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A nation standing together, in isolation 

The coronavirus crisis brought out the best in Britons, but underlying divides persist




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India says video conference app Zoom is ‘not safe’

India said today Zoom is ‘not a safe platform’ and advised government employees to not use it for official work as the video conference service surges in popularity in many nations including the world’s second largest internet market as billions of people remain stuck at home due to the coronavirus crisis. “Zoom is a not a […]




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Silver Lake to invest $747M in India’s Jio Platforms

Weeks after Facebook invested $5.7 billion in Jio Platforms, India’s top telecom operator, private equity firm Silver Lake is following suit — and is willing to pay a premium for it. Silver Lake announced on Monday it will be investing 56.56 billion Indian rupees (about $746.8 million) in Jio Platforms for about 1.15% stake in the Indian […]




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A spending spree to get the job done

The thrust of the UK chancellor’s Budget is welcome. Yet it will not transform prospects in the near term





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Silicon Valley could be Biden’s funding lifeline post South Carolina

Presidential candidate Joe Biden is likely to throw a fundraising lifeline to Silicon Valley after his commanding South Carolina victory and heading into the next wave of primaries. A pro-Biden Super PAC, Unite the Country — whose past backers include senior tech figures — is picking up efforts to tap wealthy donors, Treasurer Larry Rasky […]




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HireSweet helps employers find candidates that aren’t actively looking to change jobs

The right candidate to fill your job may not actually be looking for a job right now. HireSweet, which is part of Y Combinator’s current class of startups, is trying to help companies find exactly these candidates that are perfect for a job but not actively looking. Like so many other recruiting platforms, the HireSweet […]




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Indian smartphone market grew by 4% in Q1, but projected to decline by 10% this year

India has emerged as one of the fastest growing smartphone markets in the last decade, reporting growth each quarter even as handset shipments slowed or declined elsewhere globally. But the world’s second largest smartphone is beginning to feel the coronavirus heat, too. The Indian smartphone market grew by a modest 4% year-over-year in the quarter […]




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Xiaomi launches Mi Commerce in India to boost sales amid lockdown

Xiaomi today launched a new e-commerce service in India that allows people in the nation to easily browse and order its handsets and other products from nearby physical retail stores as the Chinese giant rushes to kickstart its sales in its biggest overseas market. Dubbed Mi Commerce, the service allows people to locate nearby stores […]




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Xiaomi, Samsung and others begin to resume smartphone production in India

Xiaomi, Vivo, Samsung, Oppo and other smartphone companies have received approval from some state governments in India to partially resume manufacturing and assembling of devices amid the ongoing lockdown in the world’s second largest handset market that completely shut operations at these plants in late March. The companies said that they have secured permission to […]




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Amazon, Flipkart, Ola and Uber begin to resume their services in India

E-commerce firms Amazon and Walmart’s Flipkart, and ride-hailing giants Ola and Uber are partially resuming their services in India after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government eased some restrictions late last week to revive economic activity that’s been stalled since the stringent stay-at-home orders were imposed across the nation in late March. The companies said in […]




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Xiaomi launches Mi Commerce in India to boost sales amid lockdown

Xiaomi today launched a new e-commerce service in India that allows people in the nation to easily browse and order its handsets and other products from nearby physical retail stores as the Chinese giant rushes to kickstart its sales in its biggest overseas market. Dubbed Mi Commerce, the service allows people to locate nearby stores […]




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Your iPhone will soon be able to tell 911 about your medical conditions and allergies

Got something in your medical history that first responders should know about if you call 911? Things like known drug allergies, or the medications you’re on? The iPhone and Apple Watch will soon be able to share this information with first responders automatically (if you opt to let it do so). When a user with […]




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A security expert says India’s contact-tracing app has flaws; New Delhi says they are ‘by design’

The Indian government has said that its contact-tracing app Aarogya Setu “by design” fetches the location data of its 90 million users and allows them to view the concentration of people who have tested positive for the coronavirus in their vicinity. New Delhi issued the statement after France-based security researcher Baptiste Robert found what he […]




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Franklin Templeton tussles with India regulator after freezing funds

US asset manager apologises following comments by company’s president over debt rules




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India’s lockdown puts squeeze on mango harvest

Prices fall as farmers struggle to sell fruit seen as national delicacy




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The Last Bus Startup Standing: Chariot

In the beginning, there were three. There was Leap Transit, the Andreessen Horowitz-backed bus startup stocked with Blue Bottle Coffee and furnished with plush stool seating for morning and evening commuters. Then there was the Nightschool’s nostalgic take with off-duty schoolbuses for late-night transport between the East Bay and San Francisco after the region’s commuter rail system BART shut down […]




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Cuckoo Internet closes seed funding to disrupt UK broadband market

Cuckoo Internet is a new U.K. startup that aims to disrupt the U.K. broadband market. It has now raised £470,000 in seed funding, which includes funding from work.fund, a new Silicon Valley fund operator fund led by Bart Macdonald (Sapling founder). Other investors include Lorin van Nuland (early investor in Betterment), Edward Campbell-Harris (Bulb early […]




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Acast partners with JioSaavn, one of India’s largest streaming audio services

Acast, a podcast monetization and distribution platform, announced a new partnership with JioSaavn, one of the largest streaming audio services in India. The agreement mean JioSaavn will distribute content from Acast and have access to its technology for podcasters. JioSaavn, which claims 104 million monthly active users, is the second-largest streaming audio service in India […]




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As funding slows in Boston, its early-stage market could shine

Chris Lynch, a founder and former general partner at Boston-based seed-stage fund Accomplice, remembers “VC Mountain in Waltham.” Back then, entrepreneurs on funding quests would visit a building overlooking the Waltham Reservoir near Boston where they pitched to a few investors: Matrix Partners, Charles River Ventures and Highland Capital Partners. “And if they didn’t invest in […]




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WhatsApp eyes lending feature in India as Amazon rolls out Pay Later to tens of thousands of customers

WhatsApp, which began testing its mobile payments feature in India two years ago, could offer at least one more financial service to people in its biggest market. In a filing with the local regulator in India, the Facebook -owned messaging platform has listed credit as one of the areas it will pursue in the country. […]




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Your iPhone will soon be able to tell 911 about your medical conditions and allergies

Got something in your medical history that first responders should know about if you call 911? Things like known drug allergies, or the medications you’re on? The iPhone and Apple Watch will soon be able to share this information with first responders automatically (if you opt to let it do so). When a user with […]




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UK’s BBI puts $12M into Startup Funding Club for early-stage startups

SFC (formerly known as Startup Funding Club – a UK a seed stage investor – has received £10 million from British Business Investments (the commercial subsidiary of the British Business Bank), to deploy a total of £40 million across more than 100 early-stage startups in the UK. SFC intends to deploy the commitment in over […]




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The ‘Wikipedia of COVID-19’ has launched a crowdfunding drive to keep going

At the end of March, a coalition of grassroots UK tech initiatives came together to coordinate the key groups of tech industry people supporting the UK’s response to the coronavirus. The Code4Covid.org initiative came out of a milieu of other projects such as Covidmutualaid.org and Covid Tech Support, but it was the CoronavirusTechHandbook (CTH), an initiative […]




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Cuckoo Internet closes seed funding to disrupt UK broadband market

Cuckoo Internet is a new U.K. startup that aims to disrupt the U.K. broadband market. It has now raised £470,000 in seed funding, which includes funding from work.fund, a new Silicon Valley fund operator fund led by Bart Macdonald (Sapling founder). Other investors include Lorin van Nuland (early investor in Betterment), Edward Campbell-Harris (Bulb early […]




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Hitachi anticipates wave of Chinese infrastructure spending

Japanese conglomerate expects rebound in construction industry as cities end lockdowns




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Ferguson sticks with main listing in UK after sounding out investors

FTSE 100 plumbing supplier runs into opposition from shareholders over switch to US




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Panasonic is ending its solar cell partnership with Tesla

Panasonic said it will stop producing solar cells and modules at Tesla’s factory in Buffalo, N.Y., ending a four-year joint venture with the electric automaker.  Nikkei Asian Review was the first to report that Panasonic planned to end its production agreement with Tesla . Panasonic has since issued an announcement to explain its decision. Tesla […]




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Zume co-founder goes from pizza to climate-friendly food with $2.7 million in funding

Before leaving SoftBank-backed Zume Pizza in November 2018, co-founder Julia Collins knew what her next move would be: climate-friendly food. Today, Collins is announcing Planet FWD’s $2.7 million seed round led by BBG Ventures with participation from Cleo Capital, Cowboy Ventures, Precursor Ventures, Kapor Capital and others. What’s unique about this round, Collins told TechCrunch, […]




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As funding slows in Boston, its early-stage market could shine

Chris Lynch, a founder and former general partner at Boston-based seed-stage fund Accomplice, remembers “VC Mountain in Waltham.” Back then, entrepreneurs on funding quests would visit a building overlooking the Waltham Reservoir near Boston where they pitched to a few investors: Matrix Partners, Charles River Ventures and Highland Capital Partners. “And if they didn’t invest in […]




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India’s Glance tops 100M daily active users in 21 months

Glance, which serves media content, news and casual games on the lock screen of Android -powered smartphones, has amassed 100 million daily active users, it said today. The subsidiary of ad-firm InMobi Group reached the milestone in 21 months in what appears to be the shortest duration for any popular internet service to gain their […]




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Snapchat preempts clones, syndicates Stories to other apps

If you can’t stop them, power them. That’s the strategy behind Snapchat App Stories, which launches today to let users show off their ephemeral content in other apps too. The first partners will let you post Stories to your dating profile in Hily, share them alongside [music] videos in Triller, watch them while screensharing in […]




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Summary of AEO 2019 findings




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PwC backs Australia’s best young STEM innovators with $20,000 seed funding - 1 Jul

Two young Australian innovators are ready to take their ventures to the next level after sharing in $20,000 in seed funding from PwC during a live pitching event held by the Foundation for Young Australians.




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Plan to save the sight of 32,000 Indigenous Australians will generate millions - 1 Sep

The eyesight of more than 32,000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people would be saved if the Government invested just $227 million over 10 years, a new report has found.




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India’s Glance tops 100M daily active users in 21 months

Glance, which serves media content, news and casual games on the lock screen of Android -powered smartphones, has amassed 100 million daily active users, it said today. The subsidiary of ad-firm InMobi Group reached the milestone in 21 months in what appears to be the shortest duration for any popular internet service to gain their […]




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A security expert says India’s contact-tracing app has flaws; New Delhi says they are ‘by design’

The Indian government has said that its contact-tracing app Aarogya Setu “by design” fetches the location data of its 90 million users and allows them to view the concentration of people who have tested positive for the coronavirus in their vicinity. New Delhi issued the statement after France-based security researcher Baptiste Robert found what he […]