Tuesday, December 21, 2021

Tuesday Technology News and More

Technology News and More




TechCrunch / 24min
Fintech startup LiveFlow has raised a $3.5M Seed round which was led by Moonfire Ventures with backing from Y Combinator, Seedcamp and WndrCo. Also participating was Victor Jacobsson, co-founder of Klarna; Bradley Horowitz, former VP Product at Google; Oliver Jung, former VP International Expansion at AirBnB, Phillip Chambers, Peakon founder & CEO, and others. LiveFlow allows companies to sync re



For years, Beijing landscape architect Yu Kongjian was ridiculed by his fellow citizens as a backward thinker. Some even called him an American spy—a nod to his doctorate from Harvard’s Graduate School of Design and his opposition to dams, those symbols of power and progress in modern China. Yu’s transgression: he advised working with water, rather than trying to control it. Yu is at the forefron



The year 2021 has been one of sustained growth and unprecedented development for the crypto market. Most investors will be unsurprised that the crypto market as a whole continued its meteoric growth through 2021, growing its overall market cap by more than 280% over the last 12 months. What few could have predicted, however, is the exceptional performance of large-cap altcoins. While Bitcoin is u




As previously heard in leaks, the OnePlus 10 Pro will debut earlier than we originally expected with it first being revealed in January 2022. That's according to a comment made on a post by OnePlus co-founder Pete Lau on Chinese micro-blogging site Weibo. The comment is in Mandarin Chinese, but a translation reads "10 Pro , see you in January". That confirms OnePlus is gearing up to welcome the y



The world's two biggest plane makers say the technology could have a negative impact on the aviation industry.



Mashable / 10min
Xiaomi's next flagship smartphones, the Xiaomi 12 and 12 Pro, will be revealed in China on December 28. The livestream will start at 7:30 p.m. Beijing time (6:30 a.m. ET). The company announced the launch date in a post on Weibo , along with the first official picture of the upcoming devices (below). The images don't show us much, except that both phones will have a punch-hole selfie camera on th



Mashable / 10min
Depending on who you ask, non-fungible tokens are either the future of art and a revolution in the very concept of ownership, or an environmentally destructive fad that's ripe for mockery . But with tens of billions of dollars in transactions , corporations hopping on the ever-growing bandwagon , and a word of the year distinction, it's undeniable that NFTs have made a mark. While whether or not



It’s been a year of supersized AI models. When OpenAI released GPT-3 , in June 2020, the neural network’s apparent grasp of language was uncanny. It could generate convincing sentences, converse with humans, and even autocomplete code. GPT-3 was also monstrous in scale—larger than any other neural network ever built. It kicked off a whole new trend in AI, one in which bigger is better. Despite GP



The Sony WF-C500 are a reliable pair of true wireless earbuds that sound great - and they've just hit their lowest price in the US and the UK. (Not in the US/UK? Scroll down for the best deals in your region.) The wireless earbuds may have only been released in September, but we saw some excellent discounts on them during Black Friday, and they're now even cheaper than they were during the sales.



Apple's affordable iPhone SE (2020) sold 24 million units in the year of its launch and has seemingly prompted the company to reduce the launch time for its successor. It took four years for Apple to launch a successor to its first iPhone SE, but the next edition could be arriving in 2022, likely in the first half of the year. A report from ITHome suggests that the iPhone SE 3 (or the iPhone SE 2



A House committee is seeking briefings from search engines and web-hosting companies whose services might have been leveraged by the site, which has been linked to numerous deaths.



Brands are flocking to the platform like never before, drawn by its more than 1 billion users and its algorithm, which can make an ad seem like just another video.



The company showed that people would flock to an audio-only social media app. Can it fend off the imitators?



Xiaomi 12 December 28•
Rumors regarding the Xiaomi 12 series launch have been doing the rounds for more than a month, but now we have a confirmed date and the new smartphone series will be debuting in China on December 28. As reported by GizmoChina , Xiaomi has rolled out the launch event poster for the Xiaomi 12 series. It shows a picture of Chinese sprinter Su Bingtian promoting the series, but there's no other infor



Closing arguments in the case concluded last week. On Monday, jurors began deliberating at around 8:30 a.m. They left the courthouse around 4 p.m.



Mobile 2021 Scam SS•
T-Mobile announced that scam call traffic more than doubled in 2021 with attempts hitting an average of 425 million calls every week, Bleeping Computer reported. It also said that it blocked over 21 billion of those calls for T-Mobile customers through December 2021 (over 700 calls per second) via its Scam Shield service. Over half the 21 billion calls were related to fake vehicle warranty scams



23TechCrunch / 1h
Some 55 billion parcels are shipped in bubble wrap every year. Plastic bubble wrap is reliant on fossil fuels and 98% of plastic packaging is single-use. You can imagine the adverse environmental impact of all this plastic. The founders of Woola were running an online e-commerce store and saw the packaging problem first-hand. The lack of options in sustainable and scalable protective packaging le



Three EE London BAI•
Three and EE have become the first UK mobile operators to agree a deal to provide their customers with 4G and 5G coverage across the entire London Underground. The operators have struck a deal with BAI communications, which is building a neutral host network across the capital’s subterranean network that can be used by any provider. Coverage will extend into ticket halls, platforms and tunnels an



South Africa Planet42•
26TechCrunch / 2h
Planet42 , a South Africa-based car subscription company that buys used cars from dealerships and rents to customers via a subscription model, has raised $30 million in equity and debt. The investment — which co-founder and CEO Eerik Oja called a bridge round — is a prequel to a larger Series A round next year. It comprises $6 million equity and $24 million in debt financing. The company raised $
YESTERDAY



SoftBank Snapdeal IPO•
22TechCrunch / 2h
Snapdeal filed for an initial public offering on Tuesday, joining a number of firms in India that have tapped the public market this year. The New Delhi-based startup, which counts SoftBank among its backers, said in its draft prospectus that it will issue fresh shares worth $165 million. Some of its existing investors including SoftBank, Sequoia Capital India and Foxconn plan to sell as many as




China Mobile Shanghai•
The firm was kicked off the New York Stock Exchange due to rules imposed by Donald Trump.



Jeff Morris Jr., founder and managing partner of the L.A.-based venture firm Chapter One , just closed a $40 million early-stage fund to focus on web3 investments, and he’s in the process of raising a separate, $20 million opportunity fund. Even in this go-go market, where digital assets are suddenly top of mind for everyone, the achievements are notable for someone who hasn’t been a VC for all t



SAVE 82%: PureVPN subscribers get 24 monthly accounts to give away to loved ones with Christmas. A two-year subscription to PureVPN is on sale for £1.44 per month, saving you 82% on list price. It's the season of giving, and PureVPN is feeling generous. This popular VPN was already offering an 82% discount on its two-year plan, but now subscribers also get 24 monthly accounts to give away to love



TL;DR: The 2022 Premium Amazon FBA Dropshipping Bundle is on sale for £26.24, saving you 97% on list price. Starting a business might’ve been a tough venture back in the day, but thanks to Amazon FBA , it’s easier than ever. You just need a little guidance — along with an entrepreneurial spirit and hard work — to get going. Take Brock Johnson, for example. With a simple £75 investment, he started



Boxing Day is the final sales event of the year, and it’s fast approaching. It’s a particularly great time of year to find deep discounts on laptops, headphones and fitness watches, so if you missed out on getting yourself a bargain on Black Friday, now’s the time to shop. In recent years, we’ve seen a trend of Boxing Day sales starting a little earlier than December 26, and stretching on a littl



Try Prime now To make use of this bonus credit offer, you'll need to be an Amazon Prime member. If you haven't signed up yet, you can do so now by clicking on the link below – this gets you a 30-day free trial and free expedited delivery on eligible products, plus access to Prime Video, Prime Reading and Prime Gaming. Try Amazon Prime now Bose makes some of the best noise-cancelling headphones on



27SlashGear / 7h
Hadrian/Shutterstock According to a new report, Apple is looking to improve upon the camera setup in its iPhone lineup with a new 48-megapixel camera next year. Additionally, the company is reportedly aiming to add a periscope lens featuring folded camera optics in as early as 2023. Ming-Chi Kuo, a known Apple analyst, has reportedly shared details about the iPhone camera upgrades … Continue read



The infections occurred in Hawthorne, Calif., where the company manages space launches and builds rockets and astronaut capsules.



The infections occurred in Hawthorne, Calif., where the company manages space launches and builds rockets and astronaut capsules.



We waited a comparatively long time for Amazon to refresh its more-premium Paperwhite ereaders, and finally it happened this year with not just one but two models announced in September . The 2021 versions (or 11th generation) of the Paperwhite are major overhauls of the most popular Kindle ever, with a bigger 6.8-inch screen surrounded by thinner bezels and a USB-C port for charging. There's 17



Anglo American is testing a hydrogen-powered giant truck in a bid to make its business greener.



Archer Maker Hover•
Aircraft maker Archer is boasting about a recent hover test. Its electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft, known as an eVTOL, made it off the ground last week. Earlier this year Archer showed off its five-seater prototype , called Maker. The company plans to develop an air taxi commuter transportation system with its small electric planes. At a test flight location in California, the demo



FAA Boeing Airbus US•
Airlines and aviation officials are warning that the resumed rollout of AT&T and Verizon’s new 5G wireless service in January could lead to widespread flight delays across the US especially in snowstorms and other low visibility conditions. As reported by Bloomberg , the officials say that C-band 5G threatens to interfere with altimeters and other equipment on planes and helicopters that track ai



beton studio/Shutterstock The SARS-CoV-2 virus has mutated over the past couple of years, with some mutations fading away fairly quickly and others leading to the rise of new “variants of concern.” The CDC monitors these variants through genomic sequencing and regularly updates data on which strains are circulating in the US. The health agency updated its tracker with the latest data this … Conti



Gizmodo / 9h
The gargantuan crisis spurred by log4j isn’t over yet—not even close. Over the past week, new vulnerabilities have been discovered in the unfortunate Apache logging library (whose ubiquitous vulnerability is dubbed “Log4Shell” in the infosec world) but, according to experts, there’s no need to outright panic. Here’s… Read more...



In 2019, when LinkedIn began asking for Chinese users’ phone numbers , it was clear that the professional social network would have to follow a different set of rules in the country. But it realized simply setting up the real-name verification regime required by Chinese authorities wasn’t enough; it faced a mounting task of balancing censorship demand and upholding its “Western value” that extols



Russian US Millions•
Gizmodo / 9h
Swiss authorities in Zurich put Vladislav Klyushin, a Russian businessman widely noted for his Kremlin ties , on a flight bound for the U.S. on Saturday, ending a months-long extradition fight that cast a pall over this summer’s Putin-Biden talks in Geneva. Read more...



100SlashGear / 9h
Grzegorz Czapski/Shutterstock Toyota surprised the industry in mid-December when it announced not one, but 12 upcoming electric vehicles (EVs). The news (via Toyota) was a welcome revelation to many, including SlashGear, and marks a bit of a departure from the company’s previous messaging. Toyota helped launch the EV market with its Prius family of hybrid cars, which the company launched in 1997.



100+Gizmodo / 10h
It has taken us so long to get Avatar 2 —and will continue to take us so long to get next year —that it makes sense the sequel will deal with the fact that the first film’s protagonists, Jake (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), have been off-screen long enough to have a lot of kids. Read more...



Mashable / 10h
Audiences, it seems, can't get enough of Cyrano de Bergerac . The classic 1897 romance from poet Edmond Rostand has been adapted into a long list of eponymous movies, as well as more offbeat rom-coms like Roxanne (1987), The Truth About Cats and Dogs (1996), The Half of It (2020), and Megamind (2010). (I said what I said.) So how might heralded filmmaker Joe Wright give a fresh sheen to this cent




84Gizmodo / 10h
A team of paleontologists has described a shockingly large millipede fossil that was found on an English beach in 2018. The millipede that left the fossil was well over 8 feet long and may have been a predator. Read more...



The post appeared first on Popular Mechanics .



It’s one of our favorite trivia tidbits at TPG. Yes, you can take frozen liquids through TSA checkpoints. As Christmas approaches and millions of travelers embark on holiday flights, the folks at the Transportation Security Administration want to remind you of their naughty and nice list for allowable carry-on items. We’ve got a few of our own favorites. Food items are of particular concern since



SlashGear / 10h
Manuel Esteban/Shutterstock Google announced its Google TV app in late September 2020 in an effort to better compete with Apple TV, Roku, and other dedicated platforms. Unfortunately, having “TV” in the name immediately drew comparisons to YouTube TV, along with questions about the differences between the two products. YouTube TV is a streaming TV platform, giving customers a way to cut the … Con



Quidditch J.K. Rowling•
37Gizmodo / 11h
Quidditch players from across the globe are ready to deliver a bludger to the name of the sport they so deeply love , thanks in part to You-Know-Who. No, not Voldemort, but J.K. Rowling, a woman now known for needlessly expressing transphobic views who created the sport for her Harry Potter book series. Read more...



SlashGear / 11h
Image credit: Miguel Lagoa/Shutterstock As we prepare to close out 2021, it’s time to look back on the games that defined the year. The COVID-19 pandemic claimed release date through release date as we moved through 2021, but the games industry kept chugging away. Despite the fact that the year’s release schedule was in a constant state of flux, we still received a number … Continue reading



To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PST, subscribe here . Hello and welcome to Daily Crunch for Monday, December 20! Now deep into the second half of December, you’d think that we’d be down to spare news pickings. Not a bit of it! We had a 10-figure deal today, an IPO filing and startup news galore. So strap in — no takin



Tesla Free Supercharger•
Mashable / 11h
Tesla has announced the availability of free "supercharging" for its vehicles during the holidays. There are some caveats, though, with the company saying its customers will be able to "charge for free during off‑peak hours at Superchargers along select travel routes in the United States." The free charging will be available from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. local time from Thursday to Sunday. The relevant



Apple AirTag Car One•
100+Mashable / 11h
Imagine you're driving home alone late at night after an evening out at a bar when suddenly your iPhone vibrates. "AirTag Found Moving With You," reads a notification on your iPhone. "The location of this AirTag can be seen by the owner." The roads are empty. There's no other drivers in sight. And as you continue on your drive home, the notification pops up again and again on your iPhone. SEE ALS



Swedish Voi Europe Year•
The European e-scooter market is currently the main battleground for companies playing in the micromobility space, taking advantage as they are of Europe’s relatively compact cities and the desire of populations to move to more sustainable transportation. In 2021, players like Tier, Voi and Dott continued to raise VC backing. But the war for funding is ultimately about who will win in this covete



SpaceX Falcon 9 2021•
Hi, and welcome to Max Q, it’s your former newsletter writer now returned while Aria is out. We just wrapped our TC Sessions: Space 2021 event , but as is often the case in the space biz, things aren’t slowing down just because it’s almost the end of the year. Don’t forget to sign up to get the free newsletter version of Max Q delivered to your inbox. SpaceX breaks a reusability record and record



As someone who lives near a non-hub airport , I’m used to piecing multiple flights together in order to get the perfect trip. Though this is incredibly common when it comes to award flights, it can also be a money-saving strategy on paid trips. After all, airline pricing is a complicated and mysterious thing. It’s not unheard of to save hundreds of dollars by booking two separate tickets to get t



Welcome to wave season — the span between January and March when cruise lines offer some of their lowest fares to travelers planning their sailings for the year ahead. During this time, look for extra-value promotions, such as reduced deposits, two-for-one fares, free fares for the third and fourth passengers in a cabin, free kids fares, gratis airfare, complimentary pre-cruise hotel stays, cabin



0.01% Bitcoin 27% BTC•
Gizmodo / 11h
Cryptocurrency enthusiasts have long espoused the decentralizing and democratizing effects the technology supposedly encourages, but new research detailed in The Wall Street Journal suggests its inequality problems are worse than the United States’ disgraceful performance under the dollar. An incredible feat… Read more...



The BBC found Facebook posts claiming to sell Covid vaccine passes to people who hadn't been jabbed.



Gizmodo / 11h
New Year’s Eve: a time for celebrating, reflecting, and setting new goals. Unless you’re the killer in New Year’s Evil , and then it’s a time to pick off a new victim when the clock strikes midnight in every time zone across America—the ghoulish but inspired gimmick that propels Emmett Alston’s 1980 cult classic . Read more...



Trump Covid Booster•
500+Futurism / 11h
It looks like Trump has finally gone too far for his most ardent supporters — by taking the lifesaving COVID-19 vaccine. During an appearance with disgraced former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly , The Donald admitted that he had in fact received his third jab of the COVID-19 vaccine that he and so many of his fans have cast doubt upon. “ Both the president and I are vaxxed ,” O’Reilly told the crowd



100+The Points Guy / 11h
Editor’s note: This story was updated on Dec. 20 with new information. As of Nov. 28 , Israel has restricted tourists from all countries due to the omicron variant, but will no longer reopen to Americans as soon as Dec. 22. Instead, Israel is keeping the ban on foreigners in place, and is now also banning travel to the United States over fears of the new omicron variant and its rapid spread in Am



Volkswagen Waze Google•
Enlarge Waze has released an update that will now allow EV drivers to add charging stations as destinations, just as the app has done with gas stations for years. Users can search for charging stations or tap icons on the map, and they can also add charging stops along the way. Waze now shows EV chargers on its map—along with ads for Volkswagen's ID.4. (credit: Waze) It’s not clear what took Waze



EdrawMax is a cross-platform diagram software solution available for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Online. It offers a vast amount of templates, themes and vector images to get started making diagrams, infographics, presentations, and graphic design solutions. It covers a broad range of relevant needs from education, business, and engineering industries, meaning you’re covered with being able to prese




Although one in seven people own some type of smartwatch—it’s a gadget I couldn’t really understand. The thought of dropping a couple of hundred dollars on one from Apple or Samsung wasn’t something I couldn’t understand. That is until I spent some time with a cheap smartwatch on my wrist. Read This Article on Review Geek ›



SlashGear / 12h
Apple Apple’s alleged M2 hardware plans for the next couple of years have leaked via Commercial Times, a Chinese website that indicates global chip shortages may have disrupted the company’s roadmap for the near future. Assuming the claims are accurate, the next iteration of Apple Silicon may arrive in the second half of next year with higher-end versions slated to launch … Continue reading



Google Reviews•
I don’t look at average review scores for a hotel property on a site like TripAdvisor. A lot of reviews may be fake, and the reviewers may not have similar tastes or expectations even if they’re real. But there’s another thing that skews ratings: incentives by a property to post great reviews. Hotels that do this will get more positive reviews. That doesn’t mean it’s a better hotel. Continue read



Editor’s note: This is a recurring post, regularly updated with new information. Towing child car seats and strollers through airports and around the world isn’t the most glamorous part of family travel. Thankfully, there are ways that savvy parents can minimize both the hassle and expense of transporting this gear. Here are some basic facts about traveling with a car seat or stroller, and a few



Oracle Cerner $28B•
Cerner is No. 2 in the electronic health record business with 25 percent of the market.



21TechCrunch / 12h
Enterprise software companies are suddenly focused firmly on healthcare. If you want proof, look at how Oracle and Microsoft both backed up trucks loaded with money to buy health tech companies this year. At the moment, I’m compiling the top 10 M&A deals of the year, and the top two transactions are today’s $28.3 billion agreement by Oracle to buy Cerner and Microsoft’s $19.7 billion deal to buy



US Biden EPA 2026 Trump•
200+Engadget / 12h
On Monday, the Biden administration finalized new fuel efficiency standards designed to limit greenhouse gas emissions put out by passenger vehicles. By 2026, the Environmental Protection Agency will require that automaker fleets travel an average of about 55 miles per gallon, up from the 37 miles per gallon standard they’re held to as of this year. The agency estimates the policy will save Ameri



I don’t know why I thought monthly roundups of what’s new on Paramount+ were a good idea, or even necessary. I mean, I guess I do: Sure, the first few months of offerings from the former CBS All Access were pretty anemic, but amid the pandemic, they announced plans to release their films simultaneously on streaming… Read more...



J. W. S. Telescope•
500+Futurism / 12h
Countdown Astronomers are counting down the days until the launch of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) later this week — and anxiety surrounding the long-awaited launch is starting to creep up as well . The massive project has been in development for decades and has cost the agency around $10 billion. The very real possibility of something going wrong is really starting to keep astronomers



2KFuturism / 12h
Famed science educator Bill Nye has yet again issued a warning to the world: if we keep burning coal at higher and higher rates every year, all of South Florida is going to sink into the sea. In an interview with CNN discussing the melting of the “doomsday glaci


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