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South Korean prosecutors indict Lee Jae-yong on alleged stock and accounting fraud over a 2015 merger. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/3lBNjuf

The popular video conferencing app has seen a 458% jump in customer growth compared with last year. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2YRjmg4

Content creators say OnlyFans has slashed incomes by placing caps on prices charged on the platform. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/3lxexCt

The social media giant is preparing for a new law that would force it to pay publishers for news articles. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2DhBl7V

By BY DAISUKE WAKABAYASHI AND MIKE ISAAC from NYT Technology https://ift.tt/32KSNdo

Another busy week in cybersecurity. In case you missed it: A widely used messaging app used by over a million protesters has several major security flaws; a little-known loophole has let the DMV sell driver’s licenses and Social Security records to private investigators; and the U.S. government is suing to reclaim over $2.5 million in cryptocurrency stolen by North Korean hackers from two major exchanges. But this week we are focusing on how a Tesla employee foiled a ransomware attack, and, ahead of Palantir’s debut on the stock market, how much of a risk factor is the company’s public image? THE BIG PICTURE Russian charged with attempted Tesla ransomware attack $1 million. That’s how much a Tesla employee would have netted if they accepted a bribe from a Russian operative to install malware on Tesla’s Gigafactory network in Nevada. Instead, the employee told the FBI and the Russian was arrested. The Justice Department charged the 27-year-old Russian, Egor Igorevich, weeks

With Dorian , co-founder and CEO Julia Palatovska said she’s hoping to empower fiction writers and other storytellers to create their own games. The startup is announcing that it has raised $3.15 million in seed funding led by March Capital Partners, with participation from VGames, Konvoy Ventures, London Venture Partners, Michael Chow (co-creator of the Twitch series “Artificial”), Andover Ventures and talent management company Night Media. Palatskova previously worked in gaming as the head of business development at G5 Entertainment, and she said she’d also become entranced by narrative games and interactive fiction. And while there are existing interactive fiction platforms, she saw “an opportunity that I felt was missing,” particularly in the fact that those platforms are “entirely single player, with no opportunity to play and collaborate with other people.” So she gave me a quick tour of the Dorian platform, showing me how, without coding, a writer can essentially design ch

Once upon a time, fintech founders could pitch 10 investors before closing a round in a relatively hushed way. Entrepreneurs could even ask VCs to sign nondisclosure agreements (NDAs) to keep their information confidential. Today, everyone is a fintech investor and no one signs NDAs. This changed dynamic puts founders in a difficult position. Nabeel Alamgir , CEO and founder of Lunchbox , struggled to raise his first institutional check for his restaurant tech startup. After searching for more than a year, Alamgir found an investor who understood his vision. Better yet, the investor had connections to restaurants in New York City that Alamgir wanted to land. So, Alamgir shared everything about Lunchbox, from the financials, to the product integration road map and go-to-market strategy. After a month of due diligence, the investor ghosted Alamgir. Four months later, that same investor’s portfolio company launched a product mimicking Lunchbox. “I did not do due diligence on them a

Traditional roadmaps for startups center around this idea of the exit. Oftentimes, the ideal exit in the minds of startups and venture capitalists goes one of two ways: IPO or acquisition by another company. But there are other ways for startups to exit that could potentially bring more value to a larger variety of stakeholders. Exit to Community (E2C), a collaborative working project led by the University of Colorado Boulder’s Media Enterprise Design Lab and Zebras Unite, explores ways to help startups transition investor-owned to community ownership, which could include users, customers, workers or some combination of all stakeholders.  Today, the group released a digital and physical zine designed to serve as an introduction to Exit to Community. “The purpose of the zine is to provide an initial roadmap to all of the aspects of the conversation that need to happen so we can save founders pain in recognizing and validating they’re in the wrong fit and we need to co-create what doe

By BY SHIRA OVIDE from NYT Technology https://ift.tt/34Nfal9

Apple has some of the strictest rules to prevent malicious software from landing in its app store, even if on occasion a bad app slips through the net . But last year Apple took its toughest approach yet by requiring developers to submit their apps for security checks in order to run on millions of Macs unhindered. The process, which Apple calls “notarization,” scans an app for security issues and malicious content. If approved, the Mac’s in-built security screening software, Gatekeeper, allows the app to run. Apps that don’t pass the security sniff test are denied, and are blocked from running. But security researchers say they have found the first Mac malware inadvertently notarized by Apple. Peter Dantini, working with Patrick Wardle, a well-known Mac security researcher, found a malware campaign disguised as an Adobe Flash installer. These campaigns are common and have been around for years — even if Flash is rarely used these days — and most run unnotarized code, which Macs

RealPage , a publicly traded full-service property management technology firm with over 12,200 clients worldwide, today announced that it has acquired Stratis IoT ,  a startup that provides IoT services to the real estate industry, with a focus on access and energy management tools. “RealPage aims to become a leading provider in the burgeoning rental property automation market, and thereby create significant opportunity for operators to increase rents, improve sustainability, add operational efficiencies, reduce operating costs and enhance the customer experience for the company’s approximately 19 million units throughout the United States,” said RealPage CEO Steve Winn. “The smart building technology also provides a launching pad for expanded international operations, thanks to Stratis’ existing international presence.” Stratis is currently installed in about 380,000 homes in the U.S., Japan, UK and several countries in Europe and Latin America. Both Stratis and RealPage target a w

As a business model, SaaS has expanded to epic size. A number of major SaaS companies filed to go public last week , and there are now thousands of SaaS startups growing all around the world. That scale makes it easier for banks and financial institutions to offer tailored solutions to this market around everything from equity to debt. We’ve talked a bit about SaaS securitization the last few weeks, a crop of new financial products that use the metrics of a SaaS company to underwrite its debt (e.g. better churn = more debt available and at better terms) as opposed to traditional benchmarks like total revenue and company age. We also did a deep dive with Kentik CEO Avi Freedman on how he approached his recent venture debt fundraise and the terms he got across his five term sheets. SaaS securitization will disrupt VC’s biggest returns this coming decade Every SaaS company these days is considering its financial options and the tradeoffs between equity and debt. But sometimes,

Semalytix , a Bielefeld, Germany-based startup that offers pharmaceutical companies an AI-powered data tool to better understand real-world patient experiences, has raised €4.3 million in Series A funding. Leading the round is venture capital firm btov Partners, with participation from existing investor Fly Ventures and several unnamed angels. Semalytix will use the injection of cash to expand its business development with pharma companies and the wider healthcare market. Founded in 2015 as a spin-out of research group Semantic Computing, Semalytix pitches itself as a data and AI analytics startup that wants to bring more real-world evidence to the development of new drugs and treatments. Its flagship product, dubbed “Pharos,” is a patient research tool that pulls in and cleans up various unstructured public data — such as blogs, forums, social media etc. — and then applies algorithms to deliver real-time patient insights into unmet needs, treatment experience and how severely a d

Mumbai-based Eruditus, which works with top universities globally to offer more than 100 executive-level courses to students in over 80 nations, said on Monday it has raised $113 million in a new financing round as it looks to further scale its business to reach more learners. The Series D financing round for the 10-year-old startup was co-led by Leeds Illuminate and Prosus Ventures. Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and existing investors Sequoia India and Ved Capital also participated in the round, which brings Eruditus’ to-date raise to more than $160 million. Eruditus is now valued at over $700 million, a person familiar with the matter said. Avendus Capital was the financial advisor to Eruditus on this transaction. Eruditus maintains a tie-up with over 30 top-tier universities, including MIT, Harvard, Columbia, Cambridge, INSEAD, Wharton, UC Berkeley, IIT, IIM and NUS. The universities and Eruditus work to develop courses that are aimed at offering higher education to students. These

TC Sessions: Mobility 2020 kicks off in 37 days, but the countdown clock on early-bird pricing runs out in just five. Engage with the mobility community’s brightest minds, makers, visionaries and investors from around the globe on October 6-7. Buy your early-bird pass before the bird expires September 4 at 11:59 p.m. (PDT), and you’ll save $100 over full price. Why attend TC Sessions: Mobility 2020? It offers beaucoup benefits, but let’s start here. Whether you’re launching a mobility startup or you’re an established player, you’ll gain valuable insight to help position and grow your business. “I learned a lot from the breakout sessions. An official from the Los Angeles DOT spoke about the city’s plan to build pathways for micro mobility vehicles. Access to experts sharing that kind of information is essential for anyone launching a micro mobility startup. — Parug Demircioglu, CEO at Invemo and partner at Nito Bikes.” “As a mobility company, we need to stay on the cutting edge of

In last week’s IPO wave , one company fell a bit by the wayside amongst filings from better-known companies like Asana and Palantir . JFrog, a company that TechCrunch reported helps allows developers and companies deliver application updates “in the background without disturbing the user experience” when it raised $165 million in 2018, is positioned for an exciting debut. Why? The unicorn — the same 2018 round valued JFrog at around $1.2 billion according to PitchBook data — has a unique blend of growth, margins and profitability that should make its pricing cycle incredibly interesting. The Exchange explores startups, markets and money. You can read it every morning on Extra Crunch , or get The Exchange newsletter every Saturday. JFrog will give us an insight into how Wall Street will value a fast-growing, managed software company that also doesn’t lose money. It’s not something we see often, and other market hopefuls like the aforementioned Asana and Palantir are far from s

Tired of signing up for email newsletters ? Then maybe it’s time to try out  The New Paper ‘s news digest, which arrives in the form of a daily text message rounding up the biggest headlines. The Indianapolis-based startup is announcing that it’s leaving private beta testing. It raised $300,000 in pre-seed funding last year, including $80,000 from a pitch competition held by Elevate Ventures (the VC fund based by Indiana State). Founders Michael Aft and John Necef told me that they started The New Paper with the intention of creating  email newsletters at first (something Necef has experience with, having served as head of growth at The Hustle ), but they decided that text messages offered the best way to, in Aft’s words, “do daily news right.” “Think about the volume of email you get everyday,” he continued. “It’s this stressful, noisy, environment where you get spam and e-commerce messages. Text is easy, it’s clean, it’s extremely convenient, it’s intimate.” In fact, Necef sai

Yegor Zhukov, who is critical of President Putin, narrowly avoided prison last year. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/34PT3L8

Hello and welcome back to  Equity , TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. This is Equity Monday, our weekly kickoff that tracks the latest big news, chats about the coming week, digs into some recent funding rounds and mulls over a larger theme or narrative from the private markets. You can follow the show on Twitter  here , and myself  here , and don’t forget to check out  last Friday’s episode . This weekend was a welcome reprieve from last week’s insane news cycle inside the world of technology and money. If you are still catching your breath from the Great IPO Wave of last Monday , we feel you. Here’s what we got into this morning: The TikTok sale could be in trouble, this time due to China changing its rules on sales of tech firms that have certain algorithms. TikTok parent company Bytedance intends to comply with the rules , but what impact the news could have the sale of the social service is unclear as of yet, thou

By BY SHIRA OVIDE from NYT Technology https://ift.tt/3bcg2kq

New rules mean Beijing could block the sale of the app's video recommendation engine. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2ENqH9d

The US government had expressed concerns that China might steal data carried by the cable. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/31KRQCV

The new update is available to drivers in the US with Autopilot activated. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2QGdZfe

SockSoho co-founder Pritika Mehta with some of the company’s socks SockSoho is a direct-to-consumer brand that aspires to become the “Uniqlo of India.” The company launched sales ten months ago, starting with men’s socks, and recently completed Y Combinator’s Summer 2020 program . Founded by Pritika Mehta, a data scientist who has worked at companies including TripAdvisor, and growth marketer Simarpreet Singh, SockSoho now has more than 30,000 customers, and plans to launch into new menswear verticals soon. Before launching SockSoho, Mehta and Singh worked together on MindBatteries , a technology and content IP provider whose corporate clients have included The Times of India, The Economic Times, Mercedes, Infosys, the World Economic Forum and Uber. The two are relying on several factors for SockSoho’s growth: India’s position as one of the largest and fastest-growing e-commerce companies in the world and the company’s in-house technology, which will include proprietary chatbot

India is declared joint winner with Russia after two players lost connection during the final round. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2QzYB3W

Cambridge University Library adds high-resolution images of its collection to a free culture site. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/34OmpcQ

AirAsia’s Tony Fernandes is expanding into banking, music and e-payments to help tackle the travel slump. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/31HAbMf

Taxpayer money was used to pay influencers to promote Test and Trace. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/3bdp94k

Christian Kroll is the boss of Ecosia, which donates 80% of its profits to tree-planting projects. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2YPoIZg

A breeding ground for European entrepreneurs, Berlin has a knack for producing a lot of new startups: the city attracts top international, diverse talent, and it is packed with investors, events and accelerators. Also important: it’s a more affordable place to live and work when compared to many other cities in the region. Berlin ranked 10th place in the 2019 Global Ecosystem Report, trailing behind only two other European cities: London and Paris. It’s home to unicorns such as N26, Zalando, HelloFresh and pioneers of the scene such as SoundCloud. Top VCs include Earlybird, Point Nine, Project A, Rocket Internet, Holtzbrinck Ventures and accelerators such as Axel Springer Plug and Play Accelerator, hub:raum and The Family. To get a sense of how the novel coronavirus has changed the landscape, we asked ten investors to give us an insight into their thinking during these pivotal times: Jeannette zu Fürstenberg , founding partner, La Famiglia Jorge Fonturbel , associate, Target Gl

Welcome back to The TechCrunch Exchange , a weekly startups-and-markets newsletter. It’s broadly based on the daily column that appears on Extra Crunch , but free, and made for your weekend reading. ( You can sign up for the newsletter here! ) Ready? Let’s talk money, startups and spicy IPO rumors. The week’s biggest IPO news had nothing to do with Monday’s S-1 deluge During Monday’s IPO wave I was surprised to see Asana join the mix.  After news had broken in June that the company had raised hundreds of millions in convertible debt, I hadn’t guessed that the productivity unicorn wouldn’t give us an S-1 in the very next quarter. I was contentedly wrong. But the reason why Asana’s IPO is notable isn’t really much to do with the company itself, though do take the time to dig into its results and history .  What matters about Asana’s debut is that it appears set to test out a model that, until very recently, could have become the new, preferred way of going public amongst