How scientists are using quantum squeezing to push the limits of their sensors

February 29, 2024
When two black holes spiral inward and collide, they shake the very fabric of space, producing ripples in space-time that can travel for hundreds of millions of light-years. Since 2015, scientists have been observing these so-called gravitational waves to help them study fundamental questions about the cosmos, including the origin of heavy elements such as…

Meta’s Zuckerberg woos big tech in Asia to double down on AI chips

February 29, 2024

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who is touring Asia countries this week, said in a meeting with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol on Thursday that Meta wants to beef up its cooperation with Samsung Electronics for AI chips to offset geopolitical risk issue in Taiwan, where TSMC, the world’s biggest contract chip manufacturer, is headquartered. […]

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Ex-Meta employees’ Aptos tests Hong Kong’s crypto appetite

February 29, 2024

Ever since Hong Kong legalized cryptocurrency trading last June, blockchain projects from the West have been paying more attention to the Asian financial hub. Aptos, the a16z-backed blockchain network developed by a group of former Meta employees, is one of them. Started by some of the original creators of Meta’s abandoned crypto payment project Diem, […]

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Silence Laboratories, a cryptographic security startup, secures funding

February 29, 2024

Silence Laboratories, a startup that builds infrastructure using multiparty computation (MPC) to help enterprises keep data private and safe, said it has raised a $4.1 million funding round. Pi Ventures and Kira Studio co-led the recent funding, which brings its total raised to $6 million, along with angel investors. The startup will use the funding to scale […]

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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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