Daily Crunch - TikTok will downrank 'unsubstantiated' claims

TechCrunch Newsletter

Wednesday, February 03, 2021 • By Anthony Ha

TikTok announces additional steps to fight misinformation, Myanmar’s military cracks down on Facebook and Google’s subsea cable goes online. This is your Daily Crunch for February 3, 2021.

The big story: TikTok will downrank 'unsubstantiated' claims TikTok had already said it would try to reduce misinformation by removing videos flagged by fact checkers for including false information. Today it announced that it will go a step further by flagging videos where the fact checkers’ findings are inconclusive. For example, the company said that there are cases where fact checkers cannot verify information in a video because events are still unfolding. Those “unsubstantiated” videos will then include a large banner, as well as an additional reminder prompt before users will be able to share them. This feature is launching in the United States and Canada but will become available globally in “coming weeks.” Read more Image Credits: TikTok

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The tech giants Myanmar military government orders telecom networks to temporarily block Facebook — The move comes after days of unrest in Myanmar, where earlier this week military took control of the country and declared a state of emergency for a year after detaining civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Google's new subsea cable between the US and Europe is now online — The almost 4,000-mile cable has a total capacity of 250 terabits per second. Instagram confirms it's working on a 'Vertical Stories' feed — This could give the app a more TikTok-like feel. Image Credits: TechCrunch

Startups, funding and venture capital Vivino raises $155M for wine recommendation and marketplace app — The app and the company behind it have been helping people enjoy better wine since 2010. Good Eggs raises $100M and plans to launch in Southern California — Good Eggs says that in the past year, it has grown revenue to the nine figures (more than $100 million), hired more than 400 employees and nearly doubled its customer base. Rocket.Chat raises $19M for its open-source approach to integrated enterprise messaging — The service is used by banks, the U.S. Navy, NGOs and other organizations to set up and run any variety of secure virtual communications services from one place. Image Credits: Vivino

Advice and analysis from Extra Crunch Spotify Group Session UX teardown: The fails and their fixes — Essentially a "party mode," the feature offers a way for participants to contribute to a collaborative playlist in real time and control what's playing across everyone's devices. Edtech valuations aren't skyrocketing, but investors see more exit opportunities — Thirteen VCs discuss how their deal-making has changed in the last year. Deep Science: AIs with high class and higher altitudes — This roundup kicks off with a study looking at the relative positions of the U.S., EU and China in the AI "race." (Extra Crunch is our membership program, which helps founders and startup teams get ahead. You can sign up here.) Image Credits: Getty Images

Everything else Global smartphone shipments expected to rebound 11% this year — New numbers from Gartner point to a rebound to pre-2020 levels. Todd Rundgren is about to launch a geofenced virtual tour — Rundgren is staging the tour with support from NoCap, the livestreaming concert startup founded by musicians Cisco Adler and Donavon Frankenreiter. Image Credits: Lynn Goldsmith

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Newest Jobs from Crunchboard Chief Operating Officer at Food-X Technologies/SPUD.ca (Vancouver, BC, Canada) Senior PYTHON Development at Confidential (Anywhere) AI Scientist, Small Molecule Pharmaceutical Sciences at Genentech (South San Francisco, CA, USA) Demand Generation Manager at Quorum (Washington, D.C., USA) Software Engineer at SG Cap Trading (Chicago, IL, USA) See more jobs on CrunchBoard Post your tech jobs and reach millions of TechCrunch readers for only $200 per month.

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Daily Crunch - Jeff Bezos will step down as Amazon CEO

TechCrunch Newsletter

Tuesday, February 02, 2021 • By Anthony Ha

The Bezos era is ending, Uber acquires Drizly and Tesla recalls 135,000 vehicles. This is your Daily Crunch for February 2, 2021.

The big story: Jeff Bezos will step down as Amazon CEO Amazon announced today that founder Jeff Bezos will be transitioning from CEO to executive chair in the third quarter of this year. Andy Jassy, currently the CEO of Amazon Web Services, will be taking over as chief executive for the entire company. In an email to employees, Bezos said that this will allow him to devote more time to “Day 1 Fund, the Bezos Earth Fund, Blue Origin, The Washington Post, and [his] other passions.” Jassy, meanwhile, had previously been identified as a likely successor. Read more Image Credits: Alex Wong / Staff / Getty Images

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The tech giants Uber is buying alcohol delivery service Drizly for $1.1B — The plan is to build Drizly's marketplace directly into the Uber Eats app, though Uber says it will maintain Drizly as a standalone app as well. Tesla recalls 135,000 vehicles over touchscreen failures — According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the touchscreen in Model S and Model X vehicles can fail when a memory chip runs out of storage capacity. Amazon to pay $61.7M to settle FTC complaint over stolen Amazon Flex driver tips — According to the complaint against Amazon and its subsidiary Amazon Logistics, the company had advertised that it paid 100% of tips to drivers, but in reality, Amazon used the customer tips to cover the difference after it lowered the hourly rate. Image Credits: Getty Images

Startups, funding and venture capital Divvy Homes secures $110M Series C to help renters become homeowners — Over the course of 2020, Divvy expanded operations from eight to 16 total markets and financed five times as many homes as it had in pre-pandemic times. Kindred Ventures just closed its second fund with $100M in capital commitments — Kindred is a San Francisco-based pre-seed and seed-stage venture fund founded by Steve Jang and Kanyi Maqubela. Omnispace raises $60M to fuse satellites and 5G into one ubiquitous network — Omnispace wants to offer ubiquitous 5G-compliant connectivity for enterprise users using a hybrid of wireless ground technology and satellites. Image Credits: Getty Images

Advice and analysis from Extra Crunch Udemy's new president discusses the reskilling company's future — “We blew through $100M ARR.” The future of SaaS is on-demand: Use experts to drive growth and engagement — For SaaS companies, not having a gig economy strategy as we start 2021 is like missing the internet trend in 1990. Save 25% with Extra Crunch Group Membership — This new feature allows you to easily manage seats and payments for your team through a self-service interface. (Extra Crunch is our membership program, which helps founders and startup teams get ahead. You can sign up here.) Image Credits: Andrew_Rybalko / Getty Images

Everything else Eight Miami-area investors assess America's southernmost tech ecosystem — We’re seeing a “moment” in Miami, but many are hoping to turn it into a movement. Welcome Tage Kene-Okafor, Mary Ann Azevedo, Sophie Burkholder and a guy named Drew — Hooray for new team members! Image Credits: Bryce Durbin / TechCrunch

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Newest Jobs from Crunchboard Chief Operating Officer at Food-X Technologies/SPUD.ca (Vancouver, BC, Canada) Senior PYTHON Development at Confidential (Anywhere) AI Scientist, Small Molecule Pharmaceutical Sciences at Genentech (South San Francisco, CA, USA) Demand Generation Manager at Quorum (Washington, D.C., USA) Software Engineer at SG Cap Trading (Chicago, IL, USA) See more jobs on CrunchBoard Post your tech jobs and reach millions of TechCrunch readers for only $200 per month.

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Daily Crunch - Google shutters internal game studios

TechCrunch Newsletter

Monday, February 01, 2021 • By Anthony Ha

Google rethinks its gaming strategy, Microsoft rolls out its quantum computing platform and UiPath is now valued at $35 billion. This is your Daily Crunch for February 1, 2021.

The big story: Google shutters internal game studios When Google announced its Stadia cloud platform, it also said it was forming Stadia Games and Entertainment, an internal studio that would create titles for the platform. Now it seems the company is abandoning this approach. It’s a surprising move, not just because Google has yet to release a single game from the studio, but also because the company opened studios in Montreal and Los Angeles, as well as acquiring Typhoon Studios — so it seems like a real investment. “Given our focus on building on the proven technology of Stadia as well as deepening our business partnerships, we've decided that we will not be investing further in bringing exclusive content from our internal development team SG&E, beyond any near-term planned games," Google exec Phil Harrison said in a blog post. Read more

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The tech giants Microsoft's Azure Quantum platform is now in public preview — Azure Quantum is Microsoft’s cloud-based platform for using quantum hardware and software tools from partners like Honeywell Quantum Solutions, IonQ, 1QBit and others. Xiaomi sues the US government over blacklisting — The filing, which was submitted on Friday, calls the decision "unlawful and unconstitutional." Google now gives you more information about the sites in your search results — Clicking the new hamburger-style menu icon will pop up a new info panel with additional information about the site. Image Credits: Bloomberg / Getty Images

Startups, funding and venture capital Robotic process automation platform UiPath raises $750M at $35B valuation — The company’s automation platform aims to "transform the way humans work" by giving companies a way to build out and run automations across departments. Databricks raises $1B at $28B valuation as it reaches $425M ARR — Databricks is a data-and-AI focused company that interacts with corporate information stored in the public cloud. Weights & Biases raises $45M for its machine learning tools — Weights & Biases says it now has more than 70,000 users across more than 200 enterprises.

Advice and analysis from Extra Crunch Robinhood's Q4 2020 revenue shows a return to growth — Robinhood has been the world's most discussed startup over the last week. Best practices as a service is a key investment theme to watch in 2021 — It's one thing to give people and businesses tools, and something else to train them to use those tools effectively. Lightspeed's Gaurav Gupta and Grafana Labs' Raj Dutt will tell us why they financially tied the knot (twice!) — The new and improved Extra Crunch Live pairs founders and the investors who led their earlier rounds. (Extra Crunch is our membership program, which helps founders and startup teams get ahead. You can sign up here.) Image Credits: TechCrunch

Everything else Amazon says government demands for user data spiked by 800% in 2020 — Amazon said it processed 27,664 government demands for user data in the last six months of 2020. What investors need to know about research and inspiration in the COVID-19 era — Remote research will remain the rule even as the worst of the pandemic mercifully ends.

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Newest Jobs from Crunchboard Senior PYTHON Development at Confidential (Anywhere) AI Scientist, Small Molecule Pharmaceutical Sciences at Genentech (South San Francisco, CA, USA) Demand Generation Manager at Quorum (Washington, D.C., USA) Software Engineer at SG Cap Trading (Chicago, IL, USA) C++ Software Engineering Manager at SG Cap Trading (Chicago, IL, USA) See more jobs on CrunchBoard Post your tech jobs and reach millions of TechCrunch readers for only $200 per month.

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