News

A coalition of digital marketing firms and others has taken its lobbying against Google’s plan to phase out tracking cookies — by replacing them with alternative technologies which the tech giant claims will protect user privacy — to the European Union, lodging a formal complaint with the bloc’s antitrust regulators. The self-styled ‘Movement for an […]

Netflix is expanding its mobile gaming push with the launch of three more gaming titles which will become exclusively available to Netflix members in select European markets. The company today is introducing a trio of casual games — “Shooting Hoops,” “Teeter Up,” and “Card Blast” — to Netflix members in Spain and Italy, as well […]

Heartcore Capital, one of the few VCs to focus on consumer technology, has raised a $200 million early-stage fund for those kinds of startups across Europe. Heartcore IV, the firm’s flagship investment vehicle, will be supported by Heartcore Progression Beta, a $50 million ‘opportunity fund’ for follow on rounds in consumer tech. The firm said […]

Fintech startups have thrown a curve ball into the world of financial services, by building more flexible, cheaper and user-friendly tools to businesses and consumers, who in turn are walking away from older incumbents and taking their custom to newer providers. In the latest development, a startup called Highnote is launching with ambitions to make […]

General Motors’ BrightDrop continues its breakneck pace to market as the automaker takes aim at last-mile commercial and cargo delivery market segments. BrightDrop on Tuesday said it would add a second delivery vehicle to its lineup, with telecom giant Verizon as its first slated customer. In addition, GM said it had completed the first production […]

September 28, 2021 LISBON (Reuters) – Around 40,000 people from around the world are expected to attend Europe’s biggest technology conference, the Web Summit, in Lisbon in November, after the event was held online last year due to the coronavirus pandemic, organisers said on Tuesday. “Earlier this year it was unclear if the Web Summit […]

September 28, 2021 By Foo Yun Chee BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Google’s plan to block a popular web tracking tool called “cookies” is anti-competitive, a group of advertisers, publishers and tech companies said in a complaint to EU antitrust regulators. The grievance could boost the European Commission’s investigation opened in June into Alphabet unit Google’s Privacy […]

September 28, 2021 BERLIN (Reuters) – Tesla, well-versed in German bureaucracy as it tries to build a huge factory near Berlin, is seeking a waiver from COVID-19 rules on mass gatherings to host up to 9,000 people at a “Giga-Fest” to showcase its plans. The electric vehicle maker, which began construction in the town of […]

September 28, 2021 ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkey’s defence purchases from Russia have alarmed Ankara’s NATO partners but the two countries remain rivals in wars from the Middle East to the Caucasus, highlighting the faultlines running through their awkward alliance. Turkey has bought Russian missile defence systems and could buy more equipment from Moscow. It imports […]

September 28, 2021 By Samuel Shen and Alun John SHANGHAI (Reuters) – China’s power supply crunch, that has shut factories across the country, may pose a much bigger threat to the economy than the debt crisis at Evergrande Group, prompting investors to shun industries vulnerable to power shortages such as steelmaking and construction. China is […]

Angle Labs, the company behind the Angle Protocol, has raised a $5 million funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz. The small team has been working on a euro stablecoin on the Ethereum blockchain. Other investors in the round include Fabric VC, Wintermute, Divergence Ventures, Global Founders Capital, Alven, Julien Bouteloup and Frédéric Montagnon. “I was […]

Rize, a fintech-as-a-service company that provides services to other firms, announced an $11.4 million Series A this morning. The funding event was led by Alpha Edison and Morpheus Ventures. A number of the startup’s prior backers also participated in the round. Rize is an interesting company in a competitive space; the market for building financial […]

RunX, an early stage startup that wants to make it easier for developers to deploy cloud infrastructure, announced a $4.1 million seed investment led by Unusual Ventures and a group of individual angel investors. Company co-founder and CEO Ankur Dahiya says that as organizations deploy modern applications built on microservices and Kubernetes, the complexity in […]

While the recent growth of e-commerce has left us browsing online more than ever, it doesn’t mean we’re actually buying as much as you’d expect. In fact, the Baymard Institute, as cited by Shopify, says that about 70% of shopping carts are abandoned on desktop, a number that only goes up on mobile and tablet. […]

September 28, 2021 GENEVA (Reuters) – The World Health Organization’s regional director for Africa said on Tuesday that the health agency was “humbled, horrified and heartbroken” by the findings of an independent commission on sex abuse claims in the Democratic Republic of Congo. “We in the WHO are indeed humbled, horrified and heartbroken by the […]

September 28, 2021 By Howard Schneider WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Federal Reserve should let its roughly $8 trillion balance sheet shrink next year as soon as it winds down a bond purchase program, St. Louis Federal Reserve president James Bullard said, cautioning high inflation may require more aggressive steps by the central bank including two […]

September 28, 2021 WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told senators on Tuesday that the United States should return to full employment next year despite headwinds from the coronavirus Delta variant and again urged Congress to quickly lift the federal debt limit. In prepared remarks to a Senate Banking Committee hearing, Yellen said […]

September 28, 2021 WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. trade deficit in goods increased in August amid a rise in imports as businesses replenished depleted inventories, suggesting trade could again be a drag on economic growth in the third quarter. The goods trade deficit rose 0.9% to $87.6 billion last month, the Commerce Department said on […]

September 28, 2021 By Stephanie Kelly and Jarrett Renshaw NEW YORK (Reuters) – A group of U.S. Democratic lawmakers called on President Joe Biden to halt a plan to slash the amount of biofuels that oil refiners must blend into their fuel, according to a letter dated Monday. The move, which the lawmakers argue threatens […]

September 28, 2021 By Ben Klayman DETROIT (Reuters) – General Motors Co said on Tuesday its BrightDrop electric commercial vehicle business will add a second delivery van to its lineup in 2023 and has agreed to supply that vehicle to Verizon Communications Inc. GM said the medium-sized EV410, aimed at a segment that includes grocery, […]