Tech Meme

TechCrunch: London-based Smart, which helps employers and employees manage their pensions, raised a $95M Series E led by Aquiline; reports said Smart sought to raise $123M  —  Smart, a London-based startup that helps employers and their employees manage and monitor their pensions, said that it has closed $95 million in Series E funding. Lees verder op Tech Meme

Jared Newman / Fast Company: Pluto TV co-founder Ilya Pozin’s Telly opens a waitlist to give away 500,000 55-inch 4K HDR TVs in 2023 with a second screen that constantly shows ads  —  Would you take a free TV if it constantly ran banner ads beneath everything you watched?  —  That’s the proposition for Telly … Lees verder op Tech Meme

Emily Nicolle / Bloomberg: A survey of 60 major crypto companies in Q1 on the state of governance and controls finds many operate outside the norm; around half engage an external auditor  —  Before it filed for bankruptcy last November, many of the entities in Sam Bankman-Fried’s colossal FTX empire had never held a board meeting. Lees verder op Tech Meme

Tage Kene-Okafor / TechCrunch: Kenya-based M-KOPA, an asset financing service offering African customers access to “productive assets” and digital payments, raised $55M equity and $200M+ debt  —  M-KOPA, the asset financing platform that offers underbanked African customers access to “productive assets” … Lees verder op Tech Meme

Associated Press: The TSA is testing facial recognition tech at 16 US airports, calling the pilot voluntary and accurate, as critics raise bias, privacy, and consent concerns  —  A passenger walks up to an airport security checkpoint, slips an ID card into a slot and looks into a camera atop a small screen. Lees verder op Tech Meme

Khari Johnson / Wired: At I/O 2023, Google Assistant was an afterthought, superseded by Bard, a notable omission after Assistant took center stage at multiple previous I/O keynotes  —  Google’s generative AI chatbot Bard took center stage at the company’s I/O conference.  The company’s answer to Siri was left backstage. Lees verder op Tech Meme

Stefania Palma / Financial Times: US crypto tsar Eun Young Choi says the DOJ is targeting exchanges alongside “mixers and tumblers” to stop illicit behavior, aiming to “send a deterrent message”  —  The justice department is stepping up scrutiny of an industry wracked by scandal and volatility Lees verder op Tech Meme

Randall Chase / Associated Press: A Delaware judge rules in favor of Oracle founder Larry Ellison in a shareholder lawsuit alleging the company overpaid for Netsuite’s $9.3B acquisition in 2016  —  A Delaware judge has ruled in favor of Oracle founder Larry Ellison in a shareholder lawsuit alleging that he coerced … Lees verder op Tech Meme

Malcolm Harris / Wired: A profile of Douglas Rushkoff, an internet theorist since the 1990s and a former techno-optimist who all but renounced being a digital revolution spokesperson  —  The former techno-optimist has taken a decisive political left turn.  He says it’s the only human option. Lees verder op Tech Meme

Maysoon Khan / Associated Press: New York AG Letitia James says three companies accused of falsifying millions of public comments to back the FCC’s 2017 net neutrality repeal will pay $615K  —  Three companies accused of falsifying millions of public comments to support the contentious 2017 federal repeal of net neutrality rules … Lees verder op Tech Meme