Bfree, a Nigerian startup enabling lenders recover debt ethically, gets $3M backing

February 29, 2024

Bfree, a tech-enabled debt collection startup based in Nigeria, was founded to automate and introduce ethical debt recovery processes after its founders witnessed the use and adverse effects of aggressive retrieval techniques, such as incessant calling and debt-shaming, by predatory digital lenders. After its launch in 2020, the startup introduced a number of scalable debt […]

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Mastodon users can now share their profile via QR code on Android

February 29, 2024

Decentralized social network Mastodon has updated its official app for Android to let users easily share their profiles with QR Codes. This could be useful in loud places like event and hotel lobbies to exchange profiles, the company said in a blog post. To share the QR code, users can go to their profile tab […]

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Meta’s ‘consent or pay’ data grab in EU faces fresh charges of privacy coercion

February 29, 2024

A controversial move by Meta last year, when it switched to charging users in the Europe Union for an ad-free subscription for access Facebook and/or Instagram unless they agreed to be tracked and profiled so it could keep running its attention-mining microtargeting ad business, has triggered a set of complaints from consumer rights groups. The […]

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Reliance-Disney India media merger to control 85% of streaming, half of TV audience

February 29, 2024

The merger of Indian media assets of Reliance, its portfolio Viacom18 and Disney will create an entity that captures 85% of the country’s on-demand streaming service audience and about half of the TV viewers, analysts said, posing bigger challenges to Netflix, Amazon’s Prime Video, Apple, Sony and Zee. The merger, which is scheduled to complete […]

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OpenCTI maker Filigran raises $16 million for its cybersecurity threat management suite

February 29, 2024

Paris-based cybersecurity startup Filigran is capitalizing on the success of OpenCTI to build a suite of open-source threat management products. The company has already found some early traction with OpenCTI, its open-source threat intelligence platform. That’s why the company recently raised €15 million (around $16 million at today’s exchange rate) in a funding round led […]

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‘Taiwan needs to find its own groove’: what startups want from the next president

February 29, 2024

Once Lai Ching-te is inaugurated as Taiwan’s president in May, his administration will mark an unprecedented three terms of Democratic Progressive Party rule. His victory underscored the desire of voters to maintain the status quo, even as Taiwan continues to deal with the looming specter of China. Soon after he was elected in January, Lai […]

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X goes to court in Elon Musk’s war against an anti-hate research org

February 29, 2024

Elon Musk’s crusade against the extremism research organization the Center for Countering Digital Hate will have its day in court on Thursday. Elon Musk and X sued the CCDH last year, accusing it of “actively working to assert false and misleading claims about X.” The nonprofit, formed in 2018, conducts research on social media platforms […]

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Rocket Lab has ‘misrepresented’ Neutron launch readiness, congressional memo says

February 28, 2024

An internal congressional memo viewed by TechCrunch casts strong doubt on Rocket Lab’s claim that its Neutron rocket will be ready for launch in time to meet a crucial contract deadline from the Space Force. “In light of public reporting and media pressure, Rocket Lab has escalated their campaign to misrepresent their launch readiness in […]

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Gemini on Android can’t ID songs, and it’s frustrating

February 28, 2024

If it wasn’t clear before that Google’s Gemini chatbot was rushed out the door, it is now. Gemini’s since-removed image generator put people of color in Nazi-era uniforms. The chatbot’s commentary continues to tend toward the absurd besides, like equating Hitler’s record with Elon Musk posting memes. On Android, Gemini also breaks Google Assistant’s song […]

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The Apple Car that never was: a timeline

February 28, 2024

Apple’s secretive car project died without ever seeing the light of day. It’s a fitting end, considering we’ve collectively spent the last decade aware of it without really knowing too much about what the tech colossus was planning.  Neither has Apple, apparently. Dozens of contemporaneous reports over that span clued the public into the vague […]

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