News

Justine Calma / The Verge: Oceana: Amazon created 208M lbs of US plastic packaging waste in 2022, up 9.6% YoY: Amazon says it reduced plastic packaging use by 11.6% YoY globally in 2022  —  Despite making pledges to cut down… Read More »Oceana: Amazon created 208M lbs of US plastic packaging waste in 2022, up 9.6% YoY: Amazon says it reduced plastic packaging use by 11.6% YoY globally in 2022 (Justine Calma/The Verge)

Kevin Roose / New York Times: An interview with Andres Freund, a Microsoft database engineer working on PostgreSQL, on discovering the XZ Utils backdoor, doubting his own findings, and more  —  The internet, as anyone who works deep in its… Read More »An interview with Andres Freund, a Microsoft database engineer working on PostgreSQL, on discovering the XZ Utils backdoor, doubting his own findings, and more (Kevin Roose/New York Times)

Mike Wheatley / SiliconANGLE: Google Cloud/Cloud Security Alliance survey of 2,486 IT and security professionals: 63% of security professionals believe AI could help in threat detection  —  Generative artificial intelligence technology is fast finding a home in cybersecurity operations, as… Read More »Google Cloud/Cloud Security Alliance survey of 2,486 IT and security professionals: 63% of security professionals believe AI could help in threat detection (Mike Wheatley/SiliconANGLE)

Jagmeet Singh / TechCrunch: Singapore-based SingleInterface, which helps offline businesses manage and grow their online presence, raised $30M, its first external raise since 2015 founding  —  SingleInterface, a SaaS startup offering tools to offline businesses to grow their revenues by… Read More »Singapore-based SingleInterface, which helps offline businesses manage and grow their online presence, raised $30M, its first external raise since 2015 founding (Jagmeet Singh/TechCrunch)

Business Insider: Meta is testing giving cash bonuses to creators who post engaging content on Threads, as part of an invite-only program  —  – Meta is testing cash bonuses for creators who post engaging content on Threads.  — Threads is… Read More »Meta is testing giving cash bonuses to creators who post engaging content on Threads, as part of an invite-only program (Business Insider)

Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch: X rolls out support for posting Community Notes in India ahead of the 2024 general elections and says the program now has contributors in 69 countries  —  Weeks before the national elections in India, Elon Musk-owned… Read More »X rolls out support for posting Community Notes in India ahead of the 2024 general elections and says the program now has contributors in 69 countries (Ivan Mehta/TechCrunch)

Josh Scott / BetaKit: Toronto-based Brim, which offers credit card and payment tech infrastructure to financial institutions, raised a $85M Series C led by Export Development Canada  —  FinTech firm fuels up to accelerate growth south of the border.  — … Read More »Toronto-based Brim, which offers credit card and payment tech infrastructure to financial institutions, raised a $85M Series C led by Export Development Canada (Josh Scott/BetaKit)

Amrita Khalid / The Verge: X adds blue checks to some large accounts as part of its plan to give free Premium memberships to those with at least 2,500 “verified subscriber followers”  —  Just as Elon Musk said, X is… Read More »X adds blue checks to some large accounts as part of its plan to give free Premium memberships to those with at least 2,500 “verified subscriber followers” (Amrita Khalid/The Verge)

TechCrunch: A look at some exciting startups from day one of YC’s Winter 2024 Demo Day, including those using AI for creating music and helping lawyers review documents  —  Springtime means rain, the return of flowers and, of course, Y… Read More »A look at some exciting startups from day one of YC’s Winter 2024 Demo Day, including those using AI for creating music and helping lawyers review documents (TechCrunch)

Alex Koller / CNBC: Uber Eats rolls out delivery services with Waymo’s self-driving cars in the Phoenix area, Uber’s seventh site with autonomous deliveries and first with Waymo  —  Two Waymo autonomous vehicles drive themselves down Central Avenue in Phoenix,… Read More »Uber Eats rolls out delivery services with Waymo’s self-driving cars in the Phoenix area, Uber’s seventh site with autonomous deliveries and first with Waymo (Alex Koller/CNBC)