Tech Meme

Ryan Vlastelica / Bloomberg: Analysis: Alphabet’s shares have jumped about 30% from a September low, with a chunk of those gains coming after Google unveiled its Willow quantum chip  —  – Breakthrough isn’t a revenue driver but showed tech prowess  — The shares are up 40% this year and are trading near a record Lees verder op Tech Meme

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: Appfigures: global consumer spending in mobile apps on the App Store and Google Play rose 15.7% YoY to $127.3B in 2024, but app downloads dropped 2.3% to 109.7B  —  The global app economy continued to recover in 2024, after an earlier slowdown in 2022 — at least in terms of consumer spending. Lees verder op Tech Meme

Romain Dillet / TechCrunch: Lens, a high-performance layer-2 blockchain developed by Avara for consumer apps, raised $31M led by Lightspeed Faction, and plans to launch Lens v3 in Q1 2025  —  Avara, the company behind Aave, Lens and Family, is announcing a $31 million funding round led by Lightspeed Faction. Lees verder op Tech Meme

Vince Dioquino / Decrypt: El Salvador to scale back its bitcoin efforts under an agreement for a $1.4B IMF loan; bitcoin acceptance will no longer be mandatory for the private sector  —  Under the agreement, El Salvador will make Bitcoin acceptance voluntary for the private sector while restricting public sector involvement. Lees verder op Tech Meme

Vince Dioquino / Decrypt: El Salvador agrees to scale back its bitcoin efforts, including making acceptance of bitcoin voluntary for the private sector, in exchange for a $1.4B IMF loan  —  Under the agreement, El Salvador will make Bitcoin acceptance voluntary for the private sector while restricting public sector involvement. Lees verder op Tech Meme

Deadline: Two Tencent-appointed Epic board directors resigned after the DOJ expressed antitrust concerns; Tencent also gave up its right to appoint future Epic directors  —  Two board members of Epic Games have resigned amid Justice Department concerns over antitrust concerns. Lees verder op Tech Meme

Bloomberg: Sources: neobank Chime confidentially files for a US IPO, aiming to go public in 2025; Chime had a $25B valuation in August 2021  —  – Fintech was last valued at $25 billion in 2021 tech boom  — Chime aims to disrupt banking with digital fee-free offering Lees verder op Tech Meme

Emma Roth / The Verge: Threads rolls out a way to reshare photos and videos without quote posting, but still crediting the original poster; users can turn off the resharing feature  —  Threads is rolling out a new feature that lets you share someone’s photos and videos without including the original post. Lees verder op Tech Meme

Harry McCracken / Fast Company: Flipboard launches Surf, an app for creating custom feeds from Mastodon, Threads, Bluesky, RSS, podcasts, and YouTube, in beta for Android, iOS, and iPadOS  —  Fourteen years ago, when the iPad was new and bursting with unfulfilled promise, an app called Flipboard debuted. Lees verder op Tech Meme

Bloomberg: Sources: Amazon delayed RTO dates for some staff in at least seven cities, like Austin, Dallas, and Phoenix, by up to four months, citing a lack of office space  —  – Company is struggling to find space in at least seven cities  — Start dates are being pushed back as much as four months Lees verder op Tech Meme