India’s VerSe buys Valueleaf to boost digital marketing
VerSe Innovation — India’s media technology unicorn that owns local language news aggregator Dailyhunt, digital newsstand platform Magzter and short-video app Josh — has made an acquisition to square up to the likes of Google and InMobi in the area of digital marketing. It has sco
One busted valve led to the failure of Astrobotic’s $108M Peregrine lunar lander mission
Astrobotic's Peregrine lunar lander failed to reach the moon because of a problem with a single valve in the propulsion system, according to a report on the mission released Tuesday. Company leadership said in a press conference that engineers have redesigned the valve and introduced additional
Meta and Spotify spotted developing a new social music-sharing feature
Meta and Spotify are exploring deeper music integration in Meta’s Instagram app. New findings indicate the companies are testing a feature that would allow users to continuously share what music they’re listening to through Instagram’s Notes.
The new functionality was first spott
How Techstars, Meta helped profitable LatAm startup Mercately raise a $2.6M seed
In Latin American countries like Brazil and Chile, messaging platform WhatsApp has become one of the most popular apps to use to buy things online. It was even the e-commerce platform of choice in the region during the pandemic. But WhatsApp is designed to be a messaging platform, not an e-commerce
Why AI can’t spell ‘strawberry’
How many times does the letter “r” appear in the word “strawberry”? According to formidable AI products like GPT-4o and Claude, the answer is twice.
Large language models (LLMs) can write essays and solve equations in seconds. They can synthesize terabytes of data faster th
The US military’s latest psyop? Advertising on Tinder
The U.S. military is using ads to warn people across Lebanon not to attack the United States or its allies amid rising tensions across the Middle East. Some of those ads have turned up in an unlikely place: the dating app Tinder.
Freelance reporter Séamus Malekafzali posted on X screenshots of th
Just how much cash does Stripe have?
Welcome to technewss Fintech! This week, we're looking at the craziness that is Bolt's proposed fundraise, how much money Synapse's founder has raised for his new venture, just how much cash Stripe has and more.
To get a roundup of technewss's biggest and most important fintech s
Lyft follows in Uber's footsteps with a rider verification program
In an effort to improve its security measures, Lyft announced Tuesday a new rider verification pilot program to help drivers verify riders’ identities and ensure that they are indeed who they say they are.
Starting today, Lyft's new program is rolling out to nine markets,
Creators are angered by Meta’s Spark AR shutdown, saying they’ll be out of work with little notice
Creators are unhappy with Meta’s decision on Tuesday to shut down its Spark platform, which allowed third parties to build augmented reality (AR) effects. In posts published to the Meta Spark Community on Facebook, creators are posting about their disappointment in Meta’s decision, noti
13 years later, Snapchat finally rolls out native support for iPads
Snapchat is officially rolling out native support for iPad, the company announced in the app’s latest release notes. Since Snapchat’s launch in 2011, the social networking app has only been available on iPads as an iPhone app with large black borders around it, not as a native app for t
Chinese government hackers targeted US internet providers with zero-day exploit, researchers say
A group of hackers linked to the Chinese government used a previously unknown vulnerability in software to target U.S. internet service providers, security researchers have found.
The group known as Volt Typhoon was exploiting the zero-day flaw — meaning the software maker was unaware of i
Data infrastructure startup Cribl raises $319M at a $3.5B valuation
San Francisco-based data infrastructure startup Cribl has raised $319 million in a Series E funding tranche led by new investor GV (Alphabet’s corporate venture arm) with participation from GIC, CapitalG, IVP and CRV. Bringing Cribl’s total raised to $600 million, the cash injection val
Apple strikes telecom deals to reach more users in India
Apple has struck a deal with Airtel to provide the Indian telecom giant’s subscribers with exclusive offers for its music streaming service. The partnership, announced on Tuesday, will also see Airtel bundle Apple TV+ for its premium customers in India, while simultaneously shuttering its own
Food delivery is seeing more consolidation: GrubMarket snaps up FreshGoGo
GrubMarket, the $3.6 billion food delivery and supply chain startup backed by Tiger Global, BlackRock and nearly 100 other investors, has snapped up another food delivery startup on its consolidation march: It is acquiring FreshGoGo, a New York-based, B2C platform selling Asian groceries and ready-