Bharti will become BT’s biggest shareholder after buying a 25%, $4B stake from Altice

BT, the U.K.’s former incumbent telecoms carrier, is picking up a major new investor today as telecoms companies look for stronger footing in the rapidly shifting technology and communications market. Bharti, the Indian tech and telecoms giant that owns Airtel, said it would purchase a 24.5%

Elon Musk’s X targeted with nine privacy complaints after grabbing EU users’ data for training Grok

X, the social media platform owned by Elon Musk, has been targeted with a series of privacy complaints after it helped itself to the data of users in the European Union for training AI models without asking people’s consent. Late last month an eagle-eyed social media user spotted a setting i

India’s Kazam powers up to roll out EV charging in Southeast Asia

EV charging station startup Kazam plans to expand beyond India, where it already holds a significant share of the market, and into Southeast Asia to gain an early mover’s advantage, technewss has exclusively learned. The Bengaluru-headquartered startup, which has offices in Delhi and Pune a

Why Scott Painter is selling a beach house to start a new vehicle software company

Serial entrepreneur Scott Painter's plan to build an all-electric vehicle subscription company called Autonomy has not worked out. So he's pivoting once again to what he calls the “hardest build” of his career. While Autonomy will continue operating the small 1,000-car fleet it assembl

How CNH's ‘black belt’ M&A head makes deals

Heavy equipment manufacturer CNH Industrial has a long history of mergers and acquisitions, at times supervising legendary brands like Ferrari. But five years ago, as agtech was booming, the global giant was struggling to tap into the startup scene.  The conglomerate turned to one of its long

Open source tools to boost your productivity

For every yin, there’s a yang; for every action, a reaction; and for every piece of proprietary software, there’s an open source alternative. Or something like that. The issue of “openness” in technology has rarely been so front and center in the public consciousness as it

Oyo valuation crashes over 75% in new funding

The valuation of Oyo, once India’s second-most valuable startup at $10 billion, has dipped to $2.4 billion in a new funding round, multiple sources told technewss. The Gurugram-headquartered startup, which operates a chain of budget hotels, has raised $173.5 million in a Series G funding.

As Alexa turns 10, Amazon looks to generative AI

Amazon loses money on Echo smart speakers. It's been an open secret for the duration of Alexa's existence. It's the product of the kind of loss leader strategy only a company of Amazon's size can get away with for a decade. Selling hardware at a loss can be an effective strategy, o

Redfin CEO promises to 'drink our own urine' if mortgage rates don't fall

He really said that: When asked about the company's “Plan B” if mortgage rates don't fall, Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman responded, “Plan B is to drink our own urine or our competitors’ blood, stay in the foxhole.” This wasn't at some informal, off-the-record gathering. It was

Turkey restores access to Instagram

Turkey appears to have restored access to Meta-owned Instagram, after blocking the app on August 2.  Abdulkadir Uraloglu, the country's minister of transport and infrastructure, posted today that the ban would be lifted at 9:30 p.m. Turkish time.  Cybersecurity monitor NetBl

OpenAI faces more leadership shake-ups

OpenAI co-founder John Schulman has left the company for rival AI startup Anthropic. In addition, OpenAI co-founder and president Greg Brockman is taking an extended leave after nine years at the company to “relax and recharge.” Schulman said his decision stemmed from a desire to deepen his foc

Maybe Friend wasn’t crazy for spending $1.8M on a domain after all

When AI companion startup Friend revealed it had spent $1.8 million on buying the www.friend.com domain name last week, it set off a debate around what exactly branding is worth, and how startups should be spending cash. Founders of other companies like Loom and Public came forward to share stories

One man decided to take on Google Maps; 20 years later OpenStreetMap is still going strong

From internet protocols and operating systems, to databases and cloud services, some technology is so omnipresent most people don’t even know it exists. The same can be said about OpenStreetMap, the community-driven platform that serves companies and software developers with geographic data a

The 10 largest GDPR fines on Big Tech

The state of enforcement of the European Union’s flagship privacy regime, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), on the most powerful tech giants remains a topic of ongoing debate. Below we’ve compiled a list of the 10 largest GDPR fines imposed on Big Tech since the regulation