Tech

How platforms turn boring

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Nick Barclay / The Verge TikTok is changing. Even a year ago, my For You page was mostly stuff you could only see on TikTok, whether it was Vine refugees making comedy shorts or song memes like Here Comes The Boy. That stuff is still on the platform, but it’s largely fallen off my For … Read more

Limbo is tackling obesity with a pair of wearables and decades of physiology

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In recent years there has been a flurry of startup activity aimed at commercializing blood glucose biosensors — aka, wearable tech that was originally developed for diabetes management. These continuous glucose monitors (CGMs) transmit near real-time data on glucose levels, providing instant feedback (via a companion mobile app) on how the body metabolizes different foods … Read more

How to use Focus modes in iOS 16

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iOS 16 makes programming Focus modes less tedious. | Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge Apple added Focus modes last year in iOS 15 to help you stay on task. The idea was to keep you “in the moment” by filtering out apps or notifications that you don’t want popping up during specific times. … Read more

SoftBank slashes Oyo’s valuation to $2.7 billion

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SoftBank, the largest backer of Oyo, has cut the Indian hotel chain startup’s valuation to $2.7 billion despite its claims of improved finances in recent months, a person familiar with the matter said. The Japanese conglomerate, which had slashed its internal valuation of Oyo to $3.4 billion earlier, further slashed the valuation of Oyo by … Read more

South Korea finds more suspicious crypto-linked foreign exchange transactions

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South Korea’s Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) said on Thursday that it had found additional unusual foreign exchange transactions of $680 million, which brings the total amount of “abnormal” transfers to approximately $7.2 billion since June. The authorities confirmed that most dubious foreign money remittances involved crypto-related activities because the transactions were transferred from cryptocurrency exchanges to … Read more

Inside Seoul Robotics’s contrarian approach to autonomous vehicle tech

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Seoul Robotics has taken a divergent path on the road to commercializing autonomous vehicles. Instead of developing and embedding the entire self-driving system, including sensors into a vehicle, Seoul is turning to surrounding infrastructure to do some of the heavy lifting. And its contrarian approach has attracted a new group of investors and $25 million … Read more

India proposes to regulate internet communication services

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India has proposed to regulate internet-based communication services, requiring platforms to obtain a license for operating in the world’s second largest wireless market. The Department of Telecommunications’ new proposal, called Draft Indian Telecommunication Bill, 2022, seeks to consolidate and update three old rules — Indian Telegraph Act, 1885, Indian Wireless Telegraphy Act, 1933, and The … Read more

Mozilla urges action to unpick platform browser lock-ins

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As antitrust regulators around the world dial up scrutiny of platform power, Mozilla has published a piece of research digging into the at times subtle yet always insidious ways operating systems exert influence to keep consumers locked to using their own-brand browsers rather than seeking out and switching to independent options — while simultaneously warning … Read more

Alibaba Cloud pledges $1B to boost overseas alliance

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Alibaba is known for its sprawling e-commerce empire, but like Amazon, cloud service has been a big driver of its revenues in recent years. The Chinese cloud giant is ready to double down on its overseas reach and announced today a $1 billion investment in a “global partner ecosystem upgrade.” Alibaba Cloud is now the … Read more

Berlin’s Visionaries Club VC boosts its funds with €350M worth of fresh capital for B2B investments

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It was back in 2019 that we reported on Visionaries Club, a new, Berlin-based, European VC focusing on B2B, founded by Sebastian Pollok and Robert Lacher. At the time, Visionaries Club had launched two new €40M micro funds for seed and growth-stage B2B. Pollok was previously a VC at e.ventures in San Francisco and also … Read more