Seoul-based payment tech startup CHAI gets $60 million from Hanhwa, SoftBank Ventures Asia

Demand for contactless payments and e-commerce has grown in South Korea during the COVID-19 pandemic. This is good news for payment service operators, but the market is very fragmented, so adding payment options is a time-consuming process for many merchants. CHAI wants to fix this with an API that

Daily Crunch: FTC and 48 state AGs sue Facebook

Facebook faces big antitrust lawsuits, DoorDash and C3.ai go public and YouTube announces new election misinformation policies. This is your Daily Crunch for December 9, 2020. The big story: FTC and 48 state AGs sue Facebook The Federal Trade Commission filed an antitrust lawsuit ag

FTC seeks to break up Facebook, alleging illegal monopoly

The Federal Trade Commission today announced a new antitrust lawsuit against Facebook, alleging that the social network has used monopoly power “with the aim of suppressing, neutralizing and deterring serious competitive threats,” and must be broken up. The suit is separate from, but wa

Streamers, including Netflix and CBS All Access, roll out new family-friendly features

As competition in the streaming service market heats up, services are looking for ways to differentiate their offerings. One area of increased interest — especially in light of fierce competition from newcomer Disney+ — is how to make their services more family-friendly. On this front,

YouTube declares war on US election misinformation… a month late

As Twitter and Facebook scrambled to institute new policies for the 2020 election, YouTube was… mostly quiet. The platform didn’t make any flashy announcements about a crackdown on election-related misinformation, nor did it really fully grapple with its massive role in distributing inf

Automattic, Mozilla, Twitter and Vimeo urge EU to beef up user controls to help tackle ‘legal-but-harmful’ content

Automattic, Mozilla, Twitter and Vimeo have penned an open letter to EU lawmakers urging them to ensure that a major reboot of the bloc’s digital regulations doesn’t end up bludgeoning freedom of expression online. The draft Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act are due to be unv

Xbox cloud gaming coming to iOS and PC in spring 2021

Microsoft has shared some details about the road map for its cloud gaming service. In addition to Android devices, the company confirms that it plans to add support for more platforms. In spring 2021, Microsoft will launch its cloud gaming service on iOS and on computers. Originally called Project

App stores to see 130 billion downloads in 2020 and record consumer spend of $112 billion

Consumers will have downloaded 130 billion apps in 2020 across iOS and Google Play, up 10% year-over-year, according to mobile data and analytics firm App Annie’s year-end forecast. Consumer spending across the two app stores will also grow by 25% year-over-year to reach $112 billion by year

Halo Infinite now scheduled for release in ‘Fall 2021’

We already knew that Halo Infinite was delayed until next year. Initially intended to launch alongside the new Xboxes, Microsoft announced back in August that it would instead ship in 2021. Exactly when in 2021, though, was still anyone’s guess. A new blog post from 343 Industries narrows it

Apple takes aim at adtech hysteria over iOS app tracking change

Apple has used a speech to European lawmakers and privacy regulators today to come out jabbing at what SVP Craig Federighi described as dramatic, “outlandish” and “false” claims being made by the adtech industry over a forthcoming change to iOS that will give users the abili

Cyberpunk 2077 draws criticism for seizure-inducing sequence with no warning or mitigation

One of the biggest games of the year, “Cyberpunk 2077,” is about to be released, but developer CD Projekt Red is already under fire for an early game sequence with the potential to induce seizures. Players with epilepsy should be warned that there is currently no way to skip this, and t

Former Salesforce chief scientist announces new search engine to take on Google

Richard Socher, former chief scientist at Salesforce, who helped build the Einstein artificial intelligence platform, is taking on a new challenge — and it’s a doozy. Socher wants to fix consumer search and today he announced you.com, a new search engine to take on the mighty Google. &#

Christopher Nolan calls HBO Max the ‘worst streaming service’

So, how are filmmakers reacting to the news that Warner Bros. will be releasing all of next year’s movies on HBO Max at the same time that they’re released in theaters? Not too well, according to a story published yesterday in The Hollywood Reporter. While the story includes plenty of a

Snap announces $3.5M fund directed toward AR Lens creation

Snap today announced a new 2021 fund of $3.5 million that will be directed toward supporting Snapchat Lens creators and developers who are using the company’s Lens Studio tool to explore the use of AR technologies. The news kicked off Snap’s multi-day virtual event, Lens Fest, where it