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 Facebook Cuts Off NYU Researcher Access, Prompting Rebuke From Lawmakers
Facebook shut down accounts belonging to two academic researchers late Tuesday, cutting off their ability to study political ads and misinformation on the world's biggest social network. From a report: The company accused the academics of engaging in "unauthorized scraping" and compromising user privacy on the platform, claims that Facebook's many critics are slamming as a thin pretense for killing the transparency work. The company took action against Laura Edelson and Damon McCoy, two well-kno
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Retracted COVID Paper Lives on in New Citations
Researchers around the world have continued breathing new life into a retracted study, which suggested that common antihypertensive medications were harmful in patients with COVID-19. From a report: Published online on May 1, 2020 in the New England Journal of Medicine, the study relied on Surgisphere data to claim an association between renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system (RAAS) inhibitor therapy and worse outcomes in hospitalized COVID-19 patients with cardiovascular disease. The journal retr
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Amazon and Google Patch Major Bug in Their DNS-as-a-Service Platforms
At the Black Hat security conference Wednesday, two security researchers have disclosed a security issue impacting hosted DNS service providers that can be abused to hijack the platform's nodes, intercept some of the incoming DNS traffic, and then map customers' internal networks. From a report: Discovered by Shir Tamari and Ami Luttwak from cloud security company Wiz, the vulnerability highlights the amount of sensitive information collected by managed DNS platforms and their attractiveness fro
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Australian Mathematician Discovers Applied Geometry Engraved on 3,700-year-old Tablet
An Australian mathematician has discovered what may be the oldest known example of applied geometry, on a 3,700-year-old Babylonian clay tablet. Known as Si.427, the tablet bears a field plan measuring the boundaries of some land. From a report: The tablet dates from the Old Babylonian period between 1900 and 1600 BCE and was discovered in the late 19th century in what is now Iraq. It had been housed in the Istanbul Archaeological Museum before Dr Daniel Mansfield from the University of New Sout
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Russia Tells UN It Wants Vast Expansion of Cybercrime Offenses, Plus Network Backdoors, Online Censorship
An anonymous reader writes: Russia has put forward a draft convention to the United Nations ostensibly to fight cyber-crime. The proposal, titled "United Nations Convention on Countering the Use of Information and Communications Technologies for Criminal Purposes," calls for member states to develop domestic laws to punish a far broader set of offenses than current international rules recognize. Russia, the ransomware hotbed whose cyber-spies were blamed for attacking US and allied networks, did
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Microsoft Exchange Used To Hack Diplomats Before 2021 Breach
An anonymous reader shares a report: Late last year, researchers at the Los Angeles-based cybersecurity company Resecurity stumbled across a massive trove of stolen data while investigating the hack of an Italian retailer. Squirreled away on a cloud storage platform were five gigabytes of data that had been stolen during the previous three and half years from foreign ministries and energy companies by hacking their on-premises Microsoft Exchange servers. In all, Resecurity researchers found docu
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Amazon To Cut Waste Following Backlash Over the Destruction of Unused Products
Amazon has launched two programs as part of an effort to give products a second life when they get returned to businesses that sell items on its platform or fail to get sold in the first place. From a report: The so-called Fulfilment by Amazon programs, announced in a blog post on Wednesday, will help to build a circular economy, the company said. It comes less than two months after British broadcaster ITV reported that Amazon was destroying millions of items of unsold stock at one of its 24 U.K
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Leaked Document Says Google Fired Dozens of Employees for Data Misuse
Google has fired dozens of employees between 2018 and 2020 for abusing their access to the company's tools or data, with some workers potentially facing allegations of accessing Google user or employee data, according to an internal Google document obtained by Motherboard. From a report: The document provides concrete figures on an often delicate part of a tech giant's operations: investigations into how company's own employees leverage their position inside the company to steal, leak, or abuse
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Microsoft Pauses Free Windows 365 Cloud PC Trials After 'Significant Demand'
Microsoft launched its new cloud PC Windows 365 service earlier this week, and the company has already had to pause free trials due to demand. From a report: Windows 365 lets you rent a cloud PC -- with a variety of CPU, RAM, and storage options -- and then stream Windows 10 or Windows 11 via a web browser. The service reached max capacity after only a day of signups. "Following significant demand, we have reached capacity for Windows 365 trials," reads a statement from the Microsoft 365 Twitter
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Law School Applicants Surge 13%, Biggest Increase Since Dot-Com Bubble
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: The number of people applying for admission to law school this fall surged nearly 13%, making it the largest year-over-year percentage increase since 2002, according to the latest data from the Law School Admission Council. And they were an impressive bunch. The number of people applying with LSAT scores in the highest band of 175 to 180 more than doubled from 732 last year to 1,487 this year. In total, 71,048 people applied to American Bar Assoc
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 Robinhood is now a stonk
The wild swing in the price of Robinhood today appears from our vantage point to be another stonk moment.
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Reserve Trust raises $30.5M to become the 'Stripe for B2B payments'
Reserve Trust, a Denver-based financial services provider, has raised $30.5 million in a Series A round led by QED Investors. FinTech Collective, Ardent Venture Partners, Flywire CEO Mike Massaro and Quovo founder and CEO Lowell Putnam also participated in the financing, which included $17.9 million in secondary shares. It brings the startup's total raised since […]
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'Totally New' Idea Suggests Longer Days On Early Earth Set Stage For Complex Life
"A research team has proposed a novel link between how fast our planet spun on its axis, which defines the length of a day, and the ancient production of additional oxygen," reports Science Magazine. "Their modeling of Earth's early days, which incorporates evidence from microbial mats coating the bottom of a shallow, sunlit sinkhole in Lake Huron, produced a surprising conclusion: as Earth's spin slowed, the resulting longer days could have triggered more photosynthesis from similar mats, allow
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Passwordstate customers complain of silence and secrecy after cyberattack
It has been over three months since Click Studios, the Australian software house behind the enterprise password manager Passwordstate, warned its customers to “commence resetting all passwords.” The company was hit by a supply chain attack that sought to steal the passwords from customer servers around the world. But customers tell TechCrunch that they are […]
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What if Highways Were Electric? Germany Is Testing the Idea.
An electrified highway is theoretically the most efficient way to eliminate truck emissions. But the political obstacles are daunting. From a report: Traton is among the backers of the so-called eHighway south of Frankfurt, a group that also includes Siemens and Autobahn GmbH, the government agency that oversees German highways. There are also short segments of electrified road in the states of Schleswig-Holstein and Baden-Wurttemberg. The technology has been tried in Sweden and, in 2017, on a o
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When the goals of PR and journalism don't align
Update: We promised to link to Creighton’s Soundcloud. Here it is. Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch's venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. For our Wednesday show this week, Natasha and Alex hosted a PR roundtable. Yep, our promise back when Alex Konrad came on the program to chat funding rounds is being […]
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GM's earnings dragged down by Chevy Bolt recall
The twice-issued recall for 2017 to 2019 Chevrolet Bolt electric vehicles cost General Motors $800 million, the company said in its second-quarter earnings statement Wednesday. Costs associated with fixing defective Bolt batteries make up the lion's share of GM's $1.3 billion in warranty expenses last quarter. CEO Mary Barra specified on an investor call that […]
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GM is adding to two new zero-emission commercial vehicles to its lineup
General Motors said Wednesday it is adding to two new zero-emissions vehicles to its commercial portfolio as it looks to expand its first-to-last-mile business arm, BrightDrop. The first vehicle will be a battery electric cargo van under the Chevrolet brand that will likely be similar to the popular Chevy Express van. The second will be […]
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Expand your SaaS empire: Network with CrunchMatch at TC Sessions: SaaS 2021
The power of networking will be in full force at TC Sessions: SaaS 2021 on October 27. This day-long virtual gathering of the global SaaS community features the sector's leading voices — established founders, top VCs and expert developers. That spells opportunity for early-stage founders who want to expand their network and drive their business […]
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Supercritical launches carbon removal offset marketplace for tech firms reach NetZero
It's a little known fact that the carbon footprint of the technology sector is great than the entire aviation industry (Aalto University and LUT University). At the same time, tech companies (like many others) are generally attracted to carbon offsetting schemes which don't actually remove carbon from the environment and are often riddled with flaws. Only […]
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Human Interest raises $200M at a $1B valuation, plans for an IPO
Less than six months after raising $55 million in a Series C round of funding, SMB 401(k) provider Human Interest today announced it has raised $200 million in a round that propels it to unicorn status. The Rise Fund, TPG's global impact investing platform, led the round and was joined by SoftBank Vision Fund 2. […]
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Study: Which Countries Will Best Survive a Collapse?
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: Will civilization as we know it end in the next 100 years? Will there be any functioning places left? These questions might sound like the stuff of dystopian fiction. But if recent headlines about extreme weather, climate change, the ongoing pandemic and faltering global supply chains have you asking them, you're not alone. Now two British academics, Aled Jones, director of the Global Sustainability Institute at Anglia Ruskin Universit
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Next up on Synapse's fintech services platform: white-labeled credit products
When Sankaet Pathak co-founded Synapse in 2014, he had a vision of doing more than just building a platform that enables banks and fintech companies to easily develop financial services. He wanted to build a company that helped provide greater access to financial services to a larger pool of people — regardless of their net […]
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Apax to combine three social impact software companies in deal valued at $2B
Who says there is no big money in software aimed at helping people? Private equity firm Apax Funds announced this morning that it is combining three social impact firms to create a platform of sorts in a deal valued at $2 billion. To build this social good juggernaut, Apax went out and purchased EveryAction from […]
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WhiteHat Jr founder departs a year after selling to Byju's
Karan Bajaj, the founder and chief executive of WhiteHat Jr, is leaving the firm a year after selling the startup for $300 million to Indian edtech giant Byju's. In an email to employees on Wednesday, Bajaj and Byju's founder and chief executive Byju Raveendran said the departure follows a "mutually decided" decision made at the […]
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Vietnamese on-demand e-commerce platform Loship raises $12M at a valuation of $100M
Loship, the Vietnamese on-demand e-commerce platform that started as a reviews app, announced today it has raised $12 million in pre-Series C funding, bringing its valuation to $100 million. The round was co-led by BAce Capital, an Ant Group-backed venture firm, and the direct investment unit of Sun Hung Kai & Co Limited. Founded in […]
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Brazilian digital auto marketplace InstaCarro revs up with $23M in funding
InstaCarro, a digital marketplace that connects used car sellers to dealers in Brazil, has raised $23 million in a Series B round of funding. Notably, U.S.-based firms co-led the investment, including J Ventures, FJ Labs and Rise Capital. Spain's All Iron Ventures and Big Sur also participated in the financing, among others. With the latest […]
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Amazon expands same-day Prime delivery to 6 more US cities
Amazon announced this morning it’s expanding its faster, same-day delivery service to half a dozen more U.S. cities. The service, which the retailer has been working to make same-day delivery even faster over the past year, now offers consumers in a number of markets the ability to shop up to 3 million items on Amazon.com, […]
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UK Considers Blocking Nvidia Takeover of ARM Over Security
According to Bloomberg, the U.K. is considering blocking a takeover of Arm by Nvidia due to potential risks to national security. SoftBank announced plans to sell Arm to U.S. chip company Nvidia last September for more than $40 billion. It's been under investigation and protested ever since. Bloomberg reports: In April, U.K. Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden asked the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) to prepare a report on whether the deal could be deemed anti-competitive, along with a summ
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Theranos Patients: The Emerging Wild Card in the Trial of Elizabeth Holmes
The government hopes patient testimony -- if a judge allows it -- in the closely watched criminal fraud trial will support the charge that Elizabeth Holmes touted the company's medical tests as reliable despite knowing of bad results. The former executive has pleaded not guilty. From a report: After three back-to-back miscarriages, Brittany Gould said she turned to Theranos Inc. to know if her latest pregnancy was on track. Then, one of the company's trademark finger-prick tests indicated she wa
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Google Chrome To No Longer Show Secure Website Indicators
Google Chrome will no longer show whether a site you are visiting is secure and only show when you visit an insecure website. Bleeping Computer reports: To further push web developers into only using HTTPS on their sites, Google introduced the protocol as a ranking factor. Those not hosting a secure site got a potentially minor hit in their Google search results rankings. It has appeared to have worked as according to the 'HTTPS encryption on the web' of Google's Transparency Report, over 90% of
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