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Google cancels half the projects at its internal R&D group Area 120
Google CEO Sundar Pichai, speaking at the Code Conference last week, suggested the tech company needed to become 20% more efficient — a comment some in the industry took to…
Hotel giant IHG blames cyberattack for booking systems outage
IHG runs 6,000 hotels in over 100 countries and serves more than 150 million guests each year.
Welcome back to Chain Reaction. Last week, we talked about privacy in crypto and how it’s sometimes at odds with regulation. This week, we’re covering…
Kickstarter sent password reset emails to millions of users, but didn’t tell anyone why
Crowdfunding website Kickstarter sparked fears overnight of a possible security incident after the company sent unsolicited password reset emails to millions of users without prior explanation. The emails, seen by…
Snapchat officially introduces parental controls through a new ‘Family Center’ feature
Snapchat today is rolling out its first set of parental controls, after announcing last October it was developing tools that would allow parents to gain better visibility into how their…
Twilio hacked by phishing campaign targeting internet companies
Communications giant Twilio has confirmed hackers accessed customer data after successfully tricking employees into handing over their corporate login credentials. The San Francisco-based company, which allows users to build voice…
Salesforce shutters Hong Kong office, leans on Alibaba in China
Salesforce is repositioning itself in China as it looks to expand the reach of its customer relationship management software in the country. The company is “accelerating” its strategic partnership with…
German semiconductor giant Semikron says hackers encrypted its network
Semikron, a German manufacturer that produces semiconductors for electric vehicles and industrial automation systems, has confirmed it has fallen victim to a cyberattack that has resulted in data encryption. “Semikron…
Pinterest debuts a new app, Shuffles, for collage-making and moodboards
Pinterest may be best known for shopping inspiration and design ideas, but the company’s newest product wants to inspire its users to tap into their own creativity. The company has…
Massage-booking platform Urban responds to reports of alleged sexual assaults by some therapists
Urban, a popular U.K.-based startup that allows customers to find self-employed massage therapists who can be booked to attend customers’ homes, has been named in an investigation into alleged abuse…
Unity is merging with ironSource in an all-stock deal valuing Ironsource at $4.4B in a big consolidation play for gaming
Update: The companies have confirmed the news here. ironSource is being valued at $4.4 billion in the all-stock deal. Part of the transaction will also involve Silver Lake and Sequoia,…
Twitter lays off 30% of its talent acquisition team
Twitter laid off 30% of its talent acquisition team today, two months into a companywide hiring freeze. A Twitter spokesperson confirmed these layoffs but declined to share the exact number…
Cybersecurity startups, once the VC darling, hammered by layoffs
On the face of it, the cybersecurity sector is doing just fine. Demand for cybersecurity products remains high as cyberattacks continue to blight both public and private-sector businesses, and investor…
An Apple store in Maryland makes history by forming the company’s first recognized union
As several Apple stores across the country fight to unionize, workers in Towson, Maryland became the first to win formal recognition. Out of 110 eligible employees, the union received 65…
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Thousands of Mobike users’ passports and IDs exposed online
A massive trove of more than 120,000 passports, drivers licenses and identity documents uploaded by users of bike-sharing service Mobike have been found online. Security researcher Bob Diachenko found the data in an unprotected Amazon-hosted storage bucket on February 11 and passed details to TechCrunch in an effort to get the…
Athleisure icon Ty Haney raises $9.8M in fresh funding for her blockchain rewards startup
Outdoor Voices founder Ty Haney made a name for herself by making sportswear the hottest trend among non-athletes. Now, the 33-year-old entrepreneur is betting she…
Kim Kardashian lends her taste buds to Beyond Meat as first chief taste consultant
She will also be featured in a new campaign touting her recipes for using Beyond Meat and other creative content.
Anduril is raising up to $1.2B, sources say at a $7B pre-money valuation, for its defense tech
Technology built to improve state resilience — be it in the form of cybersecurity, energy independence, national defense or something else entirely — has come into stronger focus in the…
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A group of Activision Blizzard workers vote to unionize
After months of organizing, the quality assurance testers at Raven Software, a division of gaming giant Activision Blizzard, have voted to unionize. This marks the first union at a major gaming company in the U.S. Administered through the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the vote passed 19-3 and two ballots…
Zola, a wedding planning startup that allows couples to create websites, budgets and gift registries, has confirmed that hackers gained access to user accounts but has denied a breach of…
Buffalo shooter invited others to his private Discord ‘diary’ 30 minutes before attack
Discord has provided more insight into how the shooter who opened fire in a Buffalo, New York supermarket over the weekend used its service prior to the tragic act of…
Three senior Twitter employees leave amid potential Musk takeover
As Elon Musk tweets poop emojis at Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal, it appears that some of the platform’s executives are ready to move on. According to a Bloomberg report,…
YouTube Shorts gains a TikTok-like ‘Green Screen’ feature
YouTube is expanding on its latest feature that made any public YouTube video potential fodder for its TikTok competitor, YouTube Shorts. Today, the company is announcing the launch of “Green…
Paddle, the company that wants to take on Apple in IAP, raises $200M at a $1.4B valuation to supercharge SaaS payments
Software as a service has become the default for how organizations adopt and use apps these days, thanks to advances in cloud computing and networking, and the flexibility of pay-as-you-use…
Netflix layoffs hit Tudum, its editorial arm, just five months after launch
Netflix laid off a contingent of its editorial staff just five months after launching its in-house publication Tudum. Netflix declined to share further details, but said that the Tudum is…
NLRB rules Activision Blizzard’s first union at Raven Software can vote for recognition
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ruled today that the first union at a major U.S. gaming company can file for a formal union election. In January, the quality assurance…
Bosch picks up Five.ai after the self-driving startup pivoted to B2B and then put itself up for sale
Consolidation is moving ahead in the world of autonomous driving, with the latest development coming out of Europe. Today, Bosch announced that it would be acquiring Five.ai, the autonomous driving…
Apple pilot tests feature that allows developers to automatically charge users for subscription price increases
Apple may be changing how iOS subscriptions operate when price increases are involved. Recently, some developers noticed that the streaming service Disney+ was seemingly only informing users of upcoming price…
Block confirms Cash App breach after former employee accessed US customer data
Block has confirmed a data breach involving a former employee who downloaded reports from Cash App that contained some U.S. customer information. In a filing with the Securities and Exchange…
Google Meet gets in-meeting reactions, PiP, end-to-end encryption and more
Google announced a major update to Google Meet today that includes a number of long-requested features and plenty that you didn’t even know you needed. There is a long list…
