Coalition, a San Francisco cybersecurity startup, is buying Jumbo, a mobile app for web privacy. It’s time to finish Jumbo. Jumbo’s app won’t be updated, but the deal’s terms are unknown. The app will close next year, but users can export social media archives or 2FA codes. Coalition isn’t necessarily …
Read More »New locations and services expand Akamai’s cloud computing footprint
Akamai accelerated its cloud computing goals by acquiring Linode. Today, the company is moving forward. It is expanding its cloud computing services to Paris, Washington, D.C., Chicago, Seattle, and Chennai. In these new sites, Akamai will launch premium instances for commercial workloads. Akamai’s object storage service can now store one …
Read More »Europe approves Broadcom’s $61B VMware acquisition
Broadcom’s $61 billion bid for VMware has been approved by the European Commission (EC) if Broadcom meets access and interoperability commitments. When announced in May 2018, the megabucks deal, one of the largest tech acquisitions ever, was bound to draw regulatory scrutiny. In December, Europe announced an in-depth probe for …
Read More »Twitter blocks rival Threads links, while CEO downplays traffic decline
Linda Yaccarino, Twitter’s new CEO, denies that Instagram Threads’ July 5 launch is hurting Twitter traffic. However, Meta’s 100 million-plus user rival appears to worry the company. On Monday, users reported that Twitter appears to be selectively blocking links to Threads.net’s website in Twitter searches, making it harder to find …
Read More »Open-source large language model from China’s search engine pioneer rivals OpenAI
“China needs its own OpenAI,” Sogou founder Wang Xiaochuan tweeted in February. Today, Chinese entrepreneur Baichuan Intelligence launched its next-generation large language model Baichuan-13B. Due to its founder’s history as a computer science prodigy from Tsinghua University and founding Sogou, which Tencent later acquired, Baichuan is considered one of China’s …
Read More »Eight Roads VC leads $30M Series B for freight forwarder Raft
During the pandemic, freight industry digitisation rocketed. Nuvocargo $75 million, Zencargo $66 million, Forto $600 million, and Freightify $14.5 million. All streamline/digitize freight logistics. Freight forwarders and customs brokers had to keep up. Vector.ai, founded in 2017, raised a $15 million A-round led by Bessemer in 2021 to automate these …
Read More »Starlink satellites dodge orbital objects thousands of times a month
As low Earth orbit crowds, Starlink satellites are making thousands of avoidance maneuvers, raising concerns of a catastrophic impact. SpaceX told the FCC in a recent filing that its orbital communication satellites maneuvered over 25,000 times between December 1, 2022, and May 21, 2023. The company said its maneuvering threshold …
Read More »WeChat launches Apple’s online store in China
Tuesday’s Tencent-owned WeChat app announced Apple’s online store. WeChat’s mini-programs, which include e-commerce, financial services, and transportation, have brought the Cupertino company’s store to the app. This store sells iPhones, iPads, Apple Watches, and Macs. As Reuters notes, Apple already has a store on Alibaba’s Tmall retail platform, Tencent’s rival. …
Read More »Instagram Threads hits 100 million users in five days
Instagram’s text-based app Threads reached 100 million sign-ups in five days. Trackers say the Twitter competitor launched on June 6 (June 5 in the Americas). On the first day, Mark Zuckerberg said the app had 2 million sign-ups in two hours, 5 million in four, and 10 million in seven. …
Read More »Celebrity-led learning platform FrontRow closes
Confirmed that FrontRow, an Indian celebrity-focused hobby-learning and community platform, has closed. The three-year-old startup created a community where famous artists and athletes taught consumers. Elevation Capital, Eight Roads Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Not Boring Capital backed the $18 million startup. FrontRow co-founder Ishaan Preet Singh told that the …
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