notes an outage that’s affecting many of its connected services that bring music, video and pictures to you. from Yahoo Tech https://ift.tt/36hlVfZ

By BY DAVEY ALBA from NYT Technology https://ift.tt/3n663Tg

To fill its empty CMO position, Facebook just promoted to the C-suite a longtime Facebook executive focused on product growth. Former VP of product growth and analytics Alex Schultz, who has been with the company since 2007, announced the move Tuesday in a Facebook post. Schultz will fill the position left open by Antonio Lucio, who joined the company from HP in 2018 and announced his departure last month. from Yahoo Tech https://ift.tt/3igHOy6

Some of the changes added to Pokémon Go that made it easier to play during COVID-19 lockdowns are going away as of October 1st. from Yahoo Tech https://ift.tt/2Ge1VAf

Amazon’s personal shopping subscription service, launched in July for women’s fashion, is now available for men. Personal Shopper by Prime Wardrobe will now include thousands of menswear items from brands like Adidas, Lacoste, Scotch 7 Soda, Levi’s and Carhartt, along with its exclusive Amazon Essentials and GoodThreads labels. from Yahoo Tech https://ift.tt/3icW23k

Shipping has long been one of the more antiquated, and least technological, segments in the world of commerce, with its physical aspects -- rooted in massive cargo tankers, giant fleets of aircraft and trucks, and trains of linked-up containers -- underscoring some of the more obvious analogue attributes of the business. The investment is coming from a single, high-profile investor, Insight Partners, which back in April announced a monster $9.5 billon fund that it planned to use not just to support portfolio companies through the global health pandemic, but to seek out new opportunities emerging in the wake of it. Eduardo del Riego, the CEO (PayCargo was co-founded by COO Juan Carlos Dieppa and chairman Sergio Lemme), said that while the cargo industry has faced a lot of turmoil with the pandemic -- production in some places grinded to a halt, social distancing rules created new challenges for how shippers could work and move physical goods -- it also highlighted how solutions like...

Bitpanda, a crypto assets platform, has closed a $52 million Series A funding round form Valar Ventures, a venture capital firm backed by Peter Thiel. Vienna-based VC Speedinvest also participated, alongside other unnamed investors. Claiming 1.3 million users, Bitpanda has previously been trading digital assets and tokenizing precious metals. from Yahoo Tech https://ift.tt/2SaZz7s

Microsoft scores key markets in the latest browser choice auction. from Yahoo Tech https://ift.tt/36gCRmQ

Amazon is putting contactless payments in the palm of your hand. Today, the company has revealed Amazon One, a service that uses your unique palm signature to authenticate purchases and let you into gated locations, such as offices, gyms and stadiums. For now, palm reading is restricted to two Amazon Go stores — the type that doesn’t require you to interact with a cashier or self-service checkout — in Seattle. from Yahoo Tech https://ift.tt/342Zokg

The company says it's 'the world’s first foldable PC.' from Yahoo Tech https://ift.tt/36cKZEV

Lenovo has announced its latest addition to the ThinkPad X1 collection: the X1 Nano. For one thing, the newest ThinkPad is powered by 11th Gen Intel Core processors; and at just under 2 pounds (1 kg) it’s Lenovo’s lightest laptop yet. from Yahoo Tech https://ift.tt/33cJl4g

Lenovo’s new hardware includes the ThinkBook 15 Gen 2 i with built-in wireless earbuds. from Yahoo Tech https://ift.tt/2S6ANFt

Scientists believe they’ve found more evidence confirming the presence of a large reservoir of liquid water under the surface of Mars first discovered back in 2018. In fact, they believe they’ve found three more subsurface saltwater lakes surrounding that main one — a huge discovery, seeing as those lakes are potential habitats for life. The team used data from a radar instrument on the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Mars Express spacecraft to investigate the planet’s southern polar region. from Yahoo Tech https://ift.tt/2Gc3crn

Meet Multis, a French startup that is building business bank accounts, except that it lets you store, send and receive cryptocurrencies. Investors in today’s funding round include White Star Capital, Y Combinator, Coinbase Ventures, eFounders, Greenfield One and Digital Currency Group. If you’re familiar with startups working on business banking, such as Qonto, you already know what to expect from Multis. from Yahoo Tech https://ift.tt/33cHCM5

Google Meet has introduced noise cancellation for mobile devices on Android and iOS, matching what it can already do on the desktop. from Yahoo Tech https://ift.tt/3iaIuoY

Nissan's all-electric Re-Leaf is an EV designed to provide a mobile power supply during disaster recovery. from Yahoo Tech https://ift.tt/2Gm1Sln

With lockdowns around the world, the COVID-19 pandemic has hit the travel industry especially hard. In Asia, however, several startups are adapting by focusing on domestic activities (or "staycations") instead of international travel. Founded in 2014, KKDay will use its new funding on Rezio, a booking management platform it began piloting in March, starting with Japan and Taiwan. from Yahoo Tech https://ift.tt/33dCK9q

NASA and SpaceX have set a new launch date for Crew Dragon’s first crewed operational flight: October 31st. The SpaceX Crew-1 mission follows the company’s successful Demo—2 test flight, which flew astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley to the ISS. It was the first crewed flight that launched from US soil since the final space shuttle mission on July 8th, 2011. from Yahoo Tech https://ift.tt/2SeEmJL

NtechLab, a startup that helps analyze footage captured by Moscow's 100,000 surveillance cameras, just closed an investment of more than 1RUB billion ($13 million) to further global expansion. It's able to do so on a vast scale in real time, allowing clients to react promptly to situations It's a key "differentiator" of the company, co-founder Artem Kukharenko told TechCrunch. The latest round, financed by Russia's sovereign wealth fund, the Russian Direct Investment Fund, and an undisclosed sovereign wealth fund from the Middle East, certainly carries more strategic than financial importance. from Yahoo Tech https://ift.tt/348wa3j

Hyundai is actively working on vehicles like this Elevate concept, while it try to create "the world’s first transformer-class vehicle, also known as the Ultimate Mobility Vehicle." from Yahoo Tech https://ift.tt/34n3Har

TCL already makes well-regarded TVs that fill your living room without costing a ton, and its new Alto sound bars can do the same with audio. The $299 Alto 9+ includes Google Assistant, AirPlay and Dolby Atmos support. from Yahoo Tech https://ift.tt/338UAui

Amazon announces new date for 'Prime Day' Amazon 'Prime Day' now set for October 13 and 14 after COVID-19 postponement; Biz Flash Monday, 9/28.

XtalPi, an American-Chinese biotech firm that focuses on AI-assisted drug discovery, has raised a $319 million round C from a slate of enthusiastic investors led by SoftBank's Vision Fund. XtalPi works with major pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer that need to identify promising new drug-like molecules and learn as much about them as possible. This company, founded in 2014, purports to offer extremely low-level simulation and prediction of target molecules, both simulating the physics at atomic levels and doing the more traditional data science work that eliminates dead ends and points towards more fruitful avenues for investigation. from Yahoo Tech https://ift.tt/2S7CmTM

A month after completing Y Combinator’s accelerator program, BukuWarung, an financial tech startup that serves small businesses in Indonesia, announced it has raised new funding from a roster of high-profile investors, including partners of DST Global, Soma Capital and 20VC. The amount of the funding was undisclosed, but a source told TechCrunch that it was between $10 million to $15 million. The new capital will be used to hire for BukuWarung’s technology team. from Yahoo Tech https://ift.tt/2GjJCco

Microsoft said it's investigating an authentication outage with Office 365, preventing users from accessing some of the company's most widely used services, including Office.com, Outlook.com, and Teams. In a series of tweets, Microsoft said that it tried to fix the issue, but was forced to roll back its changes after the fix failed. For now, Microsoft said it was "rerouting traffic to alternate infrastructure to improve the user experience while we continue to investigate the issue." from Yahoo Tech https://ift.tt/2S3ZdQa

Now that people can buy their own Boston Dynamics robots, we'll have to get used to seeing them out and about. from Yahoo Tech https://ift.tt/34acwnw